Number of questions on Torque and my game..

#1 1) Technically, no and yes. For legal aspects, you should be 18 or older, or else you'll be hard pressed to find people(ie, publishers) who want to sign a contract with you and your parents. If you sell a small game on your own, nothing is stopping you.

2) Nope, you can sell it under your own name, or under a DBA("Doing Business As", which is kinda like a company name, but more like an alias).

3) Creating the game implies that you own the copyright at the time of creation, if it's your own work. A copyright notice(ie, "Copyright (c) 2004 Joe Blow") costs nothing except the time to type it.

4) You don't need to release the source to the game, since Torque Script makes the game inherently moddable. The source is still TGE, so you can't just give that out.

5) If you want, or if you want to set up a CVS server(but be careful with security if you do).

6) You don't need a publisher, Garage Games will gladly do that for you.

7) Normal, the $100 is all, unless you strike oil and pump out $500,000+ a year, in which case you need to pay GG $10,000. At that point $10k isn't bad.

8) I dunno.

Hope that helps.

#2 Er,

1) not apart from the obvious ones
2) yes, but if you can't think of one you're welcome to use "Happy Telephone Computery"
3) Er, don't think so
4) Don't think GG will let you release any Torque source, but Torque is pretty moddable anyway
5) yes, or on a central code control server
6) GG will publish for you, or you can just post people CDs
7) only if you or your publisher earns more than half a million a year, or something
8) good question

#3 I am not a GG employee.

1) Beyond the legal, no. Of course, it might be difficult to get older blokes to listen to very young ones.

2) Probably a good idea.
3) Implied.
4) See above.
5) Yes...
6) Your final game will just be some files, which you can distribute as you like.
7) That's all.
8) Just need to license it once.

For 7&8 I believe the commercial license supercedes per product.

#4 One thing thats interested me is what happens when you sell a game.

ie: this is income and therefore you have to tell Mr Taxman about it? Just a curiosity of mine.

(Oh btw, I'm UK)

#5 K.. thanks, very helpful.. But about the mod thing, what i meant was, like i read a little about the torquescripts and all that and it seems to sound like QC from quake 1.. So basically what im askin is if I can choose weather to release my game source and make it moddable ore not, not refering to the engine source.. :)

Ted, as for that copyright, are you basically saying I can just type the copyright and that would be good enough? Or am I absolutly required to purchase one, otherwise facing legal issues by listing one without owning it?

#6 Yea, in the U.S. if you make more the 9 grand a year, you gotta pay uncle sam, income taxes stink

#7 Ah, well im not too concerned about that either.. should be a while until I grow to that... :)

#8 @Jacob: While you can register a copyright, any work is covered under copyright law if there is a copyright notice on it. Of course, it's not as good as if you had a registered copyright, but you don't have to register a copyright for it to be valid(it just means you'll have much less of a legal slugfest if you do).

Trademarks are a little different, and there's the "TM" trademark(unregistered), and the "R" trademark(registered). Last I checked, it's about $330USD for a trademark registration(per trademark category) here in the US.

There's a lot of stuff to this subject(fair use, parody, prior use cases, etc), and I'm not the one to answer these questions in any official way. However, go to www.uspto.gov for patent info and www.copyright.gov for copyright info and relevant links. If you're still fuzzy, err on the side of caution and ask a lawyer.

#9 K.. Thanks! The thing is, I'm makin sure this is all allowed because I can't afford a copyright as of now. Infact, the only thing I CAN afford is the engine itself. Once my first game gets sold, which is estimated to go out and the end of next summer or so, I'm going to go through all the legal stuff and make it all official.. Thanks for you help! :) By the way, does anyone happen to know the average earnings on a game that gets made and sold? :)

#10 Sorry to bug ya all again, but I got a new question.. For that copyright, would it hold legal if I used an alias name instead of my my real, or do I have to use my real name?

#11 Use your real name, or a registered business name.