Snake: somehow I doubt a custom license will fix this. If that were true, as soon as one big studio “licenses” UE4 and releases a free UE4 editor for their game, everything goes down
sandboxgod: exactly. our studio made M&MX Legacy and released the modding kit 5 months ago, but it requires Unity Pro. guess how many mods there are for MMX? sadly, zero. and it’s not like the previous M&M games lacked modding at all.
and while I don’t agree with your views about free vs. paid modding, that mostly affects map/mod “consumers”, but the issue still stands for map/mod makers.
: your option 1 is what I’m suggesting.
your option 2 is too time-consuming. and just seems wrong to be using an awesome ready-made tool to make games, only to later need to develop own tools only for map makers and modders.