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Help finding a game development team
anable
North TexasRegistered User regular
North TexasRegistered User regular
can u tell me were to find people to make my game?
Seriously though, my problem is that I need to find a site/convention/forum where people can pitch ideas and other people can choose to collaborate on them. I live in Oklahoma which isn't exactly the hub of the entertainment industry, and I'm not in college so I don't have much in terms of local contacts that I can work with.
Are there any sites where programmers and artists look for mod teams or full fledged indie studios to try and get a game made? This is all shoe strings and duct tape here, so I'm not actually looking to hire anyone. I just want to find other people that are bored or trying to create something like I am.
I have seen one or two, but they seem to be full of a lot of ideas without a lot of talent. I'm willing to prove my abilities as a writer/designer/project manager, but I don't want it getting lost in the midsts of dozens of awesome DBZ mod ideas.
Seriously though, my problem is that I need to find a site/convention/forum where people can pitch ideas and other people can choose to collaborate on them. I live in Oklahoma which isn't exactly the hub of the entertainment industry, and I'm not in college so I don't have much in terms of local contacts that I can work with.
Are there any sites where programmers and artists look for mod teams or full fledged indie studios to try and get a game made? This is all shoe strings and duct tape here, so I'm not actually looking to hire anyone. I just want to find other people that are bored or trying to create something like I am.
I have seen one or two, but they seem to be full of a lot of ideas without a lot of talent. I'm willing to prove my abilities as a writer/designer/project manager, but I don't want it getting lost in the midsts of dozens of awesome DBZ mod ideas.
anable on
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We all have great ideas that we want to make into games.
BUT! Don't expect to get a team without having work to show (And no, ideas or design docs are not enough) or by not saying anything about the idea because you are afraid someone will steal it.
The forums aren't big, but hey are usually helpfull, just don't ask stupid questions.
And beware. Managing a mod team can be a pain.
Make sure to follow the posting template, and have your idea fleshed-out before you post, though.
Here is a list of words and phrases not to use: Revolutionary; Original; "Never Seen Before"; synonyms there of; "I can't tell you exactly what the idea is becaue I'm afraid someone will steal it", MMO
Those words are like red rags to a bull. Your idea(s) will most likely have been seen before. I still wail in frustration at my "unique" weapon upgrade system appearing in a least half-a-dozen games since I first thought it up. Ideas won't get you a group of people, great ideas are ten-a-penny. I had three 'original' game ideas on the way to the shower this morning, seriously, I'm not exaggerating, one of them was pretty good as well. >This< guy is posting a game idea a day for 300 days and I don't think there's any chance he'll run out of ideas before the 300th day is up.
However, a kick ass design spec. Those things are rarer than hens' teeth in the world of over the Internet collaborative projects. But to produce a really kick-as design spec you'll need to know (roughly) how to do all the things required, how long art assets will take to create, how long programming feature X will take, how, exactly, it interacts with feature Y. Unless you're a prodigy, you don't know that yet.
Learn to program, create 3 or so very small games, take some of your ideas and pare them own to the very basest essentials. Complete those games, with programmer art, get an idea as to what is required and then use this games to demonstrate what your ideas are capable of. An average design spec with a working prototype, that's gold.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
Your best bet is too learn a skill and join someone elses group. Be it coding, modeling, mapping, textures, whatever. Its going to take a lot of experience and work before you will get people to work on a project for you.
I really would suggest getting into programming/art design yourself so that you have something more to offer than being able to boss the talent around.
If you don't, and merely give out a list of things to do for your supposedly original idea, you won't earn much respect. 'Idea guy' and 'boss' are not respected ranks.
Note: I am by no means a programmer capable of 3D gaming. But as someone who is familiar with the general practice of scripting, my opinion is valid.
As others have said, the "idea guy" is way overrated and often a drag on development. Typical things for an "idea guy" to do are: "Hey guys, I know that you've been working on doing X for the last couple of weeks, but while I was in the shower this morning I realized it would be so much cooler to do it Y instead." The only way you will get any significant respect as the "idea guy" is either to build it yourself or hold the purse strings.
As for the "no details about the game" aspect, I didn't put anything in my OP since I was looking for resources on finding a team, and not actually looking here. I kinda thought that was frowned upon. If not, I can make another thread about actually recruiting.
Edit: There's a reason game dev companies might have dozens of coders and artists and just a handful, or one or two, writers and managers.
So I guess you've never heard of Sid Meier or Will Wright then?
And no, I do not have a New York Times best seller, I was simply making a point that not all writers/designers are in the same boat. I do have real world experience and schooling in both writing and business management, but again, this wasn't a resume, this was a request for information.
