The Deal
Desk

Two teams, one record deal. One team represents the artist. The other is business affairs at 480 Collective, the label making the offer. Each team gets a confidential brief, and you trade offers on a mixing console until you close — or someone walks.

Start a game

You’ll get a four-letter code to give the other team.

Your team name
Your client
Your side
Class code (optional — if your instructor gave you one)

Your browser hosts the game, so keep this page open until the deal is done.

Join a game

Enter the code the other team gave you. You’ll take the open side.

Game code
Your team name

Play on one screen

Both teams share one device and pass it back and forth between turns. Nothing is saved.

Client

Instructors: class dashboard

Open the dashboard on your computer and give students the five-letter class code. Games started with that code report their results here live. Results are saved in this browser and can be exported as a spreadsheet.

The clients

Instructor notes

Setup

  1. Put this one file anywhere students can open it in a browser: your course site or LMS, GitHub Pages, Netlify, or a shared drive. No account or server is needed.
  2. Open the class dashboard on your computer and project or share the five-letter class code.
  3. Pair teams of 2–4, one device per team. One team starts a game (entering the class code) and reads its four-letter game code to the other team.
  4. Run all pairs with the same client first (Hollis is a good warm-up), then switch sides and clients.
  5. If a campus network blocks direct connections, use one-screen mode: teams pass a laptop between turns.

Rules of play

  • 480 Collective makes the opening offer. The teams then alternate offers, and each offer can include a short note.
  • Either side can accept the other side’s offer on its turn, or walk away at any time.
  • After the artist team’s sixth offer, the label’s response is final: the artist must accept or walk.
  • Each team sees only its own value meter and walk-away point. Briefs are confidential — no showing screens.

Debrief

  • Open the class dashboard and compare deals for the same client. Why did outcomes differ so much?
  • Which terms were cheap for the label to give but valuable to the artist? Did teams find those trades?
  • Did anyone bluff about a competing offer? How did the label team decide whether to believe it?
  • Find a deal where the artist is unrecouped in the “expected” case while the label is profitable. Walk the class through why.
  • Did any pair fail to close even though a deal was possible? What got in the way?

Scoring

Each team’s score is the share of the available surplus it captured: how far above its own walk-away point the final deal landed, compared with the best deal the other side would have signed. Walking away scores 0. The numbers are illustrative, based on a simplified model of royalties, recoupment, 360 income and catalog value across flop, expected and breakout outcomes.