So Adult Games BREAK Game Maker: Studio 2's EULA

[ScrollSerrayt]

I had an idea for a hentai game that I considered making, I decided I would use Game Maker Studio 2 seeing as I have the most experience with it. I realized I have never played a lewd game made in Game Maker before, so before committing to the project I wanted to find out why. I think I discovered that in the EULA making pornographic games is prohibited.

 

https://www.yoyogames.com/legal/eula

 

Quote

You must follow the below rules regarding all YYG Property, Customer Content and Publisher Property:

• (viii) Do not do or say anything which is or may be considered threatening, abusive, obscene, racist, xenophobic, sexist, defamatory, pornographic, sexually explicit or otherwise offensive or illegal. This includes masked words (---), acronyms and abbreviations.

 

Update: Bad news, Yo Yo Games Tech Support responded and confirmed that these rules apply to games made with Game Maker, so it is 100% confirmed that making sexually explicit games breaks the Game Maker EULA.

 

This seems like a fairly solid no to adult games, I can't think of any wiggle room. Even if they aren't aggressively enforcing these rules I don't want to break the agreement because I plan to continue making non-adult games using the platform. I don't want to completely give up hope though, so if I'm misinterpreting the document or if there is a loophole that other devs have safely used I would like to know. Otherwise I'm just posting this so other people who have the same idea don't have the confusion I did. I know some other devs are trying to use Game Maker Studio, but I don't know if any have gotten in trouble. If I learn that people have gotten their GMS licence terminated over hentai games, I will personally take my time and reach out to any people using the engine to warn them.

 

I was never very committed to the idea for my game, so I'm not going to learn a new engine to follow through with the project. I did start the coding for the game, but it can easily be altered to be a non-adult game so it's not a complete loss. But, if it turns out I actually am allowed to publish hentai desktop games using GMS:2, I will do my best to make a really unique and high-quality hentai game absolutely free. The quarantine is giving me a lot of free time right now, so I can work on multiple solo projects. 

[mrrrori]

I'm not an English Lawyer, I'm Belarusian Analyst.

But I do have a little bit of expertise which might come handy here...

Quote

You must follow the below rules regarding all YYG Property, Customer Content and Publisher Property:

And what does Publisher Property mean here?

Quote

"Publisher Property": means third-party products or services created by Publishers using GameMaker which can be licensed or accessed via the YYG Platforms and/or other third party platforms. This can include (but is not limited to): (i) software created to facilitate the development of interactive entertainment products; (ii) content (such as graphics, sounds, videos, music, text, screenshots and images) which are intended to be integrated with interactive entertainment products; and/or (iii) services (such as graphic design or audio engineering) offered to Customers.

The

"include (but is not limited to): (i) software created to facilitate the development of interactive entertainment products"

wording is goddam' confusing and the final answer for 'may I do hentai in Game Maker?' question depends on 'can project made in Game Maker be considered a 'software created to factiliate development...'?'

 

Common sense tells that Game Maker project is not a 'software created to...' - it's an actual development of interactive entertainment product!

(and actual development of interactive entertainment product is NOT covered by this EULA)

 

Ruling as written it means that stand-alone middleware you make in Game Maker must be compliant with this EULA while the game itself must not.

 

'This can include (but is not limited to)' kicker, however, spoils it all.

 

I'd suggest asking their customer support for either

- an explicit list of things which ARE included into Publisher Property definition for purposes of 'This can include (but is not limited to)' wording in EULA, or

- a guideline to determine if your work (that's it, 'your work' without details) is included into Publisher Property definition's 'This can include (but is not limited to)' wording

 

If their response will be unclear - request a printed official response (if you're ready to waste few coins + a bit of time on making a formal inquiry to

Helpdesk Team, YoYo Games Ltd, River Court, 5 West Victoria Dock Road, Dundee, UK DD1 3JT

, I believe )

and you're good to go!

 

- either they'll add these clarifications in an instant

- or you'll have a paper which confirms that they don't know what Publisher Property is so you can stick with 'software created to facilitate the development of interactive entertainment products' definition and make as rough hentai as you like.

