Advice and History
by Jason Yarnell · in General Discussion · 07/11/2001 (3:13 am) · 5 replies
Hello all,
This post will likely be fairly long and I apologize in advance, however, I do wish to cover as much as I can. I have recently become the President/CEO of Sojourn Development, Inc. and I am in the process of deciding the first direction of the company. I have read through the posts in this section and have had several questions answered and some left open and I am hoping to get a nudge or even an answer or two. But first some history to gain a little perspective.
Sojourn Development (Sojdev) got its start in April 2000 when I was introduced to Tribes. I quickly found that the base game was tedious and the mods were incredibly unbalanced. I managed to convince my roommate to make our own Mod. Chivalry was soon created and we were averaging about 1000-3000 individual players per month on our server. This soon expanded to include 4-5 servers at various times before the realease of Tribes2 at the end of March 2001. Not terribly huge numbers but significant considering how late in the game we arrived.
We implemented a Plug-In system that allowed other players and server admins to develop additions to their own Chivalry servers as well as a popular duel ceremony to crown the top two players of the month. We also implemented a special rank of Litch King for players that really didn't have the skill to play and this was automatically awarded to the player with the lowest score so you never knew who the litch was.
The Chivalry community grew and convinced us to make a version for Tribes2. Not wanting to settle for just a mod we told the community that we would only do it if we could get enough people to develop a Total Conversion. The response was overwhelming and we soon had no shortage of volunteers.
This event soon grabbed the attention of a man that has become an investor and he encouraged us to form a company to develop our own games. With the talent we had acquired this has become a reality.
Our team currently numbers 31 members with talents in all aspects (we believe) of game development. The Total Conversion is coming along famously three of the songs developed for the soundtrack have been in the Top10 of the Seattle Electronic Music rankings on MP3.com.
Our initial plan was/is to develop Chivalry2 and use it as a test bed for future hires and to gain experience in developing games. With the release of the V12 engine this may change and we may turn Chivalry2 into its own game and publish it through GarageGames.
Of course this has some initial questions to be answered, mainly; How to pay the employees? Most of the advice I've seen thus far is to not really stress this since odds are the first game will not sell. Understandable, but something needs to be laid down in the event that profit does materialize. Do any of you have suggestions as to what you've used? My team stretches across the North American continent and it is very hard to keep tabs on who is doing what and for how long, anyone have experience with this?
I come from a software QA background myself with my only game experience being a player and RPGer for over two decades. I decided after my last contract to focus on running this company and to return to school full-time to obtain my entrepenureal degree. Consequently my grasp of the business terminology is almost nil and I find myself overlooking even the smallest details. One question my future accountant and my investor ask are predictions of how much I project to sell/make from the first game we release, where the heck to I get numbers like this?
Well, it is now 3:30am and I am sure I have rambled on enough for one post, but I hope I didn't wear out my welcome on my first one.
Thanks in advance,
This post will likely be fairly long and I apologize in advance, however, I do wish to cover as much as I can. I have recently become the President/CEO of Sojourn Development, Inc. and I am in the process of deciding the first direction of the company. I have read through the posts in this section and have had several questions answered and some left open and I am hoping to get a nudge or even an answer or two. But first some history to gain a little perspective.
Sojourn Development (Sojdev) got its start in April 2000 when I was introduced to Tribes. I quickly found that the base game was tedious and the mods were incredibly unbalanced. I managed to convince my roommate to make our own Mod. Chivalry was soon created and we were averaging about 1000-3000 individual players per month on our server. This soon expanded to include 4-5 servers at various times before the realease of Tribes2 at the end of March 2001. Not terribly huge numbers but significant considering how late in the game we arrived.
We implemented a Plug-In system that allowed other players and server admins to develop additions to their own Chivalry servers as well as a popular duel ceremony to crown the top two players of the month. We also implemented a special rank of Litch King for players that really didn't have the skill to play and this was automatically awarded to the player with the lowest score so you never knew who the litch was.
