Greetings all, Some of you may know me, my name is Raymond Jacobs, I am the Founder of Ethereal Darkness Interactive, and the producer of our first title Morning's Wrath. I am posting today to present a question to the community and get some feedback to help my decisions, as well as others who may be facing similar issues. About six months ago, I was able to pull together a good sized team to help work on our title, each person in the team signed a contract which entitled them to an equal share of profits among the other members. This contract stated however, that if it was terminated before the game was compelte they would only recieve profits that fell durring the next three months after the date of termination. Everyone was good with this, none of them expected to be terminated and I never expected I would need to terminate them. Flash-Forward to present day, our deadline, less than three months away, and production has slowed to a trickle, many of the team members simply are no longer performing, most due to uncontrollable circumstances, such as jobs and/or college. I, being in charge of getting this project done one way or another, am now faced with the problem of... How do I get this project done, in X amount of time with Y resources. At the moment this statement wont work, if things remain as they are we will more than likely skip over our deadline like a rock on a pond. So, with that in mind the questions and decisions I am faced with are. Do I let the project suffer because of low output, and put our release date in jepordy? Do I 'terminate' the people that are the problem and find new people to fill there spots? If so, is it fair to terminate people who 'were' working hard on the project, yet now cant? Do I add more people to the project to get the work done, further dilluting the profit share? As a programmer, my option is clear. -Remove what is not working and replace it. But as a person, and a leader, I am not sure that approach is best or fair. Your oppinons and advice on this subject is greatly apreciated.

As a fellow indie developer and Producer- its definitely tough trying keep workflow up when a paycheck isnt guaranteed. Definitely a tough place to be in.

One of the most difficult problems we face in Reverie is trying to get it so the workflow is never so low that it "trickles". Once you are at the point where little or no work is done at all in a weeks time, its hard to work the same group back up to the point where they are moving with a head of steam.

One of the keys elements we used to combat this problem is bringing in great Department Leads. For me, the department lead needs to be someone who quickly takes charge of their department, feels personally responsible for the work done, and is dedicated enough to the project to at least hit it everyday even if its only a few minutes work. A great department Lead can help pick up the slack during the slow times (And there always are slow times...) and sometimes just posting small updates of artwork, code, screenshots or concept art- little things help keep people motivated.

So to paraphrase I would say:

-Look at bringing in a Department Lead or two for the slowest departments. I know this is easier said than done, but snagging good department leaders is one of the key reasons for Reverie's success.
-Celebrate. And when I say celebrate, I mean celebrate every MINOR or MAJOR victory your team accomplishes. Wether posting an update to an unfinished charachter, a shot of concept art, a bit of music- all of these "minor" things can be adrenaline shots for the team. People need to feel like work is being accomplished even in the slowest times. This is a huge morale boost for the team members.

Good luck, and you guys have been doing a great job!

Keep to it!

Regards,
Micah Hymer
Reverie Entertainment, LLC
www.reverieentertainment.com

Letting people go (who were good workers) will send the message (hopefully false) that you are just letting them go to cut them out of theior share of the profits.

Your contract was flawed. As it was I would never have signed it and would have insisted on a pro-rated share based on my time of contributions not just the contributions at the end of the project. You are setting anyone who signs that up for a fall.

Unfortunately, if you let these people go, word will get around that you aren't to be trusted as an employer and will have a very hard time getting and keeping good people.

I agree with, all that have said before.

Yeah, getting good leads is tough, but well worth the rewards.

Yeah, when people get go, they will cause headaches.

Can you renegotiate the contracts? Give them a smaller percentage of the profits?

My 2c..

>> Do I let the project suffer because of low output, and put our release date in jepordy?

If you have an obligation to meet your release date (have a publisher and signed a contract) then that release date is very important indeed.

> Do I 'terminate' the people that are the problem and find new people to fill there spots?

If the date MUST be met, what else can you do?


> If so, is it fair to terminate people who 'were' working hard on the project, yet now cant?

Fair? No. But neither is life.

> Do I add more people to the project to get the work done, further dilluting the profit share?

Optimistically expecting a profit eh?


My suggestion, assuming the deadline MUST be met:
Goal: Meet the deadline by any means possible.

Inform team members in question they will be terminated if the situation does not change. .. Yes this part hurts however it is your arse and your company's arse on the line. Normally being nice does NOT pay the bills.

Best solution renegotiate and grant them a royalty percentage based on your estimation of their previous contribution with the understanding that their services have been rendered (i.e. terminated). (or something to that effect)

I.e. be as lenient as you possibly can but you can only be so nice.

In the end it boils down to exactly what your deadline is and what the arrangements of that deadline are.

