I am pretty new to game publishing and I was wondering how to split earnings between a team if you decide to go that way. I came with the following scheme.
I think that the main roles in the team are:
* Concept and design *
The person who comes with the idea, flow and rules of the game.
* Graphic artist *
The person who does all the graphics, sprites, icons etc.
* Programmer *
Self explanatory, what most of the people on this forum do.
* Musician *
The person who does the music tracks and sound effects for the game.
* Publisher and marketing *
The person who deals with finance, itunes connect, Apple, reviews, blogs, advertising...
I came with the following split:
- Concept 27.5%
- Graphics 27.5%
- Programming 27.5%
- Music 5.0%
- Publishing 12.5%
This of course is after all expenses are counted. My reasoning is the following. Concept might seem to get a big share, but I have a friend who did a TOP1 game in one evening with no gfx or music. It became top one because of the its original concept.
Programming is the part that in my opinion takes the most time and requires the most education but I am probably biased.
Graphism seems to take less time than programming, but is a huge selling point for games.
The share for the music might seem low, but in my little experience, the music for a game that has 3 months programming time is done in 2 weeks, and it's not a major selling point (many games have no music).
The rest is for publishing and marketing, which takes far more energy than I expected.
Do you guys think it is reasonable ? Did I forget some roles ?
Some of my friends who also develop games believe I give a too big share to the graphist, arguing that this part takes a lot less time than coding.