Joseph Gordon-Levitt explains how fans will be paid for 'Beyond Good & Evil 2' work

At Ubisoft's E3 2018 showcase on Monday, the publisher announced a fun celebrity partnership for the next installment of its beloved space opera game, Beyond Good & Evil 2. Joseph Gordon-Levitt took the stage to introduce how his collaborative artist platform HitRecord would allow fans to contribute their own content to the game.

It's potentially exciting news for BG&E's active fan community, which Ubisoft calls the "Space Monkey Program." But Gordon-Levitt's words left people abuzz with concerns about whether or not those fan artists would be paid for their work.

The presentation made it sound as if Ubisoft would be crowdsourcing the design and execution of various pieces of the game, but made no mention of compensation. Mashable caught up with both Gordon-Levitt and BG&E2 senior producer Guillaume Brunier shortly after the presentation and got some clarification on how things would work.

"Trust me: We were really frustrated because we intended of course to talk from stage and say, as with every HitRecord production, artists will be paid," Gordon-Levitt said, echoing an apology he made on Twitter in which he attributed the error to last minute script cuts.

"It’s a big oversight and we were all kicking ourselves afterwards. But so it goes."

Both he and Brunier pointed out that the announcement launched alongside an explanation video running through how monetization would work. HitRecord's creative process is much more collaborative than you might expect. The community builds on each other's work in order to create a final deliverable, so figuring out payment requires a unique approach

Gordon-Levitt said the BGE2 partnership would follow a similar payment model to HetRecord's television show. A community pool of $50,000 was set aside for each 30-minute episode of HitRecord on TV, then distributed among all the content creators who make contributions to the final product.

But for BG&E2, $50,000 is the total amount being paid for all the music (to be featured in the "pirate radio" inside spaceships, for example) and visual art (which could appear on things like posters and billboards in the virtual world).

"The size of this project, the scope — it’s a similar ballpark of the amount of work [put into the TV show]. If anything, even a lower volume of work. But it felt like a good precedent," Gordon-Levitt said.

It's important to note, though, that this different from how most other HitRecord projects functioned. Usually, the monetary compensation is calculated based on the total profits made by the finished project. But, as explained on the site's FAQ, "HitRecord is only working on certain elements and parts of the full game, so ‘profit’ as we’d usually define it doesn’t apply."

Another section on the website explained that, "Typically, HitRecord splits all the profits of a production with the community 50/50 — 50% of profits go to the Contributing Artists and the other 50% go to HitRecord.org LLC."

BG&E2 executive producer Jared Geller also clarified two very important concerns.

For one, the $50,000 is only for the "initial stage" of planned content (the aforementioned music and artwork). If Ubisoft eventually decides to use more content generated by the HitRecord community, the profit pool would be reevaluated.

Geller also said that the reach for fan-generated content would in no way affect the amount of designers working on BG&E2. Fans would not be taking away developers' jobs. This would just be additional content, and the goal was to give fans the chance to populate the game's world with their art.

"What we want to get out of this partnership is adding more diversity and influences [to BG&E2]," said Brunier. "We want the city to be vibrant."

He also emphasized the importance of breaking down barriers for fans who felt unable to contribute because of limited skill level.

"You might not be the most pro-level artist. But you still might have a good idea, and other people can jump in and refine your idea and turn it into something that we can deliver to BG&E2," Gordon-Levitt added.

In terms of divvying up that $50,000, HitRecord determines what portions of the profits each contributor deserves and publishes a "profit proposal" to the community. Everyone gives feedback on it for two weeks, and HitRecord answers every single comment and concern raised.

"Now that doesn’t mean we agree with everything," said Gordon-Levitt. "But that’s what’s so great about doing this transparently: You can kind of tell when something makes sense. Other people chime in with their opinions, and as long as you keep it transparent, that in our experience is the best way to keep it fair."

Over HitRecord's eight years of existence, it's paid community artists about $2.6 million total through this payment model. "We’ve never had any problems. And I’m really proud of that," Gordon-Levitt said.

Contributors to the BG&E2 partnership will be paid digitally in January 2019 through Hyperwallet.

"I’m really happy that you’re asking about [monetization], because it was a mistake that we didn’t mention it on stage," Gordon-Levitt said. "It’s so important that the conversation is happening, because the last thing I would ever want to do with HitRecord is be exploitative."