How do you motivate small, remote, rev-share teams?
grand marshal polycounter
I've worked with a handful of small, wanna-be rev-share teams over the past several months.
The pattern goes like this : lots of initial verbal enthusiasm. Lots of over-confidence/ignorance. People who won't say, "I don't know," or "I'll figure it out." Minimal technical knowledge from both artist and programmers, and I don't think I have seen anybody make an effort to learn new skills necessary to complete a project. People join in, boast about their skills/selves, and produce nothing. They dip out after a few weeks.
I can't help myself but to get involved and try and really get things rolling, but I'm beginning to think this is a waste of time. I just can't figure out why so many people want to join in on projects, and then do next to nothing.
Are they nervous about delivering poor work? Do they shrink away when they realize making a game requires more than a minimal part time effort? Do they vastly over-estimate their own skill and think they'll just sit back until 90% of the game is made and then they will contribute?
It's hard to know when you are only dealing with people remotely. Does anybody know of some indie collaboration venues with a basic degree of professionalism? I don't want to resign to working alone. I like working on game projects because I have to go way beyond just modeling and texturing. I like learning things I wouldn't ever guess I needed to learn if I was just working on portfolio pieces -- but maybe I'm wasting time that could be spent getting a portfolio built and then getting into a real job where at least a boss and money can keep people focused.
The pattern goes like this : lots of initial verbal enthusiasm. Lots of over-confidence/ignorance. People who won't say, "I don't know," or "I'll figure it out." Minimal technical knowledge from both artist and programmers, and I don't think I have seen anybody make an effort to learn new skills necessary to complete a project. People join in, boast about their skills/selves, and produce nothing. They dip out after a few weeks.
I can't help myself but to get involved and try and really get things rolling, but I'm beginning to think this is a waste of time. I just can't figure out why so many people want to join in on projects, and then do next to nothing.
Are they nervous about delivering poor work? Do they shrink away when they realize making a game requires more than a minimal part time effort? Do they vastly over-estimate their own skill and think they'll just sit back until 90% of the game is made and then they will contribute?
It's hard to know when you are only dealing with people remotely. Does anybody know of some indie collaboration venues with a basic degree of professionalism? I don't want to resign to working alone. I like working on game projects because I have to go way beyond just modeling and texturing. I like learning things I wouldn't ever guess I needed to learn if I was just working on portfolio pieces -- but maybe I'm wasting time that could be spent getting a portfolio built and then getting into a real job where at least a boss and money can keep people focused.
Replies
money.
I would focus on getting your skillset to a level where you can get 5-10 years actual production experience working in a studio and learning the ins and outs of the industry before attempting something like this. then you will also have a network to tap into.
I avoid mod/work for free projects like the plague. 99% of the time it seems its people with no industry experience giving themselves titiles like art lead, art director, creative director etc. And then there is the worst, the "ideas guys" who cant bring anything to the table but random semi coherent ideas for games they think will make millions, without ever having worked in a production environment in a real studio. The most hilarious is when you have a 17 year old "studio head" trying to get you to sign an NDA so you don't steal their "amazing ideas".
a bit of a rant, but I think you would be better served just working on your skills and getting some actual experience. Ideas are worthless without proper execution. or just find a way to make a bunch of money and then invest/pay people to execute for you, thats what 99% of rich people do.
While I personally spend a lot of my time doing management tasks, I am constantly reading/learning about new things so that when I need to do those things (and I know I will because it has been identified as necessary and a time frame determined for when to do it) or someone else needs to and they do not have that knowledge, I can respond and get it done. I think self-titling is a difficult thing to address. I know there are likely a great many professionals that potentially look-down upon self-titling; by the same token though, to accurately represent your experience, you must title correctly.
In my opinion, the biggest detractor from rev-share projects tends to be "let's be friends" attitudes. I understand it's rev-share and the likelihood of materially paying off (personally) is probably slim, but I don't have time and neither do you to be "buddy-buddy" if your goal is to enter this industry. Time is limited, so plan your time accordingly (this is covered in the vetting, laying out expectations and establishing roles in the recruitment step). So can we just crack on? I don't mean this to say be an a**hole though; don't be. You can be nice and commanding at the same time.
