Game music - Contract

[Pietro]

Hi,

Some of you are working in game industry. And that's where I'm heading too. I'm doing some free projects to jump in and get some experience, and I'm also doing music for "maybe-commercial in the future" game, and I'm getting paid. (low, but it pushes me further)

Now, that I'm almost finished with main titles piece (first one, there will be more in the future), I'm thinking of proper agreement. How should it look like? I believe they're open to suggestions. They contacted me and asked for colaboration.

What I'm most worried about is property rights. I don't want to sell the piece for $500 and lose my all rights to it. I know the piece is damn good! (and worth a least 5 times that, but they're amateurs, and looking at my experience in game industry - so am I...) I'm thinking there should be a disclaimer about percentage of potential revenue.

Please some advice, anyone. How should the agreement look like?

Thanks
- Piotr

[MaestroRage]

I am also very interested to see what others might have to say.

[nikolas]

Thing is that maybe, since they are eager to discuss things, you should attempt to hold on to the rights, yourself. Have them use the music for a certain ammount of time (either way games die in a few months, if not in a few years), and have it returned to you. For 500$ it's not worth it loosing the rights.

For the legal staff, wait for the others to get here. I can't really help you to that...

[Javee]

It's funny I see this forum as I just finished sending off a contract for one of my latest projects. I don't know about the rest of the people on here, but I never make any contract that does not clearly state that the company is purchasing my labor as a composer and the license to use my music and under which terms they are allowed to use it. Very much the same way EWQL sells us the license to use their sounds. Furthermore, always ask for royalties, shoot for the sky. If they say no we don't want to pay you these kind of royalties, ask for less royalties. What needs to be evaluated is the estimated sales. Of course, the estimate could either be way off, or an over or under exageration. This is where you have to use your discretion. If the game is expected to sell say 150,000-200,000 copies, and lets say you charged $25,000 for the games music and say you asked for $0.08 royalty per sale. The deal is agreed you have made 25k upfront, and a possible 16kish from royalties over a single seasons sales. On the other hand, if a game is estimated to sell 300,000 - 350,000 copies, it would be wise, if you believe it will sell that many copies, to ask for more royalty and less fee. Say $0.16 royalty and $18,000 for the work done. This of course isn't always the case.

What should be on your contract should be simply this...

what you are offering
what they are buying and for how much
the terms upon which you have either discussed or they are about to read
payment method
a scheme of how the work will be done (this is optional, but always makes the purchaser feel better when they see this)
what is expected of the company and what they can expect of you

Another small bit of advice. If you do get commissioned for a larger project, I am assuming you are about to or plan to find one any how. You need to be very firm on this. You are creating the music for a certain platform. Say for example PC. Should they further develop a Xbox 360, PS3, Wii version, you are completely in line to expect full compensation for your music to be used again. Often this happens when a game is extremely popular. Therefore do not be shy to ask more money than you originally did. Royalties may stay the same though. For every conversion, you charge a fee.

For some games, virtual instruments are not the only means of creating music. Should a video game developer require real musicians. Say a symphony orchestra for example, make it clear in your contract that you are not responsible for the fees and that all music will be provided via virtual instruments. I would hate to see someone get caught up paying for a symphony orchestra, I know here in my town, the local SO charges about $8000 for 1 hour of performance of a composers music. Quite steep.

And as for 500 dollars for the music for a game. If you feel your music is that much better than what is being paid, then you should be asking for more. You need to be a business man not just a musician. This takes a life time of practice to create, do yourself a favor and do not undersell yourself. Also, in the end it just hurts anyone else who will do business with that company or their friends, because they will say to the next go who asks for 5,000, "Well so and so did it for 500". This is like a auction house. Of course, the budget size always comes into play as well. If you are doing dinky games just for experience, that only require 15 minutes of music, then yeah whatever, charge what you think is fair i suppose? But a regular video game runs 45-60 minutes of music. The way I see it, if you cant atleast make back what the EWQL products cost you, then you need to either be looking somewhere else for work, on a grander scheme, or re-evaluating your prices.

And if you are wondering about pricing for video games. They do range quite extensively in price, but generally speaking, a game that isnt some kids in their moms basement learning to become the next Bioware :P, then anywhere from $10,000 - $300,000 for work done + royalties depending on their budget of course.

