On Team Formation: When And When Not To.

I've been debating this, have given my opinions to other developers, and have considered the question towards what point a developer should consider starting a team for his next project. The team members in question would function towards fulfilling their individual tasks, such as art, programming, and music.

Up to this point I've contemplated and prioritized that it is best for a man to fulfill his project alone, unless the project would take too long by himself and that's when he requests the services of other developers who specialize in the lacking fields. This is the reason why AAA games take only about a year instead of ten. I thought it was good for a developer, up to that point, to best develop himself in all the fields of art so that he doesn't have to rely upon anyone until absolutely necessary.

What is your experience with teams in the development process? Is it best to just throw together a team of novices who specialize in their particular fields without much empathy for the others fields, or is it best for jack-of-all-trades developers to come together for the sake of making an enormous project not take so long? Am I missing something?

TL;DR: Why and when should a developer consider compiling a team?

 

What about quality considerations?

I spent years as a programmer, on top of having a formal education, before I was actually good at it. I work with artists and I know that they put in a similar up-front time investment into their craft. If I'm making a game and want good art does it make sense for me to start learning to be a good artist, or to ask an artist to join the project?

I mean, technically it does still come down to time as you say, but the practical reality is that I'm looking at 3+ years before I might be as good an artist as some of the juniors I've worked with in the past, during which time I'll probably be sliding backwards in my programming skill. Time is not the infinite resource that some people think it is.

As soon as a project requires skills that the developer does not have themselves and can not easily be purchased off-the-shelf.

That doesn't mean you need to start assembling a team at that point, but you should know when you're scoping a project if you're going to need other people to help you complete it. I'd then do a prototype, for two reasons: first to find out whether or not the project is worth taking past prototype stage (if it's not as good in practice as it was in your head then you just saved months or years), and secondly to help you when you're putting the team together (because an engaging playable prototype is more compelling than an idea).

 

If you are asking such a question then you probably aren't ready to assemble or manage a team. And if you can manage a team doesn't necessarily mean you want to. I'm a programmer by degree but looking at how a game is created in Unity means I've had to educate myself about a lot of non-programming tasks in a Jack-of-all-trades general manner before I'd even feel competent enough to consider evaluating anyone to join a team to make a game.

And that's even before considering how much free time members would wish to devote to the endeavor or if all members were agreeable to the game genre and art style and yes, even the way code is formatted and namespace is used. And now you must consider that you have to buy a license for every bit of non-free art work or code assets for each member that needs to use those assets to do their work. Everybody have capable computers and test hardware?

It's doable but generally only when all members are experienced and motivated. Even real businesses have trouble pulling all those elements together.

If you are motivated to create a game or app using Unity and 3D or 2D as an hobby or an indie then this general education you must give yourself is pretty much a requirement. Only big businesses can hire workers with blinkers on because they have the experience on hand to guide their hired workers.

A small team of beginner hobbyists isn't going to have that so prepare to do a lot of step by step tutorials in different niches of the things needed to make a game to become competent enough to do what you want to do. I decided I wanted to step up my art abilities while Unity 5 and DirectX 12 / Vulkan / Metal become the standard and stable so I'm teaching myself new skills while I wait for that. You don't have to became a master of all those things just competent enough to know how to utilize the wealth of code and art that's out there and how to customize it. As a programmer you should already be used to operating like that.

If you don't enjoy the process of learning and doing the things you need to make the game you, yourself want to play you might be disappointed when you're finished and sales aren't what you'd hoped.

 

Throwing together a team of novices is normally a disaster. If you finish, it's unlikely your product will be great.

If you are an expert, throw together a team of other experts.

If you are a novice, instead join someone else's expert lead team.

 

Thanks for the replies, everyone. But let me clarify a little bit about myself.

I'm a programmer (secondarily an artist) with a life-long ambition to become a game developer one day. Because of a deep-set assumption towards perfection and excellence I have not once in my 11 years of pursuit created a game worth playing; I don't know how to make games.

I asked about teams for some extra opinion. I've participated in teams before, but the process was pitifully messy. Even to this day all of my collaborative efforts have shown fruitless. Frankly put, I don't know how to actually make games much less work in teams. Thanks again, everyone.

 

AAAs take several years and usually require few hundreds of people.

Those kind of people are rare. Most of the time you'll have to tailor your artistic style to match your skills.

