Have you ever gotten together with a few friends to write that game you''ve always wanted to, but the team broke up soon after? It''s probably happened to a lot of us, I know it''s happened to me. I would be curious to hear from you what your experience was with a "failed project", and why your team broke up. To lead things off, here''s my tail. My group of "fiends" were coworkers at a startup. We decided that we had all wanted to write games, so we might as well start now. One member had a great game idea - a type of space combat simulator, and discussion soon started. As we talked about the game we decided that we needed a Design Doc, and that the idea''s originator would be the perfect person to write it. He never did though, and I eventually took over writing it - in addition to my studying up on 3D graphics so I could write the game engine. I was the only one actively working on the project at this point, despite asking for some research help from other members. Getting the group to discuss the game wasn''t too difficult as long as everyone was in the mood (once a week maybe). However, one member had convinced himself that we were rewriting an old Star Trek game, and would get mad if we didn''t make our game exactly like it. That was the last straw for me, and I withdrew from the project. The remaining members haven''t talked about the game project since. What has your experience been with this? Micah

I''ve seen many projects fail, some i was even member of.
There are many reasons why projects fail. One main reason is lack of motivation the further te projects go. Lack of time of the members. Many teams try to go for the big super-b as their first project so they also fail too, cuz they underestimate the work behind a good game. If you dont have done any games before its important that your team go first for a very simple project first. This way every teammember can get familar to the others and the way they work. You can also then see who can afford how much time and what are the strongs of every teammember.
Starting and finishing a simple project also give you an idea of a complete process of makeing a game. Many teams skip this step and fail. The work behind an average game is huge and the motivation always tend to drop so the porjectcoordinator (and other members) have to find ways to fight this problem, e.g. by designing decent milestones, etc.
My advice is try something simple first and after this go to a more complex game. Dont reinvent the wheels , which means e.g. if you want to make a 3d fps, but you dont have enough programming-resources , so you should try to use a 3rd-party 3d engine instead of writing everything yourself. Also be preparede that the last 10% of your project will take 90% your projecttime to be done (not always) which means things get huger and more complex the further you go with the project.
over 90% of online-projects i knew failed.

my 2 cents

There are many reasons why the last 10% "eat" so much time.
One reason ist that all undone work, even they are small, will show up at the end. I mean you will notice all the works you "forgot". Another problem is while changing things at the beginning are kind of easy, they will be much harder to be changed at the end of a project cuz of the big impact on other parts. Of course installation, testings, stabilization (write word?) of the project take lot of time to do.

Good luck with your project !

AticAtac

Well our project never got past the design phase. We didn''t have an offical leader, though I was taking on certain leadership responsibilities. Motivational ideas never occured to me, because the game idea itself was motivation enough for me.

The idea originator had worked on ideas for this game in the past, but wasn''t much help now. I think he was having ownership issues. It was his idea, and now the rest of the team was making changes to it, and he didn''t like it. We all do this, we just need to handle it properly.

I think the original game idea may have been set a little high (despite the number of features cut from the design), but further design work would have brought this down significantly. It wasn''t really cutting edge technology-wise, but it had a lot of unique gameplay elements which made it a good idea.

Anyone else want to offer up their own story?

Micah

Being the Lead Developer for Satellite Moon, we''ve just finished Wave 49, and I can now finally give real advice about this. I can say that I''ve been the glue that''s made a final product finally come together (although I''m certainly not the only one to work hard and with detication!)

Before the current team was put together I had talked and worked with a lot of other people who eventually lost interest and quit. I could have quit just as easily but I didn''t. Why? motivation. I want to make a career in this industry, and the others probably did''t really care one way or the other.

I think if you''re the one who is going to get the project done, you need to be the one in charge, and the one to have control over everything that is created. Otherwise say you let your artists keep their work. It sounds like a nice plan, until your artist eventually loses interest and takes all of the work he''s done with him. Now you have to start over. You probably won''t, because it''s easier at that point to just quit.

You can of course make special deals with everyone. Like for example, you can keep your artwork, or own part of the company, but if you quit, you lose everything.

I can say that once you do finish a product, it will do wonders for your credability. Almost none of these sorts of projects get finished. If you can finish one, you can finish another. Of course that doesn''t mean that you will.

Most people also aren''t willing to work for royalties. They say it''s because so many projects fail. That''s a good reason. Would you invest your hard earned time in a project that you expected would finish? I wouldn''t.

So if you are going to commit to something, you have to be prepared to follow through, and be able to prove what you are doing, and minimize the risk for anyone involved.

And speaking from experience, I think it''s wise to make a smaller project (like Wave 49) before going after a large project. This has allowed me the oportunity to prove to everyone that I can lead a project, finish a project, etc. Even though Wave 49 hasn''t taken TOO many resources, I will be able to get more people with better skills to work on larger future projects.

Now, through the adventures of creating our first game, I''ve finally been brought together with some very good, talented, and deticated people. Now our next games will be able to far surpass what we''ve done to date.

Although everyone has a different situation, and it can work in more than one way, I personally think for most people it''s best to begin small and work your way up.

Isaac Vanier

I agree with you one hundred percent. This may sound odd, given I was the first to quit. However, I wasn''t working well with my team, actually one member in particular. I couldn''t kick anyone off the team, as I have to work with these guys at my day job. I couldn''t run off with the game idea, as the game idea wasn''t mine in the first place. In the end, (and I thought about this long and hard) quiting and starting over, or continuing to work with this team were my only options. Right now I''m in the starting over phase. I''m taking a weeks vacation and am going to work on a few starter projects (Pong, BreakOut) to help me get familiar with OpenGL, then onward and upward!

Anyone else have a story to share?

Micah

Management is REALLY hard.

It''s my belief (and my job) that in any small team, especially an unpaid one, one person''s entire job should be management. It sounds like a somewhat minor role on which to be wasting a whole person, but this person will make sure the work is balanced equally, that everyone is still enthusiastic, that everone has what they need, and most importantly that things GET DONE.

I agree. I used to think it was lame to have a "manager" type person for small teams. Now I understand exactly why one is needed for a "serious" project. I honestly could have done the team management full time, but I had to do a lot more.

I think the general term "producer" would be a better thing to use. A producer can act as manager to make sure things are done, take care of everyone''s questions, keep everything on track, deal with publishers (practically another full time job), PR, etc.

If you don''t believe us, you''ll see

Doesn''t mean that you have to have one. You can do fine without one. In our situation where I basically did all of the above plus lead programming, design, etc it worked out well, it just took more time.

I guess the point is, don''t think there''s nothing to it.