A Developer's guide to a successful career (and making a team)

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#1

You may reply with any errors or requests, and I will fix them / add them.

Don’t have too many people in your team
This is probably the most basic of all rules. I would recommend 3-5 People, but if you must have a large team, no more then 15 for smaller games, and 35 for larger.

Don’t waste your funds on hiring multiples
Don’t waste all your funds on the development. Only hire the amount of developers you need, (unless of course, you find a jack of all trades :wink: )
You of course can hire multiple developers of the same genre, just not to many.

Find professional and polite developers
I probably shouldn’t say this since I am very casual, but you would be surprised how much quicker the development process will go if you don’t waste your time with unprofessional and lying kids. Be sure they can vouch for their age, I can’t count the amount of times 9-10 year olds have dmed me saying they are interested in a job, they lied about their age, slowed down the process, and expected to be paid after we kicked them. They did no work and ended up slowing us down by about a month.

Be casual
This completely defies the point I just made, but be casual. Nobody likes it when you are too serious and people will quite if it isn’t enjoyable and it causes stress.

Move on
This doesn’t sound very clear, so let me explain. Sometimes, in development there is drama (ex. Bob got high rank, abused, and got demoted, he then ruined the whole game out of anger, thus ruining his development career forever.) don’t waste your time on people like this. If someone complains, kick them. Don’t try to expose them when they leave the team, just let them go and move on.

Use real advertising
Very unclear again. What I mean is don’t do those ads like “please please please please----- play my game I spent soooooo long” sorta ads. Spend real time creating ads that aren’t so generic and will grab the players attention.

Influencers
Using influencers (content creators, streamers, etc) is a great way to expose your game to the audience of said influencer. This requires you to make the game fun for the influencer to play, and for the influencer to find many ideas for content/streaming in your game, resulting in mutual benefit. If you think you can sell the idea, emailing an influencer can get you started, otherwise, design your game to be influencer friendly to begin with.

Events
Official developer hunts such as the Metaverse Champions were mostly a failure. I’ve seen some games spike in popularity for a few weeks and then return to around 10 players active once the event ended. Using these developer hunts is a great way to get your game promoted if you do it right. If the quest is not grindy, takes around 10 minutes to accomplish, and shows off a game’s core features, then it can easily get players simply wanting to get the item to return.

Don’t make your games P2W
This one is rather obvious, don’t make your game pay to win, I may bring a quick cash flow, but eventually people will leave after getting tired of being trolled for the 1000000th time. Instead, make a steady cashflow with monetization practices that aren’t so corrupt.

Don’t use free models
I’ll put this final one plain and simple. Don’t use free models. It makes your game unprofessional and some have viruses. It is ok to learn how to script/build with them tho :wink: if you must use them, it is generally frowned upon, so be aware of that.
Oh yeah, one more thing, make your game original and don’t steal or else :smiling_imp:

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#2

You guys may continue to discuss but I am going to sleep now. Peace out unless i can’t sleep in which ill come back

1 Like
#3

Use real advertising
Very unclear again. What I mean is don’t do those ads like “please please please please----- play my game I spent soooooo long” sorta ads. Spend real time creating ads that aren’t so generic and will grab the players attention.

this is a big thing, I click on those MS paint ads all the time but I never interact with what they hold. Creating this kind of ad can give you a false sense of what market your game is reaching.

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#4

To add on, I have two more tips that can help get your game to be successful.

Influencers
Using influencers (content creators, streamers, etc) is a great way to expose your game to the audience of said influencer. This requires you to make the game fun for the influencer to play, and for the influencer to find many ideas for content/streaming in your game, resulting in mutual benefit. If you think you can sell the idea, emailing an influencer can get you started, otherwise, design your game to be influencer friendly to begin with.

Events
Official developer hunts such as the Metaverse Champions were mostly a failure. I’ve seen some games spike in popularity for a few weeks and then return to around 10 players active once the event ended. Using these developer hunts is a great way to get your game promoted if you do it right. If the quest is not grindy, takes around 10 minutes to accomplish, and shows off a game’s core features, then it can easily get players simply wanting to get the item to return.

1 Like
#5

This is very helpful :ok_hand: Thanks for the brilliant tutorial.

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#6

This isn’t a guide to become a successful creator, but mostly steps to make a good team.
This guide needs to be more detailed. Like I said before, this isn’t a detailed guide with tips and things that could help you, instead, this is a few important concerns that you need to remember.

I appreciate that you put your time into making this.

2 Likes
#7

I know for a fact that most of your rules are very accurate, except the free models part. Yeah sure, it has viruses but your scripter can remove it.

Most games at least have free models. Break in, Criminality, The Streets, Pokemon brick bronze etc

The games that are the most guilty with this rule are probably free admin games. Free gear models, Free Admin model, etc. Yet people still enjoy them

Not all games with free models are frowned upon, especially the ones who rely on Fm’s the most such as free admin games. It’s a very good toturial and I hope you can see my perspective and realize that!

4 Likes
#8

May I add this on to the paragraph

#9

It still is generally frowned upon

#10

Whilst some of this is good advice, other parts are downright wrong and frankly spreading false help to new developers.

If you contract out or hire a developer, make sure they are who they say they are, ask for their portfolio or to demostrate what they’ve made (programming/animation wise). Just because someone is young, it doesn’t mean they are bad at what they do. You failed to ensure the person you hired was well suited to the job, and ended up wasting time. It wasn’t due to their age.

Using real adverts doesn’t work. If you wonder why you see the “please play my game, i spent so much money on it”, it’s because they work. They outperform “real adverts” by a mile. The entire purpose of an advert is to get users to click on it and be directed to the play button. If guilt tripping is how you want to go, that’s fine. What attracts young children is bright, flashy adverts, often memey in a way.

Using free models is completely okay, please don’t make such broad statements and wrongly influence new developers. A majority of popular games will use open source libraries/code, why? It’s wrote by someone much smarter than them and it works extremely well. Most of the things on the internet use open source libraries. If you are going to use free models for building, just make sure it blends into your style. Free models are there for you to use them, they are not bad, they should not be avoided because of the fear of your game been “unprofessional”, in fact, it’s the opposite.

8 Likes
#11

Some very popular games in the front page such as adopt me used a few free models, so I do not see a reason why you shouldent if you have an antivirus plugin?

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#12

By developers you mean… I dont see no kids complaining about a free model in my life… soo

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#13

This is really very helpful but i have a few questions

How do i know that they are not professional kids, and if imagine a 12 year old which is highly Professional should i take them in or should i aim for 13+ people?

I do that because i know what its like being working for a very strict guy (schools), but if that guy is strict sometimes and casual is it okay or do we have to be casual all the times?

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#14

The free model rule is more of an opinion, and free models don’t bring your game down to the scorch of the earth, If you made a game, using Free models and no sign of developing but spamming toolbox models? Yes it may be frowned upon, but I never see people frowning upon free models when a lot of games use it, maybe developers, but some developers support the idea of free models too.

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#15

Ok for your first question, if someone is 12 but professional, your ok to hire them. Just don’t allow them in your discord server as it is against tos to be under 13 and you could get in trouble for knowingly letting them in. For a real life example, i have Developer friends who are 10 and 12, they are good. I just don’t let them in my discord server just in case.
For your second question, its ok to not be casual 24/7 just try to be a bit more chill.

2 Likes
#16

I more meant how professional they are and not allowing them into your discord server as you will get in trouble for knowingly letting someone in who is breaking tos.
And by not using free models, you are more likely to be able to easily hire developers if you don’t have free models, (it is generally shamed upon to use them by the development community)

#17

oh okay, thanks for letting me know!