TrapframeTrapframe.studio
The deal, in plain terms

How points & royalties work

Contribute work we accept, in any discipline, and you earn points in a public ledger. Points entitle you to a slice of the relevant revenue pool each quarter. You are being paid for work, like a session musician earns royalties on a record: not buying in, not investing, not an owner.

v0.1 DRAFT POLICY · PENDING COUNSEL REVIEW · NOT A BINDING OFFER
01
Contribute

Open a PR (code) or submit an asset (art, audio, writing, design, QA). It's reviewed against the project's quality bar.

02
Get accepted

A maintainer accepts the work and proposes a point award; a second maintainer confirms it (§2).

03
Earn points

Confirmation writes an immutable, hash-chained entry to the public ledger, tagged to a project and its pool.

04
Share revenue

Each quarter, Net Revenue runs the waterfall and each pool is split by point share. Paid within 60 days.

Point scale

Exhibit A.2, impact-weighted, never paid by volume
XS1Typo fixes, small doc tweaks, single-asset cleanups.
S3Small bug fixes, single props, single voice lines, contained playtest reports.
M9Scripted encounters, small dialogue trees, contained subsystem improvements, ambient music loops.
L27Complete weapons or systems, major encounters, points of interest, meaningful engine features.
XL81Faction questlines, complete biomes, sustained multi-month efforts.

The bucket waterfall

every Net Revenue dollar
70%DISTRIBUTES
  • Business reserve20%
  • Open-source tithe10%
  • SIMN engine pool10%
  • Core Contributor profits10%
  • Game contributor pool50%
20% Business reserve, Stays in the business: management fees, operating costs, keeping the studio solvent.
10% Open-source tithe, Always 10%, funds the open-source projects our engine and games are built on.
10% SIMN engine pool, Earned by SIMN engine work, from every game built on SIMN.
10% Core Contributor profits, Class B profits-interest holders only; tenure-weighted by vested interests.
50% Game contributor pool, Allocated to the game that generated the Net Revenue.

One unit, every discipline

Code · autoArt & 3D · rubricWriting & Lore · rubricAudio · rubricDesign · rubricQA · rubricTooling & Infra · autoTranslation & Community · rubric

Code & tooling use automated signals (git/PR history) as a starting point; everything else is scored by a discipline lead against a published rubric. A parity council keeps the rubrics comparable so a major art pack lands near a major feature. A human always adjusts for impact.

OSS tithe

10% floor
  • Godot Foundation40%
  • Rust Foundation25%
  • Bevy20%
  • Blender Foundation10%
  • Discretionary (other upstream OSS)5%

Paid quarterly, within 60 days of period close. Balances under $25.00 roll forward.

The honest caveats

  • · Nothing is owed until the agreement is signed. This describes intent.
  • · Revenue share depends on revenue, it's a share of success, not a salary.
  • · It's compensation for work, not equity and not an investment (§4).
  • · Points and royalty rights are personal and non-transferable (§5).

Full terms: the Contributor Royalty Agreement (v0.1 skeleton). Questions? sign in and ask.