iPhone/Android game competition (would like some opinions)

[Snepo]

Disclaimer: Adam has approved this post and has offered to vouch for me (and my intentions) should any of you want an second opinion.

I operate a game development company (www.snepo.com) that is moving into iPhone/iPad and Android game development and has already released 3 titles.

I would like to start an initiative that servers two purposes:

- Help young budding game designers to see their ideas come to fruition and to put some money in their pockets.
- Give my company an avenue for game ideas.

My concern is this: I need to run a business and intend on using the ideas of other people. This is often thought of as being a way of stealing peoples ideas or otherwise not rewarding people appropriately. Now, my intentions are sincere and I already volunteer a lot of my time to mentoring young game designers. So I would like to hear from people interested in how I might structure a system that people think is fair to contributors at the same time as being sustainable from a business perspective.

Here is my thinking:
- People offer a game concept (could be a few words, could be a doc with designs, whatever)
- The game concept is kept private from the public over the period of a calendar month
- My company chooses a game to develop
- My company offers a share of the revenue generated from game sales
- Each month the non-selected game concepts are published publically
- Whatever game concept gets the most feedback, reviews, ratings etc is given a cash reward (or rewards are given at random if people gaming the system becomes an issue)
- My company does whatever it can to assist and mentor contributors with a focus on those that have had their design chosen and those who have had theirs rated highly.

What do you think? is this something that interests you? how would you like it to be structured?

[supermoose]

I would be very interested, however make absolutely sure that you do in fact release all game ideas given in a public fashion. One of the largest legal problems in getting the next great game idea out there is that no one will listen to you, for legal reasons.  I guess there have been many a lawsuit in the day about people suggesting games to a large company, and then 6 months later, a game is created with similar foundations to the suggested title.  If you have thought of the idea, chances are someone else has as well, and people dont understand that.

[Snepo]

Indeed.

Our priority is to help others in the industry at the same time as maintaining a sustainable (and above all) reputable company. I've been in the game industry for a couple of decades now so I am well aware of the issues around IP. What makes this issue a challenging one is the protection of ideas from both sides. As you rightly say "If you have thought of the idea, chances are someone else has as well, and people dont understand that." and it is likely that we will have games in development, someone submits an idea that is similar to what we already have, and on release thinks that we have stolen it.

I'm interested to hear ideas as to how we could mitigate these sorts of issues/confusions.

[edit] BTW, we're also interested in hearing from people that have existing Flash games and are looking to collaborate on the creation of iPhone versions (with a higher percentage of profit share of course).

[supermoose]

Well, I (along with 2 others from this forum) create flash games for fun.  check out www.moosetacular.com if you would like to see any of them. 

For the intellectual property problems, the only thing I can think of is that you would have to thoroughly document when you "officially" started work on each of your projects.  That is really the only way to be certain of the timeframes in relation to when you receive game suggestions.

I personally would be very interested in any sort of collaboration or idea session with you all.  I have been doing AS3 coding for almost 3 years now, and I'm still loving it.