BeeWare

By: Derek Yu

On: March 3rd, 2009

The website of the 2BeeGames competition takes a slight dig at the IGF by saying “unlike some events where every judge plays only a few games, our judges will play each and every game to determine the finalists (up to 10).” However, developers that are interested in the compo should be more mindful of this part of the official rules:

5. Ownership/Use of Entries: Entrants retain ownership of the Games they submit, however, by entering you, on behalf of yourself and any Third Party Creators, grant Contest Entities the perpetual, fully-paid, irrevocable, non-exclusive license to reproduce, prepare derivate [sic] works of (including modification to allow game play on different platforms), distribute, display, exhibit, transmit, broadcast, televise, digitize, otherwise use, and permit others to use and perform throughout the world the Games in any manner, form, or format now or hereinafter created, including on the internet, and for any purpose, including, but not limited to, advertising or promotion of Contest Entities and Contest Entities’ goods and/or services, all without further consent from or payment to you, Third Party Creators or any other third parties.

It goes on to say that the “Contest Entities” do not waive any “rights to use similar or related ideas without any restriction whatsoever.” In other words, if you enter the competition (just enter, not necessarily win), you are giving the casual games publisher Zoo Games a license to not only market and sell your game all over the world, but also make knock-off games using your ideas.

Classy stuff!

(Thanks to the various folks that pointed this out.)

Posted in Business, Casual, Community, Competitions, Developers | Tags: ZooGames

Alex

They’re in desperate need of ideas, don’t be so inconsiderate Derek! Look at their games catalog, “M&Ms Beach Party” and “Deal Or No Deal Wii”, these guys need to steal something fun, and SOON!
Lars Doucet

I understand the concern, I’m just wondering if that’s really what the legal boilerplate says… MochiAds has similar language, but what it means for them is,

“By placing a mochiad in your game, that counts as a derivative work, and since we distribute your game to our partners, that counts as distribution, so we need your consent to be able to do our service for you. The game is still yours and we’re not going to make sequels for it and screw you over and lame crap like that.”

So, I’m no legal expert or anything, I’m just wondering if someone who is can weigh in on this and say whether this really grants them that power.

Not that I’m NOT suspicious of these guys or anything, because that kind of language usually does scare the pants off of me without an explicit explanation from the company about what their actual policy is.
Derek

I’m no legal expert, either, but it absolutely grants them the power. There isn’t really another way to interpret the language (which is kinda the point of “legalese” in the first place! ;).
Zen Anon

Haha, oh wow, what a scam.
qnp

My first thought was “this is disgusting”…
My second thoughts were somewhat along the lines of what Lars says.

I would guess that nowadays you have to pretty inclusive in these types of license agreements. I could see for example, that if you were really anal in the legal department, you’d want to protect yourself from getting sued for distributing a game made for *your* competition by the games developers.
No idea why I’m giving this the benefit of the doubt.

In any case, a license like that would scare me right off entering anything into such a competition.
Not that I ever make much worth “stealing” anyways… :[
http://elvisbrevi.blogspot.com Elvis Brevi

$10,000 ummmm…
Querulous

The troubling this, frankly, is not them taking everyone’s work without compensation, which they’re certainly entitled to do, but rather them not telling anyone about it.

The language Derek quotes (which I dug up when I was reading about the project) is not in the front page, the FAQ, or the text box you see when you submit the game.

You only get to the paragraph by going to the complete official rules, where it is buried almost exactly in the middle of a huge string of legalese. Other rules are bold-faced (see, e.g., Rule 4) or in all caps (see, e.g., Rule 9), thus drawing the reader’s eyes AWAY from what is plainly the most important provision of the rules.

The only explanation for this game of hide-the-ball is that they suspect a significant portion of game makers would not actually submit their games if they knew what the consequences were.
sean

charming. it’s nice of some people to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I can’t think of any reason (besides the obvious) to have such an explicit description of which rights you are waiving.
nihilocrat

Any compo with a rules list that long is amazingly lame anyways.
Alec

Jesus.
Mark

Wowser bowser!
What a scam!
No glam
dawg
http://www.indiegames.com/blog Michael Rose

Derek, you may want to take this post down – Adam from Zoo Games made this post on IndieGames –> http://www.indiegames.com/blog/2009/03/zoo_games_announces_10000_indi.html#comment-867984
Alec

…Y-yeah…
pyabo

If their intent is really benign, they need to make it plain in the contract. MochiAds has similar wording, yes… and they could at ANY time turn into complete and utter dicks about it. “Lets see… we’ll steal this… and this… and this… and there’s nothing you can do about it. Neener neener.” Doing that probably wouldn’t help their long-term business, but we see corporations doing that sort of thing every fucking day. All it takes is one short-sighted prick to ruin it for everyone. And lord knows there are plenty of those around.
falsion

Just as soon as I saw the [sic] I was already pissed. I couldn’t bother reading the whole thing.

