I was wondering how I should approch this. The development group I'm working with are working on our first project. Just a starter project. However, the game uses characters from another game published by a Once Giant in the Industry. Where would I start to be able to make sure that when we complete this game we wont get slapped by lawers. We would like to either sell the game to them (profit share or direct sell) or release the game ourselves via Online Distribution. End result is we would like to use the characters in this game. With out them, it will sort of take away from the game itself. Where do I start? Do I send a letter to the company? Do I talk to a Lawer of my own? Do we just go ahead with production? And does anyone know who I would talk to or where I can find the contact information? The companies website doesn't give a lot of information. www.taito.co.jp thanks.

well, pretty much basing your game on the requirement that it use the characters from another game is a dangerous design. in 99% of cases the license owner will not give you the rights to their characters without either you paying them lots of money, or they really liking your game and thinking it'll help their brand. so either pay them money upfront or finish your game and _hope_ that they like it. the latter is typically very unlikely.

-me

If you want to use these characters you will need to license them. I have done a number of license deals with Taito over the years and they are a nice bunch, but they are not a charity. You can expect to pay several tens of thousands of $ for a license. At least part of that money would need to be paid up front, with the remainder paid at, or soon after, launch. In addition they would require a royalty on every unit shipped.

So, unless you have around $15,000 available now you need to change your plan. In addition if yours is an Indie game then you are unlikely to even make anything like enough money to justify the expense.