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CryENGINE 3 Independent Developers Platform offers a royalty-only license model, that requires you to pay 20% of your revenues.

Their website says this about it:

CryENGINE® 3 Independent Developers Platform We want you to make games with CryENGINE® 3 that people will want to play. We hope that your work will lead to a product you can commercialise. If this is the case, before you can sell your work or your game, you must seek a development license for CryENGINE® 3. We’ll offer a royalty-only license model for Independent Developers, where Crytek require only 20% of the developer’s revenues from the commercial launch of their game.

My question is:

What technical mechanisms, if any, are in place for CryEngine to accurately track the downloads?

I'm wondering how they validate my sales numbers and confirm the 20% revenue.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Unless your customers pay you using physical cash (or bitcoins, I dunno), your local tax person/department knows. The details of how Crytek know are less interesting, suffice to say that it probably involves said tax person/department. The point is, once you have a license then Crytek knows about you, and once they do there are ways of finding out. \$\endgroup\$ – congusbongus Jul 29 '13 at 5:16
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    \$\begingroup\$ This question appears to be off-topic because it is something that CryTek will have to answer about their license enforcement processes rather than something about game development itself. \$\endgroup\$ – Sean Middleditch Jul 29 '13 at 5:27
  • \$\begingroup\$ @congusbongus CryTek is not a CIA or Tax Office. They as a company cannot ask my bank to reveal my personal information. It's the same that I cannot ask a bank to show me how much money received CryTek from Czech citizens or Jan Novak from Prague. Do you understand what I want to say? There is no limit to physical cash or BitCoins, I can use credit cards or PayPal, Skrill etc. They \$\endgroup\$ – Derfder Jul 29 '13 at 7:02
  • \$\begingroup\$ @SeanMiddleditch this could be applied to other engines as well. The percentage model is very popular, but I don't know how they control it. E.g. some companies have limit for 50.000 dollars to earn and only after that you pay 20-30% etc. How they control how much you sell is beyond me. Any idea? \$\endgroup\$ – Derfder Jul 29 '13 at 7:04
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Derfder CryTek cannot compel people to provide their tax information against their will, but they certainly can include this as a clause in their license contract, that you request that your tax department forward a copy of your sales revenue records to CryTek. This is only one possible method, and one that I was alluding to. I don't know if CryTek does this. \$\endgroup\$ – congusbongus Jul 29 '13 at 7:34
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It's a contract. You pay them what you owe them for a license to ship games using their software.

They will know how many copies you have sold because you will tell them how many copies you have sold when you are paying your licensing fees.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ "They will know how many copies you have sold because you will tell them how many copies you have sold when you are paying your licensing fees." I can tell them that I have sold 49.999 and not 50.000 and I will pay nothing. I don't get it how they can know exactly how many copies I have REALLY sold if I am seling it independetly via my website or other guys in the indie game industry. \$\endgroup\$ – Derfder Jul 29 '13 at 8:06
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Derfder: They can sue you if they think you're lying to them. And once that happens, they can subpena your records on the matter. And if you don't keep them or destroy them, then you're probably in legal trouble. \$\endgroup\$ – Nicol Bolas Jul 29 '13 at 8:27
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Derfder: Your question has been answered: you tell them. And if you don't tell them or lie to them, then you suffer the consequences of attempting to defraud someone and not upholding the your end of the contract. You're trying to find some automatic means for something that's really very simple. You entered into a binding contract with them. If you play them dirty, then they take you to court. \$\endgroup\$ – Nicol Bolas Jul 29 '13 at 8:59
  • \$\begingroup\$ @NicolBolas No, my question has not been aswered. PLease, read my question again. I am not asking about CONSEQUENCES. I really don't know why you always talk about legal actions. I repeat: "I am interested in the mechanism, how they will know how many copies I have sold. \$\endgroup\$ – Derfder Jul 29 '13 at 10:56
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Derfder The legal comments aren't about consequences, they're actually answering your question; read them again. CryTek requires by contract that you tell them how many games you sold. If you don't, lie or they have any other reason to believe you lied to them, they'll take you to court and the court will make you prove how many copies you sold with official paperwork which you better have available. That's how they do it. They trust you, then use the legal system to force you to reveal sales number if you attempt to defraud them. \$\endgroup\$ – pwny Jul 29 '13 at 15:08

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