f.a.q.

money

what may I not sell?

The questions is wrongly asked: As a licenseholder to your project, which you would usually be if you are it’s developer and are indie, you are absolutely allowed to do anything with your own project:

We only require that your game is freely available to the public so the public can create the game themselves in order to get the full essential gaming experience.

Good example: You have released a game with all of it’s components as DIY and give it to the world. Now you decide to sell physical pre-printed copies from your site, or components with alternative art, lore that isn’t essential to play the game, or a dinner with you et.c.

Bad example: You release the game as DIY, but now you create an expansion that adds something to the game, like a new faction or mechanics. You don’t make that available for free, and charge money for it.

What you are doing is withholding the players the full essential gaming experience. Problem here is not that you are selling the expansion, the issue is that you are not making it also freely available as DIY.

who may sell my game?

We wouldn’t know – that’s only for you/the licensholder of your project to decide. The following applies if you want to control that and also be a part of WTactics.

[Anyone] If you are fine with anyone selling it then you can use the following licenses: GPL2, GPL3, CC BY or CC BY-SA

[You] If you want to keep your rights to be the only one that may legally sell it then you need to use: CC BY-NC or CC BY-NC-SA

We are however not lawyers and do not take responsibility for your actions or interpretations of the licenses and what they (don’t) entail. Please read through the license(s) you want to use and make sure you understand these matters before you make a decision about what license you will use.

WTactics recommends you to consider using a very liberal license, and to actually allow anyone to sell your game, but it’s up to you and we are happy either way if you are. Our reasoning is this:

To be honest, most of us that are creating card- and boardgames as indies will not be make a living out of it in any case due to many factors beyond our control. There are much better ways to make money seen to time/effort investment.
Commercially it’s a very hard market that is also satured.
For most of us the goal is to reach people with our games and know that they are being played and enjoyed by the world. Hence, we don’t measure the success of our games in units sold or revenue.

DIY

how is DIY defined?

Wikipedia describes do it yourself (DIY) as follows:

Do it yourself (DIY) is the method of building, modifying, or repairing things without the direct aid of experts or professionals. /../ DIY behavior can be triggered by various motivations previously categorized as marketplace motivations (economic benefits, lack of product availability, lack of product quality, need for customization), and identity enhancement (craftsmanship, empowerment, community seeking, uniqueness).^[2]

/../ the term DIY has taken on a broader meaning that covers a wide range of skill sets. DIY is associated with the international alternative rock, punk rock, and indie rock music scenes; indymedia networks, pirate radio stations, and the zine community. In this context, DIY is related to the Arts and Crafts movement, in that it offers an alternative to modern consumer culture‘s emphasis on relying on others to satisfy needs.

DIY card- & boardgames

Most in the world of boardgames are familliar with the terms “Print and Play”, meaning the developer is handing out the game in pre-prepared files, ready for the end user, the player, to just print it out and then start playing. Print and play is a great tradition among developers, and it captures the essence in what a DIY game is, where DIY is basically the same just with a broader terminology that includes more than printing.

For the intents and purposes of what we at WTactics are trying to achieve do it yourself means that: The developers empower the players, and make it as easy as possible for them, to create the game in real life for free or at a self-cost price for required materials

In most cases the developers would do just that by releasing a PDF that was prepared in such a way that the work the player has to put down in order to acquire the game for use is kept to a minimum.

when do I empower?

DIY means that the player has to do the actual work him/herself in the end, one way or another, when it comes to materializing the game. The responsibility of you as a dev. stretches to giving the players the possibility, with as easy means as possible, create the game.

It doesn’t mean that you need to teach the players how to print, glue or assemble, nor does it mean that you need to supply saw blades for correctly cutting out meeples, or the paper to print on. You empower when you give neatly ordered resources to the player, for those purposes.

what can the players demand?

Nothing, when it comes to DIY and print and play, the players have no legal rights to demand anything from you beyond what is stated within the scope of your license.

It is we here at WTactics, not the players, that require you to share your projects material in a DIY nature, so any player can easily create the game should he/she wish it. Our requirement isn’t legally binding though, and you may leave WTactics at any time without making your game available for DIY by the end users.

does selling break DIY?

No, there is no necessary relation between selling something and at the same time offering it for free as DIY.

You are perfectly allowed to sell parts of, or the whole, of your game however you want. What we require of all our members is that they also, at all times, share the game in it’s entirety for free with the world as a DIY.