Shady contracts exposed: Publishers don't want you to see this. Why game development is terrible
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ก.ค. 2023
- Publishers don't want you to see this, an expose of what they do behind the scenes. This is particularly relevant to indie game developers.
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Why does half of the video sound different? That's me, and you'll be hearing more from me going forward. You don't need to watch any other video before watching this.
So is the main voice MVG🤔
Why is MVG narrating?
Who is MVG?
@@Hans5958 Modern Vintage Gamer
with NDA's that is only if they are compensated under contract law... not if they sign. you see it would be blackmail or extortion if they could do that... also would undermine the government's authority in court proceedings... not something I think the gov would be too keen on.
Hope you have a great day & Safe Travels!
I thought this channel was abandoned. Good to see you guys back.
I just revisited around the right time (did re-sub now).
A recent game, Roots of Pacha, was removed from Steam by Crytivo, the publisher. It's back up again, and Crytivo is no longer the publisher. That's something to look into.
Well, don't work with Steam or a Triple AAA publisher
@@keeganmcfarland7507 surely, we'll use the MS Store only and Crytivo is a AAA publisher, of course it is...
Missed this guy so much
me too ! A few days ago I wondered what happend to him. I happy to see him back
Been gone nine months, probably was having a secret baby
@@lamikal2515 He made another channel but it didn't get the audience.
Basically: You - Developer - take all the responsibilities and liabilities. We - Publisher - own your soul.
The devil itself hands out better contracts.
Phuck crytivo. Phuck modern gaming.
@@J0derVIVIVIBetter to stop working with a Triple AAA publisher and start making/publishing games by yourself
Publishers means ✡️
@@lenol0315 Stop working with Triple AAA publishers and publish a game by yourself
There are times, as a self-published novelist and indie developer who currently has both an upcoming game and released novels on Steam, that I question my madness in going it alone in this manner, contending with seemingly perpetual obscurity.
Then I see things like this, and I realise... I like my soul. I like owning my soul. I like not having signed my soul away to anyone.
Try working with someone to help cultivate a community. Being known means being talked about, so you may have to change how you develop the game in order to keep updates frequent enough to maintain the community's interest. Write-ups and community moderation are a lot of work for someone already wearing all the developer hats, so find people you can trust to help you out there. That could cost a bit, but it won't cost you your soul.
they dont offer anything... they just ask and ask, but offer nothing at all... Yhe going solo may be hard, but it's way better than going with this contracts
I haven't finished the video yet, but i wanted to point out something:
if the publisher is in charge of the QA activities, how on earth is on the Developer to deliver a bug-free product?
I would understand if by "Bug" they defined any issue raised during the QA activities that they offer, so it would be fair to have those bugs ironed out (with even an extensions on the Delivery Date if necessary), but if they didn't find a bug, it would be the Publisher's fault, not the developers, since the testing is done BY the publisher.
Otherwise i could withheld (as a publisher) a specific bug, wait for the delivery date and then tell them "hey there is this bug you didn't fix" and steal the game altogether without the Dev having any say in it. It's pure BS.
Like the RIAA and music industry, labels screw the artists/bands they sign.
Publishers screw the developers. For the last 25 years of my life, I have published myself. I have developed and written for myself. Am I popular? No. Am I wildly successful? No. But I own every creative output.
how a non-disclosure of how intensely you get screwed in business by someone is possible has gotta be the most illegal legal thing I have ever seen...
Yhe, it should be ilegal to sign an NDA befor signing a contract... they just do that way soo they cant discluse the contract cz they know it's not fair....
I miss this channel uncovering shady stuffs from gaming scene..glad that you peeps from down under are still active despite the inactivity..👌
this is like the music industry...you basically sign your rights away if you want the backing of a 3rd party and the exposure. they can't lose because you will pay them back regardless.
I saw that coming when they said "gold master". lol
@@Nurse_Xochitl But gold master is what the gaming industry has called the 1.0 version of any game for decades.
Simply put Crytivo is a thief "publisher", not a publisher. I would not be surprised if it is just a total scam.
And that's most publishers. It's the norm, not the exception, specially for indies.
Doesn't it cost like 200 to self publish a game on Steam? Why go to a 3rd party?
