Hey guys, Alex here. Still trying to recover after seeing this video. It's so weird to see someone speaking our words, it's almost surreal, like if it was all fiction. One thing I want to make clear though: the post was not to cause any drama, it was to warn other devs or entrepreneurs to read everything and to seek legal help, every time. If finger pointing is necessary, then I need to point at myself. I was (or am) too naive. We look hopeful toward the future as we're now in a deal with another publisher and doing a fantastic new project. We don't want to damage the relationship with the new ones. Kasedo is a thing of the past. We (especially: I) learned a lot but need to move forwards. This said I want to thank everyone here for your kind and supporting words. You simply cannot imagine how much they mean. PS: English is my 3rd language, so I needed to get external help via a ghostwriter to put all my nonsensical notes into an eloquent document. This said, this lengthy story covers maybe 1/10th of all the shenanigans we went through. What. A. Ride.
@@killaken2000 Well, this snorefest of an article sure is long enough to be done in book form. Add a few pictures and elaborate more and voila! 50 pages book
Developing a game myself. Thank you for your story. Love your attitude. It's the correct one and the one I want to think I'd have, were I in your shoes. You may have been naive, but your heart was in the right place. In the end, good things tend to happen to good people. Good luck to you and your studio
Yep I saw this when showcasing at events. My attitude is if you have the talent, they don't pay you up front because they think your game is going to make pennies. They know they'll be able to make their money back and then some. I wish more devs would just trust themselves, kickstart, and then subcontract out work for marketing instead of going to these publishing houses.
I'm a lawyer in my day job (not in GameDev field) and make games outside of that, but this video has almost made me want to become a freelance GameDev lawyer just to help fellow devs out. A lot of those issues will be familiar to most lawyers in negotiating any contract and it's actually quite frightening how bad this particular situation got. Even if you don't get legal help - remember clear, concise wording is paramount - try to imagine all the things that could go wrong and plug them into the contract, including a very clear scope of work. Writing a contract is almost like coding: clear definitions, clear mechanisms and a clear output.
@@mandisaw I think that's probably the issue. Also it doesn't help that studios and publishers usually work globally or in different jurisdictions which makes giving legal advice difficult. But the same principles should apply really - just be clear about what both parties are supposed to do in the first place! There are also usually laws to override contractual clauses which have not been properly negotiated and imposed by a large corporation en masse to little people.
@@jeremynunns7496 My understanding is that even "global" publishing deals tend to actually be regional, or they farm out some local needs to regional partners. Contracts would still necessarily be tied to some specific jurisdiction though. The horror stories I hear, like this one, are nearly all down to just Business 101 basics though, not any kind of esoteric gotchas.
@mandisaw I don't think the assumption that they don't need one. Perhaps assuming that they can't afford one, not knowing who in the industry would specialize in that area of law and is trustworthy, and perhaps they initially trust the publisher they are going into business with and don't fully realize the necessity.
"Indy" (Independent) is a strange choice of naming, when the developer is so locked into providing specific milestones during development, and heavily depends on tranches being payed out by a financier.
People fight for their life to escape being a corporate subordinate. They start a studio, find a publisher; and if unlucky, find themselves at square one.
@@EnderElohim Publishers will usually help out in the marketing and public relations aspect of it from what I hear. Without them, it's pretty much taking on a second job when marketing your game yourself.
@@TheJungaBoon looks like my understanding of indie game developer/company was wrong. Just recently i was able to talk with a owner indie game company that worked with publisher and seems like it is quite good idea when you can find a good deal or toxic as fuck if you find bad one. That make me realise maybe i should try to not maybe i should find a publisher pc/parkour game currently i'm working on. Seems like if i can make first small part of it looks shiny and good i might have a chance to fund myself so i can work on it more and less to work on others stuffs to make money XD Btw you are welcome to follow my channel :D Posting my game updates time to time so. Thanks
Poor guy, despite having made a bunch of bad decisions, it seems that his biggest fault was in simply caring about the people involved. I'd say, given the way that situation was going, that he should feel proud of his motivations at least. Unfortunately the problem with business is it is much like a predator prey relationship, except, everything and everyone is prey. Business is a cannibalistic predator which will eat you alive if you are not just as capable of being a cut throat predatorial type yourself. He made a bunch of choices which led to a bad situation, but, he deserves the title of considerate human being for those very same choices. At least he kept his heart, rather than becoming heartless like the businesses. No publishers for me. I would rather have a minimal player count when my work is done than consider feeding the beast.
That is a perfect description of business. And the game business is still a business. I have only just started my game development journey but my business experience is exactly like this. I expect nothing less or more from the game industry. Sage advice, agreements in writing. Use a lawyer. Get an accountant. Realise business is business, not friendship. If you don't want to fire people or follow cash logic, then stay small and independent.
@@KryyssTV Rather than re-iterating the mistakes of the individual about whom the video is made, why not recognise that he has already identified most of these mistakes himself, and, even managed to establish a mildly entertaining metaphor to explain it - doubling down. Clearly, he knows he made these mistakes and you are simply re-iterating over them. He chose to put this forwards partly as a way to illuminate the darkness that exists behind closed curtains in the industry, but, also to share his mistakes in an effort to help others not make the same ones. And, if you have two items providing an income, one is a single one off pay out, and the other is a slower but long term dividend, which one do you think a financial adviser would tell you to keep ahold of? You assume that there was sensibility in the arrangement to sell their first game... i disagree. If only to protect the treatment of their own work, selling the rights to their first game seems bad, especially considering how obviously manipulative these publishers were. Business may be cut throat, but games developers are artists. The trend of artists being taken advantage of by business is pretty much as old as our ability to capture art, in any medium, even the ancient theatre and books. So... why fault the artist? And why do so so vehemently? Do you fault the deer for being caught by the wolf? (I do agree with your sentiment tho that both sides should have cut their losses much earlier, however.)
@@KryyssTV I disagree, and honestly, you seem stuck on that opinion. I'm not saying he is without fault, but... You are making it seem like everything is his fault when it is not.
That IS a horror story!... and what a fitting name their game had for all that went down😵I don't know how you come back from this, but I hope they can put all of this behind them and find incredible success after this.
On the offchance Kasedo doesn't sue my ass, things might look bright: another deal with a different publisher, managed to sell all I could to recover my house, and now slowly regaining the studio members
Always, always, get feature requests as additional funding negotiations in your contracts. And be diligent with bringing it up with every feature request or feature change. It's the same with contract work. If a publisher can take advantage of you, they will.
Change management ought to be part of every work-for-hire contract. What sorts of changes are allowable; how are they to be documented, decided upon, and implemented; who gets to request changes, and under what time/money constraints; how will the revised pricing be decided, etc. Doesn't matter if you're a game-dev, a graphic designer, or a house-builder, these are just basic tenets of doing business. I swear more folks need to be made to learn this stuff, either in school, or before putting out their "open for business" shingle.
@@mandisawThis. So-called scope creep (i.e. other party adding to the scope of a piece of work) is a well-known problem in the consulting and service industry.
Absolutely useful video. There are people like Thomas Brush who misguides you into thinking that publishers will easily give you a "six figure check", etc... Then there's reality, and the reality is that your game MIGHT be just a new card in a card collector's album
I wouldn't say it's misleading, if you approach the publisher interaction from a business perspective rather than a developer perspective and can make a good presentation for why your concept (ideally with something concrete like a vertical slice) will be successful it's not a far reach. If you have no prior experience or credibility though and only a concept then yes, getting people to gamble on you is a tough sell.
Watched a lot of Thomas Brush videos, even though he didn't put a lot of emphasis into it, He also warned people to make sure they are completely in terms with the contract before hopping right in.
