Non Funded Indie Developer. What do I ask?
polycounter lvl 18
I met someone at PAX who is part of a local team who are working a non funded indie game development studio. Anyhow the guy liked my zbrush work (yea, yea I know the bar is lowered when its non paying so I know my portfolio doesnt have enough in it to be up to hireable yet).
They claim to be almost finished with their first project and are ramping up for their second with a custom dx9 engine they built themselves. They want to self publish online, and plan to expo the game at this year indie game development conferance.
They seem legit. The questions I have asked I actually was surprised with the mature responses I got. They aren't seemingly a bunch of inmature people with a vision without a plan. They have the company already established as a limited liability, and have been working on the first game for about a year and a half.
Im thinking of going over to their weekly meetings to meet their team and sign a NDA so I can judge the marketability of this first project (they are wanting me for the second one which will be more character based). What type of questions should I ask? I mean I know there are soo many ways to be taken for a ride and waste my time on their assests versus working on my own portfolio ideas. What are the call signs I should look for if they might have a chance of succeeding or doomed to failure?
They claim to be almost finished with their first project and are ramping up for their second with a custom dx9 engine they built themselves. They want to self publish online, and plan to expo the game at this year indie game development conferance.
They seem legit. The questions I have asked I actually was surprised with the mature responses I got. They aren't seemingly a bunch of inmature people with a vision without a plan. They have the company already established as a limited liability, and have been working on the first game for about a year and a half.
Im thinking of going over to their weekly meetings to meet their team and sign a NDA so I can judge the marketability of this first project (they are wanting me for the second one which will be more character based). What type of questions should I ask? I mean I know there are soo many ways to be taken for a ride and waste my time on their assests versus working on my own portfolio ideas. What are the call signs I should look for if they might have a chance of succeeding or doomed to failure?
Replies
similarly - they already had their first project out (well, i saw some CDs and apparently a few people bought it online), and were working on their second, also with a propietary engine. The engine was shocking, cobbled together bits of whatever tech was in the latest game (hey! That's cool, put that in), meaning they were always a full year behind every one else.
They too had big plans for exposure, in fact lots and lots of "plans" for this and for that ... but absolutely no clue how to pull it off.
frankly, it was a bloody joke. At least one other polycount member can attest to this, cos he was my replacement after i ran - I put my 12 months in cos that was the lease on my flat, but that was it for me. The dust was incredible.
Unfortunately, purely from my own experiences, the call signs for failure is pretty much what you've already described i'm sorry to say.
- edit - actually, no, that read entirely wrong, sorry. There's always a potential for these things to succeed, there's always a potential for them to fuck up massively. Ignore that last statement. I'd clarify what i *meant to say but i'm deep in crunch and my head has broken. Hey ho
If you would buy the game for $20 then join, if you would play it if it was free then consider joining and if you wouldnt even play it for free then just walk away.
Try to find out what the next game is supposed to be like and try to figure out how big step upwards they want to take it, if the step is too big they will propably fail.
And just remember that in indie world simple is better, because it is actually possible to finish it.
simple is deffinatly better when it comes to indie.
There was a post over on CG-Talk about working for free and one of the quotes that sticks out in my mind was "Sure I'll work for free if you are willing to do 6mo of work for free for me first, once I get 6mo work out of you I'll start". That is mostly directed at people who can pay and are expecting good art to be for free.
The one time I worked for near free (that wasn't a mod) was when I worked on a math game for kids, I say near free because even tho the guy didn't have a publisher or a source of cash he still managed to pay me per model. I actually believed in the project and said I would do it for free but he rejected the idea and insisted on paying me. It was great and most places I interviewed with wanted to talk about that game first and it seemed to make a big differance that I was paid even if it was peanuts. Even tho I had cut my teeth on mods and gotten a taste for how the the industry works years prior to working that "contract".
I always judged mods and the math project the same, based on the quality and viablity of thier end product. Can they get the job done with what they have? Is the project worth the time invested. Will this get me some experice and can I put this on a resume and not look like a schome?
Beware of working for free. Eventually, you will start giving them work equal to what they are paying.
Better to work for next to nothing with promised value in the future (with a contract to back it up). I still mentally kick myself for telling Jesper Myrfors of WotC that I couldn't do paintings for $50 each back in the day (yep, I turned down work on the alpha set of magic cards because I had to have immediate money to pay bills).
I think that on a small team is that it is even more important that you have some hot shit talent on the team than at a big company. In a project with only 1 modeler or 1 programmer or 1 animator, if any one of those people suck at what they do the whole game is probably going to suck.
So like everyone else I think you should play the game. If it's doing cool new stuff and is fun, then by all means get on board. It is a great time now to be a game developer, and there is a ton of money to be made.
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In a lot of ways I think game development is like a band. Although some music requires a full orchesta, a lot of really great music can be made with just 3 or 4 people. Anything less than that and you are seriously limiting what is going to be produced. Great artsists who can program or great programmers who can produce art are very rare, but I have never in my life even heard of a person who is great at both.
They claim to be almost finished with their first project and are ramping up for their second with a custom dx9 engine they built themselves.
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Unless the tech side knows their shit inside and out I'd be very nervous about an inhouse engine. Games are getting complex enough that it's making more and more sense to build from middleware that suits your needs than to deal with the "not invented here" syndrome.
Like other people said, take some time to sit down and play with what they have, if it's solid take them into consideration otherwise just pass on it.
First, I agree with the "is it fun enough to buy" test. Definately, no one should work on anything they don't beleive in, free or not.
Also, I dont think salary has any bearing on the quality of work a person should produce... difficulty or details, perhaps, but always put your best foot forward, and these people you are considering working for, should do the same and expect as much from you.
how realistic are these people and what do they consider almost done? They might think that means the engine is done.. we just need the art. A lot of people not having worked on a retail game have a weak or unestablished concept of completeness.
As far as using their own engine, thats fine as long as they actually developed an engine, not taped one together.
Not every game needs UE3, or even Unreal 2.x for that matter, Its most important that the engine works for the game, so what if you don't have the latest features, the game may not require them.
Online distribution is completely feasable for an indie studio. Getting your game development funded, however is not.
The general idea is to make the game under your own steam, then sell it and repeat the profits.