I make computer games and signed an agreement with a two person studio to co-develop and publish their game. The studio is composed of a writer and an artist. The artist is the head of the studio, but he admitted to me that he has no formal agreement with the writer.

We are splitting the profits of the game 50/50. On the studio side the artist gets 25% and the writer gets 25%. They have both been paid royalty advances sufficient for them to live on while they do the work.

After a month it’s become clear that the writer is a liability and is unable to perform his duties.

  1. At the start of the project he suddenly had a trip he needed to take and asked for his deadline to be moved by two weeks. I did this.
  2. He was supposed to provide character background sheets before he left on this trip. He never did.
  3. When he returned he started hemming and hawing about writer’s block and I held a meeting with him to get him through this. He was supposed to provide me with the beginning scene of the game before our next meeting. I asked how it was going the night before the meeting and he admitted he hadn’t started yet. At the meeting he turned in a hastily written section of a novel (not a game script or script of any kind since it was formatted as prose). He said he couldn’t follow the formatting guide we’d given him because ‘he didn’t have time.’
  4. He similarly hemmed and hawed about creating the outline. I wrote a 3,000 word outline template where he just had to fill in the quests. At our next meeting I tried to get him to work on this with me live. I ended up doing 2,000 words of outline for him at that meeting. He wanted to continue so I’d write the entire thing for him. I said he had to take it from there. No writing was added to this shared document until the day before his next deadline.
  5. A week before the new deadline he informed us that he needed to take another trip. I said he wasn’t prioritizing the project. He needed to catch up on his work because he hadn’t contributed anything so far.
  6. While he was gone the artist and I agreed that he was a liability and we needed to find a new writer.
  7. He returned from the second trip 3 days later than he’d promised, on the night before his next deadline. In the morning I saw that he had hastily filled out the rest of the outline. The other work that was due, the character background sheets, and the art description document, were still not done.

We had a meeting today with the three of us. I tried to gently tell him that things weren’t working out and I needed him off the project. I offered to allow him to keep the sizable advance he’d been paid. He became belligerent. He argued.

I told him he was in breach of contract. I ended the meeting.

I served email notice of the breach of contract for the multiple ways he’d breached. According to the contract he has 30 days to remedy the breach or I had a right to terminate the contract.

He claimed he wasn’t in breach (without explaining how that was possible) and that I was just trying to steal his money for himself. He said he would get a lawyer and ensure the project could not continue without him.

He’s in an Eastern European country and I’m in the USA. The contract is governed by the laws of my state. (I’m saying he does not have the right venue for an actual lawsuit.)

This is a fiasco and is jeopardizing the continuation of the project. He could cause trouble with our vendor by filing a DMCA. He could damage the reputation of the company by becoming a troll online.

I stand by my decision to remove him, but I will wait for him to fail to cure the breach in the 30 days. In the meantime I’m allowing him to continue “work” and am continuing to provide support, not blocking his ability to remedy the breach in any way.

This has been incredibly stressful and worrisome. I’m confident that he can’t get his act together in 30 days and I will go through with ejecting him from the project. I just wish there was a way to end this amicably.

Does anyone have any experience with this sort of thing? I’d really appreciate some advice. What would you do if you were me?

Edit: Cleaned up a typo.