Going from a solo game project to a team project, how should I organize the new team and potential revenues?

Question

I have been working on a game partial time for 2 years now, I've done the code and assets myself, but eventually I understood that I would not be able to have nice looking assets without spending a lot of time into it. And that greeting a new team member with graphic designer skills on this project would be a good idea.

My project is purely casual ATM. While I would love to earn a bit of money from it, my main goal is to have something fun to play with my friends (it's a couch console game) and I'm not sure what I want for the release of the game.

Now that I'm about to greet a graphic designer in the game project I'm excited but I want to do things right.

What should I define prior welcoming a second member in the team to make things work regarding the organization of the new team and the potential earnings?

What if things goes wrong and we split, when I have worked 900h on the game and him 20?

Any other tips from your experience regarding this aspect of welcoming a new teammate?

Answer 1

Even if it's casual, you have to protect yourself and your game. Having strong agreements and understanding of you and your teammates' relationship to the project will only make it less stressful for you to work with other people and vice versa.

So do these things:

• Incorporate (e.g., form an official company, pay the $50 or whatever to register the company name)
• Trademark your company / game name
• Get a formal agreement for your teammates (e.g., independent contractor agreements for contractors, etc -- so that you can define exactly what happens if he works 20 hours and then bails, who owns his work, etc).

/u/VideoGameAttorney in the reddit gamedev community gives lots of advice like this and more.

Answer 2

According to John Romero (minute 3:50 https://youtu.be/na4KHCO9lO8) you should prefer paying the artist directly for the job you need, and should not found with him/her a company unless you know him/her very well. Otherwise, it could "turn into legal garbage later" he says, according to his experience.

He suggests also you find someone with much more expertise than you in game development, cause they might give you heads up on what to do at each step of the development until release.

Just watch the video, Romero is really cool!