How much is a concept worth ?

Jel

I'm planning on collaborating on a project with someone and the games will be his ideas. How much to you think the concept is worth ?

MagoNicolas

This is MY OPINION.

For my a Concept, doesn't worth it more than 5%.

What really matters, is the implementation.

SlickZero

Concept is everything. If it's a good concept, that is. It's what makes the gameplay a hit or miss. Sure coding/scripting brings the concept to life, but there are more people that know how to code/script to make the same thing happen than there are people that come up with a unique concept. I think it should be a 50/50 split on that. Again, it has to be a good concept, from beginning to end, visuals and layout, and graphic style to be used, music style, and sound design, and thought out and presented in a professional manner (storyboards, etc…) All that's required of you is to script it.

Now, if you are the one doing all the art/sounds for the project as well, then that swings the numbers more to your favor. 65/35 is what I would be comfortable with in that situation. 70/30 if they'll go for it.

If it's some person that just expresses some idea verbally to you, and you have to do everything else, I personally wouldn't get involved. I have plenty of ideas of my own to do.

MagoNicolas

Btw, Im was just talking about the Concept.

If you elaborate the concept, and design the whole game (Not programming it, designing it)
Then, Its a different story.

Jel

On one of the games he has told me he has the music (it will be a music based game), how he wants the layout to be, along with the concept.

SlickZero

Actually, now that I think about it, when it's a situation like that, the person with the concept and all the assets is probably just looking for someone to put it together for them, and they are the ones looking to give you 5%, 10%, 15% or even just a flat rate to script it for them and then go away. If they have a developer account themselves, that is.

Where you may hold the cards is by having the developer account, and everything ready to go to put it out on the app store. That's when you can go 50/50 or whatever in that particular situation. That's just my opinion.

Does he have the art as well, or is that up to you? And did he present you with an offer already as far as profit share, or is that something you're trying to work out together now?

Jel

He doesn't have any artwork and I believe he wants me to do it. We really haven't talked about the financial side of things at all as we have only had a 20 min phone call just to get an idea of what we both had to offer.

I might offer both options to him ( Revenue share or flat rate ) and see what he goes for. The issue I see with the revenue share is that if I hold the dev account he has to trust me to give him accurate sales data.

jonmulcahy

Everyone has ideas. The hard work is in producing the stuff.
For revenue sharing, I'd do something like 10% music or 30-40$ per minute. Artwork should be about 30%, or bank on spending at least a thousand dollars on artwork for a smallish game.

The rest should go to the person actually coding the game.

theCodeMonsters

Well it all comes down to the level of work done in implementation and how good the Idea is. On average I would say that the its worth about 10-20% of the revenue share.

BlackbirdStudios

If you are only giving the concept to someone else to build, I'd say u should get about 30-40%, If you have the concept and you are actually doing some of the work to create the game (with someone else), than you should probably take between 50% and 60%

jonmulcahy

i think you need to clearly define what you mean by concept.

if it's just the idea, buy your friend dinner. ideas are a dime a dozen. everyone has ideas. being the 'idea man' doesn't justify you to a continuous cut of the pie.

if the person is providing artwork, level designs, dialog and whatnot, then you should be discussing revenue sharing.

but never, ever, get into any sort of revenue sharing for just an idea.

Octappus

MagoNicolas said:
For my a Concept, doesn't worth it more than 5%.

What really matters, is the implementation.

jonmulcahy said:
Everyone has ideas. The hard work is in producing the stuff.

I totally agree with these guys. I friend of mine is a very successful author and he frequently has people say to him, "here's a great idea for book - you write it and we'll go 50/50". They ignore the fact that he has to do all the hard work researching, developing, writing, etc. He doesn't revenue-share, and his commission for writing a book is £20,000 ($30,000).

From the information you have given us, it sounds like this guy can visualise the app he wants and knows how he would like it to sound. You will have to work incredibly hard to reproduce what is in his head.

An idea takes no effort; implementation is where money is earned.

jonmulcahy said:
never, ever, get into any sort of revenue sharing for just an idea.

I don't know. If I thought an idea was good, I would explain how all the work, effort, time spent, expenditure (developer's licence, artwork commissioning, etc), risk (it's my reputation after all), etc would be mine and offer them 1% of sales income. That seems reasonable to me for a really good idea.

Otherwise they could commission the app from you, but release under their own name for a flat fee + a small percentage for you (you will regret not have a share if it becomes hugely successful).