[Black_Knyght]

Hello,

My name is Mark Sedwick. I'm a recent member of Dream.In.Code and an occasional visitor here.

I am the Art Director of a development group, which is currently developing a 4X science fiction computer game. We are in need of a programmer who is capable of or familiar with Game Programming. If interested, I'd very much like to have a discussion with you regarding the possibility of enlisting you to assist as a member of our development group.

I want to let you know, previous to your deciding whether to respond, that our group is not financially backed at this time, but we have a plan in place to connect ourselves with a publishing group prior to the completion of the game. This gives us a freedom to develop the game without time constraints, but also means we are not able to pay any of the members of the development group prior to the game's release. At that time, we are uncertain how much money we might earn. The members so far are working on this game out of dedication and a passion for the project. We intend to see that all involved are financially rewarded for their efforts. In the meantime, we can promise that with the game's release, all the members will be listed as the development group with equal credit for each contribution.

If you are interested, please contact me by email or yahoo messenger (the_black_knyght@yahoo.com). I would love to give you more details about what we are looking for and hope that you will give my proposal full consideration.

Best regards,

Mark Sedwick

[meghrajsinghbeniwal]

yes dear i am interested in making games with some enthuastic and confident peoples, till now i have no any such experience but i have more than basic knowledge of how to make games using c and c++ language.

i will really glad to join your group if you like too,
please email me at imcool.meghrajsingh@rediff.com for your group plans and what kind of help i can give you.

[johnmatthais]

I'd help out, myself, but all I am is a designer, currently. I'm no use with programming, as of yet, though I am working on it, due to the exact reason illustrated here: good programmers, even on sites dedicated to programming, are hard to find.

[dsherohman]

johnmatthais, on 20 April 2010 - 03:38 AM, said:

I'd help out, myself, but all I am is a designer, currently. I'm no use with programming, as of yet, though I am working on it, due to the exact reason illustrated here: good programmers, even on sites dedicated to programming, are hard to find.

I am, by most accounts, a good programmer, as well as an avid gamer with a particular love of 4X games. I was quite interested in this, right up until I got to the part about "until this is finished, and unless we hit the (optimistically) 2-3% chance of producing a commercially successful game, you won't see a penny for your efforts".

Good programmers may or may not be hard to find in general. Good programmers who are willing to spend their time working on someone else's half-baked project for free, rather than doing paid client work or pursuing their own half-baked projects, are extremely hard to find.

[Black_Knyght]

dsherohman, on 20 April 2010 - 01:12 AM, said:

johnmatthais, on 20 April 2010 - 03:38 AM, said:

I'd help out, myself, but all I am is a designer, currently. I'm no use with programming, as of yet, though I am working on it, due to the exact reason illustrated here: good programmers, even on sites dedicated to programming, are hard to find.

I am, by most accounts, a good programmer, as well as an avid gamer with a particular love of 4X games. I was quite interested in this, right up until I got to the part about "until this is finished, and unless we hit the (optimistically) 2-3% chance of producing a commercially successful game, you won't see a penny for your efforts".

Good programmers may or may not be hard to find in general. Good programmers who are willing to spend their time working on someone else's half-baked project for free, rather than doing paid client work or pursuing their own half-baked projects, are extremely hard to find.

First and foremost - ouch!

And just to clarify - this project isn't quite as "half-baked" as it was implied. We actually are developing this 4X game to fit the discussed needs of a Game production and distribution company's requirements. They simply want a working prototype before they fully contract us.

[Lemur]

Just a tip: Don't down-rep people just because you can't take criticism...

Rather hard to get anyones attention unless you have at least a storyline or some type of graphics to catch attention,otherwise there's no initiative which is why some members view this as half baked. To clarify, dsherohman has a point and you need to take it at level, I don't care what level you think you're at...

Really if you want to see anything solid you NEED to post a plot at the very least. Game design takes a massive amount of time and I pity any fool that would haphazardly take up a job without knowing the full details. If you're thinking about saying details are offered via email we have a policy here, content is to be posted on the forums, not PM or IM.

To clarify the reputation system before you get the wrong idea: Negative reputation is not to be given based on a simple matter of differing opinion, rather to a post or reply that has absolutely no value or relevance to the current conversation, such as a member replying with only the word lol or some such other nonsense. If you have an issue with peoples opinions I would heavily consider a career change because if you thought that was harsh people in the real world will eat you alive with no remorse.

I'm not trying to be a jerk, I'm just saying you're in for a rude awakening unless you realize some of this.

[johnmatthais]

Listen to dsherohman and Lemur They've got valid points.

In all honesty, in terms of recruiting people, you really don't have a good grip on what goes into it and what people look for when being recruited for a job.

