Outsource/freelance artists should not be left behind
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Admin edit: OP is closing their Polycount account, so their authorship has been removed at their request, but we feel this topic is worth keeping.
I'm sure some of you have experienced this or seen this, but it's absolutely bullcrap that there are studios that treat outsource/freelance artists this way. Specifically:
- Outsourced artists are not given permission to post their art publicly until months, years after the main studio has allowed their in house artists to post their art.
- Artists are not listed in the credits to the game (personally me this can be offset if they're allowed to post the art on launch or soon after, but still a pretty dick move.)
- Worst of all to leave out the outsource artist's names in the credits then say they can never show off the assets they've worked on. Essentially leaving months to even years in a gap in their portfolio.
Doing the first and second points can hinder an artist's perceived skills when/if they're looking for work. Of course you should work on personal art to put on your portfolio, but due to a variety of reasons some people might not be able to do that. I know some artists who are screwed if they were to be laid off from their jobs, and or could not get anymore freelance work. So they're essentially stuck with portfolios that are years old and recruiters, hiring managers, leads, etc generally do not care about that.
Should on-site artists start to speak up more on this and advocate to the higher ups that outsource/freelance artists are not "lesser" employees and should be allowed to show off their art at the same time full time employees can?
Replies
Though you are correct when i was fiddling around with the freelance gigs i was told this as well by the owner or one of the AD(was a while back).
Just to add more then you get people saying your old stuff you should get rid off, since you know its old and doesn't show the current level you are at, as much as i agree with this if its all you have what do you do? .. have an empty folio ?
As an internal artist its not unusual for the studio to have standards and rules about how you present work on your portfolio and for that work to go through a review before it's made public.
I'd imagine a studio that does this would rather not go through the process with outsourcers so they want to wait til all the hype has died down before allowing unreviewed portfolio work out in the wild.
For example, if an artist presented an in engine shot of a bunch of assets arranged in the shape of a giant dick on their artstation and it were picked up by RPS or another big media outlet on launch day the studio would look pretty bad. If it happened 6 months down the line nobody would give a shit because Ubisoft would have had another scandal and taken all the headline space.
You don't really have a lot of choice anyway, it's not your work and you signed whatever contract you were presented with.
There are enough projects where outsource studios have to fight to actually even be able to say that they worked on them, not to mention the individuals not being allowed to say they worked on projects even after they've been released and with no chance of ever showing what work you've done on the project although they are just regular assets.
Actually there is a lot of benefit in having a fair relationship with your outsourcing studio and freelancers, so its extremely shortsighted to not treat them as closely as possible to what you treat your own employees.
Back when I worked at the outsourcing studio I would not have done overtime for our client as he made it clear with his actions we are not part of the team. Things like making it hard for us to get into the credits, completely denying us to use work for portfolio pieces once the project is released and all the good stuff.
You can avoid this by working on your relationship with the freelancer and by having an approval pipeline setup that is already part of the contract. Basically after release you just have them send you what they would like to publish as portfolio pieces and you can approve or not when it fits the guidelines.
I've seen major studios doing it, naturally its a bit of additional work, but again, its also an investment into your partnerships. Also if there is an approval pipeline and they know that they can get their stuff out it reduces the chance of them doing it behind your back. You can even have some standardized presentation and text in those cases.
For me at the end of the day there is no real justification to deny credit where credit is due and we see that many have no problems putting the info out there.
Cultivating relationships doesn't always show in balance sheets, but you will notice it in your day to day work. Treating partners and customers with respect is in my opinion always worth the effort.
@Ruz I was not talking about putting people in the credits, this should be done even if most of your work got cancelled and didn't end up in the game. I just mentioned one of the reasons why some big companies decide to not allow freelancers to post their stuff or why it sometimes takes years. Im not saying that its a good thing and having a approval pipeline like Biomag mentioned would be the ideal solution IMO.
That part where you mentioned leaving a gap on your portfolio, I had that problem. It is a tough feeling to deal with. I guess on one side, you're employed, or you work with a client as a freelancer, but on the other side, it'll stay confidential and you have to showcase your own work on your own time. This is hard for those starting out, depending on the artist. For the ones that already have tons of work and titles under their belt, it's a different feeling.
Oh and a final note, keep in mind that just because you might work in the EU you might not have a contract that falls under EU law. Employees again are protected to some degree as there are provisions to ensure that EU legal standards are not circumvented this way, but its 100% legal between business partners to both select which law their contract uses AND what court has to do the trail. So if you are a freelancer working for a company from the US or any other country outside the EU you will most probably have a court stated in your contract that isn't in the EU and very likely a law will be applicable that isn't from an EU member state.