I just read about Disney deciding to pull NimbleBit’s excellent Tiny Death Star from the Apple and Google Play app stores, apparently without prior warning to NimbleBit. So I thought I’d write a few thoughts on what should a developer do to make it less likely that a a publisher can pull the developer’s game. Here goes… Continue reading Avoiding the Tiny Death Star: reducing risks of a published game being canned
Category: Contracts
20 Contract Questions: how do I change or renew my contract?
Welcome again to my ongoing 20 Contract Questions series. The most recent two posts were on learning about what a contract means and how to negotiate a contract. In this post, we’ve now put the contract in place, but want to know more about changing or renewing it.
Let’s start by explaining why you need to know more about what’s seemingly an obviously answered question… Continue reading 20 Contract Questions: how do I change or renew my contract?
20 Contract Questions: how should I negotiate a contract?
In the previous post of this 20 Contract Questions series, we talked about understanding how to read a contract and what it means. Before that, we’ve talked about what a contract is, how you get to the contract stage, and how to read and write a contract. In this post we’re going to discuss some tips for negotiating a contract. Continue reading 20 Contract Questions: how should I negotiate a contract?
How to use Non Disclosure Agreements properly
Tech and games companies love non disclosure agreements. Particularly enthusiastic companies tend to scatter them around like confetti. Frequently you have to sign them just to walk into a big tech company’s lobby these days. But NDAs are often misunderstood or used in the wrong way – which can have serious legal consequences. Besides which, we regularly see NDA ‘embargoes’ being breached, to no apparent ill effect. In this post, I talk about what NDAs are, what they do and give some tips for how to use them more effectively. Continue reading How to use Non Disclosure Agreements properly
An international legal guide to games development and distribution
Last year I gave a lecture at the Gamer Tech Law conference in Seattle with the rather ambitious title of “Going Global: legal and business issues for international games development and distribution”. As you can imagine, that’s a lot to cover – even in a lecture directed at other lawyers. Anyway, below is the lecture I delivered, in which I talked the audience through international angles on: contracts, IP, distribution structures, consumer protection, advertising, age ratings and privacy. Enjoy! Continue reading An international legal guide to games development and distribution
EULAs and Terms of Service: what works and what doesn’t
20 Contract Questions: what does this contract mean?
We’ve talked in previous posts about what a contract is, how to structure it and how to read and write one. This post is about understanding what clauses in a contract, and the contract overall, means. This is known in the law as contract ‘interpretation’ or ‘construction’. Continue reading 20 Contract Questions: what does this contract mean?
How can we make EULAs and T&Cs better?
I write EULAs and T&Cs. A lot – either from scratch or improving an existing one. I try to make them better – simpler, easier to read, more enforceable, more engaging with readers. Like the one I helped make for Garry’s Mod. But too often it seems like there’s an enormous countervailing legal tide in favour of complicated, legalistic, one-sided documents. This makes me sad.
I asked Twitter how we could improve EULAs and T&Cs. This is what they said…(newsletter readers, you can see it here: http://sfy.co/l0sO). Continue reading How can we make EULAs and T&Cs better?
20 Contract Questions: how do I read and write a contract?
This is the third of my series of posts called 20 Contract Questions, addressing some of the most commonly asked contract questions I’m asked as well as the key matters I think you need to know to help you negotiate and manage a contract successfully.
So we’ve talked previously about what a contract is and how to get to the contract stage. Now let’s talk about how to read and write a contract. Continue reading 20 Contract Questions: how do I read and write a contract?
20 Contract Questions: how do I get to the contract stage?
This is the second of my series of posts called 20 Contract Questions, addressing some of the most commonly asked contract questions I’m asked as well as the key matters I think you need to know to help you
negotiate and manage a contract successfully.
negotiate and manage a contract successfully.
So, we talked last time around about what a contract actually is. Now we’re going to discuss about how you get to the contract stage in the first place. Obviously, this being a legal guide, I’m going to focus on what this means from a legal perspective and less about the more businessy question of finding the right opportunity in the first place (try somewhere like GamesBrief instead) or more general business advice (try e.g. Both Sides of the Table).
You know from my first post that in order for a contract to exist you need to meet some legal requirements: in particular, you need to have made a specific offer which is specifically accepted, and there needs to be an intention to be legally bound on both sides. Bear that in mind now as I go through some key steps on the way to getting to the contract stage. Continue reading 20 Contract Questions: how do I get to the contract stage?