PORT ELIZABETH - 2D character artists needed to join game dev & multimedia startup (PERMANENT BASIS)
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Guys hi,
We are busy setting up a major game development studio in Port Elizabeth, and are looking for talented character artists (based in Port Elizabeth, or able to relocate at own expense) to join us on a permanent basis.
Our first major title (currently in production) uses 2D sprite-based graphics.
Specifically, there are hundreds of sci-fi and fantasy-themed characters and creatures that all need to be digitally hand-drawn, colored and animated, therefore we need people proficient in the creation of these types of assets (or as much of that pipeline as possible).
The expected development time for the project will be 2 - 3 years, so you will be able to work at a steady and reasonable pace. As a team we reject the notion of permanently crunching just to rush a sub-par product to market a few months earlier.
We will be using an awesome little tool called Spine to help speed up and simplify the animation process, so you won't need to spend all day drawing tedious keyframes. It's OK if you are not familiar with Spine, but it would be great if you were willing to learn it.
As a general rule, candidates with wider skill sets - especially those with additional 3D modelling / texturing / animation skills - will be given preference, as these skills will certainly be called upon later for things like cinematics and future games, which are already in the pipeline as we speak.
For now though, it is more important that you have fantastic drawing skills, with the ability to maintain a consistent style and tone across multiple creature designs, thus ensuring a coherent look and feel throughout the game.
The general art direction - as far as the creature / character design - is gritty, grungy, other-wordly, and often grotesque. Creatures will be alluring and repulsive in equal measure. This will stretch your imagination and creativity to the limit. The overall look and feel is a kind of stylized semi-realism; hence we are looking for fine artists rather than cartoonists at this time (although if you can do both, all the better).
The ability to create storyboards would also be hugely advantageous.
PLEASE NOTE:
This will not be a JOB.
You will become an EQUAL SHAREHOLDER in the company and will sit on the board of directors. If you have the aptitude for it, you may eventually have a team of artists working under your direction as we begin to grow.
Hence we are looking for people who are interested in becoming a serious long-term member of a fun and dynamic team that will be experiencing this adventure of a lifetime together.
If you are keen, please send us a link to your portfolio, and a detailed list of your specific art-related skill set, including all the relevant software applications you have a good working knowledge of.
Thanks, and we look forward to hearing from you!
The Dev Team
We are busy setting up a major game development studio in Port Elizabeth, and are looking for talented character artists (based in Port Elizabeth, or able to relocate at own expense) to join us on a permanent basis.
Our first major title (currently in production) uses 2D sprite-based graphics.
Specifically, there are hundreds of sci-fi and fantasy-themed characters and creatures that all need to be digitally hand-drawn, colored and animated, therefore we need people proficient in the creation of these types of assets (or as much of that pipeline as possible).
The expected development time for the project will be 2 - 3 years, so you will be able to work at a steady and reasonable pace. As a team we reject the notion of permanently crunching just to rush a sub-par product to market a few months earlier.
We will be using an awesome little tool called Spine to help speed up and simplify the animation process, so you won't need to spend all day drawing tedious keyframes. It's OK if you are not familiar with Spine, but it would be great if you were willing to learn it.
As a general rule, candidates with wider skill sets - especially those with additional 3D modelling / texturing / animation skills - will be given preference, as these skills will certainly be called upon later for things like cinematics and future games, which are already in the pipeline as we speak.
For now though, it is more important that you have fantastic drawing skills, with the ability to maintain a consistent style and tone across multiple creature designs, thus ensuring a coherent look and feel throughout the game.
The general art direction - as far as the creature / character design - is gritty, grungy, other-wordly, and often grotesque. Creatures will be alluring and repulsive in equal measure. This will stretch your imagination and creativity to the limit. The overall look and feel is a kind of stylized semi-realism; hence we are looking for fine artists rather than cartoonists at this time (although if you can do both, all the better).
The ability to create storyboards would also be hugely advantageous.
PLEASE NOTE:
This will not be a JOB.
You will become an EQUAL SHAREHOLDER in the company and will sit on the board of directors. If you have the aptitude for it, you may eventually have a team of artists working under your direction as we begin to grow.
