It's not different from Langdell at all

Yes it is. A trademark exists if you use a mark for trade (regardless of if it is registered or not). The flip side is that a mark which isn't used to trade ceases to be a trademark (even if previously registered).

The Doodle Jump guy has a product that is actively being sold and thus a trademark exists. He is attempting to defend that Trademark.

Langdell on the other hand claimed ownership of a Trademark that had not been actively used for some years, solely for the purpose of getting small companies to settle and pay him a license fee. EA stood up to him and the court agreed that he had not been using the Edge name in any meaningful fashion in relation to games and his trademark claim was struck down.

Some universities claim IP ownership of projects done using their resources. For this reason it is important to check with them what the situation is in regard to IP. If they don't claim ownership you are good to go. If they do you may still be able to get them to waive that on the basis the project was started outside the university/your course.

The names of companies and products are covered by Trademark law. A trademark is a mark used in trade - in other words it only becomes a trademark if you actually use it to trade. If you do it automatically starts to benefit from trademark protection. You don't need to register the trademark but it is easier to defend if you do so. 

I have permission from a boardgame designer to develop his unpublished boardgame into a salable video game, and I want to find the appropriate agreement to protect myself from legal shenanigans.

You need a license agreement with a specific clause to prevent shenanigans.

Ideally, I'd like a template for it, but I'm thinking it might be too unusual a situation.

Are you a lawyer with experience in Intellectual Property licensing? If not how will you know if the template actually provides the protection you require? IP law is complex and specific phrases have precise meanings in law that may not be clear to a layman (EG - would you know the difference between a Breach and a Material Breach and where each is acceptable in a contract?) I have a directory of game/IP lawyers on my site at http://www.obscure.co.uk/directory/directory-legal/

Also, what percentage of the profits should I ask for, given the information I've provided?

This is subject to negotiation and depends on many factors....
The value of the IP you are licensing
Who is taking the risk (funding development)
How the license fee is paid (up-front, staged, back-ended)
etc.

This is an unproven IP and as such has no real value (unless there is something special about the deal that you didn't tell us). Companies license IP and attach it to games because they believe it has, or will gain, market awareness - usually through a big marketing campaign. They aim to cash in on the existing market to help sell the game. Unless this board game is going to benefit from a massive marketing campaign what exactly will it provide in the way of market awareness? That is what you need to decide in order to decide the value. Remember, this game is unproven and is actually more likely to flop than it is to be a massive success. You could end up with a game that gets negative benefit if the game is judged to be a failure.

You don't actually need a lawyer....

That is true provided you are a lawyer yourself or you actually know enough about Intellectual Property law to know if a generic contract template you found actually provides all the protections necessary.

Just because you get through projects without any trouble that doesn't necessarily mean that the template you used was OK. It may just mean that there wasn't a dispute that needed settling and that the project went smoothly. It is when there is a problem that you find out if the contract is actually worth the paper it is written on.

[All 3]

All 3 of people who would buy it are the type that would have a way to read their original Monkey Island disks

Fixed that for you
Seriously, it is a good idea only if there is a market. Is there a nostalgia market for floppy based software that you know if? If so how big is it? If not then probably not a good idea as it will be costly to produce and the game will be lower quality (no speech/lower quality sound).

Anyone know of a USB stick that looks like a floppy? If you could find one that would give the retro feel but have more space and everyone could actually use it.

The main problems I foresee are promoting the game (besides word of mouth and forums like this one, I have no idea how) and getting people to pay for the premium version.

Promoting the game is marketing. From the sounds of it you have plenty of time to read up on marketing and to look at what other indie developers do to promote their games.

The may ways are Blogs, Facebook, Twitter etc during development. Press releases, interviews, developer diaries and sometimes speaking at conferences.

The addition of rewards for donators can help too. Simply offering a special spell (I offered 'fireworks' once) is enough to get people to help you out.

But then that isn't a donation - they are buying something.

Why not let them play the fun early/easy level and then go into a video of all the cool stuff that they will get access to in the full game. That way they get to play the game, see see the cool stuff later, want it, but are left hungry for more.....

But what about the Xbox Live Arcade, how does it work ? Does it work the same way as XBLIG but with higher standards, so they only accept the best games ?

You would need to submit a game for concept approval and be a registered MS developer. You won't get either unless you have previous experience developing console/PC titles (IE you worked at a development studio) or you are already a successful indie (like Introversion or Behemoth).

MS also require you to meet a whole host of console technical requirements that add a huge amount onto the development process and you have to get your game through testing and certification. These require that you pay a very large amount of money or give up a large % of the revenue to MS. In short it isn't very indie friendly.

1. The idea of indie games is that the take subject matter and game types that major publishers won't do.

1. Sony don't want indie games on PS3 only AAA games. That means million dollar dev budgets and million dollar marketing budgets. At most you could get approval for PSN (if you can prove you have the money) but otherwise they will point you at PSP mini - neither of these options will support the project you are planning.
2. Sony won't approve you as a PS3 publisher so you would need to sign the project with an approved PS3 publisher - as you already pointed out your game is indie of the type that publishers don't want.

