So, I was giving advice to an aspiring television writer the other night and it occurred to me that more people might benefit from it.
Essentially, she had been screwed over in typical Hollywood fashion. She had submitted a spec script and series pitch to an agent and producer who intimated that they would get it produced. She worked for free on fleshing out the concept and then they told her that it wasn’t usable. Months later, she sees her concept on HBO. Bear in mind that this is her own, personal IP that she copyrighted, trademarked, and registered years before. Now it’s being produced by the guy she pitched it to and she doesn’t have a credit on the project — not even a special thanks.
This happens much more frequently in entertainment than one would like to think. When you go to the powers that be and pitch your project, you have to give them tons of detail about it. They need to know the USPs (Unique Selling Points) that make it worth producing and funding your project. Basically, you have to reveal all your secrets to them. You have no choice. No one is going to give you a dime if you stand there and say, “I have a great idea, but I can’t tell you what it is unless you pay me.”
In game development, it’s a bit safer than TV and film. Making games is so mind-meltingly difficult that people generally don’t steal raw IP. You can read the pitch for a game and be no closer to knowing if it’s going to be fun. You have to play it to know. It’s pretty safe to tell people your idea and be reasonably sure that they won’t steal the concept to make it with their own team, simply because games are so complex and multi-faceted. They’re really about the execution as opposed to the concept. Sure, people will steal things they’ve seen executed well, but few gameplay concepts are worth stealing on their own.
Once you’ve released the game, don’t be surprised…
On the other hand, when you read a script for a movie, you can be reasonably sure whether the characters and plot work well — whether this concept has the potential of being enjoyable to watch. A game is story + gameplay. A script is story alone.
So, alright — you pitched your concept and it got stolen. What do you do?
Well, you certainly don’t go to court. Defending your IP in court is incredibly time-consuming and expensive. Copyright laws have weird clauses about things like the percentage of a work that has been stolen. If it’s below a certain amount, it’s not considered plagiarism. That sort of thing is incredibly ambiguous — how will you ever prove that they stole, say, 26% of your concept instead of 8%? They have more time, money, and lawyers than you. Don’t even bother.
Instead, you should look at this as an opportunity — somebody saw your work and liked it enough to steal it. Awesome! You have talent. This is validation! Well done.
Now you need to capitalize on that. The writer I spoke to had cut off communication with the agent. She had written the whole thing off and was starting over again. Mistake. The first thing you should do when something like this happens is to call up the person who stole from you and congratulate them.
“Hey buddy! I saw that Insert-Stolen-Project-Name-Here got picked up by HBO! That’s awesome, dude! Congrats! I really enjoyed working on it with you guys during the concept phase. How’s it going? Everything cool? Nice, nice! Well that’s dope, dude. I’m really glad it panned out for you. You deserve the success. Me? Oh, I’m doin’ good — y’know still writing, crankin’ out new concepts. But actually, since you ask, I was wondering if you could do me a solid. You know I’m still pretty junior and I’m trying to build up my cred. It would be freakin’ incredible if you could try to get me some sort of writing credit on Insert-Stolen-Project-Name-Here. I mean, you know me — I work hard and make it happen, but I really need credits to help get more people looking at my work. If you could help me out on this one, I’d owe you big time. Cool man. Thanks. I appreciate it. We should definitely meet up for lunch sometime. I can show you some of my new stuff. Peace!”
Lesson 1 in the entertainment biz: Everything is your fault.
You gotta ask yourself, what do you want out of this exchange? You KNOW the guy screwed you over. HE knows it too. Do you REALLY need him to admit it? What’s that gonna get you? It won’t get you a credit. It won’t put bread on the table. It won’t advance your career. All it will do is close a door in your face. In the first place, he’ll never admit it — but if you confront him, that industry contact is gone for good. That helps no-one. In fact, he might even badmouth you to future employers. This industry is tiny. Never burn bridges if you can help it.
What you really want is to work your way up in the industry. The way you do that is by letting him be the big man. Stroke his ego. Tell him that he did everything right. You have no accusations against him. Why would you? Tell him that he’s awesome and perfect and you know it. Then, after pumping his ego up and letting him know (indirectly) that you won’t be making any trouble, you give him the terms of your silence. Just a credit. A tiny little piece of recognition. Maybe it’s only a special-thanks because there would be legal or union ramifications if it was any more than that. That’s fine. Take anything you can get. The best part of this exchange is that he will know that you’re not only letting him save face, but also telling him that he’s welcome to screw you over again if he wants to — in fact, you’d love to give him the opportunity.
In the end, it’s about getting your foot in the door. The other people you work with will know that it was really you getting the work done. They’ll know that you got screwed, and they’ll appreciate your grace under fire. Eventually, one of them will get a better gig with a more upstanding boss or they’ll start their own project. When it comes time to recommend good people to work with, they’ll think of you. In the meantime, you can continue to shop your stuff around or even work with the vicious shark who ate you for lunch — those guys love to find someone who they can reliably abuse. Steady work is steady work.
It probably goes against every ingrained sense of righteousness, morality, and justice in every fiber of your being — but this is how it’s done. It’s the very essence of “Life’s not Fair.” The people with power will prey on you and you have to accept that. Just make sure that you get something out of them each time. For each and every time the vampires feed on you, make sure that you steal a little bit of their power in return. I feel very strongly that much of my success comes from knowing exactly when to let myself be taken advantage of and how to push back when necessary.
Of course, now, I’m the one with the power. Nobody’s perfect, but I do my best to wield it justly.
In fact, although I’m now the one calling the shots, I continue to take the blame just as long as it achieves my end goals.
When I was young, my mother always said, “Let me be the bad one.” If I needed to bow out of some sort of activity or if I had a problem with my teachers, she would tell me to lay the blame on her. I think that the best bosses always do the same sort of thing. We take the blame on ourselves instead of laying it on anyone we manage. As often as possible I try to frame the issues I’m responsible for resolving as my fault when communicating with the people who will ultimately do the work.
Let’s say, for instance, that I have ask for a change to some game element, as often as possible, the approach is, “Dude, I’m really, really sorry to have to ask you for this. I should have figured out that we needed to make this change earlier, but could you please see if you can find some time in your schedule to do it? Thanks dude. I really appreciate it. I’m so sorry I didn’t catch this before.”
In moments of frustration, I might think to myself, “It was impossible to find the issue earlier! We only just started playtesting the level! They should expect to have to do iterative work late in development.” Well, why didn’t I schedule the playtest earlier, when the artist or programmer had more time? At the end, of the day, I am the lead — so it really is my failure at the macro level even if I think that an individual on the team is performing less than optimally. “The buck stops here” is just another way of saying, “Everything is your fault.”
That’s how it goes. No matter if you’re frustrated with powerful people taking advantage of you or people over whom you have responsibility not performing up to your expectations, it’s always best to think of these failures as your own fault. If you want to succeed, you can certainly try to be a shark and attack everyone in your path; but most of us don’t have that predatory instinct, nor the energy to keep up the assault. For most of us, instead, it’s about knowing how to swim with the sharks and get what we want out of them anyway.
Like a very polite remora.
Yeah.