Hence we are looking for people who are interested in becoming a serious long-term member of a fun and dynamic team that will be experiencing this adventure of a lifetime together.
If you are keen, please send us a link to your portfolio, and a detailed list of your specific art-related skill set, including all the relevant software applications you have a good working knowledge of.
Thanks, and we look forward to hearing from you!
The Dev Team
Thanked by 1CuCl3
Comments
What other projects have you guys worked on? I'd love to go check them out.
Hey man, thanks for the interest.
As mentioned we are a new startup and hence we have no previous work (as a collective) to showcase at this time.
However, we have been fortunate enough (considering this is PE) to have assembled an ace team of highly talented and experienced professionals from all the relevant fields (graphics, programming, sound etc.) who are passionate about the project and eager to get underway.
It is still early days, but all the ingredients are rapidly coming together now and we are preparing to formally register the company.
We are holding off on this until we've found the character artists we need (at least several) to round out the team. Other than that, on paper everything is almost ready to go.
The first game is already quite far along in conceptual development (2+ years worth), and some of the team members have already begun working unofficially on certain core modules. Everything we've produced as a team thus far though is still, necessarily, under wraps.
There will of course be monthly salaries, with profit-dependent bonuses on top of that.
Remuneration levels will be decided democratically by the group once all team members are present.
I can confirm though that everyone on the team will have the same salary, regardless of years of experience or other factors, since everyone is considered a vital piece of the puzzle and essential to the success of the team as a whole.
We consider income equality to be an essential element of team cohesion and long-term company success.
All initial funding is coming from outside investment.
Therefore, until the first game is complete and generating an income, we will need to keep salaries reasonable but not necessarily fantastic. They will certainly be enough to live on, and then some. But like I said, exact figures are open to discussion.
Thereafter, we will begin to increase salaries as profits allow.
Profits are expected to be substantial with the specific type of company we are creating, and the long-term plans we have for it.
This first game we are currently working on is also being specifically designed with mass appeal and maximum addictiveness in mind (sorry to sound so clinical about it, but I'm sure as game developers we are all well aware of the science behind this).
The team currently consists of 16 working professionals in their respective fields, ranging from graphic design to high-level back-end programming. The average age of the group is late 20s. Most have at least a decade of experience in their respective area of expertise, however we have also taken on a handful who are younger and somewhat inexperienced but who we believe have the potential to become some of the best in the industry if nurtured correctly.
We strongly believe in supporting young local talent. There is plenty of it in PE, but PE typically lacks the economic infrastructure to facilitate development in this area. Which is why the talent usually runs away to CT or JHB, and we would like to change that, eventually turning PE into a creative hub at least on par with Cape Town, if not better.
Certainly.
The game is a fast-paced, 2D, turn-based, massively multiplayer strategy game with strong and addictive RPG elements.
Some aspects of it may be vaguely reminiscent of HOMM and Hearthstone, however, by and large, we are absolutely certain that there has never been anything quite like this game before. Bold and boundary-pushing originality is the absolute cornerstone of the company's creative vision for this and future projects, and we have taken great pains to avoid creating anything that seems remotely derivative.
Story-wise, the game is a carefully crafted mix of fantasy and sci-fi. However, we feel that these genres are at this point hopelessly saturated, cliche-ridden and utterly worn out. The same tired ideas and tropes are being endlessly recycled just in slightly different packaging.
There is a distinct lack of philosophical depth permeating most games (obviously more a problem on the commercial than indie side) that we find troubling, in light of the number of people today who spend most of their time in game worlds, and how much of the formative experience of this generation is taking place primarily through this medium.
Consequently, we believe that game devs are increasingly becoming the primary architects of the zeitgeist, and therefore have an inherent responsibility to produce content that is culturally meaningful and intellectually beneficial in some way. This is what we, as a company, are attempting to do with this and future projects.
Quick answer: yes and no.
We have some of the top programmers in PE on the team, who have mainly worked on corporate software up to this point, but have been looking for the opportunity to get into games. They absolutely have the technical skills required to set up the necessary back-end infrastructure.
