Under Construction

 How to get your game development team...
...and keep them together. - Ken Deel

In this I am mainly referring to a company who is creating a game on a turn key basis, more so because they are working with a low budget. The team acquired will be expected, as yourself, to be working for later rewards in exchange for a piece of the pie so-to-speak. More than mere royalties, these member become the founding members of the company spearheaded by someone like you.  All of you working towards a common goal, the American dream of making your own video game. : ) Most never make it, and it is not due to a lack of a good game concept, it is just hard to attain who you need and to keep them and organize the efforts effectively towards the game. from stat to finish. not easy. It is far easier to get a good band from the basement to the stage, and few upon few can really get a good band going even.  It is also assumed in this article that you will be advertising and working with a majority of your team members over the internet.  All may find some good advice in here regardless of how there set-up is for their new company/game DEV team.

Here are some helpful example documents: (URLS will be added soon)

NDA - standard non-disclosure agreement.

Compensation for work, etc.

Member guidelines

1. First you need to make sure you have ALL of these things in place:

• Build a great website around your newly formed game development company and game. Attracting good people will require a lure much like you will need to sell your game. Basically you are trying to sell your game to these people to build your game development team. Later on if you did a bad job selling your game concept to guys who however did join, they maybe the first to go. This is part of the way to build a solid foundation with your team. You maybe the corner stone but your team is the foundation and the building. Don’t over do it either with B.S., you’ll be setting them up for a big let down.
  
• Write a good pitch.  Again you are selling this game to your prospective team members. So be ready with a snappy sell that you can reply to interested ones who dare to answer your ad. Have any and all questions they may have with a readied answer. It will make you look bad if you answer "I dunno" on something that you should indeed know. You need to give this alot of thought, especially if you expecting these guys to work fro free until a demo is release on the faith in you game concept and leadership.
  
• If you want to seriously get a good team together, have your game all designed and ready for your presentation.  You are not selling a notion, how many times have you read of two paragraph ideas from others somewhere? This is not enough to start o, even if the idea sounds good. There is a lot of game design to be done. Basically I designed my game over time from part of 1996 to 1998. The project itself really didn't get fully underway until January 1999.   Before then I made notes, lots of them. I carried a small pad and pencil so when I was with an idea I would write it down. Remember that I was also writing a story as well all my games will always have a suitable story, and I suggest your should as well.  
  I suggest you first get a short game design document together. Explain the story concept, show some concepts sketches if you can. The more you impress, the better chance to lure good talent into your team.
  
• You will need a plan for compensation and other issues ironed out.   In what way will your team be compensated?   Look at an early draft of what I proposed. HERE [http://Url to be added later] If you don’t have a planned way to fairly compensate all who donate their time to your project. You may still lose some interested parties whom which like what they seen so far.
  
• You'll need to have a game engine picked out, tested, and ready to use. So if your low in your budget, try to go with a more complete "free" game engine. Fly3D, Crystal Space, Morphit, Genesis3D, Jet3D, etc. This can be a time consuming progress to really find out what you need. At this point you probably know what Genre you game will be.   So choosing Genesis3D for a flight sim game is a bad idea. Know the limitations. Know the game engine.

2. Advertise to attain members for your new team.   

• Go to PlanetQuake.com, GameDev.net, those kind of places.
• Colleges, talk to the head of an area college art department for possibilities.
• Newspaper: if your in a small town, forget it, the people you need are rare and the smaller the town the less likely you’ll find one locally.
• Be sure you know what you need:

1.      3D modelers: Often times a modeler doesn’t “skin” like you would want them too, they really need to be able to make/attain their own image maps, and skin the model well. But don't fuss you can always get a good modeler and have another artist make the skins. Also be patient will all of your team, 
if they are really into this they will get better and really try to learn how to be better to meet your request for the game project. One guy can animate better than the next. You may have two guys and one can animate a Quadraped 
(4 legs) better than a biped.   Just assign work so that the project can be handed to the proper person to either finish or take over from where the other left off. For more on efficiency, refer to the this document excerpt below

