I just thought this was funny. Considering how often I’ve been asked to work for free. And I’m not even particularly good yet. Or maybe it’s the fact that since I’m not particularly good, I’m asked. 
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You know, I have had people here on the Unity forums contact me and ask me to work for free…make them terrains, write their design doc, etc. Amazing. lol Personally, I love the barter system but unless someone is going to give back in some way, it is rather crazy to ask for free stuff.
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It hasn’t happened here on this forum for me, but on other forums where I display my art-assets more. I think I’ve been asked, seriously, five or six times. I’m sitting there, “this thing I’ve shown is crap. Why do you want me anywhere near your project?” 
Yeah, my daughters are artists. One answered a request on Deviant Art for comic book art with promises of payment. She made the art and then he told her he didn’t have the money right now, hard times, you know. But he would still like to use it. Hard lesson for a young person.
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bahahahahaha
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It might make sense to do some free side work IF it is fun project to participate in and the other side is completely honest about their intentions (and if it is non-commercial).
However, people that try to trick you into working for for them for free … ugh. The worst kind is “do unpaid test for us, we will hire you if we like results, we promise!”.
Now, I’m a programmer, but I have no idea how designers/artists could possibly deal with this crap.
Teach her to request partial upfron payment or explain how to use escrow services and/or work through freelancing platforms. This kind of incident can hurt quite a bit of young age.
“I’m going to start providing my services day one, so you have to start paying day one… that’s just how businesses work” Spot on. That’s all you should be saying when someone asks for spec work.
I always figured most of these people requesting “give me your time for free”, “work for free”, “join my team for a royalty split” were all kids and to them it seemed reasonable. I’ve had the same things as a programmer. “Hey we just need a programmer and the money made will be split evenly across everyone involved!!!”
Now I am sitting here thinking… “wow… maybe some of these were actually adults”. I can kind of see where the folks are coming from who are suggesting people team up and the money will be split evenly. I am sure they are thinking everyone on forums such as these must be interested in game development. And they are already doing it for free anyway in the majority of cases so why not team up with other people. There is some logic in it. Except there will likely be no money to split or very little if there is. Again the same is true for whatever they are working on alone. It is the ones who just want programmers to make stuff for them or artists to make stuff for them… for absolutely nothing at all. Those are the ones that really make me wonder if the person is mentally stable.
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I worked for royalties and for splits. I don’t have a problem with that depending on the team. If they are people I know and trust, I feel comfortable. BUT I don’t need to make money to live so for me, the risk is worth the fun. I would not join a team unless the project was something I really loved.
Also, we have volunteers on our team, but they willingly volunteered and we do offer them a contract if they wish. We do not lie to them, and we do not expect the same sort of hours that we would from someone we pay.
I have also led large volunteer teams of writers and had a fabulous experience. Again, we all did have contracts but we were still volunteers. The experience was priceless and I suggest this to all newbies. Go help someone on a project you believe in. Get the experience. Become a partner in the project if you want.
But once you are experienced and can command a price, then don’t give away your art/code/whatever for free unless you really really want to do so.
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She is 17 and has had several nice commissions that paid well so she has seen both sides. I don’t think she was hurt so much as angry because the person told her they would pay and did not. In my mind, it was a good experience because she learned something.
Decent scenario for “free work” is trying to gather team and make a demo to get funds for the project and then secure salary to everybody. Basically, it is a side project that might or might not result in something interesting for everybody involved. If you know different way to get a studio started from nothing, I’m all ears. Because at SOME point it is always a person or several who work for nothing.
As for “Royalties” this is usually a pipe dream that results in nothing being paid.
Now, that’s the right way to do it.
Ah, well, in this case she should be able to handle that. Might make sense to tell her about escrow services, though - if she doesn’t know about them already.
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This is comedy gold. Luckily I’ve never outright worked for free to done the royalties thing. However, I did used to work freelance and I’ve had clients stiff me (but we never signed a contract so I didn’t bother pursuing it).
Who else intends to link this when someone creates a thread asking for work with profit sharing?
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Actually its not that uncommon to do work for free in my industry (chemical engineering). There is significant work that goes into preparing a quote/proposal/tender. On bigger projects this cost can run into six or seven figures. In most cases there are several firms vying for the contract. So there is always someone that’s put in a ton of work that doesn’t get paid a cent.
And yet there are companies lining up to submit proposals on big projects.
Each industry has its own peculiarities.
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I recall once one winter when I was a kid, I went around asking people if I could shovel their driveway for like $5. One particular family said they would pay me and drove off before I finished. I couldn’t tell if it was their vehicle driving away because it came out of a garage in a connected set of houses.
I was not happy, suffice to say haha for the amount of money they spent on gas driving that big SUV around for half an hour while I shoveled their drive and sidewalk they could easily have paid me. I felt awful in realizing I was depending on them paying me later when it was done. I guess I’m too trusting. It shouldn’t be this way but yea.
That was the only house that ever stiffed me though. Out of the dozen or so houses I shoveled it was bound to happen…
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@ , that is very sad. A person must have a pretty dark soul to stiff a kid out of $5. Shoveling snow is a tough job.
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Indeed, this is true of many industries - M&A pitches in investment banking, advertising, most government contract bids, architecture, contingent recruitment etc.
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Yup. I will say that game dev is the only one where as an employee I’ve been asked to create original work as part of the recruitment process. But I’ve heard it happens in some of the other creative industries as well.
I made a few games where I got the artist to work for split of the profits.
Well now this is very true. Whenever we need to do something in response to a RFP of course we end up doing at the very least some investigation and design work and possibly even a very light prototype although we try not to actually do that unless absolutely necessary.
That does line up with the video well. And as you said is just the way it is. Heck government contracts are nearly always likes this. Although they can use their Preferred Vendors list to skip the RFP sometimes or at least it used to be that way.
However, in these cases there is a known amount of money that will be received if awarded the project. Sure the odds may be low depending on the number of companies responding but at least there actually is a worthwhile amount of money waiting for the winning proposal.
The difference over here in game dev is usually the person asking for such stuff is basing it all on some pie in the sky imaginary future profits. So not only will your effort and time not result in paid work now… you don’t even know if your continued effort and time will result in any money in the future either.
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