The Chivalry community grew and convinced us to make a version for Tribes2. Not wanting to settle for just a mod we told the community that we would only do it if we could get enough people to develop a Total Conversion. The response was overwhelming and we soon had no shortage of volunteers.
This event soon grabbed the attention of a man that has become an investor and he encouraged us to form a company to develop our own games. With the talent we had acquired this has become a reality.
Our team currently numbers 31 members with talents in all aspects (we believe) of game development. The Total Conversion is coming along famously three of the songs developed for the soundtrack have been in the Top10 of the Seattle Electronic Music rankings on MP3.com.
Our initial plan was/is to develop Chivalry2 and use it as a test bed for future hires and to gain experience in developing games. With the release of the V12 engine this may change and we may turn Chivalry2 into its own game and publish it through GarageGames.
Of course this has some initial questions to be answered, mainly; How to pay the employees? Most of the advice I've seen thus far is to not really stress this since odds are the first game will not sell. Understandable, but something needs to be laid down in the event that profit does materialize. Do any of you have suggestions as to what you've used? My team stretches across the North American continent and it is very hard to keep tabs on who is doing what and for how long, anyone have experience with this?
I come from a software QA background myself with my only game experience being a player and RPGer for over two decades. I decided after my last contract to focus on running this company and to return to school full-time to obtain my entrepenureal degree. Consequently my grasp of the business terminology is almost nil and I find myself overlooking even the smallest details. One question my future accountant and my investor ask are predictions of how much I project to sell/make from the first game we release, where the heck to I get numbers like this?
Well, it is now 3:30am and I am sure I have rambled on enough for one post, but I hope I didn't wear out my welcome on my first one.
Thanks in advance,
About the author
#2
First, I would recommend that you break the entire project down into individual tasks and pay people per task instead of by the hour. Consult with trusted programmers and artists when determining how much to pay for each task (according to how long it would take to complete and how involved/difficult it would be to complete). By paying per task you will eliminate the concern about keeping track of hours for people and worrying about dishonest people reporting inaccurate hours or taking the money and never delivering (they get paid when they deliver the finished task). This is going to require you to have a central database of the tasks and who is assigned to each. This would allow you to post new tasks and have people pick them up on a first come, first serve basis (I am currently working on a web-based task list tool like this so I put in a lot of thought on this). Creating a very detailed design doc will go a long way towards helping you break the project down into tasks and to assign values to these tasks. Be sure to have contracts for anyone who works for you so that neither party will get burned in any way. Don't forget NDA contracts also.
As for how to pay people, I can see several approaches:
1) You could mail the checks to the people directly when they deliver a task. This is going to require you to take time to actually mail the checks and will require you to keep track of all of the tax issues yourself (or your accountant).
2) You could go with an online cash distribution service like PayPal. This would speed up sending out the money but would require you to still have to worry about taxes.
3) You could go with a national or international payroll service. They would draw directly from your business bank account and send the money to the people when you tell them to and they would handle all of the tax issues for you. However, they do charge a fee for this service (not very much). ADP and Advantage are two good payroll services you could look into.
I would recommend that you poll the Chivalry community to see how many people would buy Chivalry 2 from GG.com and for how much. This won't give you any hard figures but it would give you an idea on what your base sales might look like (some of them won't buy but other people will so it'll balance out). If you have the entire project broken down into tasks with dollar values then you just need to add in your overhead (payroll service fees, business insurance, your accountants salary, ...) and you will ahve a fairly accurate figure on how much it is going to cost to make this game (you need to be flexible). With your first game your goal is either to break even or to make enough to get more investors for your next project.
