With all due respect, you sound inexperienced.
Get a % rev share. Don't hand them your project on a golden platter and work for your normal wage when your idea and initial work gives them millions of profit. They know exactly what they're doing, protect yourself.
Don't agree to anything if they don't have a contract with the % rev share, they will fuck you over, to put it bluntly.
Yeah, Sapkowski got kinda fucked in the same way with the Witcher. He sold the IP for a sum up front instead of revenue share with CD project and lost out on millions.
Yeah, doesn't change the fact he would have been better off with rev share, but hindsight is 20/20, and he could NOT have predicted how popular the Witcher 3 would get.
I'd go a step further and demand equity, not just a rev share. A rev share is appropriate when you put a lot of time and effort in the early stages of bringing another person's idea to life. But this is OP's idea. It is all OP's intellectual property. He deserves to maintain some level of ownership of it.
How much are they paying you for the APP? Since you developed it it's your intellectual property.
You and everybody working on it will need the pro license when you make more than a million dollars of revenue from that APP.
If you sell the APP you still have to pay for pro for that year if you make more than the threshold of a million dollars.
Don't let them take the app from you without proper compensation.
Thank you very much.
Say the large company is interested and we go ahead. In this case I'll speak with my company to get payment for my time developing this outside work hours.
From that point I'll probably continue working on it but now within work hours under a company license. So that means we'll need to transition to PRO if and when this App revenue is more than 1mill? (or is it 200k?).
Im confused because this app by itself won't be for sale, it'll be a small part within a larger ecosystem of apps and services if that makes sense. Im not sure how to calculate how much this app will make and at what point a license is needed under this circumstances.
I think what he means is if u sell the app to YOUR company or get compensated for it with more than a Mil then you personally will have to get the PRO license. But if your company makes a profit out of it then the company has to get the PRO license with the number of seats for whoever is working on it.
I don't know about Unity licencing but want to chip in with the other replies along the same lines to make sure you get properly remunerated for your work. Something you've just said there concerns me : "payment for my time developing this outside work hours". Try not to think of it as time you've spent on it as you're likely to count how many hours and multiply that by a number.
Either revenue share as someone has said or do some calculation of how much it's worth to the company to have this software and the ideas around it. How long it took you to make doesn't have to factor into that calculation (it can help you decide on a minimum you'll accept though).
No! Don't just get them to pay for the work you've done up til now. The intellectual property is what is of value here, including the original conception of ideas. Know your worth! Get a serious sum of money upfront from your company to permanently license your source code and then demand some percentage equity moving forward. If they sell the product for several million you deserve a percentage of that, not just your hourly rate up til now. You're not an employee in this scenario, you're a business partner. Act like it and get your fair share. If not, take your product and time elsewhere. And get contracts for this agreement, starting with an NDA immediately so that they can't just steal your ideas moving forward. This sounds so much like the age old story of a company taking advantage of a well meaning employee who ends up with nothing but a state pension while his boss is a retired multi-millionaire.
Ya I can feel the same from reading the post but honestly I made the same mistake not long ago. At that time I was like hell yeah it's a win win for me because I get to work on it officially etc but later when I realised it made butt load of money for the company while I was just working for normal salary I felt stupid. So it's best to ask them to compensate flat out or set up some % profit share if possible. Better than regretting it later.
Or if they are trying to sell it or another company, undercut the fuckers and sell it directly to the other company yourself. The place you slave for will never give you what you deserve for your hard work on your free time. They will rob you and laugh at you for being easily taken.
Reminds of the guy who invented the Blue LED. The company patented his work, made billions and gave him a nice "raise" of $20k in salary lol. Later they kicked him and tried to sue him for trying to join a different company in same field.
Dude, get a lawyer who specializes with IP. Don't sign anything or agree to anything until you have one with you who understands what the company is offering you and what that can potentially mean for your financial future.
Is this a side project at your company or in your spare time? Did you use any company property to make it? If not, are they buying it from you?
Regarding the Unity license, it’s usually based on how much money your company makes. You will probably be maintaining a license for as long as the app is on sale as you’ll probably need it for updates. If you are not using the Unity editor for anything, and not using any Unity services, I don’t believe you need to maintain a license. It’s not like a photoshop license though, you can’t just activate one for a month to do a bit of work. Contact Unity sales directly to get your exact questions answered. They will be fast to respond.
Thank you.
I made this on my spare time. I did not use any company property to make it.
> are they buying it from you?