And unless you've got startup capital, previous success in the industry, or a lot of previous success as a writer, it's not likely you're going to find a dev team willing to put in the massive amount of work it takes to make a game. That's all we're saying. You can try, but it's probably not going to happen.
To this extent, Urgel and His Corkiness have made the only useful contributions.
Edit: I wasn't comparing myself, for the love of god. No I'm not Steven King, no I'm not Will Wright. I am painfully aware of this.
http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=73
What we're trying to say is we don't think even finding the perfect forum would do you much good.
It probably would be helpful if you told us the scope of what it is you're looking to do, if all you need is maybe one guy to write some quick code for you or mod an existing game or something.
Yes, we understand this.
Good writing, good design and good project management are all difficult skills like goo programming and good art but from the point of view of small game projects they are absolute luxuries.
Say you have a 2 man team, 1 artist, 1 coder. Where does the project manger fit in? What is managed?
As for design documents, they are simultaneously very hard an very easy to do right. A comprehensive design document is probably the most difficult artifact to produce in software design, vast amounts of research have gone into design specs. As I said earlier good Design specs are like hens'-teeth. The dirty little secret of software though is that software can be produced with no design spec at all, straight from coders brain into the compiler. And the difference between no design-spec and a mediocre design spec is limited. Imagine as Effort/Benefit graph where benefit stays low until effort is reaching "Ridiculous" levels and then it suddenly shoots up. Until you understand what goes into making a piece of software (never mind a game) you can't produce one of those top notch design specs.
Now writing, writing I grant you, there's not enough good writing in the world of games but unless you game is a game about words then mediocre, nay, down right appalling writing is good enough for most. Writing is not the game, writing is extra goodness for sure but the "game" part of the computer game is unaffected by the quality of the witty banter.
Basically current coders/artists can organise themselves, produce a "good enough" design spec (ie, a non-existent one) and get away with minimal hack writing to make the game they want to.
My girlfriend compares the role you want to putting a hand crafted binding on a newly published book, no one denies that it takes skill to o the binding but which part do you think is the more vital to the project as a whole, the book or the binding.
If what you really want to do is game writing (and there is nothing wrong with that) then look at packages that will let you do that, RPG Maker or Game Maker to get you a basic game engine in which you can weave your game based stories. Heck, check out the interactive fiction languages like TADS, Inform and HUGO. Some of the most profoundly moving and literary experiences I have experienced have happened in works by Andrew Plotkin and Emily Short.
I say this not to dishearten you but to show you what you need to do to be able to move forward. To attract people to you you have to show demonstrations of your skills, a small IF game with some beautiful dialogue, that's al it will take to get the ball rolling.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
Its just not worth our time.
Seriously though, why do you think someone would work for you for free? Most mods and games are started by a couple of friends or through school. They get larger teams once they have work to show, and then it just builds from there.
EDIT: You are going to get these same reactions anywhere you go.
That's asking a major investment of time and energy and even money and they're going to want to see that the guy asking is putting at least that much effort if not more into it.
The homebrew / mod scene is driven by programmers and artists, not writers, designers, and project managers. Nontechnical people simply have no idea how much time and effort is spent building even the simplest game, even if you've already got an engine to work from and all the skills you need to be productive.
Sorry.
Real game development is more work than it is fun. If people are going to work for free, they're going to want to do it on their own ideas. If you want someone to work on YOUR idea, then you need to pay them. If you don't have money to pay people but your ideas are REALLY that convincing and compelling, find angel investors and venture capital firms. That's how real development works. That, by the way, is how Sid Meier and Will Wright got their starts as 'designers' (Meier by founding Microprose and Wright by founding Maxis, and both by raising the capital to hire employees for those companies). They also, as far as I know, at least created basic game demos as proofs-of-concept. Also remember that Meier, Wright, Richard Garriott, Ken and Roberta Williams, and most of the other "names" in game design got their starts when a credible game/demo COULD be put together by a single individual because of the limitations of the hardware. These people were not attempting to compete in a world of Oblivion and Dead Rising, they were competing with Zork.
You will find out how compelling and skillful your ideas are if you can convince other people (hint: strangers, not family members) to pay for it. Or pony up your own cash and bear the burden of the risk. As a bonus, when and if you're ultimately successful, the ones who bear the risk are the ones who get paid.
Here's another idea: consider contributing instead of trying to lead right away. There are lots of development teams out there working on games already. Most of them probably don't have a dedicated writer. Offer YOUR services to THEM, possibly gratis. You said "I'm willing to prove my abilities as a writer/designer/project manager;" well, that's one way to do it.. Help THEM write and design THEIR demo. Become part of a team. If you are as good a writer, designer, and manager as you claim to be, then your ideas will most certainly influence that team. You might also learn something.