Employment:
This contract is just a basic overview of the whole time that you will be with the company stating what the company has actually told you to do so that you don't begin to do something that you aren't meant to. It will also say the deadlines that the company has give you for each part/task ta you have been given to do in an overall time frame and if the deadline isn't met then the company can take whatever action they see to be necessary because you haven't met the terms and broke the contracted agreement. This contract will also have clauses which contains other information saying the benefits you will gain while working for this company and when you will stop reviving these benefits as soon as you stop working for that company or shortly after. It will also have a brief description about confidentiality stating what you can and can't talk about outside of the company to second or third parties as it could give away information which the company didn't want to release. Finally, there will be a section about inventions and not competing with the company whilst working for them or shorty after working for them so you couldn't just take the idea they had and go to another company with it trying to claim it as your own.
Development Agreements:
When going through the process of making and developing a game. Game publishers will most often hire professional game developers to make their games for them and they will both sign this contract which will be split into three main sections. The first will be the overall terms such as how much the publisher will pay the developer once the game is completed to a high standard, it will also have the deadlines that the publisher has set for the game developer to have the game at a certain stage at a certain point in time and if the developer falls behind schedule they will have to tell the publisher why and how they will get back on track. The terms will also tell the developer if they will receive any royalties from this game once it is released and what the rate is for these specific royalties (Gets a small percentage of the money from each single game or unit sold.) Next will be the section about ownership of the IP which is important to specify as when creating the game and when putting name on the credits of ownership then if the wrong person is stated then the company could be sued for a lot of money.Finally will be the section about warranties which is in favour of both the company and the developer as the developers have to promise that they won't use any other companies engines or source codes than the company they are working for and the publishers must promise that they will explicitly state which type of game they want to be created so that there is no confusion about the game that will be created.
Licence Agreements:
If a publisher wanted to make a game based off a movie, a set of books, etc. They will have to sign a licence agreement contract with the owner of that specific IP and this will include the overall terms of the licence that they will be given. Firstly stated will be what is actually being licensed to the publishers from the IP owner such as characters and environments, if the publisher was to use things that they haven't bought the license to the the IP owner will be able to sue the publishing company for a lot of money. Next will state which consoles the license gives permission for such as the game can only be made to work on Xbox One and PC but no others as the IP owner doesn't want the other companies to have access to this product. Following this will be the territory section which states parts of the world that the publisher has the rights to sell this certain game in. Publishers will always try to ensure that their game goes worldwide but this costs a lot more money to buy.NDA And Confidentiality Agreements:
NDA stands for non-disclosure agreement which are more or less the same as a confidentiality agreement which states that when two or more companies are working together on a new game or piece of technology that hasn't been publicly announced by an official member of one of these companies. If this agreement is broken then the other company can sue their partners for a lot of money as they legally said that they wouldn't discuss the information with anybody else, these contracts only last for a certain period of time (e.g. until the game is publicly announced then you have the freedom to talk about it after the contract has ended). When going to work at a company you will most likely have to sign one of these so that you don't give any information away about a game you are currently working on but if you do then the consequences will be serious. You can be sued for tons of money and black listed in the games industry meaning that you will never be able to work for any other company again. These contracts will usually last until you stop working at the company and may continue for a certain period of time after you stop working for them as you will know what games they currently have in development.
Collaboration Agreements:
This contract is rarely used with big game companies and mainly used between smaller companies such as indie developers as these contracts generally wrap everything up into one. Stating how the project will proceed, managed, who actually owns the IP, how the money is handed and shared between the developers and anyone else involved. These are some of the terms that are decided before development of the game even begins and makes it easy for these developers to come to an agreement and begin making the game straight away. Even though these contracts are used for smaller companies, the consequences are the exact same as they would be for the larger companies which could cause a lot of debt and trouble for whoever breaks the contract.
Contractual:
A contractual agreement is basically the document that the company, it's workers or another company will sign outlining what is going to happen during the duration of the contract. It also outlines rules such as confidentiality (what you can and can't discus). If this is broken by one of the companies then the contract will be over and they can be sued for a large sum of money and won't be able to deny the charges or that they are even working with that company due to the signature of the contract itself. If a employee breaks a contract then it will be much worse for them as it will more than likely just end their career in the games industry forever and can also be sued for a large sum of money.
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