Our front-end programmers have indeed produced small games as personal side projects, as well as for uni / college. Nothing commercial at this point, and certainly nothing they would want to show publicly, as graphically they are not much to look at and would give an unfairly poor impression of their true capabilities.
As far as I'm aware, our sound team produced the score and sound for a previous game with another local dev team, however I don't currently have the name of that game, or whether it's available online somewhere to check out. I'll need to check with them next time we meet.
None of our graphic artists have worked on games before, but given the depth of their talents we have every confidence they will be equal to the task. Some are already assisting with the creation of concept art and storyboards, and we are happy with the results.
This is a key area in which the company is fundamentally different from others, and is at the very core of our long-term vision. We are adamant and unapologetic about it, but I will clarify some of the thought behind it.
Everyone in the team is bringing essential skills to the table, without which the entire project would not be possible. In our opinion, this makes everyone equally valuable to the success of the company, and this is why everyone has equal shares and equal income.
We understand the argument about years of experience, however a programmer of 20 years experience still can't get a game out unless the fantastically talented art guy throws his 'measly' 3 years of experience into the mix. So we are compelled to rethink the 'value' of those 20 years experience in light of the greater context.
Furthermore, if both can become millionaires from this arrangement, what reason is there for the programmer to resent the artist enjoying an equal share of that happiness and success? What more would the programmer gain from artificially reducing the artist's share, except satisfying some childish ego-based need to feel superior to another human being.
An artist of 10 years is not necessarily more productive, talented or 'better' than the artist with 2 years experience. The value of their work depends on multiple factors which are largely subjective, hence we believe that market-derived labour values, especially in creative industries, are grossly inadequate and do not accurately reflect the true value of what people bring to the table.
Income inequality also breeds resentment and invariably leads to artificial barriers and 'cliques' within the group, resulting in all the nasty politics so typical in companies today. We find this approach toxic, undesirable, unnecessary, and antithetical to the harmonious and creative lifestyle we all wish to enjoy on a daily basis. A house divided against itself cannot stand.
Finally, anyone paying the slightest attention to the state of the world today understands that income inequality is one of the primary causes of political instability. The current situation in SA is particularly precarious in that respect. As a socially conscious company we would like to avoid contributing to these problems, and show that a better way is possible. We believe that we must live the change we wish to see in the world.
Understandable, but the company is not even registered yet, hence we have very little legal protection at this time and are compelled to be discreet. Sanctioned promotional material (teaser trailers, concept art etc.) will be released for public consumption when it becomes appropriate to do so. Anyone familiar with IP law can understand the need for this.
At this point I am simply looking for people who might be interested in joining a game development startup in PE.
It is still early days.
A lot of the current team members have not even met the rest of the team yet.
Toward the end of Jan 2016, assuming we've found the character artists we need, the entire team will then assemble for the first official meeting, which will be a full-day seminar, at which I will present in detail the entire company vision and business plan, as well as a comprehensive look at the first game and they way forward with that.
About 80% of the team are already familiar with the broad details and are already fully committed. Others need time and/or a bit more information, which they will receive at the meeting.
Thereafter, everyone will have a month or so to make a final decision as to whether they wish to join us and become a co-founder, shortly followed by the formal registration of the company, and commencement with the business plan discussed at the meeting.
As someone that's run a game studio for 8 years and been making games for longer, here's what I'm hearing from your messages:
1. You don't actually know if your game is going to succeed.
2. You're making financial decisions based on best case scenarios without being aware of how that sounds to potential hires.
3. You're scaling too fast and inadvertently building massive failure points into your business that have a serious danger of killing you before you even start.
Please note that I'm not judging you personally here, all I'm saying is that this is what your communication is getting across to me. Please also note that many of us here at MGSA have seen way more hopeful studios make similar announcements to yours that we've seen people actually produce games - of those games, we've all seen even fewer go on to make anything resembling a financial return. So yes, you're sort of running up against a lot of other people's mistakes with what you're putting out there, the neat thing is that gives you an epic opportunity to learn from those mistakes... Let me try to break down each of my points above:
1. You don't actually know if your game is going to succeed.
The way you've answered questions about your game and your propensity to answer with marketing-like copy kinda point to your game just being an idea at this stage. Every single experienced designer here distrusts ideas and knows that they need to be tested against players ASAP. A good idea may not become a good prototype, for a whole host of different and complex reasons. A good game might not come from a good prototype, for more reasons. A good game might not sell. Scratch that, a good game probably won't sell well. For even more reasons ranging from marketing expertise to timing to execution to the apparent alignment of the stars.
