Unity Please Setup a Freelancer.com like Service

Try hiring someone from Freelancer.com yourself... see how it goes. Did you not read above regarding my experience with Freelancer.com already? even someone else confirmed what I shared above as well... So No Sorry Freelancer.com is not the answer.

 

By the way do you @Ryiah or @zombiegorilla hire people regularly to do any Unity work? I don't get the feeling you do... so in that regard if not you really wouldn't understand where I'm coming from so the opposing comments doesn't make much sense unless you have any real experience with Freelancer.com and or hiring anyone from Unity Forums to compare and relate to the experiences I have had, and still deal with today. But for all I know maybe you guys have had wonderful experiences in both places... in that case then disregard anything said there and keep pressing on lol.

 

Actually Unity could make a bit of money off this.... some small % of payments to developers would go to Unity.. sort of like an asset store buy where 'developer time' or whatever is the asset you are buying.... a 'developer store'. Then like these other sites, if Unity could sort of centrally handle the transfer of payments and such, enforcing some rules etc, that'd be cool. A marketplace for Unity talent.

 

I have worked for Kuroato. Really nice guy who really actually pay out of his pocket. I hope he was pleased with the content I delivered a few years back. I also know he's not talking only for himself here, ,not a self centered selfish dude.

While you guys are saying 25 or 35 / hr is cheap, it might be out here in the US but in some other part of the world it's a huge amount of money! Not sure where were those guys he hired from though.

I also tried to hire some people out here on the forum and my experience is cloudy ( but not with a chance of meatballs), Last time it was for a shader, and some random guys applied. Of course you need to sort things out and cut out the garbage, but having the ability to have some kind of ratings from the guys who apply would be nice indeed. Here it ended up with me alone having to tell the client that we would need to stick with the default shader from unity as I didn't find anybody relevant for the job...

Not sure how unity would be able to handle that. they already stepped out kind of, with allowing only the OP to bump his thread every 3 days and preventing comment / review of people who actually hired the individual...

If something can be done it'd be great, as I'm also offering my services and sometimes looking for people to hire for some small gigs.

 

OTOH as a freelancer I have been burned on the forums and would like ratings for clients. It would get rid of the juniors thinking 5 bucks is an offer and those who use others time and disappear with work. I am very careful but reasonable sometimes you have to show work to get paid for it and that is the pivot at which the ripoffs have happened.

 

Exactly! It's a win win for all...

 

What if I join FreeLancer.com?

 

I really think http://studio.envato.com/ has the right idea... and I have had only great experiences using their services to hire Web Designers and Graphic Artist. Envato Studio is curated platform, but they don't have a Unity or Game Development section otherwise I'd recommend it for all to use.

 

Thanks Rosor! Yes, I was always pleased with your work! You are among the few Freelancers off Unity Forums I could say good things about.

 

How about asking them for such a section? I noticed there is one successfully completed Unity job on their site already.

studio.envato.com/explore/app-development/12882-game-development-for-ios-and-android-using-unity-3d

According to their blog site, which can be found very easily with Google, they are currently located in Tokyo, Japan. They were born in Manitoba, Canada though and that's where their linkedln points to.

Neither location is going to have $25 to 35 an hour for a programmer be a huge amount of money.

 

Wow, you're nosy! haha! I should hire you to spy on my wife... just in case. lol
without kidding, looks like they were asking for a low amount of money maybe because they have experience but not too many references. Or maybe all of these info are fake... this can also be true and they're working from a part of the world where $5 / hr is decent money...

 

I'm very good at research. It is the primary reason why I've yet to throw up a thread asking for help on these forums. Their unusual names helps immensely though.

Their appearance leads me to suspect they aren't very far past the "fresh out of college" age.

There is a consistent amount of data between every single site involving them that I don't believe this to be the case.

 

I assume that they are offended by this, if they could somehow know you thought it.

 

I have worked with Kurato as well. He's very good person and knows what he wants.

They should only allow bumps with screenshots or links to portfolio work done. It gets boring to see, for certain persons, 3 pages of bumps with no content update .

