EDIT — Several of the licensing issues that limited this bundle’s usefulness were removed. As a result, I created the following video, that takes a look at the updated license details as well as takes a deeper look into the contents of the bundle.
The folks over at Humble Bundle are running another bundle of interest to game developers, the Humble RPG Game Dev Bundle. It’s a large collection of RPG Maker (don’t worry, they can be used outside of RPGMaker in your engine of choice) assets including sprites, tiles, sound fx, icons and more. Humble Bundles are collections with different priced tiers, with a portion of the proceeds going to the content maker, a charity of choice (Child’s Play in this case) as well as to Humble Bundle themselves. I normally full heartedly recommend Humble Bundles to people, but this time I must give a bit of a warning due to the attached license.
From the license:
4.1. A “Licence” means that the Seller grants to GDN (purely for the purpose of sub-licensing to the Purchaser) and GDN grants (by way of sub-licence thereof) to the Purchaser a non-exclusive perpetual licence to;
(a) use the Licensed Asset to create Derivative Works; and
(b) use the Licensed Asset and any Derivative Works as part of either one (1) Non-Monetized Media Product or one (1) Monetized Media Product which, in either case, is:
i) used for the Purchaser’s own personal use; and/or
ii) used for the Purchaser’s commercial use in which case it may be distributed, sold and supplied by the Purchaser for any fee that the Purchaser may determine.
That 4.1 b is going to be a huge deal breaker for many people. If you are intending to use these assets for personal use, the license wont matter. If you are looking to distribute your works however, do be sure to go over the license with a fine tooth comb, as that clause seems to limit you to a single product, commercial or otherwise! There is a discussion of the bundle going on over on /r/gamedev if you are interested in learning more.
EDIT – An update on the licensing terms. The publisher of the assets have reached out to me on Twitter to announce they’ve heard the complaints regarding the license and are updating it to be more developer friendly. Additionally I signed up for the Humble Bundle partner program, meaning purchasing through the above link will help support the channel.
EDIT2 – The license is going to be updated, but hasn’t been officially updated yet. However, the following has been attached to every file in the bundle.
Licensing Before you jump in and get going with all of the assets included in the bundle, we just need to make you aware of the licensing terms for using the assets.
Each asset that comes in the bundle is mainly covered by GameDev Markets standard license terms, with one vital difference. At the moment our license states that each asset can only be used in one project, however we are in the process of removing this clause, so for the purpose of any Humble Bundle purchases, all assets can be used in multiple projects.
You can find the full terms here – https://www.gamedevmarket.net/terms-conditions/#prolicence Please ensure that you read the license terms in full so you understand what you can and can’t do with the assets.
Updated and hands-on video
Original Humble Bundle video