SigninG a Publishing Contract

6. Ending the license

We strongly recommend against any contract that awards a license in perpetuity. In Section 1C, we recommend the following type of structure:

This Agreement will come into force on August 28, 2018, and will remain in force, initially, until December 31, 2021. Thereafter it will be renewed automatically from year to year, unless either party gives notice in writing of its wish to terminate this agreement as described in [Section 6].

Some contracts simply give both the designer and the publisher the chance to say “I don’t want to renew next year,” no questions asked. Most publishers already effectively have this power, because they can choose not to order another print run of your game without having to justify their decision. A clause that allows you to terminate for any reason during the renewal period gives you the same kind of flexibility. You could replace the last sentence in the paragraph above with:

Thereafter it will be renewed automatically from year to year, unless either party gives notice in writing of its wish to terminate this agreement three months before the start of the year.

However, some publishers will not agree to a blanket right to end the contract, because they will be nervous that it gives you the ability to unexpectedly pull their rights to a successful game. More commonly, contracts will give specific reasons that the designer may choose to end the contract. This structure requires that you think harder up-front about the situations in which you might want to ask for your rights back, and make sure that they are included. 


In this section, we describe some of the common clauses you could ask for:


A. Failure to launch within a specific period of time

B. Failure to sell a certain amount within a specific period of time

C. Lack of payment or other breach of contract

D. Bankruptcy or liquidation of the publisher

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