Deciding that a single idea is going to definitely turn into a financially successful game is all about ignoring so many hurdles along the way that prediction accuracy is abysmal. Unseen hurdles and challenges are ones you can't prepare for, they'll blindside you and in an R&D environment, kill your company with sunk costs. There are multiple ways to deal with a lot of these potential problems, but none of them rely on you sticking with a single game idea secure in the knowledge that it's going to make megabucks. Instead, the most likely reality is that your first games (especially as a new team) aren't going to perform anywhere near what you're hoping for.
Most of the successful games I've seen produced locally have had some form of success-testing that they've actively sought: The open development cycles of Desktop Dungeons, Viscera Cleanup Detail or Broforce; The Kickstarter campaigns of STASIS, Cadence and Ancient Terrible Things; The known reputation of a superstar developer throwing their market-making weight behind a game; Or even just posting an early prototype up on a bunch of forums and seeing if anyone really loves the game...
Sure, you might be the exceptional studio that knows what sort of amazing stuff it can produce from a zero reputation and low experience background, but so far every exception that I've seen hasn't been one. So, what can you do to test your game's potential success and how can you do that without investing a huge amount?
Here's a really good article about sustainable game development from a legendary designer.
2. You're making financial decisions based on best case scenarios without being aware of how that sounds to potential hires.
I totally get where you're coming from with this. My own studio, QCF Design, has a similar sort of system running: Everyone gets paid a basic salary and then earns revenue shares in the resulting games depending on the work they put in. We also pay everyone on the first of the month, because why not... Note that while the basic salary is the same, revenue shares are not. Different people get different revenue shares, this is sometimes tricky to manage because it's a discretionary thing. Running a studio that way requires massive amounts of trust between the people working together, it also requires a reputation on the part of the studio. QCF couldn't have done the same sort of thing if it was a completely new studio with zero visibility, the only reason this worked (and there are some aspects that it really didn't work that well in) is because Desktop Dungeons was continually proving its potential, so people were keen to work on it. Everyone getting paid their revenue shares is a source of personal satisfaction for me, but it's probably not a great way to run a studio in the long term with a stable set of employees.
At the moment you're coming across as idealistic (which isn't always a bad thing) and inexperienced (which is) and that's making people who honestly don't have any more information about your business or - more importantly - your game, to balk. There are better ways to talk about this sort of stuff. For instance, don't talk about game philosophy and your general studio goals when you've been asked about a specific game and why it's cool ;)
Again, I get the desire to have a positive impact on players and I'm 100% behind the idea that games can and should have positive social impacts. QCF focuses on hiring diverse teams and we've gone to the mats before on topics like racial and gender representation in games. We're SJWs and proud of it... But talking about that doesn't absolve you of the responsibility of selling potential hires on why the thing you're hiring them to produce is amazing. In fact, you've got a harder job there by doing things like offering non-standard remuneration packages and not having a track record of success, that's not really your fault BTW, it's just a natural outcome of loads of random game idea hopefuls offering revenue share in projects that are barely a daydream that has more to do with what type of car they're going to buy with the proceeds than staying up late to deal with player feedback.
If you'd like to chat about company culture and odd funding/payment systems, PM me :)
3. You're scaling too fast and inadvertently building massive failure points into your business that have a serious danger of killing you before you even start.
I'm not sure what your funding situation is, but it sounds like you've either got funding secured (potentially) or you're hoping to secure funding based on having a big team. I think you're pretty good at the sort of marketing speak that funders tend to like, but I'd hazard that you've never really engaged with VC or angel funding enough to get asked the hard questions about how you plan to succeed.
