Looking For 3d Artists To Work On A Video Game!

#1

Hey guys and gals!

A few friends and I have been putting together a team, there’s nine of us so far. We’ve pretty much got every position filled in terms of code, audio, writing, ui, but we’re in need of 3rd artists to help us pump out assets to build the world with.

This is part hobby, part ambition. We do this because we enjoy it, but we are also working towards starting an indie game studio.

A short pitch for the game using the standard of comparisons to other games would go like…

Borderlands 2 Meets Team Fortress 2 In a world straight from Osmosis Jones.

I know the environment is a challenge, but if you’re up for it, we’ll welcome you with open arms.

We have weekly meetings and we ask you devote at least 10 hours a week to the project.

If you are interested, you can reach me on discord @ Enroq#6883 or respond here.
I can supply you with video dev logs, documentation, and a playable prototype.

You’ll get a faster reply via discord.

#2

What’s the point working for such a startup, when there are payable companies?
And for someone, who even didn’t bother to introduce.
Sorry to sound like an old grunt, but, why, oh why people consider themselves eligible on collecting and reaping talent, who spent years, if not decades, crafting their work.
Is it because it is considered fun? It’s not. it is exhausting, gruelling, result-oriented field, when you stare at the same model for days, making revisions,. And good models take a lot of time.
Games take years to make even with hundreds of artists. There is a notion of man-hours, denoting a certain amount of modeling can be done only by a certain amounf ot people, given a number of time.

#3

I usually keep my hands away from such threads nowadays. Live your dream. But …

Just have a look at the Borderlands staff: https://borderlands.fandom.com/wiki/Borderlands_Development_Team

Don’t you think that you underestimate the effort a bit? I’m not even talking about the fact that 99.99% of hobby team projects falls apart before they are finished. Or that the game market is this unbelievable flooded that it is very unlikely that even a finished game with the best possible marketing will ever make enough money to just pay the bills. Game business is tough nowadays.

In the end it is really simple. Professionals can be hired with money, and nothing else. No money, no pros. You don’t offer money, so you will not attract professionals.

In case you want to attract hobbyists to join your hobby project then it’s wiser to label it as such. At the moment you scare both groups away. And i would also give as much informations as possible. A discord link and some vague informations will not cut it. You want something from the people. Not vice versa.

How to attract the right people is an art at its own. Welcome to the world of marketing. And good luck with searching more members. Please don’t be surprised when you don’t find a single one. The skilled people usually have their own projects already …

That said, good luck with your project :slight_smile:
Kind regards
Tiles

#4

Not saying I disagree with this completely, but this should vary by level of scale and ambition.
Making a 2D puzzle game with the depth of Tetris shouldn’t shouldn’t take 5 years and 100 Artists.
Or a project that has more retro hardware limitations in mind.

#5

Indeed. But he labeled this project as a Borderland clone. That’s several dozens of manyears then just for the artwork. And that’s simply too big for 9 programmers plus one or two graphics artist. And this should be clear for everybody who has just a little bit of experience in game development.

What i completely miss is informations about the level of skills that the team members currently have. It’s as important as the informations about the project itself.

#6

Yeah. I’ve been dodging this thread for days for this exact reason. I want to be supportive and encouraging, but I’m not entirely sure that the OP fully understands what’s involved or what they’re asking.

  1. This is not the sort of project that you can (successfully) accomplish in a piecemeal manner. You’re either all in or not in at all. If nobody puts in more than the 10 hour weekly minimum then it’ll never get finished. Even with 20 artists on board, at that rate, you might as well only have 5. More than that, game development is not a 9-to-5 job. You can try your damnedest to stick to a 40hr week and avoid crunch, but we all know how hard that is to accomplish.
  2. Managing a large on-site staff is hard enough. Wrangling some untold number of remote workers is even harder, especially without experience in doing so. Even well oiled open source projects see contributors float in and out. You may have 20 artists credited, but find that the bulk of the workload is only being done by 3 or 4.
  3. The simplest truth here is that even “starving artists” have to eat and passion doesn’t pay the bills. Pay $0 and expect to surely get your money’s worth. You’re just going to attract a wealth of raw newbies or sloppy wannabes looking to use your project as a stepping stone on their path to a paying job. Good luck finishing a project or maintaining consistency that way. To quote the Joker, “If you’re good at something, never do it for free.” The real talent is probably already employed or won’t work for free for too long - especially after a long, hard day of paying work.
  4. There’s no motivation to finish a hobby project or stay on board for the long haul as a volunteer. They’ll get bored or find some other shiny bauble to occupy their time. Promising them something down the line doesn’t work either. You can’t guarantee them anything.
  5. I saw one FB poster asking for 20 artists and offering them each 1% of the company. Sounds nice on paper, but 1% of $0 is still $0. Additionally, if it’s your studio, you lose far more by giving up percentage points than treating them as work-for-hire. If you do that for a team of 50 then you dilute your own interests and create a climate of competing voices with no rule. Better to pay than give away any ownership.

IMO, don’t aim for a full game. I’m serious. Get a team together to put create a top notch proof of concept level/demo. Dedicate all of your time and resources into making that as tight and mouth watering as possible. This way, y’all can either use it to attract investors so that you can fund your dream OR you can use the work product to gain entry in somebody else’s studio.

If you must create a full game, scale back drastically. Today’s AAA studios had very humble beginnings. Even a Borderlands clone is mighty ambitious for a startup. It’s not as if id Software started with Doom Eternal. Their best and brightest is built on hard lessons learned working on the likes of the far more modest Commander Keen. Dream big. Start small.

EDIT>> FTR, I readily acknowledge the existence of some truly exceptional games made by only one or two people. However, these exceptional games were also made by equally exceptional talents. Putting out an open call for people to work (for free) one somebody else’s passion project… Good luck. IMO, the truly exceptional creators will want to follow their own muses on hobby projects instead of yours.

#7

They do have a working prototype already when i read it right. But you have to poke them to get it.

As told, when you want to attract unpaid volunteers then you should make the entry as easy as possible. And give as much informations as you can. And don’t be afraid that somebody could steal your ideas from your hobby project. Ideas are a dime a dozen. What is vaulable is what you make out of this ideas, and that’s mainly a thing of manpower. And that’s what you want to attract.

Mh, have you considered to buy one of the many asset packs ? This could cut down the development times dramatically. There is even good free stuff available nowadays. For example, Epic gives away megascan asset packs regularly in the Unreal shop.

#8

I just know people never get any “percentage” from anything in the future. It was like this for many decades. Unless you are Keanu Reeves, and shooting The Matrix 4.

#9

Not much too add, except I’d reiterate re-thinking scale and a thread title change i.e. "Looking For Hobbyist’s To Collaborate On Making A Game"

As cookepuss mentioned, I’ve also seen impressive stuff made by one or two people however they’re typically industry accredited to begin with, which in turn accrued many years experience under the belt but every once in a while an indie pops into view hitting a sweet niche spot dead on the head with a winning formula, whereby had made his game one of the most stickyist in the last 10yrs.