The Tetris® brand is one of the most distinctive video game franchises in the world. After more than 35 years, the brand is loved globally by people of all ages and all cultures.
The Tetris brand’s global licensee network includes major video game publishers, including Nintendo and Sega, as well as many partners in electronics, toys, apparel, lifestyle goods, entertainment and more.
Existing Challenge:
Contract Manager, Gerilynn Maria needed a quality contract and royalty management system. She spoke to at least nine different companies to find a cost effective and efficient solution.
This included struggling with a temporary solution without success. The primary challenge for TETRIS was keeping track of a growing volume of contracts as they continued to focus on expanding their merchandising program.
Our Solutions:
TETRIS relies on Dependable Rights Manager to store all their contracts and upload royalty information from their licensees and agents.
With team members located in various locations, anyone at their company, from finance to licensing to legal, can all access relevant information in one central brand management contract database.
The TETRIS team uses DRM to review the performance of their licensees which is especially helpful when licensees are up for renewal.
“DRM is valuable in showing us what the licensee’s sales were, what products performed the best for them and which countries were their strongest markets. Previously, if we needed this type of information, it was a very time consuming manual process,” states Gerilynn.
DRM also helps TETRIS to promptly flag inconsistencies if licensees are not complying with their contract terms.
While using DRM, they’ve uncovered significant findings including identifying deductions being taken by licensees that were not permitted and licensees selling products that were not within their granted rights.
In one elaborate example, Gerilynn recalls inputting a license that had over 20 amendments, dealt with exclusive and non-exclusive rights and had multiple guarantees that covered specific products and territories.
To her relief, Gerilynn was able to accurately process royalties for this licensee in DRM with each guarantee properly recouping everything in accordance with the terms of the contract.
“That is the beauty of having a system like DRM. We spot inconsistencies at the time of reporting which helps us identify licensees we may want to audit.
We’re very happy that we’ve been able to enter all of our contracts in the system, even the ones that are super complicated and have it process the reports smoothly. Our system doesn’t have any custom modifications so I’m impressed that DRM can handle our agreements which are sometimes far from routine,” says Gerilynn.