Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Problem #7: Licensing Existing IPs
145 Plays27 days ago
This week, Tracy and Kristian welcome Brandon Verhalen of Star Anvil Studios to talk about the sticky wicket of licensing existing IPs for your role playing game. Brandon is the publisher of the Secret World RPG, based on the video game by Funcom, and he has a wealth of wisdom and advice, including the benefits of licensing, how to pursue license-holders, what kinds of things to ask for, and some of the pitfalls and gotchas to avoid.
Join our discord!: https://discord.gg/Bc9dvuzZYJ
The Han Cluster® Role Playing Game Website: https://hancluster.com
Immaterial Plane: https://immaterialplane.com/
Star Anvil Studios: https://staranvilstudios.com/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to IP Licensing in RPGs
00:00:04
Speaker
Welcome to the Designing Problems RPG podcast, where we explore RPG development and all the intentional and unintentional problems we create along the way. I'm Christian Serrano. And I'm Tracy Sizemore. We're your hosts for this thicket of brambles. And this week, we're going to talk about problem number seven, licensing existing IPs.
00:00:44
Speaker
So, to help us hack our way through this thicket of brambles, as you put it, we have our good friend with us, Brandon Verhalen of Star Anvil Studios, publisher of the Secret World and Starbreaker RPGs.
00:00:59
Speaker
Welcome, Brandon. Hello. Thanks for having me. So, Brandon, you've you you've you know about licensing IPs for RPG games, right? Which is why we have you. here You are today's expert. Well, expert. I have some minor experience. Some minor experience. That's fair. Okay.
00:01:19
Speaker
So let's talk about that. Like what what initially then um got you starting to pursue IPs? Like why did you try or why would anyone try, I guess, to license an IP?
Benefits and Challenges of IP Licensing
00:01:31
Speaker
So the number one reason to license an IP, I mean, for a lot of people, the first thought comes to is I love this IP. I'd like to see this role playing game. That should be your first thought. Because if you don't like it at all, you're going to hate the negatives that can come with it are going to are going to kill you. Right. Don't pursue an IP that you're like, I hate that property. Yeah. It's common sense. Some good interest and love for it, yes. But the main reason is, I think the look at the way an IP is, you are buying an existing audience with the hope that you will pay them this royalty to get your buying that ah like that group of people who you think will support your product.
00:02:07
Speaker
So you're, you're getting a built-in audience, which is, as we know, trying to build an audience for your RPG is super difficult. Yeah. You don't say. Yeah. yeah I can tell you there's between Starbreaker and, and, and, and secret world success, both are successful, but very different ways. Um, but yeah, so you're buying this existing audience instantly provided they like what you do. And usually at least the first ground, you're going to get a chance at it.
00:02:33
Speaker
And what happens after that, we'll see. So we kind of talked a little bit about that last episode or last problem um with systems where in some ways when you're licensing a particular system, you're kind of going for an audience you you versus creating say your own system. So it's kind of kind of similar in that vein we're in in this context that we're talking about the setting.
00:02:55
Speaker
where you're like, okay, we know that there's a ah good audience of fans ah who love this thing and they they might want to play this game. And I love this game or this setting. I want to make a game for it. Right. Yeah. Very cool. So let's go over just a little bit, like backtrack just a little. And what are we talking about when we're talking about IPs?
00:03:16
Speaker
So Brandon here has licensed the Secret World IP, and Secret World is a Funcom video game that a lot of people know, right? And so Brandon has made both a 5E version, and you're in the process of making the Savage Worlds version, or have you have you finished it already, Brandon? We've already finished, so we're working on a second book yeah for both now, but but yeah, we have both done both versions.
00:03:42
Speaker
And if I had my druthers, if i had if if if if the world was my oyster and I didn't have to go through all the hoops that Brandon is going to tell us about later, I would love to license, say, Mass Effect. I would love to license Horizon Zero Dawn. Neither of those is going to happen. It's just not. um but But those are IPs. Those are out there. Star Wars is an IP, right? and And even other games have their own IPs. So Savage Worlds has licensed the Rift's IP. They've licensed the Pathfinder IP.
00:04:17
Speaker
Um, so these are things that are out there that, that usually unlike systems, unlike game systems where, where companies kind of want you to license their game system for various reasons, IPs are much harder.
00:04:32
Speaker
to negotiate. um and they don't have Usually, there's occasional exceptions, but they don't have standard sort of language that you can go on a website and say, here's how you license our IP. You have to negotiate for it. and That's what we're going to talk to Brandon about. so That is basically the overview of what we're talking about. so For some of you, you might be interested in certain existing IPs that may be or may not be available you know It's hard to say, you don't know until you ask, but that's what we're going to talk to Brandon about. I can tell you a few that aren't available by me asking. Sure, sure, sure. I don't know for sure that mass effect and horizon aren't available. and I'll tell you what, if Modiphius couldn't get horizon, had to do their own thing, yeah the dreams and machines or whatever, I'm not getting horizon.
