Distribution of Net Sales

Hi all,

Assuming three people are going to form a team to create a game
(one is good at programming and testing, another is good at art and the last one good at music), how is the % of distribution of net sales? (50%,25%,25% ?or other combination is better? And Why? What should be considered?)

Thanks in advance
:)

? This is for you to agree with your team, its different for every situation.

What boomboom said.

Something else to consider: how many hours did each of the members contribute to the project? A fair division is probably going to be based on that.

Someone spending ten times as much time probably deserves a bigger cut than the others, regardless of what portion they were working on.

I'd say to start out with up to one third of the proceeds available to everyone, then log the time each has contributed to the project. In the end the individual with the most time spent developing the project should recieve their proportionate share.

The main consideration is to keep everyone accountable for their effort/time spent on the project and to have a completion date in mind to keep everyone on track. A well thought out action plan will keep things running smoothly in the long run.

Meh, just offer them a free copy of the game when its finished, and keep all the money. >:D

Two (or more) people are missing from that list, the person who DESIGNS the game (this may be the programmer or someone else) and the person who does all the marketing (contacts portals, signs contracts, press releases etc). The marketing is of course vital and boring. Other possible job not to be discounted in terms of importance and consumption of time are: website designer and testers.

Also I presume that it was someone's idea to make the game in the first place and who may be taking some financial risk. This is the producer. They may need a % too. Often the programmer is a) the producer b) the designer c) the marketer d) the website programmer e) one of the testers etc and thus should get a larger %.

Another thing to consider, it may sound "fair" to split it based on hours put it, but some hours are "worth more" on the open market than others (especially if a person works really fast and well). Of course a lot depends on the skill of the person as well.

It's a can of worms, but good luck working out something simple everyone is happy with. I once agreed a 1/3rd split with two others for a business we were running, only I ended up setting up the company, managing the accounts, marketing and customer service etc. and doing basically everything. The split should have been more like 90% to me and 5% to each of them. I wasn't good or fair (except I learnt never to do that again!)

Thank you for your reply.

@Grey Alien: Assuming an experienced programmer finish complex coding in short time, the share should be related to the complexity of coding, not the time spent. Right? How could we measure this? Similarly, one is proficient in photoshop, who could finish graphics work in short time (eg. 1 hour), could report that he or she spend 24 hours on the job.

Is it fair to determine the split according to the complexity of the job, instead of the no. of hour worked?

Thanks in advance

It's possible for everyone to keep a simple time log on a spreadsheet then you can compare times.

Determining a split based on job complexity would not be easy and may generate bad feelings (even though every job has a "market value" so if you were all HIRED to make the game perhaps you'd charge different rates and be paid different amounts).

With the business that I setup with these other guys we discussed the same thing i.e. which tasks took more skill/knowledge (turned out to be mine) than the others and should we make a different split, but in the end we agreed to just split it even for simplicity (some things are also hard to put a value on like killer ideas and great marketing ideas). I even invested more money via credit card (took more risk) than the others but we kept the split the same. In the end I said I want to change the split OR they have to catch up the hours. They agreed to catch up the hours but never did. So I'm just saying be careful.

Good luck working something out, it's not easy.