2.      Game programmer. 
A college grad who knows C++ is NOT good enough, you need someone who knows 3D math, vectors, windows and directx programming. We often found that even experienced C++ programmers required much more knowledge to be able to be of any use for game programming. You need a guy who has been doing it for a couple of years as a hobby. This is a skill not acquired through college, but often only acquired on their own like with Quake2 mods.  Even if you yourself know some game programming try to get a guy who can work on his own without your basically ":training" him for game programming. This is far too time consuming and will eat up valuable production time where you can really be doing stuff that applies to the game instead of being a mentor to a newbie.

3.      Level designers: A guy who can make realistic worlds and design a good game play map is as rare as a good game programmer.  Plus it would be even better to find one who can make their own textures. This is easier on the project, especially if you are going to have most of your team working for the game out of your town.  But asking for that skill as well may narrow down your prospect list to nil. After all the more skilled they are, the more you will have to impress them to work for free for a while until your DEMO is ready at least.  Hopefully all will view you game project as a ground floor opportunity with a start-up company and great new game deign/concept. After all it seems otherwise a damn near impossible venture of actually getting a job elsewhere in the game industry. Unless you want to build Games for Las Vegas casinos. Not to encourage anyone out there, but I have meet extremely talented programmers that have been doing it for 20 years, who say:
" I have yet to find a job in the industry..so I work for [computer hardware manufacturer]..."

4.     Texture artist: You come up with a list of texture needed for the game and give one of these guys a crack. Often they don’t have to really be an artist. Just have a flatbed scanner, a digital camera maybe. And a nose for finding textures. These people are the easiest to find. And also the quickest to go, yes they seem to be more so unstable. But finding someone who can actually prepare the texture for the game is the real trick. Seamless tiling and proper color key for images with a transparency area. In the beginning I did this all myself, I still do my own more often than not rather than to wait when I want a texture for level construction that I am doing.  Oddly I noted that the more talented people are in fact the most stable ones I have had the pleasure of working with. This reminds me of the rock band days again as well. The ones with the inflated egos always thought they were better then what they are. And your great musicians humbly go about their business professionally and with a job, as always, well done. (Another psych 101 for ya) 

5.     A real  2D artist: this guy can make textures that you can't otherwise simply scan or snap. He can do the commercial art for the game, marketing, game manual, game box, splash screen, create skins for the 3d models, conceptual art, company logo etc. This guy can fill in all the gaps.  Every good game dev team needs one of these guys (besides yourself).

6.   Get your business manager  "later" when you have money issues of a higher nature. Try to manage these things yourself at first, at least until you get a major company going. There is really no need to have a nose for money until you make money. Besides non-creative types like a "Business manager" aren't at all willing to work for free for later rewards. Same goes for marketing managers and other "suites". Try to find these guys within your team at first, until you have the need to go with a "specialist". Remember your development team is made up of rare individuals, and business and marketing guys, quite frankly, can grow on trees.
So you can always get them when you need them, just hold out some money under their nose to lure them in when needed. ; )

•   Who/what to avoid: TIPS

·        Request a custom sample when possible.    Far too many times these people “steal” work from other 3^rd party artist. I am talking mostly of ones you will meet on the web. They will show a 3dcafe.com model as something they did from scratch.  Textures from Golgotha as one they did. How do you tell? You may face copyright infringement and heavy embarrassment after publishing if you have this happen. Or compensate this person financially for work they never did.  And believe me it happens a lot, more so with the portfolio of their work. They use other people work they think you haven’t seen to get their foot in the door. Don’t worry, they will soon be exposed for the fraud they are. After you request a specific assignment. Wait as they takes months to complete it. Only to have them disappear later without warning… Create a document with a heavy message about using stealing 3^rd party art work to submit as your own. Imagine paying a contract artist who all along was submitting copyrighted  pre-made work he extracted for an unpopular game title.
Beware!

