EULA and licensing presentation for Xbox One/PS4

Development Platform & Builds
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Hi there,

We’re making a game for PC/Xbox One/PS4 and are confused about presentation of the EULA and third party licenses on consoles.

As per instructions at Richtlinien für die Veröffentlichung und Lizenzgebührennachverfolgung - Unreal Engine, we have created a EULA for our game based on the template. However, we’re not sure where this information is meant to be presented to the user on Xbox One or PS4. On Steam there’s a section in the storefront that allows us to enter the EULA and force users to agree to it before downloading the game. But on consoles there’s nothing like this, and currently it seems every UE4 game on PS4/Xbox One doesn’t display the EULA at all. Are we supposed to show it on first run of the game, or can we just skip it on consoles?

Also, as per the UE4 EULA Third Party licenses section (Game-Engine-Technologie von Unreal - Unreal Engine Section 9), on Steam we can simply include these third party license text files in the build as a folder on the users hard drive. But on Xbox One/PS4 obviously users can’t browse their hard drive to read the licenses. Perhaps we need to link to a website containing these licenses from our in-game credits? Again, literally every UE4 game we checked on PS4/XBO does not reference these at all.

Things get even more complicated when you factor in localization. All in-game legal text must be translated for consoles, so anything we display like EULAs or licenses in the build must be translated. There’s thousands of lines of text there, so that seems kinda crazy, especially for indie titles.

Does Epic have a recommended approach on how this stuff should be handled?

2

These are good questions.

  • On the EULA, you’re right that it can get tricky on console. Most console games don’t display a EULA. I know that consoles can allow a EULA to display, but it’s not very common. You can also include a EULA in the in-game UI (like in an About window). But I think for console games we’re also willing to waive that requirement and rely on the general EULA that covers all games on the console.
  • For third party software licenses/notices, you’re right that most indies don’t comply with their requirements and I don’t think the consoles force it. But I have seen games comply on console. I’ve seen that in the UI (like a section in the Help or About section) and I’ve also seen it at the end of the game credits (not listing the actual license text, but saying uses XYZ software licensed under the Apache software license, something like that). I think your website idea is a good one though that helps on the localization side.
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Thank you very much for the prompt answer, that addresses all our concerns. Cheers :slight_smile: