[quote name='GiLa' timestamp='1322348733' post='4887984']
I came to a conclusion in regards to his experience in Game Development.
That's cute. I've been working in games for about 4 years. I've worked on games for Eidos, THQ, LucasArts, and plenty of game companies you've never heard of--on titles from little casual games for the iPhone, to games like Marvel Superhero Squad for the Wii.
The problem with a lot of start-ups lead by young or inexperienced game developers is that they often try to find their earliest rewards and success in getting more and more talent to join their project. This is an immature development model. To merely throw talent at the development cycle in its early stages is pointless beyond a certain threshold.
You are "in-progress," is this progress demonstrable? Or are you still designing?
You're requesting every discipline to assist you when you already have every discipline involved in the project as it is. Are these people already overloaded with work? Is there a need to produce more content, more rapidly than these people can provide? Or are you merely impatient, with the desire to accellerate your development because you're not happy with your current results? These are really important questions to answer for yourself and moreover, important questions when determining who is actually qualified to lead development in a discipline.
I have walked your path, I have been where you are, and I have come out through the other side. I did this over 6 years ago, when I was still in school.
I used to think that it should be the aspiration of every young game developer to try and make the "best game in the world" and fail. Because most game developers had that dream, and experienced that failure as a lesson.
But now it just seems to me like a misguided waste of energy, when you could be creating more focused and successful games. It just seems wiser for you to try one thing out at a time, rather than trying to tackle the whole world all at once.
So, I suggest working with what you have now. Working with a deadline to create a proof-of-concept before attempting to recruit anyone else. What can your team get done by New Years? If you can't get a working prototype out the door by New Years, you don't need more people. (At least not the broadband recruitment approach--maybe you need a better programmer)
Don't misjudge me, especially when you have no idea who I am or what sort of experience I could bring to a promising project (or anyone on this forum, for that matter). I don't have a lack of vision, I don't have a narrow scope of dream, I imagine games bigger and better than ever made--just like everyone else--but my experience informs me about the limitations we face in game development (both physical and monetary). It informs me about what CAN be done now, and what it takes to actually DO it.
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I completely understand where you're coming from, and I apologize for the misjudgment of character.
In all honesty, the team is making progress quite swiftly, and we do in fact have a set schedule. This is not guided by an outside factor such as a publisher, but it is in place to keep development moving at a fluid pace. By the end of the year (that is 2011) we will undoubtedly have reached our goal for a solid prototype, after which we will be doing a number of things. For one, we will be seeking outside funding from launch sites such as RocketHub. Furthermore, we will be keeping a video devlog to gain interest in the title much prior to release, as well as introducing our work to sites such as IndieDB.
The reason I'm recruiting more people of specific job-titles is to ensure the game's quality. I admit that what we are trying to accomplish is quite ambitious, but I believe that it is in no way impossible, at least with the right skill set. Knowing this, I want to put the team in a position where if something were to happen, such as a teammate leaving, we will still have the ability to produce the quality assets that the game deserves. This is not "throwing talent at the project", this is just (in my opinion) good management.
I believe that I have a solid grasp on the situation at hand, and that recruiting more people is necessary for stability, production, quality assurance, and content. I am not instructing each programmer to program the same things, just as I am not instructing each artist to animate the same assets. We have each individual member working on isolated areas of game development (in which they excel) to piece the game together into one beautiful symphony.
I hope I answered your questions, and if not, feel free to ask more.
Like I said before, I apologize if I came off as rude and unapproachable, so forgive me for that ^ ^
I would also like you to know that, while I disagree, I do respect your input on the circumstance.
Your guidance is appreciated.