#indiedev/ #gamedev business thread

In light of some current events, I thought I'd share some things I'm keeping in mind to protecc our company. I've heard so many horror stories and been part of some bad situations before, so there are some things I keep away from like fire 0/9

1. Don’t include shareholders (or give shares to people) who are in it only for the money and don’t care about the projects at all. This is where lotsa issues start w/ conflicts of interests.

Tricky point, but the rule of thumb is to just minimize the amount of shareholders 1/9

2. Revenue shares are arranged on a per-project basis. Company isn’t shared with people on the team. The teams could change and the workload of team members could change too. Easier to change the revenue share, than shareholders. Everybody knows others' stakes in the project 2/9

3. No NDA-s *inside* the company. We haven’t seen anything that we should really keep in secret yet. Sharing information inside indie networks is useful for everybody. Help others by sharing your information and you will be helped too. External NDAs still apply! 3/9

4. Never give away IP to publishers or others. If they want your IP, it's probably a bad deal (unless you *want* to exit). Keep the IP in the company and have IP contracts in place with everybody involved 4/9

5. Ensure that copyright is exercised correctly and authorship is properly credited. Provide references when asked by your colleagues, to showcase their work and effort on any of their projects 5/9

6. Make contracts with everybody as early in the project as possible. Do your research and/or consult a lawyer. Inform all of your people about their rights (and yours) and explain what the contracts can and cannot do 6/9

7. Be upfront about your way of working (all prev. points). Actively explain these principles to any/all partners who you work with, so they know who they are dealing with. Partnership requires trust between all parties, and that requires being open about your way of working 7/9

I was wondering what others think about these things. Am I overdoing it or does this list have some things that could be useful for most small indie game companies? Do you have some more reasons for and against these things? 8/9

Should I add something to protect the people/project/company? Would these things work in bigger companies too? Let me know what you think #gamedevs! 9/9