Recruiting Team Members
Draft a Recruitment Post
Draft a recruitment post for your project and the open roles. The more details you provide, the more likely people will inquire and join your team.
Recruitment Post Template:
Project Name:
Project Genre:
Project Description:
My Role:
My Previous Projects: (If Applicable)
Team Size:
Role(s) Required:
Responsibilities of Role(s):
Required Experience for Role(s):
Project Length: (X Months, X Years)
Compensation: (Unpaid, Revenue-Share, Commission, Hourly, Salary)
Don't Only Offer Revenue Share
Projects that only offer rev-share rarely succeed. Unless volunteers are truly passionate about the project, most will quit because there is no guarantee the project will succeed and generate revenue. Scope rev-share projects to take at most 1 year to develop.
Offer other things like opportunities to create portfolio pieces, get experience, or network.
Using a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA)
Pros
- Keeps your business and game idea a secret.
- Prevents others from taking your design ideas and using them in their own projects.
Cons
- Reduces pool of candidates. People less likely to reach out and contact you about the project.
- Contributors can't add work to their portfolio until your studio publicly releases game or development content.
Recruit Team Members
Publish Your Recruitment Post
- Game development forums, subreddits, and discord servers.
Contact individuals Looking for Work
- You can find "looking for a team" or "looking for work" posts in the same forums, subreddits, and discord servers where you published your recruitment post.
- Individuals looking for a team include freelancers, hobbyists, or beginners.
Network with Local Game Dev Community
- Attend local game dev meetups or events and ask other attendees if they would be interested in joining your project.
- Even if they don't join your team, they may be able to connect you with others who may be interested in joining.
Interview and Evaluate Team Members
Team's Experience
Novice Teammates
- Spend more time learning the necessary skills to make the game.
- More likely to volunteer to work on the project.
- May have difficulty implementating complex features.
Seasoned Teammates
- Have an easier time designing, building, maintaining, and features.
- Expect compensation for their high skill labor, especially if your project requires a significant time commitment.
Team's Availability
Part-Time
- Expect weekly or monthly progress.
- Generally work during their limited free time.
- Work hours may be inconsistent.
Full-Time
- Expect daily and weekly progress.
- Work hours tend to be consistent and predictable.
Team's Location
Local Members / Similar Time Zones
- Working in-person makes it easier to motivate each other and keep each other accountable.
- Working with people in the same time zone also makes it easier to synchronize the production schedule and ensure everyone is working around the same time.
Remote Members / Differnet Time Zones
- Allow team members to work on the project anytime and anywhere.
- Access talent that normally isn't available in your local area.
- Requires more effort to manage and make sure team members are working on tasks regularly.
- Volunteer members are more likely to abandon the project.
- Communication may be delayed, and trust may take longer to build up.
Team's Size
The team's size will determine how much work can be distributed and completed simultaneously.
Solo Dev
- Production is entirely dependant on you.
- While you have full creative control, every aspect of the game will require your attention.
- Production times will drastically increase because tasks can only be performed sequentially.
Small Teams
- Individuals can be divide up the task work in parallel.
- Individuals specialize and mainly work in one discipline, or generalize and work in multiple disciplines.
Large Teams
- Individuals are highly specialized.
- Take ownership of specific areas of development within a discipline.