Is it common for small development companies to be "virtual", where all the employees communicate through the Internet? With CVS, video conferencing, and e-mail, I''d expect such a company to function as well as a company with a physical building. Is this going to become more common in the future? The official zorx website

It is not common for must big budget game. In fact, the only commercial project that I ever read about using at least a few teleworking employees was Battlecruiser, and it not a great game (at least the first version wasn''t).

I''dont see any reason why i couldn''t work, but it would require doing A LOT a prefqualifing to get the right people for these kinds of work situations. I have found that most people need surpervision to work effectively.

I think you should go out to bc3000ad.com and take another look. And I believe they are mostly virtual.

I worked for a virtual company that did several console ports for EA, as well as a new "big budget" game. While it''s rare, I think it is becoming a more and more viable option.

Dear clum,

I am the head of a successful shareware company that works almost only with freelancer partners around the world. Its definately a challenge, but it is possible. You have to count in longer development time though, because you can''t just go "over there" and tell your artists or programmers how you would like it. You need to describe everything, which takes up time. Sometimes a part (like a picture) lands in the dustbin and needs to be created from scratch again.

I hope this answered your question.

Take care,

Niels Bauer
www.nielsbauergames.com

aren't you afraid of the lack of control? someone might decide to use your code in someone else's (in case of external developers) or distribute your games to his friends :/

- Picklejuice

[edited by - picklejuice on December 27, 2003 1:48:09 PM]

Hello picklejuice,

in the beginning I let the other programmers code independend sections of the code and put them back together. After some projects this is no issue anymore though. Every team member can earn and win so much by being loyal to the team that there is no reason about giving away pre-release copies, etc. We are not creating Doom 3 either, so the code is nothing someone else couldn''t make himself.

I wouldn''t adivse to patch a completetly new team together in a couple of weeks. My team grows with the time. If you have some experience you can notice very fast with what kind of people you are dealing.

Take care,

Niels Bauer
www.nielsbauergames.com

Actually it''s not true that having offsite employees is really that bad, if you do it right. I have a few people working offsite for my company.

quote: aren''t you afraid of the lack of control? someone might decide to use your code in someone else''s (in case of external developers) or distribute your games to his friends

How can you make sure that the ones that work with you in the office won''t do the same thing. I know one solution: CONTRACTS and NDA''s!

Also it''s a great way to cut costs and also to find excellent talent. Ofcourse it must be done right to work.

As for supervision, you just need to tell them to make status updates more frequently and guide them the same you would do a person face to face. Maybe you don''t see what exactly he/she is doing, but you see the results and the results only matter in this case. If an employee is cutting slack you''ll notice that quite soon.

My experience shows that offsite work is not that different from the onsite one, you just need to be a bit more persistent. There more issues but I''ll leave that for some other time.

Yes, NDAs are the professional way. But they won''t help you if someone inofficially leaks your product and even if they do it officially a lawsuit is definately out of reach for all beginner teams (and the rest already knows firsthand how to find the right people).

Niels Bauer
www.nielsbauergames.com

quote: Original post by Jester101
Yes, NDAs are the professional way. But they won''t help you if someone inofficially leaks your product and even if they do it officially a lawsuit is definately out of reach for all beginner teams (and the rest already knows firsthand how to find the right people).

Niels Bauer
www.nielsbauergames.com

Depends what you mean by ''beginner teams''. If you run a stable COMPANY (not some group, team, etc.) even if the people in the development team (I don''t like using the word employees) are all working onsite, you still have to tackle the same issues. An inofficial leak can happen as easily in both environments, I just guess that you can beat the crap out off the guy in the first case , appart from that same issues!