First and foremost, like we tell everyone: No one's going to go into a job like this with a promise of pay "when/if it gets finished." There have been way too many failed attempts at games, even by reputable people (the biggest of recent times is Duke Nukem Forever, headed by the legendary George Broussard) to even consider that being a good idea of repayment. This is a contract job, essentially. You either have them sign something that legally entails you paying them, or you pay them up front. It's that simple. Most others are going to want to be rewarded for their time and effort.

I want you to realize one big thing here that you're missing: It takes teams of 50-100 people several years to make modern video games, and you are asking a single programmer to take on one of the most dynamic and complex genres out there on his own for the sake of your "dedicated team." Not only is this an RTS, it's a 4X RTS, which is arguably even more complex than RPGs and/or roguelikes. No programmer is going to take that on alone without a hefty sum up front. It would take close to a decade to make it fully featured and market-ready.

[ghillieLEAD]

Everyone hang on a minute here! It is plain and simple, if you would like to be a part of Black_Knyght's team, contact him. If you would not like to be part of Black_Knyght's "half-baked" (ouch indeed) project, leave the thread. No need to add your two cents on how Black_Knyght should do this or how Black_Knyght should do that.

[Lemur]

ghillieLEAD, on 20 April 2010 - 09:08 PM, said:

Everyone hang on a minute here! It is plain and simple, if you would like to be a part of Black_Knyght's team, contact him. If you would not like to be part of Black_Knyght's "half-baked" (ouch indeed) project, leave the thread. No need to add your two cents on how Black_Knyght should do this or how Black_Knyght should do that.

We're telling him how to get a team in the first place. There's plenty of need to, this is a public forum is it not? Critique is a VITAL part of any project and to ignore it would be fatal.

[Black_Knyght]

Okay - this is not at all what I'd hoped for, or expected, when I offered to post here. And after discussing this with our previous programmer I have been informed this forum was probably the wrong one to include in the list of forums we posted our project offer in.

Lemur, on 20 April 2010 - 06:01 PM, said:

Just a tip: Don't down-rep people just because you can't take criticism...

That WASN'T the case at all, as I've already explained previously.

Quote

Rather hard to get anyones attention unless you have at least a storyline or some type of graphics to catch attention,otherwise there's no initiative which is why some members view this as half baked. To clarify, dsherohman has a point and you need to take it at level, I don't care what level you think you're at...

After my experiences here I have to agree this was addressed completely wrong. We believed that based on the straightforward "job ad" we'd posted that if someone wanted to know more they'd simply have to drop us an email. If they weren't, they'd ignore this.

Turns out, that wasn't the case.

Quote

Really if you want to see anything solid you NEED to post a plot at the very least. Game design takes a massive amount of time and I pity any fool that would haphazardly take up a job without knowing the full details. If you're thinking about saying details are offered via email we have a policy here, content is to be posted on the forums, not PM or IM.

Regrettably what was posted here was written by me, though I did agree to post it because I thought it sounded pretty clear. I readily admit I missed the policies involved in posting this, though at this point I doubt that would've changed much. The decisions of the development team, based on the recommendations of the Game company involved, were to discuss the details on an individual basis rather than publicly.

Quote

I'm not trying to be a jerk, I'm just saying you're in for a rude awakening unless you realize some of this.

I appreciate that, and was indeed !!! This was the only forum I'd run across that had this kind of reputation system, and I will admit I was surprised by just how sensitive a subject it was, even AFTER I'd explained the nature of my actions and apologized for the misunderstanding. Apparently the mistake was the more important event.

johnmatthais, on 20 April 2010 - 06:49 PM, said:

In all honesty, in terms of recruiting people, you really don't have a good grip on what goes into it and what people look for when being recruited for a job.

Ironically, my attempting to recruit a replacement programmer in THIS forum actually turned out to be the ONLY speed bump encountered. I feel foolish now, in that I offered to post this here to help alleviate the guilt our previous programmer felt in having to leave the project. I honestly thought it'd be a simple matter of presenting something at face value and having it seen as such. Turns out I was wrong here too.

Quote

First and foremost, like we tell everyone: No one's going to go into a job like this with a promise of pay "when/if it gets finished." There have been way too many failed attempts at games, even by reputable people (the biggest of recent times is Duke Nukem Forever, headed by the legendary George Broussard) to even consider that being a good idea of repayment. This is a contract job, essentially. You either have them sign something that legally entails you paying them, or you pay them up front. It's that simple. Most others are going to want to be rewarded for their time and effort.

As a professional artist I agree with you and understand this, and the contract covered by our LLC did indeed cover this aspect had we been approached by an interested programmer.