 

There needs to be escrow payments and impartial arbitration. Last year I was doing a project with @ippdev and the other party took weeks to pay @ippdev.

 

Well here it seems that this part of the forum isn't really super moderated as it's mentioned in the rules that you have to bump with some kind of important news, or porfolio update...

 

Yes, a lot of hiring, even attempted a couple times from the forums. And I used to get a lot work from elance/ freelancer.com.

The simple answer is just don't. Only hire people you know, or people recommend by people you trust. Everything else is a crapshoot at best. It'll all end in tears. A Unity option would be no different, probably worse. Noobs hiring noobs mean neither have proper understanding of expectations, and worse a bunch of positive reviews from a noob/noob experiences wouldn't provide valuable insight for others looking ot hire a higher level. Managing relationships is a core skill you have develop, and can't be offloaded to website. Besides that, I would never hire a "Unity developer", I would hire a game developer, ideally with strong Unity skills. Unity is a tool, not a profession. (well... except for the fine folks at UT)

 

@zombiegorilla I know you have real world industry experience, working on some major titles. It's easy for you to say and do certain things when you have the resources or industry experience under your belt. Yes, alot of us are noobs, alot of us are indie, regular guys with a family diving head first into this industry with only a passion to make games and nothing more. I have an art background, but i have no real world industry experience, education, or background in game development. Everything I know is self-taught!

So yea you may be right, but you need to look at this from a really indie perspective... we lack alot of resources! That's partly why we are considered indie to begin with. So will a website or online job listing service solve all problems no of-coarse not, but it will greatly help us find and connect with quality service providers easier. That's better than just taking a shot in the dark, getting burned, and do it again and again until we get it right. There is a lot to loss in that process. I'm not saying you still can't get burned even if there was an awesome Unity Freelancer website... but at least I feel it will decrease the risk of running into bad apples if the service is curated properly. You mention something about noobs hiring noobs... but if it was managed properly then we should mostly find only experienced individuals on this platform. Those that don't fit in or continue to get bad reviews simply get weeded out after a few strikes.

Again, not saying your wrong, but at the same time a lot of us noobs, or indie's don't have the same resources such as knowing individuals in the industry that can refer us to reliable freelancers. I'm sure you have tons of contacts with your experience. We all have to get there one way or another... I just think there are better ways to get there without getting burned too many times along the way.

 

Hmmm how about I actually did sometime ago suggest that they open a Game Development focused section very early on when they were in Beta stage. I've been following that marketplace for sometime. Maybe they will open one up eventually that is open to Game Development in General, as currently the section states App Development for iOS or Andriod. I could care less for Mobile Game Development. Maybe they are on their way so who knows... I'd definitely use it over any other freelance hiring platform for sure.

 

I too am self taught, was a noob and was an indie for many years. Everyone starts there. I am where I am, and have achieved what I have in no small part, due to the relationships I have built. It fact, I have about 5 friends, who I have grown up with (in the industry) that I started many years ago. We were all noobs at the same time, and we all now work at fairly high places in industry (one actually here with me, the others at EA, Bioware, own companies). Those are not because of where I am now, but we all contributed to what we each became.

So, not only am I seeing it from a indie perspective, but know exactly what the benefits and my career is a direct benefit of that.

It is exactly like every other part of the complex and time-consuming aspect of the insane path that you, I and the other nuts here have chosen. It is something you have to learn and work at, and short cuts bite you in ass. You can join groups, even places like the forums here, local meetups whatever. Get to know other developers, and what they do, build relationships with people you trust, ask them for suggestions, and more importantly, be supportive and helpful with them as well. It isn't quick, and not always perfection, but is the only effective way.

