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Mattias Gustavsson
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 Posted: Sun May 10, 2009 5:55 pm Post subject: |
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I'm sure that all works nicely in theory :D
In reality though, it becomes increasingly difficult to manage development the more people that you involve.
The reason you see so many games done by solo developers or teams with <5 members, is that those are the teams who manage to actually get anything done to show.
Bigger teams fail before they even get started.
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tcaudilllg
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| Posted: Sun May 10, 2009 7:17 pm Post subject: |
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Just because it works "in theory" doesn't mean it shouldn't be tried.
I've been interested in the reasons that the indie scene stays "indie" for a while.
I believe that by leveraging caring as a means of creating common purpose, such a project can be made BUT it must necessarily be only a means to an end. If a person were to say, state publically that they wanted to help people realize their imaginations, then I think such a project could succeed. One must control the "animal spirits".
As it is, games are made with only the leader's vision in mind. Self-interest is the industry's method: all those people who are genuinely in it for self-interest are probably wanting to get in the industry (or to conquer it), and only see indie as a means to an end. Those people tend not to be successful because they become surrounded by people who are 1) less talented than them and 2) in it only to realize their own, highly idiosyncratic vision. When their vision clashes with the leader's, the project breaks up because there is no inherent sense of responsibility held by the participants towards each other.
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Mattias Gustavsson
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Location: Royal Leamington Spa, UK
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tcaudilllg
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| Posted: Sun May 10, 2009 8:28 pm Post subject: |
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It's not "theories" but one very broad theory encompassing millions of possible outcomes. Each outcome must be computed using the parameters of the theory.
Last edited by tcaudilllg on Sun May 10, 2009 11:59 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Mattias Gustavsson
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Location: Royal Leamington Spa, UK
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tcaudilllg
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| Posted: Sun May 10, 2009 9:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Mattias Gustavsson wrote: | | I don't think it works like that :D |
Explain to me why not.
Edit: nevermind. I'm not going to change your mind so there's no reason to discuss it with you. Although I can't help but feel a sense of discomfort at the thought of not insisting that you aren't seeing the situation for what it is. Your ignorance of things that do not change is plain.
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Mattias Gustavsson
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| Posted: Sun May 10, 2009 9:12 pm Post subject: |
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Because everything you tell us about how things supposedly works, goes against my experience of making games (which is considerable) and against what I've heard other indies as well as retail/AAA devs say.
And you say you base this on some "one theory to rule them all"?
I don't know, I just get the impression that I'm dealing with an academic here. Academics often goes on about theories with little grounding in the real world...
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tcaudilllg
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| Posted: Sun May 10, 2009 10:51 pm Post subject: |
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| Mattias Gustavsson wrote: | Because everything you tell us about how things supposedly works, goes against my experience of making games (which is considerable) and against what I've heard other indies as well as retail/AAA devs say.
And you say you base this on some "one theory to rule them all"?
I don't know, I just get the impression that I'm dealing with an academic here. Academics often goes on about theories with little grounding in the real world... |
I'm not that kind of academic. I'm basically saying, teams of people that like each other last longer than teams of people who may have similar interests (as in, finding the same things fun) but don't feel an affinity for each other.
Let me propose an example. Let's say that "Rick" and "Bob" love games. They are both new to the community and quite naive. Rick wants to make RPGs in the mold of Rouge, because that's the kind of game he likes. Specifically, Rick likes games that test his instincts and push him to his limits. Bob, in contrast, likes RPGs for their storylines. To Bob, the game is only an enactment of the story, and should be easy enough that the player can progress through the story as soon as they are ready, without having to spend hours in between story events "grinding".
Rick and Bob, not knowing a lot about each other, agree to make a game for an upcoming RPG compo. Do they succeed, and if not, why?
My hypothesis is that they will not succeed, because there is great anxiety already to finish the game in the expected time limit. Either side has a notion already of what makes a good game; however, these notions are in direct conflict with each other. In fact, I bet they don't even make it past the discussion stage.
