Freelance level designer needed for commercial game

[Alf-Life]

I remember the guy who came to Uni for a talk, from Rare said when joining Rare the royalties would be where you'd earn all the 'big' money, and that it was also hit and miss - Starfox Adventures sold pretty well (over a million and a half) while Grabbed by the Ghoulies didn't and just about broke even (and I bought it for like £40 and two weeks later Game reduced it to £20! :/).

[marque_pierre]

Sure. As far as I remember, Rare still has a nice 3 point something million titles sold per games released. But how many RAREs are there out there? And then you have games with super people behind them, like Beyond Good & Evil, where I am sure the developers also never saw a dime of royalties.

The harsh realities seems to be that this is a very attractive industry to work in, but just because we have all played Half Life, doesn't mean we will ever get a shot at making the next Half Life. I remember meeting a games developer who had worked in the games industry for various companies for 15 (FIFTEEN!) years, and he only had one published game to his name. Everything else had been scrapped along the way. Man, he was bitter!

Thousands of games are made every year. Out of them a couple of handfulls break even or make a profit. Royalties? You do the math...

[W01f]

But that's what contracts are for. With a good contract, it shouldn't matter if the company doesn't make any money because you will still get a certain amount of pay no matter what.

[kleinluka]

The point is, most of the games that pay royalties only either never make it onto store shelves or sell shitty. As a result you get zero to none money for the work you did.

I'd never work my ass for hours on end to be paid royalties only for a game nobody's gonna buy. A stable company that has the potential to make a nicely selling game should be capable of paying their workers PROPERLY.

[marque_pierre]

Right on Klein. If you are worth hiring, and your work is worth using, you are worth paying.

[mikezilla]

i make mad royalties

but to each their own

[kleinluka]

well yeah youre not working for some weird 2d puzzle/chess game company mike