My first mistake was underselling myself and hearing the excitement in the mans voice when i said, how does $5,000 sound for 50 minutes of music? It was one of those homer simpson moments, DOH! :P

I think thats about all i can offer you. If I missed anything im sure someone else will fill in the blanks. Or tell me 4 years of uni makes me a n00b, jk jk jk nikolas! :P

Mitch

[rimskykorsakov]

Originally Posted by Javee

What needs to be evaluated is the estimated sales. Of course, the estimate could either be way off, or an over or under exageration. This is where you have to use your discretion. If the game is expected to sell say 150,000-200,000 copies, and lets say you charged $25,000 for the games music and say you asked for $0.08 royalty per sale. The deal is agreed you have made 25k upfront, and a possible 16kish from royalties over a single seasons sales. On the other hand, if a game is estimated to sell 300,000 - 350,000 copies, it would be wise, if you believe it will sell that many copies, to ask for more royalty and less fee. Say $0.16 royalty and $18,000 for the work done. This of course isn't always the case.

Mitch

Hi , thanks for sharing all this info ! Very interesting .

I've never been involved in the Game-industry so far ,
so I wonder how do you control/survey the actual number of sales
to make sure to get paid for each sale ???

While it is possible for me to survey and collect the royalties
from TV-broadcasting , it is nearly impossible for me to survey
the exact number of how many DVD's ( with my scoremusic )
or CD's ( with my songs ) were actually sold.
I have to trust the TV-producers that their royalty payments for DVD-sales are correct.
So I usually take the royalties from the sales that the producer-companies pay me,
without being able to judge if this payment is okay or not.



Maybe the possibilities to survey the sales of a PC-Game are better/different ...
( ... or is the Game-Industry simply more honest than the TV- and Record -Industry ? ... )
... please let me know !!

Best wishes

Gerd

.

[Kaatza_Music]

If you are working for someone who has little up front money, then the best route is to offer them a single use license. If they insist on wanting to own the copyright, then give them the option to purchase it down the road, after they pay you, in full.

I would never give away the copyright for future consideration or points. If you think $10,000 is a fair price for the piece, then tell them that you will give them the option to purchase the copyright for $10k within x number of months. Royalties are a separate issue and how you negotiate that depends on how viable you believe that the project is.

I have lost a lot of work because of this approach, but I believe that my music has value and I am not going to give it away. When I do low budget or freebie stuff, all they get is a single use, non-exclusive license to use the music. They get some cheap music and I get some scoring practice, but I still own my music and can recycle it however I want.

[MaestroRage]

very informative, thank you Javee, and Kaatza

[Pietro]

Thanks guys,

That cleared some things a bit.

- Piotr

[stmiller]

If it's not too late:

Avoid a 'work for hire' contract. This is giving away all rights of everything to the developer. If they don't understand why you would want to keep your creative rights as the owner of the music try to explain that the music itself has value separate and outside of the game. Make sure the contract specifies that you are the holder of 100% of the writer's share for all music and all derivatives of the music in the future. Register the musical works with BMI or ASCAP.

Most people will say it's the 'standard' to have a work for hire contract. This is a ridiculous statement. As composers we must fight against this myth, and retain the creative rights to the very thing we produce.

Say that your music for this game becomes famous, then orchestras play and record it worldwide, etc. You don't get a cent if you gave all your rights away. And it does not cost the developer any more money to make an agreement where you retain the writers share. So there is no need for them to have your creative rights.

This is mainly a problem in the US. As I understand it in Canada, such 'work for hire' agreements are not allowed.

[Dannthr]

I didn't know that.

I've written "such 'work for hire' agreements" as they're the bread and butter of a cohesive indy game dev project.

An indy can not afford to lose its assets if a team member walks away from the project and on an indy project it's a sure thing.


However, on my contract, I had everyone accrue profit shares for each contribution they made with bonuses for each month they stayed on, each meeting they physically attended, and each year they stayed on. The weight and value of these contributions were decided nearly arbitrarily with some basic rules to how big and small they could be by myself and the other co-founder.

Art can be sold as posters and in artbooks.

Music can be performed and sold in OSTs.

Many artistic contributions can stand alone from the game, but many game projects can not live without those contributions. Devs are simply trying to protect the bigger investment.

Make sure you understand your contract and are willing to have every bit of that contract exploited by both yourself and the contractor.

Check for clauses describing the use of your contribution outside of the project, suggest inserting some so that it's clear who makes what from the creation of an album or a live performance.