Hello UE Family, here with a hard question, I have been trying to research this for the past 3 weeks and still no promising path forward so im looking to the community to see if I can get steered in the right direction with this tone. Bottomline on top, I have two use cases I am trying to achieve.
As a game user, I want the ability to open the game app and while playing a certain level in the game a specific song from spotify/Apple Music/ soundcloud (which ever is possible) should be playing on repeat in the background. It must stream from one of the big streaming service so it can count as a music stream for the artist. I explain this further in the second use case below as to why we need it to count as a stream for the artist.
As a game user, I want the ability to enter the game app and press a button called music, Where I will be taken to a page with a list of specific songs from a artist, lets say for example 10 songs from a specific artist. When I click to listen to the songs, it should stream the song from either spotify/Apple Music/ soundcloud. Before folks say this is too much trouble why dont we just add the audio files to the UE project, I need to be able to stream the song from an actual reputable app in the music industry because we need the song plays to count, at the end of the day if their song was streamed 10 K times, from our game app we want to make sure these streams count so we can show these stream numbers to a record label, and record labels will only recognize the big players, spotify, Apple Music, soundcloud.
I have read in UE there is a plugin out there that lets you control the spotify app with unreal engine, but that is different than what we are trying to do for our use cases above.
Considerations:
Spotify Free User VS Premium User consideration: if the end user playing the game is not a premium spotify user, then for use case 1, I dont think there is a way to stream a specific song to the end user, please correct me if my understanding is not correct. . Under the section Free and Premium users it states that non premium users will experience the typical shuffling of songs and not get the specific song they intended to land on, unless they are premium user. Please correct me if I am misunderstanding this. If that is the case, does anyone know of any work around, or any other service I should we leaning towards?
I’m looking for the same thing. So far i’ve managed to use the lambda web browser plug-in to open a youtube video into a widget, but i’m stuck with the volume control…
You cannot do this. I mean you might be able to do it from technical standpoint but Spotify doesn’t allow it. And to be honest I think their licensing contracts from the music rights holders wouldn’t allow it.
It is unclear to me if any control of Spotify playing in the background is allowed in games. Spotify’s own documentation is bit unclear about this.
You’re right — for Spotify, only Premium users can stream specific songs via third-party apps like a game. Free users will get shuffled playback, so your use case 1 would require Premium. More on that here: Spotify Free vs Premium.
For your second use case, a smart option is using deep links to open tracks in Spotify, Apple Music, or SoundCloud, so the streams count officially. Here’s a good breakdown to help you choose: Spotify vs SoundCloud and Spotify vs Apple Music. This is a solid idea — just needs careful integration!
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For your Unreal Engine game music integration, SoundCloud is the best path to stream specific songs from major platforms, ensuring artist stream counts for both use cases: playing a song on repeat during a level and selecting songs from a curated artist list. Its free tier supports on-demand playback, unlike Spotify’s shuffle-only free tier, and its API is developer-friendly for UE. Spotify is viable for Premium users but requires a custom plugin for API calls and playback. Apple Music, lacking a free tier, limits accessibility. Challenges include legal approval for commercial streaming, ad disruptions for free users, and verifying that in-game streams count identically to native app streams with labels. Build a UE plugin for SoundCloud, test with a prototype, and contact platform support to confirm stream reporting. Engage UE forums for plugin advice and offer in-game incentives to encourage premium account linking for a seamless experience.