F them to hell. Who do they think they are?
Loki

feel free to rage at them on their blog:
http://www.2beegames.com/contest/blog

(fyi, it doesn’t like spacing.)
http://www.cymonsgames.com [email protected]

The fact that they’re doing this hide-and-seek is nasty, but if you’re entering a $10,000 contest and don’t expect some sleight of hand as they stick a finger up your anus then you deserve to be violated. It’ll make you wiser in the future. Not to mention make you walk funny for a little while.

However, knowing about it if I were a flash programmer I’d still go for it. I’d just make sure to use original or abstract characters and settings so that they don’t get “my” stuff by the balls. Which is a good thing to do anyways.
http://www.cymonsgames.com Cymon

Doh, stupid with the e-mail in the address bar. Spam filter HO!

And there was a lot of crotch-centered analogies int that post. Hmm.
Foppy

This looks like two competitions slinging mud at each other, which can’t be good for either.
Foppy

Not that it really matters when there’s about 10 gaming competitions every day.
http://rmvx.gameclover.com RMVX

Is the prize even real? Sounds kinda scammy if they can’t afford a lawyer who can spell..
Foppy

Actually I don’t see the slight dig at IGF in their text. So it’s not two competition slinging mud at each other after all, sorry for that.
http://www.roachpuppy.com IceNine

Scumbags… there wouldn’t normally be anything wrong with this if they were up front about it. Some people might be willing to give up the rights to their game if it meant a chance at $10,000. But to be so deceitful about it only pisses off a big part of the community that would enter your contest to begin with, not to mention the reputation you now have in their eyes.
PHeMoX

Zoo Games? Arrggh.. no comment.
Alec

Zoo Race Games > Zoo Games
http://sinisterandroid.com greay

It seems they’ve already changed the text? It’s still broad legalese, but it’s a little clearer what their intentions are.

Also, the part about using similar or related ideas reads: “_Contest Entities, do not waive any rights to use similar or related ideas that might be contained in a Game **which was previously known to Sponsor, or developed by its employees, or obtained from sources other than Entrant**, or rights to use similar or related ideas without any restriction whatsoever…_” which is much better. I don’t see why this is necessary, but they’re saying they’re not going to just make a cheap knock-off of your game. They may, however, release a game using mechanics similar to yours if it’s not a new mechanic.

Also worth reading is a comment from an employee on their blog,

>Hi Mike, I’m Tony from 2BeeGames. Perhaps I can help clarify things. Indie developers are not giving over ANY rights or ownership to their games by entering the contest. Even after winning, a licensing deal would be negotiated before going any further with their games. We would be working closely with the indie developers to ensure a faithful port.

For people interested in it, it may be worth talking to them about your concerns. It does seem that they’re willing to listen & respond based on the feedback they get.
judgesepar

They’re a scam. A piece of crap shovel ware company that will resort to anything to get money and even ideas since they have yet to make anything of their own that is worth playing.

I cannot wait for them to inevitably go out of business. Hopefully nobody falls for their crap. These people deserve to go down, and go down hard.
judgesepar

Anyway, thank you Derek Yu for warning everyone about this. I pray that nobody falls for this and that this company comes up empty handed on this filthy scam.
judgesepar

Oh, and I just read the new legalese. It’s still scummy as ever. They’re still basically trying to leech off of you for ideas and reap all the benefits while they screw you over. Avoid this like the plague.
Loki

Yeah, they changed it but left in all the icky bits.
:(
tuesday

it is things like this that are why Dilbert is so successful.
Corpus

I can’t believe this :/ Asking anything more than 10% is outrageous.
Sew

I think what’s a lot more troubling is the voting system to determine the winner. :
tuesday

console appeal?
Derek

My roommate is a lawyer, and I’ll ask him what he thinks about it tonight. Offhand, the language seems way more broad than it needs to be. If their intent is to display screenshots of the game and make it available for download on the site solely for the purpose of the competition, there ARE ways of saying exactly that in the contract. You don’t have to give yourself rights to everything to protect yourself. In any case, there should be something added there to protect the contest entrants, too, if intentions are good.

So, it’s possible their lawyers are bad. Either way, it IS important to consider who you’re dealing with, and whether they have good reason to abuse you. A casual games publisher is not a company I would like to hand these rights over to.
Xander

Obviously I don’t know enough if this to really comment either way. However after what happened with ‘platypus’, I’d definitely stay on the side of caution. Whilst that’s not the happiest position to take, I certainly prefer it to the alternative.
Cobalt

The FSF will have something to say about this!
http://http://2beegames.com Tony

hey guys, Tony from 2BeeGames over here. Wow you guys are jumping all over us. There is definitely a lot of vitriol in the posts. Allow me to try and clarify some things.

