Alternative Ways to Start a Dev Team

Help and Feedback Game Design Support
#1

To get directly to the point, I am looking to start a development team for a future game and possibly for more games down the road (I’m hoping to start a studio, not just a team for a singular project.) Normally I’d just go on over to public collaboration and start looking through portfolios and posting for team members, but the main problem is that I do not really have any starting capital.

So what I’m asking is this: Are people interested in joining a dev team with no guaranteed/initial payment, rather lasting percentages? If not, are there any alternative ways to gather members for a development team?

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#2

Normally, developers will most likely not take commissions in which they aren’t guaranteed a payment; they may possibly be wasting their time. As for an alternative method, I really can’t think of any. I just advise that you gain a sustainable source of payment before commissioning.

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#3

Depends on a person, to be honest. Some people that already know you from the business side and trusts you, would be more prone to doing so rather than complete strangers. The only alternative is small devs that just want to build up their portfolios on the game.

Not that I know of. I’ve already seen a dev studios/solo deving/development duets and I can’t imagine thinking of something else than just buying out the devs (commissions).

Good luck with the game(s)!

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#4

Honestly, I suggest you do what you can by yourself. Everything, besides scripting, can be learned easily, you just need to know how to make things look good.

Although it will take more time and might add on more stress, you won’t have to pay developers and worry about arguments, and you will be able to give more Robux towards investors, if you use some, or keep the Robux for ads, rather than worrying about everyone splitting the Robux.

To add onto this, you could start up a game by yourself and as your game grows, add on another developer or two.

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#5

The main & known issue in Development is that a project either goes as a “Succes” or “Failure”, Which results of the % revenue being quite risky,

In my opinion, The best way to start, no matter your current domain of creation, is to guarantee the succes of the project, There are alot of people introducing their plans & concept as ambitious but possible, but is it really exciting to hear about it ? To my experience, it’s not, most first impression is just someone being all talks.

This is where you can change the outcome of your presentation, If you think you are able to finish a proper prototype or production, Don’t hesitate to show off ! Demonstrate your ability & knowledge from solid results or attemps (such as Visual Demo, like the Main menu or part of the Map), Please take in mind that not everyone have the same standards, so you have to try to be a little apart from the norm, They have to believe in you before you believe in them.

I know this is quite direct & blunt, but as simple as it is, it’s still efficient, It’s also part-motivation & natural to follows someone that have Experience & capable, considering creating games is competitive.

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#6

People typically won’t work for free so you are going to need some sort of incentive.
We are going to need some more details about your project in order to find some suitable alternatives for payment.

For example, if you are making a game for a clan, you could offer a HR position or admin powers.

You won’t attract anyone worth their salt if your only offer is a flimsy promise of a percentage payout which is heavily dependent on the success of the project.

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#7

From a personal experience, I’ve never really seen creating games as a profit/competitive studio based thing and more as a passion project system; this is exactly why I didn’t mind diving head-first into a non-payed, off the bat, scripting team at my current team.

The way I see it, I don’t want to “work” for free under someone’s name- why should they be my boss if I get no return. I prefer it as more of a collaboration between a team of people. No one benefits more off the game than one another and it isn’t a centralized process- the team direct the game, not one person.

That being said, I wouldn’t have joined the team if my good friend Stylishh over on the team hadn’t proved himself first- he seemed to be a great builder and definitely had potential in game making, so as soon as I saw him making a game, I hopped in- before you knew it I was sucked into helping out, purely due to the appeal of his work and the potential it had.

If you’re a terrible builder/designer and you don’t care to improve on your style, no one will want to join in- the same pretty much goes for having no form of portfolio at all! You should definitely prove yourself as the type of person that people will want to work with and you should of course be whilling to take criticisms.

Overall, it’s more about people wanting to collaborate with you, rather than you wanting them to work for you. I hope for all the best with your quest to find a team! :smiley:

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#8

If you want to make a game but don’t have much of a budget, find another person with an equal amount of passion (this is important) as you who can do the things you can’t do and split the profits 50/50.

For example, one person could do the scripting and UI, and another could do the building and GFX.