·        Give a probationary period before you give away to much info about your project.   The regular guy gets board, a short attention span that soon dissipates away from the long and tiresome game dev project.  This individual needs a change, something new always. Usually either can't stay on any one thing for long or his/her heart is not truly into the project at all. TIME WILL TELL. that's why you have to really test their dedication through time. When the "newness" of it all wears off, what will they do next?   I remember not ever being able to get in touch with a local, who’s phone was always busy. Why? He is an internet deathmatch junkie. Plays it all the time. And takes 4 months to get his first 3d model done. If you call it done. These are people who are not disciplined enough for such a venture as game development. I suggest you find others if you learn you have such a person.  Research some info about how companies weed out prospects for jobs - A few tips are given here, but many things can be picked up just by a few simple questions and simple observations. But you have to know what to look for. Reading article on how to score big in an interview is a good start. There you learn what an employer should look for. grant it this article is about starting a team for a turn key project. However you may want to be forearm and forewarned as to who you are considering as a valued team member. After all your development time is valuable. and the more people who came and go, the more delays and other B.S. you have to deal with.

• Avoid someone who may have another game project, this doesn't work, no matter how much the heart is in the right place.  For one reason it is just too competitive of an industry. Like working for the CIA and KGB. Second dividing time between two when the heart should be into only one sounds kinda cliché' and corny. But true in game development as well. This only works for contracted 3d modelers. Basically with these individuals, only give them information that they require, nothing more. 
  "torn between two games, feeling like a fool..." (song)
  

• Transition: Example-  If they are in school, be ready for a change: 
  "I am sorry I have to attend to my classes more so..." will be what you may hear from one.  Avoid people in or near a transition stage: 1) Getting married soon (moving in together) 
  2) Graduating soon 3) getting a new job 4) Got a girlfriend  5) converted to Buddhism. 6) Join the army.  Any major transition means change, and their work will suffer or they may decide to quit, be ready!  
  

• Try to talk with them to find out how they can fit into the project and for how long in to their designated future. After all you need people that are in it for the longer haul. It is easier to keep the familiar ones aboard.  They know the program(s), formats of 3d models, conversion utilities, game concept. Anytime you have to get a new guy you have to stop, pitch the game, show him around, get him started. this is all about 3-4 weeks of delays, getting the new guy up to speed, plus having you or one of your team stop what your doing to do this.  
  

• Friend or NOT? You would be surprised ones you thought to be your friend can quit without warning and move on without a whim.  Sure it hurts the project, and you thought they were like a friend, but it is better to keep the relationship at a player/coach level perhaps. Rather than to add more to your expectations by considering one as a friend. That complicates it more. You expect more from a friend then just a mere acquaintance/team member. So keep your prospectives in order, or at least learn to expect the unexpected... because anyone can quit at anytime. No matter how good your game project really is.   Which brings me to:
  

• Yes, be ready for anyone to quit to get a “real job”. Most can’t hack it with this responsibility, plus a fulltime job. This means to me is that their heart isn’t in it to begin with else they will always find time for game development.

