Featured Blog | This community-written post highlights the best of what the game industry has to offer. Read more like it on the Game Developer Blogs.
Funding your game: Is work for hire a solution?
Inspired by Develop Magazine’s article about how to finance an early-stage game company by Will Freeman, we wanted to write a longer post about funding, and share with you our personal experiences on work for hire.
Originally posted on the Shadow Puppeteer development blog.
We were honored to be asked by Develop Magazine’s Will Freeman to share some short tips on how to finance an early-stage game company for his article “Funding Your Game.”
If you have not yet read this article (page 14-15), we encourage you to do so as it includes funding advice and shared experiences from several talented and experienced game developers.
Inspired by this article, we wanted to write a longer post about funding, and share with you our personal experiences on work for hire.
Read more...
Work for hire as a means of funding
As stated in Develop’s article, one way to fund your company before your game is ready to be shipped, is by running a consulting business that leverages your game technology expertise to offer solutions to industries outside of gaming. You can use your resources and skills within other fields to earn money at the same time as making your product.
This does, however, pose some challenges, and therefore must be done with careful consideration. From what we have experienced, it is all too easy to stray away from your purpose and get stuck in a spiral that could ultimately harm your company and your product. You must be tactical, realize the risks and decide how to handle them. If you are not prepared to spend the time to execute correctly, do not attempt to go down this route.
Disclaimer
Before we start, we feel it is important to be open: Sarepta studio is a company that does both game development and work for hire. It has always been an important part of our business strategy, and it is something we will continue to do. Sarepta has managed to build up a strong foundation for our company, making us successful. We value, honor and respect our clients and the work we do for them. We are also dedicated to creating our own engaging experiences, i.e., crafting tailored products toward the consumer market that reflect our values and culture.
Just because Sarepta has succeeded in balancing game development and work for hire, does not mean it was easy. Just because we wish to continue working this way does not mean it is not a constant challenge. That is why we want to share from our experiences. Even though we would do the same again, we do not wish to see others go blindly down this path.
The most common misconceptions
The major threat to budding game developers, that we see, are common misconceptions created by assumptions or even shared by unknowing advisors. I.e., people who know a lot about general business, but know very little about the game development business.
There are three common misconceptions about taking on work for hire as means of funding your game development. Or, as people continue to phrase it: “Do something that’s profitable so you can do what you think is fun in the end.” The mindset that work for hire is bound to be profitable and game development is “fun,” but not a viable business, is completely wrong.
The major challenges we have seen are mainly based on the misconceptions that:
Taking on work for hire is an easy way to earn money quickly
Working on other projects will always help you develop your own product
It doesn’t matter who your target audience is
In many ways these misconceptions are tightly connected, but we will address each separately.
Misconception no. 1: Taking on work for hire is an easy way to earn money quickly
Game development is a long and hard process where you usually only get paid at the end...if you are lucky. Making other people’s products, however, is an easy way to get money in quickly. If you do work for hire you will be able to invoice your hours weekly or monthly, so it is a great safety-net to have as you develop your game. And just think about all the money you could earn by selling your services to large companies!
Yes, the market has a lot of potential for profit…that is why there are businesses specifically focused on targeting it.
Some might not be so keen on sharing
- Image found at dailymail
Striving to do work for hire for other companies will put you in direct competition with companies focused solely on those industries. The difference between these companies and yours is that their primary focus lies here. Your primary focus is your game.
If you want to be able to compete in a specific market, you will have to do a lot more than just half-assing it. You will need to build your market strategy, get to know your target audience, create a solid communication platform and have a relevant portfolio that can convince this market that you are specialized enough to do quality work.
You will also have to do...sales!
Anything but that!
We will not go into further detail on this point as it ties in with the other misconceptions. Just realize that working with clients is not an easy “get rich quick” scheme. It needs to be something you actually care about. Sarepta has managed because we started with a divided consulting branch that wished to work with businesses. So, it wasn’t a means, it was a goal.
Misconception No. 2: Working on other projects will help you develop your own product
A misconception many have is that “if you know how to use a tool in one field, you must be able to use it as efficiently in related field.” This is simply not true. Is it fair to assume that a carpenter who knows how to build a wooden boat, also knows how to build a wooden house?
Of course, there will be some related uses for, for instance, modelling and design tools in different fields. But don’t simply assume that one makes you qualified for the other.
When Sarepta began doing 3D visualization work for architects, we thought that this work would give our 3D artists a broader skillset and more experience. And it did, but in completely different and unrelated techniques that could not be used in our game.
Same tools, different focus
The techniques are so different from when you create still images rendered for use on websites or posters, verses real-time engines. It might seem very obvious, yet it is so easy to fool yourself, or to get fooled by other (well meaning) people to believe that doing this completely unrelated thing might actually help. At least you are learning, right? But what use is it if you are learning the wrong things?
It really shouldn’t be that hard of a concept to grasp.
From a programming perspective
For a programmer, it might be tempting to reuse a system or approach that you have used while doing work-for-hire. However, if the system was made with fundamentally different goals, or was designed for a different environment, then you will likely be applying an otherwise valid solution to the wrong problem.
You could compare this to the conventional approach of building castles using stone.
“Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same... It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up.”
- Quote from Monty Python & the Holy Grail
In hindsight, given the time and money that was invested (using a Stone framework), it would’ve been smarter to have approached this problem with an appropriate solution (perhaps ‘Wood’).
Yet it is very tempting to reuse previous work and experience, since as humans we all suffer from cognitive bias, and one of those is the ‘sunk cost bias’, where it’s difficult for us to accept wasted expenditure - we want to avoid it, and this includes any time consumed by consulting work. However, it’s vital to recognise from a software or game production perspective, that you should not apply the wrong solution, since this will only cause you more issues and can be even more costly.
Yes you will likely gain ‘useful’ knowledge and experience from doing work-for-hire, but consider it may not be that relevant, and it might not save you as much time as you hope.