How many of you have used an entirely online team for a project that actually resulted in a published game? This poll is aimed mainly at teams of three people or more who's contact was limited exclusively to email and/or chatting, but still have succeeded in this miracle. For the many who have experienced the plethora of problems or even those who accomplished this arduous task, you know what I'm talking about.

I voted...but in my case, twice now, it's been teams of 4 where the team was never in the same place at the same time. Some of us knew each other outside of the team, but in both cases, I was the only member of the team who had contact with other members of the team. Never even had a team meeting. Just everyone doing their part.

I think you have too much emphasis on "never even met each other" in your poll choices.

-David

Hi David,

I fully intended to emphasize the answer scenario where the team members had never even met each other because I think the risk is exponentially high in this case. You're right that this poll is limited, but that's what I meant.

I haven't finished a game with an online team (at one point I worked with 2 other programmers but I scrapped the project because it was too big), but I did become friends with another programmer, and we've been working together on game related stuff ever since. Right now I don't have much time to work on games (finishing up college, a lot of classes, and I'm a project manager in my senior project class) but we've been working together for the last 5 years or so, and when I form my indie business I'll eventually bring him in to work with me if he wants to.

I picked "I tried an online team, but the game was never finished" but the more appropriate answer would be something like "I tried an online team and was pleased with the results." While we certainly wanted to get published, our goal was to create a demo app to shop around to the publishers, and we succeeded in that very well. We couldn't find a home for it, but I still think our goal was met. Three programmers (one also acting as producer, writer, and librarian, another also acting as writer), one musician (also sound engineer as he found us sound voice talent to read our intro), one artist, and a couple QA folks. Six months work part time.

Originally posted by DavidRM
I think you have too much emphasis on "never even met each other" in your poll choices.

I forgot to mention though, that it's interesting to read the related stories besides the polling. :)

Well, My first game was with two others, who provided me graphics. The game is still not finished though, although the code is like almost complete (al 30k lines of VB code...). Still, it's become my life project, and I will make sure that someday it will be played online, when I have a bit more time available in the vacations.

Now, I'm just working alone on my game which should soon see the daylight (on the internet :P). All graphics and code were made by myself, and I think the "programmers art" isn't very bad actually. I learned myself a lot of PSP/3D utils to be a bit more independent :)

But, online projects often fail though, never get completed, people get angry at each other, someone who had work x leaves, etc.

I picked "I did the game myself, but I outsourced either sound and/or music to an online person I never met". When I wrote Operation Spacehog (http://www.freelunchdesign.com/spacehog.shtml), I got a guy from the states to do the music. He even sent his musical resume on CD (per mail) to me, so he was quite serious. Unfortunately, when the project closed in on it's deadline, he had other deadlines (at work) so I got stuck with 3 unfinished midis. However, I managed to tweak them into the game and the result got good enough.

I think, since the issue was only music, that I could work on the game easyily without it. And when I got the music I could just add it. Ie, it was no decisive factor. If I had gotten no music, I would have release the game with no music, or PD music.

Once Twice Thrice was programmed by me in NC. The music was done by a fellow in Michigan, and the artist is in the UK. None of us have ever met. We never even IM'ed, it was all over email.

I tried working with online collaborators on my current project, but I've pretty much abandoned it. Even with well-defined tasks, goals and deadlines, I found it hard to keep everyone moving in the same direction. But this failure was almost certainly due to the fact that I wasn't paying any of those people--they were all friends or friends-of-friends who volunteered to help. I think one can make a game with a few people who never meet face-to-face as long as there is some incentive to keep everyone involved and the complexity isn't too great.

Well, although I did eventually meet with my fellow 21-6ers, it had no real impact on how we attacked the games we completed. We had already chatted, e-mailed, and even phoned previously - all of which are "good things" when you are trying to get something serious done.

We have completed two titles to-date: Cyclone (http://www.21-6.com/cyclone.asp) and Orbz (http://www.21-6.com/orbz.asp) .

Hey Dave!

Dave and Justin game an EXCELENT talk on Remote Team Management at the IGC, I was in attendance taking notes so I typed up a little summary. Anyone engaging in this type of team should find their experiences very interesting.


Anyway, here's the write up.... Remote Team Management (http://www.rainfallstudios.com/Articles/RemoteTeamManagment/summary.aspx)

I've worked with a number of teams over the years, both online-only and in-person-- with success ranging from none to a reasonable amount (still working toward the big breakthrough tho). I think one of the biggest keys to building a good team that can function in an online work environment is that each individual must be self-motivated and well-prepared (reasonably educated and such). Obviously, these are traits advantageous in any work environment, but they are pretty much necessary online.

It seems to me that most of the more successful online teams are not structured with a dedicated 'Project Leader.' I have seen it happen a lot to other teams, and once to myself: While a single verbose individual who prides himself on motivational and organizational skills will be able to collect a large team of otherwise seemingly skilled followers, it doesn't seem likely that he will be able to motivate them to work without a real physical presence. A general rule of thumb is that your natural Project Leader personality tends to attract a natural Project Follower personality. These followers are people who are really excited about making a game but are usually uneducated, unexperienced, and are looking to the project leader to tell them what to do and how to do it. The project leader can't help them or he doesn't have the time them, and they become disenchanted and discouraged.

If you've got three or four people who have some gamedev experience and are self-motivated and not just looking for someone to tell them what to do and how to do it, you don't need a project leader. I think that is the sweet spot of online-only gamedev. Well that and, of course, you have to get along. Unlike a real work environment, we don't have regular paychecks to encourage us to swallow our pride and deal with someone we don't like day in and day out. ;)

- Air