3. How to keep your team together

• Put up a website or create a listbot newsletter for members that consistently updates all members as to what the others are doing, and how the game progress is coming. Send this out no longer than every two weeks.
• Keep em busy, always have the next project on deck and ready for the asking.
• Reply to member e-mails ASAP. Don’t leave these unanswered for long.
• Stay in contact with your members even if you don't hear from them, try to contact at least once a week for progress and casual maybe. Also this is a good way to stay on tab as to who is really dropping out of the picture unexpectedly. As for the good guys, this is another way to keep them motivated seeing that the captain is still at the helm and on the job.
• Lead by example. When these guys see how dedicated you are and how hard you are always working it rubs off onto them.
• Have regular monthly meetings. Sometimes have all of them meet, other times you may want to have a meeting with programmers only, or 3d artist. Also list reason why they should attend so it is clear to all that the meeting just isn’t an unproductive social chat.
• Be tactful, don’t get attitude with your guys, and always show appreciation for all they do.  Try to be careful to not offend, remember these guys are artist, and unpredictable, and as an artist we can be a bit over sensitive to critique of our work.
• Talk with them on the phone every once and a while. This gives them a sense that your still on the project, it's re-stating your commitment to the project and giving them a sense that all of this is real and you are serious. Here again you are selling yourself as a "leader", the one who pulled together the team. More so I can say it makes things seem more "real", instead of just an internet thing only. I hope this makes sense because this is important though we are getting into psych 101 here it applies.
• Try to plan an in-person meeting for all, after the first 6 months. It maybe more of a social gathering but, maybe this is when you can spend allot of time putting together something to ready the company and you new members. Form and Limited liability company on this maybe, or plan on one. While you have everyone in one place you can make the best of it and plan together. maybe restate some concepts and ideas about the project, company, or their compensation, future marketing of the game. This brings me to another point.
• Show that you are building a strategy for things to come well in advance. Yes you marketing strategies, sponsorships, publishers, the more you have laid out the better. you should really be doing this anyways. (or have someone working on this with you) But I mention this since it is good for morale. Another point that may help you good people want to stay longer and work harder.  This should have been outlined to them when they were just prospective team members.
• Memos/Documents that help to organize the project better like BELOW, are good to send to all members, maybe through LISTBOT or just plain e-mail
• Remember if you are promising later rewards you can't get to much of a commitment in more than a word. Even hiring these people fulltime isn't a guarantee they won't quit as you will read below:

   

  ---

I found an excellent point made in this excerpt from Game Developer Scott Bilas on the Gabriel Knight 3 development team’s moral: (another development "what went wrong story") See it HERE

An example memo DOC

Memo to all team members: From Team leader

We need to effectively apply an assembly line order of things when necessary.  What I mean here is if someone say is not a good animator, then simply pass it on to the better animator. Being too proud to ask for help is not good at all.   Level designers may need another artist to create a texture; Musicians may need someone to write a better guitar line. Don’t expect to do anything all yourselves, and please don’t be offended if you are asked to allow another to complete the next “phase” of you project. Even if you started it yourself, or there was no mention to you of passing it to another team member. Myself included, no one is an exception to this really.

MS Project time tables

A website located at the [private website URL] website will have a page containing a MS project document that will contain all of what everyone is currently doing, complete with requested completion dates and so on.    We all need a completion date as a reference, and the project seriously needs this sort of organization.  I hope to have this implemented soon.

 Working for free?

We can’t ask for much, nor complain much before this date if anyone is not really putting in much time on the game. Sometimes it seems as though members are slacking off, with no truly legitimate reason. Regardless of not getting paid now, this isn’t a good work ethic, I for one as some others do,  truly, Love doing this, else I couldn’t tolerate logging in long hours on this.

The work itself to me in many ways is fulfilling and my own reward. Else I might get bored, lazy, distracted, or whatever takes me away from using my spare time that can be so valuably use for the game.

Yes, everyone has been working for free for the later big rewards. But we do ask to take this seriously as though you are getting paid. Don’t let money be your strongest motivation, but let simply “for love of the game” be your inspiration and encouragement, as though you are getting paid. After all you WILL be paid for you completed work that is to be used in the game at some point, in someway.

SO please don’t take the attitude as “I am not getting paid, so you can’t expect me to stick with a time-frame, and make demands on me…” This doesn’t mean that anyone of you have said this. ; )

 Some of us are not following that attitude at all. And we ask that ALL of the rest of us don’t think that way either. 