You do realize that one of the reasons that this publisher sort of shelved the game, is because they didn’t provide any dev funding. There was no money to recoup. It didn’t hurt them if the game didn’t do well, they only benefited if it did well. It’s odd to me that given the “war chest” the dev had, that they didn’t hire a lawyer to look over the contract. And even still, Thomas has made money off his games and still asks for funding for each project. You gotta make sure the publisher also has some skin in the game. Was this dirty yeah, but there are businesses deals beneficial to both parties. You just need to be smart and put on your business man hat.
Great video man! Internet is flooded with lot of "solo dev" and how easy is to make games, and a lot of companies and people is getting big profits of spreading this idea that is true only for a few. Put the spotlight over things like this is really useful and healty.
fucking hell.... what a horror story. Thankful that OP posted this because it helps young game devs like me not make similar mistakes. Kasedo Games man... I hope devs steer clear
I've always just laughed when music label executives pretend they give a damn about the musicians. They also pretend they take risks on behalf of musicians. The reality is that if your release or your band tanks they will go after you for every single cent. If you haven't made any money yet they'll go after your future earnings and you can find yourself paying them money for the rest of your life.
So impact to the story, hope them able to recovery!! by the way, about the part of IP and trademark , this part of information is hard to find in youtube, and I think indie GameDev should know it in depth. I suggest you can share some of it to us.
Glad you took your take on the story. When I read the part about taking another mortgage out to continue the game I couldn't take it anymore. I'm now thinking really hard about what I would get a publisher. These contract horror stories are troubling.
Well, you can at least check about known publishers (Google, UA-cam, Reddit, etc) and about similar stories about bad publishers (I always check all I can about a publisher after they contact me - I only signed a few NDAs but no contract yet). While that can´t trully protect you from a bad deal, you can at least avoid some of the trully bad publishers.
Thing to remember is that you're choosing a publisher as a business partner, not an angel-investor/grant-funding. Do your homework, talk to their past & current dev-partners (not just the few references they offer), and get specific on the details, for best/worst/common-case scenarios. And *ALWAYS* have your lawyer [and accountant, if you have payroll/assets/taxes to consider] review the deal, if not actually negotiate on your behalf. Having a dedicated business manager on staff might be worth it too, if you're large enough to have a sizeable staff on payroll, and are dealing in million-dollar [USD] contracts. "Winging it" with passion and pluck is just not enough when you're in the big time, and that's what this was.
My first project will be just me. Maybe no one will buy it, no one will play it, but I have to complete this project solo before getting entangled in other people’s money.
I do game marketing research as a hobby and the fails that the publisher made (intentionally or not) are easily avoidable. I run a website where you can see what games in the same category are released in the same time period and it also runs predicted sales estimates(!) How can a company of professionals do less work?! 😮💨
Let me know below what you think of this situation, and if you have your own experiences to share. Original Reddit post: www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/wuulbk/gaming_failure_defined_lessons_learned/
It makes me sad that the creation of art is being abused to such extend. Thanks for sharing this story. I send my love to all the people harmed by these events.
Wow! This is was a really good video. Kudos to the developer to share their journey. This whole thing was giving anxiety and I can't imagine what the devs where going through. This is truly a side of indie dev I have never come across. I will keep the dev's advices in mind if ever approached by any publishers. Again thanks for the video and the information. Keep it up! :)
That was a well done presentation, You gave it due diligence and your added comments made it complete. THE WARNING IS HEEDED. As indie developers, are there any websites or databases to access regarding Game Publishing companies and real info of there process. Maybe a system that everyone who interacts with a publisher can go and make ther comment or observation, and these publishers can be ranked or voted upon by the developers community. A created database like that would help us all stay updated on the fringe money grubbing predatory class who know artist need money, they like to abuse the truly talented creative ones. As indie game company owners, we need to be savvy in how we protect our creations and especially our talented brothers and sisters of hard working game teams. We need a way to WEED OUT THE money grubbing talentless ,CROOKS, Especially now when there are so many new games being developed. This was crucial to listen to as we are about to be in the arena for these types of publishers who will try and give us offers, especially being a new game company. we also need to have our own contracts that we can give to anyone who things they want to help us, and make sure they have a stake in the game. any ideas how to spot these types, research and communication is great, maybe we should start the gaming publisher watchdogs website. at least to share the info we get from publishers who are interacting with game developers. we are doing a kickstarter in the next few days and i feel lucky and very grateful that i was subscribed cause its hard to keep track of every angle involved in handling that become the BOSS to the small indie companies. we are here for each other. Be good, Karma Guardian -chris
The way the publisher treated this developer in dictating features and terms, I would definitely not call it "Indie" anymore. There was nothing independent about this game either creatively or contractually. My heart goes out to the developer, who probably just wanted to make cool games when they started on this journey.
What a horror story! I´m developing my very first commercial game, and while I already signed a few NDAs after talking to a few publishers but nothing more than that (since it was at a very early stage, no deal was closed), but I´m keeing in touch with some of them showing progress. I always check your channel for great tips and development stories and you always deliver more than I can ever expect! A big hug from here, Brazil and keep making games and with this awesome channel! See ya! Until next video!
Stupid question: why would a dev sign an NDA (presumably requested by the publisher)? What secret does the publisher have that he is disclosing? If anything, the dev is disclosing a secret (details about his project).
I dont understand, with all their money from RoI, why they didnt have lawyers involved on reviewing their contract, it should be common knowledge that a publisher puts up first what they can get away with
Basically one of the main reasons I hold off working with other people on my game. Even other 'developers'. It's hard to trust anyone today and with the internet, it's easy to disappear. I had the opportunity working with someone on 'my game', because he/she was working on something similar. And it would be good in a way, because he/she wanted to program and I wanted to design. But who's game would it be then? And how would you able to work with someone you don't know at all, didn't even see a face. For all I knew, he/she could just run off with the assets I created and I couldn't do anything about it. And I just didn't like spending time on social media. So I decided it was better for the time being, to work on it on my own. I was/am confident enough my game will be different enough from his/hers and will have appeal because of the design and theme. I still have a lot to learn on the process of game development, so it's better for me to do it on my own pace and not have the pressure of someone else on me. Anyone curious, there are some concept videos on UA-cam: 'Close Call Racing' on the 'eyeEmotion' channel. Also this same concept demo is on itch io. (To Lost Relic Games: I understand if you want to remove that last paragraph, as it's your channel and it comes of as advertising [even if I'm way off for that part of the process]).
I've had my own run-ins with collaborators in thr past; some presented competency, had folios; but when the rubber met the road were just unable to think on their feet and deliver their side of the work. It's hard to find good, honest and reliable people. Some people get romanced by the idea of a project, but just don't have the motivation to stick it out. I think contracting people for specific work loads can be a great alternative, much less liability.
There's another nightmare situation happening right now:a game dev called PQube is using an Indonesian game developer's name to get a minority grant money and didn't give the Indonesian game dev any of the money, instead they kept it a secret, then use the money they got from the grant to boost their revenue (I might used the wrong term here) so they can ask for bigger share, the game is A Space For The Unbound by mojiken an toge production
This is why contract signing should not be rushed/pressured and must carefully read and question what's in it. Otherwise, they can f u legally. What they did to them is so evil.
For everything steam offers you as a developer, it's not bad at all and there are other pieces of steam that you likely don't know about until you release a game. Steam keys can be sold on other platforms like itchio with 0 percent going to steam too, they only ask you don't sell it cheaper elsewhere.
@@user-bigschnoz if you sell off platform you also don't get the benefit of the steam algorithm which can very well kill your game, i know how steam works, i still stand by what i said, 30% is criminal and the only reason they can do that is cause they basically have a monopoly on PC gaming
Publishers in my eyes are only ''useful'' if they need you more than you need them. If you're small/medium they mainly take your money w/o doing any real advertisement, investment etc. If your big they would LOVE to advertise for you to get the Moneyball rolling. (this accounts for the book industry as well).
