http://www.thejonjones.com/2010/08/09/how-not-to-hire-an-artist/
There was a really bad article about how to abuse artists and get work for cheap that was floating around, this guy wrote up an awesome article that does a great job of telling you how you should hire and treat artists.
I bet most people are doing the exact same thing as described in the first article. Simply because people who try to be cheap are often short-sighted.
Its a great article 
and even while its written for / against artists hire practises, they apply to all the positions commonly required to be filled for game projects.
As contract developer I can say that vast amounts of the things there apply pretty much 1 : 1 on code work as well and I’ve so far unhappily seen more people that try to get away cheap than fair.
The problem is that hes trying to get hobbyists to act like professionals, produce content like a professional (on time and having high quality), while paying the them as if they were a hobbyist. You might be able to get some hobbyists to act professionally but I certainly wouldnt except it, especially if the rates were so low.
the problem is that even if someone is a hobbiest and rates are low its not adequate behavior to try to get more and more work and own unprofessionality covered for free.
a professional on the other side will just tell you to fu** you and get lost, but an unexperienced person there might accept it for the sake of not losing you (although that would be so much better to him)
Yeah, that’s why I stopped responding to job ads on Craig’s List!
And another tip, if a prospective client (or employer) starts off with “think about the lowest amount you need to be paid”, walk away.
That or ensure that you either work on an hourly rate or at very short timeframe tasks that are being payed so they have to compensate for their incompetence themself
I witnessed this in my personal experience too, when I was a freelance graphist/webdesigner.
This just basically made me hate the world.
I wrote some tips for contractors several years ago (before I started using Unity)
Just a quick note, Before you pay your artist, ask for at least 5+ pictures of the stuff you requested. Download the pictures, and run them through tineye.com. If they come up, the models have been made before and he is ripping you off illegally.
I guess original article , is the Bible that use most of employer you can find through outsourcing website :lol:
Isn’t it the very principle that makes outsourcing work?
which part.
the how to do or the how not?
the how not happens on a regular base as long as they find stupids that let themself getting tricked.
The how do is how it should be done, for their sake and for ours as contractors, because it would ensure that only half as many protective measures would be required to not get ripped off on both sides. Unhappily there are too many that use outsourcing as a way to not pay fair raites and that just won’t work out if they at the same time expect quality etc as if they payed full, potentially even in-house, work
Sometimes artists end up learning about pricing the hard way, and it’s thanks to guys like that.
Exactly. when I started my freelance activity, I was kind of “kind” on prices. But soon I realized that whatever price reduction you would put by “kindness” at the beginning of a contract interview, the client would systematically end up trying to cut it by an half.
So in the end, I just ended up starting at 30% higher prices.
Stupid world.
The thing is, there are better ways to outsource work and different reasons why people (on both ends) do it.
But at it’s heart, at it’s origin, people didn’t outsource to get closer working relationships. They didn’t outsource because they needed (or got) unique works of exceptional creativity. They outsourced because they figured, there are a ton of people out there who can do what I need, and a lot of them will do it cheaper.
There are people who want their game to have exceptional art, and they need exceptional artists to get it. But the thing about exceptional is, it’s the exception. Not the rule.
The somewhat unpalatable reality of outsourcing is, by doing it at all, people have usually made the choice that average is good enough, cheap beats exceptional, and we’re probably not going to be friends.
If you treat an artist well and they like doing work for you, it only causes them to do better work and you’ll get the option of being able to use them again for the next project. Win win in my book.
I guess sometimes a guy just needs some gfx done quick and doesn’t want to spend a salary for a man who needs to raise his family then I guess it isn’t such a crime for him too look for young talented artists to help him out for small bucks, if it’s done just once then it isn’t exploiting.
But it shouldn’t become the way someone usually treats their artists, because then he’d be a jerk. If he cares about having the best artists on his side he shouldn’t sabotage his relationship by exploiting them heartlessly while they’re still new.