Quote

I want you to realize one big thing here that you're missing: It takes teams of 50-100 people several years to make modern video games, and you are asking a single programmer to take on one of the most dynamic and complex genres out there on his own for the sake of your "dedicated team." Not only is this an RTS, it's a 4X RTS, which is arguably even more complex than RPGs and/or roguelikes. No programmer is going to take that on alone without a hefty sum up front. It would take close to a decade to make it fully featured and market-ready.

We do indeed realize much more than you may think, though you seemed to have leapt to some unwritten and inaccurate conclusions about the exact nature of the project. No mention was ever made of this being an RTS, or of the specific deadlines and resources involved.

ghillieLEAD, on 20 April 2010 - 07:08 PM, said:

Everyone hang on a minute here! It is plain and simple, if you would like to be a part of Black_Knyght's team, contact him. If you would not like to be part of Black_Knyght's "half-baked" (ouch indeed) project, leave the thread. No need to add your two cents on how Black_Knyght should do this or how Black_Knyght should do that.

Thank you, and I appreciate your efforts. That was all anyone had hoped for or expected when the decision was made to post this offer on various programmer forums. Interestingly the controversy stirred up by this seems to have been limited to this forum.

Lemur, on 20 April 2010 - 08:00 PM, said:

We're telling him how to get a team in the first place. There's plenty of need to, this is a public forum is it not? Critique is a VITAL part of any project and to ignore it would be fatal.

An established and experienced team of professionals is already in place, and had this project been put up for critique or opinion it would've been met with open arms and willing smiles. This was simply an offer extended to anyone who might be interested in some part-time programming that would result in financial gain.


In finality I'm given the job of saying that due to the nature of the controversy stirred up in this particular forum it's been decided to remove this offer here and follow up the responses received elsewhere.

I apologize for the inconvenience.

[johnmatthais]

Aye, and now you think you're all professional by withdrawing the offer, I see...have fun with whatever second rate coder you end up with!

I'd also like to state my disagreement with your statement about not saying anything about it being an RTS. 4X games, by definition are massive strategy games. They are strategy games following a simple 4 part guideline: explore expand, exploit, exterminate. I have never seen a 4X game that isn't an strategy game, and by not realizing that perhaps I knew what I was talking about, you've shown a certain naivety in your personality. Not that you hadn't at some other point, but it was most clear to me then. I may have generalized a bit with the term "RTS", but I'm sure my point was clear.

I'll say this once in hopes that you read it: We critique because we care.

EDIT: Missed this

Black_Knyght, on 20 April 2010 - 10:26 PM, said:

An established and experienced team of professionals is already in place, and had this project been put up for critique or opinion it would've been met with open arms and willing smiles. This was simply an offer extended to anyone who might be interested in some part-time programming that would result in financial gain.

The job posting wasn't at all professional, in my honest opinion. I'd also like to correct you by replacing would with might.

This post has been edited by johnmatthais: 21 April 2010 - 01:10 PM

[Lemur]

Seriously people, enough with abusing the rep system...

@johnmatthais, you are taking it a tad far. Though all of your information is correct in essence it lacks adequate suggestions.

@Black_Knyght, I have to agree that I find it extremely difficult to believe that you're project is as professional as you would like to have us believe. If it was you would have no issues giving a story or at least some reasonable content to get people interested.

I've yet to see a decent job that was email only with no content and just a promise of something good, it's called spec work and people that think spec work is ok belong in the deepest pits of hell.

It's not that this is a bad site, just that you posted a bad offer that needs some redux to actually get attention rather than being critiqued. It's part of life and part of the job and if you can't handle the level here then I pity you if a company actually hires you because it will be far far worse than you could ever imagine.

The world is a hard place, things aren't handed to you, everyone has an opinion, correct or not, that they will voice. People don't care what you say you are out there, they want content and something solid or you're out on the street. That's the way it is with freelance type jobs, it's always put up or shut up.

[johnmatthais]

I may have taken it a tad far, but really, his rebuttal at all is a tad questionable, and now he's acting like Steve Jobs when he attacked the DS and PSP, saying that the iPhone would be the ultimate handheld gaming device.

...okay, that was a bit far too, but you get the point. If he were really a professional artist, he wouldn't be so damn touchy. He kinda sounds like an artist on the last leg of his career, hoping that this project will bring in capital so he doesn't end up with a crap job working at a restaurant or supermarket because he doesn't have any degrees that will cover anything else.

...okay, that was a bit far too, but really, for a "professional," he isn't acting very professional by getting touchy.

EDIT: Nevermind, I decided it wasn't worth the effort to complain about.

