Not exactly sure if this has been addressed here before or if this is even the right place for this thread, but if I were to start a new team consisting of various different artists and programmers for a rather ambitious project I currently have in mind, can I do so with only a rather basic understanding of game creation using the Unity platform? I’ve completed a few tutorials here through Unity and elsewhere, but I feel there’s a lot more to learn before attempting to interact with and give direction to more experienced and perhaps more professional individuals than myself. What would you do in my situation?
Prerequisites are experience and even more experience. Before starting to lead a team or company you really should experience working in one first. No real shortcut to this aside from doing it.
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No, not realistically. Any ambitious project is going to require thorough knowledge of the engine, whether that’s Unity or something else.
–Eric
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It depends on what kind of “direction” you’re going to give. Telling more experienced people how to do their jobs is going to lead to issues of some kind or another. Telling them what you want achieved and trusting them to get it done can work, but you need to find people actually worthy of that trust… and that’s difficult and risky if you’re not experienced enough to know what to look for.
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Thanks everyone for your prompt replies!
Had a hunch I wasn’t exactly up to the task just yet, but learning Unity thoroughly is something I look forward to doing in the months ahead, perhaps just making a few little games along the way before attempting one large project. Experience is indeed key here, and trust is something that comes with experience I guess. Your wisdom and kind advice is highly appreciated, as I will not waste any more time now pursuing a potentially lost but perhaps more promising endeavor in the not-to-distant future !
The key thing to remember is that you need to bring something to the team. That’s normally some core game dev skill. But it can be funding or fame or IP. If you’ve got something to form a team around, its doable. But if all you just have a cool idea, its not going to happen.
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I would agree with others here. Get some expierience under your belt, build small games, get a GOOD idea about all the work involved.
There is a good chance you underestimate the amount of work for even a simple looking game by many magnitudes. Especially when you are a beginner, everything will take ages to complete.
Then, forming a team. I GUESS you are looking for a team of people working for free. Well, I hate to bring the bad news, generally this is VERY HARD to pull off. Works with SOME close-knits groups of friends that work together towards a well known goal. Works for open-source projects if they are well managed.
Generally, you will have trouble finding people ready to work for free, bringing enough expierience to the table to be helpful to the team, AND motivate them long enough to produce a tangible result.
You need to think about a TON of things. What happens if a team member drops out of the team suddenly when he looses his motivation, and does NOT transfer the rights to his work over to you or your team? You can no longer really use his work, as it still belongs to him. You have to redo all of that or face the potential consequences that the guy comes back later and ask you to cut out his work from the finished product.
How can you motivate the guys to stay with the project, especially if its a slightly longer project? Money sharing schemes usually don’t work that well. MOST expierienced guys expect payment up front and not when the game is finished. They know that the chances your game makes ANY money is slim in the Indie world, and that they have a bigger chance working for free in this case than getting more money than they could with a fixed rate.
Ideally, you have a ton of expierience on how to build games, what is involved with any of the disciplines needed to build the game (so have some basic programming skills, dabbled a little bit with art, have some expierience with level design in the Engine, GET SOME IDEA ABOUT MARKETING AND MANAGING A TEAM)… AND have a budget to spend on expierienced developers!
Failing having the money to spend, work on that expierience. See what YOU can do. It has been an eye opener to many aspiring game developers to see just how much work developing games is.
Maybe, one day, you are able to create a smaller game as a lone wolf? Maybe you get access to a budget thanks to a good pitch to a publisher or a successfull kickstarter and can hire your team? Maybe you get lucky and find people that share your enthusiasm and vision and can form one of the rare teams that can work together for free for a prolonged time and still pull off what they set out for?
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id think youd have to have enough experience to be able to plan the entire project, including hours required for each task
… or have the money to hire such a design manager.
Thanks gian-reto-alig, it really helps to see things in a new perspective when reality suddenly hits and you realize your own (my own in this case) inadequacy and complete lack of experience and preparation. LOL! Seems daunting to say the least! I think for now I’ll just settle for the small things in an indie’s life just getting started!
Well, unless you have a lot of money… Although none of it is a guarantee we’ve seen major multi-million dollar projects sink due to bad prep / lack of direction.
Money is something to bring 
Yup, sorry missed that bit… Winter illness is playing havoc…
There are plenty of ‘idea guys’ out there. And there’s nothing wrong with that, is just that you’re going to have a hard time convincing people to work on your idea unless it’s really compelling and you can show them what it is that you envision. And to do that you usually have to have something to show, whether its concept art, or a prototype, etc… So you have to have some sort of skill to do that. Even then, most people will be weary of getting involved in a project where the lead doesn’t have any experience. I guess if you can get a group of people to work on it and frame it as a learning experience for all involved maybe people would be willing to jump on board.
If what you are talking about is actually setting up a company, or just paying people to work on your project then yeah, there’s always people willing to do that. But yeah, the experience of having worked on a number of projects before and seeing what works and what doesn’t, foreseeing the potential pitfalls, etc, that’s what’s going to ensure you don’t waste your and your team’s time, efforts and perhaps money. You can always keep learning Unity within the context of whatever your idea is. Break down your project into small chunks and itemize what needs to be done. Then lookup how to do those. Try to get the basic core idea of your game working.
Anyways, the basic gist of it is that trying to lead a team now would be like wanting to coach a sports team without ever having really played that sport.
You must bring to the table one of the following:
- provable skills
- a platform
- money
I think if you want someone who is skilled and experienced to be truly excited about your project it helps to have all three. If someone without any of these three manages to get a skilled person then they have effectively become a parasite, and the skilled person should move to a team that cares about them.
Have you considered attempting to make your project on your own? You might be surprised with what you can accomplish.
Your best bet is to build something small by yourself to gather the experience. Not just watching tutorials, but actually building a game start to finish. Design a really simple game and publish it for free. Think of it as a learning experience.
Then decide if you want to try building a larger project using a team.
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What you’ll find at your level is you if you build a good game and it is hugely successful independently, then those that than can and want to build a team and have the resources to do so will come to you.
Whether you decide to accept such overtures depends on if you need the money, want to form a big time studio, and need extra legal help to enforce protection of your now popular IP.
Of those, you’re really strictly only likely to need the legal help and maybe accountant help (because banks will only insure so much money in deposits so with huge earnings you will need to diversity investments or truly give the excess earnings away, absolving you of ‘some’ of the responsibilities for having earned that money to begin with).
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I hate such guys. -_-
For many good folks its an HONOR TO SERVE under highly skilled craftsmen/designers/commanders. That’s because you can learn a lot and grow under their influence. I’m sure this concept is alien to you. YOU are cut to rule those little people. They should be eternally grateful that you share with them your genius ideas. -_-
Is this in reference to the OP? If so I’m not seeing where you got this impression… Sure, the original question demonstrated a lack of understanding of these things, but that’s why the question was being asked, and I thought the answers were accepted pretty gracefully. I’m not picking up any hint of an attitude of superiority.
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The attitude of superiority is implied by willing to “give direction” to other people. When you are a humble beginner you should be mostly willing to receive directions instead of trying to impose your will on others.
Most “idea guys” are completely worthless on a team even as junior designers because their ideas are total crap. This dude wants to LEAD a team. XD
Dude chill and read the post again. The OP indicates he doesn’t feel ready to give direction, and wants to know how he can get to that stage. There is nothing wrong with aspirations or planning for greatness.
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