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#9

If any of your friends are interested in development, work with them and grow the team up from there. I’ve been recruited into multiple dev teams by friends that happened to be on the team. Once you create a semi-solid fan base for a game, you’ll likely have more people asking to join your team.

I highly recommend that if you do this, don’t suddenly make all of your communications with your friends become all about development work. Continue to be a friend so that they actually enjoy developing with you, and you with them.

Examples:

Blades and Banners

I was recruited into Blades and Banners by a friend that was on the team. He was the only person on the team that I knew, but we were good friends so I accepted his invitation. He later ended up leaving the team, but by that time I had become good friends with the other developers and enjoyed chatting with them, so I stayed.

The game that we were working on at the time had a pretty solid fan base, and we actually ended up recruiting a couple people that were fans of the game and also happened to be developers. More people were actually interested in working with us, but we didn’t want to let the team get too big.

I am no longer part of Blades and Banners by my own choice, but I still communicate with its fan-base and some of the developers of the original team.

RuneBlox

Disclaimer: I don’t mean any disrespect towards the RuneBlox team with this post. This happened many years ago and I’m sure that the team is entirely different now. The communication issue with the other team members was also partly my fault, because I didn’t really attempt to reach out to anyone.

After Blades and Banners, I was then recruited into RuneBlox by another friend. It was going great at first, but I never really got to know the other team members very well and everyone seemed to only want to talk to me about development work and nothing else. It’s good to be focused on the tasks at hand, but this made development much less enjoyable for me. I became less and less motivated to script.

The team also didn’t exactly have a leader, either. It obviously had a creator, but he preferred a more laissez-faire leadership style (aka gave as little guidance/direction as possible). This can work for some people, but I just wasn’t used to it at the time and it really threw me off. I like having a lot of say in what I get to script, but having a team leader allows the team to be more organized. The leader sets guidelines for the team to follow. If people are slacking or doing something wrong, the leader gets them back on track.

I ended up leaving, which was difficult to do because the creator also happened to be a friend of mine (the one that recruited me).

Hopefully my experience with these two teams will help you out a little.

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#10

You don’t need to have money to start a development team. It is much harder to start a development team without money though. What you essentially need to do is find some people who are willing to be not only developers but also business partners. Look for people who are willing to work together with you in order to design games and build a studio from the ground up. That is really the only alternative and it’s a very hard alternative. You’d be better off doing to building commissions, building up a nice and hefty fund, and then using that hefty fund to start a development team.

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#11

Basically what people are saying is that most people won’t work for free unless you are close friends with them.

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#12

I agree with that L7_M says, but if you are dead set on making a development team, this is what I would do: make everything yourself up to a point and show it around (use discord, twitter, reddit, etc) and ask people if they’d be willing to join the project after you have at least something to show other than an idea.

In my case, after I started working on games for a few weeks people were messaging me about commissions and joining their dev team/joining my dev team.

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#13

but you are looking for what Builders,Scripters , voice actor or a Translator?

#14

I’m not really “looking” for anyone yet, I was just asking in advance so I have a bit more of an idea of how to plan my next project.

#15

What Lawnmovver is a very good point. What you could also do is design a game concept, build all of the maps and content that you are capable of making and then show coders and any other developers what you’ve done so far. I feel like this is a very promising method because it doesn’t include as much risk as just signing on for a project. There isn’t the potential of someone not being able to do their job. With this being the case, a coder might jump on something like that if you can be convincing enough.

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#16

Scripting can be learnt quite easily too, as long as you follow best practices on the Roblox dev wiki

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#17

I think if you make a successful game and add some developers/coders etc to them, then your relationship with those people becomes stronger and better. You can offer them to join your “studio” and they might join. Not completely sure though.

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#18

Whenever I’m looking for developers, I usually try to be friends with them first. If they aren’t a friend, they are coming from the business perspective: “Work, and be payed.” When you have better relationship with them already, they typically would help compassionately, then you can pay them later. Just some tips, you don’t have to follow them if you don’t want.

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#19

Which effectively boils down to mate’s rates vs. commissioned work

#20

Personally I join dev teams based on the reputation of the employer or the strength of the team, for example if there is a scripter, GFX maker and animator if I can see that they are harworking and gets things done fast and are not lazy I am more likely to stay in the team.

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