Looking for a FB game developer...?

Tuism

Hi guys

Someone at work knows someone who's looking for a Facebook game developer. Yes I'm also cynical, but I'd like to use this opportunity to:

1. find out what to ask these people if this stuff comes up
2. Make that information accessible (right now the Jobs button [and the events] on the home page is doing nothing, can't we please stick in categories for those so we can put pertinent info there? If only a stickied "what info to give when looking for a game dev" thing. Right now they just do... nothing)

So, what should I ask this guy to tell me about this Facebook developer they claim to want to get? (I think they're looking to make marketing games and not commercial games, and project base, not a full-time job)

dislekcia

Most important info is always: Audience, Scope, Time, Budget and Platform.

We probably need to write some general guidelines about Time and Budget - for instance, it's unreasonable to expect a polished game in anything less than 2 months, no matter how "easy" the project might seem. What are reasonable pay grades, per hour and per month? (I'm paying myself decidedly unreasonably, but then again I'm working on something I want to work on, not for a client)

In my experience, people offering game-related jobs either spend way too much time thinking about how cool their final product will be without realising how much work needs to go into creating that vision and the brief is mostly about justifying the neatness of the idea. Or they assume that hiring a single person for 2 weeks will magically make them millions from very little guidance and information without thinking about the resources required like art/sound/music. Best bet is always having a solid set of goals in the brief that can be measured against, something like:

1. Game needs to be available on the web, playable on most hardware - this means Flash, not HTML5.
2. Game promotes brand X to people between 20 and 35, focuses on aspirational aspects and on how cool owning an X would be.
3. Game needs to be playable in short sessions and encourage users to come back to play it, we'd like positive word of mouth, but no obvious email harvesting bullshit.

Note how the above doesn't dictate a game genre, like saying that it should be a platformer or a time management game up front. That's usually the kind of stipulation that messes with a good design process and ends up producing the sort of lame shovelware that everyone ignores.

What would everyone else consider the perfect brief?

Elyaradine

What helps me a lot with art is when I can be shown an example of the kind of work they're looking for. Not to copy an art style or anything, but it gives an indication of the complexity the client's looking for, and from that I can estimate the time it'd take and therefore how much it'd cost, as well as look at ways we might be able to modify the brief to allow for a similar of quality while using duplicate (and thus fewer) art assets. I just find it's much easier to avoid misunderstandings when you communicate art with pictures, instead of relying solely on words.

Also, echoing @dislekcia: it's good to figure out what the client's goals actually are, as opposed to what they think you should do. Maybe they're asking for a management Farmville game, and they choose that because they've seen that it's popular, and they really just want people to keep coming back for reinforcement of a brand or something. But if that's their goal, there are countless ways of meeting it without trying to copy a past (and oft-cloned) success.

GeometriX

Sorry for the slight OT. @dislekcia, you mentioned that Flash is preferred over HTML5. Why is that? Do you have some reliable stats regarding this that I can read through?

dislekcia

@GeometriX: There are a bunch of reasons, mostly focused on compatibility and reach - Flash simply has more reach than HTML5 does at the moment. So if you want a web-based game that's playable on the largest cross-section of PC hardware out there, Flash is the way to go. You're going to have to have alternate versions of an HTML5 game for tablets/smartphones anyway because of the interface differences, so you don't really win there (plus it's relatively easy to cross compile Flash stuff to phones now too).

The other big reason is development time and turnaround. HTML5 is still relatively unstable and fragmented across different browsers, Flash isn't. Flash also has much more mature dev pipelines, tools and processes, so it's easier for a team to work in Flash. That kind of time-saving directly translates into lower costs for clients.

Note that different platforms are going to work for different goals - it's just that if you have a client aiming for the largest market possible because they're pretty general in scope, you want Flash. It's completely possible that someone targeting bleeding-edge consumers is going to do much better with an HTML5 game, but that would be a different brief and set of goals ;)

TheFuntastic

Flash gives you IE8 and below. Also HTML5 has incomplete feature set currently making true cross platform support a nightmare (audio is the usual one that keeps people up at night). Add to that the fact HTML5 games on mobile isn't really something mobile does well yet. Flash on the other hand can publish apps via AIR.

All depends on your needs though. As a flash dev with years of flash experience I'll go with flash every time until HTML 5 is actually feature complete and supported across every browser.

Edit: Dislekcia beat me to it. Now back to the topic at hand ;)