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/vr/ - Retro Games

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8864048 No.8864048 [Reply] [Original]

Do the original devs get any money when collections like these are released?

>> No.8864052

>>8864048
lol no

>> No.8864054

>>8864052
So there's no royalties?

>> No.8864069

>>8864048
I'm not even sure if the current devs get paid for when games like this get release, but it probably increases the chances of them getting work again at Sega.

>> No.8864073

>>8864048
>>8864054
Royalties commonly go to the parent companies and publishers who hold the rights. "Authorship" rights are a rare thing in the industry except for exceptional cases, as most designers are essentially employees working for salaries, not work-for-hire contractors compensated with a fixed sum and maybe other negotiated assets.

>> No.8864087

>>8864054
The games industry isn't unionized. The workers get a salary and nothing else. The company who paid the bills gets all the IP rights and profit.

>> No.8864134

>>8864087
Unions arent a catch-all solution to everything wrong and inequal about the business world. They mostly focus on base salaries and work conditions, which is plenty to worry about. Intellectual/creative rights are outside their scope.

Ultimately, those rights are something more related to contract-work, such as what writers, filmmakers, actors etc work under. If you accept a salary you are a "retainer" accepting security and stability with the tradeoff of agency and control over what you work in.

Corporations and Fordian assembly-line mindsets fucking suck, but that core fact doesn't override the fact that there are alternatives, which happen to have their own downsides. Demanding the best of boh worlds under a generic high-minded banner of what's "right" is a bit naive and unrealistic.

>> No.8864160

Devs are fully paid for their work by the time the game is finished. They're not really owed anything more according to the contract.

>> No.8864165

>>8864054
To the rights holders then yes, but anon when you publish a game you sell those rights to the publisher in exchange for cash for/help with making or marketing your game.

>> No.8864196

>>8864160
so if the game is a huge success beyond expectations, they don't see a cent more? there's no bonuses?

>> No.8864197

>>8864196
Likely not. If they strike gold, they earn the right to maybe be in charge of making sequels. They're hired to make something for their owner (the publisher), not to be the owners of something. It sucks but that's business.

>> No.8864201

Sonic Jam did, and was probably the only one.

>> No.8864210

>>8864196
Why would they? Depending on what sort of employer is running the show he might treat them to some incentives or even raising their salaries after a really good year. If they don't, that doesn't make the company unfair or evil; as a employee you're owed nothing except what's specified in your contract.

>> No.8864231

>>8864196
That's how publishing works anon, you sell the rights and all of the profits for an up-front sum. That's why people say that piracy doesn't hurt game devs, because it literally does not cut into their profits.

>> No.8864245

>>8864210
i'm not saying that it's evil. i just don't know how any of the financial stuff in video games really works.

>> No.8864262

>>8864245
>game dev has concept
>concept pitched to publisher
>publisher gives the game dev a lump sum in exchange for 100% ownership over the IP from said concept and a promise that the concept will become a game
>game dev uses said lump sum to pay people to turn the concept into a real game
>publisher sells the game to make back the lump sum plus any profit
>repeat
That's about it.

>> No.8864275

>>8864262
It's also not always 100% ownership but that's not that common with western releases.

>> No.8864282

>>8864196
>be parcel delivery man
>sudden boom in online shopping over the course of one year
>company now making hand over fist in deliveries while parcel drivers make little extra
This happens everywhere.

>> No.8864315

>>8864262
Don't oversimplify things anon. There's business models that allow to retain creative ownership fully or in part for contract work, it boils down to negotiation; the financing partner will of course want to get as much out of the deal as possible, just like the creative partner does. Intellectual rights are an abstract commodity, but hey ARE a commodity just like the money that is also required to move the project forward. All those factors are pooled in and each party is responsible to look out for their own interests in what comes out of them. An "unfair" deal is attributable as much to greed as it is to ignorance.