A ✡️✡️✡️
sounds to me like finding a publisher for a game is more like determining the winner of the evil villain of the year contest. "congratulations, we like your idea enough to force you to finish it or we'll steal it from you."
anyone who was programmed for more than an hour can tell you making any sufficiently large project completely bug free is impossible.
works for hire, record label contracts. Yeah, the shit that happened to artists.
i will dread the day when the first time some developer gets michael jackson'd so the publisher gets the rights
@@kajmak Now days we're far more civilized and humane about such practices.
We just accuse them of rape and not being leftist and let the mob do our dirty work for us.
So... it isn't much different from the public competition illustrating contract I've read back in 2019 before submitting the artwork. Now realizing I could have sold that artwork myself instead of forfeiting the rights. I missed on $40 by a single image but that's in third world currency is huge.
Thank God ever since then I always take 15 minutes minimum and a highlighter to read contracts and assess the tomfoolery with CTRL + F for buzzwords.
My man comes back with a 51 minute video! Truly a bless!
The contract is unbelievably one-sided, to the point that it might not be legally enforceable and may even be _illegal._ It incentivizes the publisher to lure in developers who haven't read the contract (which is intentionally written to be as opaque as possible and likely very long), wait until just before the game is ready (few games finish early), find some BS "bugs" as an excuse to cancel the contract, demand a full refund (instead of eating the loss like normal companies), then STEAL the game from the dev and publish it anyway and keep all of the proceeds, and if it succeeds, they can sell merch and movie-rights and all that other stuff for it form the IP they stole despite their claims, and finally, they can prevent the dev from telling the world about how badly they got screwed and warning other devs to stay away from the publisher because of the NDA. That's exactly the scenario contracts like these create. 😠
14:05 The only thing the publisher provides is a "professionally crafted website". 😂 Okay, so the contract gives them all the power in exchange for a single page using a template from Wix or Squarepsace or Wordpress. Okay. 🙄 Just go to those sites and make your own website. Use my code for 6969% off. No, really, they go on and on about how they'll make a website to sell the game, but these days, you can do ALL of that yourself for free, including the transaction stuff. (I love how they make a point of talking about "SSL certification" as if the tech-speak would be impressive and a SOFTWARE-DEVELOPER wouldn't know what that is to think that they're doing something that you can't literally do for free with LetsEncrypt. 😒)
14:31 They say they will provide a launcher/patcher. Um, Steam already does that. 🙄 They say their launcher/patcher will provide "maximum stability and security", um okay, and what happens if a bug is found in it? 🤨 Will the contract be voided and the developer (somehow 🤔) benefit?
14:45 The contract is overly specific when it's in the favor of the publisher and vague when it's in their favor. 😒
15:05 "Run 'eblast' events" - Read: they'll run ads on TH-cam, probably really bad ones that will make it into compilations of awful ads or people's videos nagging that YT demonetizes them for everything but allows garbage ads like those.
15:13 The publisher wants to take over any list of pre-orders, but the wording is so vague, it could apply to anything. Basically, they want to take the list of users in general.
16:00 The only thing the publisher actually does is marketing but it sounds like they provide mostly just stuff that you can do yourself, usually for free.
17:27 Crytivo gives only 20% of merch sales if they provide the funding for the products, but they still want 20% of merch sales that the dev paid for. 🤨 The dev gets royalties from merch sales that Crytivo pays to produce because it's their product, their IP. WTF would Crytivo be entitled to ANYTHING if the dev pays for the cost of producing merch? 😠 Maybe if they marketed the merch, okay, but this says nothing about that, so they shouldn't be entitled to squat.
19:25 Legalese is the worst language in the world, it's full of run-on sentences and absurdly long lists that abuse the Oxford-comma.
19:53 What's an "Xbox 1", there's no console by that moniker? 🤔
21:51 Demanding dibs on sequels is like non-compete clauses that dictate where people are allowed to work AFTER they no longer work at a company.
22:05 Um, whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-‽‽‽ They demand rights to future projects and if you request to be able to go to a different publisher, they'll demand 5% of GROSS sales from all sales of ALL related products (sequels, merch, etc.) FOREVER for something they have NOTHING to do with‽‽‽‽‽‽‽ Wow. Just wow. 😒
22:52 Um, the publisher wants 50% of revenue from sales of the game? 🤨 And people thought streaming sites were bad.
