Monday, February 12, 2007

You create it, you own it.

Video games are no longer a small thing that teenagers play on a friday night in their basement or dorm room, it's big business. In a multi billion dollar business many people try to get their hands in on the fortune. A new company is trying to put some fun back in the business and allow creators of games to keep their characters and rights to their own creations. Now creators that create the games have their rights and practically all aspects of the games taken from them from their publishers. The new business called Gamecook is taking a new direction, keeping the money and rights where they belong. If you made something wouldn't you want to keep ownership of it?

3 comments:

Cody said...

While I agree that it may be a good thing to let original producers keep royalties on their ideas, it's not like they are being forced to hand them over. The main focus here is about money, and not so much about being able to keep the rights of a video game character. Say someone has come up with a new idea/character/story for an amazing game, and takes it to a game publisher, said publisher offers $$$ in exchange for all rights to the game concept. The person that developed the concept has the choice of either taking the money and handing over the rights, or going to another publisher. Like the article states, letting the original producer maintain rights to a concept is extremely rare...why? Mainly because the publisher that buys your concept doesn't want other publishers to get their hands on the idea, which would cause competition for the game rights, which, in the long run, might swing a majority of gamers to purchase games produced under the rival publishers brand. The way I see it, Gamecock is not worried so much about exclusive titles under one company, and is focusing on letting people create games freely. The way I see it, however, is that competition among video game companies, as well as competition in everything else, keeps the market healthy and forces the publishers and designers to become more sharp and precise.

Danny Cawley said...

This is a great point. You designed it, so you should own all things related to it such as the characters and other rights. However, how will the people that create the games be able to mass produce it without proper funding from a bigger source like a publisher. It's a great point to bring up, but how would the publishers made any money if not from the games themselves?

Mitch said...

Well, if a developer wanted to have 100% royalties on eveything he created then he could publish and market the game himself. The only problem with this is that he is not a publisher. He doesnt know how, and doesnt have to resources to do this, this is why he goes to a publisher who does have the resources and knowhow. Publishers make their profit by doing their job, selling the game.