Licensing vs. Sponsorship

Kinda, but it is all relative, and remember, they are paying. If you were buying something, you'd want more benefits :)

If you're 13 and someone offers you $200 for doing something you enjoy doing as a hobby ( Hmmmm that sounds filthy without actually meaning to for a change ) they you'll take it.

It's a question of how much you want and how much you need.

It is all very relative. A lot of the stuff which is sponsored is total dross. There's no way the developer would make a penny any other way, so why not ?

I've pretty much slipped off my high horse about people selling themselves short, and keeping prices low. For all my posts about it I don't think a single word I've said on the subject has had any real difference to anyone, so why bother ?
All the times I've dived into a thread where somebody has offered $50 for a game, and people have been tripping over themselves to undercut even that amount, total waste of time. The "client" obviously has no standards at all, and anyone stupid enough to offer to do a paid job for free ( For the "Experience" ? Go work down Burger King a couple of days a week for free then, experience customer care, team work, dealing with money, stock rotation and all the other stuff that goes with it ) isn't going to produce anything of any note anyway.

So if you're new to selling your Flash stuff, it won't hurt you to get your toes wet with sponsorship. Just do it with your eyes open. It's not a good deal, but it's the best you're going to get unless you write something pretty damn sweet.

Squize.

From what i have read, Licensing is the way to go.

Is there a site that can explain what a contract should say for flash games, like a draft or somthing that people can use and edit to there situation?

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Originally Posted by tomsamson

I see it as a bit unrealistic to say "do a contract which gives away your source and then get a lawyer before signing any contracts and then sue them once they abuse your source files".

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Would it be better to sell your swf files without source fla, never consult lawyer and sign anything client has proposed? The fact that most people dont understand legal agreements and are willing to sign agreements without knowing the result is to me more worrying then keeping the source files.

As I see it, Flash itself has become quite complicated program to use. It may not be complicated to you, but if your client has same knowledge on Flash they probably wont bother buying your game at all, they would just program similar game from scratch. On the other hand, swf rippers have become extremely easy to use, they do not require huge knowledge of Flash, all you do is click some buttons and change some assets. If someone would want to modify your game it could be easier to modify swf directly without Flash.

I am not saying that you should spread your source files all over the world, all I am trying to point out here is that content of swf is not protected any more then fla is.

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Originally Posted by Gloo pot

Is there a site that can explain what a contract should say for flash games, like a draft or something that people can use and edit to there situation?

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Yes, like lawyers give something for free :)
Its like asking for dentist to create "fix-your-own-teeth" site with free tutorials and advice.

Flash games are not different from other stuff. You could look around in Creative Commons site:
http://creativecommons.org/

Thanks tony, im checking it out now.

If you include the source with a deal you are in effect handing over your entire IP.

As games are coded a lot more modular these days, it's not too much of a stretch to imagine core routines being lifted from a game and re-used for other projects if you're including the source.

It's fair enough to say it's easy to rip and hack swf's, but if they're doing that they're breaking the law straight away. If you've included the source as part of the cost of your game it suddenly becomes very grey, esp. if the use for the source hasn't been covered in the contract.

Also it's a million times easier to re-work something from the original ( Commented code, with it's own folder structure ) than just from a fla generated from the swf.

As a rule we never hand over the source, and if there's no way to avoid that we have it in the contract that it's only for back-up purposes ( ie, if an amendment is needed and we've gone bust ).
It's a lot cheaper to employ a freelancer to re-work something from the source files than to hire an agency to re-work something.

Squize.

I am confused about something
Lets say some portal owner cames to you and says:Give me your game, i will put it in my site,everyone will see and you can license it.
But, the reason why someone would want to license your game is to attract more players to his own site and make money with banners
But this is what the first one is getting for free!Using your work!
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I am beginning to think everyone should have his own games portal

It depends how it's done.

Leason does that at pnF, and it works pretty well. He's done it so games are split between free and "premium" quality ones, the latter being the ones people pay to licence for their own site.

In effect Lee is a middle man for developers. He can reach a much larger audience than I could, or that I'd even want to bother doing.

The hook with pnF is that all the games are tied into his hi-score system, so it doesn't have as wide as base as other schemes, but you know that people have spent time and effort building up their sites and don't want just another shovelware site knocked out in frontpage. It's more web developers who want some good quality sticky content and can't afford to get a developer to do a bespoke game for them, it's not a 14 year old with a bit of free web space thinking they're going to be the next miniclip.

Squize.

I use mochiAds in my game, and it works pretty well. I get paid depending on how many people see it and I want to distribute my game all over the web to maximize my revenue. As far as I'm concerned, if they're good enough to steal my code, they're good enough to write their own, so I might as well give it to everyone before they can steal it.

Its better this way because if a million people see my game, I get paid at least as much as I would if a site had sponsored me and there is no risk of copyright infringement.

Point 1.

Dunno about which countries legislation you guys are talking here but to give you a real-case example that happened in our company like 3 years ago(Europe).

We made a film ad for a product, and as usual, got our gfx material protected by companies who's job it is and which doesn't cost anything (like paying 10 dollars once and you are protected all your creative life).

Then the company for which we made the film made a website and used the gfx of the film ad without asking, not even sending a box of chocolate.

Well we weren't too glad about that, and their financial ass still hurts today because of that - the person in charge of the deal in their company was sacked weeks after the events.

So I won't be worry about anyone trying to steal any of our creation - be more like encouraging them too :p


Point 2, seems like the original post is about "hey kids stop screwing our business by cuting the prize down" more than any wisdom to me. Which I can understand and respect, but then just say it straight...

Ain't too sure about making big bucks by licensing or sponsoring.

The way we made (some of) our money was by contacting companies that needed visual stuffs (comics, music,...) and show them some alpha and propose to adapt it to their needs. Those guys are usually happy with very simple point and click and when they are happy, they surely call back every months.

I would advice any kid around to go that way if they wanna make a living out of their flash skills and keep away from the licencing/sponsoring unless they want to make their mom proud because their game is on tons of website.

If you code your games wisely, you can re-use them to death and customers won't see a thing. We sold a pong - pong! for christ sake !!! - one year ago to one of our usual customers and he went WOW that's coooool!

Yeah we're bad...

so what... :mrpimp: