Indie/Unpaid/Royalty Jobs with the intention of making money?
polycounter lvl 10
I've seen these crop up and generally all seem to be based on not paying you a wage but still out to create a game and sell it for profit. Now some people like to get into these for various reasons, but how could you afford to?
By this I mean, if it's a game that's going to make money, you'd need to buy the correct licences for your software right? For instance I have a student license for 3ds Max, but I'd need to have a few £k lying round just to get into a job that is unpaid? Does everyone just ignore the licenses, or do you splash out and buy them as soon as you can? I don't see myself getting into one like this, but it still confuses me.
By this I mean, if it's a game that's going to make money, you'd need to buy the correct licences for your software right? For instance I have a student license for 3ds Max, but I'd need to have a few £k lying round just to get into a job that is unpaid? Does everyone just ignore the licenses, or do you splash out and buy them as soon as you can? I don't see myself getting into one like this, but it still confuses me.
Replies
I also have a full time job and some contract jobs, so I don't need the income from it to survive. I already held the licenses to the programs I'm using, as well.
So, for me, it's really just helping out some friends. If it makes money in the end, awesome.
I know a lot of people, when starting out, don't worry about licensing their photoshops and 3d maxes. These sorts of jobs are either done because they have a huge amount of passion for the project, or they want to learn how to work in a structured, team environment. Mods and dream-projects are good for ramping up for the industry.
Having said all that, you shouldn't work for nothing. At the very least, get some contracts stating exactly how you will be compensated on release.
http://www.povonline.com/cols/COL209.htm
http://www.povonline.com/cols/COL210.htm
http://www.povonline.com/cols/COL224.htm
They aren't legitimate jobs. Nobody except the naive takes these up expecting any sort of money.
The question to ask them, and ask yourself, is 'if their idea is so good, why do not they not have enough faith in it to take a risk on paying you up front?'
If they're not paying you up front, they're deferring the risk of the project to you, and if they're not taking any of the risk on themselves, they have no impetus to actually follow through and deliver.
It's great to work on hobby projects with friends. It's even great to hope to one day sell a labor of love made with friends.
Anyone who calls these jobs is out to scam you, though.
If an indie is asking for Max/Maya/XSI stuff then chances are they've got a some money to pay an artist upfront. If that's not the case then they themselves probably aren't using legit software which is a bad sign, and you should avoid working with them IMHO.
That said, from what I can tell, most legit indie developers (the poor variety anyway) will be asking for Blender files or files that Blender can export for 3D related work. If you can't stand working with Blender there are still quite a few cheaper alternatives to what Autodesk has to offer, though that's a whole other discussion...
One key to success as an indie developer is frugality, don't buy software if you don't have to.
If you're thinking of working with an indie developer for royalties or potential payment in the future then be sure that you can at least make most of, if not all of the creative decisions regarding your work. So that it's more of a collaboration rather than a "you make X the exactly how I want it" kind of thing which is only reasonable considering you're going the be the expert on the art anyway.
My advice is to do indie development for fun, rather than as a way to put bread on the table. You'd be better off working real freelance jobs if you need money to pay the bills.
I hope that helps or at least made sense. I'm just rambling before sleep...
Blender instead of Max. Gimp instead of Photoshop.
You'll be surprised at how far those programs will take you. It might not be as familiar, but you can do pretty much all of the same things.
Supplement those with a LOT of free tools, like xNormal, Meshlab, Roadkill, nDo, etc.
It cracks me up when I see those checks. I don't think I've actually cashed any of them.
- BoBo
Keep your eyes peeled for the usage rights though. That's a biggie.
Pshhh. I'll cash them for ya.
Sup Bobo.
If you aren't planning on cashing them, I'll cash them for you.:)
B
EDIT: Doh! I got beat to the punch:(
Don't forget about Blender Game Engine, Unity, and Ogre3D, etc. You can get an entire game studio suite together for $0. What you really have to spend money on is hardware and wetware.
Blender + The GIMP + Unity + programming know-how + shit-tons of time and effort = Game
or...
FlexSDK + FlashDevelop + Flixel + shit-tons of time and effort = Game
or as is currently the case with me...
OpenTK + MonoDevelop + The GIMP + shit-tons of time and effort = Game
These days there are plenty of low-cost options for developing games. Just keep in mind that any and all of them seem to involve a lot of time, and a lot of effort. The barrier to entry is lower than it ever has been. But there's still a hefty barrier.
Not to derail the topic or turn it into a VS. war but I'm curious why are you using MonoDevelop over Visual C# 2010 Express Edition?
I'm still a noob when it comes to coding and the tools involved, but having used VS C# 2010 Express Edition for a little while, it seems pretty awesome.
Is there something to watch out for in it's EULA? Or is it not as good at making cross platform games/apps? Or is there something else that will come back to bite me if I continue on with it?
Silo, Blender, xNormal, Meshlab, nDO, Scluptris. and i already had older PS from web work i previously done.
even if i had the cash for 3ds i prolly would have just invested in zbrush and silo at 150 for the pro version plus the 650 for zbrush isn't that bad compared to 1 3ds max license. and it feels more versatile to me since Silo + Blender work well, i use Silo for most of my modeling and blender is used when i need a modifier here and there that silo doesn't have and blender is used for exporting to my game engine and renders.
now i still had to spend some money but to get things like silo and a few hardware upgrades so i can make art for dx11 games still cost less than 3ds. so it is very possible.
dosnt really matter what ide as long as it all compiles in the end personally for code i use a command line compiler and gvim for coding but that is just preference which is why so choose VC# express and some mono dev.
Autodesk do pretty favorable rates for those who are migrating from academic licenses onto commercial licenses. My first full Maya license cost about £400, but that was only because I had previously had an academic license (It was also nearly a decade ago).
My current license set are studio licenses from one of the companies I freelance for, they have given me permission to use them for other freelance work as well which is nice. You should try and volunteer for a local studio, they may help to kit you out.
Otherwise I think that the general consensus is to go Freeware for small projects.
In my experience, if freelance commercial projects do not ask you about your licensing process, then steer well clear.
My advice would be to never ignore licensing, when I was a student our accommodation was swamped by a fraud investigation, and they went around checking everyones computers for licenses. 2 guys on my floor got fined £10,000 per illegal license and were given a suspended sentence just for having illegal copies of Photoshop and Maya.
Oh, I don't mind the question at all. It is a valid point, and I applaud Microsoft for having released the "Express" line of their programming suite. The cost of making games can be quite steep without having to pay for the basic software to compile programs.
I use MonoDevelop because the project I'm working on is specifically targeted at Mono. MonoDevelop is one of the few IDEs that can run on all three major operating systems. I can even use it to target the iOS. I don't want to be swapping back and forth between IDEs whenever I test my software on my Mac or Linux box.
Wetware = brains
So, yes.
Thanks for the answers
I'm still in the bouncing between languages phase. Once I settle down to actually make something maybe I'll have messed around with enough IDEs to make a more informed decision on which one to use.
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Dayung that's quite the jump. Best of luck to you in your indie endeavors
Bad Ass! Best of luck!
B