Do I need to notify Epic before I release completely free niche misc non-games

Do I have to notify epic before I release:

  • a free tiny non-game draft of a concept, proof of concept, work in progress, bunch of balls flying around, etc
  • meant for a totally non-entertainment related topic and audience on a very local non-english level (less than 5000 people will ever hear about it)
  • from someone who is indie with no studio nor any company
  • will not be published on any 3rd-party commercial games platform
  • published through a free random file hosting service or my own FTP/HTTP server.

Epic has to do some deep research on this and separate what are “commercial games or non-games”, “free games”, “free WIP,snippets, concepts, localized niche randomness” and “free “playable” visualizations of infrastructure construction projects, shipbuilding, etc”

Epic has to update the legal stuff and really define stuff, I do not agree that a free visualized house which you can walk around in to be considered as a “free game”. A “free game” needs more technical description so it’s clear what components are a game and if it’s released on various platforms, a map in which I spend 20 minutes making the terrain with minimal textures, put down 2 roads, setup some barebone vehicles, make some blueprints, and you can go fly and watch the cars dance around and maybe interact a little bit by flipping some switches, that is NOT a game and shouldn’t be considered as a “free game” like in F2P, etc. Then Epic has to decide whether it will separate “completely free games” and “free game now and pay later if you want to continue” … what I’m trying to do is “completely free misc drafts, snippets, schemes, visualizations, simulations

I metioned less than 5000 people, that’s a educated guess, but not definitive obviously, now, how many people would actually download and install it … id say below 1000 total.

  • What if I release an updated version every few days, would I also have to notify and go through the process ?
  • What about the EULA in such a case, since this isn’t defined legally nor explained I

““You must notify Epic when you begin collecting revenue or ship your product; see here for more details.””

So if I take this literally, that “or ship your product” could mean everything else that’s free and not a game is also counted ? Which is I hope Epic didn’t really mean that, whatever Epic meant, this text is too vague.

The legal text has to define what “ship” means. Does it include uploading to a public FTP server ? and/or a 3rd-party free hosting site ?

PS: Sorry if I sound angry, it’s a bit late here.

To begin with, I’ll say that the EULA doesn’t distinguish between games or non-games (or language or territory either, for that matter) - it addresses Products (see EULA for definition) which can certainly be non-games. So the EULA terms apply equally to non-games as it does to games.

I don’t understand all of your questions/comments, but it seems that the main concern is around reporting. Certainly if there is any revenue generation, it must be reported. That said, I agree with you that if there is a very minor project released to a niche audience and not intended for the general public, I’ll leave it to your discretion as to whether to report to Epic.

And in any event, reporting is not ever required just because a Product is updated.

Oh, okay. That should clear it out for now. Hopefully it clears out for others as well.

I’ll appreciate if this is considered by the legal teams and the general FAQs in future, when such non-game types of things might become a bit bigger and more mature.

Ofcourse if ever a small niche thing becomes suddenly very popular then I wouldn’t have a problem of notifying it even if it’s free, especially if updates don’t have to be reported.

Thanks

To answer simply, Yes. If it’s a free game or paid game it’s a product. When you give away your product. Your distributing their software, so your responsible to tell them that. They need to keep track of their liabilities. Honestly when you asked the question, you answered it yourself:

You must notify Epic when you begin collecting revenue or ship your product

The process is pretty straight forward. However if it’s a work in progress proof of concept sounds more like marketing material use which is not a product. Your using it as a demonstration from my understanding. Are you a consultant perhaps? If that’s the case, you don’t need to report royalties on consulting fees.

No, it is not an official demonstration for a commercial product or project of any kind.

In this case all of these “projects” are meant for my own personal non-commercial hobby interest with no backing of any other 3rd parties.
Some of them might represent some actual projects or things in real life that may or may not yet exist but are being built or will be built and obviously have a lot of money involved, however I am not a party to those transactions and have zero connection to it, in this case I would be a fan, and instead of taking a piece of paper and drawing, I take UE4 and do it in 3D engine, because I’m a computer guy in my professional and personal capcity, I’m not a painter, I’m not a sculptur, didn’t do that since elementary school.

So if I was a sculptur and I when I have some free time I decide to use clay and sculpt the mount everest and display it in a local gallery for free, do I really have to notify the mining company that extracted that clay from the ground ? FWIW, if anyone has a better comparison, go for it.

I’m not trying to argue, I’m pointing out that this whole business model that Epic is attempting is in early stages and this unclarity is normal and expected, but shouldn’t be forgotten and should be improved, I’m simply pointing out that how vast the possibilities are and that the legal statements should more clearly define these types of project, whatever Epic chooses to allow and not allow is up to them, I won’t argue with it once they separate the many different kinds of “projects” that could be out there, ofcourse a lot of things would be put in groups, it doesn’t separate by content, but type.

