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How to keep a stable dev team

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by feloxy, Mar 20, 2012.

  1. feloxy

    feloxy

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    Hi all !

    I have trouble keeping my team working on a project. I'm always involved but there's always someone choking. Maybe I should go solo on a smaller project, because I would really like to finish a game one day but if this keeps up I'll only have parts of games.

    Any tips could help me :)

    Thanks

    Vincent
     
  2. lockbox

    lockbox

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    Have you asked people why they're not working on the project? How are you tasking each person? Does each person have a deadlines or is it as the person has time?

    ... and what exactly do you mean by choking?
     
  3. feloxy

    feloxy

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    Yes I have asked and they said that they don't have time but they play 20hours of minecraft and each person is tasked with certain things like the 3d artists we are 2 I'm the lead and my friend is doing the rest. I don't often put deadlines because of school homework, and by choking I mean they just stop without telling me, for example he says I'm working on this thing here and like 3 weeks later theres no progress and he is playing skyrim.

    Thanks
     
  4. janpec

    janpec

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    The important fact when working collaborative over internet is that your project is not dependant on anyone else but you. This means that you should be main driving force of project on almost all areas, but you can leave out one area (programming or art). It is very good if you can find someone who you can really relly on for the second area that you arent covering, and finding someone who has the same goals and drive to the project like you. From my past experiance this is extremely hard, actually it isnt hard find person who is dedicated as you, but it is hard to find someone on the same experiance level and with same dedication. If you find someone who is much more or much less experianced than you - the lead, he will probably leave sooner or later, unless there are more team members like himself already in team.
    I would advice you to really take cover or as much part of development as you can, and leave one part open and try to get only 1 team member doing it, someone who you trust. Smaller indie teams are much easier to handle, there are some big indie teams that have succeed, but all of them very experianced individuals working already in industry.
     
  5. feloxy

    feloxy

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    Well I'm not doing it over the internet so it shouldn't be that hard to keep my team, we were just 2 at the end but i dunno I guess he didnt have the same drive and dedication as me.
     
  6. hippocoder

    hippocoder

    Digital Ape

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    Do your own game.
     
  7. lockbox

    lockbox

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    It's always tough to work with friends, because it's things like this can put a huge wedge between the both of your or end the friendship altogether.

    You should have a serious talk with him and ask him if he wants to continue working on the project. If he doesn't, no big deal. The two of you can still be friends. If wants to continue working on the project, then he needs to commit to completing certain things on time, or the project will never get done. Remember, it's about the project. Not you. Not him. The project.

    So for a specific task, ask him, "When do you think you can get this done?" and have him give you a specific date. And before he answers, he should consider all the other aspects of his life that can interfere with this deadline. After he starts working on it, and doesn't think he can make the deadline, he needs to let you know in advance and give you a revised deadline. Simple. You are putting all the reponsibility squarely in his lap. Don't ask him why he didn't meet the deadline, because in the big scheme of things, it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that he's not getting it done.

    Then you need to decide for yourself if you're willing to continue to work with people that can't be responsible for their share of the work. If not, then it be best if those people don't work on the team.

    And if things don't work out, you don't have to fire your friend. Just tell him to take a break until he thinks he wants to come back. He might never work on the project again, but that's okay. Maybe you'll find someone more committed to working on the project.
     
  8. sybixsus2

    sybixsus2

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    Pay them.

    Probably not the answer you want to hear but if you want get everyone doing their work, ultimately you either pay them or get really, really lucky. People with the willpower to work on something they're not being paid for are few and far between. If you happen to have a really exciting project which is perfect for each and every person working on it, you might be able to attract them away from new shiny things, but it's going to take a lot of luck.
     
  9. feloxy

    feloxy

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    Well my game was too big to do alone but now I've started a new game it's a smaller scale.
     
  10. feloxy

    feloxy

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    Well that is out of the question, I dont have the money to do that.
     
  11. keithsoulasa

    keithsoulasa

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    This has to be the best post thus far- Like for myself I just got shotdown by a publisher since my artwork is mediocre, but id rather just put something out then waiting on someone, even a friend to just donate tierone art to my game .

    RIght now I'm hoping to perfect the game play, then saving up some money then buying some pro-art off olance or something.
    I'm working on anouther project with a friend, and we started with like 10 people soooooo down to work with us, and now its just me and him . Everyone wants to be the lead, its hard to work for free on something that isn't your vision .
     
  12. Gigiwoo

    Gigiwoo

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    Fantastic answer!!! You might like a book called, 'REWORK'. It suggests you don't hire people (especially if unpaid) until you ABSOLUTELY have to. Even with like minded souls and friends, you are each at a different place in your life.