6. I am assuming that Sony will if you ask them will certify just about anything thats not AO.(side note: for all the bitching about the 100 slots a year on XBLA if you asked them to put it on a disk i am sure microsoft would be happy to do so). They probabbly ask a publisher which helps with a distribution- but if they didn't have to fund a game i think a lot of smaller ones and maybe some of the major ones wouldn' mind doing that for a cut of the proffit. that one is more of an assumption but its a reasonable one, but the less risk your having them the assume the stronger the logic.

You assume wrong. Sony and MS will only approve projects that they believe fit their vision for their console. They specifically want games that use the hardware features of their platform. A giant publisher like EA might have the clout to push through any project they want but, as you point out, your project isn't something that EA would want.

Your assumption of how publishers do business is also flawed. It costs money to make the disks/packaging and they also have to pay a sizable license fee to Sony/MS for every single disk. Publishers also know that a PS3 game with no marketing won't sell. That means that even if you are funding development they still need to put a huge amount into marketing. This means they need mass market sales numbers and that means it needs to be a mass market product (which indie games aren't).

7. The reason i am asking and why i don't think it hurts to ask and why indie games in general make some financial sence- you don't have to sell that many copies to get back 500,000. How many i don't know.

As above your understanding of the publishing business is flawed. There is a lot more than $500,000 to recoup.

In short you are looking at the wrong platforms. You should be targeting an open platform like PC.

A good trailer should show game play, without all the boring stuff in between. It should explain what you are seeing. You should also stick in some cool looking visuals (front end or similar presentation stuff to break things up).

100 Rogues



Space Ark

A game with minimal text doesn't really need localization. A big RPG will benefit but the cost will be higher. I would recommend coding to make localization easier, but launching in your native tongue first and then localizing if the game is a success.

Strawdog Studios localized their iPhone game Turbo Duck into Fre, Ger, Ita, Spa... the game sold more in Japan (unlocalized) than any of the localized versions did.

to be clear, i'm not advocating being nice or polite, just being helpful, being of value to people. i'm not a particularly polite person....

Honesty is also a big plus

Seriously, agree with what you say. You can't just have a facebook page or a blog and think that this will be enough. You need to "create value" (yuk awful marketing speak) and actually say something that is of interest to people. That how you build awareness.

If you want to earn money as an indie then its a business and it will work like any other business. There will be a period of time where you don't make enough money to survive (the time to "break-even"). Sadly for indie developers that period is often several years because no one knows you exist so no one buys your games. The better you are at promoting your game the quicker people will get to know about you and the sooner you will start to earn enough to live on. Until that time you need to have a day job. Almost all the successful indies went through this when they started out. Its tough but its life and you just need to get through it.

aeiowu is right. Those people who keep trying will succeed. the more times you role a dice the more chance you have that a six will come up.

Good luck and keep on plugging.

It's in the paper here (South China Morning Post). Just imaging meat and veg in one handy package. They should vacuum pack them for astronauts to eat.

Whirlygig - hands down.
It was an Amiga game created by Mike Singleton. His Speccy games were some of my all time favourites but this was just.... ugh.
It was a space game where you flew around finding gates to navigate from dimension to dimension. Unfortunately your space ship took up a large amount of the screen which made it hard to see what was coming at you before you ran into it. It also featured homing missiles which locked on to the nearest target when fired. Unfortunately due to your speed and the fact that you couldn't see enemies until they were right on top of you (or more often had just gone past) the closest target was normally YOU. I kid you not the missiles would lock on to you, loop around and hit you in the ass. The only way to stop this was to fire two missiles. They would then lock onto each other and fly round and round in a circle. A tragically, tragically unplayable game.

Just finished...

Fidel & Che, a revolutionary friendship
very interesting biography of their relationship prior, during and after the revolution up to Che's death. I read it out of historical rather than political interest as I wanted to know how the revolution came about and what happened afterward. A very interesting read as it covers the revolution and also throws light on how small countries had to interact with the two super powers of the cold war area.

War on the Run, the epic story of Robert Rogers and the conquest of America's first frontier
More history - this time the life of Robert Rogers; son of a Scots/Irish colonist who (despite doubts and opposition from British regular army commanders) created a colonial Ranger force during the French/English war in North America and took the war deep into the American wilderness. Lots of stories about operations deep within enemy territory under truly appalling conditions.
It covers his life through the British/French war, the subsequent British/Indian war and the War of Independence.

Currently reading...
Body Language - studies have shown that over half of our communication is through body language. This book seeks to educate the reader on how to understand (and make use of) the messages we receive and give out via body language.

Only just started but it is a very interesting book so far.

Weighing the odds in Hold'em Poker
Actually a similar topic to the Body language book. It is about how to read people (in this case other Poker players) as well as understanding Poker hands, progression of play, figuring odds etc.

Donations are tax-deductible for the donator. That's why you get receipts for donations, typically when the value is very high.

If people start claiming those deductions, the government needs to account for where the money came from.

That's why there's a line on US/Canadian income tax forms that say
[ $    ] Income Received
[ $    ] Donations Received

I believe if you make any decent amount of business on donations you have to apply for a charity license too, which becomes more red tape and hassle. That's why every single company doesn't switch their business model to "gifts" and "donations" from their retail storefronts downtown.

Pretty sure that donations are only tax deductible if given to a registered charity. Likewise if you are receiving donations it counts as income unless you are a registered charity. 

Halving the price halves this reluctance

Pricing doesn't work that way, muzzlebutt.

Not only does it not work that way but a dramatically lower price point can damage the perceived value of the game.