Off-Topic

Re: The Room

maggot — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 15:14:08 GMT

Remember the same thing happened to all the bioware devs when they were bought by EA and they wanted them to sign a contract that everything they worked on was owned by them. Pretty stupid but i remember Cliff making games himself (and selling them) while he worked at lionhead so guess there wasnt any problem with lionhead.

http://www.positech.co.uk/

Re: The Room

DanielRobertCampbell — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 15:01:33 GMT

Gigamet:
DanielRobertCampbell:
A group of developers and I made a very promising RPG in our free time and presented it to the company. The company decided not to publish it, but due to the non-competitive agreement we cant give it to another publisher either. We didn't even want money for it! So now this game we worked super hard on will never see the light of day.

[
thats ridiculous, if that was me, i would have probably quit and gone elsewhere. since, i take it, you had faith in your creation?

Sadly, it still belongs to them. Even if I quit and go somewhere else they still own the rights to the game since I made it while I was working there.

But nothing is stopping me from reskinning/renaming everything and releasing it myself. But I would feel horrible if I did that since the friends that I made the game with are still with the company. I would be reaping all the rewards, and they would get nothing out of it since they still work for THQ. Many of them said that they would not mind as long as they got a "special thanks" in the credits, but I think I would still feel bad. Who knows, maybe I'll release it one day when I have all of their blessings. :-)

Re: The Room

Gigamet — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 03:47:24 GMT

DanielRobertCampbell:
A group of developers and I made a very promising RPG in our free time and presented it to the company. The company decided not to publish it, but due to the non-competitive agreement we cant give it to another publisher either. We didn't even want money for it! So now this game we worked super hard on will never see the light of day.

[
thats ridiculous, if that was me, i would have probably quit and gone elsewhere. since, i take it, you had faith in your creation?

Re: The Room

DanielRobertCampbell — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:20:03 GMT

deliriousstudios:
Really? Who would agree to work for such a capitalist regime? (So to get this straight, if you write a novel and try to get it published, they own it?)

I do not disagree that it is bull crap, but sadly when you are looking to get into the industry, you usually take any chance you can get. Sadly the game industry is one of those industries that you need experience to get a job, but its painfully difficult to get a job. If you don't have a degree, going into Quality Assurance is your best bet.

Yes, they would own the rights to it. The contract itself uses painting as an example.

A group of developers and I made a very promising RPG in our free time and presented it to the company. The company decided not to publish it, but due to the non-competitive agreement we cant give it to another publisher either. We didn't even want money for it! So now this game we worked super hard on will never see the light of day.

Re: The Room

deliriousstudios — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:12:24 GMT

Really? Who would agree to work for such a capitalist regime?

(So to get this straight, if you write a novel and try to get it published, they own it?)

Re: The Room

DanielRobertCampbell — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 03:41:46 GMT

satansmunchkin:
It was my understanding that the MM blokes made Rag Doll Kung-Fu and thus the physics engine etc in their spare time ... outside of Lionhead time, therefore there work is not owned by Lionhead as it wasn't developed using Lionhead resources, that seems like the only way they would really be allowed to leave and use it to make the Little Big Planet game, unless Lionhead have a royalties deal with the MM guys for it and therefore by proxy MS are making money out of Little Big Planet, which I don't think they would mind ... >.>

but that could all be bollocks

I am not sure about Lionhead but the publisher I work for has a very strict non-competitive agreement. Even if it is in your free time, anything you work on in a creative capacity belongs to them. Even if it has nothing to do with games.

Re: The Room

satansmunchkin — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:07:49 GMT

It was my understanding that the MM blokes made Rag Doll Kung-Fu and thus the physics engine etc in their spare time ... outside of Lionhead time, therefore there work is not owned by Lionhead as it wasn't developed using Lionhead resources, that seems like the only way they would really be allowed to leave and use it to make the Little Big Planet game, unless Lionhead have a royalties deal with the MM guys for it and therefore by proxy MS are making money out of Little Big Planet, which I don't think they would mind ... >.>

but that could all be bollocks

Re: The Room

DanielRobertCampbell — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:43:32 GMT

Undead---God:
ExpiredRascals:
damn, have you been taking grammar lessons from icechild? (before he cleaned up)
icechild cleaned up his grammar? But Daniel, you missed out a couple of apostrophes and unless I'm mistaken I think you meant "used this as inspiration" instead of "didnt use this as inspiration" (not sure what digipen is, so I don't really have much idea what I'm talking about...). How dare you commit such monstrous crimes against grammar, hang your head in shame.

Consider my grammar sepiku committed.

I will be sure to proof read my entries from now on to prevent future shame to my family blood line.

Re: The Room

Daninsky — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:30:25 GMT

Undead---God:
I think you meant "used this as inspiration" instead of "didnt use this as inspiration"

I would think so, too. Got caught up in his negations, he did.

Re: The Room

Undead---God — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:25:52 GMT

ExpiredRascals:
damn, have you been taking grammar lessons from icechild? (before he cleaned up)

icechild cleaned up his grammar?

But Daniel, you missed out a couple of apostrophes and unless I'm mistaken I think you meant "used this as inspiration" instead of "didnt use this as inspiration" (not sure what digipen is, so I don't really have much idea what I'm talking about...).

How dare you commit such monstrous crimes against grammar, hang your head in shame.

Re: The Room

DanielRobertCampbell — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:37:23 GMT

deliriousstudios:
What was especially wrong with his grammar? What a pointless contribution to the thread. You should have started that sentence with a capital D.

Thanks. :-) I didn't notice anything wrong with it while I was writing it. Then again I didn't proof read either. I'm just a dirty, uneducated Yankee American. :-D

Re: The Room

deliriousstudios — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:56:42 GMT

What was especially wrong with his grammar? What a pointless contribution to the thread.

You should have started that sentence with a capital D.

Re: The Room

ExpiredRascals — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 05:38:51 GMT

DanielRobertCampbell:
I'm not trying to take design credit from where it is due, but after watching this again recently I cant help but think the digipen students who came up with the game "portal" didnt use this as inspiration. Being the huge Molyneux fan that I am, I'm just going to go ahead and credit Lionhead for the creation of Portal now. Nobody can convince me otherwise. ;-)

damn, have you been taking grammar lessons from icechild? (before he cleaned up)

Re: The Room

DanielRobertCampbell — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 02:54:28 GMT

I'm not trying to take design credit from where it is due, but after watching this again recently I cant help but think the digipen students who came up with the game "portal" didnt use this as inspiration. Being the huge Molyneux fan that I am, I'm just going to go ahead and credit Lionhead for the creation of Portal now. Nobody can convince me otherwise. ;-)

Re: The Room

maggot — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 19:14:43 GMT

Pod-:
Usually the company you work for owns everything you do. Which is probably why lionhead showed it off.

Well i also think they still officially worked for lionhead when they released rag doll kung fu...