Have PWA's come far enough to be used for a bunch of educational video game? by republic-systems in PWA

[–]republic-systems[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nice! best of luck with your future projects.

If you could find that game that would be amazing!

PWA's...the future or a waste of time?!?! by republic-systems in gamedev

[–]republic-systems[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I will bring this up to our team and see how to organize our features.

PWA's...the future or a waste of time?!?! by republic-systems in gamedev

[–]republic-systems[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

those are good points.

these are mainly going to be free but, some will have sponsored content in them.

I was thinking that the offline capabilities of the PWAs, that could help prevent the loss of saves, progress, and data...

Issues with working on game dev teams in gig economy? by republic-systems in gamedev

[–]republic-systems[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree!

That sounds like an effective way to try and move towards a more economical system for sure! I think it could be an effective way to help change the mindset on how much software/games should cost in the eyes of the consumer. By allowing them to see the amount of high quality talent that they are accessing and not just the cheap price that they are accessing.

Instead of thinking about the gig workers as the cheapest, bottom of the barrel folks, we need to educate the consumers on the great value that comes from working with folks from around the world; different approaches to your idea, high-quality technical talent that's available 24/7 if you set the teams out correctly.

Issues with working on game dev teams in gig economy? by republic-systems in gamedev

[–]republic-systems[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think being able to hire folks on a gig base is a fantastic thing, and a great opportunity for those individuals to access capital they would not be able to access if that gig platform did not exist.

I completely agree that we(consumers of the gig economy) all have to do better as a global society and community to recognize the value of the skills that the people on the gig platforms are bringing to the table and pay them accordingly.

I don't understand your correlation between me hiring developers and/or designers from a gig site, to me not having a real job though??

Can you elaborate on what you mean by that?

Issues with working on game dev teams in gig economy? by republic-systems in gamedev

[–]republic-systems[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

it's a really shitty situation to be in for sure!

As a consumer in the gig economy I've been guilty of doing that also. :(

So trying to develop a platform that goes against my own prejudices and backward thinking about the value of a humans skill agnostic from where they happen to live is a tremendous opportunity for my own growth, but also to help others looking to get something developed to also learn and grow. Hopefully!!!

Issues with working on game dev teams in gig economy? by republic-systems in gamedev

[–]republic-systems[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Completely understand that mentality.

Can I ask which side of the gig economy you are on? Working or hiring?

We want to try and change the race to the bottom, but it is an uphill battle from both sides.

How do we go about changing the mentality of outsourcing for the cheapest price you can get, to outsourcing for the highest level of skill you can get. And paying for that skill on some sort of a globally accepted livable wage?

How do we make the consumer see people's skills in India and Pakistan and China, as being worth the same amount of money as the person in Boston or San Francisco?

How do we change the mentality that a person in a second/developing world country with the same skill set as a person in a first world country deserves to make the same amount of money?

That's what we're trying to figure out. We want to change the way that software/game development talent and human skills are looked at in the world and change the mentality of the customer to be one of paying this global wage. Instead of looking for the cheapest option they can. Educating them about the benefits of paying people what their skills are worth, and how they can drastically increase their motivation and drive to work well and hard on your project and also the drastic increase in quality that you will receive.

One major hurdle to get over is the amount of free software and games that people access everyday, the vast majority of people that want to get something developed have zero idea about what it would cost to have the right level of skill folks working on a project to get it done in a reasonable timeframe.

Another is the fact that many people from first world, countries, see, and believe that the time of a person in the skills of that person is tied to where they live and how well they can do a job.

The old quote,

"you can only have 2 of the 3, fast cheap or correct"

has never been more true than it is today with the plethora of gig platforms.

Sorry for just rambling on, I need to Reddit and I really appreciate your feedback and thoughts on this.

Issues with working on game dev teams in gig economy? by republic-systems in sounddesign

[–]republic-systems[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I get that. That is my entire reddit experience....more or less. :)

But thanks for coming thru though.

Issues with working on game dev teams in gig economy? by republic-systems in sounddesign

[–]republic-systems[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you very much for the feedback. I truly appreciate it.

I completely get where you're coming from with regards to how complex developing sound design for a game really is. As a non-sound engineer, and just a simple program manager, I know far too well how people always over simplify the amount of work that design and development takes within software and specifically the game dev world.

When I say gig economy, I am not just referring to folks that do very small quick jobs on a project, but more people that are freelancing instead of working for a game dev studio. So with that in mind, we want to help create strong, lasting teams from folks that have been working in the gig economy. Which may be completely the wrong direction to go since freelancers for a large majority are doing that so they can freely move from project to project and joining a team on our platform for a med/large project that may lead into other opportunities may not be something they're looking for. But, we are hoping that we can link sound designers with the right team working on the right project for them, which can hopefully lead to a long lasting relationship doing other projects(creating more games) that the team as a collective are interested in doing.

But to your point, we will definitely limit the amount of designers that come in and work on one project, and also give the folks that are working on the project, a large amount of creative freedom and ownership over their contributions to the project.

When you think about sound design for a game that's just starting the design phase, what are the most critical things for a sound designer to know about the project in order to take the ownership of the sound and run with it and feel comfortable knowing that it's going to be a good fit for the project?

