Interesting Article: Games that no longer pay royalties

Why don't more game developers see royalties from their work?

Freelance developer Simon Roth decided to see just how deep this problem goes. He started digging around on Google and talking to his colleagues to determine which developers, if any, were actually receiving a cut of the continuing profits on their work. Last week, he published the results of his research, a list of over 200 classic titles that are currently being sold by publishers without any of the new income going to the actual developers that made the game.

The List

Lot of big names on that list. It's certainly an interesting discussion. On one hand, obviously anyone that likes games wants to see developers compensated for their work so they can continue making games. On the other, the argument that the developer was paid for its work and on the rights holder gets comped after a certain time makes sense as well.

Publishers are the worst pirates, more proof of the obvious.

I'm not quite sure what the author wants to tell us.

- Dev makes game for publisher. There's a contract about royalties, etc.
- Dev goes out of business. But the rights in the contract don't simply disappear.
- Somebody else buys these rights. Now he gets the royalties. Often the publisher is the one who buys the rights. He's the only one with precise numbers after all.
- Then the royalties are still being paid. From the publisher to the publisher.

Sounds unfair to me.

Edit : Great if the Publisher decides just to stop to pay out the royalties (and perhaps other money they are contracted to pay) and with this manages to drive the dev studio into bancruptcy … and then buy back the rights from them … This is the perfect scam !

Great question, by the way :

Ars: You wrote that you think developers have a kind of Stockholm Syndrome where they identify with the publishers that are taking advantage of them? What do you think it will take to change this?

Stockholm Syndrome ??? Devs with Publishers ???

This is useful information that will influence my decision on buying certain titles which I do not possess in the original form. I am not interested in giving money to the likes of Riccitiello, Kotick and Herve Caen.

Yeah that list is not very useful.

- Which of those devs still exist?
- What are the publishers that are still receiving revenue for those titles?

And which of the games are actually still being sold? I can spot plenty of games that are not currently being sold on that list, and some which has been released for free.

Some games from the list are sold on Gog.com, for example. Connecting the games to the publishers and determining the existence of developers can be done through a simple Google.com inquiry.