Not to be cynical, but I tend to see people who are looking for work online (boards, freelance sites and such), are doing so because they aren't finding work. Not always, but pretty often. I mentioned I have pinged forum members here I trust for contract work, and hasn't worked out, because typically those who are really good, are really busy. That is why those sites tend to be more bad than good. If someone is desperate to find work, there is generally a good reason. For example take a look how many regular forum members post here, most never are posting in the "for hire" section. I would most of them above looking for work folks. Most probably won't have time, maybe in the future, or maybe know someone they trust. We've all been around long enough to at least know each other well enough to have some level of confidence (or lack thereof). I were doing an indie project and needed someone to help/trade/hire, there are well over a dozen people here I would feel comfortable reaching out to. Would not touch the job seeking forum (except a couple that I know).

There are plenty of others in exactly in your situation, find them, build relationships, skill trades are a great thing. Folks these days on seeking boards are mostly just trying to make a quick buck and won't give a S*** about your game. And any board with ratings is subject to be gamed. Fake ratings for friends propping them up to look better. A Unity one would be worse. Don't get me wrong, I am fan of UT in so many ways, but non-core (game engine) stuff they do is spotty at best. (answers, updated docs/tutes, asset store, parts of the forums, etc...), do you honestly think a job board would live up to folks expectations? (to be clear, not bashing on UT, those things don't bother me at all, as the engine is fantastically awesome and what UT is all about.)

As an indie game dev, so much is on your shoulders, there is so much to do. Only invest in things that don't add risk. Invest the time in building relationships. Investing blindly in someone you don't know is risk, and will always be no matter the service. You could not only waste money, but more importantly time. I would strongly suggest getting to know anyone you intended to help on project. Even if you have to wait a while to find the right person, it is much less risky, it may extend your timeline, but won't dip into limited resources and possibly set your project back.

Building relationships pays of in so many ways. Not only professionally, but just in general.

 

>90% of jobs that myself, my family, my friends and more than 30 classmates have gotten were because of knowing someone. I can't think of the last time I spoke to someone who actually went on a successful job interview for any reason other than they knew somebody.

It's part of the reason I want to be a teacher. In IT and I'm sure other CSS fields you're only worth your experience in the field and nothing else :/

 

I dont see why Unity must do this, why not set this up yourself and make a bit of money off it

 

Wow, that's pretty terrible, quite glad I'm in the UK not the US if that's the case.
I was very fortunate in getting my current job straight out of uni (it was a pretty straightforward interview + CV deal, didn't have any contacts), but I feel it's much easier to find interviews for IT jobs here in the UK than what you describe for the US. I think IT jobs have lower average wages over here, but job opportunities seem greater from this tiny amount of anecdotal evidence.

 

Unity doesn't have to do anything lol, it's merely a suggestion. I'm not creating such a platform because I don't know how, if I was in the business of making money off such ideas, websites or services I definitely wouldn't be talking about it here. I want to make games, not websites or services for freelancers.

 

If you dont want it, and Unity doesnt, I might look into it myself.

 

@zombiegorilla "Building relationships pays of in so many ways. Not only professionally, but just in general." Yes, agreed! 100%, and thanks for all the info you posted. But in my case I don't exactly have the free time to go to a bunch of game dev meetups to meet and network with people. I work full-time, have a family that needs my attention, then what bit of free time I do have I need to spend it working on my projects.

I've seen my own share of success before on my own and surprisingly yes through outsourcing and investing in my ideas that all happened online. I just wish there was easier ways to find reliable people online due to my lack of time to spend building relationships as you mention... as again i'm indie and lack resources, and certain life situations limits what I can or cannot to do or have access to.

Overall all good points, just it all comes back to resources, and time is a resource that's not always on my side. This is why i need to outsource most of the time to get anything done.

 

Along these lines I would just recommend these changes:

1. Can't post in Job Seeking section with <10 posts.
2. Add Endorsement section to Profiles similar to "Following". One click endorsements, no verbiage/review.
3. Can't Endorse with <10 posts.

This may not be the most ideal, but it would probably be the simplest to implement.

OR

Turn Profile Comment System back on && can't comment to profiles if <10 posts.

Either way would mean Job Seekers would have a way to get reviews and/or endorements to prove that their work is legitimate. Obviously if someone has no endorsements then anyone that is somewhat intelligent should be able to decide for themselves if their proof of competency is sufficiently compensating for the lack of feedback on the site.