00:05:19
Speaker
So I assume it's not available. You're a likable person though. You know, you never know. Maybe so, but you they're going to ask for, for like numbers and, you know, yeah right like this is just it's I don't think it's worth it. yeah We can get into that too. We can get into that
Pros and Cons of Licensing IPs
00:05:35
Speaker
too. So talk about the pros and cons. Yeah. yeah I guess you saying touched on pros, right? So let's, I mean, the pro, it the the pro is real short as you're buying that audience and you hope to get a larger profit or sales out of that.
00:05:49
Speaker
That thing, and you and you get to play in the world more than you like. Like, I wanted a role-playing game for The Secret World. Now I have one. That's great. Now I have it, and it it made money. It's helped start, start it's jump-started Star Anvil Studios, so that's part of what I look at an IP for. Jump-start your company if you can get it, or we'll get your company more recognition, because now my name's out there more as a company, right? um And then you can appear on cool shows with cool people. Then you got to use their art, too.
00:06:17
Speaker
Yeah, I got to use the art and we'll get into what you should ask for when we get to that. But ah the the the biggest con probably is two things at least.
00:06:27
Speaker
Um, you are now also constrained by the world you've chosen. They will have requirements like, well, I want to do an alternate version. I want to change the story. We don't want that. We want exactly that. So we want it in this time period, or you can't use this character or, you know, can you move the timeline forward or they want you to stay in a certain period? Like so the the star Wars RPG could have said you can only do.
00:06:52
Speaker
ah the rebellion area, you can't touch anything else. they They could have said that to them and who knows, you know yeah they might say that's what we want you to do. Who knows what they actually did say? Yeah. Like the one ring I think is is between the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. So yeah. but So they can, so they they control what you can do. And because of that, you also have to submit what you write for approvals.
00:07:17
Speaker
And depending on the company, I only have the experience with Funcom and, um, you know, they do respond to me. They're, they're very helpful. They're very, they're, you know, there's nothing negative about it, but it does take time because it's not as if they said, Hey, you over there spend all your time approving Brandon. Yeah. You know, that doesn't happen, especially, you know, if, if I was say Wizards of the coast negotiating with someone else, these companies would see that the dollars would be bigger. They're probably more expedient.
00:07:47
Speaker
you know They might dedicate a person because, you oh, you're making us millions of dollars. We can assign a person to you. As it is, these people take their personal time to really work with them, which is amazing and have been very wonderful. up But it still takes time. You have to wait for that approval. And if they say, hey, you can't do this, you have to go back and rewrite it, change it, resubmit it. Haven't had too much of that, but that is a potential con you could have. So you want to make sure you really know what your boundaries are when you start so you don't waste a lot of time.
Contract Considerations
00:08:16
Speaker
Yeah. What are, what are some of those boundaries that I can, like, you know, for example, are there constraints on like hot, like right up front as a, you'll have the license for this much time or you can only do these many products or that you can only do this product or, you know,
00:08:30
Speaker
Well, that gets into what you can, what you should ask for partially. So, uh, I mean, that is so for example, like, yeah, most contracts are for a period. They're always going to be for a period of time. I can't imagine a lifetime license, um, that I'm aware of, but that doesn't mean I know much. So, uh, my initial contract, uh, was for a period of years and I got it recently renewed for another period of years. Um, another one I'm working on. Let's say that I haven't announced yet and can't say what it is because the contract's not final.
00:08:59
Speaker
but they want to do every three years. and And they want, they're going to, they want to do it. They want an approval for each extension. It's not going to be automatic, you know, uh, and because they want to be able, like if they, but, but I can, like a year out, I can say, Hey, can I get that approval? So I can always kind of keep no ahead of time if I'm going to have that yeah approval end. And for example, like, uh, can you use their art? Do you have to make your own art?
00:09:26
Speaker
Uh, can you, uh, uh, if you do make art, you're going to get the art approved. Trade dress has to be approved. Writing has to be approved. Advertising has to be approved. Right. That makes sense. And that can be difficult if they're not, if a company's not responsive enough. So you need to get that really figured out ahead of time. Um, ours is like they, they approved all the art and, and, and what we had in it. So we were able to use that as the advertising, because we were just saying what we had in the book that they already approved.
00:09:53
Speaker
So we weren't really doing anything too crazy. We weren't doing bigger. It was like, you get to play these species. Well, that's approved. So I'm not saying anything they didn't approve, you know, it's not species, but you know what I mean? You narrow it down to something. So there's that. Yeah. So, so you were talking about.
