Josh Belcastro Red Lion Network LLC Game Programmer Bradenton Florida

Matt Harper had contacted inquired with my company about having a custom game developed that had similar features to another game we developed. I personally reviewed his request and estimated a quote in the range of $10,000+ to complete. I had explained the challenges of game development though, and made it very clear that a first quote would be difficult with a game.

As we had liked some of the concepts that Matt was proposing, we had offered to help him out with a 50/50 partnership arrangement named “Sweet Decay-Red Lion Joint Venture” according to our agreement. Our agreement stipulated that Matt Harper would provide initial capital funding of $4,000 for development, $1,500 marketing commitment, and $1,000 future budget or major graphical improvements. This would ensure Matt a playable game on the market, versus a incomplete project.

As per the agreement, our company successfully created and launched the online game titled Pirates of Zaia with public access. As expected our labor investment brought the total development costs to around $13,000 at the time of launch with no additional funding being requested from Matt Harper. Matt had tested the game and said it was fun, but needed some improvements. As a result of the requested changes, there was much more development work to be added after the initial release. My company had agreement to continue to handle the development, at our expense, which brought our total labor investment to approximately $18,500.

Following the game launch the game Matt had already violated our operating agreement which stipulated he would not recruit players from other game projects I currently operate. Prior to beginning this venture, our partnership agreement outlined many delegated tasks and shared tasks that were to be handled by each party. Matt did not uphold his agreement and as a result the burden of his workload fell solely on my team at my expense. After several months of successful gameplay, I confronted Matt about his lack of involvement and he was adamant that he could not invest more than a few minutes a day.

Matt had violated the agreement on numerous times since beginning the partnership. This included direct spam marketing players on other games I operate, as well as refusing to do their share of work. Throughout this process I was consistently praised for my good work in bringing the game to life and it being fun to play. After finally confronting Matt that I could not work under our initial agreement with his little time involvement, he had admitted that he was working with other partners on developing a different game project because he did not find the current game fun to play. As he had consistently failed to uphold his agreements of the partnership, I had made the decision to end the partnership.

As a fair offer to Matt I had offered to sell the full game at our total development cost, or to lease the initial release of the Pirates of Game at cost, with the responsbility of covering any further development costs and building the game community. This offer remains on the table!