Please let there be another great shadowrun game released!

I'm just hoping that Mechwarrior is friggin' amazing so the franchise boots up again. I've got some fond memories of MW3 and 4.

The problem with this view is that it assumes that the game you have on your harddrive is going to spin off into some huge franchise. But is that a realistic view?

Maybe you actually have to create 5 or 10 games before you hit the one that is going to be the mega franchise. If so, that's 5 or 10 separate IPs that you have to manage. That's a lot of administrative work. It stops you from getting on with the business of creating new IPs. You're cranking out small indie games that you own 100% of the IP for, but you don't have the time to market them because you're too busy working on the next one. Or you make one game that does reasonably well, but now you're stuck making sequels for it and managing it because you're white-knuckled about owning the IP. Shouldn't you maybe make a *new* IP and get on with expanding your talent?

So how about this alternative?: Make a contract that explicitly states how you will rewarded if your IP is spun off into sequels, remakes, movies, tv series, theme parks, paper based games etc. Make a contract with a producer that gives them a certain amount of time to deliver. If they can't the rights revert to you. If they can, you've got a job - but you also have some freedom.

Now you know that if you're IP is a hit, you'll get rewarded. BUT you're also free from the burden of having to manage it.

Remember: owning an IP isn't the ultimate goals. It's being *rewarded* for the IP that counts. And to that you need to focus on creating new IP - not managing it.

This is how filmmakers do it. They act as free agents, they get good agents working for them, they know how to do a good deal (e.g. Zack Snyder, director of 300, sold his IP to EA: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20428 - it lets him get on with creating new IPs).

But Tim, his main point was not about being compensated for his IP, his main point was having moral rights over all formats to insure cohesion and integrity. He could of just moved on to new IP, but clearly he's passionate about these specific IPs.

Or I really should have written that last sentence: Not only has he moved on to new IP, but he's also clearly passionate about these specific IPs.

I just want to clarify that this one thing. You, the individual game developer, must ALWAYS sell your IP. The question is how.

Do you sell your IP to a company you control - but which, down the road you may lose control of. This is the typical route of game developers when they make their own studios.

Or do you sell your IP directly as a free agent. This is what filmmakers do.

If you do the latter and get a good deal, it doesn't matter who owns the franchise - if it gets sold to Warner Bros or EA or whatever: it's written in black and white that any time they sell a unit they owe YOU a small residual. The deal is with YOU, as a free agent.

You might lose controlling ownership of your studio, but how can you lose ownership of your own person?

To me, that's about the most solid kind of deal you can make.

Good advice.

Crimson Skies II for 360? Please?

Tim,

You don't have to sell IP to a company you control if you own the company itself. If you own the company, and it's a private company, there is no way for you to lose control of it without your consent. Weisman made the choice to sell FASA -- it wasn't forced from his grip -- and he apparently regrets it.

Please can we have a single player decision tree based multi-character RPG with moral choices and multiple endings that is as deep as KOTOR or Mass Effect set in the Shadowrun world for the PC? If done right this game would be so awesome. I still remember playing Shadowrun on my SNES. What a deep RPG for that period of gaming! Those were great times.

yeah the SNES Shadowrun was fantastic.

IP is your most valuable asset after your team (i.e dev company). Both go up or down in value based on performance. While the team has direct control over their performance, when the IP is licensed out and developed by others as games or other formats, you lose that control. I think everyone would assume that Microsoft should have been a good shepherd for the IP that made Activision a mint. Mech Assault was a good transition to console, but it could not replace the tactile cockpit experience of using a flight-stick on your PC. I certainly am eager to play a new MechWarrior game on PC, though I'll have to buy a new flight stick.

I <3 Giant Robots

just thought you should know...

MechWarrior 4 was a happy time in my life, I'm gonna start watching battlemech.com for that free download. I can't wait to see what you guys do next too.

I still love giant robots...

Shadowrun is still around I have a regular crew that hits Seattle every Sunday. Its a great universe and if you made sure you had the resources for it Shadowrun could make the baddest MMO ever.

