Hello Everyone,
I’m not one to air my dirty laundry but I just recently went through an incredibly stressful and overall negative experience with someone I had hired from these forums. I wont be naming names “for now” but I really wanted to hear what others thought on the subject.
To start I have been developing games for over 10 years. I have extensive experience in animation, art, game design and code (although I haven’t done much code over the past few years). Through this period I have got graduated from school, got married, had two kids and successfully done this full time. I have had many ups and downs over the years but this by far has been the most negative I have EVER had.
I came to the forums several months back because I had been developing my dream project for almost 2 years. This game was the culmination of all my knowledge and skill to this date and I really wanted to find the right person for the job. I had already been working on art and story for about 2 years and after looking within my own inner circle of developers I decided to find someone who better fit the criteria for a full time development schedule. I was also willing to make sacrifices and pay this person a monthly salary for this work.
You can see that original post here.
https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/2d-zelda-like-adventure-needing-experienced-unity-coder-pay-rev-share-available.429591/
Shortly after posting I got a lot of interest. I spoke to many coders but finally decided on someone who would be able to fit within my budget while also seemingly skilled enough to do it. He actually contacted me by email and at first he seemed pretty professional, although fairly light in terms of completed games. According to his website & what we discussed I thought he could do the job. For the record I couldn’t find any completed games he had done but he did have images of games, frame works, code & some basic projects he worked on. He also told me he couldn’t share his projects because of NDA’s but informed me he worked on some bigger AAA stuff. Ive heard these things before with other coders so i decided to give him the benefit of the doubt since things had worked out well in the past and over the years I have became a bit more trusting despite having some sour experiences.
We exchanged Skype information and he called me via Skype so we could discuss things. I had already prepared a document with everything I wanted in the game clearly outlined and sent it over. I basically needed an editor to build environments, dialogue system, quest system/editor, combat and AI. I also listed a handful of polish elements I desired. He told me that everything looked good but we would go over the timeline after he had a more thorough look. After a day or two we jumped on Skype again and went over it all. He also sent me a document that stated what he would do and we discussed this as well. Ive attached an image of that document here.
As you can see its clearly outlined.
As we went through everything listed he informed me it wouldn’t be a problem. I did however feel a bit off put when he started reading off some polish, shader & particle stuff saying that was the artists job. I had clearly stated in my post I need a coder who could do these things and he was telling me it was now my job. He had already told me in our earlier conversations he could handle everything. I hadn’t worked much with unity before but I know nothing about coding shaders or some of those visual effects that would need to be implemented. (dynamic shadows, 3d gradient shadows ect) I don’t know how he expected me to create dynamic shadows with art alone lol.
Anyways I was anxious to see my dream project finally moving so I brushed my doubts off to the side in hopes of getting these going. I had seen shaders & other various effects I could purchase in the unity store and just thought I could bring in another coder to implement those things once we were farther into development.
He informed me he would prepare a contract and I could sign it and send it back along with payment for the month so he could start. First off I do not normally pay anything upfront, this has been something ive lived by for a long time but sense he said he had said he had experience in some AAA stuff I assumed he would be professional and deliver. Not to mention he made a compelling argument that he had a registered company and we had a contract. So if he were to not live up to his end of the bargain action could be taken… In our contract it clearly outlined the work schedule and he intended to be entirely complete by March of 2017. Not to mention it stated each month what he would be working on and what would be complete. I have shared an image below that shows this section of the contract.
So I paid the first fee & “work” began. Needless to say I was anxious to see his progress. After a few days I messaged him as I curious to see his progress and he informed he he wouldn’t be sending me frequent updates. Before this I had believed that updates would be almost daily based on our earlier conversations. This felt like a red flag to me. He wasn’t willing to share regular screenshots or updates of his work but I tried to understand not everyone works how I am accustomed to. When I have worked with programmers in the past I have always enjoyed an ocean of updates almost daily. I am use to seeing in progress builds and screen caps of my art being implemented. This wasn’t at my request either. I believe the people ive worked with have been excited to share as well. Ive never had to chase someone for updates before unless they just were not working or they had quit the project. Anyways he said he didn’t have time to be doing that and that’s not how he worked. He also said with him working on the editor there wouldn’t be much to see for the first month. Things would really be coming together at the end of December (once he finished character movement, ai, camera movement and so on). Then I was going to be able to test everything and see all the previous months of work in action.
So I decided to trust him and to let him do his thing. At the very least I could see some level building with the editor done at the end of the month and place some tiles around. So the end of the month came and I asked to see an update. He shared an image of the editor frame work but this honestly was pretty disappointing. The image was a recolored version of a frame work he had posted (went from a red color palette to dark blues and black) and my logo slapped on. It did appear to have some buttons to click around through menus but I didn’t see any code or any level building.
I posted an image on my twitter at the time. The link is available below.