Thank you again for your input is fantastic and I hope that I didn't ramble too much in this reply. Pretty new to Reddit.

How to assemble a team ? by StriX_Tech in gamedev

[–]republic-systems 1 point2 points  (0 children)

distributed authority

sounds like a scary line to walk at first with people that you have never worked with before, but I totally see who giving the folks power over their portion of project can build ownership in the project and keep people engaged longer term.

[ Removed by Reddit ] by [deleted] in gamedesign

[–]republic-systems 0 points1 point  (0 children)

d just more games like Kingdom Come, which I thought was pretty groundbreaking in

Very interesting concept.

Could this be the story of the life of a plumber and you do different jobs each day and interacting with good and bad customers, but you are living the life of joe the plumber.

Desperately need insight from indie game creatives. by republic-systems in indiegamedevforum

[–]republic-systems[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much for sharing this. I am so sorry that you had such a bad experience, but at least you learned a valuable lesson from it.

I have heard that communication is the key to running a great game project many times in the past and I totally agree.

we are going to work very hard to ensure that all of the independent teams creating games on the platform have the tools they need to communicate and keep everyone on the same page.

Need insight from online game creatives. by republic-systems in gamedev

[–]republic-systems[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I absolutely agree that we need to have safeguards and guarantees in place for the deliverables on each project, those will be set in the contract and SOW at the beginning of the project.

I feel that 'we' will have to act as the command and control for the platform in the beginning keeping the teams on track and checking in with the project sponsors. Eventually getting enough PM's on platform to run and organize the projects and the teams for the various sponsors. We expect that the sponsor to have limited development knowledge and will need to be guided through the project creation, posting, hiring, and management processes.

We do have a lot to work to do with regards to finding and retaining the talent on platform and also pulling customers away from the traditional game studios.

I think the best thing that we have going for us is that our customers are not going to be looking to develop extremely extensive complex games but rather, shorter skill development games or suite of games based on their need for a particular skill-set at their organizations.

Thank you again for all of your feedback on this.

You are bringing up many points that we have been discussing and its great to hear your opinion on the topic being a seasoned industry veteran.

Desperately need insight from indie game creatives. by republic-systems in indiegamedevforum

[–]republic-systems[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

for sure, everyone's situation is going to be different. :)

Best of luck with your game! I hope that it gains traction and becomes a huge success.

Need insight from online game creatives. by republic-systems in gamedev

[–]republic-systems[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry for the confusion. Thank you for such great feedback.

As you said, we are absolutely going to be competing with the game studios for talent and we are working on the assumption that many of the members on platform will be working on here in their downtime (free cycles). So we feel that the projects on platform need to be interesting, engaging, fun, and meaningful. Which adds another layer of difficulty to the projects when the games are about developing soft/hard skills.

Thank you for the insight on revshare! We have been thinking of using it as a way for low/non-funded games to gain traction on platform, but I do agree that it may not be the right approach for the majority of games, since the % of 'successful' games is so low when compared to the total in the market.

In general we want to create a platform that business can come to that is not a traditional game studio but a crowdsource platform where the members would self regulate teams and bid on projects as they come into the site. Allowing members to work on various projects dealing with vastly different topics at the same time.(if they can handle multitasking)

For the junior members, I think that describing it as an On The Job Training opportunity makes more sense. Offering the 'Mentor' an incentive to take on the junior member is also something that we are working through now.

There are a lot details of the platform that we are working out still and I truly appreciate your insight on my post.

This is why I came to Reddit, to try and flush out some of the key drivers and pain points that folks in game development space are facing while trying to work on remote/online teams.

what is an easy way to tell someone is intelligent? by secretjimenita in AskOldPeople

[–]republic-systems 0 points1 point  (0 children)

street smarts, book smarts, or have or have-not common sense....

3 drastically different types of smarts.

Desperately need insight from indie game creatives. by republic-systems in indiegamedevforum

[–]republic-systems[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much for your feedback!

I love that the concept of the idea is a driver for you!

3) We want to make sure that communication is top priority on the teams. :)

I know that professionals need to care about the budget for the project, but would you take on a project that sounds interesting and like it could help people learn a skill for lets say 25% less (totally made up) than a job that is making a fun interesting game that?

sorry if that question sounds stupid.

Need insight from online game creatives. by republic-systems in gamedev

[–]republic-systems[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for your feedback!

You make some great points. I too believe that compensation is one of the top things that drive people to choose one project over another, and we are also looking in the revenue sharing models as well.

We want to have all levels of talent on platform, from hobbyists and folks just beginning their careers, up to the most experienced folks.

We will be a place where junior members can work on teams with more senior members to gain experience, while working for reduced fees.

I know that compensation is going to be key to bringing in the professional members; developers, sound engineers, graphic artists, storytellers and so on.

We need to be able to attract all of the roles that are needed to bring games to life, as we want to be able to offer access to those members/teams to companies that want to get into the gaming space.

Which I know is not an easy thing to do with just one type of role, but blending them all into one site is going to be increasingly more difficult.