To use VC terms: You don't have an MVP to shove in their faces with irrefutable numbers. I've been in positions where I was looking for funding for an IGF-winning game and we only got traction when we had opened pre-orders and didn't need the funding anymore. That was a fun meeting ;)
Anyway, you need to build that MVP, proof of concept, prototype, whatever you want to call it. Mostly because that's one of the best ways to find out if your game is going to have a chance at success. But it's also a really good way to convince more people to join your team, which is what you're struggling with right now. I'm not sure if this is an accurate reading, but it seems like you might be in a position where you sort of start your company in January but then people who said they were interested don't sign up before you "start the business" and then what do you do? That's a failure point you really don't have to have, just build your MVP as cheaply as possible with a core team of as few people as possible, don't scale until you really need to. - This feels too big and is an alarm bell to people like me. What's that team doing at the moment? Why do you need that many people?
There are other potential failure points that you seem to be building for yourself - things like making a massively multiplayer game right off the bat (either you're looking at empty servers/poor player numbers or massive advertising costs to just stay level with churn), but those are different points of discussion altogether.
TLDR
Don't be offended, but you sound very much like people who post job positions in companies that don't and will never exist. There's stuff you can do to help, like acknowledge that you don't have a game development reputation and, if you want to hire people, convince others that you're not making common mistakes that new teams make. This isn't the end of the world, it's just getting to know each other :)
P.S: - The point isn't "true capabilities", it's having produced anything game-like at all. Basically, you're being asked what game experience your team has.
Thanks for taking the time to provide the excellent feedback. As a team, we appreciate the accumulated wisdom of this community and certainly we look forward to someday providing similar support to others.
Many of the points you have touched upon are indeed familiar to us. When we first started seriously discussing the idea for this company about a year-and-a-half ago, we were well aware of the many potential pitfalls you and others have mentioned. Most of us in the team are old and wise enough to have approached this whole endeavour with a sense of cautious optimism.
We thus took it upon ourselves to immediately begin researching as much as possible regarding what we could expect if we embarked on this journey. That research is of course ongoing, and so we are grateful for all input received.
We do not expect that our journey will be without mistakes and setbacks, but based on said research, we are attempting to plan for as many contingencies as possible, to avoid the kind of epic disappointments and surprise failures that others have experienced.
Just to respond to a few specific points:
The way you've answered questions about your game and your propensity to answer with marketing-like copy kinda point to your game just being an idea at this stage
The core game loop is currently nearing the end of the design phase, and we are getting ready to begin with implementation. Most of the conceptual development has been done. We have GBs worth of concept art, formal system documentation, as well as early cinematic trailers which have been shown to various stakeholders to great success.
As per my initial post, all we lack now are talented 2D character artists. For some reason, these are hard to find in PE.
In the meantime, development on certain core game modules has already commenced. We are currently producing a number of tools / utilities that will be essential to the development of the game going forward.
Every single experienced designer here distrusts ideas and knows that they need to be tested against players ASAP.
Indeed, and for reasons we were well aware of from the get-go.
We were fortunate enough that one of our team members is acquainted with a retired high-level executive from Sega, who, as it turns out, has a holiday home in PE. About a year ago we spent an afternoon at his house (palace, really) pitching the company and game concept to him.
Long story short, he was totally blown away and immediately offered to personally fund us, with the caveat that we would essentially be working under him, and the company would be his. This, unfortunately, was a condition we could not accept, and we still stand by that decision a year later. The long term vision for the company necessitates that we retain full creative control, even if it means we must take the long way round when it comes to funding. We believe we will be better for it in the long-run.
We understand that success is never guaranteed. We know that there are many variables in play and these things are impossible to predict even for AAA companies. But we must at the very least take his vote of confidence as a sign that we are on the right track.
Needless to say, once we have the first working prototype up and running, we plan to get extensive user feedback from the community, and will tweak as needed. This has been part of our development strategy from day one. We do believe we have a very strong concept with a high probability of success, and involving the community early on should provide us with the core fan base and built-in market to give us the initial boost we need for a successful launch.
We are currently planning for an extensive social media campaign that will then lead into a Kickstarter, once we feel we have a decent number of followers. This should also provide potential VCs with some reassuring numbers regarding potential market value.
