Or the agent goes and says "He's an artist who loves your game -- like it's a triumph of human expression -- he can see the heart of it, and he done something pretty special that's worthy to be a capstone for the player's experience. You understand true art is about more than money. What do you think about these couple changes I've marked up, to show he's valued in a way that's meaningful to him? In addition to the shout-out, I thought a few shares would help him feel his contribution was appreciated as a valuable part, but let me know if that's a problem."
(I'm sure a real agent could negotiate much better than I could; I'm only suggesting that an agent could straighten this out and maybe get better terms, without threatening the deal.)
I mean, half the point of agents is to insert middle-men who won't get emotional about the deal while wringing as much value for their party out of it as possible.
If you're talking directly to someone about buying their house and you go, "your house is a piece of shit, everything is broken, knock $XX,000 off or I walk", they're going to tell you to go fuck yourself. Once you filter it through two agents they hear "well, the buyer is concerned about X, which is very reasonable, but Y is just being picky, we should come back to them with an offer for $ZZ0,000 and I think that's very fair." Sure, they're not happy about selling their house for less, and maybe no agreement can be reached, but the agents take a lot of the emotion and confrontation out of haggling so that you don't end up hating the other party before you can reach an agreement.
The emotional aspect of negotiating is a very interesting factor. You'd think it'd just come down to numbers, and that's probably where many logically-oriented folks get confused.