 

That's how I see this situation.

 

(damn, I deleted then wrote the answer from scratch three times in a row... not an easy question it was...)

 

[ScrollSerrayt]

On 4/7/2020 at 8:03 AM, mrrrori said:

I'm not an English Lawyer, I'm Belarusian Analyst.

But I do have a little bit of expertise which might come handy here...

And what does Publisher Property mean here?

The

"include (but is not limited to): (i) software created to facilitate the development of interactive entertainment products"

wording is goddam' confusing and the final answer for 'may I do hentai in Game Maker?' question depends on 'can project made in Game Maker be considered a 'software created to factiliate development...'?'

 

Common sense tells that Game Maker project is not a 'software created to...' - it's an actual development of interactive entertainment product!

(and actual development of interactive entertainment product is NOT covered by this EULA)

 

Ruling as written it means that stand-alone middleware you make in Game Maker must be compliant with this EULA while the game itself must not.

 

'This can include (but is not limited to)' kicker, however, spoils it all.

 

I'd suggest asking their customer support for either

- an explicit list of things which ARE included into Publisher Property definition for purposes of 'This can include (but is not limited to)' wording in EULA, or

- a guideline to determine if your work (that's it, 'your work' without details) is included into Publisher Property definition's 'This can include (but is not limited to)' wording

 

If their response will be unclear - request a printed official response (if you're ready to waste few coins + a bit of time on making a formal inquiry to

Helpdesk Team, YoYo Games Ltd, River Court, 5 West Victoria Dock Road, Dundee, UK DD1 3JT

, I believe )

and you're good to go!

 

- either they'll add these clarifications in an instant

- or you'll have a paper which confirms that they don't know what Publisher Property is so you can stick with 'software created to facilitate the development of interactive entertainment products' definition and make as rough hentai as you like.

 

That's how I see this situation.

 

(damn, I deleted then wrote the answer from scratch three times in a row... not an easy question it was...)

 

 

I agree that legal speech is not easy to understand. I get the impression from the definition that Publisher Property includes games made with GameMaker, because it refers to any "third-party products" "created by Publishers using GameMaker".  "(ii) content (such as graphics, sounds, videos, music, text, screenshots and images) which are intended to be integrated with interactive entertainment products" Its hard to imagine a scenario in which this does not include games / projects created with GameMaker, because hypothetically if it didnt, then there should be another place in the EULA where they do discuss what is allowed to be done with projects or games but they dont. Interactive entertainment products is probably their way of saying "games" but also being a larger net to programs that don't consider themselves to be games. So saying that any of the content in these interactive entertainment products must comply to rules that apply to all publisher property, seems like it has to include games. 

 

edit: I have entered a support ticket asking yoyogames themselves, hopefully I get a proper response without being dismissed. 

[ScrollSerrayt]

Update! Tech Support from YoYo Games has responded to my support ticket and confirmed that those rules absolutely do apply to games made with GameMaker. So it is prohibited by EULA to make any sexually explicit game or assets using their platforms. 

 

 

Knowing this now with absolute certainty, I will not make my game. I will also browse the forums on this site for any active GameMaker project, and post on their forum or pms that it's unfortunately against the EULA just as a fair warning. I'm sure some people will continue making games trying not to get caught, but I just want to tell people so if they do get their licence suspended it isn't a surprise. 

[Koffii]

Just use Godot. It's not quite as easy for beginners as Game Maker, but it's licensed under MIT so you can do whatever the heck you want with it.

 

Yes, it can look a little intimidating, and it does support full 3d games, but what is not immediately obvious is that it supports creating 2d games as well, with tilemaps, sprite support and everything. Doesn't have built-in facilities like dialogue trees or inventories, but those shouldn't be too hard to add.

 

http://godotengine.org

[ScrollSerrayt]

20 hours ago, Koffii said:

Just use Godot. It's not quite as easy for beginners as Game Maker, but it's licensed under MIT so you can do whatever the heck you want with it.