There are multiple ways to deal with a lot of these potential problems, but none of them rely on you sticking with a single game idea secure in the knowledge that it's going to make megabucks.
Indeed we are fully aware of this, which is why we are currently working on a number of smaller titles in parallel to our main project. Think of them as 'spin-offs' if you will. We plan to release all of these more or less simultaneously. This has been a part of our strategy from day one. We realised early on the inherent risks of putting all our eggs into one basket.
...the responsibility of selling potential hires on why the thing you're hiring them to produce is amazing.
Again I must reiterate that I am not here to convince anybody of anything.
I simply came here to find out if there are any 2D character artists in PE who might be interested in joining a startup.
If there are, please contact me and we can arrange a meeting in person, where I can physically show you some of the concept art and art direction, so that you will have a better idea of what is needed. This is standard operating procedure for us. We have recruited all our members this way, with personal one-on-one chats, where we discuss all the pertinent details, and answer concerns like the ones raised on this thread.
We also have a promotional cinematic trailer for potential new team members, to give you some idea of the long-term vision for the company, and the level of quality that is required.
Unfortunately, posting such things online is simply not an option at this time, for reasons I surely don't need to explain. There's nothing shady about needing to protect our IP.
Let me also reiterate, once again, that we are not looking for "hires", we are looking for business partners. You will not be an employee, you will be a co-owner, with equal shares and equal say in the running of the company.
Note that while the basic salary is the same, revenue shares are not. Different people get different revenue shares,
Each company will naturally have their own revenue structure suited to their particular needs, but we are not here to judge or argue the merits of these, including ours, at this time. Doing so would require an in-depth analysis of our company philosophy and vision, which I am not prepared to disclose here.
Suffice it to say, for reasons that all current team members fully accept and agree with (and which will be explained in full to all potential new members in person) all members will enjoy equal salaries and profit sharing. There will certainly be individual performance-based bonuses, but these will be discussed and agreed upon democratically when it becomes appropriate to do so.
All potential new members would have to accept these basic conditions as a prerequisite to joining the team. Those who are more ego- and status-driven will naturally balk at the idea, and that is perfectly fine. We are counting on it. We welcome such balking as a clear indication that they are not suited to our team dynamic.
I'm not sure what your funding situation is, but it sounds like you've either got funding secured (potentially) or you're hoping to secure funding based on having a big team. I think you're pretty good at the sort of marketing speak that funders tend to like, but I'd hazard that you've never really engaged with VC or angel funding enough to get asked the hard questions about how you plan to succeed.
Funding is not secured at this time, but once again, we are somewhat fortunate in that a couple of our team members have direct family connections to angel investors which have successfully funded some of their previous business ventures (not games, but certainly media-related). Naturally these are at the top of our list and we will be approaching these in due course once we have the business plan and game concept thoroughly documented. We also need to have all the required team members in place (the main reason I am here), and ideally a working prototype.
Concurrently, as a backup (or supplement) we will also be running crowdfunding campaigns (mainly via Kickstarter and possibly Indiegogo) as I previously mentioned. However, we believe this avenue needs to be preceded by a sizable social media presence to have any realistic chance of success, and hence we are currently in the process of preparing for that.
you might be in a position where you sort of start your company in January but then people who said they were interested don't sign up before you "start the business" and then what do you do? That's a failure point you really don't have to have, just build your MVP as cheaply as possible with a core team of as few people as possible, don't scale until you really need to.
The core team has been around for the past 1.5 years or so, since the idea was first pitched. We are pretty solid and not going anywhere anytime soon. In fact, this was one of the primary criteria upon which all team members were initially selected, and will continue to be selected. This is a failure point we have been determined to avoid from day one.
This feels too big and is an alarm bell to people like me. What's that team doing at the moment? Why do you need that many people?
About a third of those are not actively involved at this time, but have important roles to play at a later stage in the business plan, and have thus been invited to join the company on the board of directors. They understand that for now their roles will remain purely observational and advisory until their particular skills are required, and that there will be no salary until such time.