A comment on the issue about firing people in the middle of the pandemic (or any crisis for that matter): Listen, I understand where the person (in this case the owner) in such a predicament is coming from, you don't really want to fire people in the worst moment, you want to keep everybody together and safe. And that's commendable, BUT, you have to remember that you are running a business. It's not actually "cruel" to fire people if that means the business itself will survive and persist in the long term, you would actually be saving jobs in the long run because if the business persists more jobs will come in the future, on the other hand if the business goes bankrupt because you made a desperate spur of the moment attempt at keeping everyone then everyone will probably lose their jobs anyway. Does that make sense? Also think about this, there is a business responsability and there is a personal responsability, there is nothing wrong with being a bit paternalistic but in the end people also have a responsability about their own lives. Sometimes things just happen, and you have to take some hard decisions. I repeat, this is not about selfishness, this is about thinking with a cold head and think about the future, not just your future but everyone who will still work there and all those that will join in the future. Where am I coming from? From experiences as an entrepreneur and having talks with other entrepreneurs, I've seen people sell their stuff, their house etc. for this kind of things, and things don't always turn out fine, they get into debts and worse. Being a business owner is harder than most people think, grow slowly, don't take HUUUGE risks, learn from experience and eventually you'll get there.
What an incredible story. And we have it "straight from the horse's mouth," as it were. It's so sad and terrible the way stories like this fuel the impression that business in general is inherently horribly evil. I hope it is still actually possible to establish business relationships with people who act in good faith and genuinely keep each other's best interests at heart. But my gosh, do you ever have to watch yourself these days! Even with reading all the fine print, and even talking to lawyers, it seems like it might pretty hard to anticipate some of these issues. Thanks so much for giving us all the benefit of this fellow's so thoroughly and stridently described experience! Kudos and thanks to you, once again providing great value to the community.
I've gotten a few publisher messages a bit like that. It felt corporate so that I didn't even need to think about whether or not they sent the exact same to thousands of others.
I'm solo dev working on my first game. this is just one of the many reasons I've sworn to never work with a publisher. They are just never gonna be worth making faction my games potential income. I don't need a loan and I can do the marketing myself. The only way for it make sense to working with a publisher is if you are a AAA game studio, when you games are 60 or 70 bucks that is way more profit potential.
This is a sad story, but I think the guy should have closed his company much sooner. I would have hired a lawyer to try and close the studio while retaining the rights to my IP, That way they could have continued to make sequels under a new name. Companies don't matter, you can always start a new one. Also, the "Most successful businessmen in the world" mostly start on 3rd base with a huge step up from their family. They not only get to flip the coin more times but also have it weighted in their favour. That's why we have the term 'fail son'
Usually you can pull some trick where you "sell" the intellectual property to another entity that you actually own, but separate from the business that is in trouble. There are legal ways to obfuscate the relationship.
@@Ian-eb2io I wouldn't say it's a legal trick it's prudent business practise. Have a holding company that holds the IP so you don't lose it when the studio goes down.
Hiring law professionals to reread contracts to tell you what all of that imply legally is worth every penny. It's busyness, people want to make money, if they don't have to be reasonable, they might not be. A publisher deal can be a good idea, but publishers are not ranging from slight positive impact to great positive impact, they are ranging from great positive impact to NEGATIVE impact, so better to have no publisher, than a publisher with a negative impact.
Marketing is the hardest for me, lol so much fakery in that field its disturbing, really doesn't sit well with the soul, then the offer to change bad reviews to good ones for cash or keys start flowing in. Lol learned a lot though so hopefully not make the same mistakes on my next go. Covid, what a time to start a studio on nothing.
As someone currently going it completely solo, I'm always put off trying to search for a publisher due to these horror stories. I've put over a year's work into my latest Android game, released it and so far had a handful of sales as I just can't get it noticed in the sea of clones and general garbage on the Play store. Turns out advertising and pushing a game is harder than actually making the game in the first place. I guess that's why people use publishers..
READ YOUR CONTRACTS. Then get a Lawyer to read it and summarize it for you. Protect yourself - dont sign a bad deal or sign anything with BS like this or where they can close but still keep your ideas. You can request changes, negotiate, or just walk away if its got anything that will screw you later.
4:31 : Worse than that, in a shorter-than-you-might-think series of coin flips, there is a HIGH probability of a run of all-heads or all-tails. Quick searching suggests 80%+ for a run of 6 heads in a set of 200 flips. There is NO sure system for beating the odds, except to control the game.
@@nyscersul42 I was emphasizing the author's point about "big losing streaks happen". Not only do they HAPPEN, there is a HIGH PROBABILITY that they will happen.
Indie devs try to wear too many hats, which is what led to this issue. If you run a business, never sign a contract without legal advice. It is both foolish and irresponsible to all parties involved. Dapper Penguin absolutely is to blame here. They didn't do their due diligence and basically asked to be taken advantage of.
Is there a website/hub that lists all game publishers and their reputation? Whether it's a list about publishers that you should be aware of or not. Or what type of game and/or game dev are fit for a certain publisher. I wish there was one.
To make a second game after a financially successful game seems also like "doubling down". From what I've seen, publishing an incredibly successful game with a huge following does not mean you can just make another great game and have it be successful. Then the better option seems to be to invest the first chunk of money, and try to re-create the first success without putting it all on the line.
Careful with emails, after the release of my first game I started getting a lot of emails from small companies and publishers and companies claiming to be publishers that can somehow get my free to play game to sell very well to thousands of their audience with hundreds of streamers and content creators they have on speed-dial eager to play this game specifically, honestly if you are working on your first second, or I would even say third released game ever, DONT consider going with a publisher, no matter how beneficial their offer might seem for you, the whole point of a contract, is for the company to protect their own ass, and lose as little investment as possible, its probably better to use a publisher to expand an existing audience than hope they can build one for you - whoever you sign with cares FAR less about your game, than you do
@@cybershellrev7083 My first release was not published as a company, my friend who did publish as a company also got similar emails, a few from different companies than I did with all the same intention behind them
@@dibbieknight7886 - Yeah, I'm familiar wiyh the scams but how did you go about solo publishing? Were there any problems or requirements before publishing your game?
@@cybershellrev7083 If your new to contracts, then theres a few hoops, a lot of reading legal documents, bank, tax and personal ID stuff though I dont think thats unique to Steams registration process - once they start reviewing your game that is probably the most problematic step, everything could be fine or there could be a lot of back and forth before it goes live
@@dibbieknight7886 - You're awesome, thanks for the wise insight bro. Walking up mountains trying to learn everything I can before I take a solid step to publishing.
Interesting. Glad I don't do those mistakes anymore because I learned such things via family. Emotions first put me into debt for 20 years that's now completely solved. Logic and common sense should always go first and then you still can put in emotions. Stay crunchy.
Yeah I just redefine success to avoid financial responsibility to anyone. That means I just make games for fun instead of profit. It’s a bummer on one level but not nearly as bad as that stress.
A.ways read the WHOLE contract.. if you discover these kinds of traps, edit the script to benefit you and request their signature on it also.. if they don't catch it, you've just skinned an eel.. never, ever fail to read a contract and understand it completely before you sign
Unless you're a lawyer yourself, chances are that you won't completely understand the contract, nor will you be able to edit it to your benefit as the publisher will certainly have lawyers with experience on game publishing contracts. Seriously, just get a lawyer yourself or else you'll most likely get fucked over.
If it is anything like the contracts in the music business they're deliberately worded so that even many lawyers will struggle to truly comprehend what you're agreeing to. These companies pay their own lawyers a lot of money to make sure of that.
This is what Kasedo's website displays as Dapper Penguin's review of them. It's ironic. Must have been before this incident. Dapper Penguin - "Once, we were skeptical about having a publisher. There are too many horror stories, and coming from the corporate world, so we had little faith in the system. After working for almost a year very closely with Kasedo Games, all those doubts were dispelled. They have proven to be extremely developer-friendly, understanding our job as game creators, and giving us all the freedom and trust required to make our projects as entertaining as they can be. So far and thanks to them, we’ve been able to go to a couple conventions (Gamescom and GDC) with many more planned; not to mention we've had very big content creators open their doors and blessing us with very positive articles and videos. Our relationship is based on mutual trust, something very rare in this often hostile and heartbreaking industry."
