|
So since yesterday i am having a huge inner conflict, its literately keeping me up at night.
A few months ago, i approached a friend...and asked... Hey lets make a game?
Apparently he had already written down a game design document, so we decided to work on that.
I used a old server at home to provide with things like SVN.
I made a professional looking website, which i later used as a means to recruit and expand our team (you wont believe how important a good looking website is when trying to find new team members  ).
And i put alot of time into this project in general.
I recruited about 3/4th of our current team. Some even work in the professional industry and have huge experience, or crazy portfolios... right now we have a dream team, and if we can keep everyone motivated the future of our project is looking bright...
Its just..that a few days ago, my friend, with who i initially started the project with, showed up with a NDA contract and basically ordered me to sign it...together with another contract, that basically came down to this: If you use anything of market value that is made for the receiving party (My friend literally put his name on the paper as receiving party, instead of using our company name)....for other ends, you can get legally persecuted.
Its like him saying: I wrote the game design document, this was all my idea, i own all rights to this project.
No, i do not agree with his vision. Everyone should be on equal footing, this is a indie project, people work for free, you cannot make then sign contracts like this. This is not the way i want to run this project.
But i cannot do anything about it. Right now we are in a critical phase of development, if we show any weakness as founders of this project, our team will fall apart and we have to start over.
But how the fuck do i solve this then? I already expressed how i felt in a e-mail, sadly i have not yet had a reply. Should i just be straight forward about it and tell him that i do not want to sign a paper that is saying that all the work will end up in his possession alone, when im working for free?
Im just so tired of this fucking bullshit, everything went great, now this came up, at the worst fucking possible time, and if i am straight forward about it, it could simply mean the end of this project.
I dont care if he wants us to keep the information about the project to ourselves, and not disclose it. But not when we all have to sign a contract saying that everything we do ends up in his ownership, and that if we break the rules we might end up paying huge sums of money to him. Thats just fucking crazy in my opinion, and that is not the kind of mentality in which i want to spent my free time in. It just sucks that i already spent so much effort into this project, that simply leaving it is not something i can do without second thought.
Sometimes i wish life was a starcraft ladder, but in real life, you cant just defeat the other player, sometimes you have to work together, it just sucks when the other player doesnt realise this. GG NO RE???
 
|
Hey man, I would not sign it if I were, especially if he has gotten it written up by a lawyer or anything. If I were in your situation and he still forced this, then I would have to back out, as you are already doing this for free, and there is no sense jeopardizing your life/career over something that may/ or may not take off.
I know that's probably not what you wanted to hear, but that's my take on it. Good luck in whatever you choose.
|
Group up with the other members and negotiate?
|
On September 04 2013 08:32 WoolySheep wrote:
Hey man, I would not sign it if I were, especially if he has gotten it written up by a lawyer or anything. If I were in your situation and he still forced this, then I would have to back out, as you are already doing this for free, and there is no sense jeopardizing your life/career over something that may/ or may not take off.
I know that's probably not what you wanted to hear, but that's my take on it. Good luck in whatever you choose.
Yea indeed. There is no way i will sign this. So i am going to ask him: Whats more important for you, my aid, or some pieces of paper?
If the project itself is the most important for him, i am sure he will make the right decision...if however, he is a power hungry maniac, i probably wont feel bad leaving this project.
@xboi
That is a option. However, it will do more harm then good. The most ideal solution would be, if this can be settled between me and my friend without anyone else knowing all this ever happened. We got people who recently joined, who got paid jobs in the game industry, in the movie industry, etc. People like that have enough options, its a privilege that they decided to join our project, but the sad truth is, they are often the first to abandon ship as soon as they smell smoke.
I have been project leader of a small project a few years ago, and if i learned one thing, it is that a project leader must be a servant to his team, you must listen and take into consideration everything that is said, you cannot force your will on anyone, not with people who work for free, and that is the mistake my friend is making..not only with the contracts, but he is also forcing deadlines to people who have real jobs and families to worry about in the first place. Stuff like that kills your team, and i find it sad, because it wasn't easy gathering this team.
|
doesnt look like running a project sucks, looks like your friend sucks
sorry to hear 
|
A compromise is in order. Both parties need each other for the concept to survive and frankly, he needs you guys more than you need him. I'm sorry it's your friend doing this to you. If he won't back down my suggestion would be to kick him from the team and develop your own concept with the remaining members.
|
That's no friend, waiting till the last minute to give you this contract so if you back out you lost all your time that you gave him for free.
Does completing the game mean more to you than leaving it unfinished to spite your friend? What are your motivations for completing the game (other than that you spent so much time on it already). Sometimes you just have to cut your losses. Unless people are depending on you to produce this game (idk kickstarter?), is there any benefit to you for completing it if you sign this contract? If not, I'd walk with the rest of the team or negotiate hard.
|
this really sucks op. You should probably consult a lawyer to see what your options are and then have a talk with your "friend". From your op it's hard to tell who has the most leverage on this project, you'd want that person (or people ) on your side before you confront your friend.
On an unrelated note, is anyone else shocked at Epishade's completely normal reply? No rocks or grasshoppers or anything!
|
Simply tell him that the everything made belongs to the company, not his person. What other company would ever do that?
|
Take tell him you'll take a few days to look it over and propose changes. DIscuss the document with your team and highlight the critical passages, and ask for revisions. Get a lawyer friend to take a pass if someone on the team has one, then provide a revised document or take take it to social media! Is this a kickstarter project?
|
How could you ever start working without having these things settled? You NEED to write up a contract immediately that gives all the rights to the game to your company which I assume you own 50/50.
