Bundles & Subscriptions
Games are sometimes sold together as Bundles with other items, such as soundtracks, concept art, DLC, other games, or physical merchandise.
Bundles can also take the form of subscriptions to services that provide access to a project along with other products (e.g. console game pass).
Selling projects within Bundles is permitted, but care must be taken to calculate revenue — and especially owed royalties — properly.
This is important to prevent loopholes: a project’s contribution to a Bundle’s revenue could be underestimated so as to pay less royalties.
Revenue
The license terms only state the following:
• A project must be able to prove precisely and objectively how little of a Bundle’s total revenue is attributable to it (e.g. 40%).
• If a project cannot fulfill this requirement, it must be assumed the entire Bundle’s revenue is attributable to the project, and the full amount is therefore subject to royalties.
Since valid forms of proof are not defined explicitly in our licenses, we describe below a few options that we find acceptable (and we rule out a few others).
✓ Standalone price:
If a project is sold standalone (i.e. outside of any Bundles), the standalone price of the project can be considered as its share of the Bundle’s revenue.
For example, if a project is sold for €30 standalone, and is included in a Bundle priced at €100, it can be considered that the project generates €30 Direct Revenue for each Bundle sale at most. Royalties are then owed on €30 for each sale, not on the Bundle’s full €100.
A few conditions:
• The project’s standalone price must be indicated anywhere the Bundle is sold or advertised (consumers need to know the actual value of the project).
• If the project is sold standalone at different prices across different stores/platforms, any of these prices can be indicated with the Bundle.
• The project’s contribution to the Bundle’s revenue is the highest price, whether that’s an actual selling price or the indicated price.
For example:
• A project is sold at €40 and €50 on different platforms, and the Bundle indicates the regular price is €40: the project’s contribution to the Bundle’s revenue is €50.
• A project is sold at €40 and €50 on different platforms, and the Bundle indicates the regular price is €60: the project’s contribution to the Bundle’s revenue is €60.
✓ Standalone discounts:
The standalone price of a project may be discounted for the duration of a Bundle:
• For example, if a project is discounted from to €20 standalone, its revenue contribution to the Bundle can be considered to be €20.
• This isn’t considered a loophole and is not prohibited by our license terms.
• The same conditions apply as for the regular standalone price: the highest available/indicated standalone price (whether it’s a discounted price or not) determines the project’s contribution to the Bundle’s revenue.
✓ Multiple projects:
If multiple projects, which use Candy Arts Assets and pay royalties, are part of a same Bundle:
• Their individual revenue must be calculated as outlined above.
• If the total calculated revenue contribution of these projects exceeds the full Bundle’s revenue, royalties are owed only on the Bundle’s full revenue at most.
• The Creators of these projects are responsible for deciding among themselves the royalty share each project must pay to Candy Arts. From the perspective of Candy Arts, each project bear responsibility for paying royalties on its own calculated revenue contribution.
For example:
• Two projects have a standalone price of €60 each (€120 total).
• They are both included in a Bundle priced at €100.
• Each project’s revenue is calculated at €60 for each sale of the Bundle, for the purpose of our license terms.
• Together, the projects only need to pay royalties on a total of €100 per Bundle sale, not €120.
✗ Price of other items:
The contribution of a project to a Bundle’s revenue cannot be inferred from the standalone price of other items in the Bundle:
• The standalone price of other items isn’t an accurate measure of their value to consumers, and hence of their contribution to Bundle revenue.
• Standalone prices could be grossly inflated to diminish the contribution of a project to a Bundle and avoid paying adequate royalties.
✗ Revenue split agreements:
If a project is included in a Bundle with products from other publishers, the share of the Bundle’s revenue that the project’s Creators agree to cannot be used as a measure of the actual revenue generated by the project within the Bundle.
To illustrate:
• A project’s Creators may agree to a 10% share of the Bundle’s revenue, but the project may actually be responsible for 40% of the Bundle’s revenue.
• The project’s Creators are essentially gifting most of the revenue generated by their project to the other publishers.
• Candy Arts Assets are still owed royalties on the full 40% share the project generates, regardless who that share goes to.
• Importantly: this could otherwise be exploited to divert revenue to publishers under the same parent company as the project’s Creators, or other such designs that aim to avoid paying adequate royalties.
Alternate Versions
Our license terms also mention that Bundles are Alternate Versions of a project.
This just means that the project inside the Bundle can’t be considered a different project than the standalone project (or any other version of it).
It doesn’t mean that the entire Bundle is an Alternate Version necessarily.
For example, if Deluxe, Collector, Gold or GOTY editions feature a game and extra content (e.g. DLC, soundtrack, physical items…):
• These are Bundles, as described on this page.
• The game inside each edition is considered the same game/project as the standard/standalone edition and as each-other.
• This means all editions of the game share the same budget and revenue, and are subject to the same licenses. It’s one game, just packaged differently.
• This applies even if the game itself has some differences between editions (e.g. added or removed content, updated graphics, UI reskin…).
• This also applies even if some editions don’t use the same Candy Arts Assets.
• The name of the editions doesn’t matter. Naming editions as if they are different games doesn’t change their status as Alternate Versions.