00:10:08
Speaker
um like the things that you ask for, but let's let's let's step back a little bit about how you know how do you how do you initiate that first ask of, hey, is this open? Is this something that I can that i can do and can we talk about it? yeah Finding the the the holder of the IPs can sometimes be very difficult. That is very time consuming. I have been told there's a right way to do it. I don't know the right way to do it. um I do it Brandon's way. You've been told that there's a right way, but that's a secret. They're not going to tell you. No, actually I had a person who has some knowledge of it who's talked to an IP lawyer. It says typically you have a lawyer do up a letter of intent.
00:10:44
Speaker
and present that because it's more it's taken more seriously. That's the right way to do it. The branded way to do it is just email people yeah sure constantly. like i have one ah Well, I have the actual email I need for Warner Brothers person who does approvals, which is why I could tell you some things that are not available. Scooby-Doo's not available. Thunder out of the Barbarian's not available. Thundercats are not available. ah Mad Max is not being licensed right now.
00:11:10
Speaker
because I've asked them and they've said, you can check back with us next year. And I will. Right. um Because Scooby Doo would have been amazing. But anyway, um um many years ago, you know, they're they just ah who did a Free League did or a company through Free League did Twilight 2000. Yeah, really, I started initiated that before they ever started talking to Mike, Mark Miller is the guy who actually originally did that. I want to think if I remember. Anyway, I found him, found his email. He responded to me. I was interested in doing it for Savage Worlds. He said, well, how would you do this? And we went back and forth about three or four times. And I said, you know what? I couldn't possibly make this happen right now way ahead of myself. And we never talked again. And then like a year later after that, I heard there were maybe two years after whatever I heard they were making Twilight 2000 for
00:12:01
Speaker
using Free League systems. So I was like, Oh, maybe I got them inspired or maybe just someone else asked after me. They were more open to it. So the first thing I think is don't assume you can't get it. Ask. Yeah. The worst they're going to do is say no. And where are you at your same place you were before you asked. right So yeah, I asked that that that's my answer. Just send an email. Find the right person to send email to as a whole other matter, but they just so send
Approaching IP Holders
00:12:27
Speaker
emails. so And you don't have to worry about embarrassing yourself because we're game designers. We're already embarrassing ourselves, right? yeah i mean thing And if they say no, it's just like, no, thank you. And, or they don't respond, which is more common. Yeah. Yeah.
00:12:38
Speaker
Okay. Well, that helps. So, so I could, the choices we have are the right way, which is getting a lawyer to write the letter of intent or the Brandon way, which is just keep emailing until you find the right person and then who decides to respond. Yeah. Cool. Fortunately, a FunCom had gamers who liked, you know, gaming and thought that was a cool idea and just responded because they were excited by the idea. Very cool.
00:13:02
Speaker
But you've asked multiple IP holders to get licenses. Is is FunCom the first ah that you that you got, obviously? Like, I mean, and did you stop once you got it? You're like, OK, no, no, I need to do this now. No, because the thing you got to remember is your license can expire. You may decide or or it may not get the response you want anymore. And so at some point in time, if you if you make if you choose to do licensing for a company,
00:13:31
Speaker
You realize that, okay, as an example, you know, Starbreaker is a small game that no one knows about as much it. Right. And I worked on it for years, kind of like Tracy's done on cluster. ah It got about 300 backers and did $14,000. Right. yeah So that is definitely not made what it costs to make it now. It'll probably be fine over time. No worries. Secret world 5e first time out did $150,000.
00:13:57
Speaker
So now you get, you get a little, you get a little addicted to that. That's nice. if i'm good it it funded on Your licensing fees are reasonable. Yeah, that's pretty nice. And they are and they are fun. Kyle was wonderful on that. I won't say the number, but they were more than fair. Um, so again, things you should ask for when you set up your license. Um, but the, the thing is you got to realize this license could end and, or, well, I like that.
00:14:25
Speaker
Could I find a more successful one? I mean, if I could have gotten Scooby-Doo, a reason I looked at Scooby-Doo, number one, grew up with it, right? Love Scooby-Doo. Remember this about Scooby-Doo. It's a multi-generational IP. I've watched it. My parent, my mom, I watched a little bit. my My daughter's definitely watched it. Some people's granddaughters have already watched it, okay? So, you know, i it has 20 million followers on Facebook. Take the rough number of 10% might be gamers.
00:14:54
Speaker
That's 2 million. Let's say 10% might back the product. That's 200,000. Probably won't be 200,000. My point is, if 1% of the people want to back your product of 20 million people, you're going to be wildly successful. And that's what I did with Secret World. I looked at 175,000 on Facebook. I like Secret World. That was first, but I like 175,000.
00:15:15
Speaker
10% of those people are that are video gamers, probably 10% are role play gamers, you know, a little bit, right? That's not a reasonable expectation. And 10% will probably buy. Well, I got about 2000 backers, give or take. And there were so straight around a little bit more than 2000, more than 10% back the game. So it's a fair assessment, guesstimate of what you might get out of a a following.
00:15:37
Speaker
yeah Okay. So you were saying like things that that you want to ask for, right? You know, or or negotiate for how, yeah how does one even know what to ask for? Well, how did you figure that out?