23:22 Normal companies accept that sometimes things don't work out and eat the losses. These publishers demand to recoup ALL of their money, AND THEN SOME. They expect to NEVER take a hit, and in fact, PROFIT 15% from failed projects. Wow. 🙄
28:14 You know how whenever there's any increase of costs for ANYTHING, EVERY company will ALWAYS pass on the increased cost to customers instead of EVER taking it out of their own profits? This is that. The publisher will take any losses from refunds out of the devs' money instead of their own. That's NOT how producers are supposed to work; imagine a movie studio taking money from refunds of sales from the grips and foleys and janitors and such who made the movie instead from the studio and rich producers. (Oh crap! I hope no producers see this comment and got ideas.)
29:29 It's insane that the publishers can literally STEAL your work. These contracts incentivize the publishers to find any excuse at all to cancel the contract and take your entire product, the idea, all of the work that already went into it and keep it all for free and sell it and you get nothing, and even have to PAY them to keep your game!
30:10 The contracts are so one-sided, it's baffling. They basically demand to have ZERO risk and in fact, only ever benefit no matter what. The developers take 100% of the risk and actually are HARMED from the contract no matter what.
30:35 I'm genuinely surprised the publisher accepts losing ANY money even when they're the ones that breached the contract. Still, demanding to get back 50% of their money if the PUBLISHER breaches the contract is still really something else considering there's nothing equivalent if the developer breaches it.
31:03 Non-disparagement clauses need to be ruled as illegal. It's absurd that companies can ban people from criticizing their bad behaviors. Years ago, I complained that it was ridiculous for companies to be able to delete criticisms from their Facebook pages and leave only compliments (from people who are new to the company and don't have enough experience to know how garbage they are). This gives a false impression of the companies, ie, FRAUD. Companies can abuse their employees and employees aren't allowed to complain. Ah, the good old slavery days are back. 😒
33:01 "All two" - Normal humans just say "both". 😒
36:33 I was actually going to say we should see a contract that's not garbage as a juxtaposition. Nice. 👍
37:42 So the publisher is one payment short? Sounds like an off-by-one error.
always a delight when you upload. you're one of probably very few channels that actually expose dirty practices in the industry that aren't widely-known. I wish subjects like these could spread so that some sort of action could be done about it.
Good seeing you back Overlord, your coverage and breakdowns are always a pleasure to watch.
Glad you like them!
@@OverlordGaming wait I'm confused. Are you not overlord?
@@thelurkingpanda3605 I am.
This is some really effing tough contract to fulfill. Also good to have you back. I missed you.
Ive been following you on YetTea, but it still hits different seeing a new Overlord Gaming video. The Goat returns.
holy shit, man, we're really missing this kind of content
The legend returns, I'm so glad to see this channel back again. I go back and watch all of the videos all the time. Another amazing video to add to the archives.
Ah, that's the voice and background music combo I've been missing during the summer. Nice to see you again.
Welcome back. Somewhat curious to hear your take on Denuvo's attempt to show that they don't affect performance, even though i think i know what your answer would be
yes, another awesome video regarding gaming industry shady tactics. Love it! Im glad you uploaded this, will share with my friends. Keep it up!
Good to see you still uploading mate. Keep up the good work👍
When clicking i thought, oh another great OverlordGaming video from 4 years ago, i was pleasantly surprised when it was not years but hours.
I was JUST rewatching your videos about UWP just about yesterday!!
Thanks for still being here, Love your voice!! ❤
I figured some publishers task force had gotten you, glad to see I was wrong. Here's to exposing more in the gaming industry.
Oh my god, you're finally back!
I hope you're doing well :D
7:25
If a contract isn't explicit or accurate, the "draw up side" won't be the one in favor in case of a legal dispute.
but aint they trusting pressure on weaker party (developer) that like in piracy cases, danger and perceived threat and costs associated with getting into legal battle are enough that weaker party gives up. sort of mafia style contracts based on fear,scare tactics of violence(in this case legal violence).
keep it up guys, recently discovered this channel and I love the no nonsense takes
The king is finally back. Glad to see you back at it again! :)
The mere thought of something like this existing scares me. Not gonna lie, this is so dark that the first thing I thought of that could be worse were literal multi-years-in-prison crimes.
