Returning to freelancing...would I be competitive now?

Hello, folks. It's been a long time since I freelanced, and I'm curious about the current environment (and how I might fit into it). I recently released a game called Sector Assault. It's a neat little thing, but it bombed hard, presumably because space shooters don't stand out in a crowded market. This is my only published title because my handful of old clients failed for reasons beyond my control (usually too much ambition, not enough money).

I realize none of this sounds appealing so far, but I'm hoping Sector Assault is a strong show of my skills. I was the sole programmer on that project. I also designed it, hired and managed the team, handpicked other art and audio, assembled all assets, and rigorously tested it.

So here's the part where I expose myself to the eternal love and kindness of the Internet (lol). Does the game look impressive...? Not from a player's perspective, but from the perspective of a potential client. Is it sufficiently obvious that the game demonstrates technical mastery and dedication?

I'm worried about the market itself, too. The loss of the jobs forums discouraged me from returning sooner, with Unity Connect being an underwhelming replacement. Is it easy enough with a solid portfolio to maintain steady work, even in a recession like what we might be facing?

 

((Opinion.

The removal of the job forums is a massive blunder on unity's part, and a good reason to investigate other engines, if you're freelancing. I'll be probably branching off - heavily - into unreal engine in the future.

The game, unfortunately, does not look impressive, due to artwork. There's no unique visual style in it, backgrounds are processed cloud pattern, and this shows. IF the game was hand-painted, even awkwardly, or modeled, even awkwardly, it would look better and probably sell better. So it might be salvageable if you collaborate with an artist, this is something to keep in mind.

As for being competetive, if you have past projects and skills you'll be probably find a couple of clients to work with, what matters is where you're located. You'll have harder time within countries with stronger economy and higher living cost. So, if you're in USA, it might be tough, and if you're, say, in BRICs, it can be fairly lucrative.

 

That's great as far as opinions go. Damn, though, I was hoping Unity Connect wasn't the total mess it seemed like. I am US, and I forgot the dollar is surging...what terrible timing. Unity is all I know, so my options are limited.

It's not worth salvaging the previous game. It's consumed too much of my time and money, and if I'm honest with myself, it never had much marketing potential to begin with. Maybe I just take the lessons learned and commit to my next project.

 

Well, it is your call, either way if it is a released product it works as a portfolio piece.

Freelancing in US, is likely to be tougher, but if you have funds, you could try going at it for a few months, and then if it doesn't work out, seek office job with unity.
Alternative would be downshifting and cutting costs, but I'm not sure to which degree it would be possible to do this in US.

Regarding connect, upon its release there was this thread:
https://forum.unity.com/threads/my-first-experiences-with-connect.510808/
The response was largely negative, but nobody from unity side has ever responded to anything in it. Which did not leave a good impression.

Some people there set up a possible alternative site, which is http://www.gamejobforum.com/ , but I'm unsure how this one went. Looking at the site, it would need more PR, as there are no active users online, and aside from single request in Russian, last postings were from 2019.

@Ryiah also suggested reddit channel called, I believe, "GameDevClassifieds", although I don't recall a link to it.

There are also the usual odesk, vworker and guru, though you'll be undercut by many people.

In my experience, it is preferable to find trustworthy contacts through... well whatever method, and then work with them directly. When I last worked through rentacoder(now defunct)/vworker, the experience wasn't exactly great, due to large amount of people from india with ridiculously low rates. Additionally, sites like odesk had requirements to install spy software on your computer which would periodically check if you're, in fact, working and in front of computer. Which does not make a pleasant work environment.

Something like that.

 

That thread highlights a very sad state of affairs, one I've unfortunately come to expect from Unity over the years. I guess I had a good reason for staying away after all.

I was familiar with some of those resources but not others. I'll try to keep an open mind, and if nothing else, my next game will be another entry in my portfolio. Thanks for all the advice.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/gameDevClassifieds

I can't vouch for the quality of it. I haven't been actively chasing freelance jobs in a while. Although I still accept them when they chase me.

 

IMHO I think your game @BrianCrandell looks very polished and complete with some innovative features. I think the main problem you face is that you have a 3d intro cinematic and a 2d game. That isn't necessarily bad but it gives the player the wrong impression. "Hey a fun space simulation game! --oh... its another 2d top-down arcade shooter". 2d shooters IMHO are not the best for the PC market. People buy high-quality graphics units and other hardware for compute power... it feels like a waste to use it for only a 2d game. That is not the main reason but I think that intro cinematic is misleading too. PC gamers are very much into immersion and skill factor games, and its hard to be immersed in a 2d game like that. I think it would be an excellent mobile game!!

Lastly that cinematic is very polished & clever but has some odd camera movement and transitions.

Remember some games have come back to huge success once their creators learned where they went wrong. Examples include: For Honor and NMS.

