Hey guys!
After reading a few posts on PGD along with my recent situation, I decided to post up some of my own thoughts about running your own game projects as an Indie Developer.
Seeking/Advertising for Help
I think that the immediate issue surrounding some projects is that if you have a request for a helper people should be able to find it easily. Others have see a list of some sort with tasks or needs that the project has. It's a bit deal to be able to come right out and say "ok, this is a list of what the game/engine needs to be completed" and post it or send it over to them.
Active Audience
Another part of this is that your form of fun --creating and developing the games-- isn't a common source of fun for a lot of people. So you'll always get the 1,000,000:1 ratio of people poking at it and running off. Happens to me all the time. Those that do want to help or take an active interest get bored easily. This is a big thing because odds are they have their own projects too. So finding people is hard and keeping part timers interested takes a fair deal or work too. Unfortunately there is not much you can do about this part only perhaps play to the interests of the general gamers in whatever way that may be. Then again if you are doing a bit of pioneering then you really can't do too much if people just don't like your idea. In some cases it might be too niche.
Content aka The Indie Killer
Content will kill your game if you A) Cannot get enough of it to fill your story/plot or even just gameplay usage, and B) if you can't make it of the quality or specifications that the game or game engine needs to succeed. This includes everything from Graphics to Sound to Script and all sorts of stuff that you'd normally hire someone to do. A good indie developer doesn't make this requirement any bigger then he himself or his small team can manage themselves. 99.99% of the time to keep going, hope and wait will not work. You need to be able to plan out how you will make all this stuff or your project will flop. Believe me, I know. I've been there and it's not fun when you find out later.
Motivation
Truth be told, as the project leader, the project lives and dies by you. So your own motivation becomes that of the entire project. Usually the one that has the most motivation for the project will be the leader. Everyone else take a portion of that and runs on it. Though you often get good people that really like the idea and can keep up with the work provided things do move along and the group's morale remains high. The onus is on your to push everyone else and encourage them to keep on the tasks and get them done. You can really only ease up once the work is done. The trick though is to make sure that you can do your tasks too.
Well thats all I've got on this topic for now. I hope that this gives both you existing and budding Project Leaders some food for thought.
My new 'indie game-dev rule of thumb' is content-driven is a suckers game if you can't model or do art, so limit it to the ability of your motivated circle of friends or fellow teammates, if you are that fortunate.
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