 

Yes, it can look a little intimidating, and it does support full 3d games, but what is not immediately obvious is that it supports creating 2d games as well, with tilemaps, sprite support and everything. Doesn't have built-in facilities like dialogue trees or inventories, but those shouldn't be too hard to add.

 

http://godotengine.org

 

I've already tried it out, it's promising, and it's unique in that it's open-source. But I stopped learning it because the engine was still in it's early phases and no substantially successful games have been made with it so it's just a bit limited and risky. I'm really bad at managing my time as is, so if I was going to learn a new engine I should probably spend my time with something more established like Unity which also has good 2D game support or Unreal 4. I've yet to learn either though because I've been busy with coding non-adult games on Gamemaker and I'm also a bit lazy in general. Thanks for the suggestion but like I mentioned I am not dedicated enough to the adult game I had in mind to learn a different engine, I only considered doing it because I was already making non adult games using GameMaker and thought some could easily be converted into good adult games. 

[saviliana]

Hold on, when did this got updated? Last time I read that EULA didn't include that line.

I had been using GMS2 for making Hgames for sometime since the software launch on steam, I even asked the staff back then if the engine allow to be creating erotica(back then they even had a forum page for people making NSFW works on their offical forum), now it suddenly said no?

Is this a joke?

[herpman]

Also, is this a live service they provide, or a software product? I can't imagine this holding up in court, given how many countries have a free speech component to their legal system.

[RitualClarity]

40 minutes ago, herpman said:

Also, is this a live service they provide, or a software product? I can't imagine this holding up in court, given how many countries have a free speech component to their legal system.

Even with the free speech component ( I live in such a country) there are limits to that right.  A person or owner has the right to limit (licensed materials) to be used as they deem fit within reason.  The issue is "within reason" however, I can easily see many countries allowing this to be done especially since there are alternatives for said person to follow to achieve such thing. In this case, alternate programs.

 

However, it is possible that some wiggle room might be available depending on where the developer is located at.. however, then, in some countries then the user will be held accountable for the violation of the EULA by using such sources / games etc. (however, doubt they will get far on that but trouble is trouble if the company decided to try)

 

In any case, it is best to work with the owners of the tools that you wish to use to the greatest extent as humanly possible, for all involved. The OP is doing things right and Kudos to him/her for doing this added extra footwork now and not later when things get tough and wasted energy in development has occurred. The situation might not be ideal for the OP now but with care and effort he/she can achieve their goals.  If those here are interested (and the OP is ) perhaps some support could/should be given to help him/her gain the needed tools and any legal support needed to investigate to the best way possible options.

[landess]

Thinking outside the box - make it so it can use mods. Then make mods for it. I'm sure LL is a headache to many in EA and Bethesda, but life goes on, and in and out.

[27X]

Nothing's stopping you from making a fade to black game under your authorial account and making "add ons" under an anonymous account.

[RitualClarity]

On 4/16/2020 at 5:27 PM, landess said:

Thinking outside the box - make it so it can use mods. Then make mods for it. I'm sure LL is a headache to many in EA and Bethesda, but life goes on, and in and out.

Opening up the game to be able to be modded will allow others to use your source and build on it.  Unlike EA and Bethesda which can eventually decide to ban or otherwise limit the mods and such, you are the owner and you can decide to never do that. Eventually if troubles occur you could even open up the entire game to an applicaple open source (your parts)

 

If the game engine company wants to go after those that created objectionable mods.. they are welcome to do it.  I can't see them being able to force you to   Still my above comment stands but ... mods do open some alternate options.

[DoctaSax]

Unless people need the engine to create mods too, in which case they and whoever hosts them can run into trouble.

[RitualClarity]

4 hours ago, DoctaSax said:

Unless people need the engine to create mods too, in which case they and whoever hosts them can run into trouble.

True, but we all know there are ways around this.. however, I doubt that is in line with what the OP desires. It is still the best policy to try to find an engine that will work with what you want that has the tools to create your dream. Path of least resistance and all.