Contrast this to say, Bill and Roy. Bill and Roy both like overhead adventures (in the Zelda mode) and an aversion to complex puzzles; instead they want to make their puzzles very simple. (like Zelda) They have a joint focus on replay value, and so are creating their game to be as varied as possible. (with a random dungeon generator, no less). They are looking to make a game that they play over again, and so have that as their common purpose. This is not a one-shot or an experiment: they have a common bias against either of those. Their choice of making a new game is an expression of their distaste for experimental games which dismiss the importance of quality assurance (something Bill and Roy value), and is as much a protest as an ambition.
Each of the characters mentioned above I calculated in the context of the theory, including their relations to each other. The potential for conflict is particularly calculable: it is shown that the potentials for such are inherent to the biases of the characters, and that given the lack of opportunity to resolve these conflicts (and the knowledge of human nature required to work through them) the characters in question are mastered by them and will most certainly diverge on basis of them. Whereas Rick and Bob are at odds with each other over their disparate tastes, Bill and Roy are united by their common disparagement of the game they are specifically intending not to create. Bill and Roy try not to conceive of a new idea, but to conceive of a complete antithesis for something already made.
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RampantCoyote
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Joined: 16 May 2006
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Location: Salt Lake City, Utah
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| Posted: Mon May 11, 2009 11:19 pm Post subject: |
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Well, throwing my late $0.02 into the mix...
| Quote: | | The more people working on a project, the greater your chances for success. |
I guess I'm just echoing Mattias here, but.... wrong. Very wrong. Here's why:
For every member of a team, you add an additional overhead for communication, management, and direction. You also increase the likelihood of things going wrong. Now, exceptionally good management can reduce the impact of the above, but never eliminate it. Whenever your team exceeds one person in size (basically becoming a team), some of the time each person would otherwise spend "working on a game" is going to be spent "working with each other." You'll need to coordinate timetables, resources, art direction, whatevah.
In fact, particularly with new team members, there's actually a negative impact on efficiency for the rest of the team. Thus the old adage that adding more people to a late project makes it later. The veterans of the project are going to have to take time out of their schedule to bring the new people up to speed before the new people can be even remotely useful.
At some point - depending upon your management structure and the efficiency of said management, you are going to hit the law of diminishing returns. The increase in overhead costs exceeds the value of the additional team members.
In fact, this is the very reason that indie game development teams CAN and ARE succeeding. Jeff Vogel recently talked about how much his games cost to make... about $120,000 a game. That's including salaries and benefits for his tiny team. Guess what? He can survive and profit selling only a few thousand copies of each game. He can succeed where bigger companies CAN NOT. He has a greater chance of success because of a small team.
Unless you define success differently.
| Quote: | | I'm basically saying, teams of people that like each other last longer than teams of people who may have similar interests (as in, finding the same things fun) but don't feel an affinity for each other. |
Yes, I'll agree with you here. The ability for people to work well together is almost as important as skillsets and probably more important than interests, if they are professional. I'd add that a team that has already worked together in the past and has found a comfortable groove can do even better.
| Quote: | | Those people tend not to be successful because they become surrounded by people who are 1) less talented than them and 2) in it only to realize their own, highly idiosyncratic vision. When their vision clashes with the leader's, the project breaks up because there is no inherent sense of responsibility held by the participants towards each other. |
Actually, success pretty much comes down to none of the above factors in my experience. It's pretty much a case of discipline, hard work, and perseverance meeting with a little bit of skill and talent.
From what I've seen in the indie scene - particularly with indie RPGs - greatest success comes from having one really sharp, DRIVEN leader with a vision, who uses contractors and MAYBE teams up with maybe one or two others (Art lead, programming lead, whatever) to see the thing through to the end. One of the surest signs of failure among indie "teams" is the project growing too big too fast with too many cooks. Things get to that legendary "80%" stage (80% of the work takes 20% of the time... the other 20% of the work takes 80% of the time), and things fall apart due to poor direction, poor management, and poor scoping of the project.
