Furthermore, unless a contract is written by a lawyer, agreed upon by both parties, and filed officially it’s completely meaningless. Even if they wanted to waste their money on a flight - and a lawyer, it would be a moot point.
On top of that, you would have to take up the case in an international court. Since the charges would be petty (not over 1,000 dollars), the cost of a lawyer, flights, and bookings would end up losing you thousands of dollars assuming a lawyer even took your case and it wasn’t thrown out of court.
Rant aside, this is a super helpful (and accurate) post. It needs to be read by all new members - these changes could seriously clean up the category, and though I know that these problems will never disappear I sincerely hope this can raise awareness - especially for those who are overly-zealous for starting new projects.
I always find it funny when I see groups recruiting builders before they even have somebody to program the game. There is no point building any assets if you don’t even have a minimum functioning game, to test the concept and work out potential mechanics before you put the throttle down on development.
Easy to fluff around and talk about what you’ll pay people, hard to produce something that shows the viability of your game. I will never work for anybody who can’t produce an implementation of their vision. You don’t need programming prowess to make a very basic game concepting your idea: for this reason I consider an experience in Lua essential to anybody who wants to lead a development team.
I have nothing against 3D artists—I actually think it’s way more impressive than programming (I am not artistically inclined). However, you can have a fun game with programming but no assets. If you have assets and no programming, you just have a showcase (which nobody cares about playing).
This is a topic I’ve addressed many times in my head yet never bothered to address it publicly till now. I cannot stress enough how poisonous this bias is for start ups. What developers fail to acknowledge is how not everyone is intended to be a developer in this industry. Marketers, agents are valuable roles in the gaming industry however on Roblox that isn’t the case.
Unknown Marketers, agents are disregarded as a liability to the project whereas known marketers are praised for their contributions. The unfortunate truth is how we’re living in a time period of where the majority don’t want to grow with another to instead only collaborate with the known. To better address my point, I leave you this with this optional video.
Result of minimal to 0 deposable funds or unsure of the projects success. Long term it’s a terrible strategy as it’ll cost you more after that particular project is proven to be successful. Keyword that particular project, implying not every project will be a success. Every dollar invested into the project isn’t guaranteed to be compensated if lost, so once you start compulsively distributing %’s with that particular person you may as well consider keeping the payroll % based rather than changing your mind for future projects. If project X’s % gives a UI designer 100,000 USD than project Y’s UI will cost you at minimum 100,000 USD or you offer them % again which than becomes a cycle you can never escape unless you’re foolish enough to overpay their worth.
If the pattern continues than unavoidably you’ll face bankruptcy to an extent someday, you can’t be successful 100% of the time.
It isn’t just solely 30%, either hourly rates or compensation is requested by the modelers which is on average 10-50 per HR or a fee of $100-$5,000 (robux equivalent)
Underpaying developers is essentially giving them free income as you’re basing it off of morals. NOT everyone has morals nor is it obligated of anyone if a contract doesn’t specifically state it. Furthermore if you can’t afford or lack the essential knowledge to form a contract than tough luck because without it you’re screwed over.
If you think known developers are above this practice than you my friend are a naive fool as I once was! I’ve been deceived by four known figures within this community, 3 of the culprits gave me quantity when I specifically requested quality whereas only 1 scammed me. I cannot disclose the culprits identity publicly as we’re not allowed to discuss or mention legal matters with anyone that wasn’t involved. WHO actually believes a thief will correct their OWN mistake willingly? That’s pure idiocy and by far the worse legal disclaimer I’ve ever read. For those who believe I’m paranoid, read the following quotation;
So if someone hypothetically decided to backstab you after gaining your trust, it’s your fault for not taking the extra precautions. Roblox has this mentality; We don’t care even if your mistake puts you at risk of bankruptcy, it’s your problem not ours.
At minimum legal confrontation should be taken into consideration, at least allowing their legal team to walk us through the proper procedure would be greatly appreciated but that isn’t how the world is. The world is a cruel place where you can’t trust anyone fully, you have to always remain on your guard for the worse possible outcome.
I’ve got no issue with this, what I’ve got an issue with is how people automatically assume everyone can afford what competitors are offering.
