Hello, everyone. so for my game, I wanted to allow user to write script and play test in game. So they do not have test everything by running a standalong game. And, we do not want user to download a delicated Unreal Engine 5 and install all the required plugin and stuff. So, I have came across multiple topic talks about shipping editor with game.
So the main problem here is basically the EULA that we do not allow to ship any Unreal Engine Tool. However, when UEFN comes out, I believe it might change a little bit. As well as the Insurgency: Sandstorm - Mod Tools & Editor that allow user to make custom map in the editor. I also found tutorial about UGC release by epic.
So my question is, am i allow to release my version of editor and ship it with my game? Can I make something like UEFN?
We can’t interpret the EULA in the forums, because it’s a legal document, and if you want to ask “what would be my possible liability if I did X” then that’s a question a lawyer would be required to answer.
That being said, no, the editor cannot be shipped by you. The UEFN project is shipped by Epic, who obviously have the rights to their own editor code …
If you want a “level editor” for your game, you either build it yourself on top of the Unreal Engine runtime support, or you point your users at the right version of the Unreal Engine download, and ship some plugin and maybe other source content that allows them to set it up themselves. If you want any other arrangement, it is my understanding that you need a custom agreement with Epic, which, again as far as I understand it, requires a six figure (US dollars) royalty pre-payment.
Thank you very much for your information. you are right, I found that Insurgency: Sandstorm ship editor in epic store, and they might have the royalty i guess.
The editor can be shipped by game developers. That being said, if the developers wish to ship editor or their own custom engine, they are bound by EULA section 4.a.i. (the editor falls under the definition of “Engine Tools”) which states:
Any public Distribution of Engine Tools (e.g., intended generally for third parties who are separately licensed by us to use the Engine Code) must take place through a marketplace operated by Epic such as the Unreal Engine Marketplace (e.g., for Distributing a Product’s modding tool or editor to end users) or through a fork of Epic’s GitHub UnrealEngine Network (e.g., for Distributing Source Code).
It is common for game developers to therefore split up their modkit files into a number of chunks under 2GBs and place them under the releases page of their fork of the UnrealEngine repository. Therefore, users must have an Epic Games account to download these files.
There are also some special cases where developers have gotten a special license to distribute their modkit files through other platforms, for example through a Steam download (ARK, Satisfactory).
I have researched and written extensively on the topic of game developers creating their own custom editor modkits for modding. You can create something like UEFN, but UEFN is special in three major ways:
The real-time editor updates streaming into the game level is clearly very custom and as far as I know is not something that can be done without significant engine changes.
They have engine edits that prevent users from being able to open up and view various types of assets such as blueprints, which I think is an unecessary limitation. That being said, I have not used UEFN for actual modding (I don’t have any interest in the game), just for messing around.
They have Verse, a new type of scripting language, but it genuinely looks terrible as its all brand new and doesn’t actually deliver on any of the promises it has over blueprints, yet (for example it still decompiles to kismet like BP so has all the implications that come with that). I wouldn’t recommend it. Instead, you can use my resources on the C++ page of the document. There is a neat tool on there called LuaMachine that exposes the reflection system to Lua natively and provides an interesting entry point into Lua mod support.
Yes, you can release a shipped version of the editor, but as per my comment above you must adhere to EULA section 4.a.i.
EPIC is playing the long game. For UEFN, most of the developers have not had ANY programming experience before, so learning Verse is, theoretically, not any different from learning Lua.
However, Verse has a number of benefits by construction over a dynamic scripting language like Lua, that are well described by the Verse policy papers, I don’t need to repeat them here. I really hope they stick to their guns, and keep going, because it can be awesome in the end.
FWIW: If you want a platform that is fully scriptable in Lua, that supports user-generated content, and where physics and networking is always built in and always works, and there’s already a built-in monetization store, you might want to take a look at Roblox. It’s a different experience than Unreal, for sure, but it may be a better match for some particular requirements.
To clarify, I said yet at the end, meaning that I do think in the future as they move away from kismet VM limitations and flesh out the language it could be good. They just need to make good API decisions.
It’s just the name (being short for “metaverse” which in of itself is a joke) and the first presentation Sweeny made about the language was laughable at best.
But yes I do hope it proves itself in the future. And I also hope that Epic include native mod support in-engine (through Verse, BP, C++, Python, C# etc.) without game developers having to jump through crazy hoops to do it themselves.
I think the “game features” and “modular gameplay” stuff that they added a while back is pretty close to “mod support” if you squint a little bit.
I actually talk to epic game staff. They told me that if we are releasing Engine Tools, we need to release it in EpicGame Launcher. And need to sign an agreement for mod distribute.
Hi, thanks for the info! I don’t have any contacts with epic staff so all my info is going off reading the EULA and what other developers I’ve talked to have done.
That being said, it certainly does surprise me that they’ve told you that you need to release it from the EG launcher. Not only does it state in the EULA (as I’ve written above) that you can release engine tools from the fork of the engine source, but I’ve also talked to developers of a game that have an agreement with epic to release their engine tools through Steam - and only because git repos requiring egs accounts are more difficult to distribute to modders. The modkit for the game hasn’t been released yet so I can’t reveal what that game is (though it should be later this year).
At this point if the general concensus within epic is not what’s documented, or if it’s simply up to any epic’s staff’s discretion where they think it’s okay to have engine tools released, then I’m not really sure how I can proceed with my research without being able to actually talk to someone myself.