Wizards+rocket launchers == win;

@Chris Remo: How are you going to get investment in a company if you insist on holding onto 100% onwership? The only way to do it is to self-fund it. But then, rest assured, unless you're already rich or won the lottery you'll never be able to make a large game; you'll never be able to market it well. The most you can hope to do is make a tiny little game and sell units of it. No investor will buy into a company that they can't get 51% of.

So it comes down to this: sell your controlling stake and then hope you can get along with your investors and pay yourself dividends or sell off your share later on.

@Timothy Ryan: Yes, you can keep tight control over your IP. But you won't have the time to go off and create other IPs doing so. You're dooming yourself to a one-game/one-franchise future. Even if you make more games, as a designer you're stuck within what your tech IP can do. Basically you aren't a game designer now - your an executive.

This is what I say: If you want to be a *game designer* - if you want to hammer out designs (lots of them), and get them made - you have to be prepared to let go control of them and act as a free agent.

But that's not such a bad thing *if you just learn how to make a good deal*. Plus, if the game industry will allow you to work as an individual creator rather than a piece of property.

@Kevin Maloney: No no no no. No MMO. I am sick of MMO's. What needs to be done is a huge, deep, gritty, adult oriented, single player RPG set in Shadowrun. Someone needs to give Bioware and Bethesda a run for their money in the American RPG venue.

@Tim Carter: Agreed. Publishers insist on owning IP if they're paying for everything and taking all the risk. I think that's where alternative funding comes in handy. However, I think Jordan's case is different, since these were already successful properties compared to brand new IP. There's less risk for the publisher since they already had proven themselves and had a built-in following. He could have licensed them for a period of time rather than selling them the IP in perpetuity. That way the IP doesn't languish when Microsoft decides not to publish the games anymore. The hassles he's dealing with now could have been avoided.

I know Jordan personally. His abilities as a game designer are not limited by his current IP woes. He's probably the most imaginative person I know.

That would be a rights reversion clause of some sort.

It would also help if the publishers understood how important these properties are to designers. What is merely an "IP" to them is blood, sweat, tears and so forth to the designer. That's a cultural issue, I think, as much as a contract one.

Tim I really don't understand why you say if you hold onto an IP you suddenly won't have the time to create new IP's? If you own the IP you can choose either to do something with it or not do something with it. If you aren't doing anything with it it just sits there, and you have all the time in the world to create a new IP. If you do choose to do something with it yes you will be limited, but in neither circumstance does an IP force you to not create another IP.

Evan, if you follow the standard game dev route, if you - personally - want to benefit from an IP you - personally - are an original core creator of, you have to build a studio to make the game, then you build a vertical slice, then you pitch it, then a publisher pays and advance and basically buys it.

Now you have Game X. But you have to make Game X2. But Game X2 isn't a new game. It's just the same IP, with some more content and features. It isn't a new game.

Plus, since you are a studio - instead of a free agent - you gotta pay the overhead. That means you can't take time off and think of something new; no you have to get onto the next project - which is usually a sequel. So whatever idea you had for a different IP - a non-Game X2 - you have to put on the backburner for some distant time. You're too busy managing the studio you made.

I think the guys who did Age of Empires recently ran into this issue. They cranked out so many sequels that now they can't do anything but RTS games. They want to do something new, something other than an RTS, but they're stuck - the publishers only think of them as RTS-makers now. So I heard.

I suppose this is a good situation for some people though - who only want to design one game, then crank out millions of sequels for it. But if you see all kinds of possibilities to design a wide range of games, it's constraining.

Why must you work on Game X2 though? What force forces you to work on the sequel. You are assuming that when a developer has a successful IP that there must be a sequel, which is not true. Just because you make a successful game doesn't mean you have to make a sequel. You can move on from that IP onto a new IP. You are assuming that you have to make Game X2 when it is completely your choice to make Game X2, there is nothing forcing you to continue expanding on that IP.

Why can't a developer enter into a licensing agreent with a publisher instead of selling th IP outright? they would have exclusive rights to publish, promote, and so on, but NOT to create derivative works or transfer license or medium. After a lot of trial, error, wasted time and tears caused by complete transfer of ownership, many other industries are adopting limited licensing models.