If the profile comment system was turned on and used for this purpose then you would basically just have a review system in place and it would be super obvious if someone was weaksauce. The 10 post minimum would help discourage at least some of the garbage.

It's more likely that Unity would remove the Commercial sections entirely than produce a more professional system to handle commercial ads/reviews/etc... so I suspect that a quick solution like one of the above would appease everyone, keep the system basically the same on the front end and meet the request to a large extent.

 

This whole thing is quite tricky.

Off the top, I think that dealing with freelancers for art and code are very different experiences in general. Hiring freelance coders is going to be much, much harder, with much more murky results.

That said, my experience dealing with freelance artists and musicians has been in general very good. Most of the bad parts I chalk up to my inexperience.

The kind of long term freelancing required when you're hiring a coder to literally write all your code is an entirely different beast. One that I think where you're just going to have much more dissatisfaction in general. This dissatisfaction can certainly cut both ways.

Reviews for smaller works, and one off projects vs basically hiring staff - are so far from one another that I don't think that reviews would even be relevant. Like what @zombiegorilla mentioned earlier, the reviews will often be discussing apples when you're dealing with oranges.

Further, a situation like "we've been offered a much better job" is just always a potential with freelancers. A review system would not prevent this kind of bad experience.

 

Well, just like when you apply for a regular office job. If your resume shows that you have jumped from one job to another in past 1-2 years, the current new employer is going to question that. An employer may not want to hire someone who jumps around to different projects, and wants to know that you are going to stick around until the project is completed. Ofcoarse nothing will guarantee that a freelancer won't jump ship at anytime even if they have no track history of doing it before, at least a history of reviews from previous employers of certain freelancers could help one determine if they want to take the risk of hiring someone who has a habit of abandoning projects, or simply has no sense of pride to complete the work they start. It says a lot about them in the long run, and shows they simply are just looking for a way to make a buck. While yes all freelancers are looking to make a buck, I believe there are some out there that actually care about finishing what they started.

My current developer who came on board for Heroes of Rune is currently off working on other projects while I ran out of funding to continue paying him. While he is currently off working on other projects, we remain in close contact and just waiting for the moment I am able to secure additional funding to resume the project. He is someone I found off Unity Forums, but a rare individual at that because he is truly passionate about his work, and wants to see Heroes of Rune into a completed state. So for that I am grateful and look forward to working with him again very soon.

In the mean-time I'm working on smaller projects to try and stay afloat, and hopefully use the smaller projects as an alternative way to fund my bigger project. Although finding reliable developers have been a disaster... @Dizzy-Games was the last person I was working with as of 8 days ago before he decided to abandon my project without explanation, but yet managed to sign on to Unity Forums. He's been silent ever since and we had nothing but great communication from the start so it's really weird some of the crap some people pull on here. And it's annoying that i'm not allowed to go back to his job seeking page to post my review and experience at the very least.

So if there is anything to come out of this thread at all, I would say or ask Unity to please re-enable Comments on Commercial Job Seeking / Offering page! Not being able to review or provide feedback on employers or freelancers page is really creating more of a problem. I'm only one person... so maybe it's just me. I agree with @LaneFox above and some of his suggestions.

 

I'll happily pay $5 for a model online or from a student selling them in bulk. Then pay a freelancer much more to texture the model. Both are good deals.

BTW, you send the work only after you've received some type of payment. Freelancing 101.

No offense, but you must have a karma issue for people to actually offer you $5 for a completely original work, or to be continually burned by scammers.

 

You should browse sites like Elance sometime and see what people think is a resonable price. People want full clones of popular games with all the graphics and sound and coding done by the contractor and have a budget of under $500. People have a completely unrealistic idea of what things cost.

 

Maybe I'll end up in the UK when I flee the US, then. But in the mean time, I lucked out and just a few hours ago spoke to someone who I know well who is leaving their job and needs a replacement. I'm giving them my resume later

That should take care of finances until I can escape.

