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Having any changes they make submitted back to your own version may sound attractive, but in practice there's a reasonable chance they'll just reject the proposal entirely in case they make changes they don't want to share.

If the alternative you're offering is no source code access at all, I think they would have no cause to complain about your offer to allow them to operate independently from you. If they are planning on using the game as an advertisement arm (which is the impression I'm getting), I'm sure they would love that arrangement; it would mean they can give away the game to whomever they want, however they want, without worrying about breaching license terms. And if they can just pay you in full up-front for your work, then there you go, you've made your profit and now you can move along trying to make even more by making an improved version of the game. I think it's a win-win solution for everyone involved.

16 minutes ago, JulieMaru-chan said:

If the alternative you're offering is no source code access at all

It's not, necessarily, although that is one option. I didn't actually suggest any particular alternative at all. I was just pointing out that GPL licensing is wildly unpopular in certain circles due to the viral nature of the license.

Proceed with caution if choosing a GPL or GPL-derived (AGPL, LGPL, et al) license, as it may cause your work to to disregarded out of hand regardless of any other factor. 

8 hours ago, jbadams said:

Proceed with caution if choosing a GPL or GPL-derived (AGPL, LGPL, et al) license, as it may cause your work to to disregarded out of hand regardless of any other factor.

This is a line of FUD, and it's nonsense. How many companies contribute to and use Linux, again?

An energy company is not in the business of proprietary software. There is no reason for them to object to being given extra rights (which can be very useful from an advertising standpoint).

The only party here who could possibly have any concerns is the developer of the game, if they want to remove any possibility of the energy company competing with a proprietary version of the game they want to distribute. But the OP has already said that he isn't concerned about that. So why go through the trouble of drafting up special agreements when just giving them a simple, fair copyleft license will do just fine?

If for some reason they reject the idea because it's "unpopular" (which would suggest a badly run company), just offer to give them a binary, no warranty of any kind, and permission to distribute it however they want (e.g. WTFPL). They would be getting much less that way, but hey, if they'd rather be in shackles, that's their choice. The point is, you don't need to get special agreements drawn up when simple licensing will do the trick.

39 minutes ago, JulieMaru-chan said:

This is a line of FUD, and it's nonsense.

Look, I'm just sharing my personal experience - it's something I've seen happen on more than one occasion. I'm not saying it will definitely happen, and I'm not saying it's necessarily a sensible position, I'm just pointing out that it does happen and is something to be aware of.

FWIW it's happened to when when working with a large corporation too. We couldn't even get the LGPL past their lawyers.

Put yourself in the shoes of a contract negotiator who's never seen the GPL or similar and is reading it with fresh eyes. It's an extremely complex agreement that puts loads of restrictions on them (and worse, it has that massive irrelevant preamble that's only wasting the time of the stupidly expensive lawyers who have to read it).

When working with software companies, using standard open source contracts are great because wr all trust them and it lets us share IP without too many legal costs... Most other companies though would prefer a simpler agreement written from scratch, even if it means they get no source code access (assuming they don't need source access).

8 hours ago, JulieMaru-chan said:

This is a line of FUD, and it's nonsense. How many companies contribute to and use Linux, again?

Most large companies I'm aware of carefully firewall off the Linux kernel teams (and anyone else who has to touch GPL software) from the rest of the organisation, to avoid accidental license pollution.

Ever since Cisco/Linksys had to expose a chunk of their firmware for accidental GPL-infringement... Enterprises that rely on proprietary software have been extremely wary of the GPL.

What do the concerns some companies have regarding proprietary software they develop have to do with energy companies that aren't even in that business?

6 hours ago, Hodgman said:

It's an extremely complex agreement that puts loads of restrictions on them (and worse, it has that massive irrelevant preamble that's only wasting the time of the stupidly expensive lawyers who have to read it).

If your lawyer isn't able to figure out that the preamble isn't a part of the terms of the license in 10 seconds, I think you need a better lawyer.

The GNU GPL is not "extremely complex" as far as legal documents go, especially if you consider EULAs which could literally take up dozens of pages in many cases. Even a non-lawyer could read the GNU GPL v3 in 10, 20 minutes (and could read version 2 even faster since it's less comprehensive and centered around U.S. legal terminology). Heck, if you're not even doing any modifications, you can literally ignore everything other than section 4, which is just a single paragraph.

6 hours ago, Hodgman said:

Most other companies though would prefer a simpler agreement written from scratch

Companies you have interacted with having wanted sloppy licensing practices to be used isn't a good reason to use sloppy licensing practices by default. It's one thing to offer a GNU GPL license, have them reject that, and respond by saying you are fine with giving them a more restrictive, simplistic license if that is what they really want. Let them shoot themselves in the foot. To preempt them on that and default to a self-drafted WTFPL-style license is just silly.

Look, you're obviously a bit of a fan of the GPL licence.  That's fine.  I don't personally have any ideological problems with the licence, and I won't speak for them but I doubt Hodgman and swiftcoder do either.  No one came here for a debate on the merits of GPL licensing, and we're actually getting somewhat off topic by continuing it.

All I wanted to say was, "be careful about choosing GPL licensing, some companies dislike it and may refuse to consider your work if you choose that license."  I'm not here to comment on or discuss whether that is a sensible position for those companies to have - I'm just stating that it's something I've seen.  Hodgman and swiftcoder have posted to comment that they have had similar experiences and suggested some basic possible reasoning for that. And no, not just when the companies are in the business of developing proprietary software.

The OP is operating in the Real World™, and in the Real World™ choosing GPL licensing might be a problem.  It also might not be.  There's probably no real need to discuss it further unless to OP asks for more information on it.  If you would like to discuss the merits of GPL licensing it would probably be better off in another topic (you could post a link here in case people want to follow over) where it isn't going off track from what has been asked.

Note: I'm not posting as a moderator/staff right now, just another member participating in the discussion.

Why does everything have to be free? We live in a free country and we can sell software if we want.