Hi, let me introduce myself first. My name is Pisces (it’s a real name you know lol xD) and interested to Choicescript but have not started yet. If you notice that I have grammar mistakes pls forgive me since I’m not an English native (from Indonesian).
Anyway, as I said before, i’m non English speaker. Well, I know that CoG only accept and publish English stories so if I want to publish my own in non English, I have to do it myself. Here I was wondering about the contract etc. Let’s say if I want to publish my game as apk in Google Playstore, how about the royalty and such?
I’d send them an email if you have a game you are wanting to publish, as you will need to discuss payment with them if you’re charging for/ad supporting the game. (https://www.choiceofgames.com/contact-us/)
If you want to publish a game written in Choicescript by yourself CoG will ask for a % can’t remember the exact amount for the right to use it (creative license iirc) then it would be up to you to submit it to the various app stores and it would be up to you to pay each app stores fee (30% of each sale from the relevant store iirc)
The link says 25% of gross receipts, but that was from 2013 so it could have changed in the last 5 years. Best bet is to ask them I reckon. You’d have to do that to get the contract from them before publishing anyway
The short answer is, you could publish a ChoiceScript game in another language, but you probably can’t charge money for your completed game.
We do license out ChoiceScript but the process is inaccessible to most casual game writers: If you wanted to use that option, you’d be responsible for all of the work in terms of building a working app, submitting it to stores, setting up a developer identity on stores, and so forth. We charge a 25% fee on all revenue generated by ChoiceScript games for this option (so if you produced a game that made $100,000, you would need to pay us $25K).
Because there are costs to us in terms of time, legal fees, and attention to licensing out ChoiceScript, we would require a $20,000 minimum fee for the first year, payable at the time we enter into the licensing agreement. That would be an advance on the license fees, so if you produced one game in the first year and it made $100,000, you would pay us $20,000 at the time of signing and an additional $5000 once the royalties due exceeded $20,000, for a total of the $25K that represents the 25% fee.
I’m reading this as you want $20k up front before we’re even sure if the game would make any money at all? I can’t imagine that is accessible to anyone, nevermind casual writers.
Business is business. Writing was never a very profitable hobby to begin with, specially so in our day and age (unless you’re someone big). If you can’t afford the costs of using someone’s engine (in this case CS) then you may want to look at other avenues instead. CoG has been known to be fair towards their writers in the past but just like you don’t know if your game is going to sale, they too are taking a risk by publishing your work. You can’t expect them to publishing your work for free - both sides have to take risks.
You are using resources that are legally theirs (ChoiceScript) and as Mary said, there are costs in terms of time and legal fees, to make sure everything’s set up proper and legal. This would be like using Id Software’s engine to make your own game, you have to pay ask permission and pay a license’s fee to use it, which ain’t cheap.
Really, if you want to self-publish your own CYOA game there are better alternatives out there to ChoiceScript, in terms of accessibility and expenses.
I am not disagreeing with this, nor their right to charge it. I am merely expressing an opinion about the details.
Actually, many AAA game engines do allow you to create assets for free up to a profit threshold. Which I believe is a much more attractive arrangement. I don’t believe many would want to risk $20k up front for an IF novel. However, again, this is just a humble opinion.
These terms aren’t meant for individual authors. Individual authors are encouraged to publish through Hosted Games. These terms are meant for companies that want to license CS for a larger purpose. Unfortunately, the legal and logistical costs are the same on our end, whether the licensee is an individual author or a company.
Precisely. I should have extrapolated: basically this is how we would license CS to a company, but the result is the same–we’re not currently equipped to license CS for individuals to publish games in languages other than English.
I’m curious is the fee applicable to ALL uses of out of house choicescript games or only those who charge. For example if an author wanted to write a game in their native language not sell it but put it up on their personal website for free would those fees still apply?
The standard version of ChoiceScript comes with it’s own non-commercial license. It’s the same license that every WIP is technically under (even if not everyone realizes it), and it hasn’t changed since it was first put up: https://github.com/dfabulich/choicescript/blob/master/LICENSE.txt
*if (game_in_english)
Publish with Hosted Games!
*if (don't_want_to_pub_with_HG)
*label non-commerical
You can't charge for your game without a commercial license,
but you could publish it for free.
*if (still_want_to_charge_for_game)
You need a commercial license and $20k.
*if (game_not_in_English)
You can't publish with Hosted Games.
*if (still_want_to_publish)
*goto non-commercial