    Design a project you can build by yourself (or minimal help). Work at it a lot. Pace yourself (see 20 mile march from Great By Choice). Learn a lot along the way. Finish it. Repeat.

    Gigi.
     
  13. sybixsus2

    sybixsus2

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    Then I suggest you find a way to make a project work without having a stable dev team.

    EDIT: Realized that might appear a facetious answer. It's not. I'm serious. Recognize that you're not going to get unpaid workers to behave like paid workers and find a way to work that isn't dependant upon it.
     
    Last edited: Mar 20, 2012
  14. _Petroz

    _Petroz

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    Short term fix (as others said): work alone, smaller scale, etc. etc.

    If you want to be team lead and project manager, you should do some research in how to be effective at those roles.
     
  15. npsf3000

    npsf3000

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    What? You'd like to finish a game 'one day'?

    Dude, you can make a game in one day!

    KISS
     
  16. Endgame

    Endgame

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    I'm also working as a two man team, and I found the ONLY way we accomplish anything is by getting together to work on it. Either use laptops to work on each other's dining room tables, or set up a second computer area in your place, so he will have no excuse (and neither will you). We get together 1-3 afternoons per week, and the amount accomplished in those few hours far exceeds anything we do separately, combined.
     
  17. OmniverseProduct

    OmniverseProduct

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    It seems like a hit or miss when you work with people online, especially if you aren't paying them.

    @feloxy, have you tried task management websites like www.asana.com? It is especially helpful for larger teams.
     
  18. feloxy

    feloxy

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    I know I did finish some small games but I have to big of an imagination to work on small arcade type games. I like to do full 3d environments, but sometimes I get too carried away
     
  19. feloxy

    feloxy

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    I thought of looking for this but I guess if I want something done I gotta do myself. Thats why I started a smaller project.
     
  20. OmniverseProduct

    OmniverseProduct

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    I wish you better luck with teams in the future.
     
  21. TehWut

    TehWut

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    One of the awesome lessons I have learned in my short life is this: (someone up there said it earlier, so props to them for reminding me)

    No one will be as dedicated as you.

    Pretty simple, but it goes for everything for life. If you want to get in shape and you try to find a gym buddy, sure they'll work out but they won't have near the drive or passion as you do. I have yet to find a true exception to this. However, I was in the same boat as you not too long ago, game-savvy friend wanted to help in development. It hardly worked out to say the least, he drew a few items but then go on to play Skyrm. I was the one doing all the work and getting stressed over his work, so my advice for you is to do it yourself. It's easier, more effective, and you won't get into any fights :)
     
  22. Aiursrage2k

    Aiursrage2k

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    Money makes the world go round.
     
  23. _Petroz

    _Petroz

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    I second what TehWut said, I had a similar experience. We had a two man band and a two man dev team, he was passionate about the band and I the game. Neither worked out but fortunately it didn't damage the friendship.

    Recruiting friends works on paper: many hands make light work. However the reality of game development is it is very complex and requires a lot of communication and decision making, if they're not dedicated they're only going to hold you back.
     
  24. feloxy

    feloxy

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    Thanks mate :)
     
  25. feloxy

    feloxy

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    This happened to me too :p
     
  26. yuriythebest

    yuriythebest

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    I've been part of several "teams" all of which fell apart- best to make games alone, HOWEVER, here are some tasks for "other people":
    1.voice acting
    2. creating music
    3.beta testing
    4. an "ideas" guy

    Otherwise, if you don't want your project to go nowhere either find a group of truly dedicated programmers/artists that will stay the course and work for free, join such a group if you find one you like, OR just do everything yourself (my fav choice)
     
  27. jgdeschamps

    jgdeschamps

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    Apart from 3D viz experience, I also studied architecture and have had experience doing specialty projects for the industrial sector. My only advice for you if you wanna be a project leader is to learn project management, which is an extremely broad area. Most of the times your project will be bumpy and unpleasant if you don't understand when the project has begun (and you'd be surprised at how many people fail to recognize this stage,) and this is important since time/resources are measured and assigned from the very beginning, as well as information necessities and flows.

    Besides developing your game, try to analyze your workflow and see how you can optimize it after you've finished. Then find books about project management and try to absorb as much information as possible so you can compare organizational structures, resource classification, time schedule sets, etc. Determine what tools you need to measure your project (Microsoft Project or similar programs are essential, as well as spreadsheets, logs and calendars.) If you set your mind correctly, you'll be a good project leader/manager in the blink of an eye. As a side note, there's also the Project Management Institute which has the PMI book and the info is applicable to any practice... but this book might be a little daunting for you right now, though it's worth a look. Finally, once you understand the concept, your team will become coherent and tight since the members will realize that the efforts are always focused in the right direction, with clear and measurable goals...
     
