we've been forced, by necessity, to set up our own press outreach infrastructure and to self-publish all our stuff, so we own full rights to our ip, although we do give our revenue share to partners and sometimes contractors https://twitter.com/djf1107/status/1341599797698916352

now that we have partners that we have a mutually beneficial relationship with we are still very careful not to sign away rights to our ip; we can do what we want with it and nobody has even soft rights to sequels and/or spinoffs (such as right of first refusal)

deals that we make for our games are on a game-by-game basis and generally do not include rights beyond that game which means we are free to franchise without future involvement, or even do stuff like remakes on our own

our partners know that they're providing a valuable part of our business strategy and that so even without soft rights to our ip we will continue doing business with them in the future, because it helps everyone. they don't need a loaded gun in our contracts to force it

basically, if a business approaches us in an adversarial way during negotiations, i.e. they seem to feel that they must get as much as possible because negotiations have only one winner and one loser, i.e. they don't seem to believe in win-win, we nope the hell out of there

if it looks like they may want to forcibly entangle themselves into our business or a game franchise long term, we nope the hell out of there

if it looks like they think they should get 50% or more share of revenue when WE made THE DAMN GAME, we nope the hell out of there (unless it's a very small game like ultra hat)

if it looks like their contract gives them a blank check for a nebulous set of "recoupable expenses" without specifying what those are, a maximum, or saying they must be mutually agreed upon, we nope the hell out of there

and i'll never say never but if i get a whiff of venture capital from them (and tbh, that's most funding in games you'll get) then i'm incredibly inclined to noping the hell out of there because the strings that come with VC money is almost universally bad bad bad bad bad

tbh just getting too near businesses who are dealing in venture capital makes me feel gross, like i need a shower