A big (blue) part of what Big Blue Sky Games is comes from the fact that we’re extraordinarily fortunate to have a dedicated team of creative professionals working for us. Keeping that creative spark lit is crucial not only to our success as a company, but to every individual feeling like they’re leading complete lives and being the best version of themselves for their families and friends.
To that end, we’ve created this side project policy to help everyone understand what we allow (and encourage!) our teammates to do outside of their obligations to Big Blue Sky Games. The short version is – you can contribute to any endeavor outside of Big Blue Sky Games that does not interfere with your ability to fulfill your duties to Big Blue Sky Games, and that does not directly compete with our projects.
Specifically:
- Any project you undertake cannot be based on or compete with any Big Blue Sky Games intellectual property.
- You cannot use any Big Blue Sky Games resources (equipment, software licenses, assets, etc.) to develop or market your project. (You can refer to Big Blue Sky Games to promote – for example, “From designers who have worked on projects such as X at Big Blue Sky Games comes an all-new, action-packed board game, Y!”)
- You cannot work on personal projects during time you are being compensated for working on Big Blue Sky Games projects.
- Big Blue Sky Games is not responsible for any legal obligations or liabilities arising from your personal projects.
- Your personal projects cannot disclose any confidential information about current or future Big Blue Sky Games business activities.
- If your personal project is a good fit for the Big Blue Sky Games brand, at your request and with your explicit permission, we will consider promoting and/or publishing it. (For publishing, a more formal agreement would need to be developed.)
Overall, our goal is to trust and empower everyone who works with us, and we will do our best to be as transparent and forthright about this as possible.
For the sake of clarity, here are some examples:
• You release a game substantially similar to or using the same core mechanics as a Big Blue Sky Games project. This competes directly with us and would be a problem.
• You use Big Blue Sky Games resources – equipment or software licenses that Big Blue Sky Games owns (note: this does NOT include invoiced expenses you are reimbursed for, only things that Big Blue Sky Games owns or pays for on a recurring basis) – to work on a side project. This is not okay.
• You use your skills to perform a function like what you do for Big Blue Sky Games in an unrelated capacity – selling drawings or paintings as an artist, touring as a musician, etc. This is great, and we encourage it!
• You work on a product that could be a Big Blue Sky Games project, but it’s not based on or in competition with us. That’s totally alright! If you want to write for a tabletop game sourcebook, or design a board game with your friends, do that up. Let us know when to fund your Kickstarter.