Where would a band be if the songs were not written, rehearsed, and perfected? Still in the basement. They don’t get paid. It takes more to do this game then it does to get a band road ready almost. Imagine your band getting stuck in a basement for 2.5 years? Would be getting on each-others nerves I guarantee.  We are all partners in this business venture not just “Team members” you are investing your valuable time and skills into a growing soon to be successful company. That you will be a part of instead of just being another guy punching in the clock. You will be in on the decision making, get to talk of some of your ideas. Yes, and executive in a sense, who will always be a “honcho” even when new guys come in later after the first games release.

 Keep the actually goal in mind people and please take this very serious. If you want us to take you serious.  Back to the band metaphor; someone had to set some organizing starting with a song list; every member learns a new cover-tune per week. Now if the guitar player for example get that attitude he will fall behind the others and eventually he maybe replaced.  Team work here again, what you do may affect the other. Even if you decide to use OtherWorlds a catalyst to aid in getting another job elsewhere, how you behave and perform with us, will be heard across the industry. Good or bad.

With Freedom comes CHAOS:

Basically giving someone a list and letting them choose what they want to do is a bad idea. Yes it worked with Gerald for example, because he knew what needed to be done first, and in what order the rest of it was to be placed in somewhat. But in general he is an exception.  Another [person may like the freedom, yet not stay on any one thing long enough to have a one single completed project. Just many unfinished ones. Its too hard to stay on track that way.   So I am assigning one thing at a time, this is where the “set time frames” recorded on a MS project DOC can be useful. To keep everyone on track.  Priorities change from day to day sometimes so, I plan on sticking with the “one-thing-at-a-time” method, while implementing the use of the Microsoft project documentation of this and any future game development. This will help on the organization and completion time as to the project. 

PERSONELLE CHANGES:

This can and has been a major set back; Gerald has many times wasted time breaking in a new guy only to have them not last all that long with us.   Programming seems to be the hardest position to fill; the second would be Level designer. This has slowed down the progress of the game but slowly it all falls into place. And I believe we have much of what we need now, not much more BS to deal with. No major personelle changes needed any game engine decisions, just development now. Expect this portion of the game develop to go much faster and smoother. Meanwhile as you read/hear this Document. We have added three and discarded one. [removed specifics of mentioned names]

... and the others are here in Springfield that are very good and very enthusiastic about working on the game with us. And we are glad to have them.

Good practices:

1.        Have a meeting at least once a week within your department.

2.        Discuss tip, and things you have learned, to swap ideas so you can learn from each other.

3.        Don’t be afraid to surf the net, and copy and print box loads of online tutorials exploring new techniques to perfect you craft. Buy books, lots of em out!

4.        Don’t be afraid of asking for help, or of passing your project to another so that it can be finished sooner, or better done. Please contact Ken if you are to transfer the project to another first.

5.        If you expect that you can’t get an assigned task or project done in the “time-line” set. Speak up and say so ASAP, so that another may do it instead.

6.        Don’t spend to much valuable time “learning” just do, try to learn new things when it doesn’t interfere with your current project's quality or time-line of completion. 

7.        Your are asked to stay in touch with your projects leader and give weekly updated reports as to your progress.  E-mail is fine, or by phone. Feel free to contact Ken Deel whenever you feel a need to discuss anything: [private phone number]

Now for the bare bones: Organizing each department: clearly defining each department:

 The following Creative departments are current; this structure I propose is to remain:

 Again I ask that Pride here is to be set aside and teamwork is to be emphasized. You can’t be afraid to ask for help. No one will be ask to enlist ion help unless they themselves can’t come up with what is requested, and in the requested time-frame set.    Where one of us is lacking another can compensate. We are a great team and company combined not individually. Please remember that. Know your limitations, we are allowing for the learning process, as we always will unless it is far to time consuming for one thing. Then the project must be “finished” or “continued” by another
member of the team. If we don’t have someone who can handle, we will enlist in outside help.

 [more private company info here]

End of  Document