An Offer I Passed On
Christoph Boeckle:
This reminds me of Ron's War Story, without the manipulation. I find it really disgusting that they can be so up-front about such disastrous conditions, it means people actually bite the bait.
Lance D. Allen:
Now, I could see this being a reasonable offer to, say, Joe Schmoe Alderac fan. A guy with no idea how to get started in the industry, who's already a big fan of the games put out by the company, and no other options for becoming published. It's vaguely (though not nearly as sweet a deal) the same thing that happened with Eberron (FWIW, I was part of a RP community whose chief creative mind put the setting forth as a contender in that contest).
But to offer this to Jason Morningstar, published game designer with.. what? Two popular published games, and another upcoming that's been getting some buzz? Someone who's got option #2 of "How about I write a game about my own property, guarantee that I'll publish it AND get paid?"
I think there are some people in "the industry" who think this indie thing is just something to do until one of the big names recognizes you. Didn't Vincent get a similar offer a little while back?
guildofblades:
Sounds like a pretty raw deal to me.
A foot in the door? A door leading to where? I don't mean much disrespect, but um, Alderac not so long ago laid off about 80% of its staff. Not exactly a prize "getting your foot in the door" with a place recently downsized and not necessarily showing any indications of major growth on the horizon.
I guess they expected you to act like a fanboy or something and be happy to work for free. lol.
Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Retail Group - http://www.guildofblades.com/retailgroup.php
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - http://www.guildofblades.com
1483 Online - http://www.1483online.com
jburneko:
Wow. Yeah, that "foot in the door" comment is at best ignorant and at worst down right insulting. You know, because The Shab-al-Hiri Roach and Grey Ranks aren't "real" or anything.
Jesse
greyorm:
I did something similar at the radio station I work at right now: since I had no experience in radio, they had me perform two weeks of unpaid training, and for the last week, they filled a position they didn't need to pay for. But the promise there was also a guaranteed job at the end (assuming I wasn't a complete fuck-up). That was only two weeks, and even if I hadn't been hired, I would have had a new marketable skill set and job experience I could have taken elsewhere.
But imagine if they had forced me to sign a five-year non-compete clause before I started the training, and the training lasted six weeks? So if I didn't get the job I couldn't go to another station to find work based on their training? That would have been six weeks of free work for them from me, work from which their business would have earned literally thousands of dollars.
Let's say a stranger approaches you and asks you to paint their entire house for them, for free, for a home design contest with tens-of-thousands of dollars as the prize. They give you the colors they want, but you have to buy the materials: paint, brushes, dropcloths, etc. And if they like your paint job AND they win the prize money, they'll definitely hire you to paint another house sometime down the road and pay you this time. But you won't get any of the prize money or payment of any sort whatsoever. You supply the materials, and the time, and the sweat. If they DON'T like it, they ignore you and they take ownership of any materials left-over by the project because you signed a contract that all of that material became theirs. You did six weeks of hard work and have nothing to show for it nor anything you yourself can use from that six weeks of work.
Basically, this is a slimy way for someone to get work they need done for them done for free, and make money from it without spending any themselves. There should be laws against scams like this...and I note that in the fiction and literature fields there ARE.
This is what is casually referred to as a "rip-off". Anyone who approaches you and tells you they'll publish your book for you and your payment will be "a foot in the door" or "good exposure" is scamming you. It's a step down, though not much of one, from someone having you perform a service for them and you paying them for the privilege of your doing so.
What makes this a scam is that in this case IF you win, they make money off your work and you don't and you don't even retain rights to your work! If you lose, you can't take your work elsewhere to another publisher. That's six weeks of work you will likely get nothing out of, except what you would normally get from a query letter that took you an hour to write up. While they get a whole game designed and tested for them AND any money made out of it!
THAT is a load of fucking nonsense, and I can not believe people still fall for it out of a starry-eyed sense of working with someone soooo cool they're big fans of. No, the way it works in the actual business world is: "I do work for you that you pay me for."
So I don't agree with Eero's assessment that AEG isn't doing anything wrong from their perspective, or that this is a good offer even to just a fan. If AEG truly believes that, they lack basic business ethics. Legitimate, ethical publishers pay YOU for the work you do FOR them. They do not hold fake contests that the winner doesn't benefit from (no, "a foot in the door" and "exposure" are NOT benefits; really, honestly, truly they are not; "exposure" isn't a guarantee of anything, much less of any future money or work).
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