This guy is obviously not your friend but a person that has been trying to profit off your abilities as a project leader only to rip you off when he no longer needs you. You need to hit back, contact a lawyer this second, seems to me that you'd have a pretty reasonable case to say that you have a spoken agreement. Since you're Belgian a spoken agreement amounts to quite much and you can simply make the case that you would have never worked for free if you didn't expect to get credit.
Again, contact a lawyer this second and make your "friend" understand that you will not give in without a long court battle that may just swing in your favor (and is gonna cost him big bucks).
|
How have you got this far into it without deciding who owns the product?
Was it originally not for profit and has become potentially profitable or something?
|
Thanks for all the feedback :D.
The main issue is that we are not yet registered officially as a company. You need to spent alot of money on a notary and other things to get registered as a company. Our plan was to finish up our prototype, attempt to get the attention of investors, etc (its all still a pipedream). Once we were past that phase i wouldnt mind putting my own money on the table to get registered as a company, i am just not prepared to do this when still prototyping, because so many things can still go wrong, and it would mean losing alot of money. Also we need to be able to pay a few commercial licenses for the software we use, which is also very expensive, so without getting the attention of investors, or succes with crowdfunding, the project is doomed to fail anyway.
In our theoretical company there would be a board of directors, that way we do not get shitty situations like this.
I am now trying to convince him that before we start with frigging contracts and whatnot, we need to get registered as a company officially. I want guarantees that he wont fuck us over at the end of the ride, without that im not prepared to continue.
In the end this is all way to much drama about things that actually do not matter to a bunch of guys wanting to make a game in their spare time. But yea, maybe i will make a blog post about the project soon, with a video of us playtesting our prototype build... if there is not some shitty NDA contract preventing me from doing that (in which case i most likely left anyway).
|
whaqt a shitty "friend" G_G
GL SupplyBlockedTV
|
Part ways with him now. Let him sue if you really make lots of profit, he won`t be able to afford the lawyers you will be able to afford. If it does not make profit, there is nothing for him to gain. You got his ideas, everything he had to offer, he is a worthless unthankful burden to you and your team now.
|
don't sign. tell him its a group thing. if he don't listen then see if you can boot him out or just walk out.
I was in a similar situation. but a film project instead. I came up with the idea, fronted thousands towards it, and the initial group wanted equal ownership, and I was cool with that.
but then they started inviting their friends to join as equals, which I still agreed to. but the new guys started coming up with ideas and wanted to push me down to junior partner.
so I left, and took my shit I paid for.
project collapsed. never doing business with my friends again.
put your friend in check.
|
On September 05 2013 04:01 JimSocks wrote:
don't sign. tell him its a group thing. if he don't listen then see if you can boot him out or just walk out.
I was in a similar situation. but a film project instead. I came up with the idea, fronted thousands towards it, and the initial group wanted equal ownership, and I was cool with that.
but then they started inviting their friends to join as equals, which I still agreed to. but the new guys started coming up with ideas and wanted to push me down to junior partner.
so I left, and took my shit I paid for.
project collapsed. never doing business with my friends again.
put your friend in check.
I did the same, except with a notable SC2 team.
|
On September 05 2013 04:01 JimSocks wrote:
don't sign. tell him its a group thing. if he don't listen then see if you can boot him out or just walk out.
I was in a similar situation. but a film project instead. I came up with the idea, fronted thousands towards it, and the initial group wanted equal ownership, and I was cool with that.
but then they started inviting their friends to join as equals, which I still agreed to. but the new guys started coming up with ideas and wanted to push me down to junior partner.
so I left, and took my shit I paid for.
project collapsed. never doing business with my friends again.
put your friend in check.
Damn, that must suck very hard....thats even worse then the situation i am in.
The odd thing is, we did some mailing back and forth today....he said....no no, i will have you sign a different contract so that i cant screw you over...he will be speaking to a lawyer about it tomorrow. WTF MAN, are you paying a lawyer to make contracts for us to sign?????? Over a fucking indie project thats just starting. For me this is a clear sign that something is not right, you do not go to this kind of lengths for the greater good.
I think that he believes his idea is so great that he must have a monopoly over it legally. Yet what he doesnt understand is that in the game industry ideas are worth nothing. You need to be able to build it, blueprints alone have little to no value. Everyone has ideas!
(i am not saying i have more rights over this project then him, and i understand that someone must take up the position of leader, and that i dont mind. But you cannot claim everything yours when people are working for free, the world doesnt work that way. Yea sure, we are building on his game idea, but does that gives him automatically the right to claim everything his?)
What gives him right to claim this project his, when we have a programmer, sound artist, concept artists, 3d artists working hard on this project....so what makes his position greater then the work these guys do? All he did in the end was write some design documents.
And even, without me, he wouldnt be this far at all, he wouldnt have a great team in the first place, so why is he doing all of this without consulting anyone first? We are a team, not a master and his slaves;
Fuck, i told it right in his face. Choose: Me or your contracts. Lets see what he answers...guess i can always start my own project without him...it will take time to build up a team and start prototyping again..but atleast i wont have contracts being shoved in my face.
Sucks for anyone who has been in a similar situation...greed makes people act very odd.
|
yeah, its better to sort it out now. heck if he disagrees, i'm pretty sure most of the team will probably join your new project.
|
I hope we get an update on this situation when he replies back.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
