Outersloth, the funding arm of Among Us developer and publisher Innersloth, has detailed its standard contract with indie studios.
In a post on its website, the company has published its funding agreement, shortly after giving a talk on the topic at the Game Developers Conference. As reported by Game Developer, Outersloth takes a 50% revenue share before a project recoups its investment, after which the company takes 15%.
While the firm might only fund a game project on certain platforms, it signs for all platforms – the thinking here is that developers will only bring a game to consoles if the funding is platform-specific. Outersloth also says that it is making the title’s development possible, so it is “unfair to miss out on subsequent deals,” per slides from the company’s GDC talk.
To date, Outersloth has invested $19,161,040 across 24 projects since 2022. The company’s signing percentage is 1.4%, which it says is slightly above the industry average.
In the post on its website, Outersloth’s communications director Victoria Tran and CEO Forest Willard wrote that the firm’s aim was to “encourage” other companies to “adopt terms that were more developer-friendly”. This is the thinking behind making its contract public.
“The status quo is often based on what information is publicly available, so we hope throwing our contract into the ring will help shape future conversations,” they wrote.
“Transparency is key, so hope you enjoy the read.”
Outersloth’s games funding agreement can be found here.
Outersloth was officially announced in June 2024 following the massive success developer Innersloth saw with social deduction game Among Us, though communications director Victoria Tran told GamesIndustry.biz that it has been a “really bad open secret” since 2022.
The outfit is not a publisher and has no plans to take IP rights from developers. In October 2024, Outersloth also secured more funding.
In an industry as private and secretive as the games industry, it is rare to see a company be so open with its contracts. The only notable example that GamesIndustry.biz can recall is when indie label Raw Fury detailed its publishing contract back in 2021; you can read GameDiscoverCo’s Simon Carless’ analysis of this right here.