By the by I feel you need a proper artist, unless it is all place holder art and you are planning and capable of doing better. It is not bad (and would probably pass well enough for shareware), but it is less than you would see on the back of a box at the local computer shop yes?

For what little it is worth.

Best of Luck Raymond!

All good points,

Contract re-negotiation did come to mind, and will probably be the first action taken.

Quote:
By the by I feel you need a proper artist, unless it is all place holder art and you are planning and capable of doing better. It is not bad (and would probably pass well enough for shareware),

Hmm, we've yet to have anyone complain about it,
I have tried on many occasions to find a dedicated artist, but each one I find tends to have these qualities...

-Flighty/Overly oppinionated
-Undependable
-An overall pain to work with on a daily basis

As such, we are pushing forward with me as the artist, and the lead programmer, producer, etc.

Quote:
but it is less than you would see on the back of a box at the local computer shop yes?

Certainly not, but, would that game on the shelf be able to hold my attention for longer than an hour of gameplay? If so I would be amazed since the last great game I played, that actually left and impression on me, and was worth playing, was Kings Quest 7.

I would rather our game have EGA style graphics, and give the player a great experience, than have cutting edge graphics, and be little more than a pointless art gallery.

The strength of our game doesnt lie in graphics (at least it shouldn't) our target market, (which we will be directly marketing to) seems to care more about storyline and immersiveness than cutting edge (insert popular game name here) graphics.

'I' think that this is pretty nice graphicly, but maybe it is just me.


In short graphics are the least of my worries=) but thank you for expressing your concern, it will sit with me for a while.


Anyway now that I have managed to hi-jack my own thread, lol,
does anyone else have experience with working with team mates that, say, have to return to college/school durring the year?

Raymond,

The last time I looked at the screen shots it was the art that leaped out and hit me. Fwiw. Also keep in mind that screen shots is about the only information I’ve seen on Morning’s Wrath.

Yes the art is probably good enough (and honestly I’ll be happy if I can get as good in DarkMatter™ I do think), be mindful that it is a turn off point for at least some of your audience (snare them with story/gameplay early on!; perhaps in a hands on tutorial section/mode)


I noticed something about my own artistic efforts while painting a friend’s business.. the colors we chose were simply what we had laying about, a nice enough red-brown ish. When done we stepped back and admired our work and thought not bad. Later I saw it and though OMG how UUUUUUGLY (a barf pink); granted a lot was probably paint drying but still the experience made an impression on me. I’m sure you already know how hard it is to be objective of your own work but be mindful of it anyway, I suggest.

Thankfully my artist sits beside me so I don’t have a lot of technical difficulties in that respect but I can very much appreciate trying to acquire artistic talent (and I, like you have done, would do it all myself if I had the time. Simply, I do not.)


The problem with not having super good graphics (as I’m sure you’ve considered already) is the box will be sitting next to games that DO have. Of course, if you are trying to capture your audience by a trial (shareware or demo or the like) you can safely (imho) concentrate on graphics less. Just make sure it gets good reviews and BRAG about those reviews!

That said, I’m all for gameplay over mega resolution pixle shader whatever, but I do expect a fair amount of eye candy in my games. (else I’d be playing a mud). I also have this really nice graphics card and I want to use it... FWIW.


Anyway FWIW and HTH (= (an I’m sure I could throw in a few more acronyms...)

you make some good points,

The main thing though, I would like to clarify is, we are not worried about trying to catch the eyes of people 'shelf-shopping' our goal is not to get on wal-mart shelvs, or even EB shelvs, our goal is to seek out, and directly market to people who like this type of game, I for one would be happy if our game did not have to share the shelf with other games that were put out by mega-corperations whos drive is the bottom line.

Most people, i'm sure you would find, have the the dream of seeing thier game on shelves with other games. Our dream is to make games that people love, and make enough money to do just that for as long as we can.

We have set out to create games of a certain type, the types that our team likes, and there will always be some people who like the same thing. Even if 90% of people dont like our game, that is okay with us=)

Thank you for your input, =D

Returning to your original question I would suggest you discuss the issue with the current staff, who I assume are aware of the deadline. If they can't meet it then bring in new staff to do so.

Given that the new staff will only have to do the remaining work it would be fair that they only get a partial share and that the original staff also get a partial share for the work done to date.

Ive scheduled a full staff meeting for this thursday,

so it should be interesting to see what they all say as a group,

everyone knows about the current problem, it just hasnt been discussed together.

Yeah, i feel if there is not way to get the current team on track, then contract modification is the way to go.

I would rather not bring in new staff, since there is lots of work to be done, and our goal is the end of november, which isnt that far away, i fear that even if i do bring in new people it will take too long to get them up to speed.