Licensed Games

[Rybo5000]

This is probably a long shot; I don't have any plans to do this, it's purely curiosity.

If, hypothetically, I wanted to make a SpongeBob game or an Inception game ect ect, what kind of fees are associated with that? Do I (the developer) have to pay them or is it considered a service, of which they receive a slice of the profits per se (obviously they wouldn't pay me unless it was contract work)