I have the next great idea for an MMOG. Well thought out, highly marketable, truly different, yadda yadda Problem is I am not a programmer. I understand programming, have had courses in it, have read up on game design. But programmer I am not. Nor am I independently wealthy. Nor are my friends or family, either programmers (well some are but they are not interested) nor rich (same same). So how does one find 1) Freelance programmers to craft an engine and the world and game I envision 2) Someone to fund the project ???

Sorry I didnt mean Freelancers to work for free, I meant ones to work for pay, piecework and probably part time. Spread it out over a period of time and maybe I could afford that. Obviously no one is going to work for free.

Quote:Original post by yello1
Sorry I didnt mean Freelancers to work for free, I meant ones to work for pay, piecework and probably part time. Spread it out over a period of time and maybe I could afford that. Obviously no one is going to work for free.

The game industry consultants I've met are roughly 1.5x as expensive as people already working in salaried positions within the industry. Game development is not bridge building; you need game development specific contractors, and these are rare.

You could try and gamble on hiring amateur/independent contractors, and many have been very successful doing this, but this is a gamble and I'd suspect hiring professionals will come out to about the same bill in the end, assuming you're really serious.

This is not an insignificant amount of money. Your best chance is to learn enough skills to differentiate yourself, build a demo, find funding/workers with the demo and then enter full development, hiring salaried programmers and using contractors to fill in the gaps where necessary. Spreading out whatever funding you may have over a long period of time is risky, as there's a large burnout rate in game development, so you begin to have difficulty recruiting the reliable contractors/developers back to your stable. There's also the question of technological stability -- spend too much time developing the software and you risk losing a technological edge, which makes the non-developers at publishing firms drop your demo pretty quickly.

Game development is hard. Really hard. Online games are even harder. What you have proposed is the game development equivalent of producing an entire Hollywood feature film, out of pocket, using only contractors.

You work you way up.
If you truely want to complete a project like this, you have to start by creating tic-tac-toe.

One does not go to the olympics before one can stand on two feet.

I could fill alot of paper with ideas, concepts, flow charts even, alot of it is already written out in notes to myself. But will that really get me anywhere? Thats kind of where I am at right now, is going beyond this fantasy point worth my time? And if it is, who do I show those papers to?

As for the "next big thing" I was just being amusing and brief - I imagine everyone posting here thinks they have the next big thing as well. No sense in wasting time saying much more I thought.

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As for the Tic Tac Toe suggestion, Im not looking to program something, so I do not see how thats really relevant. Im looking to produce something. I suppose I could spend money hiring someone to program some smaller game idea, but to what purpose? The wife is already looking askance at me now. Waste thousands before ever making a forward stride and its a canceled concept or a divorce heh.

But if you meant something else, do tell. How can I ease into this?

Well thats another issue.

If I truly have a good idea, but no way to legally claim it (so far as I know you cant copyright a concept and patents do not cover software programs let alone notions for how to make one) how do I share this idea with programmers who could actually make it without them running off with the idea and making it their own?

You can't. You could make people sign a non-disclosure agreement, but nobody's going to bother signing one unless money is involved. And you're not going to get anyone to fund you based on ideas and concepts alone. Hence the 'work your way up' comment made earlier.