Hi! I’ve been revising the documentation on distributing your games/tools in the Asset Store and I have a doubt about my current project. Our team is working on a tool/editor extension which will allow users to set up and export their own cards or decks based on customizable templates (imagine a Magic Set Editor that allows users to build cards for their own card games or prototypes). Since the tool is focused on content generation, would it conflict with the next statement of the user agreement or any other? (considering it would be a free asset)
“Provider may not use the Unity Asset Store to distribute or make available any Asset whose primary purpose is to facilitate the distribution of Assets outside of the Unity Asset Store.”
“Content generation” is not “distribution”. All tools for Unity are usually ment to aid in content generation. The whole purpose of the Unity editor is content generation ^^. This passage in the asset store terms is about creating an asset / editor extension which is ment to allow the user get access to other assets. So basically your own “Assetstore” or distribution platform.
I barely used any assets from the Assetstore. However during my time as programmer in a games company we used some Prime31 tools. They usually included their own “plugin manager” as editor extension. This plugin was connecting to a server hosted by Prime31, looking for updates and allowed downloading / updating of your purchased plugins. To me this plugin manager / downloader would now violate this passage of the asset store terms. As the sole purpose of that manager was to distribute other assets outside of the assetstore.
It’s certainly not forbidden to create such a manager / downloader. It’s only forbidden to provide such an extension as asset on the assetstore. So you could still provide that downloader on your own website for download.
Anyways, this should not affect your tool as long as you don’t built-in a server connection to one of your servers where users can exchange / sell / buy / distribute their “cards”. So if a user uses your tool to create content, he can distribute / sell those assets any way he likes. That doesn’t affect you.
Of course, just as Pengocat said, I’m not a lawyer either. This is how I understood and interpret that passage. If you’re really in doubt you may contact Unity or a lawyer.
Btw: When you submit an asset to the assetstore it has to go through a manual approvement procedure by Unity. You may simply add a note about your concerns so they might have a closer look if your asset would violate any terms. If it does, it won’t be approved anyways. I’m not sure what kind of actions Unity might take if they approved an assets to the store which actually violates their terms. Maybe they just take it down once they noticed. Though i doubt that you can get in serious trouble that way as they have to approve it, it would be partly their own mistake.
Again, don’t take my word on it. I do not work for Unity so all i say about how Unity might react is pure speculation.