The issue of selling materials related to Hero Games products - such as your own book of HERO System characters, an e-zine devoted to Hero Games products, or a software program designed to make playing the HERO System easier - is a special one.
Generally speaking, we consider any effort by anyone other than DOJ, Inc. to make money by producing HERO System books, materials, or gaming aids to be a direct challenge to and violation of our intellectual property rights, unless you have received a license from us to do so.
A. Licensing The HERO System: We're willing to consider licensing the HERO System to talented and responsible individuals who want to produce books, computer programs, and similar products with it. We have six general rules for all licenses:
Money: You have to pay for the license. In most cases, you'll have to pay us a royalty on all sales of your product. The amount of the royalty depends on the nature of the project, our knowledge of and confidence in you, and other factors like that. Typically it's at least Five Percent (5%) of the retail price, and sometimes higher. In some cases, we may negotiate advance payments or flat-fee arrangements.
Approval: We must have a right of approval over everything you intend to publish, and that includes packaging and advertising. The goodwill and respect associated with Hero Games and the HERO System in the minds of the consuming public are one of our most important assets, and we don't want to tarnish our reputation by allowing a lot of poor-quality products to be sold under our banner.
Format: If you want to create a book or similar printed (or electronic) product with our rules, you have to write it to conform to the most recent version of the HERO System Style & Formatting Guidelines, available as part of our Writer's Guidelines.
Noncompetitiveness: We're not going to grant any licenses for other persons or firms to compete with us directly. That mainly means two things:
We won't grant you a license to produce books for product lines we have not yet established by publishing a genre book. For example, we won't publish Fantasy Hero published until mid-2003, so we're not willing to grant you a license that would allow you to publish a fantasy-oriented HERO System product prior to then.
We won't grant a license to produce a product substantially similar to a book we plan to produce ourselves. For example, we've got a book called The Ultimate Weapon in our plans, so we won't grant anyone a license to produce a book full of weapon statistics and information.
Other Rules Systems: Generally speaking, we're not willing to grant a license for anyone to put HERO System rules or character write-ups in a book featuring rules or character write-ups for other rules systems. We may be willing to discuss some exceptions for some products, but that's our basic rule.
Professionalism: We'll only grant licenses to people with whom we think we can establish and maintain a good working relationship, and who will produce quality HERO System products. If we've never heard of or worked with you before, we're not as likely to grant you a license. If you've never published game products before, or been involved in the creation of game products before, we're not as likely to grant you a license. If you can't show us some comparative work to demonstrate the quality of the HERO System product you want to create, we're not as likely to grant you a license.
If you have any questions, please contact Line Developer Steven S. Long at SteveL@herogames.com. We reserve the right to refuse to grant a license to anyone for any reason, or even for no reason at all.
B. If We Grant You A License: If we enter into a licensing agreement with you, you're going to have to sign a contract establishing all the details of our arrangement. We'll draft the contract, and then you can discuss specific terms with us when you've had a chance to review it.
Once we've granted you a license, and approved your product, we'll assist you by advertising your product on our website and making it available through our online store (assuming you want us to).
C. Alternatives To Licensing: There are a couple of routes available to you instead of licensing. First, you can try to sell your product to us. Make us a proposal, following the format in our Writer's Guidelines. We might like your idea enough to produce it for you, so that we both come out ahead. Second, you can submit it for Digital Hero, our online e-zine. In both these cases, you'll be giving up your rights to the work, but if what you really want to do is get it in front of other Hero gamers, both are great options.