Contract Rudiments

If you accept a quote from a professional artist, you get to move into the wonderful world of contract negotiations. Full contract negotiations are outside the scope of this article, but here are some common scenarios.

Payment Scenario 1. You agree to pay the quoted price in thirds. You pay 1/3 of the quoted price up front, 1/3 at the "mid-point" of the contract, and the final 1/3 upon final delivery of the artwork. It's important that the mid-point and final delivery dates be specified up front, and this includes what work is expected to be done on those dates.

Payment Scenario 2. You agree to pay a certain per hourly rate. You pay for some number of hours up front, often 40 or 80. After that, the payments will be made in predetermined "blocks" of hours, again this is usually 40 or 80. The agreement should include a certain "total hours" that the project will not exceed. It might also specify a minimum number of hours.

Besides payment structure, it's very important to have in the contract that the artwork meet your satisfaction. This may seem obvious, but it should be covered. You need to establish a procedure for corrections and modifications to delivered artwork. A certain amount of correction and modification can be considered included, but there has to be defined point where it impacts the bottom line. If you need too many modifications, then the artist should be allowed to adjust the price. If the work is not satisfactory or does not meet the agreed upon specification, then the artist needs to make amends or lower the price. Along the same line, if you change the specification it's likely to have an impact on the timeline and on the overall cost. The idea is that you take some time at the beginning of the relationship to determine how to treat each other in professional manner.

Since you are dealing with a professional artist, she has certainly worked on other contracts before yours. If you ask how she has handled these issues in past contracts, she will likely be more than happy to fill you in on the details. It's possible she has a pre-prepared contract for exactly this kind of work.

It's important that you always have a legally binding contract in place before work begins. If necessary, a lawyer should be able to prepare a contract that is agreeable to you both.

As I stated before, a full discussion of contracts and contract negotiation is outside the scope of this article. Hopefully, this points you in the direction you need to take.

Conclusion

Just because neither you nor any of your team is a talented "pixel pusher" doesn't mean you have to settle for bad art in your game. A good business relationship with a contract artist is almost as good as having one on your team.

David "RM" Michael is co-owner of Samu Games and has made several online multiplayer games including Artifact and Paintball Net.