Indie publisher Raw Fury has made a simplified version of its publishing agreement available via its new DevResources page.
The page also contains templates for financial projections, pitch decks, outsourcing agreements, etc.
The move aims to help indie devs understand what a contract with a publisher can look like and what’t included in it. In addition to the original in English, there are also Spanish, Brazilian-Portuguese, Russian, French, Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Croatian versions.
We believe having publisher contracts out in the open helps level the playing field, and allows devs to have a more intimate understanding of the machinations of different deals when they start looking for partnerships. We hope sharing this knowledge can help combat shady practices where predatory people and companies fleece devs by virtue of this knowledge being so scarce, trapping developers in bad deals through the obscurity of legal jargon.
Johan Toresson, Raw Fury
The company also hopes for other publishers to disclose their agreements increasing the transparency within the video games industry. So far, WhiteThorn Games has responded by sharing their contract template.
Well, we don’t have explosions, but we do have our contract template. In response to @RawFury blowing the curtains off, why don’t we? Nobody likes that one weirdo at the sauna who still has a towel on. https://t.co/I97DrwYZhd
Comments enabled. pic.twitter.com/rdsG4QSr9S
— WhiteThorn Games (@WhiteThornGames) December 22, 2020