After posting that Sprite animation I did last weekend, I’ve gotten some job offers at some game companies. Unfortunately none of them are paid positions. Future Game Developers, pay your artists. I only do one thing for free. This comic.
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Mar 27-29thEmerald City Comic Con
April 16th-19th Calgary Comic Expo
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The trouble is: most “future game developers” have ideas but no money, and they’re not particularly adept at finding people with money to throw at them.
This is not always the case – see Starbound, for example. But they had skilled artists and working tech, as well as at least one developer known from another popular game.
But I know the pain of an aspiring developer with computer skills but an incurably poor eye for art. I can make a fine game, but I can’t art to save my life.
“for the love of the game” in case anybody was wondering.
To be honest, while I understand the importance of Art assets in a video game it is well possible to make a game with lower quality “graphics”, as long as the gameplay/mechanics hold up. Look at Dwarf Fortress, as a simple example. The vanilla version is all differently capitalized and colored letters. After some time the players themselves made mods that added fancier icons, colors, etc.
Another thing is that devs seem to aspire to be too much like “modern” games. When we look at games like Transport Tycoon, Theme Hospital, Dungeon Keeper or Darkwind: War on Wheels (a relatively new game for myself, from 2007), they do not have “modern-age”, GPU-bending, breathe taking graphics. They have, what I would call, simple yet suitable art. It’s not 3D graphics with HD textures, real-time shadows and water effects that will let you view the next-gen Fish AI. It’s graphics that has everything that one should expect from a game.
Perhaps I am wrong here, and it has become simpler to make 3D models/animations over 2D sprites, but sometimes when I look at 3D models that a game has to offer I would rather turn to much older games that visually are much more appealing.
I think I started a whole discourse on Art in Video Games…
Perhaps what I meant to say is that some Dev Studios seem to aim much too high, when it comes to graphics. You can use much simpler graphics in a video game and people will still love it, if the rest of the game holds up.
So comic your @ a persons office..and they have that script on wall :O
is it the newest “must have” wall decoration?
For the love of the game…
Passion projects are all fine and good, but they don’t help put food on the table!
So basically the WHOLE is gonna have your touch in it and you get no pay … Omg thats AWESOME. Game art is the first thing you see , you dont like it and often you try it for that. Marketing wins over any other department if you want to make game. Its all about what you show to people… Anyway
Helping to make someone’s dream come to life is awesome but unfortunately may not always help make ends meet.
Why not look into getting a patreon account?
I have a couple personal projects under my belt, but artists are usually the highest paid people to staff… I can understand both the interest and the hesitation, from both sides.
You can get a lot of passion out of people, but I’ve found a paycheck based on success of the project makes more workers, even if they aren’t particularly loyal.
Yeah, stone soup isn’t asking somebody to make you free soup and then putting your rock in it.
And we love you for doing it.
A passion project..? I guess there’s nothing wrong with asking nicely for work without being able to pay for it – sometimes complete strangers simultaneously have similar passions and lots of free time to just give away – but kinda crappy that he talks like HE’S doing YOU a favor with this opportunity.
Contrarily, especially in art, if it’s a big name (and ARG wasn’t decently established), he might be. I did some free work for a college robotics team, once, and that my name got passed around later helped me open my lab. In art, who you know and who knows you is even more of the game.
I think that sucks, but, ya know, writing “has worked in artistic function with Valve” on your resumé is going to look rather nice for most people, for example…
“It says here you worked with Valve, that’s impressive, which game?”
“Uh… well… it was a passion project, so…”
“Oh… I see… Well we’ll be in touch (security, get him the hell outta here)”
I guess if you want to work for/with people who are impressed only by name-dropping, then great, just don’t let them know you’re willing to work for free.
ARG, if you are ever sad, just remember a hospital in the U.S. “accidentally” released the Ebola virus.
Ask any writer who’s been offered “exposure” for their work.
This is actually pretty universal across much of the creative world.
For game developers and up and coming jobs that have no start up I always have a contacted percentile of the game launch after the first three fiscal years.
I can’t ever figure out why anyone would ‘work’ for free.
This is getting to be more of a thing in all sectors though some hide it well. Internships are a good example of large M$ companies getting free labor and rarely do you get a job with them since they can easily get more interns. In the auto industry labor has been free for decades when you consider the government subsidies cover labor costs for three to five years with each handout though in that case you still get to eat and pay your mortgage.
All in all it is a scam to get stuff for free because they can.