Contractual Obligations In The Games Industry

Employment
The reason this contract is used is to set guidelines and the T&C's of your job. The contract it will include things such as what the company expects from you and occasionally, what benefits the company will give you if you meet the contractual targets set. The different between a contract in the games industry and other industries, is that in the games industry the contract will usually include clauses about benefits, confidentiality, inventions and not competing with the company during or shortly after the contract runs out.

Development
When a gaming company hires a developer to create games for them, the developer has to sign a development agreement. A development agreement is a contract that gives all the details of what the developer is required to do. This includes things such as the pay, the amount of time the developer has to develop the game and whether royalties will be payed out to them once the game is complete. It also includes whether the developer or the publisher own the IP to any ideas thought up. The contract is also used to ensure that the developer doesn't use somebody else's source code and to ensure the publisher has all the rights to ask the developer to create the game in the first place.

Licence
A licencing agreement will be used if a publisher wants to make a game about a movie for example, the IP owner of the movie and the publisher will get together and right up a contract with the specifications of the terms of the licence. This contract will include what rights the publisher specifically has and what they aren't allowed to use. The contract can also be used to say whether the game is cross-platform or has loyalties towards a certain console. Also if the publisher wants worldwide coverage for the game the licence holders often charge more than just exclusivity to a certain area or continent such as Europe or Asia. This contract agreement will only last around 5 years.

NDA
A Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) is a contract signed by a party who, by signing this contract declare that any information show or given to them by another party will not be shared or given to anyone else before the game or information is publically announced. If the information is not kept confidential then damages will have to be payed in a court of law by the first party.

Collaboration
A collaboration agreement is used between a group of developers or people who want to create a game together. The agreement is signed by all the members of the group and a split of the sales will be included in the contact. The contract will also include which member owns the copyright to the game and therefore if once the game has been released, if a movie company, for example, want to create a movie based on the game, then the people who don't own the copyright will not be involved with the movie atall and will get no split of the money made from the movie.