My story
I’m desperately trying to lift my project off the ground on a mcdonalds wage, living on my own and practically starving myself to death to compensate what little income I average. I don’t have a stable rate of hours either, so I’ve got to strategize everything I do including who I can commission and who I can’t commission. By that I’m referring to the amount I receive not the pay itself, it would be foolish of me to pay $100 for a single asset. Not a map, but an asset as in a sword or a vehicle which is what I commonly see on the forums. Yet to expect me to pay 1,000 USD for only 10 props is essentially asking me to kindly screw myself.
Than there’s this mentality of “Don’t bother hiring anyone if you can’t cover the industry standard”. LET me tell you of this “industry standard”… it doesn’t bloody exist. YOU set the price, WE buy it. There’s no higher up organization establishing the pricing, larger corporations pay those rates because it’s pocket change to them. USD is so inflated to the point companies can underpay the masses without any detection. Not everyone is a successful company, however everyone is capable of reaching that point in their life if you simply GAVE us the opportunity to show what our worth is.
Everyone had at one point started from the bottom, even those born into a wealth had an ancestor that risen up from poverty. Nobody is born into riches without facing hardship, please understand that.
I (as stated several times) was trying to base the project off a new development team with an average of about 10k in funds. Hence why most the payments mentioned were in percent and a threw backup p payment in there.
Kindly do not misquote me or explain my quotes wrongly.
It is not your “fault” if you get scammed due to lack of contract (or even in presence of one), but it is your responsibility to handle arbitration (if you need the dispute resolved). Roblox does not make deals between developers so Roblox is not involved in the arbitration of those deals. They are not liable to fixing messes they didn’t create – it’s your mess.
No, they don’t have to do that, because they’re not involved as a legal party in any deals you make. Roblox’s legal team is not large enough to deal with all the disputes between developers that happen in this community of teenagers and young adults. Nor would I as a developer want Roblox to waste money on trying to mediate in these – they have more important things to be spending people and money on.
You should hire a lawyer if you need legal help, like everyone in the world does. Roblox is not a babysitter for everything development.
Don’t target project leaders because yes, some may be taking too much equity but at the same time, some project leaders are financing the entire game themselves including advertisements, sponsorship. Project leaders deserve a nice chunk of equity because they are risking their earnings in order for the game to be successful. You can program as much as you want but if you don’t have the capital to push sponsored ads, seek out youtubers for advertisement, your programming efforts will be on hold until you get that capital. Now seeking investors is against the ToS too, so sink or swim buddy.
I absolutely agree with this part of the rant. I always have people come to me for commissions saying they want something simple like a sword and it just totally turns into a mess of making goblins, different fantasy weapons, and a bunch more crap I wasn’t told about when I was hired. It honestly frustrates the heck out of me. I also find that some people don’t give much detail on what they want which is another pet peeve if mine. People will mainly just say “make me a cool sword” or “make me an old looking lamp” and then they make it hard to get more details out of them. Doing this makes it much harder and unnecessary for the developer to tell what you want from them and it makes it harder to make the product perfectly how imagined it. I honestly wish people could just be a little more descriptive and stop giving vague details about what they want.
You have the choice to decline if you feel like the job you’ve taken on is supposedly not what is was described as. I am unsure why to rant about it, use common sense…
There’s a big distinction between “project leaders” who contribute significant value to the game (whether this is as a result of capital or overarching game design and management of a large team) and the classic “idea man.” Project leadership should not also be limited to capital, it should involve an overall consideration for the product especially in regard to intentional game design, and managing a team of programmers and artists to achieve a harmonious implementation of the design. This is something which is hard to achieve if you don’t have development experience, and the success of a product is so much more than the extent of capital behind it.
Capital is still a very weighing factor, considering that I come from a background of investors. Yes, having good managing skills does result to an effective team of developers but capital just ensures a higher chance of success because Roblox accepts robux as a way to pay for sponsoring ads, not your background story of how the game was made.
I suppose it also depends on the design of your game. A project like Vesteria and its development team, which is a huge and thoroughly designed project, arguably requires less “capital” (in the form of advertisements and sponsorships) on the behalf of a team leader and more management and directon of game design, compared to a more ‘short-lived’ game such a simulator, with a more limited scope that ultimately thrives on its potential to reach as many paying players of its audience as it can (compared to a larger project in which the playerbase and content develops slowly over time). If the project leader of a team like Vesteria was concerned only with monetisation and capital, it would flop terribly, while a team that produces smaller-in-scope games such as simulators would have the potential to do quite well under such a ‘project leader.’
