Marketplace Guidelines Updates

[Amanda.Schade]

THE FOLLOWING ARE THE MOST RECENT CHANGES TO THE MARKETPLACE GUIDELINES:

v1.5.2 July 31, 2020

ADDED

• 3.6.2.f The listed product price shown during a sale should not differ significantly from the price at which the product is generally sold. The full price should not be artificially inflated in order to make a better savings claim.

Subsequent posts are previous updates, leading up to the current version.

[Amanda.Schade]

v1.0.0 2-16-18

ADDED

• Marketplace Guidelines

v1.0.1 March 16th, 2018

ADDED

• 3.2.d Publishers must not publicly disclose their Marketplace revenue information.

v1.0.2 March 21st, 2018

CHANGED

• 2.3.5.d Static meshes must have no overlapping or wrapping UVs for lightmaps.

v1.1.0 April 4th, 2018

CHANGED

• 2.3.1.b All animations must be rigged to the Epic skeleton or have a custom relatively scaled skeleton distributed with them.
• 2.3.2 Skeletal Meshes
• 2.3.2.a Skeletal meshes must be scaled to the Epic skeleton so that they’re scaled correctly when imported into a new project.
• 2.3.2.b Humanoid skeletal meshes must be rigged to the Epic skeleton or have a custom relatively scaled skeleton and animations distributed with them.
• 2.3.2.c For products rigging to the Epic skeleton, the Epic skeleton must use the same bone names, IK joints must stay unweighted in the same place of the hierarchy, and the joint orientations must not be repositioned.
• 2.3.5 -> 2.3.3 Static Meshes
• 2.3.7.b Textures must have a maximum size in either dimension of 8192.
• 2.7.1.b Folders and files must not be vaguely-named such as “Assets” or similar.

MOVED

• 2.3.2.c - 2.3.2.d to 2.3.2.d - 2.3.2.e
• 2.3.5.b - 2.3.5.h to 2.3.3.a - 2.3.3.g
• 2.3.3 - 2.3.4.b to 2.3.4 - 2.3.5.b

REMOVED

• 2.3.5.a Products that have weapons with moving parts or less than five major assets must be rigged and animated.

v1.1.1 May 16th, 2018

CHANGED

• 2.3.1.b All skeletal meshes not rigged to the Epic skeleton must have a custom relatively scaled skeleton and animations distributed with them.

REMOVED

• 2.4.c All .wav files must exist in a file path that contains “Wavs” and all Cue files must exist in a file path that contains “Cues”.

MOVED

• 2.4.d to 2.4.c

v1.1.2 June 13th, 2018

CHANGED

• 4.3.a Refund requests must be made by submitting a Marketplace Refund Request Case here within 30 days from the date the transaction took place, and must include:

v1.1.3 June 15th, 2018

CHANGED

• 1.2.1.b Titles must not contain words pertaining to Epic Games, Unreal Engine, or any organization or product other than the publisher’s own properties, unless allowed by Epic.

v1.1.3 June 21st, 2018

CHANGED

• 4.1.a Customers are expected to maintain a high level of professionalism while being courteous, approachable, responsive, and respectful toward others; spam, harassment, or abusive language will not be tolerated.

v1.1.4 July 2nd, 2018

CHANGED

• 4.3.c Refunds will only be granted for the following reasons:
  • Epic is able to reproduce a reported technical issue with the content that prevents customers from using a product as advertised with one of its Supported Engine Versions on one of its Supported Platforms
  • Any media or descriptive language the publisher used to represent the product does not accurately represent the assets and/or functionality of the content being distributed
  • Epic receives an email from the publisher giving permission to grant the refund for the purchase
  • Epic has reason to believe the purchase was fraudulent

v1.1.5 July 18th, 2018

CHANGED

• 3.6.1.a To request a discounted sale for one of their published products, publishers must email marketplace-support@unrealengine.com from their Primary Email Address (configurable in the Seller tab of the Publisher Portal settings page) at least two weeks before the intended start date of the sale with the following information:
  • Product TItle
  • Start and End dates of the sale (14 days maximum)
  • Discounted percentage (percent off)
• 3.6.1.f Sales must have a discount percentage from 10-90% off, and the discount in price must amount to a minimum of $1 USD in savings.

v1.1.6 July 24th, 2018

ADDED

• 2.6.3.e Plugins being built against engine versions 4.20 onward that need to include files from their own plugin directory must add those include paths using the ModuleDirectory property in their .build.cs.
  If
  using System.IO;
  exists at the top of the .build.cs, Publishers can use the following syntax where "MyFolder" is the name of the directory under the current module they'd like to include:
  PublicIncludePaths.Add(Path.Combine(ModuleDirectory, "MyFolder"));

v1.1.7 August 2nd, 2018
ADDED

• 2.3.3.h Static Meshes must not have a Light Map Coordinate Index of 0, unless they’re referenced only by Particle Systems.
• 2.7.1.c Folder and file names must contain only English alphanumeric characters and underscores.