  28. ChaosWWW

    ChaosWWW

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    I'd even say those four positions are generous. If you want a dedicated team member to design unique music for your game, then it will probably suffer from the same problems are art and code in that the person will probably get demotivated somewhere along the project. This is nullified a bit if you only need one or two tracks, as even the most easily demotivated person could complete that task, and it is obviously nullified completely if you just use free tracks / pay for pre-made tracks, but this could also be applied to sounds and art, although to a lesser extent (you'll be hard pressed to make a game completely with pre-made art and sound).

    I would also only use an idea guy if they were either a friend that I knew personally to have good ideas, or ideas from the general public (I.E a "Should my game be first person or third person" thread). I wouldn't recruit someone off the internet for this role, as their ideas might possibly be very bad and they could also get a superiority complex and get angry if you don't use their ideas.

    I agree with the sentiment that many have expressed in this thread: you should implement your own ideas with your own work as much as possible. If that is the case, the only person who can fail you is you. I'm working on a project right now where I'm doing a lot of the art, all of the programming, all of the sound design, all of the music, and most of the writing. My brother is helping me with the art and ideas (which translates into writing), but I could do this stuff on my own, it would just take longer from an art perspective and probably wouldn't be as good from a writing perspective. However, this project is almost done, and the only outside help we needed was for voice acting, which is easy to get because most people who want to seriously voice act apply for any project they can find that they think suits their voice, as they basically want to be voice acting all the time to improve their skills. This could be true for some other fields, but you will find a lot of the time that programmers / artists would rather be doing their own thing instead of working for someone else (I know this is true for me), while voice actors, unless they can animate, can't really exclusively work for themselves and release something that people are going to want to see.

    I'm going to contrast this with another experience I had working on a team. I was not the leader of the project, I joined the project as an artist, with the potential to be the lead artist (although that isn't saying much for a small team). I worked on art assets for a bit while the team solidified more, and things seemed fine for a while. There were some problems the started to demotivate me a bit. One thing was that when I was done with my models, I had to spend a lot of time talking to the project leader about how to import the models into the game engine, which was slightly annoying because all I wanted to do was work on the art assets. However, we eventually figured it out, but this took probably several days with several hours of work spread across those days. This wasn't too bad, though, as I didn't want to quit as soon as things got a little tricky. However, during team meetings, email and other sources it started to become clear that most of the other team members weren't really doing anything and it seemed like I was the only one who was actually pushing this project a tiny bit toward "completion" outside of the project leader. A good example of this is that there was supposed to be another artist working on the project, but none of us ever saw any of his work, which was rather frustrating because I didn't know what stuff I was supposed to work on and what stuff I could ignore because someone else was taking care of it. Outside of the art, it really didn't seem like anything was getting done, although there were 3-5 other team members, but I honestly couldn't tell you what they did other then make the team seem bigger. Although the project leader was cool and actually did stuff, in retrospect I can't help but blame him a bit for the project's failure, as I think he could have managed things a lot better. Eventually I worked on stuff less and less because I realized nothing was happening and I wanted to shift attention to the project I mentioned above since this other one was clearly going nowhere. The project never really officially died, but it just fizzled out, with emails between the members becoming less and less frequent until they just stopped. (I'm leaving quite a bit of stuff out of this retelling, but this post is long and rambly enough as it is).

    The point I'm making is that things can get done much more effectively if you do them yourself, because assuming you are passionate about what you are doing, you are going to be able to get it done much faster and it will probably be much better then if you hire a bunch of people to help you.
     
  29. RyanSchurton

    RyanSchurton

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    If they are playing skyrim and minecraft for 20+ hours they are clearly not serious about making video games. Remember making videos games isn't for everyone. Not everyone who plays video games has what it takes to make them just because they get a few ideas while playing video games. Is everyone who listens to music cut out to make songs? With all the millions of people who watch avengers are they cut out to make movies? No they arnt and the same goes for video games. Games are hardwork and the only thing that keeps you going when you feel like given up is passion. If you don't have a passion for making game do something else with your life and save your time and enegery for something you will enjoy doing.
     
  30. Meltdown

    Meltdown

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    At the end of the day unless they're getting paid for the work I wouldn't count on people committing.
    They are working on your project as a 'hobby', just as minecraft 20 hours a week is a 'hobby'.