How is that indy? I have no problem with having a publisher, but that also means it's not an indy anymore. Indy means there is no one calling shots other than you.
a shift in the market is my greatest fear right now with my own game I hadn't seen a ton of space based games lately (there are a few but not a ton) so I figured i'd make one but at gamescom almost all the big games were space related how do I even begin to compete with that?
Also, with the current state of the games industry, i think there are a few niches as yet unfilled. Or... maybe it would be more appropriate to say that there are some old niches which could be refilled.
From the About Us section of Kasedo Games: "At Kasedo Games, our aim is to publish video games that players will love, but not at the expense of the people making them. We work closely together with enthusiastic indie developers and offer them our vast experience to help get their game in front of a global audience."
If they invested money into the game (which should be a requirement) why should they get it back before you do? You invested way more into the game than they did. So they should earn it back though their 30% with the help of their marketing talent.
It's a lot like book or music publishing. Basically before the work exists, it's just a dream & a ton of risk. So any upfront money spent by the publisher, either as a lump-sum advance, or a % of development expenses, is just money tossed into a hole. There's zero guarantee that a viable product will come out the other side, or that there'll be enough profit to offset that risky investment. General rule of investment is that the greater the risk, the greater the slice of revenue the investor is entitled to. In a case like this, where the devs had a track record, and a prior IP, that helps mitigate the risk, but it's still a mysterious money-pit until post-launch revenues build up.
@@mandisaw It isn't an investment, it's a loan and they'll claw it back one way or another. Actual risky investments come with a real possibility of losing that money and no way or right to recover it if things don't pan out.
@@Ian-eb2io Hmm, investors can have variable amounts of protection, all depends on what & where the investment is. In this case, a publisher putting money into a game is taking a risk - if the game doesn't make that money back, or fails to release altogether, then they're out part or all of their stake. Normally the liability would end with the dev studio, not the persons behind it, so unless there were some extenuating factors, breach of contract, fraud, etc, if the project doesn't happen, the pubs are just left with red on the balance sheet.
What I don't understand is why he signed a contract without getting his lawyer to check very word, comma and full stop. Even if the same things still happened, the lawyer would be liable for not doing his job.
Wow that’s crazy and it sounds like the publisher was failing (not due to anything you did) and was putting even more pressure on the dev studio that was making a quality game (and already proved they could make a critical hit) it’s like the age old situation your best horse is worked the hardest, it just sucks the publisher was predatory and pushed their $#!T problems downstream onto the actual reason they make money, the developer... it’s hard to hear but thanks for sharing this, I wonder if the stress of self publishing is worth it only to dodge the possibility of this situation
And the irony is, this is the publishers website claim "At **** Games, our aim is to publish video games that players will love, but not at the expense of the people making them. We work closely together with enthusiastic indie developers and offer them our vast experience to help get their game in front of a global audience."
So I'm 17 mins in and I can't believe what I'm hearing. Most of this literally sounds like just flat out bad business decisions. For starters with such a bad deal on the second game why did he even sign a contract with the publisher in the first place? They had a community, they had success already, just do it yourself. Second, what the hell is the publisher even providing? So far I'm not hearing a single thing they are providing on this second game. Third, why would he let a worthless publisher strong arm him into giving up previous game rights? This had nothing to do with COVID and thinking he would lose this many times in a row. This was just extremely bad decisions. I'm looking at this as rookie developer and a business owner and this is just bad decisions. So after finishing the video, man that shit got worse and worse as it went on. But pretty much all of the shit stemmed from what I said originally. This was a string of very bad decisions that had nothing to do with games, but just bad decisions in general. Nor did it have to do with that stupid 50/50 effect thing he talked about in the beginning. He just made a bunch of shitty decisions back to back to back etc. Sucks up here tho because they were on their way to being a good successful studio with multiple games under their belt.
16:18 and there it is. I saw this coming a mile away. In many ways it's these kinds of inside baseball topics that are incredibly important but also embarrassing and infuriating so people don't want to talk about it. People were blown away when TLC accepted their music award and said they were broke and were screwed by their label and other ancillary entities that take their cut. I watched another video about how the venue often takes a percentage of merch and record sales from touring musicians. It's something a starting band or musician wouldn't know about. Or how famously the writer of the book Forrest Gump was based on got zero dollars in royalties because he took a deal based on net and not gross
Hey guys, Alex here. Still trying to recover after seeing this video. It's so weird to see someone speaking our words, it's almost surreal, like if it was all fiction. One thing I want to make clear though: the post was not to cause any drama, it was to warn other devs or entrepreneurs to read everything and to seek legal help, every time. If finger pointing is necessary, then I need to point at myself. I was (or am) too naive.
We look hopeful toward the future as we're now in a deal with another publisher and doing a fantastic new project. We don't want to damage the relationship with the new ones. Kasedo is a thing of the past. We (especially: I) learned a lot but need to move forwards.
This said I want to thank everyone here for your kind and supporting words. You simply cannot imagine how much they mean.
PS: English is my 3rd language, so I needed to get external help via a ghostwriter to put all my nonsensical notes into an eloquent document. This said, this lengthy story covers maybe 1/10th of all the shenanigans we went through. What. A. Ride.
If you write a book on this horror story or possibly on running an indy studio I'd definitely buy it. This story needs to be told to help others.
@@killaken2000 Well, this snorefest of an article sure is long enough to be done in book form. Add a few pictures and elaborate more and voila! 50 pages book
Best of luck on your new project!
Developing a game myself. Thank you for your story. Love your attitude. It's the correct one and the one I want to think I'd have, were I in your shoes. You may have been naive, but your heart was in the right place. In the end, good things tend to happen to good people. Good luck to you and your studio
stop using publishers
Remember, as hard as you work for your money, there’s someone working twice as hard to get it from you
Amen
Amen
haha spose its true, for the publisher taking the developers cash, and then the developers taking gamers cash, such and such
Yep I saw this when showcasing at events. My attitude is if you have the talent, they don't pay you up front because they think your game is going to make pennies. They know they'll be able to make their money back and then some. I wish more devs would just trust themselves, kickstart, and then subcontract out work for marketing instead of going to these publishing houses.
We work hard, the devil works harder
I'm a lawyer in my day job (not in GameDev field) and make games outside of that, but this video has almost made me want to become a freelance GameDev lawyer just to help fellow devs out. A lot of those issues will be familiar to most lawyers in negotiating any contract and it's actually quite frightening how bad this particular situation got. Even if you don't get legal help - remember clear, concise wording is paramount - try to imagine all the things that could go wrong and plug them into the contract, including a very clear scope of work. Writing a contract is almost like coding: clear definitions, clear mechanisms and a clear output.
You can make a pretty good side-hustle as a game-dev lawyer. The problem is that so many devs/studios assume that they don't need one.
@@mandisaw I think that's probably the issue. Also it doesn't help that studios and publishers usually work globally or in different jurisdictions which makes giving legal advice difficult. But the same principles should apply really - just be clear about what both parties are supposed to do in the first place! There are also usually laws to override contractual clauses which have not been properly negotiated and imposed by a large corporation en masse to little people.
@@jeremynunns7496 My understanding is that even "global" publishing deals tend to actually be regional, or they farm out some local needs to regional partners. Contracts would still necessarily be tied to some specific jurisdiction though.
The horror stories I hear, like this one, are nearly all down to just Business 101 basics though, not any kind of esoteric gotchas.
@mandisaw I don't think the assumption that they don't need one. Perhaps assuming that they can't afford one, not knowing who in the industry would specialize in that area of law and is trustworthy, and perhaps they initially trust the publisher they are going into business with and don't fully realize the necessity.
"Indy" (Independent) is a strange choice of naming, when the developer is so locked into providing specific milestones during development, and heavily depends on tranches being payed out by a financier.
