Well Tom, lend us $1million to create something it's impossible to predict if it will make any money, and I'll do that. In the absence of your cash though, I will have to rely on like-minded people to help out without traditional payment, and I prefer to set things up so IF any money is made those people get a fair share, rather than not knowing who gets what.

Well Tom, lend us $1million

It would be very unwise of anyone to lend that much to someone with a bad business idea.

Well Tom, lend us $1million to create something it's impossible to predict if it will make any money, and I'll do that. In the absence of your cash though, I will have to rely on like-minded people to help out without traditional payment, and I prefer to set things up so IF any money is made those people get a fair share, rather than not knowing who gets what.

You can get your hands on startup capital in a pretty straightforward way-- you design your business plan, and then pitch it to investors or a bank, and there's your money to try your project. It's your business plan that convinces investors that there's a realistic chance of a return on their investment, and that's why they give you the money, despite the fact that they can't be certain that it will make any money.

If your business plan can't attract investors, that suggests to everyone who might invest their time and talent into the project that it isn't going to be very successful. This may be accurate, and it may not; investors aren't oracles, after all. But if you're not even willing to sink some cash into it, then that could suggest that even you don't think that it will net any money. So it's not even that you are offering non-traditional payment, you are offering no payment.

Your payment scheme in no way sets things up so that any money made is distributed fairly, and no one knows who gets what. The payment, in credits, is issued as arbitrarily as cash would be, and probably more loosely since it has no value. It can't be laid out as a share in a contract, because the value of the credits is continuously devalued over the life of the project. Plus, you keep

I think that your system, while it may avoid some problems, doesn't avoid them entirely, and raises others. Of course you can still structure a project that way, but I think that such a project would have lots of difficult issues to deal with above and beyond the difficulties in producing a game. I think that you could have issues with attracting talent to work in an extremely high risk and middling to low reward situation, and I feel that the fluid nature of the credits would lead to at least as many issues as banding together without a payment scheme in place for in case you're successful.

There's a reason that most businesses go through the normal process-- recruiting investors, using the proceeds to hire talent and pruchase work, then trying to take in revenue beyond the investment for profits.

There seems to be a lot of confusion regarding how you should determine someones contributions and the percentage they should received based on those contributions. I am assuming you are choosing not to raise funds yourself and instead offer your team a percentage of the profits. You should still approach your team from a business perspective and 'hire' them based on their experience and lay out what your expectations are regarding their involvement and contributions. If their contributions are not meeting what is laid out in the agreement then they either settle for a lesser percentage or they can be let go and receive none.

There always needs to be a clear expectation between the workers and the team lead regarding their skill and contributions performed compared to what was laid out in the agreement. It is the same as hiring an employee, they need meet the minimum job requirements to work in that position. If they fail to meet their deadlines or struggle with their work which would be decided by his/her lead or yourself then based on the agreement they could be let go or be forced to receive a lesser percentage.

I am sure that many will see this as biased towards the project creator but as the project creator there needs to be controls set in place in order to ensure the success or failure of the project, and part of that is making sure the talent that comes on board is able to perform their roles.

All of this can be resolved with a proper business plan and game design document. If that is too much for anyone then just forget about compensation and gather a team to develop a free game with no expectation for funds or profit sharing.

The whole point I'm making is a lot of these teams aren't in it as a business to make a big fat profit. They are primarily motivated to make the game. They have no interest in making a business plan to get money, they just want to get a couple of guys to buy into their vision and agree to help bring it to life, on the premise that if money turns up, things are pre-agreed.

My side-project (see sig) is like that. Right now only I am working on it. There's no way I could convince even myself what money it might attract (Id struggled with Quake Live after all), and I wouldn't want to borrow $1m to hire devs because I don't want to end up owing it. If/when I want some help it seems quite reasonable I look to see if an artist/web-designer wants to team up with no promise of any money - in fact I would prefer their expectation is for no money - based on them liking the idea.

Logging time and credits in the way suggested has two benefits I see:

- If money comes in, it's pretty clear how to split profits
- It makes the whole project more professionally footed if people are logging time spent and being 'paid'

Tom... I was trying to find our from your pages, do you have experience in this less traditional side to making games or has your work all been done as a salaried guy working in a corporate office?

