Collaboration vs Asset store.

How is that even...

Oh wait, I got it. Non-unity engine, team already over $200k thresold, and in order to grab stuff from unity that would need to buy pro?

In this case the solution would be to contact the author directly and request custom licensing terms.

Although I wonder how that would work with asset store provider agreement:

It doesn't seem to forbid having an alternative shop for an asset.

 

Its an unlikely hypothetical. However the simplest way to solve it would be to buy one copy of Unity Pro to use for downloading assets.

Of course, you will only ever be using art assets. So you might just be better off hanging out in other markets that just do art.

 

I know it sounds contrived, but I'm only asking because I actually had the discussion with a dev who doesn't use Unity and I thought there surely would still be some value for them in the assetstore, if only to look at example implementations of certain things, or get some art assets or whatever.

Exactly.

Defeats the entire purpose of the assetstore though.

A few things are getting sold elsewhere too, for example the substance tools, houdini, a lot of music etc.. It is allowed.

Simple, yes. But also damn expensive, if all you ever need from the store would be a 50$ sound/texture pack for example. That's like a 1500$ barrier to entry for a storefront. To me personally that's crazy.

 

This.

The assets are non-exclusive. Many of the top model assets are already available in other marketplaces (K4, BitGem, etc). Assets have contact information right on the page. If you need them outside of Unity, or simply need custom licensing, you can just contact them. Heck, even for the couple of assets that we still use for legacy reasons, we bought them directly from the publisher rather than use the asset store. The asset store is a benefit for the updates, ease of use and access. (for both publisher and purchaser). If those aren't a requirement, you can just license them directly.

 

Not in the case you hypothesized. But more importantly, the asset store set up is great for probably 95% of use cases (probably higher), but there are situations where it isn't practical, and that is something that you can work out to mutual benefit with the publisher directly.

 

The problem is that with non-unity studio that already went above profit margin there's no real reason to suddenly start buying from unity store (it should be some sort of miracle asset). Due to possible conflict in agreements it is the situation you'd avoid doing that.

However, I see.... so aside from the "avoid the store for remote teams", additional option would be "but try to license assets you wanna buy directly from the creator"

 

Problem is, even studios that work mostly onsite will sometimes have to hire remote contractors to cover overflow work, if they take too many projects at once, and it is often common to outsource parts of your project like like porting to a other studio.

 

This:

1 license per seat assets in particular are absolutely out of the question if your team has 10 or more members since the prices tend to be fairly high as well. If you compare the cost of those assets with the cost of Unity Plus for example, a lot of them cost more than Unity itself!! Paying $600/year for Unity plus is pricey for an indie. Paying $500~$1000 for an editor extension for the team makes most of them too expensive to be worth it. Multiplying that by a factor of 2 or more for each per seat asset to have the project ported and tested means you then have another significant barrier to entry to port to console as well.

 

Teams who benefit a shared physical location are often better funded than remote networkers. I find this not only unfair but also outdated... yet another effort of legal departments to enforce physical borders over the digital world. Can’t even figure the loophole they’re trying to plug with that.
As to mechanical enforcement; well. Laws have long existed without mechanical enforcement. I figure that many people (as I did) visit these threads because they want to know what goes and what doesn’t, and will play by the rules.

 

Hypothetical: Someone is a part of a "remote studio" where they and 99 mates all mostly just do their own thing, but share pool everyone's purchased art assets.

 

Old thread, but I think it's appropriate to continue the discussion.

So, is the conclusion that Assets with Seat license, need 1 license per team member -no exceptions?

Or is it something else?

This here says

Emphasis on "will be using it". Does simply having it into the project mean using it? If it's an artist tool that the artist uses, does the programmer need a seat too?

The EULA is confusing too.

What does "install" mean for an asset?

We dump a bunch of the assets we own in a project we have on Dropbox, so I can pick and use stuff without having to go through the asset store. Are we automatically breaking the EULA in that case? We are not "installing" nor "using".

If I use MTREE to make some trees that are then in the project, do I need to pay another MTREE license if I want to add a sound designer (that works directly in Unity) to the team?

My best guess is that, you need a license per team member no questions asked, which makes the assets that use Seat licenses an auto-avoid, since the prices can balloon pretty quickly. I don't want to be in a situation where I want to hire someone and on top of what I pay him and his Unity License, I also have to pay a few thousand dollars upfront for misc assets we may be using with Seat license.

I'm just wondering if the rest of the community has reached a similar conclusion/assumption.

 

One license per team member who has access to it, yes. At least that's my interpretation. Your other link undermines that, though.

We just don't put things in our main version control if we don't want to license the whole team. Asset creation stuff can be done in a separate project and the results exported, and utilities can be just installed by those who need them.

Regarding your Dropbox example, the text you quoted does clarify that it can't be "shared" on more than 2 computers.

Though that muddies up other things:
- Why are they now talking about computers instead of people?
- Does my version control host count as one of those computers? What about backups?
- Why is it not 2 computers per license?

 

Also if you change physical location you need to ask the asset makers for permission to use their assets in a new location.

My new conclusion after all these findings is that I should avoid using the Asset Store altogether, since I’m about trying to simplify my life at the moment, and Unity EULAs don’t mesh well with simple.

 

I would imagine this would be most applicable.
If you install it in a project, and use version control, because of the way that the project structure and assetdatabase works, even if one member on your team doesn’t “use” it, they still “need” to maintain project functionality. Unless you can work out a way to only have it on only seats you need (as above, with separate projects), you are likely going to need it on each seat. The situation you describe is pretty edge case, it seems like most of the time any tools you install will want to be available to anyone in the project, and most are cheap enough that the seat cost is cheaper than the cost of trying to avoid it. (If that makes sense)

 

Oh, wow, I'd missed that one. That's bonkers. Imagine needing permission from a bunch of random people to still use their products if you're moving office...

If the tool has a runtime component, definitely. For stuff that doesn't then I don't usually find that it's a big deal.

 

You know... I’m totally wrong.
Actually thinking about, I do exactly that. I bought and use QHiearchy, but I have it in a folder in our project that is local and ignored. I also have a handful of my own tools that are for my own convenience that I don’t commit. It is totally doable.