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[Wilson Saunders]

I had a former employer contact me about a developing a game for profit share. I told him I didn't have the time. A quick google search later and I find out the FCC/FTC fined his company into non existence due to fraudulent advertising and a non complaint refund policy. I am glad I got out of that company when I did.

[Superb Joe]

Superb Joe misquoted the well known song "Money for Nothing and Chicks for Free" because, let's face it, if the man has a weakness, it's pop culture

ok look first of all i paid to see mark knopffler live even though i am in my 20s. second of all that video resulted in beast wars.

[absolute8]

I feel like this question is an oxymoron. Even people who don't work for capital or physical trade don't truly work for free. What does your idea offer in terms of quality or passion that would inspire someone to work without general compensation?

[zminusone]

I have worked for free. But honestly even as a professional - I make 100% of my fairly meager living performing/touring, composing, & teaching music - I feel like I've been working my ass off for free or close to it most of my life. I guess I'm used to it.

And yes, if someone approached me with a super cool project that looked promising I would take it on as a revshare without much hesitation - so long as I had the time and they seemed like cool developers to work with. However, it seems music might be one of the more competitive elements of game design. Sometimes I get the vibe that unless you're on a developer's short list of musicians who are artists, you're automatically considered a nuisance. That kind of sucks.

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

Don't be rude to people who ask you to take dumb jobs, ever, there's no justification for it. Keep a form letter in a document and copy and paste it. Ignore/blacklist anyone who won't accept a no. It takes like, 10-15 seconds from seeing the email to sending your reply.


"Hi, I appreciate you reaching out to me. I'm not taking on any projects for profit share or equity. Best of luck with your project going forward.

Thanks,
Conker or whoever"

Relatedly: don't make excuses for people trying to con artists out of work. If your game has any real chance of making any money, you should take out a loan to pay contractors with. If it doesn't, you shouldn't be trying to talk a gullible artist to give you work for free. If I'm slaving for some indie nobody I'm probably going to ask for a legitimate rate and profit share, for the risk of wasting my time on a bunch of art I can't use effectively in my portfolio/resume.

[BBreakfast]

("Working for Free" in this case = Profit Share since, well, NO ONE should consider a truly uncompensated job)

In my experience, the only project worth working for "free" on is one where they don't offer up a profit share percent at first and instead would prefer to pay outright (you have to talk them into some profit share). Even Chucklefish was offering a fat cut of their profits in an initial job posting, but after a few months of dev that project died so all the folks working for a % were left with nothing.

So the lesson is, have a "sry I don't work for free" snippet you can use for all requests for free or profit share work, and when the offer is upfront reasonable compensation, do your research and see if you maybe want to push for less compensation upfront in exchange for a small percent of profit share.

[FrankieSmileShow]

I suppose this isnt entirely on-topic, just very related:
Always keep in mind a half-profit share half compensation deal as a possibility if a client cant afford to pay you the rate you want, but the project really interests you/looks promising/you really really need the work.

Never just lower your rate if a client cant afford it. A reduced rate is valuable, always ask for at least a small profit share in exchange for a reduced rate. If you work at half your normal rate and the game is successful, the devs now have money to pay you with, but don't owe you anything. This really sucks.
Ask for your full price, and if they can't give that to you, negociate it down using profit share.

You can estimate how much the game might sell, and calculate how much 1% of the sales will be worth, and calculate how much your reduced rate is worth in profit share % that way. Its no exact science, and money now is always better than potential money later, but it's much better than just giving away your work at half price and getting nothing in return.

[Zizka]

Relatedly: don't make excuses for people trying to con artists out of work. If your game has any real chance of making any money, you should take out a loan to pay contractors with. If it doesn't, you shouldn't be trying to talk a gullible artist to give you work for free. If I'm slaving for some indie nobody I'm probably going to ask for a legitimate rate and profit share, for the risk of wasting my time on a bunch of art I can't use effectively in my portfolio/resume.

Suppose a group of person wants to make a band. Everyone is playing their own respective instrument and they start performing for free at first to get some notoriety.

Would you say this situation could compare to a group of person getting together to create a game? If not, why is it that the comparison wouldn't stand?

I'm not saying you're wrong or anything, just something to consider. Maybe you're right, maybe recruiting someone (on profit share) to join a team can only mean that he or she is trying to con that person. Such initiatives should therefore be illegal and forbidden as they would automatically imply fraud.

I think the reason why people are allowed to reach out to others is because not everyone is trying to con other people. Sure, some people will have dishonest intentions but that's part of being human.

Not everyone is necessarily in a position to take out a loan either. I've been reading a lot of logs of fairly famous dev like the guys who made Hotline Miami and my understanding is that they were very poor when they were working on the game. When you barely have any money to eat, it's unlikely you'll want to go for a loan or that a bank would agree to loan you the money.