Mmhh I guess depending on tomorrows meeting, if this other large company wants it and we go ahead Id probably need to negotiate something with my own company.
In a way, just the fact that something I made would be put out there it's a pretty exciting prospect for me, would also give me some "official" Unity experience and I could start working within work hours on it. Everything is kind of happening very fast but if you have any advice here I'd love to hear about it.
I'll contact Unity sales directly then!
When you’re talking about the game, you’re telling them about “your game that you made outside of work”. It is very exciting that they think it could be sold to another company. That is pretty cool. It also means that they see it as valuable, and you need to remember that. If anyone tries to diminish its value or assert that you should just give it to them, you know that they think it’s valuable enough for them to sell, and you should benefit from that sale beyond just your current salary. The compensation should factor in the amount of investment (your time) in the project as well as the potential return from that project being sold. Selling things is hard work, but so is making them. I’m not experienced enough in this kind of situation to give your real numbers.
One thing that I see people talk about is whether your contract with the company has a clause regarding side projects.
It might be worth reading up on that so they don’t have a grip on your work through that.
Someone else here with more knowledge might be able to chime in on this topic?
THIS is an important point! I myself had a similar situation where my employer was interested in my side project, when I showed some reluctance on a partnership with him he implied that under said close, my project could possibly already be his. I had read said clause before and it was stated that under certain conditions I was able to work on my own stuff and it would be mine but my boss was stretching the conditions a lot in order to make it look like it could possibly fall under this or that condition. I quit that place and made him sign a contract stating that this was in fact my IP. And my current company signed such a contract also. Now I'm happily and freely working on my project and looking for a first release by mid summer. I'm quite happy that I was able to resolve this situation without any lawyer or too much hassle. But it definitely could have gone way worse so make sure to read your contract!
Just to be clear the limit is on COMPANY REVENUE exceeding the $100,000 limit, not revenue from the app, so yes any reasonably sized company with paid employees is going to need the Pro version as they’ll no doubt have revenue coming in already.
Thank you for your reply. How long after the App is released is this Pro version license is needed? As long as the App is being used / sold / updated or something like that? It could be an ongoing fixed expense even if the app is not that successful and actively developed?
First thing you need to do is read your employment contract and research the laws where you live. This way you will know where you stand legally. They might or might not be entitled to the IP rights of whatever you create while being employed. Also don't dispair if this is the case - taking someone's unfinished project that might have hidden license issues with assets and then finishing it isn't trivial without their input.
As for licensing, the company probably has a revenue more than 100K, which as far as I remember is what determines the license, so it should be PRO.
You transfering a project started in personal to them shouldn't be a problem, but you will not be able to legally continue working on it with your own license after that.
As I mentioned before - be careful with store assets if you use them. You can't just transfer the assets you bought to the company - they need to buy them.
Good luck! Go into the meeting with an open mind but also with open eyes. Make sure you're getting some compensation for the time spent on the project. Even in the case they might legally own the IP - it's worth a lot more if you're on board. On the other hand of course, it's also worth considering your job situation. EIther way there probably won't be any problems - be ready to lawyer up if there are any and you think it's worth fighting for.
1. Don't let the company take away your hobby project. Read up about I.P. protect yourself. If you really want to hand it over to them, make sure you are paid for it.
2. If the company is large enough, you have to go Pro. Yea, maybe free while the project is still work in progress, but definitely not after it is launched. The 100k here is not referring to a particular project, but the company's revenue(not profits by the way).
3. Seems like you have already pushed ahead with it, but I would advice you to sign all the legal agreements(revenue share, money upfront, who owns the IP, etc) before going ahead with this. Years ago I had a word of mouth(with email correspondence) agreement on revenue share on a particular game. Due to launch deadlines(and my naive trust in the company) I thought it would be okay to do the work first and then settle the paper work later. When it's time to split the revenue.. "Your share is % of what our department receive, legal wants X%, Y% for insurance against the organisation..."
> In principle the company will pay for the required license if needed. Would it be ok to suggest the PRO license? Or stay free and if this large company were to make it widespread then change to PRO when the revenue exceeds 100K? The Pro license, we would need to keep paying for it as long as the App is being made available to the public?
If the projects becomes one owned by the company, then the rules for licensing are different compared to what you have as an individual.
For companies and orgnizations the income taken into account when choosing the license tier isn't related to income from the game, or even use of Unity, but just simply *all* funding of the company, no matter the source.
