Hey guys I’m gonna start working with a team and it’s my first time so what can i do to make sure that i will take my earnings of the game that we will make?
Also the game idea is mine so how to make sure that no one steals it and make it as his own?
Talk to a lawyer. You’ll need a contract. I know that sounds scary and expensive but it’s a mundane process lawyers do all the time for not too much money. Just tell the lawyer exactly what you want from the business relationship with your teammates and have the lawyer draft a legal contract for you and present it to your teammates. If individual teammates want amendments, you can do that on an individual basis. Just make sure you both sign it either in person or using a third party signing service. Adobe has one.
Don’t try to make the contract yourself unless you have some legal background because you will almost certainly forget something that will result in a loophole. It would still be binding, but I know from experience it’s easy to screw yourself and not realize it.
Is there’s something in unreal engine that can create some sort of a watermark or something that says that this project is mine?
First of all nobody can own any idea, but you can own the rights of the assets you will use in case you bought them from somewhere with owner rights… if someone steals any of your rights , you have only one way is to challenge in court and prove the rights owner is you.
unreal has nothing to do with it since your team is not hosted by Epic Games.
hope it helps
cheers!
If you can’t trust your team, you have already lost.
No lawyer will help you with anything related to trust or success. Success comes from a team pulling together, and everyone contributing. You may want to make sure you have a contract that lets you split with other members if you disagree, but unless you have real funding, with a well-defined corporate governance, it’s very likely the project will die if the team splits.
Separately, ideas are worth approximately zero; execution is worth approximately everything. Your goal should be to communicate your idea as clearly and succinctly as possible to the team members, and get the on board to build THAT, rather than whatever idea they have themselves. This is what’s hard – everybody wants to do their own thing, and communicating things from inside your brain, to outside, is an uphill battle. Nobody will steal your idea in a way that’s meaningful; that just doesn’t happen.
Finally, lawyers DO have a role in game studio setup, once real money is involved. Once someone puts in at least several hundred thousand dollars, it makes sense to have a correct corporation, with correct governance, and correct distribution of shares and options, to make sure that the money goes where it’s supposed to. Before then? You should do everything you can to try to make the game happen at all – that’s the real challenge. How to split what’s very likely going to be almost no profits, from what is very likely going to be a lot of hard work, isn’t really your top priority.
Thank you all for replying and it’s kinda aprobl for the future but it’s good to know that stuff so thank you all