You'll pretty much need to spend 5 to 10 years practicing programming, 5 to 10 years practicing art, and 5 to 10 years practicing music.

Why: Because making everything by yourself requires too many years of prior practice.
When: As soon as opportunity is available.

Of course, the best way to assemble a team would be paying people for their work.

 

As in you got paid to make someone else's game? This is the place to start.

 

Well then it's clear. Go your own way and if you produce nothing than that's no different from the teams you've involved yourself with.

If you really want to make money at this then get yourself a real job working for someone else making their games but don't waste any time being unproductive in a hobby you don't like.

 

If you create a team be prepared to do 90% of all the work anyway

 

And that's like many work places work anyway, though not quite to 90% LOL.

 

Ha ha. Yeah I was thinking the same thing when I read @Aiursrage2k comment. Most people do about the minimum possible. Probably because for a lot of people it's "just a job" and there is little to no passion involved in their work. So, if you're one of the people who has a real interest in the work then yeah it is pretty common for you to be carrying the projects.

 

I'm not sure what you're trying to get out of the discussion then. Are you saying that you want to avoid or delay teamwork because of the productivity overheads?

Both teamwork and project management are their own skills that each need development in their own right. Neither teams nor projects just work by default. It takes practice to get those things right, and then you have to keep practicing to get better at them.

 

I'm trying to get new ideas and viewpoints for future collaboration. If I learn more techniques and methods for team-formation then I will become more effective at it in the future.

 

Well given your goal and the gold rush mentality with regards to making games the best method is all the participants want to have a bit of harmless fun with no thought of monetary reward. Once you get something good going near completion then maybe the team members still left organize things commercially.

Unity is adding new collaboration features to the editor that should help you in that regard.

 

Orly now? Have they already added it? Do they intend to add it soon? What are the features?

 

It's in Beta. Sign up & try it out:


http://blogs.unity3d.com/2016/03/22/unity-collaborate-beta/

 

That sounds like a commercial nightmare. If something is going to be or may become commercial then that should be managed properly from the start. It's hard enough to get it right and keep everyone happy if you do it properly, I can't imagine that it's likely to go well if you chuck it in late in a project where people's expectations were to be jamming something out for fun.

 

Wrong. And that's a big reason why these teams fail from the start. Unless you are going to be paying salary the only practical arrangement for each team member that is brought on and stays the duration and contributes is for each team member to receive a equal portion of the net profits equal to the net profit divided by the number of team members with the net profits being send to an escrow account from the various publisher store fronts. These LLCs can easily add members and delete members for tax reasons. There should be a tax number assigned to the LLC too. I'd also advise organizing in a place without sales tax. Not to be cheap or evade taxes but to avoid spending more time as an indie doing fruitless paperwork than actually working on a game. Organizing those things isn't difficult or expensive but you don't want to bother without a product and so save that for the month or two before your product is ready and you are confident about your product.

Trying to get egotistical during the early phases of just trying to put together a team that only want to enjoy themselves and you don't get far. And spending the time and money to create an LLC with membership of just these bunch of strangers that have met on the net for the first time and say they want to make a game? That doesn't make management sense that early. So better to treat it as a hobby until you see something really good. The team probably won't get far anyway but what is the point of creating a bunch of drama over a situation where everybody is going to walk away empty handed in all likelihood anyway?

Not being rude, just practical and economical.

 

1. Don't hire idea guys. They do nothing and collect money. (Just think about it...)

2. Does that person have an arts portfolio? haha

3. ex-studio employees are expensive. They are worth every cent.

4. By the time you make $100,000 you'll have more than enough money to pay for UnityPro, for you and your staff.

 

Teams "fail from the start" as a result of planning, organisation and management of expectations? If you say so...

It's funny that you follow it up by saying that "the only practical arrangement is..." exactly the kind of plan I was talking about having.

I didn't say anything about creating LLCs or anything of the kind. All I said was that it should be "managed properly", which is of course going to vary depending on the team and the project. For teams I'm on that usually means a 5 minute chat and a group email outlining something like the simple plan you gave above.

There's nothing "egotistical" about planning for relevant outcomes, and the whole point of figuring stuff out while people are happy and calm is to avoid drama if money starts flowing and people get hot and excited. That situation has a funny way of making even minor differences in opinion or expectation into arguments, broken teams, and potentially even broken friendships. (Definitely not how I want to end a for-fun project.)