Tom... I was trying to find our from your pages, do you have experience in this less traditional side to making games or has your work all been done as a salaried guy working in a corporate office?

I never have, and I never would, work on a game without pay or for a promise of maybe getting paid someday (other than on concepts I originate). I have bills to pay.

[quote name='JDX_John' timestamp='1301594030' post='4792674']
Tom... I was trying to find our from your pages, do you have experience in this less traditional side to making games or has your work all been done as a salaried guy working in a corporate office?

I never have, and I never would, work on a game without pay or for a promise of maybe getting paid someday (other than on concepts I originate). I have bills to pay.
[/quote]

I think you are going to have problems finding people that can actually pull off your game without some money involved during development time. Look at all the help wanted posts that try a similar 'cut of the profits' how many of them have actually made anything? I've been burned on the 'cut of profits' from an actual released game I worked on. The books were cooked in such a way that only the project leaders got any money. The game is being ported to consoles but the contract was only for the PC version so I won't see anything from that either. Like Tom, I would never work on somebody elses project for free now. I have bills to pay. Maybe if I was 18 again and in college my outlook would be different but then again back then I didn't have the knowledge or skills to be able to complete anything more then simple games

Logging time or giving credits or figuring out a 2000 tri model is worth 0.00002% of profits doesn't mean anything when the game never gets finished or if it gets finished its lucky to make $1000. Its just trying to fancy up a non existent salary. If there is no investment money in a project then you need to go in to the project realizing that most likely you will never see any money from it. Just giving a straight percent of total profits is going to be the easiest way to handle any money that might be had. But of course there is the issue of dealing with people that leave a project before its completed. Which is another reason it makes the 'cut of profits' scheme unwieldy to work with.

There is also the matter of what "employee" means.

A full-time employee needs to be paid a salary, usually at least minimum and employer needs to pay their insurance, taxes and similar, depends on local laws. When such employment ends, the employee is entitled to severance or similar. The costs here are considerable, regardless of revenue.

Then there are temporary or seasonal workers, what that means is clearly defined, again, by laws.

Then there is work for hire. Different rules, may not perform certain work.
And apprenticeships. And interns. Consultation. Contract work.


Most of these forms of employment are not free. Employer must pay or violate who knows what kind of laws.


So what's left is - voluntary effort. And that is again regulated, otherwise companies would simply hire volunteers under various guises.


So short of gray economy, it's simply impossible to legally pay someone this way. Assuming project does make money. It can't be filed, registered or correctly taxed. Even worse, company must pay salaries promptly or it becomes insolvent, so whatever arrangement, payment cannot be delayed more than 3 months or so. Again, different laws, etc...


Most of this discussion is moot as far as legalities go - there is simply no trivial way to pay this way, unless one is paying via royalties, and those are a big bowl of worms again.

The only way to pay in this type of deal is to simply hand the people cash on hand, bypassing all income regulations. It works for a couple hundred bucks, but far from anything that could be considered real revenue. So just say upfront it's voluntary work for free.


Another tidbit - I know that in most of EU, one is forbidden by law to perform work of their profession without issuing an invoice. So it is *illegal* for plumber to fix plumbing of their neighbor, even family not registered to their place of residence, without issuing a bill and filing taxes. Similar may apply to programmers - if your profession is programmer or are graduate of such profession, it might actually be illegal to participate in such projects (I won't vouch for details).

Death and taxes.

[quote name='JDX_John' timestamp='1301594030' post='4792674']
Tom... I was trying to find our from your pages, do you have experience in this less traditional side to making games or has your work all been done as a salaried guy working in a corporate office?

I never have, and I never would, work on a game without pay or for a promise of maybe getting paid someday (other than on concepts I originate). I have bills to pay.
[/quote]
And I should add, I would NEVER, EVER, ask anyone to work for a promise of maybe getting paid someday.

[quote name='DarklyDreaming' timestamp='1301333540' post='4791411']KISS wins out when it comes to profit - don't complicate things.

I presume you're not talking about the 70's rock band. What is KISS please?[/quote]
It stands for "Keep It Simple, Stupid!"