It is really challenging to get a game lifted from the ground up nowadays because of people who have too much money and makes the barrier to entry so much more competitive. I launched a 100,000 sponsored ad once for a game I was investing in, it failed because my competition was pushing 5 times more in financing their sponsorship campaign. To me, a lot of robux is just an extra sense of security because you can really influence Roblox’s current system to be in your favor.
What’s the point of this rant? I skimmed it but I have a pretty good understanding of what it’s about with just the first little bit as well as the title.
I’d like to remind you that the following thread exists, something which is far too commonly ignored whether that’s deliberate or not.
Don’t complain about other people’s recruitment threads like this, speak for yourself. If you don’t like an offer, move on and don’t take it. If you really feel the need to comment, send them a feedback message privately on how to improve their post to better attract potential developers and team members. If your feedback is unwarranted or declined, brush it off, move on; no point arguing the case further.
You are not either their team leader nor their advisor, so don’t hijack a recruitment thread to talk about how bad their post is or their payment or whatever. Flag it or send them constructive feedback. If you aren’t interested, don’t reply.
Don’t bash other developers for being new and inexperienced to the employer field. Ranting like this isn’t going to change anything and neither is babysitting them through the process, especially since that’s not the function of the forum in any capacity.
When other developers are bashing a newer one for having a lower-quality recruitment post and trying to argue the case extensively, it not only derails the thread (the purpose of all recruitment threads is to hire, not how good you think someone created an offer) and it is counterproductive for them to learn how to better hire.
Developers actually interested in joining are welcome to respond in case they’re looking for slight modifications to the offer before joining or if they wish for clarification on something in the post. This can also be done privately (a la negotiations).
Just want to re-emphasise this post was targeted at inexperienced project leaders and new development teams, I did state several times it excludes formal development teams
The reason why I brought it up is because almost all of my commissions I get are these requests that have minimal information on what they want. I’m sick and tired of having to log on every day when my commissions are open and see tons of undescriptive, confusing orders that I can’t work on. It’s not just a case of “oh just decline and use common sense.”
This is a very normal case for users who are open for commissions and simultaneously a non-problem; again, you’re working with kids and other varying levels of inexperience, immaturity and deliberate or unintentional ignorance. You should be expecting these kinds of messages.
Your case is very much a “just decline it, use a common sense” case. Does it matter if you’re “sick and tired” of seeing these kinds of requests? No. That’s not changing anything. It becomes less of a complaint about the recruitment category and more about users who don’t know how to submit descriptive requests; something that doesn’t belong here.
When creating guidelines you should organize it by most important-least important. Currently your #1 requirement is listed as #8 which can easily be missed if someone is skimming through your document. Clients like easy, uncomplicated systems to abide by. YOUR system is far too complex in comparison to your competition.
The issue is how those that lack experience aren’t aware of the consequences of their actions. A terrible first impression can ruin a business relationship rather quickly. Networking with the right people is one of the key factors of becoming successful as a project leader, having bias built against you will limit your connections severely.
My perspective
The only reason why I was able to familiarize myself with business is because I studied the marketing geniuses for years. I applied their teachings to my failed recruitment attempts in the past whereas most people wouldn’t even fathom self evaluation because it isn’t something that comes to mind. You can’t throw someone into the world than expect the best results, you’ve got to teach them in order to be successful.
Some are self taught and others are taught by the masters. It’s the player’s choice to listen whereas it’s our responsibility to educate them so that the mistakes aren’t repeated. The youth of our generation is going to take over once we move on from this platform whether it be by death or advancing in life. If we don’t prepare them for what they’re getting themselves into than this platforms growth will be halted significantly.
It would be nice if you didn’t misquote me as leverage for your own point.
Though the concept of working with young and inexperienced audiences is fair game, my response was directed towards teams/individuals submitting requests to open commissioners, not putting up recruitment posts. The dynamic is different in terms of who’s setting the grounds and who’s negotiating.
It isn’t your responsibility at all to educate people here. The DevForum is a learning platform and what users choose to learn is at their own discretion. Your only expectation is that when you’re replying, you’re being respectful to the community and your posts offer constructive feedback or suggestions for improvement; you don’t force your ideals on others by pushing an issue. If they disagree or don’t want to heed it, move on.