Well, hopefully some of this helped =)
07/11/2001 (8:04 am)
Let me start by saying I don't have direct experience with the situation you are in but I am a contract worker and am partner in a small business so I know a little about the subject.First, I would recommend that you break the entire project down into individual tasks and pay people per task instead of by the hour. Consult with trusted programmers and artists when determining how much to pay for each task (according to how long it would take to complete and how involved/difficult it would be to complete). By paying per task you will eliminate the concern about keeping track of hours for people and worrying about dishonest people reporting inaccurate hours or taking the money and never delivering (they get paid when they deliver the finished task). This is going to require you to have a central database of the tasks and who is assigned to each. This would allow you to post new tasks and have people pick them up on a first come, first serve basis (I am currently working on a web-based task list tool like this so I put in a lot of thought on this). Creating a very detailed design doc will go a long way towards helping you break the project down into tasks and to assign values to these tasks. Be sure to have contracts for anyone who works for you so that neither party will get burned in any way. Don't forget NDA contracts also.
As for how to pay people, I can see several approaches:
1) You could mail the checks to the people directly when they deliver a task. This is going to require you to take time to actually mail the checks and will require you to keep track of all of the tax issues yourself (or your accountant).
2) You could go with an online cash distribution service like PayPal. This would speed up sending out the money but would require you to still have to worry about taxes.
3) You could go with a national or international payroll service. They would draw directly from your business bank account and send the money to the people when you tell them to and they would handle all of the tax issues for you. However, they do charge a fee for this service (not very much). ADP and Advantage are two good payroll services you could look into.
I would recommend that you poll the Chivalry community to see how many people would buy Chivalry 2 from GG.com and for how much. This won't give you any hard figures but it would give you an idea on what your base sales might look like (some of them won't buy but other people will so it'll balance out). If you have the entire project broken down into tasks with dollar values then you just need to add in your overhead (payroll service fees, business insurance, your accountants salary, ...) and you will ahve a fairly accurate figure on how much it is going to cost to make this game (you need to be flexible). With your first game your goal is either to break even or to make enough to get more investors for your next project.
Well, hopefully some of this helped =)
#3
The Board of Directors and myself came to the conclusion that we will continue with the Chivalry TC, as a TC instead of going with a V12 version. If for anything else to re-establish ourselves in the community and continue with the learning process.
07/11/2001 (3:07 pm)
Thanks for the input folks. I do have managers and we are using VSS witha VPN for version control. The contracts I've been tossing around and will likely push forward on those.The Board of Directors and myself came to the conclusion that we will continue with the Chivalry TC, as a TC instead of going with a V12 version. If for anything else to re-establish ourselves in the community and continue with the learning process.
#4
This way you should have a large prespective clientelle that would eat up your product while keeping all the Mod people happy as well. A win-win situation :)
Logan
07/11/2001 (8:27 pm)
What might be a good idea is not to throw all your new ideas for Chivalry into the Mod. See how well the Mod is received by the community and if they love it then take the V12 and make a full blown version of your Chivalry ideas.This way you should have a large prespective clientelle that would eat up your product while keeping all the Mod people happy as well. A win-win situation :)
Logan
#5
07/12/2001 (6:16 am)
This goes along the lines of releasing as a MOD but later moving to the V12. If have enough people interested in the MOD that would like to see it as a full game then you could "port" it to the V12 and charge a very little sum at first. Say $5. This sounds like a very little amount but if you have 1000 people who are willing to pay $5 than its not bad for a first game. This also alows you to pay the people who worked on it. 
Associate Logan Foster
perPixel Studios
As for pay, I recommend setting up some sort of royalty system for your team members. You can base this on how valuable they are for the team, how much they contribute, how long they have been with the team, etc. Just do not forget to create a small percentage that goes towards the company itself (to pay for pizza, phone bills, travel expenses, etc.)
I also strongly recommend that you get a small contract written up that states the roles and requirements of both the company and the contractor. This will ensure that people know what they are getting into and what the rewards will be before they do any work.
Also another recommendation is an assignment of copyright (both moral and legal) for the work that people produce for your company.
Those are just my suggestions though, I am sure other people will have more.
Logan