00:15:52
Speaker
trial and error. um fair okay so So, first of all, take a look at, for example, if you wanted it for Savage Worlds, let's just start there. The the one we're more familiar with, or D and&D, what whatever, take
Contract Negotiations: What to Ask For?
00:16:04
Speaker
your favorite role-playing game, yeah whatever it is, what system you envision making it in. Look at what other people have put out with that Kickstarter, because assume you're going to Kickstarter, because you don't have enough money to just buy the license and put it out there, so you're probably crowdfunding.
00:16:18
Speaker
So what would you think would entice people to be a reward or would they want to get it it and make a list? I see. I see. So you're talking about like actual, like what to ask for in terms of product that you can make.
00:16:30
Speaker
Yeah. Right. Okay. Yeah. That's part of it. Yeah. Cause I'm also curious about things like, I don't know. I guess like, I don't even know what I would call like stipulations and things like that. art You can use because oh you can use the art. It saves you a ton of money and send your pain to royalty. If you could cut out the cost of art, that's a big gask. Right. You definitely want that. yeah Um, but yeah, so you, you want to make a list of the items you can do and don't forget, uh, virtual tabletop is a bit tricky for some people. Yeah.
00:16:59
Speaker
Star Wars, uh, edge role playing game cannot do PDFs because it's an electronic game oh because of the, how old the contract for role playing games is. Wow. So I, when I did secret world for whatever reason, didn't think about doing VTT at the time. I renegotiated and they said, yes, you can have it, but it took some time because they're a video game company.
00:17:23
Speaker
And so they had to have the discussion of is this infringing upon the market we already have, which is fair. They they want to they don't want to cannibalize their own customers. yeah They want to increase their reach. So you want to make sure that you're very clear on the things you want, whatever you want to put out and whatever you want to get from them. Like say, if you want to get art from them, if there's audio, you want to get from them. If, you know, like you want to do some, we did an audio um drama.
00:17:49
Speaker
We ask, can we use some of the background music? Can we use some of the sound effects from the game? and Again, you have to ask for everything. Make a list. and then make it ask someone else what they wish you would get for it. If they're a friend of yours, you know, make that list. Cause you're, you're going to miss stuff if it's just you. Yeah. I mean, and and like you said, the worst they can do is say no to this or correct. And then you know what you can't do. Yeah. How, how does something like, let's say there's like a a film, like aliens, right? I want to do a game on the island says pretend it doesn't already exist. yeah But like you mentioned music.
00:18:21
Speaker
Right. Or audio. Like could I, you know, how likely is it that I could say, Oh, can I have um rights to use the music from the score? Right. And whatever and i I can't realistically answer that because I haven't dealt with an IP of a movie or something, but I would guess based on my interaction with FunCom would depend on what their agreement is with the music. I see. You're like, if they have this deal with whoever made the music,
00:18:47
Speaker
do they have to cut them in on a percentage? Is it just automatically if I pay them and then they pay them? It would depend how complicated it is for them, I'm sure. That's right. Yeah. Because because video games also have their own scores and whatnot yeah as well. So yeah. Okay. That's fair. All right. So did when you, for example, with Secret World, you made a list of what you wanted to ask for, right? You negotiated that.
00:19:10
Speaker
put it into some sort of a contract, right? Now, did did who initiated the contract for for
Legal Review and Rights Ownership
00:19:16
Speaker
you? Did you do it or did they? I didn't have any money, so it's a good thing they did it. And they have lawyers. Now, anyone can tell you that's probably not the best route normally. You want a lawyer to go over it first, but FunCom was incredibly fair, so I lucked out. I would not recommend that to normally be the path you take. You would normally want your lawyer Maybe they their lawyer could write it up, but you want your lawyer to review it right to make sure youre you understand what you're getting into and or that you know they make sure, well, you really want to ask for this because they're an IP lawyer. They know to tell you that, which I now have an IP lawyer. But I mean, for the current contract I'm negotiating, but i would yeah I would recommend if you can, before you do, if you're serious about it,
00:19:59
Speaker
If you can afford it, you should get a lawyer, which will probably cost you an input of about $300 an hour and facebook question spend to 30 hours, yeah you know depending on how difficult, tricky it is. It could be more, I doubt it, but again, I don't have a lot of experience in that. I have some experience in that very much. I only have experience in the in getting the IP lawyer to get on cluster trademarked, which I did.
00:20:25
Speaker
Um, and so I have an IP lawyer and and they could, they could do this kinds of thing for me too. Um, but it's, it's, it's not cheap. It's not cheap. You have to, I mean, it but, but it is like part of that is protecting yourself. yeah And, um, it's important when you're talking about this kind of stuff, because you're buying an audience. That's a big audience. You're talking about like, like Brandon said, 175,000 followers on Facebook or whatever.
