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I Hate You, Don’t Leave Me
By Corvus | March 15, 2007
It occurs to me that creative individuals are not known for their healthy long term relationships. Oh, there are notable exceptions, Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan for one, myself and my wife for another. But, by and large, the image that sits at the forefront of our collective mind is that of a tortured artist who must choose between passion for their craft and passion for their life partner,.
Inevitably in these scenarios, of course, the craft wins. In fact, I still grapple with this balance myself. It’s taken an inordinate amount of patience on behalf of Ms. Z and myself to retrain our expectations and interactions so that our relationship can feed the art, not detract from it. but every once in a while my fear takes over, that long programmed message, and I become a raging paranoid wondering why Ms. Z, who has never been anything but supportive, doesn’t support me in my pursuit of story.
So it’s no wonder that our relationship with the industries that feed, and feed upon, us is so fraught with strife. Our reaction to them, in fact, is remarkably bi-polar, passive aggressive, and certainly far from the realms of health and sanity.
If your intent is to get rich by creating games, you may as well stop reading here. The rest of this post will be of little interest to you. If, however, you want to make games because you’re passionate about it, because you believe games to be a new art form, because you have something to say, then read on.
Intellectual Property is the most ephemeral and precious of creations. It’s relatively easy to keep someone from stealing a physical object, but far more difficult to keep them from stealing an idea, a concept, a thought. And, once stolen, it’s extraordinarily expensive to prove the theft in a court of law.
Fortunately, there is a wealthy and available individual near at hand to to suggest solutions to all our problems. Unfortunately, the wealthy individual is also a jealous individual and in order to consider its investment worthwhile, it usually demands a piece of what its protecting in return… just to establish some trust, of course. The more this individual has, the more it wants. The more pieces of IP the individual owns, the more possessive it becomes. Ultimately, this individual wants to own, not just a piece of, but all of the IP and a substantial piece of the entity which produced it… all for your protection, of course.
To achieve these ends, the individual will stoop to any number of lies, abuses, and chicanery. Like a controlling spouse, it demands you not speak to people outside the relationship about your ideas, it isolates you and tells you that it’s the only one you can trust. It determines how much money you should have, and when. It removes your self sufficiency to such a degree that should it decide your creative output is no longer to its satisfaction, it removes its support and you, like a long-abused spouse, collapse and fall apart.
And who gets to keep the IP that you wanted to protect? I think you know the answer to that one. There’s a reason we won’t be seeing another Thief or Deus Ex… not that most people will mourn this fact, as the last entry in both series were throttled in their cribs by the very individual who promised to help keep them safe.
Look back over history and look at the largest, most vicious, thefts of IP. Were they perpetuated by strangers? By other artists? By pirates? No, I think you’ll find that the most egregious thefts were managed by trusted financial backers, by people who were better at understanding legal contracts and had less to loose by the dissolution of the relationship. In other words, people who represented the industry.
We’re told that we’re not safe out in the world. That gangsters lurk around every corner, pirates in every puddle, we’re told that our pockets are ripe for the picking and that, to be truly safe, we’d better just hand over our wealth for safe keeping. And like a naive babe, we comply. Please don’t let them steal from me, please protect my IP, please keep me safe, I love you…
They abuse us with their disregard, they mock our lack of business acumen, our social naiveté, and they steal from us, threaten our livelihoods, our creations, our children. And yet, without them we think we cannot survive.
It boggles my mind. Just as a battered spouse instinctively responds to that pleading phone call professing love, we respond to offers of contracts, hints of wealth, and of security… even when we’re beat down and exhausted, pushed beyond our endurance, incapable of holding up our heads and looking anyone in the eye.
Finally, some of us get mad enough that we seek escape. Some, like Warren Spector and Lorne Lanning, turn to a pattern that seems familiar and comforting and go to other industries to seek solace and support. Of course, those industries are no less abusive and the cycle beings again. Others, like Mike Wilson and Greg Costikyan, turn the tables on their abusers, setting themselves up on the other side of the relationship. Whether they will ultimately make a difference, or whether they will merely begin to fulfill the power-holding side of the relationship, remains to be seen. We can hope for the best, but when you’ve only ever known one type of relationship… well, I worry we’ll have an Animal Farm on our hands.
I suggest instead that we make our primary relationship between ourselves and our IP. It should be a respectful relationship, open to growth and change. It should be a relationship where you’re both allowed to learn new things, gain new experiences. You’ll find that you enrich each others’ existences because of it.
Like a loving and honest relationship, there are still risks involved — but in truth you can neither control nor steal that which is freely given. I plan on allowing people to utilize my code and art assets in free and open source projects. Who can steal from me when I offer my IP for free? Who can control me, or those entities I love, when I give up my own control?
I’m not saying that your relationship with your IP should be a free-for-all, please protect both of you via the use of appropriate licenses and copyrights. But tried and tested protections are out there for use, free of charge. A wide variety of open source licenses for your code are available, with a variety of restrictions. Creative Commons provides a sane copyright solution and lawyers are working to make the legal language ever more invulnerable to law suits.
Nor am I saying that you shouldn’t try and profit off your relationship with your IP, obviously you should. Your IP didn’t just happen, but like any good relationship, it took work and effort and talent and skill to develop and maintain. But instead of a direct exchange of money for IP, find services you can offer instead. Set up a contribution link on your site and see how generous your audience can be. Penny Arcade started that way and look at them today. They have an expo, a charity, and now a scholarship. Not only are they fully supported by their community, but they are turning their community’s largess back over to the community.
An open and free business relationship within a supportive community is always going to be stronger, more lasting, and more rewarding than any exclusive relationship you enter into with a party primarily interested in profit.
But, and this is the most important thing, whatever relationships you enter into, enter into it with your eyes open. Know your own limits. Know what you’re willing to give up in order to get what you want. Know this in advance, know if for yourself, and know it for your studio. And always, always be willing and ready to get out if it becomes something that’s harming your health, your personal relationships, and your family. Otherwise, it’s just not worth it, no matter how alluring the promise seems to be.
Tagged:Industry. |