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General Discussion

Attribution for Game Assets

Rasika
Wednesday, March 3, 2021 - 18:17

Hello,

I am new to game development and I started using some game assets in my HTML5 games which require attribution. Can someone please tell me where to add the attribution notes/links. Obviously I cannot put attribution in the game itslef because  it will mess up the game. Is it ok to put up a web page on the same website where the games are hosted for attribution and list all the credits.

Thank you in advance.

 

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MedicineStorm
joined 8 years 7 months ago
Wednesday, March 3, 2021 - 23:04
MedicineStorm's picture

Why wouldn't you be able to put the credits in the game itself? My html5 games have the credits in the game itself.

If your game doesn't have an in-game credits screen, then I would recommend putting the credits in the same page as the game but just further down the page or just below the game portion of the page.

If you're talking about an html5 game hosted on itch.io, you can list ask the attributions in the "Description" section of the game details page, or even as a downloadable txt file link on that page.

--Medicine Storm

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Rasika
joined 1 month 1 week ago
Thursday, March 4, 2021 - 16:03

Thank you @MedicineStorm and would you mind sharing a screenshot that shows where the credit is placed. I am trying to understand if a link or button on the game  that links the credit file would be good enough. Otherwise it would take up a lot of space of the game(Specially if it is played on a mobile). Thank you.

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MedicineStorm
joined 8 years 7 months ago
Friday, March 5, 2021 - 15:04
MedicineStorm's picture

Certainly! :)

If you visit this demo page, you can see this HTML5 game can display the full credits within the "Credits" screen. I've also included the full list (with embedded links to the original source, author's page, and license details) as plain HTML below the game's window (scroll down to see it.)

It is usually not necessary to embed links like this, but it is nice to respect your artists with hyperlinked attribution. However, some assets do require you to include a URL to the source, so if you aren't going to make a hyperlink, you can just include the plaintext URL next to the attribution text for such assets.

I have intentionally used overly verbose attribution and have even included assets I have not yet implemented into the game just to inflate the size of the credits text, yet it constitutes no more than 31 kilobytes for several pages of credits. This is far less than the size of a fairly typical tileset or other graphical resource file your game might use, so I'm a bit skeptical that including credit information within the game itself would be much of a file size hinderance, regardless of the platform the game is on. I mean, are you using some incredibly inefficient method of storing attribution data? (like taking screenshots of a text file, then displaying the screenshots as images of text, instead of just displaying the text itself on the screen)

If you're hosting your game on Itch.io or similar, you may not be able to include the plaintext credits in html below your game window, but there is still a description area on itch's game pages, so you can include a link to the full credits and attribution text file, or even include the full list of credits right in the description itself:

 

Remember that OGA has excellent tools for tracking and generating attribution text for all the assets from OGA you may use in your game:

  1. Click on the "Collections" menu along the top of the OGA site.
  2. Click on "New Collection" to create a new collection for your game project.
  3. Name the collection, and add a description and link to your project if you want.
  4. Browse OGA for all that awesome art and game assets! 

  1. As you find assets you like and think you might use in your game, select your new collection from the dropdown on the left of the submission, then click the "Add to collection" button.
  2. This will keep track of all your game's assets so you can find them easily again... PLUS it will generate a list of credits for everything in the collection.
  3. Scroll to the bottom of your collection and click the "Download Credits File" link.

If you want, you can pare down a lot of the fluff in this file as long as you're confident what you're left with still adheres to the attribution requirements of the assets.

So... yeah! Several options! Let me know if you have any other questions about this. We're always happy to help. :)

--Medicine Storm

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Rasika
joined 1 month 1 week ago
Sunday, March 7, 2021 - 09:34

Thank you so much. This is really helpful !

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LDAsh
joined 8 years 5 days ago
Wednesday, March 10, 2021 - 07:32
LDAsh's picture

This can actually drive you a little nutty if you overthink it, and some artists out there have higher demands than others when it comes to being credited - but...

 

At the end of the day, it's your game, your team, your projects and your standards.  It's up to you where you put the credits and even if you decide to have URLs or not, or how they're parsed.  We all know, typically, you'd have A) "staff roll", and B) webpage that lists members and contributors.  Apart from packing in TXT files with the project files, that's about all anyone can hope for...

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