To All The Pseudo-Companies

I think that having a Company name is a good thing as long it is used correctly.

Like Aphrodite stated "I'd rather play games from the same guys if their work pleases me, so having a way to find them is still a good thing"

For example at the moment I am only one developer so I can use my nickname or even my real name, but if more people join me and we create a team, that team should have a name. You can even call this a "Brand" like Beaverlicious said.

And is damn hard to come with something good that is not already taken ... Trust me, I'm trying for months go think of one <img src="smileys/smiley29.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Also domain names .com and .net are a b!tck ... If they are not taken, they cost a "premium" price. And almost all the domains that are taken are actually not used, only kept busy in order to resell them at a bigger price.

Well, sometimes there is a real registered business name behind the user. Some of us are already using C2 professionally!

Take us, for example. We have three people working on a game, so this might lead to a mildly schizophrenic sounding posts, as sometimes it's just me (the designer) posting and referring to 1st person - and sometimes we are announcing something as a team.

I see what you mean, tho. Doesn't bother me at all.

—

"I see what you mean, tho. Doesn't bother me at all."

propably real devs are so busy, so they just focus on their work :)

We went the whole route... We registered our business "BluePhaze Creations LLC", then filed our fictitious/"Doing Business As" name "BluePhaze Creations". Since you can't Trademark the name of a business you have to trademark the fictitious name, again in our case this is "BluePhaze Creations". The trademark is to protect anything used to represent your company in commerce including aliases, names, logos... but not actual products. The law on trademarks has recently changed (I work at a law firm specializing in this stuff, though I am not a lawyer so take it for what it's worth), currently the new law states the first person/company to file for the trademark is the one who get's it. This is different from the past where the first person who used it publicly (before filing officially) was the one who got to keep it.

Products is where the copyright comes in. Copyrights protect your products themselves and there are different categories. Copyrights are much cheaper than trademarks but protect only a specific creation.

You get an automatic (Common Law) trademark on any branding that you use publicly (As long as nobody else is not already using it in the same or similar line of business), and automatic copyright on any creation you make that is not a copy of someone else's existing work. However, it is harder to prove these in court than it is with a federally registered trademark or copyright. Also, under the law (U.S. Law - I don't know about other countries) being officially registered with the government gives you an automatic minimum reward for damages if you do go to court with someone trying to use your property of around $100,000. I don't remember if this is for copyrights or trademarks, but hell, it is worth it if you ever need it.

Anyway, that is just what I have picked up this year since forming our company, etc... just my 2 cents... take it for what it's worth :)

People have been doing this since forever. It's not something exclusive to the C2 community. Nothing inherently wrong about it either.

Having a "company" is fine. Branding is important. But avoid the temptation to call yourself CEO, especially when you try to "hire" a freelancer with a profit-share deal or credits (hard to pay rent with) <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

CEO?? No one wants to be so unimportant.....^^

As Homer Simpson once said in his insane greatness: "Junior-Vice-President" is the man to be!!^^

Well we didn't register a company, we just wanted a team name for when the 3 of us enter Ludum Dare and so on. It's just a hobby, but we still wanted a logo and a website, mainly because it was all pretty fun to set up. Does this approach come across as being unprofessional? At no point anywhere do we say we're a 'company'.

If we ever make anything good then maybe we might take it to the next level, and we'd already have the bare bones of a website/logo set up. I really don't see the harm in doing this stuff, as long as you're honest about your goals/setup and you aren't trying to deceive anybody.

(PS, I've just given myself a new job title: 'Director of Awesome')

i think you guys are missing the point

what RookieDev is pointing is not against the creation of a company/team/studio.

i think what he is trying to say is this: the same passion we have building our project, we could put some of this care in the business/non-programming side

and i agree, taking the leap from a hobby to a job is really important and should be something you have to think about carefully; and is really complicated when you have a "team" and need to be more organized about the paper work (think about it, you want to spend months on a project and in the end you have nothing since you are not registered as one of the creators?)

this is a little off but the 6th topic is very accurate:

Derek Yu - Finishing a Game

<img src="http://www.derekyu.com/tumblr/finishgame01.jpg" border="0">

Another important aspect of forming a company is protection. If you are just a group of people using a name to publish with, then if you ever get sued by another company you are all getting sued for your personal assets/money/home, etc...

Forming a company (depending on the type) gives you protection to protect yourself and your work. For example, we formed an LLC as it lets us do our taxes like normal (same as a partnership) but also protects our personal money if the company ever has issues or gets sued. With a basic partnership you get no protection whatsoever.

So regardless of whether you are passionate about your games or your business, protect yourself. That is the same logic for getting trademarks and copyrights. If you create it, protect it. Or someone else can come a long and take it all.

Losing everything is a quick way to kill your passion about it.

Nothing wrong about this practice. I had Notion for a couple of years before ever paying to make it an LLC. It creates a name for any of the projects regardless of who is or isn't apart of the creation process.

Look. I'm gunna be honest, the practice of finding a hobby, getting super into it, making a huge hullabaloo about it, making a name, a brand, giving yourself a "job" title, and then three months down the line when you can't keep up with the work... is at it's absolute WORST, sort of annoying.

At worst.

So there's absolutely no use making a huge fuss over it.

People have been doing that basically forever. It's not exclusive to game development and it's certainly not exclusive to the Construct community. Crap, I've been guilty of it myself with some things (painting and jewelry making come to mind. Oh my poor abandoned etsy shop).

So yeah...

No need to be uppity about it.

Hobby?

This is a freakin lifestyle.

Since nobody has directly linked to it yet, here's the official search (read: public records) for United States registered trademarks.

http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/ (then click "Basic Word Mark Search")

It's known as TESS (Trademark Electronic Search System). And before starting a company, website, or even pseudo-company, in the US, I'd suggest doing a quick search to see if the name is taken or not. It will just prevent possible future complications.

without name of the author, the would steal your property, then resell.

I don't think it's neccesary to register a trademark until you get a lot of money and you will face a lot of problems.