Anyway, this is for studios working with publishers as separate entities. Major companies that handle development and publishing both (like SEGA was once upon a time) are a different ecosystem: even project directors are employees, and it's likely they might not see "points on the package" even for hit projects, thought that would open the chance to move up in the company.

>> No.8864351

>>8864048
It depends from contract to contract, there is no real way to know.

Some contracts involve regular salary during dev + royalties, some contracts involve only the former, some contracts involve only the later (usually smaller devs).

However if a contract involved royalties when the game was first released and said contract hasn't changed, then royalties are also due in any subsequent re-release unless otherwise specified. Doesn't matter if the company was bought ten times, the contracts carry over.
Then there is the question of whether those royalties are indeed paid without threatening to sue, but that's another matter.

Now, the reason you're asking this is probably because you want to be fair to the devs. This is where your reasoning is wrong. Most devs would not care for royalties, they'd care to get paid while making the game and would rather have a salary and no royalties than a smaller salary or no salary at all and a "hmm MAYBE you'll earn something months after the game is out, but then again maybe not!", which is what royalties amount to. Never forget that royalties being paid involve dev budget being recouped first.

In other words, devs not getting royalties is not a good reason not to pay for the game. Even if no royalties at all were involved, the publisher worked like a bank, he used money from his own pocket to budget the game and pay the devs, and then gets it back from sales. In such cases, meaning sales money is also money going to dev, just through a bank system that makes it happen.

>> No.8864379

>>8864351
>Some contracts involve regular salary during dev + royalties
Is this a thing? I'd say the most common formula as a studio would be to negotiate a budget based on a development plan (including salaries for you and your team/employees for the estimated development time, plus responsibilities of exhausting that time)

>> No.8864395

>>8864379
>Is this a thing?

Sure, there are some famous stories out there from any period of time. Like Tod Frye (employed at Atari) getting that 1 million dollar royalties check, or some of the Duke Nukem 3D devs (also employed) being promised 3% royalties yet being told they'd only get 1% once the game is out and was a best seller. Now that I think about it though, these cases are usually dev+publisher being the same entity.

>> No.8864407

>>8864395
Yeah, I was mostly referring to the regular salaries thing in the context of an independent studio financed by a bigger company.

>> No.8864424

>>8864048
stop rebuying the same games and get something you'll actually play from your favorite indie auteur :-)

>> No.8864442

>>8864407
I wouldn't rule out the possibilities in those cases, though it's probably more rare.

Salary + royalties would involve something in return, most likely meaning less money given up front by the publisher which they might see as a good thing, and in the end if they owe royalties it also means they're making money too at which point giving some of it is less of a problem (because again, royalties only get paid once dev cost has been recouped, meaning if the contracts of the Daikatana devs involve royalties they'd never see any cent haha) .

It all depends on negotiations at the start and what everyone wants, just like in some cases the publisher does not get any ownership on the game, just money from the sales (or sometimes a publisher will even ask another publisher to publish the games for them, even in "their" region). I doubt any dev's going to ask royalties for a sholveware game they make only to put food on the table.

That's why I said there is no real way to know, it's a case by case basis really.

>> No.8864453
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8864453

>>8864315
>Don't oversimplify things anon.
Yeah I just didn't see the need to give anything but a basic response to someone who has no clue how the publishing process works, if the anon I replied to wanted to get anything more than a greentext explanation they could have just went to wikipedia

>> No.8864458

>>8864262
>>game dev has concept

Except when it's the publisher who has the idea. Like the majority of sequels.

>> No.8864464

>>8864458
Usually the ideas for the "majority of sequels" is just the publisher going "this new IP you guys came up with made good money, we need a sequel", or sometimes "this new IP you guys came up with made good money, we need a sequel in a different subgenre"

>> No.8864470

>>8864458
"Do it again" isn't an "idea" as such.

>> No.8864473

>>8864458
>that thing you did, do more of it
great idea, publishers are such geniuses.

>> No.8864482

>>8864458
>Make us a game for this genre that's popular right now, we need to beat out the competition
Thus Sonic was born.