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EdUGames® Royalty Model
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Copyright © 2005 by Pete Antoniak
1 June 2005
1. Background
1.1 EdUGames® is an Educational Computer Game that can be broken down into
two parts: The game driver and the educational content material. The educational
content material can be further broken down into Rounds
(text questions) and Resources Files
(Pictures, Maps, Film Clips, Sound Bytes etc.). Under a contract agreement, third
party Authors may provide content
material that can be used in EdUGames® in return for recognition and/or royalties.
This Royalty Model describes how royalties may be fairly assigned.
1.2 It is noted that this is not the only means of obtaining content material for
EdUGames. Two other means of obtaining content material are to create it in-house
and to purchase it outright from Contract Researchers. In the initial phases of start
up, these latter two means are preferred because the exact format of material is
still being adjusted to fit the idiosyncrasies of the distribution means and platforms.
1.3 It is highly recommended that a person first play EdUGames and then read
this Royalty Model and all associated documents in order to fully understand the
concepts detailed herein. This Model is meant to covers all presently anticipated
distribution means and network configurations.
1.4 If you are reading this without having first played EdUGames, then read the next
several paragraph, otherwise, you may skip to The Distribution
Of EdUGames Content Material section.
2. A Short Explanation of EdUGames
EdUGames® is a series of independent screens in which
players are interactively challenged to correctly move or click on screen objects
such as buttons, text fields, or icons. Many of the screens consist of text blocks.
An example would be a 3 column by 7 row matrix of text boxes in which popular sayings
are broken into parts. The player reconstructs the sayings by clicking on the boxes
in the proper order. If a correct set of linked boxes are selected, points are awarded
and the boxes disappear, leaving only the remaining boxes. In competitive play this
would be timed. If a player makes a mistake or runs out of time, the next player
in sequence picks up with the remaining material. In some cases, new material is
constantly being added to the matrix.
Some of he screens involve Resources consisting of Maps, Diagrams, Pictures, Film
Clips, Music, Sound Bytes, etc. In these cases the players might be challenged to
identify the Resource, or an attribute of the Resource. In other cases, the resource
is used as a hint, or as background information. An example might be the showing
of a Video Clip of the Dirigible Hindenburg crashing and burning, followed by presenting
the users with a map of the Eastern part of the US. The players are challenged to place
their differently colored tokens as close as possible to the location of the event
that was just shown in the
Video Clip. After all the players place their tokens, the program evaluates the placements
and the player with the token closest to the correct location wins. The winning score
is a function of how much closer the winner is to the correct location than the average
of the other players.
In the above example, the Video Clip and Map are resources. It should be noted that
all resources are available to all questions. For example the same
Video Clip might be used in a different question that asks when the event
happened, how many* of the 96 passengers were killed, or what country owned
the air ship. The same Map might also be used in any question involving locations
on the East Cost. Or a different Map might have been use in the above question, such
as a Map of the US, the World or New Jersey.
*Only 35.
3. Distribution of EdUGames Content Material
3.1 Content material is distributed, one Round at a time, as part of network game
play. The Rounds are stored in the Master
Database on the web server and are usually played as part of a Set. Payments to EdUGames would either be on a per use, per
time period or monthly basics at its discretion.
3.2 EdUGames may licenses a Network Database and Resource Library to a company or
organization to be used in a manor that would be outlined in the terms of the license.
3.3 The method and means of distribution and revenue collection are at
the sole discretion of EdUGames. EdUGames will attempt to be fair in how
Royalties are proportioned, but can not guarantee that all parties will be
happy. Therefore All Content Authors must agree, that unless the
distribution and proportioning means are blatantly unfair and one sided, they
will not sue.
4. Assignment and Tracking of Ownership
4.1 A key aspect of this Royalty Model and the fact that the Rounds and Sets are
maintained on the Internet, is its ability to accurately assign royalties
to the Authors as a function of their actual use. This Model
also allows content from many different Authors and Resource Owners to be easily assembled into Sets
and other packages.
4.2 See the Dictionary of Terms for a detailed explanation
of the terms and abbreviations used.
4.3 Each Round has a field that lists the Royalty Weighting Units (RWU) for the Round
broken down by contributor. The formula for determining RWU is different for each
type of game screen and is outlined in the document Royalties
Formulas.
4.3.1 Example: A Round for GameL "Guess the Location" might show
a Video Clip of a famous event, present the users with a Map and challenge them to
place their tokens on the Map as close as possible to the location of the event.
The RWUs might be broken down as follows: 45 RWU for the Question, 40 RWUs for the
Video Clip (40 frames long) and ten RWU for the Map. The field on the Round that
documents this might look as follows: ,aPRA01_ 45; pRMM01_10; vABC01_40,
Which indicates that the Author of the Round (PRA01)
contributed 45 RWU, Rand McNally Maps (RMM01) contributed 10 RWU and ABC
News (ABC01) contributed 40 RWUs. The lowercase a, v, and p before the
iCode indicate author, video and picture owner respectively.
4.4 A Set consists of one or more Rounds, Sets and Web Links usually along a common subject.
4.5 With the minimum unit of distribution being a Round and each Round having a field
that lists authorship of both the Round and Resources required to support it, it
is possible to accurately assign and sum the ownership of the content material used
in any means of distribution.
5. Other Contracts and Documents
5.1 The EdUGames Author Contract
is available at the EdUGames web site.
5.2 The following related documents are hereby included in this model.
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