Just some things to consider.

[lithander]

I think Zizka's band example is a good one. Many of those that want to make games treat it as a hobby. And a hobby isn't supposed to earn you money. So the "don't work for free" really only applies to the professionals. It's perfectly reasonable to expect a programmer that wants to make a game to hook up with an artist that also wants to make a game - without this being about money. Maybe it isn't the kind of "work for free" we're discussing here... but given that this is an indie gamedev forum I think the impression that you should under no circumstances work on a game without being compensated for it would be wrong.

[Garthy]

You say your portfolio says "no profit share" but I just looked at your portfolio thread on tigsource and it doesn't say that anywhere.

It doesn't say anywhere that you won't work for the opportunity for me to dress you up in a maid costume and slather you with whipped cream, but, um, I'm sure I had a point, but I suddenly got hungry.

It takes like, 10-15 seconds from seeing the email to sending your reply.


"Hi, I appreciate you reaching out to me. I'm not taking on any projects for profit share or equity. Best of luck with your project going forward.

Thanks,
Conker or whoever"

This is excellent advice.

The advice I give nowadays is to be polite, encouraging, but deliver a very firm "no" if you aren't interested in the arrangement. It works in-person too. If you're ever put on the spot, the words: "no thankyou" delivered politely yet firmly will allow a polite and amicable exit from almost any awkward conversation.

[Superb Joe]

idea for a game: the corneria theme plays and a fox (the playable character) is seen running through a wireframe tunnel or whatever. the player assumes control for 1 second and is then run over by a heavy goods vehicle. the game is named carfox. you can have it for free.

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

Suppose a group of person wants to make a band. Everyone is playing their own respective instrument and they start performing for free at first to get some notoriety.

Would you say this situation could compare to a group of person getting together to create a game? If not, why is it that the comparison wouldn't stand?

I'm not saying you're wrong or anything, just something to consider. Maybe you're right, maybe recruiting someone (on profit share) to join a team can only mean that he or she is trying to con that person. Such initiatives should therefore be illegal and forbidden as they would automatically imply fraud.

I think the reason why people are allowed to reach out to others is because not everyone is trying to con other people. Sure, some people will have dishonest intentions but that's part of being human.

Not everyone is necessarily in a position to take out a loan either. I've been reading a lot of logs of fairly famous dev like the guys who made Hotline Miami and my understanding is that they were very poor when they were working on the game. When you barely have any money to eat, it's unlikely you'll want to go for a loan or that a bank would agree to loan you the money.

Just some things to consider.

Right, so, here are the differences:

1- Unfortunately, playing bass okay or whatever rarely gives you a stable source of employment. If you are recruited into a band for free, you cannot (necessarily) expect that there's a different band that would pay you to play the exact same songs. Freelancing in indie games you basically can expect that. Before my current job I worked on some really cool projects with hardworking people -- some of them paid less than I would usually expect, because I decided to partner with them and we negotiated what they could afford, but all of these dialogues started with legitimate work offers and me being firm about my pricing.

2- Indie Game ppl are a relatively open, very skilled community - if you are offering me to work for free, you know who I am and think I'm good: If that's the case, I have a dozen friends who are more qualified than you, more likely to make money than you, and people I already have relationships and would like to help out. If I have the time and energy to work for free, why don't I work with them? This probably goes for bands too - how are you going to recruit a musician to come work for you for no money when they probably already have musician friends they'd love to work with unless you have something to offer?

3- Unlike bands, who may not be able to make the kind of music they want without a team, it's extremely unlikely that a single person who can't afford to pay a team is also experienced and organized enough to make a team-sized games project. So we'll either make something I could make alone (and have more fun with, and make more money with) or we'll fail.


None of these reasons may convince you on their own, but you should understand that if you're reaching out to an artist/musician/programmer to ask them to work for free, they are already too busy to want to deal with you.

I think Zizka's band example is a good one. Many of those that want to make games treat it as a hobby. And a hobby isn't supposed to earn you money. So the "don't work for free" really only applies to the professionals. It's perfectly reasonable to expect a programmer that wants to make a game to hook up with an artist that also wants to make a game - without this being about money. Maybe it isn't the kind of "work for free" we're discussing here... but given that this is an indie gamedev forum I think the impression that you should under no circumstances work on a game without being compensated for it would be wrong.

The takeway imo is don't solicit strangers to work for free -- don't work for people you don't know without appropriate pay.

