Licensing mod for use in schools?

[legacy-Gazzaden]

I want to create an educational game/mod for school use. Currently I am trying to decide wether to mod an existing game or create one using a real game engine. If I were to make a UT2004 mod, and I were to distribute it via the internet but charge no money, and if the schools using it bought retails copies of UT2004 to run it, would I be violating the license agreement? I so, I would go ahead and buy my own engine license instead, something like cipher. Using UnrealEd would make things a LOT faster and easier.

I would appreciate any help on this.


Gazzaden

[legacy-marshdabeachy]

As long as you don't sell it I think you're okay.

Licensing the Unreal engine isn't cheap. Actually, it's insanely expensive. What was it, $300,000? Somewhere around there.

[Firebert]

i doubt schools will use it, my school tried to hide solitare and such (not very well though, all you have to do is search and there it is) i'm pretty sure they dont want people playing games at all, educational of otherwise

[legacy-Gazzaden]

Not blowing smoke

My father is the one really into this. He is the head of Science at a school in England. I can assure you, schools are very interested in this. The whole idea is to use new technology to teach kids in new ways. In this age of visual entertainment it is getting harder and harder to engage kinds using traditonal mediums, e.g. reading. Therefore there is a lot of effort to make use of these technologies. The risk that they might play some UT2004 is low since such classes are closely supervised. This is also an argument for using a full engine rather than a game mod. Specifically, the idea is to use simulations in place of outdoor field trips which have become less common, due to the threat of litigation and budgetary squeezes. What we propose is a possible solution to this problem. Better a virtual experience than no experience at all.

Gazzaden

[legacy-MonkSix]

I'm assuming you mean something like this. A few years ago, when I first heard about it, it seemed like a great idea. Unfortunately they stopped development.

[Firebert]

well, your school rox then, my school doesn't even believe me that opera would be better than IE (they have a lot of problem with popups, a computer doesn't even work because like 80 popups come up when you open any internet program, stupid school, it sux

<--

[legacy-wfolta]

Check out...

Check out UDN. It looks like they've revamped ths site. I believe it used to specifically say that educational institutions, etc, could license it for free for non-profit use, but I can't find that anymore.