00:20:54
Speaker
Like you're trying to tap into that and getting that contract right is super important. When you renegotiated, did they update the contract and resign or were there like writers on it? Like how, did how did that, how did that work? Like when you wanted to, did you, you didn't initially do VTT, but you negotiated it later, right? I negotiated VTT as part of my contact contract extension. I said, since we're renewing the contract. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:21:22
Speaker
i started pushing for so The short version is it took me a lot longer to get the secret world going than I thought it would. Two years before I really started once I had the contract. So I burned up a lot of contract time. Yeah. that ah Three years felt like short to me. Yeah. Well, um so ah I had a reasonably long contract with them, but I renegotiated and they they extended it again. But I said, well, since we're talking about renegotiations, I really want VTT. And they went back and forth and they finally sent that and said, yeah, you you can do that.
00:21:55
Speaker
But it took, it took ah I don't think they actually put in the contract. it just gave me a They gave me an email back that's that said I could do it. i could I have to go back and check. But they I have tracked my emails. Keep your emails, folks. yes um If you're getting approval for something, keep it in a folder. yeah yeah ah Because that might be the only thing proving that the company said yes.
00:22:15
Speaker
yeah um But again, you know ah yeah, that's I asked for it, but that's something that I think you, again, make the list of things you want up front so you don't ever have to ask for it again, you know, buying, discovering something new in gaming you didn't know about. so So things to ask for, you know, might be like if you want to do like an action deck, right? yeah you know Do you have to say, I want to do a deck of cards using the art that you're allowing me to use?
00:22:37
Speaker
Yeah, I asked for cards, dice, which eventually I might get to do them. You know, I've done my own personal ones, but ah yeah, ah dice, action deck, monster cards, um you know, anything like that, anything you're doing at all.
00:22:51
Speaker
You should, any of the game aids you think you're going to want, uh, archetype yeah, power maps, um, maps are great. You know, it's basically anything you can think of. Just make sure it's in the contract and covered it. Like I said, look through your fate. Look through your favorite product that had everything you wanted in it and go, I want all of this or I want only some of this and and ask for all of it. If you don't want it, cause you might want it later. Just remember that if you don't think you can make it now, you're not asking for now.
00:23:20
Speaker
you're asking for later. Right, yeah right. You know, an interesting thing that i'm I'm kind of realizing here is like, we talked about the lawyer cost, right? You're you're paying up front just to even try to get the license. um And then of course, you know, looking over the contract and things like that. But what's what's kind of interesting is like, you're you're kind of replacing the cost of things like say art.
00:23:44
Speaker
with that, right? Because now you don't have to worry about art. So that money that you would have spent there, you're just kind of allocating it ah you know over to your lawyer fees and stuff, right? If you get the art. If you get the art. If the art works out for you. I mean, I got a lot of art from BunCom. Yeah.
00:24:02
Speaker
doesn't mean I got all the art I wanted or needed. Right. Right. Makes sense. For various reasons, I'm sure. Sure. You know. So one of the things that makes me nervous, and and you touched on this a little bit with the whole like three year contract, but it took you two years you know to get to a certain point. Well, at first year was longer than three, but. Oh, right. Okay. so Yeah. but yeah But you know that what what makes me nervous about pursuing an IP and having a time bound contract is that is that exactly that, right? Now you're under pressure. You're not on your schedule. You're on that contract schedule. I guess what are some lessons you've learned in terms of you know trying to manage that in a way that you know you're not going to burn yourself out?
00:24:43
Speaker
well i think When I was getting into it, I was Brandon wants to make stuff, you know, and I was learning I was meeting people like I talked to Sean Roberson endlessly, poor guy. um I have talked Tracy's ear off. Tracy's been kind to listen to me blather on about my desires to make a game and stuff, um and other people. um And so if you can go ahead and say what, look inside a book, open it up. What's in the ah credits, you need those people before you start.
00:25:15
Speaker
There's your list. Look inside. Again, if you're going to do Savage Worlds, you may not have exactly that, but, oh, look, they have artists. They have an editor. They have a layout person. Do I have any of those things in place? Do I have enough resources already in place for the lore? Do I know someone who can put that together? Are they reliable? Are they going to be someone who's at like a, ah like I was looking, I got Josh deutsch teach I don't know how to say his name right every time. I'm sorry, Josh. Um, who wrote the, there's an in, in secret road, this thing called the buzzing. It's like that in game, like talks to you and tells you hints and lore and things and stuff. He wrote a lot of that for the secret world and works for Funcom. Yeah. He works with me on this project. He is highly reliable as a person to make, is this the right way to write this? Does it mean he knows all the Lord? No, but he kind of knows the way things should go.
