Enquiry about Spine License

Asta

I’m currently working on a 2D game and planning to use Spine for character animations. However, I won’t be creating the animations myself, I’m hiring an animator who owns a legitimate Spine license and will deliver the assets (likely .json, .atlas, .png, etc.).

My question is:
Do I still need to purchase my own Spine license if I’m only using the exported Spine assets inside my game via the official Spine runtime (e.g., Spine-Godot)?

To clarify:

I won’t be animating anything myself in Spine.

I will be importing and playing the animations in my game via the official runtime.

The game may be published commercially in the future.

I want to make sure I stay compliant with Spine's licensing terms. Would appreciate any guidance from the community or team.

Thanks in advance.

Davide

Asta

As Spinebot mentioned, you need a Spine license to integrate and distribute our runtimes, such as spine-godot. You can find the relevant licensing terms here.

However, for runtime integration, a Spine Essential license is sufficient,and it's quite affordable (unless you fall under the enterprise category).

Spinebot

If you are using the official Spine Runtimes to play the animations in your game, you will need a Spine license. This is because the Spine Runtimes are considered a derivative work, and distributing them requires a Spine license. Even if you are not creating or editing the animations yourself, using the Spine Runtimes in your game necessitates having a license. You can distribute any number of games or apps containing the Spine Runtimes with a single Spine license. If your game makes more than $500,000 USD in one year, you would need a Spine Enterprise license.