Good to see a video from this channel
I would assume that there's definitely such predatory practices once the gaming industry has fully hit the mainstream. One would think their only purpose for "offering" such contract is to con the developer from its revenue while providing little to nothing. This is not an isolated phenomenon. You have a massive industry where the goal is just to make money by doing practically nothing and very little people have the awareness to detect and expose such practices. That's why we have people like coffezilla, Upper echelon and the likes. Keep up the good work
yeah but Coffee only focuses on financial nowadays
Best gaming-related channel which isnt about drama / trend shit but actually about important things.
Glad to see youre throwing some vids up. Good to see a mature adult making good quality content
He lives! Great to see you back!
Welcome back. Miss your content mate
You are the best game journalist there ever was. Please never stop making content. The games industry desperately need people like you.
Excellent video as always.
wth look whos back :) we missed you!!!
wow you are doing really interesting and unique video kindly keep the good work....
I love video games but the industry makes me feel icky
nice to see you're still alive
Looking forward to hear more of your voice in the videos.
Man i saw a notification of the upload!!! missed the content
Glad to see you came back from drinking Tea. Was starting to worry for a bit.
Raw Fury, with no lube permitted apparently.
Whats the name of the song that plays in the background?
You're back!
The return of the king!
Well what a coincidence; I commented a few days ago on one of the other channel's videos about what happened to this channel, and a new video pops up on my feed almost the next day.
Really hope the algorithm works for you; just seems like it's so hard to have a breakthrough video no matter the content of it. Meanwhile YT keeps pushing all the already big channels..
Glad your back mate
What's the background music? I like it
Whoa. Long time no see
He is back, with true game journalism, fucking love him.
Let’s go 50 mins upload!
Can't imagine why they didn't want this public.
Welcome Back
Welcome back!
Computer engineer here. Making a program as complex as a video game bug free is practically impossible. Even if there are seemingly no bugs there will always be cases that are very rare but can happen that a bug will appear. Writing in a contract the word bug free is a joke and no person should sign a contract like that.
The contract was probably written by lawyers that don't know a lot about the industry, instead of bug free it should say something like "completely playable from start to finish without fatal errors or something
the part about "delivering source code" to the publisher , while not great, also doesn't mean that the devs have to deliver everything unless the contract literary mentions what is considered "source code". Because "source code" is just code. Granted, I wouldn't want to give away the whole code base of the game, but it's just code. Most games that aren't just plain text games use all kinds of audio and visual assets, so with the source code alone you're not gonna "make a game". You could use it to rebuild it, but you'd still have to provide your own assets, like music, sound, 3d models with animations, etc,etc...
He's back!
Thank you for this video. Another company on my do not buy list.
welcome back!
Woa, this is heavy stuff
Welcome back
noiiiiiice, good topic.
Sounds like a big pile of "Scumbags gonna scumbag"
Glad you uploaded the uncut version of this vid OG
4:49 that definition looks like its only critical bugs, ie crash/lock bugs, no screen or input update, etc, stuff that gets rejected in QA/cert/lotcheck etc, not game play bugs, i'm no lawyer though.
6:15 That's predatory, they can't get money back from previously paid and delivered milestones.
15:12 the dev's email list becomes the exclusive property of the publisher LMAO Fark me!
crytivo is based in San Diego, California... with a contract like that I was expecting Cyprus, South America or communist Asia.
Raw furry, sounds reasonable except that it has that full refund on "breach".
27:00 TMK not presenting a gold master on final milestone date isn't a breach, but instead would trigger penalties. So these guys IMO are also predatory.
Return of the King
Devs should start embedding the publishing contract into the "gold master".
Can't break an NDA with communications between the parties, and then the Publisher is the one who'll disclose it to the public when they release the game.
I missed you!❤
In the age of streaming games and invasive DRMS we need this channel more than ever
Return of king 👑
Ok, so, in regards to royalty and payment - one thing I'm having hard time of understanding, as it wasn't mentioned in the video... Does the 63% of revenue that developers get include the cut that Steam and the other stores/platforms take? Because Steam and PlayStation take 30% from the sales. Xbox and EGS take lower (can't remember if it was 22 or 18). Can't speak for GOG, don't know the numbers there.
What I'm getting at is... Is the 63% before or after launchers take their cut? Because if it's after, than said 63% is actually even less than what you might think initially. If it's before, than that means that things like Steam take 30%, developers take 63%, and Publishers get... Only 7%.
