November 2018 Event Recap “Accelerating your GameDev: Marketplace and Licensed Content”
Christian Allen, Unreal Engine Evangelist from Epic Games, chatted with game developers on November 19th, 2018 at game studio Against Gravity in Seattle, Washington about using licensed content to accelerate the game development processes. Christian’s role within Epic Games is supporting developers and partners in the Unreal Engine game development community.
Licensed content is any asset made outside the game studio. Licensing content is different from outsourcing content, where “you get an outside entity to build the content for you,” since that outsourced entity is directly interfacing with your game to design the content. “Think of licensing like any third-party software.”
“If you don’t have a UI designer, you can buy a certain idea” to show as a prototype, test performance with shippable high-resolution demo content, or save time. “Spending $50 or $100 for a Blueprint pack to either learn from or build on can save you a lot of time.”
There are three main sources for assets:
1. Engine Specific Marketplaces
A majority of game developers will purchase licensed content from engine marketplaces like the Unity Asset Store or Unreal Marketplace. Assets from these marketplaces are “specifically-built to work on your game’s engine.” There are also certain quality assurance guarantees. “Everything on Unreal is curated and approved by the Marketplace team.”
2. Stock Content Sites
“TurboSquid [assets] may not be made specifically for games. They may be lower or much higher resolution than needed. Although they may still work, they’re not 100% designed for Unreal or Unity games.” “There’s no point in buying a $1200 tiger if it’s not going to work for your game.”
3. Traditionally Generated Content
These are assets that were not specifically designed to be used in games. “You might find a specific composer that works for you,” so you could commission them to create new works or license their existing works. This can also apply to photography that might be used during in-game montages.
Christian presented a game he built using licensed content. “Everything shown is a realistic proof-of-concept of everything that can be implemented, sometimes even for free.” Graphics and prototyping to certain benchmarks of content aren’t the only benefits. “Gameplay mechanics can be tested with these assets as well, like camera switches.”
Christian then gave advice for using licensed content. His biggest recommendation was to keep all licensed content separate from currently-built assets for proper updating, licensing, and validating:
1. Updates:
If the licensed content you’re using isn’t separate from your assets, it will be difficult to apply updates if that licensed content is ever updated.
2. Licenses:
Triple-check that your licenses are valid and how they apply to your projects. “When you buy something on the Unreal Marketplace, you own the license, but when you buy something off another site,” assuming the license is legitimate and doesn’t contain any illegal content such as asset flipped material where the licensor doesn’t hold the copyright, “your license may only be for one version of the game.” If you pay for a license, chop up the assets, and apply that licensed content to DLC, “that might not apply to your license and it can get you in trouble.”
3. Validations:
If an artist does paint-overs with a gallery containing licensed photos, the original artist’s license still applies, even if it’s repainted by a different artist, “so developers need to ensure the license they obtain covers how they intend to use the asset.”
It’s not all doom-and-gloom. “Licensing can be useful if a game studio works on two different games and one hits it big.” Rather than scrapping all their completed assets, or trying to adapt the content into a completely different game, the studio can license everything to bring in extra money.
“Some people have full-time jobs building assets and selling them. The industry standard is generally a a 30%/70% split between the store and the developer, but with the Unreal Marketplace, now 88% goes to the developer.” “Hopefully as more developers use it, then more people can sustain themselves.”
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