 

I always get a per cent up front. That is not when ripoffs occur. I have never been offered 5 bucks but some have. Zombies..pffft. We are two totally different levels of development here.

 

https://www.elance.com/j/developer-make-an-android-action-game-from-scratch/72497104/

He has a bunch of proposals. Who knows how that'll go. Here's the game they want to clone for under $500:

The reality is that globalization and the like are pushing down costs in a pretty amazing way. Can you get something like this done for $500? Honestly, I think you could. Quality would be poor, but it's mobile and I think it's in the realm of possibility sure.

Maybe first world freelancers are the ones with unrealistic ideas on costs?

 

Well good for you then. But ratings can easily be rigged are not going to change anything because the same guy who ran off with the rest of your money can turn around and rate you as a jerk. And that would be a much bigger problem than pfft. zombies....

 

How much would you make per hour compared to working a regular job? I suspect much less than minimum wage.

 

Non paying clients using subterfuge serially is the actual problem and non-payers should get tagged as such. They can then rate all the "jerkage" they can muster.

 

That I can understand- preventing multiple hit and runs by the same rogue clients, as opposed to two parties with decent reputations somehow pissing each other off, with the client deciding for whatever reason not to pay the remainder.

And rather than banning $5 clients if such people actually exist, allow freelancers to set a minimums before accepting any e-mails from a potential client.

 

The point is - it really depends on the costs and wages in whatever local area you're dealing with. Second and third world countries have many, many talented hard working individuals who have costs that are very significantly lower than first world.

The biggest problem with freelancers (or software in general) is clear communication of the results. Cloning an existing game is an order magnitude simpler than starting from scratch and solves the majority of the communication problems.

 

Globalization works both ways though. If you look through the providers on a place like Elance, the people in second and third world countries who are good at what they do are still charging a larger amount. The reason a switch to a more market based economy lifted 500 million people from poverty in China is that the foreign factories pay more than the local ones do. When you have access to people with deeper pockets, you can charge more for your labor. Thus, a good provider from a poorer nation may be cheaper than one from a first world country, but not by as significant amount as you'd expect. They know what their skills are worth, and if they are good, they are going to undercut enough to get the job but not enough to cheat themselves out of a large portion of money.

 

Sure, and there will eventually be income equalization or a pretty much agreed upon premium for locality. I'm not arguing against the economics or moral justice of it. I'm just saying that a lot of people might not like what can be done on the cheap these days.

In reality the entire indie movement has been a story of undercutting costs.

 

The problem with requiring 10 posts is that it means nothing. Spambots regularly post effectively useless posts on forums like, "Very interesting. Thank you," just to increase their post count.

The same goes for any kind of endorsement that isn't a real review. Create 50 accounts. Have them all post a bunch of junk over a few weeks. Endorse yourself 50 times.

Heck, I'd bet people would be creating accounts just to sell batches of endorsements. It already happens for Yelp reviews, Facebook likes, and other areas.


Hiring a contractor requires interviewing, reviewing work samples, and checking references. This is true of basically any industry. Hiring well is its own specialized skill. (Which is something that bites a lot of companies in the butt, and why many companies hire professional recruiters.)

 

I don't think 90% is a true number. I've helped interview people at 2 different (non-game) companies, hiring developers. None of the people we hired at either company were because they knew someone already at the company. (I know that it *has* happened at my wife's companies, though I don't know how often.)

It's certainly true that it helps to have a good reference already working at the company, but it's not the only way to play the game.

 

That goes without saying, and like I said, its not the ideal solution.

The problem is that the more intuitive the recommended system is, the more responsibility Unity has to properly maintain it so the idea is to use existing systems to create something the end users can benefit from and make use of common sense to discern if someone is abusing the system or not. At least something like this would give amateurs a chance to review the endorsements for themselves and check if they're full of crap or not. Anyone graced with an glimmering hint of common sense should know that if some dude making 3d characters has more than 3 endorsements from 10 post accounts in a 2 week period should be able to figure out that something is awry.