People fight for their life to escape being a corporate subordinate. They start a studio, find a publisher; and if unlucky, find themselves at square one.
i agree if you are relaying on external finance to make your game them you aren't truly indempendent you are just a ''aa''
@@LostRelicGames isn't having a publisher defeat the idea of being indie
@@EnderElohim Publishers will usually help out in the marketing and public relations aspect of it from what I hear. Without them, it's pretty much taking on a second job when marketing your game yourself.
@@TheJungaBoon looks like my understanding of indie game developer/company was wrong.
Just recently i was able to talk with a owner indie game company that worked with publisher and seems like it is quite good idea when you can find a good deal or toxic as fuck if you find bad one.
That make me realise maybe i should try to not maybe i should find a publisher pc/parkour game currently i'm working on. Seems like if i can make first small part of it looks shiny and good i might have a chance to fund myself so i can work on it more and less to work on others stuffs to make money XD
Btw you are welcome to follow my channel :D Posting my game updates time to time so. Thanks
Poor guy, despite having made a bunch of bad decisions, it seems that his biggest fault was in simply caring about the people involved. I'd say, given the way that situation was going, that he should feel proud of his motivations at least. Unfortunately the problem with business is it is much like a predator prey relationship, except, everything and everyone is prey. Business is a cannibalistic predator which will eat you alive if you are not just as capable of being a cut throat predatorial type yourself. He made a bunch of choices which led to a bad situation, but, he deserves the title of considerate human being for those very same choices. At least he kept his heart, rather than becoming heartless like the businesses. No publishers for me. I would rather have a minimal player count when my work is done than consider feeding the beast.
Except if you go around behaving like a predator you'll earn a reputation and everyone will start to avoid you.
That is a perfect description of business. And the game business is still a business. I have only just started my game development journey but my business experience is exactly like this. I expect nothing less or more from the game industry. Sage advice, agreements in writing. Use a lawyer. Get an accountant. Realise business is business, not friendship. If you don't want to fire people or follow cash logic, then stay small and independent.
I mean, you can get a good deal with a publisher, JUST ALWAYS BRING YOUR OWN LAWYER.
@@KryyssTV Rather than re-iterating the mistakes of the individual about whom the video is made, why not recognise that he has already identified most of these mistakes himself, and, even managed to establish a mildly entertaining metaphor to explain it - doubling down. Clearly, he knows he made these mistakes and you are simply re-iterating over them.
He chose to put this forwards partly as a way to illuminate the darkness that exists behind closed curtains in the industry, but, also to share his mistakes in an effort to help others not make the same ones.
And, if you have two items providing an income, one is a single one off pay out, and the other is a slower but long term dividend, which one do you think a financial adviser would tell you to keep ahold of?
You assume that there was sensibility in the arrangement to sell their first game... i disagree. If only to protect the treatment of their own work, selling the rights to their first game seems bad, especially considering how obviously manipulative these publishers were.
Business may be cut throat, but games developers are artists.
The trend of artists being taken advantage of by business is pretty much as old as our ability to capture art, in any medium, even the ancient theatre and books.
So... why fault the artist? And why do so so vehemently?
Do you fault the deer for being caught by the wolf?
(I do agree with your sentiment tho that both sides should have cut their losses much earlier, however.)
@@KryyssTV I disagree, and honestly, you seem stuck on that opinion. I'm not saying he is without fault, but... You are making it seem like everything is his fault when it is not.
That IS a horror story!... and what a fitting name their game had for all that went down😵I don't know how you come back from this, but I hope they can put all of this behind them and find incredible success after this.
On the offchance Kasedo doesn't sue my ass, things might look bright: another deal with a different publisher, managed to sell all I could to recover my house, and now slowly regaining the studio members
@@dapperpenguinstudios809 That's quite good to hear! Good luck!
Always, always, get feature requests as additional funding negotiations in your contracts. And be diligent with bringing it up with every feature request or feature change. It's the same with contract work. If a publisher can take advantage of you, they will.
Change management ought to be part of every work-for-hire contract. What sorts of changes are allowable; how are they to be documented, decided upon, and implemented; who gets to request changes, and under what time/money constraints; how will the revised pricing be decided, etc.
Doesn't matter if you're a game-dev, a graphic designer, or a house-builder, these are just basic tenets of doing business. I swear more folks need to be made to learn this stuff, either in school, or before putting out their "open for business" shingle.
@@mandisawThis. So-called scope creep (i.e. other party adding to the scope of a piece of work) is a well-known problem in the consulting and service industry.
My heart bleeds for that studio. My god. God speed to every game developer. and thank you john for the video.
Absolutely useful video. There are people like Thomas Brush who misguides you into thinking that publishers will easily give you a "six figure check", etc... Then there's reality, and the reality is that your game MIGHT be just a new card in a card collector's album
I wouldn't say it's misleading, if you approach the publisher interaction from a business perspective rather than a developer perspective and can make a good presentation for why your concept (ideally with something concrete like a vertical slice) will be successful it's not a far reach.
If you have no prior experience or credibility though and only a concept then yes, getting people to gamble on you is a tough sell.
Watched a lot of Thomas Brush videos, even though he didn't put a lot of emphasis into it, He also warned people to make sure they are completely in terms with the contract before hopping right in.
You do realize that one of the reasons that this publisher sort of shelved the game, is because they didn’t provide any dev funding. There was no money to recoup. It didn’t hurt them if the game didn’t do well, they only benefited if it did well. It’s odd to me that given the “war chest” the dev had, that they didn’t hire a lawyer to look over the contract. And even still, Thomas has made money off his games and still asks for funding for each project.
You gotta make sure the publisher also has some skin in the game. Was this dirty yeah, but there are businesses deals beneficial to both parties. You just need to be smart and put on your business man hat.
Thomas brush talks about 6 figures coming from a variety of channels, not some angel publisher.
I barely watch the guy and even I know that.
Great video man! Internet is flooded with lot of "solo dev" and how easy is to make games, and a lot of companies and people is getting big profits of spreading this idea that is true only for a few.
Put the spotlight over things like this is really useful and healty.
fucking hell.... what a horror story. Thankful that OP posted this because it helps young game devs like me not make similar mistakes. Kasedo Games man... I hope devs steer clear
I've always just laughed when music label executives pretend they give a damn about the musicians. They also pretend they take risks on behalf of musicians. The reality is that if your release or your band tanks they will go after you for every single cent. If you haven't made any money yet they'll go after your future earnings and you can find yourself paying them money for the rest of your life.
So impact to the story, hope them able to recovery!! by the way, about the part of IP and trademark , this part of information is hard to find in youtube, and I think indie GameDev should know it in depth. I suggest you can share some of it to us.
Glad you took your take on the story. When I read the part about taking another mortgage out to continue the game I couldn't take it anymore. I'm now thinking really hard about what I would get a publisher. These contract horror stories are troubling.
Well, you can at least check about known publishers (Google, UA-cam, Reddit, etc) and about similar stories about bad publishers (I always check all I can about a publisher after they contact me - I only signed a few NDAs but no contract yet).
While that can´t trully protect you from a bad deal, you can at least avoid some of the trully bad publishers.
It was such a stupid move that I was THIS close to losing. My angel came down and saved the house, but I won't gamble it again...
Thing to remember is that you're choosing a publisher as a business partner, not an angel-investor/grant-funding. Do your homework, talk to their past & current dev-partners (not just the few references they offer), and get specific on the details, for best/worst/common-case scenarios. And *ALWAYS* have your lawyer [and accountant, if you have payroll/assets/taxes to consider] review the deal, if not actually negotiate on your behalf.
Having a dedicated business manager on staff might be worth it too, if you're large enough to have a sizeable staff on payroll, and are dealing in million-dollar [USD] contracts. "Winging it" with passion and pluck is just not enough when you're in the big time, and that's what this was.
