How you pay your external sound designer and what about the rights of the music?

Hey there! Great questions, which I'll address below.

Flo_RotXBlau said:

who has in the end the rights?

It really depends on how you set up your contract. Which if you don't have one in place yet, I strongly urge you to create one and get it signed ASAP. There are tons of free templated contracts or, depending your game's needs and resources, you could hire a lawyer to draft one up for you.

Flo_RotXBlau said:

Is there a solution which is better for everyone?

Again, it really depends. It would be hugely beneficial to the studio if you knew this game had a strong likelihood of becoming a successful franchise. If you are sitting on a multi-billion dollar idea and already have business plans for many follow up games and spin off products, then owning the music outright is pretty important. If your game is more of a gamble, let's say this is your first or third game to create… or even just a hobby, then it's much less critical. In the later case, you could get by with just having a license to use the music in your game but not own it outright. Buyouts are more expensive whereas licenses can be much, much cheaper.

Flo_RotXBlau said:

Do your musicians get a fair share of the sells? Or do you just pay them?

It's not super clear what you're asking about here. Do you mean sells of the game itself? Sometimes we do. For example, I've had deals where I'd get 5% of the sales for a game I worked on. Other deals have been 5% of the profit only, which meant the studio had to earn enough to pay back other costs first before I saw anything. And I've had other deals where it was a flat fee and I didn't get anything after that.

If you mean copies of the OST sales, it really depends on the contract. I've had situations where a company purchased my music outright so I got paid a lump sum and then after that, I could only post the music on my portfolio. I couldn't re-use or re-sell that music to anyone. In other cases, I've had full ownership of the music, even after the game came out. In those cases, I was able to post the music and sell the album. I've even had situations where I've been able to re-sell the music to another game or company.

It all really depends on the agreement you and the composer settle on. Hope that helps!