Game Developers' Bill of Rights

[fitbabits]

Gamasutra (http://www.gamasutra.com) has posted an interesting article (http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20051121/zimmerman_01.shtml) on the "creative crisis" among games developers.

It is common knowledge among game developers that our industry is in something of a “creative crisis.” Every week there is a new journalistic expose about how game business models squeeze out new ideas, or another blogged rant about how the increased scale of next-generation games is going to kill game design experimentation.

A Game Developers’ Bill of Rights is part of this ongoing discussion, a provocation that draws attention to a set of important issues and challenges facing our industry. It highlights some of the problems that developers face as they try to create games and grow our industry, both creatively and commercially.
I like number 13 - The right to final say in creative disputes regarding the game.

[mkelehan]

And this is why I hope Live Arcade does swimmingly. If publishers realize they can be skipped, they'll have to shape up.

[Justin_McElroy]

I think #2 is what I've been saying all along. (http://www.getthesugar.com/wp/?p=46) It would be great for the industry.

[swiftdraw]

It great that one of these came out, but the question now is anyone going to pay attention to it? As mkelehan said, I'm hoping Live Arcade and the possible Nintendo equivalent does well so small devlopers have a better opportunity to reach a larger audience and allow large developers to have an alternative to pushy publishers.

[Speed_D]

This bill of rights is sortof silly. You HAVE all those rights as a game creator. If you enter into an unfavorable contract with a publisher that restricts those rights, then that's your fault. It's the same thing when people complain that labels take all of a band's profits and the band only gets pennies. No one forced the band to sign that contract.

So game companies need to either negotiate better deals with their publishers or suck it up. Or they could self-publish. A few companies still do that. Monolith did with Shogo, Irrational Games with Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich, probably some others I don't know about.

[Yama]

This bill of rights is sortof silly. You HAVE all those rights as a game creator. If you enter into an unfavorable contract with a publisher that restricts those rights, then that's your fault. It's the same thing when people complain that labels take all of a band's profits and the band only gets pennies. No one forced the band to sign that contract.

So game companies need to either negotiate better deals with their publishers or suck it up. Or they could self-publish. A few companies still do that. Monolith did with Shogo, Irrational Games with Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich, probably some others I don't know about.


Yes... but not really.

Self-publishing is not an option to a studio that does not have the funding to do so. This leaves out start-up companies, and also leaves out companies that have not made a very commercially successful game in order to build up the needed capital. Commercial success isn't easily accomplished.

Publishers have the money, and ergo they call the shots. Sometimes they make bad decisions that sink the developer, but it is their money and it should come as no surprise that they become very hands-on and strict when their money is on the line. I really doubt any publisher will sign a contract with a new developer with these guidelines... and an existing developer with a game or two finished will still have difficulty.

[Roc Ingersol]

No offense game devs - but you're just the hired help.
Until you self-publish, or unionize, the label will win.
Of course you're 'right', but since when has that mattered?

Look at every other medium: Until you can walk away from the deal, or can prevent anyone else from accepting with lesser terms, the patron is going to get what the patron wants on the patron's terms.

It sucks - but that's big label, big publisher, big studio life.

[ElectricMonk]

As long as somebody else is footing the bill they can do whatever they want. You can whine and complain all you want but it's not your money.

[Speed_D]

Self-publishing is not an option to a studio that does not have the funding to do so.
There's always a way to get it done, and it doesn't have to involve a traditional publisher. That could be getting a loan, VC firm, your mom's credit card or whatever. Or something more like what id Software did with the shareware release of Doom. But it really depends on the type of game you are making and the number of employees you need to pay to produce the game.

The question for a game company is: do the benefits of a publisher (more visibility / sales) outweigh the restrictiveness?

But since lots of people want to participate in the game industry, chances are if you don't take a crappy deal with a publisher, someone else will. So publishers aren't going to change their ways anytime soon.

[Mason]

Yeah, this is nonsense. Given how few games a year actually make money, most of the industry can't survive without publishers using the profits of the successes to make up for the losses of the failures. And when you're working with someone else's money, self-righteous indignation and $5 will buy you a cup of coffee.

I think it'll be a great thing for the industry if more developers can figure out how to go independent, or form loose collectives that share risk and profit, but if you're dealing with a traditional publisher there's simply no leverage to insist on any of these provisions.

But just look at #12. Uh, if you haven't been having attorneys look over contracts, that has nothing to do with the publisher, that's your own stupid mistake. And #13 seems practical, until you, say, have a developer try and put some AO material in an M-rated game. If publishers couldn't nix that and thus protect their investment, the whole venture would be too risky to be worth investing in.

I'd write more, but I'm working on my "Programmers' Bill of Rights", which clearly states that programming must be recognized as the most masculine (or for female programmers, feminine) profession that a person could be in, and that no programming shall occur more than 30 meters away from a functional Galaga machine. Once it gets slashdotted and thus gains the attention of the world's intellectual elite, the world will change!