In my experience, it is about 20x harder to get an artist to be interested in working on a free project than a programmer. Programmers seem to not mind at all that they aren't paid (most seem to just look to gain experience and have fun). Artists, on the other hand, seem incredibly reluctant to do so, and many refuse to work on anything at all unless they get paid. A few months ago I was talking along the lines of this subject on an artwork forum, and many artists gave me the impression that they felt "insulted" when I spoke out about how they shy away from free projects. The response I often got was "How am I supposed to make a living if you aren't paying me?". That's a great point, but when you look at how many millions of programmers work on projects (games and otherwise) for free, the argument becomes dulled. What is the reason for this difference in attitudes? What differentiates the motives of an artist from a programmer so much when it comes to applying their skills and services without pay? And on that note, how can one do better to attract artists to work on a project for free? I bring this up because recent recruitment efforts with my own game project have been seeking out programmers and artists, and posting help wanted ads in both programmer and artists-centric mediums. We've had several programmer applicants in the last few days, but only one artist, and further no artists seem to be making any sort of comment about the game itself in these posts, while the programmers are saying several great things about it.

Off the top of my head, I'd wonder if quality and/or skill level plays much role in this.

I can attest that this difference in attitudes towards work between artist and programmer extends beyond the hobbyist sphere and into the professional. In my time having worked professionally as a game programmer (a little over a year now), time and time again it is the programmers that stay late to work further while the artists go home at a time (say 6 PM) that would be considered standard outside of the game development industry. While sure, it could be argued that the nature of the programmer's work tends to simply demand more time (programs will have bugs that require fixing...but if the art looks good, it's done), and that that is the main reason why programmers stay late, I believe there's a more fundamental issue at play here.

In short, in my opinion, the programmer is more passionate (read: more obsessive) about the work. This is not simply a job for them, this is their life -- they live and breathe the code. For the artist, however, it is more simply a job, and most definitely not their lives; artists do tend to be more "normal" and less "obsessive" about their work than programmers in my experience, and have social lives that tend to be more socially acceptable outside of the game industry. Considering this theory, it seems to make sense that the programmer would want to stay late, to continue doing the work they love, while the artist would be more likely to scoff at the idea of working "unreasonable" hours for (what is likely) meager pay. The artist would be more apt to quit under bad work conditions, whereas the excited, driven, and naive programmer is simply happy to be there and is likely to put up with whatever he has to so that he can be allowed to program games professionally.

I believe that, for better or worse, these are elements of the commonly accepted culture that we live in, and that we all (to at least some degree) subconsciously buy into and so perceive as normal and expect, and that we ourselves perpetuate (knowingly or not). Consequently, this will naturally carry over into the hobbyist sphere as well, where the artist doesn't want to waste his time on work he's not getting paid for, though the programmer sees the act of coding as an end in itself.

I realize that my analysis has painted the programmers as the real liberal artists and the artists as the more vulgar, illiberal wage-oriented folks. I do want to say that I don't mean offense by it, as artists can be very idealistic and driven people as well, and that there are always plenty of cases that break the mold. Still, I feel pretty confident about this, and I'm curious about what an artist's response would be.