Continued 2/2

I wouldn’t be asking that way in my case, if I was working for some marketing department to come up with a visualization which would be free, but intended to promote something commercial, that would be different, but not in this case.

I also saw some language that the engine is free for movie making stuff, even if it’s commercial, correct me if I’m wrong, but in my case is much smaller, it’s one little thing I would share with my friends or a local forum community, it’s so small that I don’t understand how epic staff could be bothered with it.

Ofcourse if the thing does grow larger, one of these concepts, to the point it’s worthwhile taking donations to improve upon the idea, then I would have no problem with going through the notification and dealing with that paperwork.

In my case I fully understand that I should avoid using any logos and trademarks, epic’s or otherwise.

Ok. To be honest, your not really giving the community (and I don’t speak for everyone) a straightforward description of what it is you are using the engine for. Truthfully it’s extremely vague. I simply went with the “when in doubt” approach because it’s always ethically best to do so for your and their best interests.

Now the only person who knows what you are using the engine for is you. If you had said I’m making a video game for free then the proper response would be yes you report it. It may be free but if you have advertisers paying you to put advertisements in the game, that technically is generating revenue which as per the agreement to use this software that Epic wholeheartedly gave you upfront for free based on the honor system.

Btw I’ve been a member since day 1 back when you had to pay a monthly fee, and after they went free I was reimbursed to the penny every dollar I spent on those fees. All they want is a courtesy message saying, ‘hey I made something cool with your software’ The owner Tim said on these answerhub forums when reporting revenue all you gotta do is send an email and say hey I made some money here’s a nickel for every dollar I made. They don’t want bank statements or tax returns. They are a very good company to do business with and all they want is credit where credit is due. The no strings attached grant system is in my opinion flawed but they give the money they make back to the community so the community can do what they have a passion for - making cool ■■■■ with Unreal.

I’m not pointing fingers when i say this. However, if your intentions are to avoid telling the company you made something cool, then no offense you’re only selling yourself short as a developer. How do you expect future business partners to take you seriously if you can’t prove that what you’ve made or doing is according to the ELUA. They may look at you and say, ‘You know what I don’t know if I can trust this guy’ Don’t take that personally. Now that may not be the case with you but your question and arguments to valid answers are to find justification not to notify Epic. Based on what I’m reading from you, my intuition says this guy is trying to get away with something by trying to find a loophole in the ELUA. A loophole to avoid reporting which kinda sounds like deceit. Do whatever you want but don’t be a bad person. There are enough people like that.

In a REAL world, if you make something for demonstration purposes, like a blog, or a site with hosted compiled examples just with educatorial purposes, and you don’t make money out of this, then, generally spoken, you are not required to notify anyone since you are not actually doing business.
Truly Free games hosted on Itch that don’t generate revenue, however, may have marketing value.

If it were me, IF it is a game, poblished for general pulbic, I’ll just drop an E-mail to Epic. If it is my website flooded with Tutorials, I will post it here into community so everyone will be able to see it. And If I generate money from advertising on this site, at some point of time, I may fall in the category that starts to report every single cent to Epic, made from Unreal related content, even if the license does not enforce me to do so - it’s just like sportsmanship - you use something readily available to you and you pay royalties because of this.

If I made some small demo for school demonstration and release it on my site just to bury it out and forget it, it is unlikely that I will report to Epic - after all, this was nothing to do with business and money.

What Epic actually care it if you are doing businessfrom their engine, they need theirs royalties. And in some cases, Marketing purposes to showcase games made with their technology. That is why it’s good idea to report truly free games anyway (well, you must do so because the license anyways)

I don’t even know yet what I’m going to do in the scope of the project described in this question, I had some vague ideas but it’s a momentary thing and it already went past, it can come back and there’s room for many others to pop up.

These never meant to include any kind of revenue or even donations, they’re just too small, they’re also just visualizations to get a point across in a discussion, the topic of “construction” is a huge one, how many technical things are in that is just huge, and if you try to explain or show one mechanic, one little part in some super specific case, you don’t need much of design that would make it “game-like” since there’s no game to it, it could be interactive, but it’s just not a game.

Nor I don’t know what I’m going to do first, even if I do a serious project in UE4 in the next months, I might still get back to such projects described here in the future, so it’s really separate to me and will not apply at all when I publish a serious project, because when doing a serious project I am okay with all the requirements, that was never my problem at all.