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Programming Entertainment Games IT Technology

A Game Developer's Bill of Rights 46

Posted by Zonk from the monday-wackiness dept.
Gamasutra has another piece from the always interesting Eric Zimmerman, where he offers up A Game Developer's Bill of Rights. From the article: "A Game Developers' Bill of Rights is part of this ongoing discussion, a provocation that draws attention to a set of important issues and challenges facing our industry. It highlights some of the problems that developers face as they try to create games and grow our industry, both creatively and commercially ... A Game Developers' Bill of Rights is not meant to be a strictly practical document. I did not write it as a guide for contract negotiation, nor as a set of legal standards for developer/publisher agreements. But I do believe that the positions represented by the articles in the Bill of Rights are absolutely the correct and proper ethical positions to take."
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A Game Developer's Bill of Rights More

A Game Developer's Bill of Rights

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  • Creative Crisis... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 ) on Monday November 21, 2005 @06:31PM (#14085674)
    Does this "Bill of Rights" compels developers to do new and exciting games? Or will we get more exciting rehash of last year's games?
    • Off-topic, but... I don't think it could be called a "Bill of Rights" if it was "compelling" people to do things.
  • I noticed that all of these have to do with money. What about not being liable for 'video-game-induced' violence. What about the right to do things correctly, rather than quickly?

  • you forgot... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rs_Conqueror ( 838344 ) on Monday November 21, 2005 @06:41PM (#14085762)
    #14. The right to overtime pay #15. the right to take days off to get married/attend funurals. #16. the right to sleep.

    • Re:you forgot... (Score:5, Funny)

      by MagicDude ( 727944 ) on Monday November 21, 2005 @07:56PM (#14086455)
      #14. The right to overtime pay

      You're already paid over time. See, I give you a paychek for 1/26 of your annual salary every 2 weeks, instead of giving it to you all at once. Thus, you are paid over time.


      #15-A. the right to take days off to get married

      If you have time to find a mate, you're obviously not working hard enough for the company.


      #15-B. the right to take days off to attend funurals

      Very well, you may have a day off to attend your own funeral.


      #16. the right to sleep.

      See point 15-B.

      • Re:you forgot... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 )
        Sadly, points 15-A, 15-B and 16 are the reasons why I left the video game industry.

        On the other hand, I'm working on the Help Desk for a large company working only 40 hours a week but making the same kind of money when I was working 80 hours a week in the video game industry. Go figure.

  • Bill of Player's Rights (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Digital Vomit ( 891734 ) on Monday November 21, 2005 @06:55PM (#14085881) Homepage Journal
    While this bill is a nice idea, it probably stands about as much chance of being honored as the Bill of Player's Rights [designersnotebook.com] (pdf link).

    That aside I fully agree with putting more control in the hands of content creators. It just doesn't seem right that the middle-man -- the publisher -- has almost all the control (in games, music, etc.). The creators are far more important than the distributors, and should be respected as such.

    • It's because they put up all the money. Remember, publishers foot the bill for the game which can be $10M to $20M and they pay for marketing that can approach at number as well. That's a big risk, seems like they should be reward for that risk to some degree.
      • That's a big risk, seems like they should be reward for that risk to some degree.

        Oh, absolutely. No one is saying they should not get anything back for their risk. I don't know where you're getting that from.

        A reasonable % ROI is good enough (10% or 20% or whatever). My point is the people who create something should be the ones in charge of that creation.

    • That aside I fully agree with putting more control in the hands of content creators. It just doesn't seem right that the middle-man -- the publisher -- has almost all the control (in games, music, etc.). The creators are far more important than the distributors, and should be respected as such.

      If by "should" you mean the publisher should be forced or obligated to give up control ... no. Not at all. It is entirely their decision, and any control the game designer has is because it has been granted to him b

  • A long held theory of mine (Score:5, Interesting)

    by xenocide2 ( 231786 ) on Monday November 21, 2005 @06:58PM (#14085922) Homepage
    Is that publishers are chiefly successful as they are because developer studios are equally bad at business. The great majority of developer studios exist as a team of developers, rather than a game development company, and the skills nessecary for a development team to write new code from scratch appear to be seperate from the skills nessecary to keep such a team in the black. Assembly code does not negotiate, and royalty payments are notoriously difficult to "profile."

    Notably absent from the Bill of Rights: the ability to prevent the sony rootkit disaster from happening. It's hardly a "creative dispute," and might fall under means of distribution, but the author appears to mean the medium such as internet, CDs in a box at retail, or a cell phone, rather than any copy protections. Of course, the rootkit disaster has already happened; gamers have just gotten used to the notion that it's okay to let a networked game operate in full Administator mode, for better or for worse. For products specifically designed for games and games alone, such as the Nintendo DS, this is largely irrelevant.

    The question is, how do developers negotiate these "rights"? At the moment there's scant few with the money and know-how to successfully enter the business of publishing. With so few publishers (growing smaller every day) and so many development studios aiming for their attention, it's difficult to get even something as trivial as the right to buy your property back after five years when any given publisher knows that their rivals don't routinely offer such a provision. Internet distribution is okay for PC, but every day it seems as though PC is becoming less and less relevant (thanks, X-Box!), and advertising such a product is nebulus at best.
  • 9. The right to a publishing arrangement that reflects the iterative nature of game development; one that recognizes that changing a game as it is developed is part of creating a game.

    Wait a minute, does this guy work for 3D Realms? Iterative development is one thing, infinite development is another...