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tcaudilllg
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Joined: 20 Jun 2002
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Location: Cedar Bluff, VA
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| Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 8:17 am Post subject: |
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| RampantCoyote wrote: | Well, throwing my late $0.02 into the mix...
| Quote: | | The more people working on a project, the greater your chances for success. |
I guess I'm just echoing Mattias here, but.... wrong. Very wrong. Here's why:
For every member of a team, you add an additional overhead for communication, management, and direction. You also increase the likelihood of things going wrong. Now, exceptionally good management can reduce the impact of the above, but never eliminate it. Whenever your team exceeds one person in size (basically becoming a team), some of the time each person would otherwise spend "working on a game" is going to be spent "working with each other." You'll need to coordinate timetables, resources, art direction, whatevah.
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I would argue that it depends on the coordination. Particularly how well the management understands the talents of each person. You are right in that as things stand, a big team means less success. But I don't think that need be true if only people understood each other and how to utilize each other effectively.
[quote]
In fact, particularly with new team members, there's actually a negative impact on efficiency for the rest of the team. Thus the old adage that adding more people to a late project makes it later. The veterans of the project are going to have to take time out of their schedule to bring the new people up to speed before the new people can be even remotely useful.
[quote]
Point taken... unless they understand the purpose of the project already and had been thinking about how to undertake it "in essence" before they joined it. That comes to the matter of "does this project have any real purpose?"
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At some point - depending upon your management structure and the efficiency of said management, you are going to hit the law of diminishing returns. The increase in overhead costs exceeds the value of the additional team members.
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Of course, the market is only so large and the equilibrium price can only recoup so much investment.
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In fact, this is the very reason that indie game development teams CAN and ARE succeeding. Jeff Vogel recently talked about how much his games cost to make... about $120,000 a game. That's including salaries and benefits for his tiny team. Guess what? He can survive and profit selling only a few thousand copies of each game. He can succeed where bigger companies CAN NOT. He has a greater chance of success because of a small team.
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That is success. But I'll bet he thinks of each person on that team as a personal friend.
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Actually, success pretty much comes down to none of the above factors in my experience. It's pretty much a case of discipline, hard work, and perseverance meeting with a little bit of skill and talent.
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I would argue that the ability to stay on task with respect to any particular activity, and to give it the attention to quality required, is the measure of one's talent at any particular thing.
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From what I've seen in the indie scene - particularly with indie RPGs - greatest success comes from having one really sharp, DRIVEN leader with a vision, who uses contractors and MAYBE teams up with maybe one or two others (Art lead, programming lead, whatever) to see the thing through to the end. One of the surest signs of failure among indie "teams" is the project growing too big too fast with too many cooks. Things get to that legendary "80%" stage (80% of the work takes 20% of the time... the other 20% of the work takes 80% of the time), and things fall apart due to poor direction, poor management, and poor scoping of the project. |
That's the leader's job. The leader must spend his time getting the "cooks" in synch. After all, the leader can't possibly conceive of the entire project by himself... unless it's going to be terribly flawed. (as in, Unlimited Saga flawed) People have weaknesses which constrain their view of reality to at most half the picture. What is important that the leader focuses on the common goals of the project and constrains speculation to that goal. He must focus on what everyone on the team agrees is important. The destiny of the project is chosen right from the start: rapport with the leader is not enough. Everyone on the team must like every other person on the team, or it's not going to work out...
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RampantCoyote
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Joined: 16 May 2006
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| Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 8:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | After all, the leader can't possibly conceive of the entire project by himself... unless it's going to be terribly flawed. |
I'm not sure what you mean by this. I mean, sure, a project is always going to evolve over time. But right now, the most 'successful' commercial indie RPGs out there are being conceived and masterminded by one driven designer / developer - and while I suspect they are getting plenty of input from their contractors or team members (I know I do), there's really only one "cook."
I mean, these guys can correct me if I'm wrong. But as I see it, these commercial indie game companies are largely one, two, or three-person shops who contract out for additional art, sound, programming assistance, etc.
| Quote: | | Of course, the market is only so large and the equilibrium price can only recoup so much investment. |
Correct, but there is more than that. Eventually, though, you run into the "If one woman can have a baby in nine months, can nine women have a baby in one month?" problem. You get to the point where more people literally slows the project down and can derail it entirely.
