Feature: 'Postcard from the 2005 Casual Games Conference'Feature: 'Postcard from the 2005 Casual Games Conference'

Today's main Gamasutra feature story is an in-depth report on the 2005 Casual Games Conference, courtesy of Large Animal Games' Wade Tinney. Tinney takes the opportunity to provide a step-by-step diary of some of the most interesting panels and get-togethers of the two-day event, recently held in Seattle, and in this excerpt, focuses on the thorny problem of casual game royalties: "James Gwertzman, one of the founding partners of Sprout Games and the new Director of Business Development at PopCap, is the moderator of this much-anticipated panel on Contracts & Royalties. As in most sectors of the game industry, the different players in the casual game “value chain” do not always see eye-to-eye on the way that revenues are shared. The point of this panel is to discuss the different perspectives of developers, publishers, and distributors. James starts out by showing a slide of a EULA (“End User License Agreement”) that read as follows: “This agreement is between the Contracts & Royalties panel of the Seattle Casual Games Conference (“Panel”) and you, the audience (“Audience”). By remaining in your seat and not getting up to leave at this point, you hereby agree to the following terms, as of the effective date July 19th, 2005. If the Panel can agree unanimously to a set of royalty rates (“Rates”) that it deems fair, then Audience hereby agrees to adapt the Rates as appropriate in all licensing agreements going forward, and the Audience also hereby agrees to renegotiate all outstanding agreements using the Rates as appropriate. If the Panel cannot agree unanimously to a set of rates, then this Agreement shall be rendered null and void." This was a light-hearted way to kick off a potentially contentious panel." You can now read the full Gamasutra feature on the subject (no registration required, please feel free to link to the article from external websites).