I''ve done several projects myself as programmer and artist, but it really takes too long to do a large scale project alone. So I''m thinking about an internet team to develop a free game -- hopefully making a crossover to making money sometime / somehow. Either way making it good quality in the art department to draw a decent sized audience. But these seem to have a VERY small success rate. I have a bunch of pitfalls I have thought of and would appreciate suggestions on how to avoid them, as well as any others I may have overlooked. 1. Recruiting a team There are a lot of "I''ve got a great idea: would a couple programmers and artists make the game for me?" type of posts. Obviously, that is a don''t. It looks like coding a prototype and then recruiting works draws interest. But then you lose out on input at the beginning. Perhaps I could draw people at the beginning because I do have several projects I could point to as testimony of my skills and ability to finish a project. 2. Business side Obviously, the easiest way to avoid legal tangles is to make it free and open source permanently-- no profits to fight over. But it would be nice to leave it open to making money somehow. It would be a nightmare to have dozens or hundreds of people that have contributed in various degrees fighting over who gets what. One solution would be to agree that anything contributed to the project belongs to the project -- and I own the project. But that would discourage people from joining. That problem would maybe be reduced if I had a game prototype in place before recruiting anyone. I want to be fair about sharing any credits and profits. The problem is every team member''s idea of fair would be different. I would really appreciate ideas on these problems, especially how to legally structure a team so it would have a chance of going for profits. Jack

i think you have the right idea "getting a demo ready before recruiting". your demo will go though major changes anyway, so i don''t think the others will lose input because you wrote it by yourself.

best way to do business is to do it the right way? heh.. what i mean is you should decide who will get what up front, in percentages of the revenue made from the game, and sign an agreement. include clauses for people leaving, or people not doing what they were assigned to do or parts of it, etc..

i suggest hiring only artist and programmers. i think the programming team should get 70%, artists 30%... i dunno, what you guys think? nobody ever talks about this here, even on the now "infamous" help wanted section.. heh..

yea the anon is right.... get a basic demo then start asking for help... this helps alot... but you need to be carful about who you recrute... I''ve tried to get several game up and going across the net only to see them fall appart because of the people I''ve brought in... they brag alot and show a few models/drawings "they''ve" done and then later you find there not all that good after all... puts a real damper on the project...

pay... yup... percentages work realy well... and the clases are a damn good idea.. don''t want to add someone to the project have them drop out with out doing a damn thing and still have to pay them... =)