If you want to know what WORKS, follow the guys who are succeeding (or at least treading water) in this space, and see what they are doing. That doesn't mean slavishly emulate them, but definitely pay attention to the hows and whys of what they are doing. Oftentimes, they aren't doing it by accident.
I think perhaps the biggest mistake is for an inexperienced, large group of individuals to get together in an effort to "make a game" as a collaborative effort. I don't care how much they like each other, and I don't care how passionately they feel about the project at the get-go. While I won't say it's impossible for it to work, it's pretty much a recipe for failure.
My #1 piece of advice (which I repeatedly ignore, myself) is to START SMALL. Small enough that one person COULD do it by himself / herself. Having help just improves the results and might shrink the development time slightly.
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tcaudilllg
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| Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 1:26 am Post subject: |
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I think perhaps the biggest mistake is for an inexperienced, large group of individuals to get together in an effort to "make a game" as a collaborative effort. I don't care how much they like each other, and I don't care how passionately they feel about the project at the get-go. While I won't say it's impossible for it to work, it's pretty much a recipe for failure.
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Why is that?
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Correct, but there is more than that. Eventually, though, you run into the "If one woman can have a baby in nine months, can nine women have a baby in one month?" problem. You get to the point where more people literally slows the project down and can derail it entirely. |
I see your point. You've got to think things through. But, don't you think that a lot of people have the same thoughts anyways, so what does it matter to have one person announce them all?
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RampantCoyote
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| Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 4:37 am Post subject: |
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I have a number of speculations. The bottom line is really that I've seen / heard this approach being tried innumerable times, and it very VERY rarely succeeds. A few survive long enough to go into Open Source Limbo for a while, but never reach a complete, release, 1.0 version. On the flip side, there have been dozens of commercial indie RPG releases the last two years or so that have tried the other approach.
To speculate? It's like a team of sixteen newbies planning an expedition to climb to the top of Mount Everest, versus two newbies intending a climb up a small, local peak. Which one is more likely to end in disaster?
| Quote: | | You've got to think things through. But, don't you think that a lot of people have the same thoughts anyways, so what does it matter to have one person announce them all? |
I'm not sure I understand your question here.
But the thing is, when you have even a small project, everything has to be broken down into tasks for everybody, and you end up with a bunch of dependencies and, inevitably, bottlenecks.
As an example from a recent mainstream game project I was on (The Tale of Desperaux - which unfortunately collapsed because the publisher went bankrupt - though they did manage to release the PS2 and Wii versions --- without paying the developer for the final milestones, I should add) - we had some of these very problems. The animators couldn't do their job until the riggers did their job. The riggers couldn't do their job until the modelers finished THEIR job. They, in turn, were waiting for marching orders from the designers, concept art from the 2D artists, and they are waiting to find out if certain capabilities of the engine would be enabled by the programmers.
This applies equally well in the indie world. I run into the same issues all the time. It's an incredible juggling act even with a very small team.
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DeveloperX
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| Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 2:08 pm Post subject: |
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| RampantCoyote wrote: |
This applies equally well in the indie world. I run into the same issues all the time. It's an incredible juggling act even with a very small team. |
Agreed.
Less is more.
Though, lone is well..lonely. XD
I prefer teams of two or three.
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RampantCoyote
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| Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 8:18 pm Post subject: |
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Heh - well, my "team" is a little bit fluid. It's still lonely. But I do have some friends who have been chipping in for a pittance and doing some great work. And it definitely takes some serious time and effort to manage even that. But their efforts are a little haphazard - Frayed Knights is a low-priority side-project for them, whereas on some weeks it practically defines me.
But it definitely helps to have them to bounce ideas off of and so forth. I'd say even if you are principally working solo, you do need some people to use as sounding boards. This forum and the community at Rampant Games definitely help on my end. You guys have helped fill that role, and I really appreciate it.
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