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So you're setting up a gaming team to work on a project...what's a reasonable and fair way to split the royalties? - if it ever got that far.

My stab in the dark is on these lines. Sure it'll vary from project to project but reckon this is reasonable for an average project...

The idea's originator - 15%
game designer - 10%
Programmers - 35%
graphics creation - 30%
sound - 10%

The originator of a game deservers their own sizeable cut for coming up with an (awesome) idea.

Game designer needs a cut as someone's gotta put a lot of time in to make sure the game is fully planned before the project can get under way proper.

Graphic artists will likely put as much time in as the programmers, obviously depending on the type of game.

Sound - well someone's gotta do it and some may believe sound deserves a larger cut but from my experience the amount of time spent creating sound is negligable in comparison to the others. Unless you get someone to do a kick arse tune.

Interested in what others may think.

I'd agree that coders and gfx people have a similar workload, but I'd be tempted to bump the ideas guy down a little (not the designer), sound too. Might sound harsh - but it all depends on the game. Idealy, you'd have a couple of people who could take on all the tasks, then just split the royalties equally - a sound guy might not realise how much work a gfx guy needs to put in, and vice-versa, so it might save arguments to keep it simple.


Van-B

Yeah exactly. is a good idea to make sure every1s in agreement before you start, and unless its pretty even, people won't be!

Professionaly it may work like that. When I had a hobbiest team working though, we would share the profits in equal parts as long as we all have been involved. Unfortunally, the game could not keep going, but it was a funny experience like, the musicians started to think about desing, the designers about the coding and in the case, one of the musicians even wanted to learn how to program. We must to think that, when we are in a amatour team, to create a song is as hard as to code a game when u r not professional, it takes REALLY much time to compose simple things... So I think, in a hobbiest team, as long as u not employing Celine Dion to make ur songs, or Bill Gates to be the main coder, equal parts makes everyone happy and press the team to work together and even find new talents as our musician who wanted to be a programmer .
Maybe it's not a good idea, but it's the way I was used to work

That's a good point actually, the more involved people are, and the more they're learning, the more 'into' the project they'll be - and the more likely it is that it'll be finished.

I would'nt be part of a team that wasn't interested in every single members ideas.


Van-B

as long as u not employing Celine Dion to make ur songs, or Bill Gates to be the main coder

Would people really buy a game if these two collaborated? I shudder at the thought!

This is true about being on a team where everyone is interested in each other's work. THe tricky part is say if I am half way through a game but I need someone to work on sounds. I'd want to offer royalties for the work they do but in this instance they'll not have been involved from the start and although they may find a project fun and interesting they may have no desire to help out any more than with sounds. I think in this case it would be nice to turn round and say - well this is the guide I work to for royalties, if you're happy with that then we don't need to worry about figuring how to split the cash when the game goes on sale.

I guess it's just good practice to sort this stuff out early on, especially if you are entering a team where you don't know the guys personally.

]--
The idea's originator
game designer
Programmers
graphics creation
sound
]--

oki so lets break this down ... lets say you have £40,000 to share between everyone (this is your budget for the game however you may end with more)

Firstly Bonuses - this normally is set as 1% of the final total -> £1,000 <-

So what would count as a bonus?
Lead Programmer
Lead Artist
Game Designer

Next as the Music Developer doesn't need to be closely intergrated into the development, this persons pay should be setup kinda like a bonus or PER work thing.
Becuase of this should be set to 10% of the bonus's for say each 5minutes of work. -> £200 per 5min of music <-
Might not seem like but as an adverage you'll see around 45mins of music, not nessarily different but as a muscian oftenly isn't a sound engineer and vice versa then you notice it is relatively fair ... and 45min would be £1,600 which is more than worth the work taken to produce on such a scale.

Now that we've covered that we can get down to what the actual developement staff deserve.
As you have to take out the bonuses and Music from the total, which you will even the Bonus to the neast £500 and an extra £1,000 for underbudgeting needs - and trust me giving yourself a leaway is always good for financing.
Suchas the Musician doing more work than you'd expect or something.

Current Total = £33,000

Now from this we need to specify the groups of people that will need the payment ->

Programming ->> 45% (£14,850)
Artists ->> 50% (£16,200)
Sound ->> 5% (£1,650)

(as you can see how fair this is shaping up )
Now the Artists get more, simply because you're more likely to have more than one Artist than you would having more than one programmer.

However from this you can also setup special dividables for actual work done ... e.g a simple texture artist could get less than a 3d artist who does textures as well.
from this you then divide up amongst the people in these areas.

Althought I would encourage each of the people UNDERSTANDING about the other things ... i would not actively encourage a Muscian say to actually learn to ACTUALLY program.
They're there to learn thier skills further as a team, not learn brand new skills. Part of those skills are understanding basic techniques for producing things and desired effects for your work or editors for creating it.
However actually learning it themselves takes away from thier area of actual focus, this oftenly makes work sloppy and rushed and puts more stress on the lead Artist or lead Programmer who has to neaten all the work up and make it consitant in its style.

The idea of amature teams is to prepare them for REAL work, or to produce something in a professional mannor.
Having people actually learning things they will never use upon the project will lead to nothing productive.

Also if you pay them upfront, I would get them to sign a contract beforehand that IF they leave the project then they will be entitled to Nth amount of money however the rest they will have to give back.
So say 10% of the final total
because it'll be similar to a severance but if they decide to quit.

Just my thoughts on all of this hehee