Freelance vs. Contract work - Pros and Cons

Torch

Hi all, was thinking about this earlier today and wanted to get other peoples opinions. I was offered work at studio after freelancing for a while and was thinking about the pros and cons of working in-house over working remotely from home, writing a short list of a few points that came to mind.

Contract - In-house:

Pros

Stability - Not having to spend free time searching for another job

Social aspect - Being around other people (Working from home can get lonely ) and the motivation to improve and impress when surrounding by like minded artists

Set Salary - Making a set amount rather than being concerned about making too little at a time

Contacts - Meeting people and making contacts for further down the line

Progression - Starting as a junior and working up to a higher position, e.g. senior or Lead

Fulfillment of having a work place to go to, rather than your home life and work life merging together.

Free time is your own (Come home from work and the work day is over, allowing you to relax)

Cons

No freedom to choose your own work hours like working from home

Answering to one client as opposed to having the variety of several projects while freelancing for different clients at a time

Could potentially make more money while freelancing rather than working for a studio

Travel costs and time spent getting to studio and back, rather than waking up and working in your pants



That's all I have for now, If anyone wants to pitch in feel free

aleksdigital

selling your own 3d work for example an indie game on steam, amazon, mobile device or fund on kickstarter after you've signed with the studio. You may or may not be able to sell tutorials either.

low odor

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/working_home

I love working at home. I still have long days sometimes, but I never miss dinner with my family, or my daughter's bedtime.

Sometimes I miss working hands on with a team, but mostly because I was fortunate enough to work with a bunch of ultra talented cats that shared my passion, and also challenged me to do better.

I've woke up in the morning..had a coffee..got lost in the work.then looked up to see it was 3 in the afternoon---and I'm still in my underwear

MagicSugar

It all comes down to the pros and cons as they relate to your own personal situation.

I have skills and experience but I chose family over a full time position. Freelancing, you check who's looking for artists all the time and I see staff openings in my town as soon as they're online. I could easily apply and I'm confident I could land those since most of my competition hereabouts are for-profit school grads with only 6 months of student experience (I have at least 10...years pro).

Downside of course is steady income and not have to worry about hardware upgrades or increasingly now, cloud based software subscriptions.

I'm not pulling 70k a year...yet, but happy (as long as I have my art time ). If you've seen that Bill Waterson-like cartoon that went viral on twitter recently. I'm living that life now. :thumbup:

Neox

if you are freelance but don't want to mix personal time with work time, you can still use a shared office space.

Isaiah Sherman

Neox wrote: »

if you are freelance but don't want to mix personal time with work time, you can still use a shared office space.

This. When my wife and I move after my time w/Bungie next year, I will have my own personal office set up away from our home.

Some people find it beneficial to leave your personal living space to keep you focused while you work.

crazyfool

Few freelance pros and cons

Pros
Not working on the same title for years
Don't have to bug fix everything
You are forced to push yourself towards the best out there
Artistic Progression seems faster
Get to work across numerous titles and styles
Money, can be as much as double as in house
Independence
Some clients are amazing!!!!!
Good for confidence when you get going
Get to work YOUR way
Claiming stuff for work purposes (legitametly)
Learning valuable stuff from your mistakes
Sense of achievement
Confidence building
Become very good with money
Very little crunch
Don't have to move halfway round the world to work with top studios
That commute haha
Some clients give you a lot of creative control
Some places also give you the time to go all out

Cons
Technical progression can suffer
Doing your own taxes or paying for an accountant
Making sure you put enough aside
Uk peeps tax bills can be scary when you start doing well and they ask for next year contributions (like a deposit, but they assume you are gonna make the same money as last year)
You miss talking to people
Can be stressful dealing with all the contracts and stuff
Takes a year or two before it starts to be constant
Some clients are a pain in the arse
Making mistakes early on is soul destroying
NDAs, you get to work on the coolest stuff but can't tell a soul
A lot of projects get cancelled afterwards which can be annoying
Credit checks can be annoying as a self employed worker, having to declare income etc
Getting a mortgage is very difficult
Having money but not allowed to spend it, you need a Rainey day fund
Software is expensive.... But tax deduct able
Switching off is very difficult, I have a seperate office which helps but you often take stuff home in your head
Sense of insecurity
Some places want your work yesterday
No sick or holiday pay, but can be negotiated if for long stints
Quite easy to burn out
Skype, some clients insist on it and I hate being bugged constantly so they get told off haha


For me I think both are great, freelance or remote work is a lot more difficult as you have to sort out everything yourself and in house takes away a lot of the worry as they do all your taxes, sort you out with a machine and all the software you need. I had to make a decision a few years back to keep freelancing or go in house as I had the offers from both sides, I made a pros and cons list and slide convinced me haha to freelance with them. Was an extremely difficult decision and I was worried I made the wrong choice for a while, but they looked after me and then a year later I was contracting with them exclusively. I could never dream of working on the projects I have and am gob smacked by it constantly, the quality level is astounding aswell. But again, can't tell a soul what they are haha

Luke_Starkie

This 'Some clients are a pain in the arse', This 'A lot of projects get cancelled afterwards which can be annoying' and This 'Some places want your work yesterday'

Pretty much my experience hahaha.

barnesy

Luke I was the same man hahaha. I found that the annoying clients were far more common than the easy going friendly clients.

In my opinion the freelance vs in-house really depends on your age and experience at the time.

I think that if you are fresh out of uni and you are a fairly young/ mid range artist, then freelance isn't really a good idea for long term. I think that it would be better to get an in-house job to build some creditable experience up first then transition into freelance further down the line.

I have found that I have been much happier working in-house, I have no crunch so it is possible to easily plan everything out so that I am able to spend time with the gf, go to the gym and see my friends. When I was freelancing I found that it was a pain trying to balance everything out with clients from all over the world. I found that I had to go to bed at stupid o'clock just to have meetings with clients and to adhere to all of the time zones.