[Zizka]

Here are my thoughts:

Indie Game ppl are a relatively open, very skilled community - if you are offering me to work for free, you know who I am and think I'm good: If that's the case, I have a dozen friends who are more qualified than you, more likely to make money than you, and people I already have relationships and would like to help out. If I have the time and energy to work for free, why don't I work with them? This probably goes for bands too - how are you going to recruit a musician to come work for you for no money when they probably already have musician friends they'd love to work with unless you have something to offer?

I'll paraphrase what I understand from your message and provide my reply:
"From my observations, I consider indie game people to be generally speaking skilled and open. I have friends who are skilled in the indie game community and I assume that's the case for other indie developer too. Since I have those friends I could work with, I have no incentive in working with a stranger. I assume that other people are in my position too."

I don't have any statistics handy but I will hazard a guess that it's fairly common for people to have a certain skill about something without necessarily having friends who are also skilled in a related area. I would even go so far as guess that you are part of the minority, although I have no data to back it up. People advertise for partners in various activities all over the place. They don't necessarily always remain in the same closed circle of friends for all their activities. I don't have many friends by none of them are good at anything related to indie games and they're not interested in it. So we have a situation here where we have different experience about this situation.

In my opinion, and I mean no disrespect, but your own personal experience doesn't disqualify the idea of working with strangers (for profit share) as a whole. It's just that, the way you experience that. It's fairly limited empirically speaking and doesn't demonstrate anything other than your own personal experience. I hope you're not upset by me disagreeing. It's nothing against you, I just see things differently.

1- Unfortunately, playing bass okay or whatever rarely gives you a stable source of employment. If you are recruited into a band for free, you cannot (necessarily) expect that there's a different band that would pay you to play the exact same songs. Freelancing in indie games you basically can expect that. Before my current job I worked on some really cool projects with hardworking people -- some of them paid less than I would usually expect, because I decided to partner with them and we negotiated what they could afford, but all of these dialogues started with legitimate work offers and me being firm about my pricing.

I'm not too sure at what you're getting at here so I won't reply to this part because I think I would misunderstand your point.

3- Unlike bands, who may not be able to make the kind of music they want without a team, it's extremely unlikely that a single person who can't afford to pay a team is also experienced and organized enough to make a team-sized games project. So we'll either make something I could make alone (and have more fun with, and make more money with) or we'll fail.

How did you come to the conclusion to the part in bold? Your own experiences? You might be right, I can't prove you're not. I can tell you I would describe myself as being a single person who is experienced enough to make a team-sized games project, to the risk of sounding arrogant. I have been doing this for over a year and half now. I wasn't good at it at first (as in anything) but consider myself very efficient at managing projects now. Am I part of the exception ? Neither you are I know the answer to this question. But if there are some of us who have the skill to manage those types of projects, I think it'd be fair enough not to generalize profit-share projects as being scams or being lead by scammers.

I can't help but feel concerned about this because it's a very negative label to attach to a wide variety of people who share a project methodology if you will. This in turn might discourages people from starting their own game dev initiatives by reaching out to other people because of the negative stigma that's going around.

I'm working with two very skilled people, a composer and a programmer. They've been around for a while now and are great people. The project is moving along nicely and we're all learning and having fun collaborating with one another (their words too). I'm just writing this here for those of you who are hesitating about giving it a shot because they don't want to go for a loan. Most of the art for the game was already done when I reached out to the programmer though. So having some things done is certainly important when going for those types of enterprises. People will feel more confident that the project won't be dropped and it won't have been for nothing.

None of these reasons may convince you on their own, but you should understand that if you're reaching out to an artist/musician/programmer to ask them to work for free, they are already too busy to want to deal with you.

Well, no, that's the thing. That's what I'm trying really hard to get across in this message.

You seem to have a lot of contempt/anger for people who propose profit shares. I think all freelance probably feel that way because they're being asked to do their jobs without any instant financial rewards (and no certainty that they will be paid in the future either). Just keep in mind that some of us (like me) work on our games as a hobby, not as a main job (EDIT: which lithander explained in his/her message). So I understand your resentment towards this. I guess I just wish you wouldn't have such rigid statements such as:

The takeway imo is don't solicit strangers to work for free -- don't work for people you don't know without appropriate pay.

How about:
"I don't participate in game dev projects unless I'm paid upfront for it. Other people can and it can lead to productive results but I don't participe in those myself." That's usually why you'll have different sections on forums for paid jobs and profit share. That way, people can seek what it is that they are looking for."

But it seems you've made up your mind about it. I just wanted to show the other side of the coins if only to balance things out.

[s0]

99% of musicians who are in bands do not make a living from music, that includes the majority of bands that have albums out and play live somewhat regularly. Aside from that,  Music and gamedev are just too different to meaningfully compare.

