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the others is that I have the game demo, just look in the Showcase I thread, it is available for download to anyone



Telling the publisher that you are trying to develop a working relationship with to "go to the SC thread" is not the way to do it. These people aren't "anyone", they are your publishers and thus if they ask you for the demo, don't send them to the forum, but set up a special link for them. It's just showing respect to a business that you expect to work with.

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And second of all, "money before getting the item" is standard practice, just look at eBay



eBay is not the games industry. In the games industry, you have the other people sign an NDA and NUA so that your software is secure, you send it to them to test, they send you back the bugs or fixes they need, you make these fixes, and then it's done. I would NEVER give full payment to a person making any software (or models) for me. I have given a percentage up front and gotten burned by it, so now I pay based on milestones. With a NDA/NUA, you secure yourself if they want to use the software and not pay for it.

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we live in the 21st century, the contract I must sign with a publisher are standard contracts



Exactly. We live in a international, IP conscious, thoroughly pirated world, thoroughly internetted world, thoroughly complicated game development world!. There are more reasons in the 21st century for a contract to take time than before. Funvertising brings up an excellent one: they are in Germany; you are in Latvia. Do YOU know all the international IP conventions that exist between your country? Do YOU know all the taxation requirements for transfer of property from country to country? Do YOU know of all the special regulations that exist in Germany re: game content (for example, the use of the name Hitler or showing blood)? These are the things that lawyers DO know and I'm actually surprised they stated 2 weeks on this... that's pretty good!

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security company here in Latvia, and no contracts I have ever made, have taken me two weeks, except the first ones, which I use now.




The security industry and the games industry are two different beasts. As I've stated above, there are several issues in game development that would never crop up in the security industry. Being familiar with business is a double edged sword: you know the terms and how to run a business but sometimes this is not how it's done in the games industry and assuming they do will cause problems... like losing a publisher.


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