This is a great article : Why don't more game developers see royalties from their work?


It's about the question why development studios don't get any royalties anymore ...

The accompanying list : http://machinestudios.co.uk/viewentry.php?id=45

Comment by Gorath on RPGWatch :

Originally Posted by Gorath
I'm not quite sure what the author wants to tell us.

- Dev makes game for publisher. There's a contract about royalties, etc.
- Dev goes out of business. But the rights in the contract don't simply disappear.
- Somebody else buys these rights. Now he gets the royalties. Often the publisher is the one who buys the rights. He's the only one with precise numbers after all.
- Then the royalties are still being paid. From the publisher to the publisher. wink



My comment to him :

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Sounds unfair to me.

Edit : Great if the Publisher decides just to stop to pay out the royalties (and perhaps other money they are contracted to pay) and with this manages to drive the dev studio into bancruptcy … and then buy back the rights from them … This is the perfect scam !

Great question, by the way :

Quote
Ars: You wrote that you think developers have a kind of Stockholm Syndrome where they identify with the publishers that are taking advantage of them? What do you think it will take to change this?


Stockholm Syndrome ??? Devs with Publishers ???



Besides, this reminds me of the scandal in Canada with record companies who have NEVER been paying royalties to artists of the 50s and the 60s ... Always "pending" ... And still they sold records with their songs ...



Last edited by AlrikFassbauer; 09/02/12 06:31 PM.

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