We are all working full time jobs at the moment in any case, so this is hardly an issue. Everybody understands and accepts that this is initially a part-time project, and that there won't be salaries from this until funding has been secured, at which point most of us will transition over to this full time from our current day jobs.
There are other potential failure points that you seem to be building for yourself - things like making a massively multiplayer game right off the bat (either you're looking at empty servers/poor player numbers or massive advertising costs to just stay level with churn)
The back-end programming team is confident in their ability to set up, test and run the necessary infrastructure for this. They have experience in similar projects for corporate clients.
As for player numbers, we expect to have a sizable following via our crowdfunding and social media efforts by the time we are ready for launch, and from there it's a matter of scaling. Marketing via more traditional means will naturally also be included in the budget.
The game itself has also been designed in such a way that the CPU seamlessly fills out roles that are not currently being filled by a human player. Even though it's a multiplayer game, it can technically be played by one person, with bots seamlessly taking up the remaining slots. The impact on the player's experience, while vaguely noticeable, will be quite negligible, given the type of game.
Don't be offended, but you sound very much like people who post job positions in companies that don't and will never exist.
Not offended at all, this is an inherent limitation of forums.
I do hope that this has cleared up some of the main reservations.
For example, to address just one point, having a board of directors with 16 people and about 10 active people is just too big. You would be better splitting those 10 people into 2 or 3 teams that work on separate prototypes for now, and cutting down your board of directors to a maximum of 5 people (5 is probably still too many for now).
You might say that it takes too long to make a prototype, so you need to have enough people working on it, but in that case you've made a bad assumption about how long it should take to make a prototype. The frequent jams that are 48 hours or less are proof that you can make a prototype in much less time with a very small team. If you can make a crapload of prototypes with 2 or 3 teams, not only do you very quickly learn a lot about game development in a short period of time, but you have a whole library of little playable things and ideas to use in your future projects. You never know, maybe one of the prototypes turns into something really special. I advise spending at least 2 months where you make one or more prototypes every week (depending on your teams' makeup). This isn't a big time investment in the bigger scheme of things and I am 100% sure you will not regret it. I advise doing this as soon as possible, you don't need to wait to form a company or have a board of directors, just do it and soak up the learnings that will fall into your lap.
In the interests of being as wrong as possible should your project succeed (so that I can learn) and cataloging issues up-front for future forum readers should it not, here are my feelings about some of your replies: If something can't be played, it's not a game. Right now you need a game prototype to test with your market to both find out what your risk is like and (hopefully) help generate funding motivation material... Core game loop design document? Not a game. Conceptual development? Not a game. Concept art? Formal system documentation? Cinematic trailers? Not games. That success? Not based on a game, so it can (and will) still change drastically when production hits the fan. They're hard to find everywhere. That's why the best possible communication about amazing projects is so important. I'm not sure what these tools or utilities are, but I know that every tool I've ever built before I intimately understood the task was a bad idea. Sure, maybe the tools are great and make your life easier - there's probably still huge amounts of work that they're not useful for that could be more user-facing or relevant to a playable prototype. At worst, the time investment in these tools ends up becoming a sunk cost and you dedicate resources to using them that would be better spent rewriting them or even just picking up different tools. I really do hope that these tools aren't things that could be easily picked up for a few hundred rand online though. Leaving aside any potential remarks about SEGA's company fortunes ;) (I know, I know) What are your primary hindrances to getting that prototype out? What are you going to use to drive that campaign? What's your content? Forgive me, but at the moment your project seems either content-light or you're unwilling to show stuff - that unwillingness will have to change if you're going to run a successful campaign. This sounds like a horrible idea... Um. I can see how people talking about prototyping things sounds vaguely like what you've just described, but the core difference is the "release more of less simultaneously" part. Working on multiple games at the same time - even if it's just one main project and one side project is a tricky thing to do when you're working on your own IP. Maybe work for hire studio heads can offer tips on how to deal with this better, but I'm not sure simultaneous dev is a good idea for a team with little dev experience.
