Quote: Original post by TractorTom
....I don't want to set a trend of such a low percentage for all the programming work, when contrasted to creating the 3d models and designing.

It does depend exactly what you mean by "and designing". There are three levels of design
i. coming up with the original concept (often more luck that work)
ii. Documenting the concept and how the game will be played (a lot more work but still not as much as the programming)
iii. Doing the level design - actually assembling the models to make the world, adding in the scripting, testing it, tweaking it etc. (This is a lot of work).

Doing all three would certainly be equal to the programming and as such worth 50%. If they are just doing the first two and you do the programming and all the level building/scripting then I would certainly say you should get a bigger chunk.

If you give out the game for free, you don't have to worry. However, whether you plan to make "millions" or not, as long as you were planning to make something commercial (ie; charge money for it), my suggestion would be to create the company and then make up contracts (or have a lawyer do them) that state that all the work you and your friend do are property of the company. In creating the company, there's a ton of info on how to do that, in whatever state/country you happen to be in. Each of you could put in as little as $1 capital and make the operating agreement stating what your share of loss/profits are.

It will cost money now, but better to do that, than to have to waste a lot of time and lose a friendship if, when the game makes money, you two can't decide who gets what.

These are some ways of splitting the profits:

1. This is our first project! Let amount of work be damned and lets share 50/50 in celebration of our partnership!

2. Lets sit down and calculate how much amount of time(in hours) each of us has put into the project. Let the ratio of the time spent decide the profit share.

3. Lets calculate the complexity of the project in terms of design, art and programming. For example : design 30%, programming 40%, art 30%. Now lets calculate how much effort each of us as put into the above modules and accordingly work out the share.

4. I am the boss here and I say I should get 70%! You either agree or be damned :P.

5. Lets give it away for free :)! The game is a work of art I say! Let everyone access it and appreciate it and wonder at it!

P.S: Why dont you invest the money into the next project rather than sharing it?

In addition to the posts above, I'd like to make a supplemental suggetion.
Let us say that if you made $10000, you should reserve $5000 for further use(bigger project needs to hire more intellects), and split the rest of it. You should always put your mind(and money) on something bigger, instead of the current profit.