CHANGED

• 2.7.1.a Folder and file names must be accurate and consistent in naming convention within the context of their own project.
• 2.7.1.b Folders and files must not be vaguely-named such as “Assets”, “NewFolder”, etc.
• 2.7.2.b In order to reduce migration conflicts after importing project files from the Epic Games Launcher, all project-specific assets must be stored in one top level folder, under the Content folder; there must be no other folders or files directly under the Content folder.
• 2.7.2.d Including the name of the top level folder under the Content folder, all asset file paths must be 140 characters or less.

v1.1.8 August 9th, 2018

REMOVED

• 3.2.d Publishers must not disclose their Marketplace revenue information.

[Kalvothe]

v1.2.0 11-12-18

• CHANGED
  Intro The purpose of the Marketplace is to provide high quality content to Unreal Engine developers for their commercial projects or educational purposes, and the aim of these guidelines is to make obtaining and distributing great Unreal Engine content easy and beneficial for everyone. Although we’ll always do our best to work with publishers to resolve any issues, products may be rejected at any time for failure to meet criteria outlined in these guidelines.
  
  Violation of these guidelines may result in actions against an account, including, but not limited to, removal of products, suspension, or termination of publisher/customer accounts.
  
  These guidelines are subject to change. Please be sure to review these guidelines often.
  For any questions or concerns about any of the guidelines presented below, please contact us at marketplace-support@unrealengine.com.
• ADDED
  2.9.c Documentation must be in English, but publishers may include translated versions of their documentation as well.
• CHANGED
  3.2.a Publishers are held responsible for their communication with staff, the community, and their customers in official Epic Games channels, and are expected to maintain a high level of professionalism while being courteous, approachable, responsive, and respectful toward others; harassment or abusive language will not be tolerated.
• ADDED
  3.2.d Publishers may not, without the permission of the relevant user, share the private information of other users including, but not limited to, their actual name, email address, phone number, etc.
• CHANGED
  3.6.1.e Products cannot go on sale for more than 60 70 days in a calendar year, excluding days participated in Epic Event sales.
• ADDED
  4.2.1.c All content hosted by Epic Games is exclusively downloadable through the Epic Games Launcher. Once downloaded, most content can be exported to obtain the source files and/or migrated to other existing Unreal Engine projects.

[Amanda.Schade]

v1.1.9 August 16th, 2018

CHANGED

• 1.2.2.a Text in the Tags, Short Description, Long Description, and Technical Information fields must be accurate and relevant to their products.
• 1.2.2.b Text in the Tags, Short Description, Long Description, and Technical Information fields must be in English with correct spelling and proper grammar, except where intentionally stylized.

[Amanda.Schade]

v1.1.9 January 18th, 2019

CHANGED

• 4.3.a Refund requests must be made by submitting a Marketplace Refund Request Case here within 14 days from the date the transaction took place, and must include:
• 4.3.b Refunds will be granted within 14 days for the following reasons:
  • Epic is able to confirm that the customer has never downloaded the product
  • Epic is able to reproduce a reported technical issue with the content that prevents customers from using a product as advertised with one of its Supported Engine Versions on one of its Supported Platforms
  • Any media or descriptive language the publisher used to represent the product does not accurately represent the assets and/or functionality of the content being distributed
  • Epic receives an email from the publisher giving permission to grant the refund for the purchase
  • Epic has reason to believe the purchase was fraudulent
  • Epic determines in its sole discretion that a refund is warranted given the circumstances

REMOVED

• 4.3.c Refunds will only be granted for the following reasons:
  • Epic is able to reproduce a reported technical issue with the content that prevents customers from using a product as advertised with one of its Supported Engine Versions on one of its Supported Platforms
  • Any media or descriptive language the publisher used to represent the product does not accurately represent the assets and/or functionality of the content being distributed
  • Epic receives an email from the publisher giving permission to grant the refund for the purchase
  • Epic has reason to believe the purchase was fraudulent

[Amanda.Schade]

v1.2.1 February 4th, 2019

CHANGED

• 2.1.e Sample content from Epic Games must not be an integral part of your product, but used for display or example purposes only.

MOVED

• 2.1.f to 2.1.g
• 2.1.g to 2.1.h

ADDED

• 2.1.f Substantial portions of source code, Blueprints, and/or Material Blueprints from Epic Games must be used for example purposes only.

[Amanda.Schade]

v1.3.0 February 11, 2020

ADDED

• 1.1.f Epic reserves the right to decline or request changes to content that contains sensitive subject matter. This includes, but is not limited to, gruesome content, exploitation, sexual content, propaganda, and hate speech.

CHANGED

• 3.6.1.a To request a discounted sale for one of their published products, publishers must email marketplace-support@unrealengine.com from their Primary Email Address (configurable in the Seller tab of the Publisher Portal settings page) at least two weeks before the intended start date of the sale with the following information:

1. Product Title
2. Start and End dates of the sale (14 days maximum)
3. Discount Percentage (% off)

Epic maintains sole discretion to determine the final sales price of any product.

