"Draconian rules": the developer shared a fragment of an employment contract with Amazon
In 2018, software engineer James Liu was invited to work at Amazon. That’s just that he didn’t like some of the points of the company’s employment contract, which concerned the creation of personal games outside of work. Liu recently shared a fragment of the document on Twitter, and his post immediately went viral.
As Liu points out, Amazon doesn’t mind its employees making their own games in their free time. However, they are obliged to use the company’s products and services when developing.
Another clause of the contract states that employee games must be hosted on Amazon platforms. For example, mobile titles need to be sent to the Amazon Appstore. Employees should also leave feedback on the work of these platforms so that the company can improve them.
https://twitter.com/james7132/status/1412540904225738753
You can only make your own games together with other Amazon employees to prevent competition. Moreover, developers are obliged to provide Amazon with free, fully paid licenses and transfer intellectual property rights to the game.
Also in the comments, Liu noted that Amazon does not get ownership of the game. But at the same time, she can sell or clone it without paying royalties for it.
Liu called such rules “draconian” and refused to work at Amazon, despite the high salary. He now works at Google.
Some developers, after reading the post, supported Liu. Ian, the producer of Fighting Chance, shared an excerpt from the contract with 2K, which prohibits employees from publicly “belittling the dignity” of the company’s products and services.
Oooh are we doing draconian contract stuff? Instantly shut down the 2K recruiter after reading this bad boy lol pic.twitter.com/QO3dx7wrcU
— Ian (@ianipoos) July 7, 2021
“Companies should appreciate and rejoice that their employees develop their own games that allow them to grow as professionals,” he wrote.
game project while being an employed gamedev. I tried it many times but the personal projects never lasted more than a few months. Companies should cherish and be happy about their employees doing personal stuff that also lets them grow in their professional role… not this.
— Sascha Wagentrotz (@swagentrotz) July 8, 2021The weirdest thing about this for me is that you’re allowed to develop games at all.
Однако нашлись и разработчики, которые не нашли ничего особенного в контракте. По их словам, это обычная практика среди игровых и технологических компаний.
Every contract I’ve had includes a non-compete clause that says you can’t develop *anything* outside of work. I’m not saying this contract is fair, just very different than what I’ve experience.
— Rez Graham (@rezibot) July 7, 2021It’s more than a little draconian, sure, but for comparison, ActiBlizz get first refusal on anything you develop whilst you work for them.
You were required to do quite a major presentation to them on your game, too!
— DjArcas (@Fortress_Craft) July 7, 2021John Wills, a former employee of Amazon Game Studios, wrote that he hardly saw such rules in his contract with the company.
Although I heard that other employees did have such restrictions.
I don’t believe I ever saw these while I was at AGS, although I did hear of a gamedev agreement for non-game Amazon employees (I’m assuming it’s this).
I imagine it never came up since I worked on game tools instead of games, and idea of making a releasable game with LY…yeah.
— Jon Wills ???????? (@JonaxC) July 7, 2021The first four points are quite good and way better than standard software engineer contract in many places, which would claim full ownership of any IP you create during your employment.
Один из пользователей отметил, что первые четыре пункта контракта Amazon в целом неплохие и во многом лучше стандартных договоров с инженерами-программистами. Но остальные выглядят травмирующими.
And then I saw the rest and got pretty bad whiplash.
— Anna???????? (@HaxtonFale) July 7, 2021
