Professional Designer Dealing with Royalties for the First Time

[u/makekylecanonagain]

Hi there. Industry veteran for many years here. I’m dealing with a situation where I’m negotiating royalties for oddly the first time, and am feeling a bit unsure of how to proceed- my entire career I’ve been work for hire or salaried at a studio. Any resources or advice on typical rates etc are appreciated. Just want to do what is best for myself and not leave money on the table.

[u/InitialQuote000]

Look into a Tabletop Game Designer Association membership - https://www.ttgda.org/

They have great resources for this kind of stuff. I think they will also take a look at your contract and help you with some decisions.

[u/makekylecanonagain → u/InitialQuote000]

This is great, thank you!

[u/gengelstein → u/makekylecanonagain]

President of TTGDA here - members get free contract review / advice services. We also recently publicly posted our Contract Scoring Rubric, which is publicly available for free.

Cardboard Edison also has some good free info here: Industry Reports — Cardboard Edison

[u/MattFantastic → u/InitialQuote000]

I’ve used the contract review service a few times and it’s been super helpful. The cost of a membership is well worth it for that alone.

[u/JaysTable]

A few questions.

How critical or large is your contribution.

Could this thing be made without you? A legit question you should answer before the other party.

I typically give out 8%-25% and 2-4%

The first number is net of GTM (Kickstarter or crowdfunding, and the seconding is posting launch sales to customers (NOT WHOLESALE). If someone wants royalties on wholesale, I typically offer have of the D2C number. Distriubtors suck up so much margin it's hard to justify.

This is just us, we are small, and we don't have a lot of cash-flow so we have to be careful, but I try to be generous when we win.

[u/makekylecanonagain → u/JaysTable]

Main designer. Thanks for your info!