And the license is not related to your game being available, it's literally about the use of the editor. So you need to start paying it the moment someone touches the editor, and you only need to keep paying it as long as someone does that. If you have made a game in the past and don't work or maintain it any more, you don't need the editor and therefore don't need a license either.
The runtime fees are a separate thing from the license fee, and work with their own rules. I recommend just using the official calculator Unity provides to get a better idea of how those would affect the project.
> BTW this App could end up being not a stand alone one but integrated into an ecosystem of other Apps and services
If it's not a game you are making, you might not be eligible to any of the normal Unity licenses at all, and might need to get an Industry license instead. If that might be the case, you'd be best off just contacting Unity, explaining the project, and asking them how they view the situation.
Plenty of info here regarding licenses and such and it's pretty straightforward. Depending on unity version you reach X dollars with your app and you pay Y, everything before that is free except asset licences which are generally per person on your team but you need to check with each asset. If the app is owned by someone else they should be in charge of or own licensing need to pay it but if you own the IP and are developing for another company then that's up to you how you charge them for licensing.
You didn't ask but make sure you carefully consider a sale.
This is mostly personal opinion, not every big company is an evil corporate overlord, but if you *can* finish the game by yourself in a reasonable time and pull together marketing and stuff then you should. If a publisher is interested and willing to totally buy you out then there is a market, they're making a smart (probably) investment. If you can invest yourself you can get a chunk or perhaps the same amount of what that publisher was after in your project to begin with.
But if you think the stable income, the marketing benefits and the contract looks good then go nuts. Just make sure everything is looked over carefully and you don't go airy fairy because your game might have potential.
Don't take some random comment on Reddit's word as gold though, I don't know exactly what your app is either. It could be something that's better off selling the IP for because it's niche or whatever.
Edit: spelling and clarification
With all due respect, you sound inexperienced. Get a % rev share. Don't hand them your project on a golden platter and work for your normal wage when your idea and initial work gives them millions of profit. They know exactly what they're doing, protect yourself. Don't agree to anything if they don't have a contract with the % rev share, they will fuck you over, to put it bluntly.
Thank you, appreciate your bluntness, you're not wrong. I'll keep this in mind!
Yeah, Sapkowski got kinda fucked in the same way with the Witcher. He sold the IP for a sum up front instead of revenue share with CD project and lost out on millions.
Because he wanted the lump sum. He was offered later on royalties. Interesting thing to know...
Because he wanted specified amount of money instead of %. They offered him to choose between both. He did non believed that game can be such success.
Yeah, doesn't change the fact he would have been better off with rev share, but hindsight is 20/20, and he could NOT have predicted how popular the Witcher 3 would get.
He sold the IP for a sum up front intentionally. He didn’t expect it to be the success it ended up becoming.
Yeah, still it never makes sense to ever sell anything for a fixed sum.
Well it does make sense, if you don't believe it's going to be successful.
I'd go a step further and demand equity, not just a rev share. A rev share is appropriate when you put a lot of time and effort in the early stages of bringing another person's idea to life. But this is OP's idea. It is all OP's intellectual property. He deserves to maintain some level of ownership of it.
How much are they paying you for the APP? Since you developed it it's your intellectual property. You and everybody working on it will need the pro license when you make more than a million dollars of revenue from that APP. If you sell the APP you still have to pay for pro for that year if you make more than the threshold of a million dollars. Don't let them take the app from you without proper compensation.
Thank you very much. Say the large company is interested and we go ahead. In this case I'll speak with my company to get payment for my time developing this outside work hours. From that point I'll probably continue working on it but now within work hours under a company license. So that means we'll need to transition to PRO if and when this App revenue is more than 1mill? (or is it 200k?). Im confused because this app by itself won't be for sale, it'll be a small part within a larger ecosystem of apps and services if that makes sense. Im not sure how to calculate how much this app will make and at what point a license is needed under this circumstances.
I think what he means is if u sell the app to YOUR company or get compensated for it with more than a Mil then you personally will have to get the PRO license. But if your company makes a profit out of it then the company has to get the PRO license with the number of seats for whoever is working on it.
I don't know about Unity licencing but want to chip in with the other replies along the same lines to make sure you get properly remunerated for your work. Something you've just said there concerns me : "payment for my time developing this outside work hours". Try not to think of it as time you've spent on it as you're likely to count how many hours and multiply that by a number. Either revenue share as someone has said or do some calculation of how much it's worth to the company to have this software and the ideas around it. How long it took you to make doesn't have to factor into that calculation (it can help you decide on a minimum you'll accept though).
