I’m wanting to create a game with a team of about 4.
I will not doubt be using the editor as I do mapping, but I have an animator and a character modeller that do not need access to the editor.
So my question is, do they have to have licenses as well just because they are in my team?
And what if they’ve already downloaded Unity Free in the past?
If they don’t need access to the editor they don’t need to have a license.
As I understand it, there are two questions that matter.
Are the other people your paid employees and not contractors or volunteers? If they are your employees, then refer to question 2. If they’re contractors or volunteers, then they don’t work for your business and therefore don’t fall into the clause about everybody at your business needing a pro license.
Do you own a pro license? If you do, and the other people are your employees, then if they need to use unity then they need Pro.
If they don’t need Unity at all though, then it doesn’t matter.
There is no official company setup atm, it is just a team. However, I do want to setup a company with the release of the project.
No one is paid atm, we work for free because we have no capital. We will however be selling the finished product, and splitting the profits.
Few things I’m concerned about.
I know my character modeller has already registered/downloaded Unity Free in the past, probably 6-12 months ago to try it out.
If I upgrade to Unity Pro, and he is on my team, won’t that look like my team is using both Unity Pro and Unity Free?
I also plan on using Unity Free to release the game in its beta form for free. After the beta, I will develop a polished build on Pro and sell it then. I hope that isn’t going to cause a problem either.
This is a very grey area, and although I’ve heard that the statement in the EULA is really intended to prevent BIG companies from cutting corners and not punish indies… what happens if our game sells very well? Do we cease being called an indie and thus have to buy licenses for all the team members to avoid trouble?
Honestly, this license needs to be changed. It should be per-game/title and not per-user. If that means it costs more money, I’d rather that than grey risky areas and misunderstandings.
Incorrect
Since Unity 3.5 the EULA has changed.
It no longer matters if you pay them or anything at all. You can only use 1 type of license on a project, independent of the commercial grade of the project or the legal institution and situation surrounding the project.
So if you own pro, then all need pro
I agree with the above and am not starting an EULA discussion… but (lol)… what describes a ‘team’/‘employees’ etc. If you own a ‘pro’ licence, then by the nature of the product you also own a ‘free’ licence (or whatever the correct terminology is). Say you buy assets off a modelling site or from a freelancer who claims the model is ‘Unity ready’… what licence did they have/or need to test the assets?!.. when does someone who makes assets for you regularly change from freelancer to a team? Can this transition be legally upheld? How can ‘1 type of license’ be enforced upon a project when you may not know where assets are coming from.
Maybe I have missed the point of the thread… if so, i will retreat under my rock once again… it does seem like a massive grey un-enforcable area to me… ** moving slowly back towards the shadow of my stone**
I had a pro license and had to reinstall my computer because it became unstable. Well Unity then complained i had activated too many computers which i have not. So you would think the Unity Support team would sort this out fast given that i bought a very expensive license and being a single home developer with deadlines for my game its really put me off because i did get a reply from the Unity support man Graham Dunnet saying whats wrong, well DUH thats obvious i spelt it out but must of been too close to his going home time to sort me out. Sucks!!!
3rd party assets are specifically excluded in the EULA. If you purchase assets/models from a site/asset store/wherever, it is irrelevant what license they have for Unity (or if they are using it).
You would be the best to know when they switch from freelancer to your team. It should be pretty self evident. If you are hiring them (even regularly) to make specific assets based on requirements you provide, they would most likely fall under freelance. If you are hiring them with more open agreement, like to generally create all or most of the assets or they actively contributing the project as a whole, such as art direction and other input or are actually working with a build of the game, then they would probably be considered part of the team.
You contacted support without explaining what the problem you were having was. I replied 27 minutes later asking you for more information, so we know how to help you. You replied with a more detailed email, explaining that you’ve exceeded the number of activations. Now we know that, we can sort you out. Letting us know that you’ve reinstalled your OS without returning the license is the thing support need to know.
Luckily you have two computers where you can use Unity, so nuking one of your machines by re-installing your OS shouldn’t stop you from continuing on the other. The documentation explains how to handle serials and activation.
It’s no different if I call up my mechanic and say “my car isn’t working”. He’ll probably ask some questions so he knows whether it’s got a flat battery, or whether I’ve driven it into a lake. If I want to avoid that interaction, I can say “my car isn’t working because I removed the engine over the weekend. Now I’ve put the engine back in the car nothing happens”.
As I understand it, if they need access to the project, they need Unity Pro. If they don’t develop anything with Unity, and work within Blender/Photoshop/whatever, then they don’t need Pro, as they are not developing with Unity.
You can make your game using Unity free, ship it and profit from it.
The grey area is whether or not your modeller and developer is proficient enough to use Unity Free to develop a game.