    Once you start paying the dollars it gets upgraded from 'hobby' to 'work' status... thats when things get real.
     
  31. Posly

    Posly

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    They obviously don't want to do it, that's because there's no motivation. If you keep stopping games and only have parts of games they'll think the game is going nowhere. Choose one simple game, maybe a 2D platformer for example, and work on that till the end. When your done with the game, why don't you put it online on a site such as "Kongregate". Anyways I think you should use tools such as "ooVoo" or "Skype" and have meeting with them while you develop, so you can work and talk.
     
  32. feloxy

    feloxy

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    Well I don't think he didn't think it was going nowhere, he is my best friend and we are both alike, we think the same see the same ideas and so on but he didn't have the drive I have. If I don't hold his hand and tell him step by step what to do he won't do it. If there isn't a magic button "Make A Game" he won't do it and most of the people I know wont do it either.
     
  33. Torsh

    Torsh

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    I'm hoping for people with the same vision as me and am slowly finding them. But it's a lonely job to be the founder of a game. You have to occupy yourself with what you want to do with the game.
     
  34. Jaimi

    Jaimi

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    How to keep a team working on a project: Pay them.
     
  35. leegod

    leegod

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    So this is essential. So then all project need someone who take the danger of fails of game(commercially).

    Despite of that threat, project need someone who keep pay the other developers.

    So he must be rich or can get money from other place. And also he must has courage about failure of game.

    So after all of this get done, the finished game will actually earn money and can collect money more than invest money?

    Can the game has that quality enough?

    I think the last question is most important.

    So before investor, project needs who can see future (Prophet) and can convince investor by truth or cons or wide market survey, whatever.
     
  36. i-tech

    i-tech

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    If you are just starting with game development forget about the money. If you get people to work with you and they ask you for money then they are not the right people to work with (i am talking about an startup team). You should talk about money/regular pay only then when you have a regular income flow, due to the fact that you must spend quite a lot of money on equipment. But this is just my opinion on this metter. So in short: Get a partner that is as dedicated to the project as you are, have regular jobs and do the game in your free time. I am glad that i have such a team, but we are working full time atm.
     
  37. leegod

    leegod

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    How?
     
  38. dead1ock

    dead1ock

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    Yeah and usually those people work on their own projects anyway.
     
  39. i-tech

    i-tech

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    I never said that is easy. It took me around 2-3 years.
     
  40. leegod

    leegod

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    In my opinion, if some project has no fund but want to gather talented volunteer, project itself should seems very prospective even if it is actually not.

    It must shows that it will be become big money return surely.
     
  41. deram_scholzara

    deram_scholzara

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    It really comes down to a matter of resources. Since these people are students, time and sanity are the two most important resources - unless you happen upon a big sum of money and can start paying them.

    Time is important because they have classes and homework to worry about - taking up most of their schedules - and school takes priority over your project. This is true even in the professional games industry with interns, especially unpaid ones.

    Sanity is important because school drives people crazy and they can only handle so much work before they feel overloaded and totally crash. It is not remotely uncommon for students to need to binge on some video game they're really into.

    So what this really comes down to, is that these people are actually doing YOU a favor by working on YOUR game. So what you need to do, is get a really good understanding of what their personal needs are, and fulfill them as best you can. They way I see it, the only thing you're offering them in return right now is the potential to have some sort of experience on their résumés. However, they don't necessarily share in your vision - I'm willing to bet that they just went along with you because they thought you were kinda cool and because they thought the idea of making a game seemed kinda cool - but not in any deep, serious, committal way.

    If I were you, I would first make sure that I'm doing the development process properly; meaning, you need to do rapid prototyping with paper and doodles and whiteboard drawings. Play test the game as best you can WITH your team, to make sure it's fun and to make sure they agree. This will get them invested in the basic core of your game - and it will keep them more interested in the long run. They will feel like there is a part of them in the game - even though it's still 90% your idea. It will make them want to polish it up and finish it.

    The next thing I would do, would be to evaluate your SOLID prototype, and break it down into a list of EVERY task asset you will need to complete in order have a finished product. Obviously some new things will crop up along the way, but all you have to do is add it to your list and make SURE everybody knows you added something new.

    Finally, you will start letting people pick - and this is really important - LET THEM PICK from the list of tasks assets. The people doing the work know what they are capable of doing best - in addition to the fact that they will be more likely to finish something that they were excited to choose from the get go.

    Alternatively you can pay them to do exactly what you tell them, or you can try to do it all yourself. I think it's clear that you want to lead a happy team though.

    Good luck.
     
    Last edited: May 12, 2012