In the event that I should ever actually make a dime from this game I'm programming. What cut goes to the artist and the musician? I can't pay them upfront because I don't know if it will ever get published, but if it does, what percentage royalty do they deserve? I'd really like to hear from those who've actually published games and dealt with artist, I don't want vague guesses and broad estimates. Then here's a few more details: 2d game, Graphics consist of one 640x480 titlescreen 3 main characters with 28 frames of animation each, each frame 40 pixels square. All these hero frames are in 1 400x400 bitmap divided into 100, 40 pixel squares, each with a frame of animation. There's also about 50, 40x40 frames for special effects in another bitmap. There's 2 bitmaps (400x400 again), with animation for the enemies. To each bitmap, there's 5 enemies with 16 frames each (4 in each direction) and 5 enemies that only face forward, therefore only 4 frames each. There's less than 50 frames for terrain and special tiles. In summary approximately 350 frames for animated characters or effects, and less than 30 still frames. All frames 40x40, 8 bit color, delivered on no more than 6 400x400 bitmaps. The musician has been asked for 7 midi tunes. Intro, loss, victory, 2 fast paced, and 2 slow paced Does that help Edited by - ape on March 27, 2002 12:04:23 PM

Equal shares for the three of you, wouldn''t you say?

You couldn''t have finished the game without them, after all.

Sorry dude, but all you''re going to get is "vague guesses and broad estimates" mainly because we don''t know anything about the artist, musician, or game that you''re writing. Some games rely heavily on great graphics, while others get by with lower quality stuff, some games reuse lots of things, while others have TONS of dynamic art-work/music. Give them the pay that you think they deserve.. if they worked their a$$ off and produced tons of great stuff (a lot of the time, the artwork/music takes more time than the actual programming of the engine.. other times, it''s the other way around) then I''d give them a good share of it, if they produced 3 repeating terrain textures, and 2 repeating midi''s... i wouldn''t pay them much at all (yes, very broad, but i''m trying to make a point). You should give them royalties for their time/effort (and quality of work). You can''t just ask what they should get paid, because none of us know what they did.

Billy

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
Equal shares for the three of you, wouldn''t you say?

You couldn''t have finished the game without them, after all.

No, I wouldnt say. Depends on the circumstances. As an example, if you (a programmer) work on a game for a year, bring in a graphics artist for 4 weeks and a musician for 2 weeks, they should all get equal cuts? No likely. Now, if you all put in roughly equal ammounts of time, then I would call for an equal cut. A more fair way to do it would be place a value on their work and pay them a multiple of that ammount as a royalty. For instance, say you bring in a musicion for 2 weeks and you WOULD pay them $1500 up front, but since you can afford that, offer them a percentage cut (maybe 20%) up to a $4500 max.

quote: Original post by LordKronos

Original post by Anonymous Poster
Equal shares for the three of you, wouldn''t you say?

You couldn''t have finished the game without them, after all.

No, I wouldnt say. Depends on the circumstances. As an example, if you (a programmer) work on a game for a year, bring in a graphics artist for 4 weeks and a musician for 2 weeks, they should all get equal cuts? No likely. Now, if you all put in roughly equal ammounts of time, then I would call for an equal cut. A more fair way to do it would be place a value on their work and pay them a multiple of that ammount as a royalty. For instance, say you bring in a musicion for 2 weeks and you WOULD pay them $1500 up front, but since you can afford that, offer them a percentage cut (maybe 20%) up to a $4500 max.

I was assuming a partnership over the life of the project. If you''re bringing in people for a short time for a fairly limited amount of work, you treat them as a contract employee and work out a percentage up front.

If you''ve got an artist arting and a musician musicing (even off and on) over the life of the programmer''s programming, they better be an equal partner.

I agree with Billy. There''s not much we can do but give vague advice since we have no information about the project and the work involved and who actually did what.

My "vague advice" is to pay as well as you can. After all, *you* want to get paid, so you should make damn sure that the people who work for you get paid too.


DavidRM
Samu Games

Its hard to say, but good artists can cost a lot. I did all my own art, but an artist I met recently is so good I''ve decided its worth paying him about $200 to do some character art for one of my games I plan on updating. That sum was based on one full days work.
At first thought it seemed a lot of money, but you get what you pay for. It only needs me to sell an extra 20 copies to get my money back and I think in the long run thats quite likely.

http://www.positech.co.uk

Just keep in mind you get what you pay for =-)

Then here''s a few more details:

2d game, Graphics consist of one 640x480 titlescreen
3 main characters with 28 frames of animation each, each frame 40 pixels square. All these hero frames are in 1 400x400 bitmap divided into 100, 40 pixel squares, each with a frame of animation. There''s also about 50, 40x40 frames for special effects in another bitmap. There''s 2 bitmaps (400x400 again), with animation for the enemies. To each bitmap, there''s 5 enemies with 16 frames each (4 in each direction) and 5 enemies that only face forward, therefore only 4 frames each. There''s less than 50 frames for terrain and special tiles. In summary approximately 350 frames for animated characters or effects, and less than 30 still frames. All frames 40x40, 8 bit color, delivered on no more than 6 400x400 bitmaps.

The musician has been asked for 7 midi tunes. Intro, loss, victory, 2 fast paced, and 2 slow paced

Does that help

very rough guess
$900 for art

http://www.positech.co.uk