Reason I'm asking is because I'm having hard time to believe a publisher would agree only for 7%.
usually these contracts in franchising/platform type deals are made cutthroat... I heard from pizza chain similar thing(there publisher is equivalent of online platform restaurant signs onto), that gross price of product from that say 15% "publisher",platform owner takes and then taxes and other costs are left to restaurant. Essentially from that 63% cut. As small business owner signing these need to be super careful how they try to screw you. Im not even sure what service other than skimming of some percentage Cretivo is doing, you could argue steam is at least maintaining steam platform and servers and small marketing in shop pages for you. Gig worker platforms work similar way. lets say I get paid 100$ by custormer. platform takes 5% cut. My taxes are 20%, which is 20$. Fuel cost is 10$. So 95$ is left to me, -costs 30$ (which is reasonable level) so I get work effort profit of 65$, which in modern world is very good.
Also this is why everyone tries to do "backdoor deals" ie some other income for marketing bypassing these heavy contracts, coz then they can negotiate way better terms which often platform or bigger party doesnt have to disclose in website. Lot of studios have done these kind of deals with EGS. So income from sales is almost negligent in comparison and also not as dangerous as they already got some amount to run their studio operations while sales is uncertain income.
Iphone/android store developers said same, 4uero game and they got some 2euros net income per purchase due to -30% on top, then VAT from 4 euros paid from rest and what is left is their income. These platforms, also EGS id imagine, have already tax planned their share to 0%.
From GTA 5 and 4 vague memory that if making a game, actual development cost 100mn$, marketing budget alone could be 1Bn$ for GTA5 so actual development of game is pretty small portion of what publisher is putting money into. In GTA case they are all almost same entity.
Never trust someone who says, "That's how I /We roll".😂
Or if they say "trust me"
It's like companies that say "we're like a family here". Nothing but red flags all around.
This is juicy I'm only a few minutes in
Honestly, that's what you end up with when one side has legal support and the other does not, all made worse by a non-disclosure agreement. Such one-sided contracts are actually quite common but also should, at least on theory, be able to be discussed in courts.
Also, if this is a industry standard I don't see why a redacted version should not be made public to safeguard the rights of devs under such contracts over their own intellectual property.
Bobby Kotick, Strauss Zelnick, Robert Altman -- wonder what they all got in common?
the return of the kind!
Sounds like Crytivo can implement impossible methods of localization like for every language known to man, then give it a deadline of about an hour, find the developer in breach and steal the ip.
Publishers now exist to gatekeep access to the market. That market being advertisers and 'gaming media'. The point of maintaining this gate is so these groups can collude to pick winners and losers, thereby rigging the competition and, if they are so inclined, produce propaganda. I don't have to tell you that they chose to do both. Now it no longer makes sense to use a publisher unless they assume the vast majority of risk, given that patronage/crowd-funding can eliminate risk from the start.
What we're looking at here is the plague of middle-managers, trying to get their cut of profits between supplier and consumer. But we don't seem to need them and speaking for myself, unless I need a super-advanced physics engine I don't need a 'AAA" game again -ever.
Seriously consider what it would mean for every gamer to donate $10 a month to a crowd-funding campaign for a game of their choice. You'd get the games you wanted, fully-funded from jump, and all this bloat around the industry would wither away and die.
And how many crowd funding campaigns turned out to be scam/pipe dream/just did not deliver?
keep up the good content 😅👍
Poast moar. I love your videos. 😊
There are publishers in the DIGITAL indie scene!?!?
LOL! This is as dumb as the music industry requiring you to use a distributor (cd baby, distrokid, tunecore, etc.) to get your music on most websites (spotify, tidal, deezer, etc.)
Old school terms written on napkins are much better than any of these.
There are good publishers out there, check out New Blood Interactive for a Publisher house that looks after and embraces their creators.
4:10 it is a fundamental law of testing that no piece of software is considered bug free as exhaustive testing is impossible and every QA person knows that.
Channel not dead Pog
If I was a video game publisher I would go at 70% and 30% model. The developer gets 70% After I get my expenses back While I get thirty percent.
LFG!
This is why my purchasing habits now overwhelmingly consist of AA or indie studios.
?? These are indie publishers tho
"Who determines what is commercially reeasonable? Leave your thought in the comment section below"
So we finally find out why games gave been soulless for the last decade.
Before this video i was thinking about game development