  • foremost authority in game design (Score:3, Insightful)

    by The Kow ( 184414 ) <{putnamp} {at} {gmail.com}> on Monday November 21, 2005 @07:28PM (#14086205)
    I disagree with the statement that "Game Designers should be considered the foremost authority on their craft."

    I think the foremost authority on good game design lies in the hands of the people who play it. Like it or not, game designers aren't being paid to make art, they're being paid to make entertainment. If they make art in the process, sobeit, and that's great (people, including myself, appreciate these things), but I'm not paying them to make some elegant design, or the best graphics engine ever, or performance-hog special effects, or voice acting from Alec Baldwin. I'm paying them to make a game that is fun. I'd like Civilization 4 just as much without Leonard Nimoy (or someone who sounds just like him) reading the Civopedia entries in-game.
    • Yes and No. Although the developer and publisher must keep the end user in mind, often true innovation comes when someone, usually the developer says, "Hey I've never seen a game do [blank] before. I wonder how fun would that be." And the feature is implemented. Ask the game players and they won't necessarily know if the designer has the right idea until given a chance to give the game a test run. Of course Focus Groups may be a solution to this, but baring time and/or money often a developer's hunch a

  • reaching for the sky... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cursion ( 257184 ) on Monday November 21, 2005 @07:33PM (#14086249) Homepage
    I predict game developers wont get very far with getting those rights. You work in the machine, you play by the machine's rules. You don't like the rules, you get out of the machine.

    Their first thing about ownership of what they create - no suit will get past that one! Their lawyers would have nightmares about sorting out who owns what on the screen at any given time - and how much profit each one is making. (Think "I created the gun Bob uses in that scene!".)

    They say it's based on the bill of rights for comic creators - how much have Marvel and DC bend for that? What did Todd, Keith and the the rest of them at Marvel do? They left. They formed Image.
    That's the only way the game developers are going to get what is in that bill of rights.

    I thought they wanted sane hours and pay for the hours worked? Why not make a bill of rights a little more basic?

    • You're misinterpreting- this isn't a suggestion for a game programmer's bill of rights, but a development house's. So it would be a bill of rights for Firaxis (makers of the Civ series) when they deal with TakeTwo (the distributors). Not for Bob the Coder to deal with his boss.
    • They say it's based on the bill of rights for comic creators - how much have Marvel and DC bend for that? What did Todd, Keith and the the rest of them at Marvel do? They left. They formed Image.
      That's the only way the game developers are going to get what is in that bill of rights.

      Exactly.

      How many book authors have total control? Script writers? Reporters? Whoever foots the bill calls the shots, and you have no rights to anything unless it is spelled out in the contract, and you know what? You need the

  • Unions (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bill_kress ( 99356 ) on Monday November 21, 2005 @08:32PM (#14086711)
    It's funny how most engineers seem to lean to the right when it comes to corporations and free market.

    I think this comes from a complete lack of ability to empathize with or understand situations that are removed from their own.

    Currently you find significant resistance to words like "Union" because it clashes with their free-market faith, but as the market shifts and starts crushing engineers, you'll see them clamoring for restrictions on business and union-style solutions.

    This is already starting to become evident--in these days of Indian labor and off-site contracts I'm starting to hear less from the free-marketeers and more from people seeing the problems that always come when you get close to a true free-market (Such as this article).

    keep your eyes open, you'll see more soon.
    • It's funny how most engineers seem to lean to the right when it comes to corporations and free market.

      Being sensible is funny? OK.

      I think this comes from a complete lack of ability to empathize with or understand situations that are removed from their own.

      No, it comes from a deep and broad understanding of how the economy works, and does not work.

      Currently you find significant resistance to words like "Union" because it clashes with their free-market faith, but as the market shifts and starts crushing engi

  • Poor Effort (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by bateleur ( 814657 )
    From the article: "To quote Greg Costikyan from an argument he was having with a game publisher at a conference reception a few years ago, a developer should retain the rights to a game "because they fucking should, that's why." This kind of laziness in a debate risks completely discrediting the entire concept. The default position from which this debate begins is: Developers are competing with each other to attract millions of dollars in advances from a publisher. If one developer wants to retain rights
    • Pffft! You know what he needs to get? He needs to get... over himself.

      For cryin' out loud. Game design is a fun job. If it wasn't, companies would have to pay more to get people to do it.

      Everybody who works in game design is probably qualified to work at a bank somewhere making twice the money in fewer hours per week with an easier job. If you choose to shoulder your way into the ultra-glamourous game industry, you should not be surprised that you are treated about as well as a 1930s Hollywood dancing
  • I work for a studio wholly owned by a large developer. We seem to have more creative control than we did at a large independent studio. This does depend on the publisher of course.
  • Dude. You have no rights to anything. It's what you WANT, not what you have a RIGHT to. And feel free to negotiate those terms when you sign your contract. Else, shut up and code, you little monkey.
  • Great. Good for you. If you can't, then you won't get it. Just ranting on the internet that "I deserve this" and "I should get that" is only effective at generating conversation. Your best shot is at forming a union, but that will only work if you can restrict the supply of labor until the companies cave. Good luck, we're all behind you.
  • In order to ever have a hope of winning demands such as these, unionization is important. Look, for example, at working conditions and such in the film industry. This kind of model could be easily applied to organizing within the game industry, particularly if one took into account the dynamics in the high-tech industries.

    For anyone whose interested... Some good starting points for more information include: IWW Electronic Communication Workers [iww.org] and Washington Alliance of Technology Workers (WashTec) [washtech.org]. I'

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