So I have been doing a little research in my spare time between learning linear algebra and coding this semester. Today I read a long and boring article about the process that publishers and developers entering into an agreement to make a game must go through. All I can say is, it is no wonder that the game industry is broken. The short version of what I read goes like this, publishers have money and make contracts with developers so the developers will make a game as a "work for hire", meaning that the publisher gets to "own" the copyright and intellectual property of a game. Because of the size and complexity of making a games developers don't want to have to start from scratch, and so they create a set of "tools" like a gaming engine which they license to publishers so that every time they don't have to start from scratch. The rest of the article explained how either side works to negotiate as much as possible in order to retain as much as they can to maximize profits.
So what does this have to do with me and my game that I want to make. Well I would be considered a developer, an unknown and untested developer at that, which means I will have very little that I can bring to the table when negotiating with a publisher. This means that it would be an especially bad idea for me to do so, even if I could bring an exceptional product to show them, which is probably what it would take for them to even talk to me. So I will focus much more on things like Kickstarter and appeal to the public directly for money, which is also a difficult path but will not leave me with nothing afterward. This is of course after I have made a fair amount of progress, which is slow going while I learn the fundamentals of game design.
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