00:26:04
Speaker
So if you, you know, if you're getting something like, do you have a lore expert? You need one. If you're going to get someone's IP, if it's not you, and you probably don't want it to be you because you're going to be like, I'm, I think I'm perfect because you don't know your own mistakes, right? With this, you want someone else to make sure you're not on the right path, you know? Right, right. Challenge or or correct or whatever. So if you can build your staff ahead of time or at least know the freelancers you're going to work with and kind of have that felt out a little bit, then you're, you're well on the way of being ready. And then,
00:26:34
Speaker
are you going to Are you going to kickstart it? Yes or no? Most likely yes. um But if you know if you're not, what's your plan for financing? If you're going to um are you gonna offset print, how much is that going to cost you? Because you need to know what your costs are going to be. ah Because when you're negotiating the contract, if they say wanted 30% and you're going to offset print,
00:26:56
Speaker
And you don't, you know, yeah i am I going to even make a profit? I'm going to lose money on this. You don't want to do the project and lose money. It will damage your reputation in the industry forever if you can't produce it. Oh, yeah. So especially once you handle an IP that people are a fan of, so do you know how you're going to launch it? Do you know what your approximate costs might be? Have you got a way to figure that out and and how are you going to deliver it? You should know definitely who your staff is and have a pretty good idea where you want to do with the rest of that stuff. So when you do get it, you can go, I can afford this. I need to charge this much for it. Um, I need to hit these kinds of numbers to be successful, et cetera. And you're not burning time trying to figure it out along the way. Right. You at least have most of that stuff in place.
00:27:33
Speaker
It won't be right. It will be wrong. You will find you you forgot stuff, but you will still be closer than I was when I started. Yeah. Yeah. So. And are there, you know, you mentioned like offset printing, right? Like I could imagine where the IP holder might be like, well, this has to be in print. Yes. PDF only. Right. Some will require it be offset print. They won't like drive through RPG, whatnot, or for various reasons.
00:28:00
Speaker
Some won't let you do a Kickstarter if I remember correctly I Don't know this for a fact. I thought I heard so this is just absolutely could be wrong and I I thought alien could not be kickstarted I think they have to do that one, um, just straightways, but they do pre-orders, which is essentially the same thing, but it's not not because they're going to make it. Yeah. yeah And I don't know that Free Lake kit starts anyway. They they have done some. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I heard that too.
00:28:30
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, yeah depending on the IP, they may not allow for it. I mean, I know they allow it avatar to, which is the best thing I did because it oh yeah ridiculously huge Kickstarter. Crazy. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. So length of contract is ah is a factor. Um, royalties is a factor and, and you know, that there's all kinds of structures for different kinds of royalties. I mean,
00:28:56
Speaker
is it Was it straightforward with FunCom? Is it just a flat royalty off your off your crowdfunding? or I will be general in in my answer to that, yeah and know no in seeing that it is off the top. And that's about as much as I'll say about the actual, learn but other companies This is my other contract I'm negotiating for. Like the reason they want it off the top is you could say, Oh, I had a pay writer, 10,000. I had a pay writer, 20,000. They just want to know you did this much. We're getting paid now where I can show them specific numbers for the manufacturing costs. Like drive through RPG has a set cost, uh, that they deduct, right? yeah So fun comp says that is a cost of production.
00:29:43
Speaker
that they can verify so they don't take it off. They don't say, Oh, you sold the book for $30. We want our percentage off 30. They go, Oh, like you actually made 10 bucks or whatever drive through our PG lets you keep. We want that percentage from that. the next which is Yeah. ah Otherwise, you know, you you don't want to take 30% off the top of 30 and you're actually making 10 because you're not, which it's not working. yeah um So there's, that that's the kind of thing where you, you know, otherwise the book and ridiculous expensive. right So yeah, you know,
00:30:14
Speaker
That's it. In the other company I negotiated with, they'll they'll want it off the top. And I can't imagine anyone not doing a Kickstarter off the top. yeah And i there could be some that would, but I couldn't imagine that being the norm. I assume. So I have a note here. Like one of your one of your talking points is a cure period. What is a cure period, Brandon?
00:30:32
Speaker
So when I'm talking to my IP lawyer, something I learned about, for example, they'll put a cure period in there and that is where, um, and again, I'm not a lawyer, so don't, I'm not giving you legal advice. Talk to your lawyer. sure Um, I'm a nurse, but don't ask me ask the doctor. That's also what I say. Um, you know, uh, is if you make a mistake, you put something that you weren't supposed to, or you misspoke something.
00:30:55
Speaker
A cure period will say you have this many days to undo what you did, whether that be change the PDF, not use that information anymore, you know redo that thing in the book that you did. You know you can't get back the books that are already out there, for example, if someone's printed them, but don't do it anymore. um and And if you have that cure period, depending on how it's written up, if you fix that thing they asked you to fix, it's like it never happened. It doesn't jeopardize the contract.
