Mr. Duke, is that you? When is our next meeting, and do I need to bring the casserole?

I'm republican (as in, anti-monarchic, not into US politics) and don't give a shit about nobility. There is only one Duke I care about, even if lately he's been lame.

Take some older movie which is probably still making money. Say, Robocop, or Lord of the Rings.

Does one of the guys who e.g. made part of the animation for ED209 in Robocop, or the guy who was the voice of Gollum in LOTR, still get royalties from the money coming from those movies? No? Should they?

Even if you thought that all the people who were part of the original development team (of either an old game, or movie) should still get royalties from all their past work, how would that work in practice? Many of those people have moved to other teams, or professions, or are deceased. Should the family members of the deceased developers get the royalties then?

Or if the suggestion is that the "original" development team should get the royalties (if the development studio even exists anymore), what if all the members of the development studio are different from when the game was made? They were never involved with creating the game, so why should they get royalties?

It is far easier to think of the original development studio members as employees. They got paid _while_ they were working for the game. And as some said, it fully depends what kind of agreement they made with the publisher. If they agreed that they get one payment for the work, and publisher gets everything after that, I don't see why they should suddenly start getting extra money for it, if they are not working on it anymore.

Maybe the company I worked for 5 years ago still makes money with something where I was involved back then, but I don't see any of that money anymore. And I feel that's fine.