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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JLowder" data-source="post: 9705132" data-attributes="member: 28003">Licenses are generally contracted by category (board games, RPGs, picture books, T-shirts, etc) and narrowly defined, with any additional categories or even additional products likely costing a fair bit, especially on licenses such as Star Wars. I don't know the details of the current SW license, but five- or even six-figure guaranteed annual minimum payments to continue a license like that would not be unusual. A cut of sales for every product sold is typically tallied against those minimum payments, so if your game is really successful, you could end up owing more money after the minimum payment is "earned out."Typically, the publisher cuts a deal for three or, if they are working with a more publisher-friendly license, five years. (Five- and even seven-year licenses used to be the norm, but the IP owners want to turn over the licenses and get new payments in as quickly as possible now. Three years or even shorter terms are the new norm.) The license can often be extended, for an additional fee, if the licensor is happy with the material being published and the money being earned, and the publisher is making the money they need to continue. If a publisher wants an exclusive license for a category, they have to be ready to pay more, potentially a lot more, for that kind of deal, if an exclusive is even possible. Exclusives are increasingly hard to secure in licensing for products like board games and RPGs.Yes, having a house system makes publishing a licensed game easier and faster, but even there a good licensed game nudges the system to fit the IP. Eighteen months from signing a deal to publish a book or game to street date is still pretty much the starting assumption--the minimum time needed to do the things that need to be done. If you are trying to create a whole new system to go with the new license you are going to have a hard time making that timeline work. Not impossible, but a large challenge.On the publishing schedule and planned books, one of the huge risks with limited-term licenses is you have to plan and likely start work on the second and third books before you know how the core book is received. If the game does not do as well as expected, the publisher can find themselves in a hole quite quickly between the cost of the license and/or the guaranteed minimums, plus the cost sunk into the follow-up books with money paid to freelancers before the core book hits stores. Crowdfunding makes this a little easier to manage, since you can package the first few books together, but that also increases the initial costs for creating and printing the material, and it still leaves you the problem of what to do as a follow-up release if the game goes to retail after the crowdfunding copies are delivered.To circle back to the thread topic, this is all another reason the stock being grabbed by Diamond and the bank here is damaging to the publishers. If the work is licensed, the publishers have already paid for the product creation, the printing, and the initial money for the license, along with possible continuing minimum payments. If they can't sell the products, the licensing payment(s) will be yet more money they stand to lose.</blockquote>

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