Need advice: selling game rights?

**PhobiK** · 10-10-2009, 04:16 PM

I have a question for you guys if you can help me out. I sold a game in Flash Game License under a primary sponsorship. No source sold. The thing is that it seems that the company is having some issues in sponsoring the game so they would like to buy all the rights for the game, of course paying extra for them. The thing is that I don't want to sell them because of all the work and time it took, plus I still want to sell site-locked licenses (don't know if they'd give me this option if I sell the rights). So I'd like to hear your opinions; have you sold full rights of your games and what would you do? what plus and contras does it have? Maybe I'm not considering it well.

Thanks so much in advance!

**axcho** · 10-10-2009, 09:10 PM

I would advise against selling your source code, but then again I don't have much experience with such things.

In general it's not done, though. I know of some cases where it has turned out badly for the developers.

If the company is having issues sponsoring the game, that's their problem, not yours. Don't throw away your game just to help them out.

**tonypa** · 10-11-2009, 02:17 AM

Never sell full rights.

**bluemagica** · 10-11-2009, 03:06 AM

I would advice against this as well! Don't give away your hard work.

**cylly1** · 10-11-2009, 03:09 AM

Same here, you may really regret it further down the track

**BlinkOk** · 10-11-2009, 04:09 AM

everything has it's price. just ask for 50k or something like that. they can only say no right?

**PhobiK** · 10-11-2009, 11:30 PM

You've been of great help and made me become shure of not selling the rights. Thanks so much to all!!

**tomsamson** · 10-11-2009, 11:38 PM

i agree with the others, so yeah, good thinking

**PhobiK** · 10-12-2009, 12:06 AM

Thanks Tom! your opinion is always very valuable

**tomsamson** · 10-12-2009, 02:33 PM

np, you´re welcome man

**Pazil** · 10-13-2009, 04:50 PM

I do have a related question...I recently finished a gallery for a client, and the question came up of the rights that he bought. The contract was very unofficial, and as far as I see it, he bought just the permission to use the .swf file. He has asked for the source code occasionally.

I'm just wondering what people normally do around here? Do they sell source as well?

P.

**tomsamson** · 10-13-2009, 05:49 PM

I´d make the difference between work for hire and selling usage licenses.
In case of work for hire you do exactly that: a client has a certain task/ project in mind and you do that for an agreed on sum. In return the payment should be a good one because you essentially develop something to his exact wishes which then belongs to him or at least you hand out the source code and he can do with it and the build what he wants to.
Quite different to that is licensing out certain usage rights to some content.

Sure there are all sorts of in between and overlap options but that´s the base differentiation i´d make.

**Pazil** · 10-13-2009, 05:57 PM

The thing is, is I made him a 3d fly-through gallery for 200 USD, which I'm guessing is a bit on the low end of the price spectrum. I am only a beginner, so I assumed I'll start like a slave, and after building up confidence, raising the bar. It did take a long time to finally smooth out all the bugs anyways...
I'm still not sure...I would appreciate any more advice. I realize the details I've given are still very vague, but maybe it at least gives you a better idea of the situation?

I really do appreciate you're time!

**tomsamson** · 10-13-2009, 06:08 PM

Well, it sounds like you´re on shaky grounds there. On one side if it wasn´t initially said by either side that you´d hand out the source there´s no entitlement to it but on the other side in a work for hire situation its common that the client gets all project assets including the source so its no wonder he expects it then, so,well..
Hard to tell what i´d do, i´d probably bite the bullet and hand out the source in that case and remember to make such details clear beforehand next time.
On another note the "initially work at a low price and then raise it stepwise" attempt to my experience usually doesn´t work out. Maybe a client in either case doesn´t give you work again or if he does he then wonders why a similar task as previous time suddenly costs way more, and, well, its surely also not good for your work motivation when you work lengthy on something and have the feeling to not be compensated well for it. Best you tell the price that reasonably compensates your work effort each time.

**Ray Beez** · 10-13-2009, 11:47 PM

This is all fairly tricky, but trying not to be paranoid is a good start.

If a client is insisting on source code, you can offer to sell them rights without you losing your own rights. Instead of "assigning" rights to them, you "license" them the rights to use the source code, for X Y and Z purposes. I would charge extra for this and make sure the contract does not permit them sublicensing to other parties, does not permit them to distribute or give away the source, etc, etc. Basically it protects you, makes the client happy, and gets you a little extra cash.

**Pazil** · 10-14-2009, 03:38 AM

The client was very nice and not pushy about getting the source code, he only ever only asked about getting it really...
Thank you very much for the responses, I'll see what I can work out with him. And for official contracts, are there templates I can use or that are available?
Again, thanks!

P.

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