Maybe about a year ago, a friend and I discussed starting up a development team. A few weeks ago he told me that his friend and him were starting up a development team and he wanted me to join. So far it is him as the coder/game develper, his friend as game developer, and myself as graphics/webpage. Later on he told me that my cut of the deal would be 12% of our earnings, and I almost had a heart attack. We are now discussing what would be fair % for each person. This also means that any person we hire for that part of the development we have to pay with our percentage. Does anyone know what a fair percentage would be? Note by saying im doing graphics I mean, everything from character concept, 3d animation, enviroments, cgi, layout, and any graphic wise related parts.

(Assuming you really can do art)
I think that 12% is waaay too low. I think that you should split the profit equally (unless they use "But we started this team" - argument, which sucks).

What games are they going to make without any artists ? Textgames (whatever is the correct term) ? If they will split the 88%, it will be 44% for each of them. 44% for designer !? (No offense to anyone) That means, that your payment would be 27% of designers payment.

Grr... You should ask them how are they going to survive without an artist. And then you should point out, that not many artists (who can do more than sprites) would accept 12% payment.

When talking to him I told him we could split it in 3 ways which would be 33.33333% each, or whatever. Then we got into the discussion how our staff would come out of each individual %. I''m not trying to be a jackass here, but unless they want to make the game over a span of 10 years we would need staff in programing and graphics. Which would leave us either doing most of the game ourselfs or paying for most of the games staff, while the development guy can walk away with 33% profit and still has help from the programer. I am also making the companies webpage, future game webpages (source included), and logos (company logo included). The development guy has no experience beign a developer either. I can''t speak too highly for myself, but I''ve had some experience and im going to college for 3d animation. So by the time the games engine would be ready, I should have enough experience to uphold my positions. In reality i''m not expecting much profit from this game, but incase it did get published, or for future reference this would be very helpful to me and the staff.

There are many simple ways to create a fair system for this kinda thing ... but you got to realize this .. they are not trying to be fair ... so throw away any assumption you have that deep down they want a "fair" arangement ... they have proven by their original offer that deep down they are looking for a chump .. but they MIGHT be willing to play fair if someone makes them ...


There are many types of "fair" ... some people believe that fair is based on amount of time and effort ... others value more the supply / demand concept of compensation ... and still others believe in idea ownership (and that they are doing you a FAVOR to let you work for them for nothing) ...

A fair system must be built on a few ideas ... 1 ... that you will honestly accept that other people do important work (the design doesn''t seem to think artists do important work) ... and that you accept that you may not be valued by others, the way you value yourself. Basically offer them this proposition ... each person works for 1-2 weeks ... then presents their results to the team ... each team member rates the accomplishments of everyone, using a theoretical ... "productive work hour" unit ... so you each rate each others (and your own) work ... you discuss or argue a little .. VERY LITTLE .. and then simply decide this ... turn over your product to the group for that man shares of ownship (the average of everyone rating of it), or keep your work ... since they have not met your price ... (they can up vote to raise their evaluation to meet your price ... IF they want to ... if not .. everyone walks away ... with no more than 2 weeks production lost ...) YOU CANNOT get back ownership of things given to the group ... and the group CANNOT change the evaluation rules for the product in question .. without UNANYMOUS approval of all past and present members ....
also .. the group is identified as an entity who''s ownership exactly matches the shared so far handed out ... with no ownership until the first meeting.

respond with better ideas please.

Also wanted to mention this ... in the above system ... you don''t have to work every week ... your ownership shares are the TOTAL of all "purchased" work you have commited ... so if you slack for 3 weeks for vacation .. no one need be upset, because you will only get behind in ownership in an amount proportional to the work they did without you ... very fair indeed ...

so if you do 1/4 the work for a year ... and then quit ... and they do that much work 2 more times ... than you would end up owning 1/12 the title at ship time ...

it is also a good general policy that:

if you are quiting ... you give them what you are in the middle of .. FOR FREE ...

if they are firing you ... they pay you a fair share for what you''ve partially completed ...

by paid and free I mean only shares of ownership .. not real money ... since most of these things never sell at all .. the real money will usually be $0 ... but ownership still matters a little, when it''s time to make version 2 ...

ALSO .. you MUSt makes rules about code reuse ... almost all of these projects need to allow their member to use any of their own work for any other project they wish ... EXCEPT pieces that are the fundamentally tied to the title .. like the title .. the primary characters images and names, the most crucial piece of plot, the company''s logo and website, etc

Thanks ill try it out.

Dude,...if i were you....i wouldnt even work in such a team.
It doesnt seem like you really know these guys,..for one thing if i''m not starting a serious business and dont expect to make money from it,..i''d rather form a team with friends or people i can trust and know well enough.
You havent gotten half way throught the project have you?
And theres already all this unfiarness looming about.I seriously dont think you should continue with them but that is just my opinion.Read what Xai said as well.(but overall,..i''d say you should quit that team).
Thats my 2 pennies,..cents?(damn what currency am i spending again? )