1. Contracts of Employment
Contractual obligations have following issues:
1. Employment
2. Development
3. License
4. NDA
5. Collaboration
Employment
The purpose of this contract is to explain what is expected during your
employment the time you will be working to and from also what can do in the
company and what the company do for you in the games industry there will be
clauses about not going against the company during or shortly after the contract
has ended the contract will contain information about benefits like health care,
vacation and bonuses it will also contain info about confidentiality meaning that
people outside the company do not know of any secrets about your company or
what you have done also there is the invention clause this means that anything
you make or help make is instantly property of the company for example concept
art or characters
Development
A development agreement is a contract that spells out the terms of the
development deal in this contract you will talk about the terms by this I mean
what the publisher will pay the developer and the time the developer has to
complete the task basic the obligations of both parties are spelled out next they
talk about ownership so who owns the ip or source code this is a basic piece that
means work can’t get taken or misused then they will talk warranty’s this means
that as a developer you will not use other peoples source code resulting in the
publishers getting sued after that there will be some info on the terms of
termination so that if something happens that results in the contract to end before
the specified time that the Dev has agreed to that term
Licence
NDA
This is one of the most simple yet vital pieces of the contracts the NDA (non
discloser agreement) is a basic form that you will not talk or share important or
vital company secrets or information to others mainly rival company’s this contract
is basically a lifelong one you may see this when you get a job or if you play a early
access game as you may need to agree that you can play the game but show no
footage of it unless give permission this is very important to big company’s
breaking the conditions of this contract could lead to termination or a visit to a
court room
Collaboration
2. This agreement is mainly for small Indy game teams or solo game Dev that make
games for free this contract contains agreements that discus how any income will
be handle or who owns the ip so many companies that were starting up have fell
due to this obstacle it is vital so that the Indy company doesn’t lose their ip source
code or anything that is vital to the game most games or Dev teams in this field
will be free but if they add a price or put in paid dlc then this contract means that
the money will be handle properly and that the customer will get what they paid
for