I did raise some concerns since this update didn’t show me anything other then some stuff changed around from an existing image he had on his site. I mean this could have been easily done in photoshop. He acted confused and seemed to not understand what I was asking of him. He felt like he provided adequate proof of a working editor and that I was being unreasonable to want to see more. Honestly I would have been happy to just see some tile placing. After all the editor was suppose to be done at this point (a month of work). I had already sent him tiles and the hero to mess around with so at the least he could have implemented the tiles so I could place them.
He did offer to jump into a call so we did. We discussed things a bit and he basically reiterated we have a contract and he has a legal LLC and offered that as a reason to not worry. If he did not live up to his end of the bargain action could be taken, he would be liable. He then offered to share a video of things at a later time. So I took that as a good sign and paid him for the second month. I was thinking at this point that maybe I would be able to see the fruit of the editor once the movement, camera & physics were complete. Then I should be able to walk around in one of these environments.
So I left him alone up until the next payday came along. He sent me an invoice and I asked about progress. At this point he shared a pixely short video on Skype (at my request). Beforehand he shared more images of the “frame work” and code. (which I didn’t like but didn’t complain because he seemed pretty defensive when I asked about updates) In the live video I saw my character standing with his idle animation playing. There were also some tiles placed around (not properly spaced or layered). Basically they didn’t appear to fit correctly to the grid and the character was standing on some water tiles. I was expecting to see the player on some grass moving around in a prototype like environment. I saw the character walk for a second when we were talking but the coder didn’t do it enough to see how things were coming. The coder informed me that things were on schedule. He also showed me he could import art/ tiles into the editor but placing wasn’t 100% done yet. I never asked for this type of functionality so I was a bit confused. I just wanted him to implement my existing art into the editor so I could place it. I figured this was something he was doing for his benefit so he wouldn’t have to implement all the new art later on and I could.
I was contacted by a publisher just before this and they wanted to see a build so I was asking when we would have one. He told me at the start of January. That’s when we basically have enough to be able to build a level and have the character move around in it along with all of his functionality. (as outlined in our agreements and documents) The coder reaffirmed we were on schedule and he wasn’t behind. So we went on to the third month. The coder offered to send the editor but I couldn’t really do anything until movement, enemies and the final things were added for December so I just opted to wait until it was all ready.
When I realized I had been taken advantage of (for those who dont want to read it all)
This next month of work I was incredibly busy finishing up a bunch of side projects so I could be paid before Christmas. I only messaged the coder a few times during this period just to see how things were going and also to share my own progress with some new art. He didn’t share much in terms of progress but I new the end of the month was coming and expected to see a solid prototype based on our agreement and our discussions leading up to that point. So payday came and he sent me another invoice to begin the 4th month of work. I asked to see progress at this point and he sent me several small gifs of my character walking around on a blank background. Then he sent me some images of some properties within unity itself and some animation node stuff. I was pretty fed up at this point and asked him to send me everything so I could check it out. Ill share a few exerts of our conversation. I would share the entire thing but there is a lot.
I’m the blue text.
At this point he starts talking about the agreed deadlines were now projections or estimations. Which is not true at all, before this he had told me everything was on track according to our agreement so i had no reason to worry. He also talks about reassuring me on a daily/weekly basis which is completely untrue. I had left him alone for much of the development so I wouldn’t be a distraction. Even if I did message him on a weekly basis I believe it is his job to reassure things are getting done in a timely manner. Its not unreasonable for someone who is paying you to ask for progress.
He then cancels the project abruptly. I think the grounds for cancellation are completely unwarranted for starters. Plus it is against our contract. I think he was looking for an excuse to quit and he just found the first one he could get. I had left him alone for almost 3 months and sent him the agreed amounts as we discussed. Seems really unreasonable to me.
He goes on to say he shared everything with me but that’s just completely untrue. I hadn’t had any hands on interaction with anything at this point and only seen some vague images.
After that he sent me the game file several days later. (after he said he would send it that night.) I got a hold of the document and in my mind I was prepared to see a complete editor. I intended to let him keep everything I paid if the editor was complete, even though I was suppose to have much more completed. I opened the document and saw that everything was completely unfinished.
The movement code looked like he just started and only about 20 minutes of effort was put in. Not to mention it wasn’t done very well. The editor was completely unfinished and the other aspects were not even started. In terms of the editor all he had done is declare variables (that I provided for him in a document) but they did nothing. I was completely astonished & I felt completely taken advantage of. I messaged him on Skype to let him know I was really displeased and I wanted my money back.
He claims the editor is complete (which its not, and its unusable) but admits the other aspects are incomplete. He then goes on to accuse me of scamming him. At this point I had already opened a claim with paypal and im hoping something can be done at this point.
I know its a lot to read but I would appreciate any feedback from those out there. Is there any other actions I can take or or do? What do you guys think and what are your suggestions?
