Paid and Lock custom 3D Assets?

[Ofaloaf]

What, for mods? That stuff's vile. That model hasn't worked anywhere in years, and it's against most EULAs out there.

 

[Ofaloaf]

I was thinking specifically of things already packaged up as mods for the game; most game EULAs state some level of control and tend to prohibit making money out of mods. Sim City 2013's EULA goes so far as to say

Your right to use the Software is limited to the license grant above, and you may not otherwise copy, display, seek to disable, distribute, perform, publish, modify, create works from, or use the Software or any component of it, except as expressly authorized by EA.

while Mojang's Minecraft EULA states

Any tools you write for the Game from scratch belong to you. . Modifications to the Game ("Mods") (including pre-run Mods and in-memory Mods) and plugins for the Game also belong to you and you can do whatever you want with them, as long as you don‘t sell them for money / try to make money from them. We have the final say on what constitutes a tool/mod/plugin and what doesn‘t.

and Sega's general EULA available on their website says

You agree to only use the Game Software, or any part of it, in a manner that is consistent with this Agreement, and you SHALL NOT [...] reverse engineer, derive source code, modify, decompile, disassemble, copy, or create derivative works of the Game Software, in whole or in part (except as the applicable law expressly permits, in which case all and any modifications, adaptations, copies, improvements, etc. shall belong to, vest in and be the exclusive property of Sega and/or its licensors on creation, in any event);

The general theme is that you can't charge money for mods, and some companies just flat claim ownership of any mods created (although the chances of them actually taking advantage of that legal claim are slim). A general 3D model on a third-party site is one thing, but if the asset is explicitly for a game, charging money for it is likely to be verboten.

 

[Ofaloaf]

Wasn't TSR built around that model. Micropayments for items? I don't see anything wrong with that model.

The old TSR model was against the EULA, but God, can you imagine the enormity of the shitfit that would've followed if EA had moved to actually close it down at its height? EA ended up just making a "we ain't touching that shit" statement six years ago and left it at that. As it is, though, TSR moved away from that model anyways, and now you just pay money to make advertisements go away on that site rather than pay for access to the downloads themselves.

Legally TSR didn't really have a leg to stand on if someone had decided to re-host those files for free.