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Work for hire is very much a thing in the west. One of the things that drew creators to Image Comics was their policy of letting creators keep the rights to their creations -- something highly unusual in the industry at the time (and today), and certainly not practiced by Marvel or DC.

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That sounds more like the movie industry approach.

In the games industry, that would probably only happen in you developed the entire game yourself and only needed a publisher. If you need to take payment in advance for development, you would also most likely lose the IP.

Both Takahashi and Iwatani were Namco employees, so they wouldn't get to keep any IP they developed within the company. But that doesn't stop the said company from giving them bonuses and promotions. Doesn't seem to have happened in their case.

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