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

So: this is common experience, not personal experience -- this is experience that is shared by dozens of colleagues friends and acquaintances, not to mention hundreds or thousands of other creators who've expressed it online before me. This is probably the last (long) reply I'm going to write here, because I would like to keep explaining this in good faith for the sake of those of you who don't have any experience making games, but it's going to get to a point where I'm just repeating myself.

Point by point:

[1] To be blunt: By and large the people who advertise for partners aren't any good at what they do yet, and don't therefor don't yet understand (as you don't) the value of their work or the skills required to succeed.

[2] The skill barrier to complete a large project is extremely high, and most of it is situational/institutional knowledge that requires experience. This is self evident if you've ever failed to keep a project organized, ever been part of a project that fell apart due to lack of organization, or have worked in an actual production team, where institutional knowledge is the only glue keeping things from falling apart. It's extremely rare in individual/hobbyist teams because the only way to get it is experience, and the vast majority of people with that experience are vacuumed up into professional work.

[3] If your project is small enough that the above isn't true, one person can easily complete it alone. If you don't want to learn how to program in addition to art or design or whatever, then ok, but that's another reason people wouldn't want to work with you.

[4] Painting me as angry and having my mind made up here is dishonest, and it seems like something you're only doing because you're attached to your ideas and seeking justification to dismiss my advice. I'm experienced, and you'll notice that virtually everyone here who has actually completed projects or work feels the same way I do. I don't claim any special level of expert knowledge here, there are many people around significantly more experienced than I am, but you won't find many of them disagreeing with me.

[5] Yes, I want to dissuade people from trying to start projects and recruit people. It inhibits people from starting on their own and making good things (which will attract collaborators and potentially even make you the money or notoriety to pay for them), because they think they need a team, it wastes the time of 'recruits', and it encourages a culture that undervalues labor.

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

Also, i'd be surprised and happy to hear about people who met strangers online (not existing online friends they respected) on a rev share product and went on to make a good or successful game.

[Capntastic]

"But what if it's your friend asking you to make sprites and code for them and you'll have a lot of fun doing it?"

Then you're having fun with a friend and it's not work.

[Zizka]

Well, let's leave it at that then. I don't think we'll ever reach an agreement about this. On a concluding note:

[4] Painting me as angry and having my mind made up here is dishonest, and it seems like something you're only doing because you're attached to your ideas and seeking justification to dismiss my advice. I'm experienced, and you'll notice that virtually everyone here who has actually completed projects or work feels the same way I do. I don't claim any special level of expert knowledge here, there are many people around significantly more experienced than I am, but you won't find many of them disagreeing with me.

To me, you come across as a person who's made up their mind about this. Sorry if you feel that it's dishonest but that's how it comes across. Maybe that's not the case but I'm basing myself on what I read and my interpretation of it. Hopefully we'll find some examples of situations where profit share endeavors did work out and change your mind.

I think I'm not comfortable with statements like those (which had me participate in the first place)...:

"If your game has any real chance of making any money, you should take out a loan to pay contractors with."

...for practical and ideological reasons but I'll leave it at that.

[Capntastic]

Like, I get it:  Sometimes people can link up and get good things going together.  Some people want to hire folk and some folk want to get hired.  But if you're a total stranger, especially showing up in a community  of skilled people trying to have a solid creative output, you're wasting people's time if you want free stuff.  Even if you're offering money on the back end of a project there's no guarantee you will get any money to distribute, or even distribute the money you do get.  People are shady all over and expecting people to jump on the opportunity to put in weeks of work for you for No Reason is rude as heck. 

If you don't even have a project started and are waiting for someone to show up so you can explain the project to them so they can work on it for free, that's worthless to everyone.

It's the height of arrogance.  It's disrespectful.

I write stuff constantly.  I have tons of ideas for games (who doesn't?)  I can't program well and I can't draw at all.  If I wanted to turn one of my ideas into reality I'd be bound by basic decency to have a design document in place, and some form of payment situation arranged (even if it's a token payment of like, a hundred dollars. Anything less would be a slap in the fucking face.).  And even then I'd want to work with people I've seen around here, that I know are somewhat reliable and reasonable and solid.  And I'd expect them to expect those qualities of me. 

Because a community like this doesn't exist to be your labor pool to exploit.

[Capntastic]

Also, I agree with the idea that if you're going to try to behave as a business and contract people on a purely professional level to do work for you, then yes, you take the risks and take out a loan and do all that paperwork and do all those taxes.

If it's your dream to make a game, and you think it's fair to make other people get headaches and drip sweat over it, then you should absolutely get night sweats because your project might not recoup its losses.

The people you're relying on should absolutely get paid even if it means you might take a huge loss.