First of all, we’re not taking a dig at the IGF at all. I think the IGF is awesome.
We’ll be at the IGS and GDC if anyone wants to chit chat about this.

I understand that you have to be cautious, but if we really wanted to just copy your ideas wouldn’t we be better off just scouring the internet and stealing ideas from other games instead of throwing a competition?
How is this beneficial to us?

The wall of legal text is there to protect us from frivolous law suits, especially since this is open to worldwide entrants.

I understand how many people feel about Zoo’s casual games.
Adam and I are starting this with their funding (hence the name 2Bee).
This is completely separate from the casual products.

Why all of the hate? We’re trying to give indie games a home on consoles and a larger audience. We’re teaming up with Zoo as they like the idea and have a good distribution system. The end goal is to sign up a few good games with deals that make both parties happy.

If you want to chat about this some more – Just shoot us a comment at our blog or send us an email. We’ll be happy to answer your questions and concerns.

-Tony (2BeeGames)
falsion

Tony: Please read through it yourself. How does this benefit the entrants? Looks like this is all to benefit “Zoo.”

It’s very one sided and the legalese is so blatant in what it intends to do, and so broad that I cannot even believe that what they’re trying to do is even legal. Hell, the fact that their lawyer couldn’t even spell “derivative” itself makes it suspect.

Yes, there is a difference between protecting you “from frivolous law suits” and basically saying “hey, we’re going to screw you over and give you the short end of the stick while we take everything from you.”

I’d be fine if you wanted to protect your ass, but that hardly is the intent of this document.
John T

I don’t know what ur taking about. If you win the contest then you negotiate with them on a publishing deal – what’s so horrible about that?
You don’t like what they offer then don’t give them your game to publish. Pretty simple. Why don’t you read their stuff first? Their CEO even posted his email address – I bet you won’t see jr from ea doing that!
http://coolmoose.net CoolMoose

Shill much?
falsion

John T, then feel free to enter. Nobody is stopping you. Good luck, and don’t say we didn’t warn you.
falsion

Oh, and by the way, I hate sock puppet accounts, just wanted to let you know. Nice try though.
John T

Warn me about what? So I enter the competition and I win or don’t. Please tell me specifically how I would be injured in both cases. As I read this if I enter the only rights I lose are for them to let people play the game and show some assets for promotion.

If I win then I negotiate a publishing deal. If I like what I get I sign it. If not I don’t. Specifically what’s my injury in both cases?

You’re just complaining to complain. I will enter.

My daughter recently entered Americas got talent – you sign your life away. But if she wins that a platform for other opportunities though I’m certain I’m not going to have to worry about that.
falsion

…

“Americas got talent”

Stopped reading there.

I’m not going to even bother replying unless John has something to say. I won’t feed the troll. Sorry.
falsion

er, I meant Tony not John.
http://http://2beegames.com Tony

Thanks John for the support. We actually have received some decent entries so clearly not everyone is so jaded.

What else are you guys still having big issues with? I’ll do my best to fix these issues.

We wanted to make it a contest in that there is nothing to lose. You lose nothing by entering.
If we can’t come up with a deal for the winner that makes both sides happy then we just part ways. You guys make it seem like its a big conspiracy. have you seen rules for other large websites/contests?

Derek, you seem pretty level headed. Let me know if you want to have a chat to clear things up. Funny thing is I reached out to you to discuss possibly signing Aquaria a while back. Did we “steal” the idea after you never responded? Classy indeed…

-Tony
http://http://2beegames.com Tony

Didn’t mean to come off so harsh but its been a tough day
John T

That’s right falsion – you simpleton – america’s got talent

here’s a link for you

http://www.nbc.com/Americas_Got_Talent/

not american idol which is what you’re thinking

I’m not tony and I’m not responding to this shit anymore. I just read about the contest and am researching as much as I can before entering.

You don’t have an answer…you’re just bitching to bitch. Why don’t you answer my questions though for other people who read this?

Whatever.
John T

Thatâ€™s right falsion – you simpleton – americaâ€™s got talent

hereâ€™s a link for you

http://www.nbc.com/AmericasGotTalent/

not american idol which is what youâ€™re thinking

Iâ€™m not tony and Iâ€™m not responding to this crap anymore. I just read about the contest and am researching as much as I can before entering.

You donâ€™t have an answerâ€¦youâ€™re just complaining to complain. Why donâ€™t you answer my questions though for other people who read this?

Whatever.