Nathaniel3W":1bul3pb3 said:
Hey Biz, how did you get multiple people to contribute to a project? And more importantly, how did you get them to keep contributing? I've paid thousands of dollars from both my own pocket and from Kickstarter funds to contributors, but when the money was finished, so were they. (And some couldn't even stay on even though I had more work and more money for them.) In my official announcements I always talk about "we" and "us" being involved in the project. It would be nice to actually have more people working on the game.
Well jeez, this is an amazing question, and it's to large of a topic to cover in one post, but I will recall what tips and tricks I can from my own personal experience,
I imagine my team came to me atypically to most. I released my first game in 2008, and another in 2010, and then the first game that really got noticed in 2011, I was alone in developing all of these projects, I also made a short and sweet action game called Hellcat, I had visions, and I was making them visible to the world.
How I ended up with a team was more or less on lucky fortuitous accident. Basically there was once upon a time a forum called Omega-dev, it had various iterations, I met them in 2011 and released my game on their site, and some of them had some influence on RMVX.net and saw my work there, too.
It was in late 2012 after VX.net had been practically destroyed by iEntry's debauchery and I'd moved to rpgmakervxace.net (which is rpgmakercentral now) that I got kicked out of ace.net under honestly, pretty reasonable grounds. I went back to Omega-dev and decided to hang out with them, and because they were the only group of people who were still loyal to me, we all became pretty close friends, and then even closer by an old public enemy who wanted to destroy us.
But after a while, I began talking about the 'Menagerie' project, and showed them a bunch of the work I'd done, and for whatever reason, they felt like making me stuff, payment or not, was gonna be a fun time. And so at first I could pay them, but as my financial situation got more dicey that had to cease, but they all stuck by me, money was never the motivator, seeing their art in my coolio projects, or their music, whatever, that's what they wanted.
One thing I do tend to have a lot of is Charisma, I mean I've spearheaded 2 contests that were blatantly 'hey draw me fan art, best submission wins a trophy'. Wherever it is I go I always seem to be able to assert myself into a comfortable position of power where while not actually being anything more than a member, people respect me like I'm an admin. I'm in 3 differing discord chats with members who have said they'd leave if I left because I make it really entertaining.
But back to the question, there's a long list of tips I could give, the first is always be ready to fault your own management first, your employees aren't likely to stay around if you blame them for not doing their jobs properly.
Another is make sure you KNOW what you want, and be as descriptive in regards to work orders as you can. Also if you like an addition your artists have made with their artistic freedom, don't be afraid to incorporate it, I mean heck-- I've taken ideas from Fan artists who have shown me a character in an outfit that differs from my usual, and I've made that canon. Esperia also became developed heavily over different artist renditions.
You also have to know when to say 'no' or 'do it again', and yes, especially when you aren't paying them, it is TOUGH. But in the end being firm and getting what you want will result in a better end product that you are pleased with.
Having an employee who shares your love for the game or project also helps a lot, my four elites are all very dug in to my universe, my composers have both taken very precise steps when establishing leitmotifs for varying characters, as well as main game themes. My artist Xiie is always super happy about what he gets to draw, and he's been particularly enthusiastic about Fantasia.
My artist Pjcr is also notable for how he gets attached to the idea of drawing characters, recently I linked him an art of Insidious Architect, better knwon as Yi Hellrider, and his response was 'man, I cannot WAIT to draw her.`
I think one of the largest factors I had and still have going for me is that even without my team, I could and still have made projects without anyone's help. See Boned or Terra New Moon if you need examples.
Another thing that helps is promoting your artists and composers work, for instance whenever my composers finish a piece, I put it up on youtube with an album art as soon as I can, and then show off what they did on Twitter and places like here. I'm proud of them, so proud. I want to show their work off as much as I do my own. And whenever someone asks assuming theirs an absence in credit, who did this art? I'll proudly state who, in most cases, it won't even be me, but that's what's so great!
Deadlines also help, Pjcr seems to do noticably well under pressure, Xiie too. But rather than saying 'all your work needs to be done before x' I prefer to do it on a piece by piece basis.
Recently I gave Pjcr the deadline of Thursday Night for the Kyoshi Base portrait, much like I gave him the deadline of the 12th for Yasondre, which he delivered on.
From my experience, Composers are workaholics, and will usually have things done ahead of schedule. Both Jake "Moneymenace" Gamelin and Max M. Dominora are heavyweights when it comes to getting work done.
That said I'm also giving them all the info they'll need to get the work done to my standard, here's some examples.
Exhibit A
Exhibit B
Exhibit C
As for what I've been working on, today I got virtually all of Day 6 done, and sans an FMV, have Day 5 done, as well.
Here's a good idea of how Day 6 plays out, only minor spoilers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd-TFWDTxkI
The busts for Insidious Architect are placeholders.
