• Runtimes
  • Spine License for runtime integration in practice unclarity

Hello!

I have a small team working on a Unity game, no revenue so far. We are looking for a 2D animation tool that our artist would be comfortable using and Spine Professional caught our eye. However, since our team has several programmers and we are using git, I'm unsure how to interpret section 2.4 in the License Agreement. Here's the particular excerpt:

"For example, consider an SDK, game toolkit, or software library used to create new applications that contain the Spine Runtimes. Each user of such an SDK, game toolkit, or software library must obtain a Spine Editor license because the applications they are creating contain the Spine Runtimes, so are therefore a Product, and a Spine Editor license is required to create or modify a Product."

The artist would create the animations in Spine Professional and a programmer would integrate them. As far as I understand, the artist would need the Professional license and a programmer would need an essential license (at minimum). However, it is difficult to ensure that no other programmer touches the code pertaining to playing these animations (for example, fixes a bug or tweaks values) except the one with the license. Does this mean that all current and future programmers would need the essential license and given a revenue threshold is reached (yay), any artist using Spine and all the programmers in the team would need Enterprise Licenses?

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    BroBroson Welcome to the Spine forum!

    For independents and small studios, if the artists on the same team have valid licenses, people on the same team can integrate the Spine Runtimes into their products without having to purchase licenses for them.

    If your organization's or company's total revenue for the last 12 months meets the revenue threshold in the license agreement, please contact us via email.

    Thank you for the prompt reply! I'm happy to hear you interpret this in a friendly manner for a starting studio. With that in mind, I got our artist the Professional License 😊