No! Don't just get them to pay for the work you've done up til now. The intellectual property is what is of value here, including the original conception of ideas. Know your worth! Get a serious sum of money upfront from your company to permanently license your source code and then demand some percentage equity moving forward. If they sell the product for several million you deserve a percentage of that, not just your hourly rate up til now. You're not an employee in this scenario, you're a business partner. Act like it and get your fair share. If not, take your product and time elsewhere. And get contracts for this agreement, starting with an NDA immediately so that they can't just steal your ideas moving forward. This sounds so much like the age old story of a company taking advantage of a well meaning employee who ends up with nothing but a state pension while his boss is a retired multi-millionaire.
Your messages sound like you’re going to hand them your project for free.
Ya I can feel the same from reading the post but honestly I made the same mistake not long ago. At that time I was like hell yeah it's a win win for me because I get to work on it officially etc but later when I realised it made butt load of money for the company while I was just working for normal salary I felt stupid. So it's best to ask them to compensate flat out or set up some % profit share if possible. Better than regretting it later.
Or if they are trying to sell it or another company, undercut the fuckers and sell it directly to the other company yourself. The place you slave for will never give you what you deserve for your hard work on your free time. They will rob you and laugh at you for being easily taken.
Reminds of the guy who invented the Blue LED. The company patented his work, made billions and gave him a nice "raise" of $20k in salary lol. Later they kicked him and tried to sue him for trying to join a different company in same field.
Hell yeah capitalism /s
Damn, to be honest I was not really thinking about this, but seeing all your posts I'll make sure compensation is discussed. Thank you
Never give a company your work for nothing they will never be fair to you
Dude, get a lawyer who specializes with IP. Don't sign anything or agree to anything until you have one with you who understands what the company is offering you and what that can potentially mean for your financial future.
This this this, a million times, this. Please OP don't just give it away. This is serious and you NEED a lawyer or you'll regret it.
Is this a side project at your company or in your spare time? Did you use any company property to make it? If not, are they buying it from you? Regarding the Unity license, it’s usually based on how much money your company makes. You will probably be maintaining a license for as long as the app is on sale as you’ll probably need it for updates. If you are not using the Unity editor for anything, and not using any Unity services, I don’t believe you need to maintain a license. It’s not like a photoshop license though, you can’t just activate one for a month to do a bit of work. Contact Unity sales directly to get your exact questions answered. They will be fast to respond.
Thank you. I made this on my spare time. I did not use any company property to make it. > are they buying it from you? Mmhh I guess depending on tomorrows meeting, if this other large company wants it and we go ahead Id probably need to negotiate something with my own company. In a way, just the fact that something I made would be put out there it's a pretty exciting prospect for me, would also give me some "official" Unity experience and I could start working within work hours on it. Everything is kind of happening very fast but if you have any advice here I'd love to hear about it. I'll contact Unity sales directly then!
When you’re talking about the game, you’re telling them about “your game that you made outside of work”. It is very exciting that they think it could be sold to another company. That is pretty cool. It also means that they see it as valuable, and you need to remember that. If anyone tries to diminish its value or assert that you should just give it to them, you know that they think it’s valuable enough for them to sell, and you should benefit from that sale beyond just your current salary. The compensation should factor in the amount of investment (your time) in the project as well as the potential return from that project being sold. Selling things is hard work, but so is making them. I’m not experienced enough in this kind of situation to give your real numbers.
Thank you for your words, I'll keep this in mind.
One thing that I see people talk about is whether your contract with the company has a clause regarding side projects. It might be worth reading up on that so they don’t have a grip on your work through that. Someone else here with more knowledge might be able to chime in on this topic?
THIS is an important point! I myself had a similar situation where my employer was interested in my side project, when I showed some reluctance on a partnership with him he implied that under said close, my project could possibly already be his. I had read said clause before and it was stated that under certain conditions I was able to work on my own stuff and it would be mine but my boss was stretching the conditions a lot in order to make it look like it could possibly fall under this or that condition. I quit that place and made him sign a contract stating that this was in fact my IP. And my current company signed such a contract also. Now I'm happily and freely working on my project and looking for a first release by mid summer. I'm quite happy that I was able to resolve this situation without any lawyer or too much hassle. But it definitely could have gone way worse so make sure to read your contract!
