"Be afraid, be very afraid"

Saturday, December 27, 2008

After the last piece I posted, I received emails from folks who had interest in "Creating Productions and Artists Careers for International, world audiences. Too, I received a noticeable amount of emails from artists, having different dilemma's, many wrought by their own action's. None of us is infallible to making bad decisions.

Finding work and getting paid for it properly, or getting paid for it at all, are two very important points paramount to talent. Even at this juncture of my life, I battle more than ever collecting overdue royalties & publishing monies due me. You can never slack off on this. Those who owe you will almost never be there, to readily pay you. So you'd better learn quick, fast and in a hurry.

Here is a true story for you.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas by Rockstar Games/Take Two Interactive, is a huge, international selling video game. At one point, it was the best selling video game ever. One of the most controversial too. You thought it was all over? "Hot Coffee"n that was it? No. Remember when, store owners took that game off their shelves around the world & politicians got it banned in many countries. There's still a lot more to the story.

It's no well kept insider's secret, I'm sure you knew that the character's on the game package were created and animated from pictures of real people. One step beyond, the main image on the software is none other than Dazzzzle (Carrie Simmons), an artist I once worked with. Dazzzzle's adventure with the company was, unfortunate.

Those "real people", were only paid 200 bucks each. The game has gone sold millions ($60's a pop when it first came out) and all these artists got was $200 each? Unconscionable. For Dazzzzle the sting was more bitter to taste, with all the sexually deviated stuff added by "Hot Coffee".

According to Gamestop.com, three month's ago the total amount of games sold had reached 310 million copies.