Still, I wasn't entirely satisfied by the information I was able to get. Epic's announcement mostly just revealed how little public information there is about the deals developers make with publishers.
Lawyer Kellen Voyer, who works with indie game developers, is also concerned about the information advantage publishers have: They know what a "standard" game publishing contract looks like, but a new indie developer may have no idea.
In a GDC Summer talk this week the event is taking place via livestreams this year , Voyer sought to start correcting that imbalance by presenting the average data from 30 indie game publishing agreements, some negotiated by his firm, Voyer Law Corporation , and others that were submitted to him.
By a "good" publishing contract, I mean one that roughly matches the favorable terms some other indie developers are getting. Any contract could be more favorable to the developer, and maybe they all should be, but this is the average indie game publishing deal that Voyer worked out based on the 30 contracts he analyzed:.
In 42 percent of the contracts Voyer looked at, the publisher took all of the revenue until it made the advance back. During his talk, Voyer broke down each of the common contract clauses, providing important context.
One point to note is that the 30 deals in his sample group did not include publishing contracts for mobile games, which have different characteristics. There's one big difference between Epic's proposal and the indie contracts Voyer is talking about: the size of the advance. These rights are granted by [Client. Any rights not specifically granted to [Sender. Company] above remain with [Client. The rights granted to [Sender.
Company] by [Client. LastName] shall not be constrained by geographic territories and are considered global in nature. Publishers shall register the copyright to the Book, identifying the Author as the owner of the copyright, as well as the author of the Book, within 90 days of initial publication of the Book.
Publisher will give Author a copy of the registration certificate. LastName] [year of publication]. Company] shall provide [Client. LastName] with an advance against future royalties in the amount of advance amount. This advance shall be paid to [Client. LastName] as follows:. Company] agrees to provide the [Client. Publisher shall pay Author the royalties on copies of hardcover edition sold by Publisher in the United States through regular book wholesale and retail channels, minus returns:.
Publisher shall pay Author the royalties on copies of trade paperback edition sold by Publisher in the United States through regular book wholesale and retail channels:. Location, date. Publisher Author. Publisher name Author name. Contract example. Contract example Here is an actual contract example from Flatlined games. Terms of Service. Game Name. Territory of exploitation. Projected publication date. Q1 Non-publication penalty fee if no advance payment.
Copyright notice name of the authors. Advance Payment. No advance payment. Accounting period.
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