Just thinking about doing this with one of our projects where the game has a window that pops up on the first load asking the player if he wants to enter our draw for an iPad mini and give their email address. We haven’t seen this done before and I was curious if Apple would have issue with this kind of thing loading for the first run of our game on their devices as I imagine there’s probably a ton of shady people who wouldn’t actually give anything away.
We’ll do our best to try for unique IP’s and such but cheaters will just be part of the game. We are using Unity and I can’t make the connection with a raffle and Gambling… There is nothing gambled on the part of the user in terms of money and there is no money being won, it’s just a free raffle
No, that’s exactly what I’m referring to. UT have made it quite clear that they are now enforcing arbitrary limitations and this particular activity may well fall within those restrictions.
Whether or not one thinks that’s ridiculous is irrelevant.
An interesting, fairly meta, question just came to mind: In an RPG type game, would having a gambling mini-game inside the game where you can bet in-game currency and items (without actually charging real cash for said in-game currency) fall under the gambling restrictions in the Unity license agreement? Would being single-player or multi-player make a difference to it? I’ve got no intention of doing such a thing but the thought just popped into my head from reading this thread.
It would most likely not be gambling. You may pay real money for the currency, but you get what you pay for; you don’t risk your money when buying in game currency. The gambling is when you risk in game currency, which isn’t worth anything in real money. If it could be exchanged for real money, though, then it would most likely be gambling.
This doesn’t sound like gambling to me, considering it’s a sign up giveaway which is not regulated by a government body. I am of course, no expert, but I can contact those who would know for certain.
[Edit] I’d like to add that if you were to run such a competition you will need Terms and Conditions in legalese to cover you.
In Australia, the form the competition takes and the value of the prize dictate whether you will need permits to run the competition legally. State government sites describe some competitions and giveaways as “trade promotion lotteries” because they are used to promote a business.
Games of chance require a permit in some states and territories, no matter what the prize value is, so you might want to consider restructuring your competition as a game of skill in order to cut down on permit costs. In some states (currently Victoria and the South Australia) you may need a permit if the prize is worth $5,000 or more.
But I fully agree, this is completely ridiculous, there’s no reason what-so-ever someone should spend 15 mins looking up the laws in his jurisdiction and the jurisdiction of his users. Because obviously a giveaway could never be considered a regulated gambling activity [and, as a side note, Unity would never ask 6 figures to allow that]…
We are not talking about the law in our country. We’re talking about the Unity EULA…
If Unity considers this to fit their description of “Gambling” and what they’re targeting I will most certainly switch sides on my view of their new EULA.
First and formost making sure it’s legal should come ahead of whether or not Unity allow it, don’t get confused.
Secondly, UT staff have said repeatedly that if it’s regulated it comes under their EULA. As this certainly is regulated [at least in Australia] it does come under it for anyone working in those jurisdictions. Remembering these are arbitrary rules designed to force people to pay for what used to be perfectly valid use-cases. This is a serious secondary consideration.
Now Ironbelly may get lucky and either not need a permit, or have UT allow him to proceed without additional fee’s, or some other loophole - but these are the concerns that need to be addressed before starting.
