Step 7: Life outside the game:

A good game requires the closest coopertion between not only artists, musicians and computer programmers, but also many others. The director has a vital role in getting all the members work together seamlessly. Unless you have the time and talent to develop all necessary skills, you will need to find someone to work for you or with you. A few thing to watch, copyright, contract, partnership, limted company, sole trader,

Copyright © ® ™

This game you are designing is going to be played, potentially, by many people from all countries. At least you hope it is the case. It is not just in your school or class anymore. Therefore, it is not OK just copy and paste an image from any website and use it. Or just download a piece of music to use in your game. Why? Most stuff are copyright protected, unless it states otherwise. If the copyright owner finds out you might be facing law suits.

To avoid future trouble, you could contact the owner for permission to use their work. If you don't like the terms, then you have to find copyright free alternatives or create it yourself. You are lucky if you are in the UK. Anything you produce, drawing, codes, music etc, is copyright protected automatically if you could prove the date of creation. Why don't you email yourself a copy of your work or save it on a CD/DVD? A permanent proof of your work

At some stage you may start thinking bigger - run it as a business, instead of as a hobby. Then you need to choose a legal format - sole trader, partnership, limited company. Not PLC yet!

Ask your business teacher to explain the pros and cons.

or google it.

a few places:

In essence, as a sole trader, you have full control of all the business activities and you are responsible for all the profit or loss.

In a partnership, you share the profit or loss with partners.

In a limited company, you set up a firewall between your personal belongings and the company's.