00:31:19
Speaker
um Again, talk to a lawyer about how that works. They'll give you the details, but it's something to ask about and or definitely talk about how people are about. Yes. Because, you know, inevitably somehow you're going to mess up. Yeah. Well, what was it? um The company, Everyday Heroes, people were doing the deal with Netflix for the Rebel Moon.
00:31:39
Speaker
and some kind of advertising. I don't know the details of who was right and who was wrong. I'm not saying either or. But the accusation was in the news was that they had released some kind of advertising pamphlet or something before they were supposed to. And Netflix pulled the whole contract on them, but kept their entire Bible they wrote for it. oh yeah So you want to make sure like, hey, if you keep my Bible that I wrote, yes, you own it, but do I get paid for it?
00:32:06
Speaker
You know, because anything I, for example, anything I create for the secret world, fun, comm owns, owns, I do not, it is not mine. Every piece of art, every single thing I create, they automatically own because it's their IP and they don't want me saying, Oh, I own this part. They're not going to do that. yeah So, um, but you know, when you, with what they did, I think, you know, it was fair for them to ask for some kind of compensation for that level of work, but that's a whole nother discussion anyway. I'm just saying you keep it, keep an idea of,
00:32:33
Speaker
um you know You know that you don't own usually anything you create for that IP, they do. Yeah. I want i want to touch on what you just said, because we we just talked about this in the last episode about um copyright and the body of work, right? So you're saying that they own, you know, whatever you created, do they own the body of work, like say the book? And and as... Any lore I add, the physical items they don't own.
00:32:57
Speaker
However- But they own like say the body of the text and in its entirety or just the ideas that you've- They own everything. The expression versus the idea. They own it all. the They own it all. So they can take that book, republish it themselves.
00:33:14
Speaker
and Yeah, they could they could use it any which way they want after my contract is done. theres to do with as they please now Largely, I think the reason for that is because they want to have control over the IP. If they want to negotiate something else later with somebody else, they can say, we own all this stuff, rather than saying, well, Brandon owns this part. and this other licensee owns this, brand blah, blah, blah. That's just a quagmire that most producers don't want to step into at all. Well, the other vulnerability too is if you if they didn't own everything, and let's say they created a similar idea.
00:33:48
Speaker
Well, Brandon says, I own that idea. all right You know, they don't, they just, they just cut that out at the beginning. um Now yeah there is, for example, if you're producing physical product, like I'm doing offset print runs so and I have a certain amount of stuff in the warehouse and they decide like I, I contract got terminated for some reason, like cause of some error on my end or the contract's just ending.
00:34:10
Speaker
they'll give you They'll probably give you a sell-off period, find out what that is. It's for you to sell off the product. At which point, if you haven't sold it off by then, either if they take possession of it or you have to destroy it or whatever the the deal is, but you want to know what that is too, say, oh, they're going to need a contract on January 1st. I have six months for a fire sale and then I don't get anything out of this after that. yeahp Give it away if you have to, but don't let it sit there. you know i So you want to figure out that too, if you're doing like with dry throw RPGs, just turn off the title. yeah you know but Yeah. I don't see myself doing it, but Um, you never know. Never know. I, I, there's, yeah there's money to be made. Hon cluster takes off and Sony's like, Hey, we know that you love horizon zero, Don, you do great work. trace well If cluster took off, I'd be like, yeah, I'm there are V people coming to me. So that's, that's the hope, the dream. and and And this is, this is, I think an important point to, to bring up is like,
00:35:10
Speaker
I'm a big fan and I think that a lot there's there's there's ah there's a school of thought and there's a lot of people who feel this way of I want to i want to own my own stuff. yeah It's very important to me and I'm creative enough. I'm competent enough to create my own stuff. It may not sell like hotcakes. It may not be what a licensed property would be.
00:35:34
Speaker
but I own it. Like it's mine. It's a hundred percent my trademarked on cluster because I wanted to, not because I had to, but because I wanted to. And, and, and, and I'm, I'm, I'm playing as if it's going to be something big. Yeah. Just in case, just in case it may not, it usually, it probably won't be, but it's mine.
00:36:02
Speaker
And that's that's important to me. Yeah, the that's I think that's a solid point where considering whether to do a licensed property versus your own thing, right? Because it's your it's your world. You can expand it, right extend it, do whatever you want with it. Add anything you want to it. But when you're playing in somebody else's sandbox, you have their guard you're bound,
Creating Original Content vs. Licensing IPs
00:36:24
Speaker
right? yeah See me, I would sell out in a heartbeat if they offered me enough money, but it would have to be a good amount.
00:36:30
Speaker
I mean, if they came and said, we want $5 million for Starbrick, I'm like, it's so yours. right um But that's not going to happen either. I mean, they you probably offer like, oh, we'll offer you $10,000. Like, no, it's not going to happen. I mean, it would have to be a hell of a deal. I got to be able to retire on the amount you offer me. Right.
