Quote: Original post by d000hg
Such contract clauses are both common, and largely a scare tactic. I'm sure it varies from country to country but such 'unfair' clauses are typically very hard to enforce (unless you do something dumb like have a copy of your code on your work PC).

Agreed, if you're using work resources or work time to work on your own things then there's a solid case against you, and it's something you shouldn't be doing in the first place as a curtsy of professionalism.

A few months before I left I wanted to develop a casual game franchise in my own time at home and then later present it to the publisher with the objective to get a casual games division up and running within the studio. There lawyers reply back to me was along the lines of:

- If we like it we'll let you develop it into a prototype.
- If we don't like it we'll take the property anyway because you work for us. Whether we'll ever develop it is another matter.

So I didn't work on it until after I resigned this year. :)

Quote: Original post by Winegums
If you want support for a new concept, pitch it with a working demo that demonstrates the main USPs

There is one trouble here.Even if you don't want to show code,it's not a problem to connect with working demo via NVPerf,or other "interceptors" which shows pipeline,render targets and can extract shader code.It will be more than enough for true professionals to understand how your idea works.Another way is to make an article or report for conference,but I doubt that it can protect your priority rights.And the most right way is to show demo somewhere on GDC,in large screen and high resolution,without any comments[smile]

[Edited by - Krokhin on July 21, 2009 4:37:32 AM]

Quote: Original post by DesignerWatts

A few months before I left I wanted to develop a casual game franchise in my own time at home and then later present it to the publisher with the objective to get a casual games division up and running within the studio. There lawyers reply back to me was along the lines of:

- If we like it we'll let you develop it into a prototype.
- If we don't like it we'll take the property anyway because you work for us. Whether we'll ever develop it is another matter.

So I didn't work on it until after I resigned this year. :)

I still suggest they would find it very hard to make that stick. Legally, employment != ownership of employee (in any civilised country), and I think they'd be relying on you not daring to spend money going to court... of course the only way to know is to research the precedent of such cases in your country.

Well, then my question is, if it's restricted by all these cases, then how can Google accomplish it? Game development is really a creative industry, yet Google, a search engine provider, can do it better than game development, from what I can see. It's obviously a problem. Any ideas on how this can be improved, then?

Google has more R&D money than typical studios, is basically the answer. Also, they don't rely on people buying X million copies of their new product to fund new work... they are constantly making money from their existing products (advertising) which can be invested in R&D.

Ok, so they are not limited alot because they have money. But, there is still one question to be answered, what is the solution? Advertising in games, maybe?

Quote: Original post by Jedimace
Ok, so they are not limited alot because they have money. But, there is still one question to be answered, what is the solution? Advertising in games, maybe?

There's a few game companies that can take their time innovating and building on ideas. One of the major ones is blizzard, which currently has an unlimited cash flow. So the solution is to make a ton of money or take risks. I think what you want is that companies take bigger risks. Companies can't just jump on every little idea. They have to take into consideration their audience and how much ROI they can get. If they can target a large group of people and snag only some of them it's probably a better strategy than targeting a small group of people. This is why there are so many medieval RPG games. I've seen surveys online that have asked "What setting do you prefer for a game?" and more often than not people select medieval.

Actually I'm going to go make a poll about that and see what people say on this site.

If companies don't take risks, then that makes it harder, a lot harder, for the game industry to progress. I think one problem is that games are getting very similar. I mean, more new genres should arise and then be put to use in more creative ways. I've even heard people say that they've been told sometimes to "just make a shooter". That seems outrageous.

Quote: Original post by d000hg
I still suggest they would find it very hard to make that stick. Legally, employment != ownership of employee (in any civilised country), and I think they'd be relying on you not daring to spend money going to court...

I just comp you here by stating it wouldn't work here. My freetime is my freetime. The same goes applies to NDAs etc. and I suspect such cases would be dismissed from court promptly.

Quote: Original post by Naurava kulkuri
My freetime is my freetime. The same goes applies to NDAs etc.

It does absolutely not apply to an NDA. Once you signed an NDA, you're 'in' 24/7, and that until you reach the expiry date of the NDA, or some other exit clause. Work versus free time has absolutely no relevance here. You can't just expose corporate trade secrets just because you happen to be on your free time...