Licencing

[craig12321]

righ im a little confused so i want to know if i have this right or not. The devlopment kit is free as long as its for either edfucational or non comerical. so could i set up a website and put games e.c.t. onto this website, but not sell the games just make money through adsense?

thanks in advance Craig

[aeonflame]

Quoted from the licensing page at http://udk.com/licensing.html

If you are creating a game or commercial application using UDK for sale or distribution to an end-user or client, or if you are providing services in connection with a game or application, the per-seat option does not apply. Instead the license terms for this arrangement are US $99 (Ninety Nine US Dollars) up-front, and a 0% royalty on you or your company's first $5,000 (US) in UDK related revenue, and a 25% royalty on UDK related revenue above $5,000 (US). UDK related revenue includes, but is not limited to, monies earned from: sales, services, training, advertisements, sponsorships, endorsements, memberships, subscription fees, rentals and pay-to-play.

So, at a guess, even with revenue via google adsense you'll still have to pay 25% of all profits over $5000.

[craig12321]

wow well that seems to have my plan of opening a small advertised revenue site gone down the drain oh well ill just use UDK for purely educational purposes

[LennardF1989]

That is incorrect. That would mean the people of Fileplanet or Filefront will have to pay royaltees as well. Besides, the EULA states "If you are creating a game or commercial application", if the game is free, the royaltee rule does not apply. And you will only have to pay royaltee over ads that are aimed at your game, not Adsense in general.

Even though, it's unlikely you will earn 5000 dollar with a few adsense ads.

[SpartanDonut]

The EULA states:

"If you are creating a game or commercial application"

It doesn't state what type of game you are creating - commercial or free. So.... dont know if the previous post is quite accurate. Hard to say.

Why to agreements have to be written in such a way so as you can't understand what they are saying?

[LennardF1989]

The royaltee only applies if you buy the 99 dollar royaltee license. Other than that it's completely free.

[Henrik]

I think you have it backwards Lennard. The royalty applies the moment you begin profiting from the engine in any of the terms outlined. At that moment you must purchase the license. But when it says advertisement, it is likely that this refers to advertisements that directly bring in profit for the game or product done in UDK. You may have a site where you choose to put up a game made in UDK for free download. If that site has other stuff going on as well, and the sole purpose is not to promote and make money off your UDK game you can probably do adsense without having to worry about that. I don't pretend to speak for Epic though - but as someone else pointed out above, good luck even making 5000 off adsense in the first place, because that is how much you would need to earn before this even becomes a concern. You would need one heck of a popular site and a deep understanding of how to optimize your ad units to make that much money off adsense.

[LennardF1989]

A team creates a game with UDK that they intend to sell. After six months of development, they release the game through digital distribution and they earn €15,000 in the first calendar quarter after release. Their use of UDK during development requires no fee. Upon release they would pay US $99.99 for a Royalty Bearing license. After earning €15,000, they would be required to pay Epic €2,500 (€0 on the first €5,000 in revenue, and €2,500 on the next €10,000 in revenue). On subsequent revenue, they are required to pay the 25% royalty.

See licensing page.

So again, you only have to be "afraid" of the 25% if you intend to sell your creation. Giving it away for free without forced donations is A-OK.