My first project will be just me. Maybe no one will buy it, no one will play it, but I have to complete this project solo before getting entangled in other people’s money.
I do game marketing research as a hobby and the fails that the publisher made (intentionally or not) are easily avoidable. I run a website where you can see what games in the same category are released in the same time period and it also runs predicted sales estimates(!)
How can a company of professionals do less work?! 😮💨
Site link?
Yeah do you have a link to the site ? That could be very beneficial for me. :O
Let me know below what you think of this situation, and if you have your own experiences to share.
Original Reddit post: www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/wuulbk/gaming_failure_defined_lessons_learned/
This video was a pain to watch and i am sad such things happen. Thank you for the link.
It's been taken down apparently.
It's back up. Guess it had to be audited or something like that.
Reach out to the developer of BUG FABLES. I'm sure he'd love to talk about how his game was ruined by his publisher. It's a super interesting story.
I'm glad he shared his experience with us. I have my vision to open my own studio.
Good luck! It's equally frustrating, infuriating and gratifying! I hate everything that happened, but wouldn't change it for a cushy office job...
It makes me sad that the creation of art is being abused to such extend.
Thanks for sharing this story. I send my love to all the people harmed by these events.
And, it makes me sad to recognise how that abuse is far older than any of us here (on these comments) seem to realise.
I can't describe how disgusted I am. Looks like I'll never ask a publisher. I appreciate the warning.
No no, DO trust them.... but do your homework and research beforehand. AND FIND A LAWYER!
Wow! This is was a really good video. Kudos to the developer to share their journey. This whole thing was giving anxiety and I can't imagine what the devs where going through. This is truly a side of indie dev I have never come across. I will keep the dev's advices in mind if ever approached by any publishers. Again thanks for the video and the information. Keep it up! :)
Imagine how many anxiety pills and antidepressants I went through :D
@@dapperpenguinstudios809 I can't imagine. This is a horrible experience. Hang in there. Something good must be coming your way. :)
That was a well done presentation, You gave it due diligence and your added comments made it complete. THE WARNING IS HEEDED. As indie developers, are there any websites or databases to access regarding Game Publishing companies and real info of there process. Maybe a system that everyone who interacts with a publisher can go and make ther comment or observation, and these publishers can be ranked or voted upon by the developers community. A created database like that would help us all stay updated on the fringe money grubbing predatory class who know artist need money, they like to abuse the truly talented creative ones. As indie game company owners, we need to be savvy in how we protect our creations and especially our talented brothers and sisters of hard working game teams. We need a way to WEED OUT THE money grubbing talentless ,CROOKS, Especially now when there are so many new games being developed. This was crucial to listen to as we are about to be in the arena for these types of publishers who will try and give us offers, especially being a new game company. we also need to have our own contracts that we can give to anyone who things they want to help us, and make sure they have a stake in the game. any ideas how to spot these types, research and communication is great, maybe we should start the gaming publisher watchdogs website. at least to share the info we get from publishers who are interacting with game developers. we are doing a kickstarter in the next few days and i feel lucky and very grateful that i was subscribed cause its hard to keep track of every angle involved in handling that become the BOSS to the small indie companies. we are here for each other.
Be good,
Karma Guardian -chris
The way the publisher treated this developer in dictating features and terms, I would definitely not call it "Indie" anymore. There was nothing independent about this game either creatively or contractually. My heart goes out to the developer, who probably just wanted to make cool games when they started on this journey.
Lots of great tidbits in both the original post and your commentary,. I missed the original post so really appreciate you making this John!
Woah man! I don't know what to say but I'm really sorry for the developer and I hope they somehow recover from this.
What a horror story!
I´m developing my very first commercial game, and while I already signed a few NDAs after talking to a few publishers but nothing more than that (since it was at a very early stage, no deal was closed), but I´m keeing in touch with some of them showing progress.
I always check your channel for great tips and development stories and you always deliver more than I can ever expect!
A big hug from here, Brazil and keep making games and with this awesome channel!
See ya! Until next video!
Here´s a video of the game that I´m developing:
ua-cam.com/video/l3cSQlXLjV4/v-deo.html
Stupid question: why would a dev sign an NDA (presumably requested by the publisher)? What secret does the publisher have that he is disclosing? If anything, the dev is disclosing a secret (details about his project).
@@Martinit0 agree, this is a red flag.
Glad to have you back John! Congrats on the littte one!
Glad to be back! I've been itching to make a video!
I dont understand, with all their money from RoI, why they didnt have lawyers involved on reviewing their contract, it should be common knowledge that a publisher puts up first what they can get away with
Cos I was stupid enough to trust them. If they can get me enough cash with RoI, surely they could do the same for RfD... right?
@@dapperpenguinstudios809 Im sorry to hear about this story, and i hope you are stronger from it.
Basically one of the main reasons I hold off working with other people on my game. Even other 'developers'. It's hard to trust anyone today and with the internet, it's easy to disappear.
I had the opportunity working with someone on 'my game', because he/she was working on something similar. And it would be good in a way, because he/she wanted to program and I wanted to design. But who's game would it be then? And how would you able to work with someone you don't know at all, didn't even see a face. For all I knew, he/she could just run off with the assets I created and I couldn't do anything about it.
And I just didn't like spending time on social media.
So I decided it was better for the time being, to work on it on my own. I was/am confident enough my game will be different enough from his/hers and will have appeal because of the design and theme.
I still have a lot to learn on the process of game development, so it's better for me to do it on my own pace and not have the pressure of someone else on me.
Anyone curious, there are some concept videos on UA-cam: 'Close Call Racing' on the 'eyeEmotion' channel. Also this same concept demo is on itch io.
(To Lost Relic Games: I understand if you want to remove that last paragraph, as it's your channel and it comes of as advertising [even if I'm way off for that part of the process]).
I've had my own run-ins with collaborators in thr past; some presented competency, had folios; but when the rubber met the road were just unable to think on their feet and deliver their side of the work.
It's hard to find good, honest and reliable people. Some people get romanced by the idea of a project, but just don't have the motivation to stick it out. I think contracting people for specific work loads can be a great alternative, much less liability.
Dude writing that post writes really well.
There's another nightmare situation happening right now:a game dev called PQube is using an Indonesian game developer's name to get a minority grant money and didn't give the Indonesian game dev any of the money, instead they kept it a secret, then use the money they got from the grant to boost their revenue (I might used the wrong term here) so they can ask for bigger share, the game is A Space For The Unbound by mojiken an toge production
This is why contract signing should not be rushed/pressured and must carefully read and question what's in it. Otherwise, they can f u legally.
What they did to them is so evil.
Sounds to me the publisher was after their IP all along and did deliberate things they knew would harm the indie company.
steam taking 30% is criminal given that you have to do your own marketing or hand it off to a publisher
and in some countries there is up to 20 % taxation that you have to pay or you go longer to prison than some molester.
For everything steam offers you as a developer, it's not bad at all and there are other pieces of steam that you likely don't know about until you release a game. Steam keys can be sold on other platforms like itchio with 0 percent going to steam too, they only ask you don't sell it cheaper elsewhere.
@@user-bigschnoz if you sell off platform you also don't get the benefit of the steam algorithm which can very well kill your game, i know how steam works, i still stand by what i said, 30% is criminal and the only reason they can do that is cause they basically have a monopoly on PC gaming
30% is !nS@ne
@@Zuranthus steam gives you an absolute TON of quality features for not just with their platform but for your game. It's pretty justified imo.
Publishers in my eyes are only ''useful'' if they need you more than you need them. If you're small/medium they mainly take your money w/o doing any real advertisement, investment etc. If your big they would LOVE to advertise for you to get the Moneyball rolling. (this accounts for the book industry as well).