This post has been edited by johnmatthais: 21 April 2010 - 09:13 PM

[dsherohman]

Black_Knyght, on 20 April 2010 - 02:49 PM, said:

dsherohman, on 20 April 2010 - 01:12 AM, said:

Good programmers may or may not be hard to find in general. Good programmers who are willing to spend their time working on someone else's half-baked project for free, rather than doing paid client work or pursuing their own half-baked projects, are extremely hard to find.

First and foremost - ouch!

Just to do a bit of clarifying myself, that wasn't intended as a slam on your project. I don't know enough about what your project is to assess whether it's a decent design, etc. It just didn't sound right to say "I'm not going to work on your project because I already have plenty of my own half-baked projects" without including the "half-baked" qualifier on both of them.


My main point still stands, though. Putting things into terms I know writers are familiar with (I'm not sure how widely the term is used in other artforms), you're basically asking someone to do a huge amount of work[1] on spec. It doesn't matter how fully-baked your project is or isn't, the reality of the market is that, unless you have a multi-million dollar ad budget to throw at it, even a AAA title with some of the world's best programmers and artists working on it for a couple years doesn't have more than a couple percent chance of turning a profit.

Black_Knyght, on 21 April 2010 - 06:26 AM, said:

Quote

First and foremost, like we tell everyone: No one's going to go into a job like this with a promise of pay "when/if it gets finished."... This is a contract job, essentially. You either have them sign something that legally entails you paying them, or you pay them up front. It's that simple. Most others are going to want to be rewarded for their time and effort.

the contract covered by our LLC did indeed cover this aspect had we been approached by an interested programmer.

OK, now I'm confused... Your initial post said "our group is not financially backed... we are not able to pay any of the members of the development group prior to the game's release... we are uncertain how much money we might earn. The members so far are working on this game out of dedication and a passion for the project" and didn't state any promises beyond "we can promise that with the game's release, all the members will be listed as the development group with equal credit for each contribution." Now you seem to be saying that you have a contract which will ensure that any programmer will be paid for their time and effort.

Which is it?

Black_Knyght, on 20 April 2010 - 11:31 PM, said:

No - programmers are not expected to program for no pay. Any programmer(s) involved will absolutely be paid once the product is developed!

Even if the project gets cancelled before completion? Even if it never generates a dime in revenue?

Most software projects fail and are never completed. Of those that are completed, most don't make money[2]. If you can't promise compensation if your project falls into the vast, vast majority that never make money, then there's no "absolutely will be paid". And if you can make that promise, then you should also be able to get venture funding or an advance from the publisher that you're dealing with now, allowing you to pay the people involved a reasonable salary during development.

Black_Knyght, on 20 April 2010 - 11:31 PM, said:

To simply state - this is an opportunity for an interested programmer to do some spare-time programming for a project that will have the benefit of financial recompense when it's completed and a no pressure deadline/timeline until it is.

Reality check the Nth: My experience, and that of everyone else I've ever talked to about such things, is that a project that will be done when it's done, that people work on as a spare-time project with "no pressure deadline/timeline" is a project that will never be completed. It is a dream. An aspiration. And nothing more.


[1] My current half-baked project is a browser-based space exploration/empire building game - somewhere between a space trader and a 4X. BBGs aren't nearly as demanding as a "real" desktop game, but I've still put over 100 hours into it and it's nowhere near complete. Even by an incredibly conservative estimate, a prototype of a commercial-quality 4X game is going to be 10 times that much work.

There aren't a lot of people out there who are able or willing to do the equivalent of six months of full-time work for no pay, even if they are absolutely guaranteed to be paid for that time after the project is complete - and your initial posting doesn't even hint at any such guarantee.

For point of reference, as a normal salaried position, six months of a professional programmer's time goes for between US$30-100k; good game programmers are likely to be towards the high end of that range. Add on a premium for getting the pay at the end rather than a regular paychecks along the way, plus an additional premium to cover the risk of not getting paid at all, and you're looking at a minimum of at least a quarter million, if not half a million, US dollars for a professional programmer to take on a project of that size under those terms. Can you promise that kind of payment when the prototype is complete?

[2] I've heard big-name VCs and angel investors admit to it - they expect at least 90% of the projects they fund to never return a penny on their investment. And that's on projects that have been reviewed and vetted by people who know what they're doing, not just random projects. The overall success rate is even lower.

[NeoTifa]

I don't know if this would help or not, but I posted my project in the Share Your Project forum and gave a few goals or points that I thought might catch someone's interest, and gave a link to the forums that we collaborate at. From what I understand, you just have general comments out there with little organization. Be blunt and to the point with your request, yet still have some catch phrases that will catch the eye. Pretty much what I did I just said "a game dev project for n00bs learning to program games for the experience and/or resume building. Strictly volunteer, as it's for the experience. blah blah blah" I can't remember what I said because it was a long time ago lol. Maybe leave out the long paragraph about the finances.