I guess you could split your team, but then you need to focus on generating loads of prototypes and then investing in the ones that perform well - after you've built up the skills/experience to be able to execute on your visions wonderfully. It's a complicated thing that could be spoken about for a very, very long time. Suffice to say: Erm. This sounds like a poor strategy as I understand it. Ah, but you do need to convince people! You need to convince a 2D artist at the very least. Maybe you need to convince their friends or current co-workers to get them to show said artist this thread. You're going to need to convince VCs (which is a lot harder than it seems at first) and you're going to have to convince players. I'm not saying I'm an expert at any of these things, but I have been slowly being a bit less crap at all of them for a number of years now. Mostly by making bad assumptions about needing a huge team, how valuable up-front design materials are, etc.
I'm going to ask a strange question now: Have you had anyone you talked to about this project NOT respond well? What did they say? I'm not asking for what you think their motivations might be, just if you've had any negative responses in person so far. Those are great learning opportunities. What's the problem with showing this here and getting people excited to help find you an artist? Um. I could actually do with an explanation please :) I'm very familiar with IP protection, speak about cloning regularly and honestly don't see a down side to you making as much positive noise as possible with what you've built so far. What am I missing? Hey, I'm not here to interrogate you on your vision or your private motivation, that's all cool. I'm just pointing out that you've already received feedback on what this stuff sounds like to working artists from @Elyaradine. Maybe you might want to consider what hiring a contract 2D artist looks like for your team and how that would work, if you keep having difficulty finding someone to work with in your local space that's ALSO willing to jump the way you want them to financially. Sometimes you're just exchanging skilled time for money and that's okay too. Ah, I see. It sounded like you were pretty secure in your funding setup... Sounds a lot less secure now. That's tricky. I'd just like to point out that bouncing your funding-seeking material as well as KS materials off others is super useful. I've seen several projects start out with material that wouldn't have moved the needle at first end up with really great responses after a few rounds of "Oh, I'd never have seen that!" style feedback. Cool! What has that team been doing for that time? I'd argue you could have had at least a proof-of-concept by now, if you don't, that's a bit worrying - hopefully there's enough expertise here to help you move past whatever blockages might have prevented progress towards playable prototypes. How does this gel with the whole "everyone has equal say" thing? Are people that aren't working right now making decisions for everyone else? No offense, but this is a super common thing that you hear around local game development a lot. There are studios that specialise in picking up the pieces after devs that are certain they can do X on a game find out that things are a bit more complicated outside of corporate work ;) I'm actually consulting on a project right now that has some classic unknown-scope-related issues that are now sunk costs and might end up preventing a meaningful release. Nothing beats organic growth. Also, you might want to seriously consider the benefits of open development for helping you balance a competitive MP game within a non-crazy timeframe. That sounds smart. It's a good way to deal with empty server problems. Do you have it working, even in text-based tests? Once again, kudos for NOT doing what often happens when business dreams are questioned and flipping out. That's awesome. I have to admit that the reservations are kinda still there on my end, but maybe I'm just not following (which isn't the end of the world, it just means I can't help you find an artist - or funding - or a social user base).
Guys hi,
Apologies for the extreme delay in responding; things became chaotic and impossible from mid-November.
In that time, though, I am happy to say that we found some of the 2D artists needed, and now we are ready to begin. :)
There is room for more though, so if anyone is still interested in joining us, please message me at any time.
Thanks again for all the detailed feedback, and especially a huge shout out to dislekcia.
Unfortunately I don't have time right now to give each point the detailed response it deserves, but I do feel that a lot of the issues raised on this thread have been based on a few assumptions that will be easily rectified once the game and company are revealed a few months from now. I look forward to resuming this discussion then.
Right now, the dev team is descending into creative hibernation as we begin hammering out the first prototype over the coming months.
I do wish to confirm that we are huge fans of open development and at a certain point we will be opening up this game to extensive community feedback and involvement, and this forum will certainly be our first port of call when we are ready to 'emerge'.
We'll also become active on YouTube, Facebook etc. and will be keeping everybody updated as we go. For now, though, we have some major preliminary work to get through, and must excuse ourselves from the public eye.
All the best, and a fantastic new year to everyone!
Regards,
The Dev Team