• 3.6.1.b Products included in an individual sale cannot go on sale again until 30 days after the first sale ends.
• 3.6.1.c Products cannot go on sale until 14 days after their initial publishing.
• 3.6.1.d Sales must have a discount percentage from 10-50% off and the discount in price must amount to a minimum of $1 USD in savings.

REMOVED

• 3.6.1.eProducts cannot go on sale for more than 70 days in a calendar year, excluding days participated in Epic Event sales.
• 3.6.1.f Sales must have a discount percentage from 10-90% off and the discount in price must amount to a minimum of $1 USD in savings.

[Amanda.Schade]

v1.3.1 March 2, 2020

CHANGED

• 2.6.1.c .uplugin descriptors must have a “MarketplaceURL” key present whose value dictates the Epic Games Launcher address at which the engine will download missing plugins if customers try to open projects that depend on them. After the product has been submitted for approval, the “MarketplaceURL” value should contain the ID at the end of the product’s Publisher Portal URL. For instance, if a publisher finds their Code Plugin product to have a URL of https://publish.unrealengine.com/v2/...bf580898186114, the following key and value should exist in the .uplugin: "MarketplaceURL" : "com.epicgames.launcher://ue/marketplace/productcontent/ad53b85f109c87b4a8bf580898186114"

[Amanda.Schade]

v1.4.0 May 26, 2020

ADDED

• 2.6.2.d Plugins must introduce new editor functionality, integrate UE4 with third party systems, or expose complex gameplay logic to blueprints. Although extra scripts and assets may be distributed with a plugin to be used in supplementary tools (such as 3D modeling software, database management systems etc.), the majority of the submission must provide additions or modifications to be used in the Unreal Editor directly.
• 2.6.2.e Plugins must not distribute .exe or .msi files.

CHANGED

• 2.6.2.a Code plugins must not be ‘closed-source’ with regard to any source code the publisher created which requires Unreal Engine source code to compile; that code must be included in the zipped up plugin folder. The only externally compiled code (static libraries or DLLs) that would be acceptable for including in a submission would be code which does not include or reference any Unreal Engine source code. Customers should have the plugin source code that's dependent on Unreal Engine source code so that they may attempt to compile it against source-built versions of the engine.
• 2.6.2.c Plugins must contain at least one module of C++ code but can contain content as well.
• 2.7.3.c Starting with the overarching plugin folder (the one containing the Source folder and .uplugin file), all file paths must be 170 characters or less.

[Monomyth]

v1.5.0 June 24, 2020

CHANGED

• 1.1.e Products must not contain or be marketed using any copyrighted or trademark protected names, branding, or content, including any Epic-owned trademarks (such as game titles, logos, or character names), unless owned by or adequately licensed to the publisher.
• 2.2.c Products must not contain or be marketed using any copyrighted or trademarked names, branding, designs, materials, or content not owned by or adequately licensed to the publisher. Without written permission from Epic, Epic-owned assets may not be used to create sequels or emulate, remake, remaster, or otherwise republish any games created or published by Epic; and Epic-owned trademarks, such as game titles, logos, or character names, may not be used except as permitted under Epic’s fan art policy.

[Monomyth]

v1.5.1 July 28, 2020

CHANGED

• 2.2.c Products must not contain or be marketed using any copyrighted or trademarked names, branding, designs, materials, or content not owned by or adequately licensed to the publisher. Without written permission from Epic, Epic-owned assets may not be used to create sequels or emulate, remake, remaster, or otherwise republish any games created or published by Epic; and Epic-owned trademarks, such as game titles, logos, or character names, may not be used except as permitted under Epic’s fan art policy. Reports of copyright or trademark infringement should follow the guidelines outlined in the Reporting Infringement page.
• 2.9.a Products that require particular knowledge of how to set up or use must contain, distribute, or direct customers to free documentation that covers implementation, application and/or modification of the associated products. This includes instructing users on how to download, install, and/or integrate any required third party software that can't be redistributed directly via a product's files.

MOVED (to insert the following as 3.1.b)

• 3.1.b - 3.1.c to 3.1.c - 3.1.d

CHANGED

• 3.1.b Publishers must ensure all their published products support at least one of the three latest engine versions. If a product does not support at least one of the three latest engine versions, it can be removed from sale on the Unreal Engine Marketplace at the sole discretion of Epic Games (products will remain active and can be downloaded by all buyers that have previously acquired it). Publishers must provide and actively monitor a Support Email Address (configurable in the Store tab of the Publisher Portal settings page).

[Monomyth]

v1.5.2 July 31, 2020

ADDED

• 3.6.2.f The listed product price shown during a sale should not differ significantly from the price at which the product is generally sold. The full price should not be artificially inflated in order to make a better savings claim.