A comment on the issue about firing people in the middle of the pandemic (or any crisis for that matter): Listen, I understand where the person (in this case the owner) in such a predicament is coming from, you don't really want to fire people in the worst moment, you want to keep everybody together and safe. And that's commendable, BUT, you have to remember that you are running a business. It's not actually "cruel" to fire people if that means the business itself will survive and persist in the long term, you would actually be saving jobs in the long run because if the business persists more jobs will come in the future, on the other hand if the business goes bankrupt because you made a desperate spur of the moment attempt at keeping everyone then everyone will probably lose their jobs anyway. Does that make sense?
Also think about this, there is a business responsability and there is a personal responsability, there is nothing wrong with being a bit paternalistic but in the end people also have a responsability about their own lives. Sometimes things just happen, and you have to take some hard decisions. I repeat, this is not about selfishness, this is about thinking with a cold head and think about the future, not just your future but everyone who will still work there and all those that will join in the future.
Where am I coming from? From experiences as an entrepreneur and having talks with other entrepreneurs, I've seen people sell their stuff, their house etc. for this kind of things, and things don't always turn out fine, they get into debts and worse. Being a business owner is harder than most people think, grow slowly, don't take HUUUGE risks, learn from experience and eventually you'll get there.
What an incredible story. And we have it "straight from the horse's mouth," as it were. It's so sad and terrible the way stories like this fuel the impression that business in general is inherently horribly evil. I hope it is still actually possible to establish business relationships with people who act in good faith and genuinely keep each other's best interests at heart. But my gosh, do you ever have to watch yourself these days! Even with reading all the fine print, and even talking to lawyers, it seems like it might pretty hard to anticipate some of these issues. Thanks so much for giving us all the benefit of this fellow's so thoroughly and stridently described experience! Kudos and thanks to you, once again providing great value to the community.
damn
with friends like that you dont even need enemies
I listened to this entire video and took notes . Thanks for this content !
Thank for sharing this developer’s story. It is greatly appreciated.
Hey man, been waiting for a new video, and you didn't disappoint, been consuming your videos almost daily, really happy that I found your channel
Thanks man, I had to take a little break for family time. Good to be back
Excellent reality check. Thank you to the guy who wrote this post.
A lot Publishers are just pond scum on a sea of talent, suffocating the industry beneath it.
I was looking at tips for game dev and came across this post, then 1 hour later come across this video.
I've gotten a few publisher messages a bit like that. It felt corporate so that I didn't even need to think about whether or not they sent the exact same to thousands of others.
They named it recipe for distaster? My friend once named his new dog Schwifty. Guess what happened?
The name of the game is perfect irony - "Recipe for Disaster" indeed! :(
I'm solo dev working on my first game. this is just one of the many reasons I've sworn to never work with a publisher. They are just never gonna be worth making faction my games potential income. I don't need a loan and I can do the marketing myself. The only way for it make sense to working with a publisher is if you are a AAA game studio, when you games are 60 or 70 bucks that is way more profit potential.
Thank you very much for the story. Its an eye opener.
Well, no more Kasedo published games on my wishlist.
Let's hope the devs make another game that I can support.
This is a sad story, but I think the guy should have closed his company much sooner. I would have hired a lawyer to try and close the studio while retaining the rights to my IP, That way they could have continued to make sequels under a new name. Companies don't matter, you can always start a new one.
Also, the "Most successful businessmen in the world" mostly start on 3rd base with a huge step up from their family. They not only get to flip the coin more times but also have it weighted in their favour. That's why we have the term 'fail son'
Usually you can pull some trick where you "sell" the intellectual property to another entity that you actually own, but separate from the business that is in trouble. There are legal ways to obfuscate the relationship.
@@Ian-eb2io I wouldn't say it's a legal trick it's prudent business practise. Have a holding company that holds the IP so you don't lose it when the studio goes down.
Hiring law professionals to reread contracts to tell you what all of that imply legally is worth every penny. It's busyness, people want to make money, if they don't have to be reasonable, they might not be. A publisher deal can be a good idea, but publishers are not ranging from slight positive impact to great positive impact, they are ranging from great positive impact to NEGATIVE impact, so better to have no publisher, than a publisher with a negative impact.
Marketing is the hardest for me, lol so much fakery in that field its disturbing, really doesn't sit well with the soul, then the offer to change bad reviews to good ones for cash or keys start flowing in. Lol learned a lot though so hopefully not make the same mistakes on my next go. Covid, what a time to start a studio on nothing.
Publishers are just like bankers, giving out loans, cashing on on others work. Or any capitalist monopoly. It is a numbers game.
Been saying it for years. If your studio is beholden to anyone, you're not indy.
So why exactly did they even have a publisher if development was funded by the developers?
As someone currently going it completely solo, I'm always put off trying to search for a publisher due to these horror stories. I've put over a year's work into my latest Android game, released it and so far had a handful of sales as I just can't get it noticed in the sea of clones and general garbage on the Play store. Turns out advertising and pushing a game is harder than actually making the game in the first place. I guess that's why people use publishers..
I think two things are going on here. 1, the publisher does not understand the development process 2, arse coverage.
READ YOUR CONTRACTS. Then get a Lawyer to read it and summarize it for you. Protect yourself - dont sign a bad deal or sign anything with BS like this or where they can close but still keep your ideas. You can request changes, negotiate, or just walk away if its got anything that will screw you later.
4:31 : Worse than that, in a shorter-than-you-might-think series of coin flips, there is a HIGH probability of a run of all-heads or all-tails. Quick searching suggests 80%+ for a run of 6 heads in a set of 200 flips. There is NO sure system for beating the odds, except to control the game.
That's exactly what he was saying. He was identifying his own hope at the expectation of a change in luck to be statistically unrealistic.
@@nyscersul42 I was emphasizing the author's point about "big losing streaks happen". Not only do they HAPPEN, there is a HIGH PROBABILITY that they will happen.
Indie devs try to wear too many hats, which is what led to this issue.
If you run a business, never sign a contract without legal advice. It is both foolish and irresponsible to all parties involved.
Dapper Penguin absolutely is to blame here. They didn't do their due diligence and basically asked to be taken advantage of.
i think they may have been deliberately bankrupting him so they could buy the IP for the original games at a discount.
Is there a website/hub that lists all game publishers and their reputation?
Whether it's a list about publishers that you should be aware of or not.
Or what type of game and/or game dev are fit for a certain publisher.
I wish there was one.
Wow, a lot of good information in this story. Thanks to the developer that shared their experiences.
Working with that particular publisher truly is a recipe for disaster. This story breaks my heart.
Lots of things to consider on my journey
To make a second game after a financially successful game seems also like "doubling down".
From what I've seen, publishing an incredibly successful game with a huge following does not mean you can just make another great game and have it be successful.
Then the better option seems to be to invest the first chunk of money, and try to re-create the first success without putting it all on the line.
Life advice read a contract before you sign, and if you don't understand it even a small part pay a lawer to go over it.
"grossing" 3m "after expenses" lol
Sounds like they were dealing with some crooks.
Careful with emails, after the release of my first game I started getting a lot of emails from small companies and publishers and companies claiming to be publishers that can somehow get my free to play game to sell very well to thousands of their audience with hundreds of streamers and content creators they have on speed-dial eager to play this game specifically, honestly if you are working on your first second, or I would even say third released game ever, DONT consider going with a publisher, no matter how beneficial their offer might seem for you, the whole point of a contract, is for the company to protect their own ass, and lose as little investment as possible, its probably better to use a publisher to expand an existing audience than hope they can build one for you - whoever you sign with cares FAR less about your game, than you do
Did you trademark your game and studio name or did you just get it published under your own name?
@@cybershellrev7083 My first release was not published as a company, my friend who did publish as a company also got similar emails, a few from different companies than I did with all the same intention behind them
@@dibbieknight7886 - Yeah, I'm familiar wiyh the scams but how did you go about solo publishing? Were there any problems or requirements before publishing your game?