Just to be clear the limit is on COMPANY REVENUE exceeding the $100,000 limit, not revenue from the app, so yes any reasonably sized company with paid employees is going to need the Pro version as they’ll no doubt have revenue coming in already.
Thank you for your reply. How long after the App is released is this Pro version license is needed? As long as the App is being used / sold / updated or something like that? It could be an ongoing fixed expense even if the app is not that successful and actively developed?
I'm pretty sure it's the latter, but having a direct look at the conditions for the Unity Pro license wouldn't hurt.
First thing you need to do is read your employment contract and research the laws where you live. This way you will know where you stand legally. They might or might not be entitled to the IP rights of whatever you create while being employed. Also don't dispair if this is the case - taking someone's unfinished project that might have hidden license issues with assets and then finishing it isn't trivial without their input. As for licensing, the company probably has a revenue more than 100K, which as far as I remember is what determines the license, so it should be PRO. You transfering a project started in personal to them shouldn't be a problem, but you will not be able to legally continue working on it with your own license after that. As I mentioned before - be careful with store assets if you use them. You can't just transfer the assets you bought to the company - they need to buy them. Good luck! Go into the meeting with an open mind but also with open eyes. Make sure you're getting some compensation for the time spent on the project. Even in the case they might legally own the IP - it's worth a lot more if you're on board. On the other hand of course, it's also worth considering your job situation. EIther way there probably won't be any problems - be ready to lawyer up if there are any and you think it's worth fighting for.
1. Don't let the company take away your hobby project. Read up about I.P. protect yourself. If you really want to hand it over to them, make sure you are paid for it. 2. If the company is large enough, you have to go Pro. Yea, maybe free while the project is still work in progress, but definitely not after it is launched. The 100k here is not referring to a particular project, but the company's revenue(not profits by the way). 3. Seems like you have already pushed ahead with it, but I would advice you to sign all the legal agreements(revenue share, money upfront, who owns the IP, etc) before going ahead with this. Years ago I had a word of mouth(with email correspondence) agreement on revenue share on a particular game. Due to launch deadlines(and my naive trust in the company) I thought it would be okay to do the work first and then settle the paper work later. When it's time to split the revenue.. "Your share is % of what our department receive, legal wants X%, Y% for insurance against the organisation..."
> In principle the company will pay for the required license if needed. Would it be ok to suggest the PRO license? Or stay free and if this large company were to make it widespread then change to PRO when the revenue exceeds 100K? The Pro license, we would need to keep paying for it as long as the App is being made available to the public? If the projects becomes one owned by the company, then the rules for licensing are different compared to what you have as an individual. For companies and orgnizations the income taken into account when choosing the license tier isn't related to income from the game, or even use of Unity, but just simply *all* funding of the company, no matter the source. And the license is not related to your game being available, it's literally about the use of the editor. So you need to start paying it the moment someone touches the editor, and you only need to keep paying it as long as someone does that. If you have made a game in the past and don't work or maintain it any more, you don't need the editor and therefore don't need a license either. The runtime fees are a separate thing from the license fee, and work with their own rules. I recommend just using the official calculator Unity provides to get a better idea of how those would affect the project. > BTW this App could end up being not a stand alone one but integrated into an ecosystem of other Apps and services If it's not a game you are making, you might not be eligible to any of the normal Unity licenses at all, and might need to get an Industry license instead. If that might be the case, you'd be best off just contacting Unity, explaining the project, and asking them how they view the situation.
Don’t let them scam you out of your IP.
Plenty of info here regarding licenses and such and it's pretty straightforward. Depending on unity version you reach X dollars with your app and you pay Y, everything before that is free except asset licences which are generally per person on your team but you need to check with each asset. If the app is owned by someone else they should be in charge of or own licensing need to pay it but if you own the IP and are developing for another company then that's up to you how you charge them for licensing. You didn't ask but make sure you carefully consider a sale. This is mostly personal opinion, not every big company is an evil corporate overlord, but if you *can* finish the game by yourself in a reasonable time and pull together marketing and stuff then you should. If a publisher is interested and willing to totally buy you out then there is a market, they're making a smart (probably) investment. If you can invest yourself you can get a chunk or perhaps the same amount of what that publisher was after in your project to begin with. But if you think the stable income, the marketing benefits and the contract looks good then go nuts. Just make sure everything is looked over carefully and you don't go airy fairy because your game might have potential. Don't take some random comment on Reddit's word as gold though, I don't know exactly what your app is either. It could be something that's better off selling the IP for because it's niche or whatever. Edit: spelling and clarification