In a publisher fronting money to developer situation, without a fixed time limit (or money limit, which functionally translates to a time limit) is the publisher just infinitely on the hook to pay for dev time “until it’s done”?
In a publisher fronting money to developer situation, without a fixed time limit (or money limit, which functionally translates to a time limit) is the publisher just infinitely on the hook to pay for dev time “until it’s done”?
JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
Depends; do they want the game to sell or not?
setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
I’m not trying to be cute. If a publisher company gives money to a developer who is a separate entity, they’ve got to have some kind of contract. If there is no timeline or total budget written into the initial contract, how could a publisher pull out of that agreement?
If the answer is going to be “publishers can just pull out when they feel like it” then that’s neither adhering to the “let devs develop ‘until it is done’.” philosophy that is the entire point of this hypothetical restructure, and it for practical terms it does impose a deadline based on the publisher’s patience, except now that deadline is not expressly clear and simply defined.
JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
No, no. You’re right. It is absolutely necessary to put out incomplete, buggy, unplayable “games” and force us to pay $80 to wait for them to actually finish it…
setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
How would you, in general terms construct an arrangement between a publisher that is funding development, and a developer? How would the agreement hold a developer to certain standards without any kind of time or budget limitations?