00:36:47
Speaker
Cause I've seen too many, I've seen too many horror stories of people losing control of their stuff. right And I'm a smart gal and I know what I'm doing. And so, so it's, it's like, I know there's a sacrifice here, but I'm going to be, I'm going to be very careful. Yeah.
00:37:07
Speaker
yeah And it's just my choice. It's just my choice. And it's sort of like it's sort of Shane's choice too. like he he He's licensed stuff before. He certainly has a license for Pathfinder and Rift now, but his baby is Deadlands. Absolutely. Yeah. you know And he's very, very careful with it. Oh yeah. I can tell. As as one should be.
00:37:30
Speaker
you know Because like you said, you don't know what opportunities are going to come along the way in the future. yeah and And you want to have that control. You want to have that ownership of it. um Even when it's small. You don't want to lose control of what you created. yeah um Like I said, I would sell Starbreaker, sure, even though I put 20 years into it for the right amount of money so I could retire. But I'm not going to let it go for even 20,000 or 30,000. I'm like, nah.
00:37:54
Speaker
I put too many years into it. It's too much. I want to be able to control the story because I might license something out for myself from it, for example. You got to think about it. You could license your product out. Yes. But you better have a good lawyer. You know how your license is. You can control it the same way the companies think. Think of how viciously they protect their IP protectors the same way. Yeah. Yeah. I have one more question that's it's I guess it's on the con side or what I worry about is on the con side is. You know, when you're when you're when you're you're time bound,
00:38:24
Speaker
You know, yeah, you got that license, but you know, maybe you got some other things and other ideas that you kind of want to work on. Do you feel pressure to not just put out say that core book for that IP, but then also to produce supplements and so on within that timeline. And you're like, I'm not allowed to even touch those other ideas because I got to make sure I, you know, I'll i'll use the word capitalize on this IP right now.
00:38:49
Speaker
Yes. um so Short answer. Yes. Short answer. Yes. I mean, you know, you have, say you, you know, for sure you have a fighter five-year contract yeah and you look at, well, it may be this much money. Not putting that book, something else say, and some companies may require you to, but let's just say they don't have time. And I think in the, if you, if you want to build fans off this IP you have, if you're going to say, I need to do something once a year. Right.
00:39:14
Speaker
You don't necessarily need to do two or three products a year or anything like that, you know but you would want to give some kind of support. If you don't support the product more regularly, why do it once and be done with it? I mean, that's not the point of getting an IP. So you got to look at what block of time, ah of your budget of time that you have, such as it is, because but most of us is not our day job, right?
00:39:36
Speaker
um how much of it are you going to be willing to give that one? So my answer was once a year right now. I mean, yeah could I do a second one a year? Possibly. But I mean, I want to put out a book a year for that. That seems comfortable. Like one a year, right? And then if something comes along where I have, you know, money and time, might I do a second one?
Managing Multiple Projects
00:39:55
Speaker
Sure. But I have other projects like I want to do Starbreaker, Nights are Canim,
00:39:59
Speaker
a license, not yet named, uh, that license will be that. See that now if I'm doing two licenses, I'm blocking out, say two quarters a year for sure. are Now I'm going to be blocked off. yeah That leaves me starbreaker nights. Oh, but my year's done. because of Even more than three eight years, probably a lot in four years for sure. Everything. I'm not worser to the coast. I can't do many, many projects. Yeah. I mean, i it is you to get this out in 10 years, like I'm going to be able to do it faster once the initial product is out, but um it's ah it's done when it's done. That's where our own cluster is. Having a good team can make it go faster though, depending on the team of people you have. like So having a team
00:40:45
Speaker
who's not only that you know you can work with, but that delivers on time, yeah is huge to making things happen for you. So that, that's that yeah. I think through this conversation, it's it's become very clear too that you have to have a team to do and a licensed IP. Like trying to do it on your own is just madness, it sounds like. I can't imagine being, for most people,
00:41:09
Speaker
being highly, I mean, there's always that, that rare star of a person who's an exception to all can write art layout. Sure. They exist. Yeah. i know you know they are Like writing and editing, for example, right? Like that's, that's a lot. It sounds like you should never edit your own stuff anyway. True. Not if you can help it. Wow. Well, anything, any fire pot parting thoughts? Thanks for letting me talk.
00:41:33
Speaker
um Remember, everything I said is purely my experience. Yours may differ, um but ah largely, I think many of the points, or at least are broadly true. Specifics will vary by person and license. Exactly. Well, thanks for coming on, Brad. I really, really appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you so much. I i certainly learned a lot. Yep. Thanks.
Community Engagement and Further Discussion
00:41:58
Speaker
Well, thank you for listening to the Designing Problems podcast. We want this to be more than a podcast. We want it to be a community. So if you'd like to engage directly with us, share your creative triumphs or roadblocks or simply interact with a cool group of supportive people, we have our own Discord server. Please come by, join the discussion and share some inspiration. Until next time, keep designing your problems because you're bound to solve a few along the way.