 

I've spent some time doing freelance work and also hired around 20 Unity freelancers over the years I think this game looks great.

Obviously its not going to be indie game of the year or win awards for art direction but it would absolutely be a boon. I purchased it and had a bit of a play, game design wise it could do with a lot of change, no tutorial, no sense of progression as everything is available, the amount of options was very overwhelming.

So as a game it is clear why it bombed (I played for 2-3 minutes and probably wont play again) but that is somewhat beside the point: if you are looking to be hired as programmer, your game design, marketing and art skills have little relevance!

The fact that you pulled all that together is a huge win, to me its much more valuable than a programmer who worked as a small cog in a big game (of course if you are tying to get hired as one programmer on a team of ten or a hundred then it would be the opposite).

That said just one game is probably not enough. Having a lot of work is valuable, its always a great sell if you can show someone a game, asset or demo that resembles the kind of game they want to build. While actively looking for work I'd suggest building a simple clean asset for the store, and creating some more demos in some different genres.

 

Yeah, this.

As long as you position yourself appropriately I wouldn't be concerned with your game not being a commercial success, or the art not being great, or whatever. The point is that you managed to complete a whole project to the point of commercial release, which many people never do.

Make sure you're clear about your strengths and weaknesses and I agree that this would be a good portfolio piece. Ideally you aim at getting hired to work where there are already people in place who bring the marketing, commercialisation, sales, art, etc. skills. The fact that you've done all of those things, even if you weren't good at them (comparatively speaking) means you'll likely be able to work better with those people than others who haven't, and you'll be able to bring your own strengths (in programming, software design, etc.) to those projects.

I'd also make sure I understood the weaknesses of the game, why it might not have sold, and be willing to talk about those. To me that shows strength, maturity and a willingness to learn. All good things.

By the way, just from the Steam page I don't think your game looks bad. The issue is that the market is super competitive, so you have to be better than good, and you have to also be good at effectively reaching potential customers.

 

I don't know how much time you can absorb and by this mean, how much time you can go without making money. An option would be to start cranking out assets and become an asset store publisher. Start there, spread the word about your assets. I've found that contract work usually follows.

 

Hi again, folks. I've been sick and had to focus on keeping up with work.

Yeah, that's more what I was hoping to hear, combined with what angrypenguin said about it still being nice that I have background knowledge in these areas.

I've received as much or even more feedback on the game here than I did during three and a half years of development. (Not seeking that out is another mistake to fix on the next one.) Just to shed more light on what went wrong, Sector Assault is basically a PC port of a mobile game that never happened. I let the gameplay get complex and intense enough that I lost faith in the suitability of mobile controls. As far as the trailer goes, the cinematic artist, Patrick Haraguti, was so inspired that he offered to do his portion for cheap. I couldn't say no, but we were both worried about misrepresentation, and I'll be more careful about that in the future.

Probably more than anything else, I finished the game to close an overly long and tedious chapter. I was looking forward to doing a sequel, but I'd want to salvage the original first. Maybe I was too pessimistic about mobile and should revisit that some day.

In the meantime, I'll settle for lessons learned and commit to my next project. If I run low on dev funds, I'll give it a shot and see if I find contract work, or start producing for the Asset Store.

 

Hi good luck with your freelancing. I'm sorry I don't really have any advice, but I'm currently trying to get one of my projects to the point of sale and since you have some experience and just judging from your trailer the game seemed fairly solid, so if I could poke your brain I'd appreciate it.

1. How did you choose the price for Sector Assault?
2. How did you try and find players for your game?

 

Sorry, meant to respond yesterday, but I spaced out. I was still preoccupied.

It definitely wasn't a science in my case. I did a Steam search to evaluate the amount of effort put into other games at various price points. Based on the time and money I spent, I thought 2.49 USD would be fair. Valve allows half-dollar increments if you contact support, but they won't auto-adjust other currencies if you opt for that. I wasn't comfortable adjusting them myself, so against my better judgment, I rounded up instead of down. That led to a high rate of returns. I thought about stepping down to $1.99, but I said the hell with it and dove for the bottom at $0.99...it hasn't helped.

I was looking forward to posting regularly on social media with gameplay tips and trivia, but I abandoned that when I realized I'd mostly be talking to myself. A huge problem is that I had no new features planned, so I wouldn't have had anything of substance to announce. The only things I did consistently for a while was send keys to Steam curators (using Valve's own search tool) and influencers on Keymailer, which seemed legit enough. Be careful if people contact you directly asking for keys - they're likely scammers.

I definitely don't recommend throwing something out there and hoping for the best, no matter how good you think it is (and I still think Sector Assault was a good effort). It's great that we all have access to tools like Unity now, but the market is very badly crowded because of it. When I saw the response to my game, I immediately redesigned my next project so that it's structured for episodic updates. Games apparently live and die on marketing now, and you need to have something worth talking about both before and after release.