@@cybershellrev7083 If your new to contracts, then theres a few hoops, a lot of reading legal documents, bank, tax and personal ID stuff though I dont think thats unique to Steams registration process - once they start reviewing your game that is probably the most problematic step, everything could be fine or there could be a lot of back and forth before it goes live
@@dibbieknight7886 - You're awesome, thanks for the wise insight bro. Walking up mountains trying to learn everything I can before I take a solid step to publishing.
I enjoyed hearing you narrate that reddit post. I wouldn't mind hearing your voice read out loud #indiegames books.
Interesting. Glad I don't do those mistakes anymore because I learned such things via family. Emotions first put me into debt for 20 years that's now completely solved. Logic and common sense should always go first and then you still can put in emotions.
Stay crunchy.
This was hard to listen to, but the lessons here are too important not to stay until the end.
Who loses 8 coin flips in a row? 1 out of every 256 people who do 8 coin flips.
Very informative video, secret Sage....
Yeah I just redefine success to avoid financial responsibility to anyone. That means I just make games for fun instead of profit. It’s a bummer on one level but not nearly as bad as that stress.
My takeaway from this is to not work with a publisher at all.
So yeah, they really nailed their recipe for disaster
ye, immagine being to greedy/dumb to get a lawyer reading the contract beforehand.
they made millions and yet they were to stingy to pay a few grand.
29:45 Wow! What a line!
A.ways read the WHOLE contract.. if you discover these kinds of traps, edit the script to benefit you and request their signature on it also.. if they don't catch it, you've just skinned an eel.. never, ever fail to read a contract and understand it completely before you sign
Unless you're a lawyer yourself, chances are that you won't completely understand the contract, nor will you be able to edit it to your benefit as the publisher will certainly have lawyers with experience on game publishing contracts. Seriously, just get a lawyer yourself or else you'll most likely get fucked over.
If it is anything like the contracts in the music business they're deliberately worded so that even many lawyers will struggle to truly comprehend what you're agreeing to. These companies pay their own lawyers a lot of money to make sure of that.
This is what Kasedo's website displays as Dapper Penguin's review of them. It's ironic. Must have been before this incident.
Dapper Penguin -
"Once, we were skeptical about having a publisher. There are too many horror stories, and coming from the corporate world, so we had little faith in the system. After working for almost a year very closely with Kasedo Games, all those doubts were dispelled. They have proven to be extremely developer-friendly, understanding our job as game creators, and giving us all the freedom and trust required to make our projects as entertaining as they can be.
So far and thanks to them, we’ve been able to go to a couple conventions (Gamescom and GDC) with many more planned; not to mention we've had very big content creators open their doors and blessing us with very positive articles and videos. Our relationship is based on mutual trust, something very rare in this often hostile and heartbreaking industry."
How is that indy?
I have no problem with having a publisher, but that also means it's not an indy anymore. Indy means there is no one calling shots other than you.
a shift in the market is my greatest fear right now with my own game I hadn't seen a ton of space based games lately (there are a few but not a ton) so I figured i'd make one but at gamescom almost all the big games were space related how do I even begin to compete with that?
Lol. Making my own space game right now. Fortunately am years from release 😊 But I agree, markets don't move in game dev time, sadly.
@@MrPauld123456 yeah I'm hoping to have my initial release in December of 2023 but idk
Me too(making a space game)... maybe we should consider talking to each other?
Also, with the current state of the games industry, i think there are a few niches as yet unfilled. Or... maybe it would be more appropriate to say that there are some old niches which could be refilled.
@@MrPauld123456 let me know if you'd be interested in a discussion on discord. I guess we could meet through the discord for this channel?
Just goes to show, you can be the best game dev in the world, that's something different than running an effective company.
(Altho failure can be a good teacher on becoming a better business man, it's just tough when you need to risk so much)
From the About Us section of Kasedo Games: "At Kasedo Games, our aim is to publish video games that players will love, but not at the expense of the people making them. We work closely together with enthusiastic indie developers and offer them our vast experience to help get their game in front of a global audience."
If they invested money into the game (which should be a requirement) why should they get it back before you do? You invested way more into the game than they did. So they should earn it back though their 30% with the help of their marketing talent.
That's the logic, not the reality, unfortunately.
They invest, they get it back first. With interests.
It's a lot like book or music publishing. Basically before the work exists, it's just a dream & a ton of risk. So any upfront money spent by the publisher, either as a lump-sum advance, or a % of development expenses, is just money tossed into a hole. There's zero guarantee that a viable product will come out the other side, or that there'll be enough profit to offset that risky investment.
General rule of investment is that the greater the risk, the greater the slice of revenue the investor is entitled to. In a case like this, where the devs had a track record, and a prior IP, that helps mitigate the risk, but it's still a mysterious money-pit until post-launch revenues build up.
@@mandisaw It isn't an investment, it's a loan and they'll claw it back one way or another. Actual risky investments come with a real possibility of losing that money and no way or right to recover it if things don't pan out.
@@Ian-eb2io Hmm, investors can have variable amounts of protection, all depends on what & where the investment is. In this case, a publisher putting money into a game is taking a risk - if the game doesn't make that money back, or fails to release altogether, then they're out part or all of their stake.
Normally the liability would end with the dev studio, not the persons behind it, so unless there were some extenuating factors, breach of contract, fraud, etc, if the project doesn't happen, the pubs are just left with red on the balance sheet.
Need to organize and boycott certain publishers. Would be a nice feature on steam.
The irony of the game's name!!!
What I don't understand is why he signed a contract without getting his lawyer to check very word, comma and full stop. Even if the same things still happened, the lawyer would be liable for not doing his job.
Hey buddy thank you for the information.
Wow that’s crazy and it sounds like the publisher was failing (not due to anything you did) and was putting even more pressure on the dev studio that was making a quality game (and already proved they could make a critical hit) it’s like the age old situation your best horse is worked the hardest, it just sucks the publisher was predatory and pushed their $#!T problems downstream onto the actual reason they make money, the developer... it’s hard to hear but thanks for sharing this, I wonder if the stress of self publishing is worth it only to dodge the possibility of this situation
This is messed up. Makes me just want to do everythinh myself
Hearing some of what is there reminds me a lot of MCNS for youtube many years ago
And the irony is, this is the publishers website claim "At **** Games, our aim is to publish video games that players will love, but not at the expense of the people making them. We work closely together with enthusiastic indie developers and offer them our vast experience to help get their game in front of a global audience."
What exactly is that publishers do that game studios can't afford to do it themselves without the overhead of publisher interference?
TL;DW Be your own bank and don't develop things WAY outside of your scope
So I'm 17 mins in and I can't believe what I'm hearing. Most of this literally sounds like just flat out bad business decisions. For starters with such a bad deal on the second game why did he even sign a contract with the publisher in the first place? They had a community, they had success already, just do it yourself. Second, what the hell is the publisher even providing? So far I'm not hearing a single thing they are providing on this second game. Third, why would he let a worthless publisher strong arm him into giving up previous game rights? This had nothing to do with COVID and thinking he would lose this many times in a row. This was just extremely bad decisions. I'm looking at this as rookie developer and a business owner and this is just bad decisions.
So after finishing the video, man that shit got worse and worse as it went on. But pretty much all of the shit stemmed from what I said originally. This was a string of very bad decisions that had nothing to do with games, but just bad decisions in general. Nor did it have to do with that stupid 50/50 effect thing he talked about in the beginning. He just made a bunch of shitty decisions back to back to back etc. Sucks up here tho because they were on their way to being a good successful studio with multiple games under their belt.
16:18 and there it is. I saw this coming a mile away. In many ways it's these kinds of inside baseball topics that are incredibly important but also embarrassing and infuriating so people don't want to talk about it. People were blown away when TLC accepted their music award and said they were broke and were screwed by their label and other ancillary entities that take their cut.
I watched another video about how the venue often takes a percentage of merch and record sales from touring musicians. It's something a starting band or musician wouldn't know about.
Or how famously the writer of the book Forrest Gump was based on got zero dollars in royalties because he took a deal based on net and not gross
New subscriber buddy