need help on development team forming and management (for beginners)

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3 comments, last by Jastiv 14 years ago
Hi, everyone. This is but my third post here on gamedev. Everyone seems real nice and understanding. This feels like such a rare thing on the internet... (Sorry everyone, by the end of the post, I realized it became a really long one. But please bear with me ><) Anyway. I've been working on a game, and had recruited a few members at my local university. But as I am on an exchange program abroad, as is another member, getting people to do things is extremely hard, as if it wasn't difficult enough to get people to do things in the first place. So basically, it's become a one-man effort now. So aside from what I've come up with for my role, which is mainly the story, a few concept art, there hasn't been anything else. I originally told everyone on the team that it would be a casual thing, and they'd only have to work on things when they had time, and even then, it should be last of priority on their everyday life. Well, that was awfully naive of me. Because we are just a few students who I initially gathered to make a game for the sake of making a game (since we all had that interest), there are no wages involved. Although, if possible, I'd like to eventually port the game onto a commercial console (or iPhone/iPad). I've recently reconnected with an old friend, and he's good with GML for GameMaker. My team originally lacked a proper programmer, so I'm really glad that he is interested in the project. Sorry, I've babbled on. On with the questions: 1) How do I go about manage team members? Wage is out of the question, as we are all but college students who subsist n ramen in one form or another (ramen soda! jk). And said above team members were classmates with whom I studied Japanese, and all have interests in games, especially JRPG's, which is what our game would be like. Despite so, everyone seems to lack the initial interest when I introduced all the ideas to them. I don't blame anyone else except myself in the situation. Once I return to the States, I plan on re-recruiting, with clearer goals, actual meetings, and perhaps signed forms just in case the game does have commercial purposes in the future. 2) How does recruiting members from the internet work? A project might not have commercial purposes in mind at a moment, but that may be a possibility in the future. How do all the legal things work? And to be frank, not that I think so highly of my project, but I would like to protect the project content from being used elsewhere, as it would also be unfair to everyone else on the team. 3) If someone decides to quit the team, what happens to the effort and resources they've made for the project? Under agreed documents, I'd imagine the team would maintain rights to it, but I really don't know. I'll end the thread here. I've many more questions, but I've already written to much text for you to read (and thank you for reading). It's the gf's bday today so I have to go, but will return with more questions soon. In the mean time, please lend me some advice and suggestions! Thanks!
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Quote:Original post by fm47
1) How do I go about manage team members?
3) If someone decides to quit the team, what happens to the effort and resources they've made for the project? Under agreed documents, I'd imagine the team would maintain rights to it, but I really don't know.

1. Read http://www.sloperama.com/advice/lesson16.htm
3. It depends on what you put into your collaboration agreement. http://www.sloperama.com/advice/article58.htm

Moving to The Business (which is where we can all give you the business)

-- Tom Sloper -- sloperama.com

Hey, thanks for linking me to your site (I just realized it was the same you from this website...)

This'll provide great read--and destruction to my study of Japanese, but great nonetheless.

I've only been running a few main ideas for a game, but it's only been of recent that I realized that just having ideas isn't enough, so I'm really glad that your site is available. Thanks for that, much appreciated.
Quote:Original post by fm47
Hi, everyone. This is but my third post here on gamedev. Everyone seems real nice and understanding. This feels like such a rare thing on the internet...
(Sorry everyone, by the end of the post, I realized it became a really long one. But please bear with me ><)

Anyway.

I've been working on a game, and had recruited a few members at my local university. But as I am on an exchange program abroad, as is another member, getting people to do things is extremely hard, as if it wasn't difficult enough to get people to do things in the first place.

So basically, it's become a one-man effort now. So aside from what I've come up with for my role, which is mainly the story, a few concept art, there hasn't been anything else.

I originally told everyone on the team that it would be a casual thing, and they'd only have to work on things when they had time, and even then, it should be last of priority on their everyday life. Well, that was awfully naive of me. Because we are just a few students who I initially gathered to make a game for the sake of making a game (since we all had that interest), there are no wages involved. Although, if possible, I'd like to eventually port the game onto a commercial console (or iPhone/iPad).

I've recently reconnected with an old friend, and he's good with GML for GameMaker. My team originally lacked a proper programmer, so I'm really glad that he is interested in the project.

Sorry, I've babbled on. On with the questions:
1) How do I go about manage team members?
Wage is out of the question, as we are all but college students who subsist n ramen in one form or another (ramen soda! jk). And said above team members were classmates with whom I studied Japanese, and all have interests in games, especially JRPG's, which is what our game would be like. Despite so, everyone seems to lack the initial interest when I introduced all the ideas to them.

I don't blame anyone else except myself in the situation. Once I return to the States, I plan on re-recruiting, with clearer goals, actual meetings, and perhaps signed forms just in case the game does have commercial purposes in the future.

2) How does recruiting members from the internet work? A project might not have commercial purposes in mind at a moment, but that may be a possibility in the future. How do all the legal things work? And to be frank, not that I think so highly of my project, but I would like to protect the project content from being used elsewhere, as it would also be unfair to everyone else on the team.

3) If someone decides to quit the team, what happens to the effort and resources they've made for the project? Under agreed documents, I'd imagine the team would maintain rights to it, but I really don't know.

I'll end the thread here. I've many more questions, but I've already written to much text for you to read (and thank you for reading). It's the gf's bday today so I have to go, but will return with more questions soon. In the mean time, please lend me some advice and suggestions! Thanks!


The site I am working on is for exactly that, team management and coordination, I plan to also offer a public project feature which allows users to submit assets which are then rating and submitted to the project based on their rating.

With public projects I also plan to use a game engine I've been working on so that the site will assemble all assets into a game automatically, beta testers will be selected based on contributions to the project and they will be able to directly download a beta version from the site.

After the project is complete it is then posted to the store and all profits will be distributed based on contributions to the game.

But first I want to just offer team and project management since this is the simplest feature to implement, you can find the link in my signature below:
I really like your concept of being able to match up potential game developers with projects. Unfortunately, I think it could also use a lot of work. One thing that is important is to be able to classify projects by things such as type of game (genre, platform, technology(2d, 3d etc) , license, needed positions/skills, compensation etc.

I feel that posting here on game dev is a poor way to try to find people/ interested parties for projects because a project you might want to work on may be hiding in the forum archieves, yet at the same time recruiters are having a hard time finding people for their projects, when in reality there might be a ton of interested people who just have been unable to find the project they want to work on.

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