The single biggest indicator to me that a team is serious though, is if there is a legal entity for team registered in a jurisdiction that I can look it up on. That tells me the project owner has skin in the game (money) and is motivated to see the project to completion. Secondly, a contract that does not look like it was taken off the internet, written improperly, contains typos, bad grammar, etc. . . or most likely would be unenforceable. Again, this tells me the project owner has likely spent some money to have proper documents drawn up by a legal practitioner and demonstrates professionalism.
That is a good point about not being "buddy-buddy", and yet it really only works if people on the team get that. Sometimes people will submit some work, and it will be like a really rough first pass at a thing, and they just say "I'm finished." So I tactfully mention that it's good for initial blockout, but will need refinement (and thus is far from "finished"), testing, etc, and I am looked at like a high-and-mighty asshole.
Yeah, I guess the obvious thing to do is just work hard until I can get in with the professionals. It's just a shame because there is so much knowledge and tools out there -- so many awesome games could be made if people could just buckle down and do the work. And building a game is way more exciting to me than just making some model to look pretty on artstation and serves no other purpose.
On the point of appearing to be a high-and-might, it could be something as simple as the way in which you are phrasing the critique. Sometimes adopting an alternative language use is necessary to avoid unintentional conflict.
I had some experience leading people when I was in the army, but soldiers and wanna-be game-devs seem like pretty different breeds to me. Also, its hard to really get to know people remotely.
I'm actually not the manager/leader of the project I'm currently working on at all -- but the owner has a lot of passion and there is a few talented people involved and the project is something I think could really be a nice game, so in absence of good direction I've kind of taken over and managed to at least get people communicating a bit more and getting somewhat organized. It's only been a month of effort I've put into this one, but I've gotten pretty involved with it and so I'm perhaps more reluctant than I should be to just jump ship and go do my own thing.
In my opinion there are a couple of things that have to be there - if they are missing, I am betting on the project being a failure:
1. KISS - You don't have money for a team? Well then don't plan for something big and complex.
2. Keep the team small - Picking the right people, those that can motivate themselves, those who add whats needed for the project,... this is key. It is key for any corporation, so how the heck shouldn't it apply to a financially struggling one? Make sure any addition is really needed and that the person fits. The smaller the team the less friction within it. Make sure that those added to the team are also capable of solving a real issue for the project. Also make sure they have their own reasons to see it finished.
3. Its a business - yeah, you might want to do it for fun, but if you can't finish the project quickly, people will need money from somewhere. If you want to sell the stuff, you probably will need licenses. So do the calculations early. Be realistic and serious about finding out what you need to have or do to release the project. I guess in the end anything that applies to starting a company also applies to those small rev-share teams for the simple reason that if people don't have trust into it getting finished, they won't stick with it and leave.
4. Experience - in every field that you need to finish it. Most of the times people with experience face new problems on projects. Nothing runs smooth. So you better get the basics right and have enough knowledge to spare to get your specific probelms dealt with too.
5. No 'idea guy' - if you are not capable of carrying your own weight, your brilliant ideas have no room. If it is really that good, you might sell it to someone, but on small teams, you need to do more than just having the 'vision' - far more.
6. Plan for small success - Your milestones should give them team a feeling of accomplishment. Those should come as fast as possible and as often as possible. Rather several small steps than one big one that you have to wait for. It can become the team's life pulse and keep people motivated as they constantly see progress being made (either motivating or shaming them into working harder
At the end of the day, as an starting artist I wouldn't bother putting work in any of those. Working on your portfolio and your weaknesses is more important than dealing with constraints from a badly managed amateur project. If you want to work in a team, find an animator, character artist and enviorment artist and put up a small scene, if you can find a common theme that will fit all of your portfolios. Or create some minor contributions for small projects, but don't bother with anything that takes up to a whole year or even more - most of the times the teams won't have the stamina to get to the end.