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| ▲ | bee_rider 4 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| For an unusual license, it is sort of impressive that this is the only issue folks can come up with in this thread. It does seem like a bit of problem, but it also seems like a very specific thing that could be… cleared up, and then it would be all sorted. |
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| ▲ | sarchertech 4 days ago | parent [-] | | It’s not an actual problem. Games don’t ship with the editing tools from the engine because engine editing tools aren’t suitable for that purpose. That would be like shipping photoshop with your game to allow people to customize their character’s hair color. | | |
| ▲ | rpdillon 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I think there's a misunderstanding about the license. The license doesn't care at all about whether or not you're using the tools from Defold. They care about whether or not you're giving the ability to modify game content in a commercial product. > “Game Engine Product” shall mean software used for video game development. This includes both the content authoring software and the software used to show the created content. The license allows redistribution so long as: > a) You do not sell or otherwise commercialise the Work or Derivative Works as a Game Engine Product; and So my read is that any tool that allows you to modify game content constitutes a game engine product and they specifically do not allow you to sell a game engine product built with Defold. This weird technicality that is invented in this discussion about whether or not you're using Defold's built-in engine tools, or developing your own tools on top of Defold is entirely irrelevant to the language of the license. | | |
| ▲ | sarchertech 3 days ago | parent [-] | | After reading the license more thoroughly this is actually even less of an issue. The key thing about the wording is that it says you may not sell it “as a game engine product”. It’s not enough that your game could be used by someone for video game development, a reasonable person would have to believe you were selling it as video game development software. There’s definitely some gray area here for something like Roblox which is a game, but also allows people to develop and sell video games. But the risk of Defold suing you and a court finding that the map editor you added to allow people to make free levels for your puzzle game constitutes selling your game as video game development software is so far down the list of things you need to think about at all that it’s not worth considering. If you want to make something like Roblox that is essentially a game engine, I wouldn’t use Defold. Otherwise I wouldn’t worry even a little bit. | | |
| ▲ | rpdillon 3 days ago | parent [-] | | I agree with your emphasis on 'as' in 'as a game engine product', and I think you're making a good point. My worry is about 'otherwise commercialise', in cases where the ability to have fan made levels is an advertised feature, as is often the case. But I agree that this is less of an issue than I first thought, and appreciate your explanation. |
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| ▲ | Philpax 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Plenty of games have, with the most famous example being Valve's games, which (eventually) ship the same tools Valve uses for game creation. | | |
| ▲ | sarchertech 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Shipping the custom tools the developer built to make content for their game is relatively common. Shipping 3rd party engine tooling is not. At all. The equivalent to what valve did would be if Defold released some games made with Defold and then released the Defold engine, which is basically what happened. There’s also nothing stopping from releasing your game, linking to Defold and saying use Defold to mod this game. |
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| ▲ | sarchertech 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| You wouldn’t ship your game with built in editing tools from the engine. Those editing tools are not restrictive enough to just hand out to the general player base. They’re too powerful and too hard to use. |
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| ▲ | Zambyte 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Maybe they would (different games foster different cultures). Maybe they'd use it as a starting point and derive something more friendly. | | |
| ▲ | sarchertech 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Maybe, but this isn’t remotely common with existing open source game engines. Modding a game engine’s editing tools to the point where they are user friendly enough for your players is almost always a bigger challenge than building basic editing tools using the engine. This entire argument is insane to me. Someone is releasing something for free with the caveat that you can’t use it for this one specific very uncommon thing. Then people are up in arms “what if one day I want to do this one specific thing? Do you? No but what if I did?” Don’t use Defold. |
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| ▲ | Tepix 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| You have have to write your own map editor if you want to sell it, yes. |
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| ▲ | rpdillon 3 days ago | parent [-] | | The license doesn't indicate that you can get out of the terms by developing your own map editor. A map editor would qualify as a game engine product because it can edit game content and their license specifically prohibits you from redistributing a game engine product that's built with Defold. | | |
| ▲ | mst 3 days ago | parent [-] | | If the map editor is an extension (and they have lots of example extensions on github, all of which I've checked are under normal open source licenses) rather than a set of patches to the core code itself, it isn't subject to the Defold License in the first place. (so if the extension API is missing something, contribute the feature(s) you need back to core, then you can write your extension free of issues, so far as I can tell) |
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