this is a good song
I’m shit at most things but I am very good at fixing things/solving problems as we as getting very angry.
I can do dishes
Was the point of this thread to form a co-operative specifically for game development?
I’ve been doing game programming as a hobby since 2011 but I’m still so new at it.
That’s the point. You are welcome to join! It actually sounds like you got more experience than many of us!
The things I’ve seen.
I’m extremely good at making bad decisions
Awesome, well just do the opposite of whatever you decide.
Ok, so, I’m hardly an expert in cooperatives but I think things break down in two ways.
There are two kinds of coops that might apply here:
- A customer owned cooperative
- An Employee Owned Cooperative
If we imagined that we wanted to form a small cooperative just to say publish videogames we all made as independent developers, then the we’d be owner/customers of such an arrangement. The most common kind of customer owned coops in the US are, I believe, electrical utilities. The idea is to identify shared services that we all need as developers and then construct a business around those services which we’d be in control in. The point of the business isn’t so much to generate profit in the abstract but to serve us, the owner/customers.
An employee owned cooperative would be appropriate for a more coherently organized business. If we all wanted to collaborate on a few projects which are democratically chosen, then an employee owned cooperative seems like the more reasonable organization.
In either case, we’d have to agree on a charter document to start with and have periodic meetings to vote on outcomes. I think we’d all want to have one vote and one share. New members would probably have to buy-in, which could help us form a basic operating budget.
Anyone else have any ideas about organization? I’m super busy so I don’t think I even remotely want to be in a position of leadership.
How much commitment are you expecting from people as members of the cooperative?
Is this to be paid employment (part-time? full-time?) or will people only see money if a project make a profit (which suggests work will be done in spare time)?
also here is a gdc talk about a video game cooperative https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BK-6uIr_tI
Hey it’s been a while since this thread saw action but it’s a cool thread so I’ll give it a shot. I like the idea of an inventory of sbers’ skills. So that if I need, say, someone to do sound effects for the shoot em up I’m eventually going to make (don’t hold your breath, porn game comes first and no way am I going to involve another human being in that) I can look at it and approach someone from the list.
So yeah, cool thread, I hope it develops.
Let me think what I can do…
Daz3D: I can render stuff in Daz3D. Make human models, pose them, animate a little bit, render it out.
Gimp: I can do some light image editing like turn stuff into pencil drawings or make it look illustrated, make the colors look more dramatic/cinematic, stuff like that.
Blender: Can do some rendering in there as well, some 3D modeling (like, I made a Lego figurine from scratch) and I’m learning fluid animation at the moment
Twine: can make simple text-based Twine games
Ren’Py: Can make a visual novel in Ren’Py
RPGMaker: I can make a visual novel in RPGMaker MV, too. Don’t know anything about battle system creation but I know how to, uh, rip that stuff out completely, I guess?
Construct 3: I started a shoot em up in Construct 3 and as result have some light experience with it
Unreal Engine 4: I, uh, can create a new project and not do anything with it? (I’ll learn UE4 in time, is what I’m saying)
Writing: I like to write, especially sex and relationship stuff. Not saying I’m good at it but I can get stuff done. This is what I’ve got most experience with, been writing for about 10 years and I’ve self-published a novella before. Everyone can do that but not everyone does, so I’ll list it as a victory anyway.
German: I know German and can translate from English to German okay. You’ll still need an editor to correct what I put out if you want it to be error free but it’s better than nothing!
Started game deving October 2017, so not much experience but steadily learning
Man, sounds like a great resume!
So anyone here have a head for organization/leadership? I would imagine any leadership position would be democratically selected by all the coop members, but we’d still need to narrow down to candidates first.
Or we can do nominations.
On a related note: I’m a little surprised that I haven’t been able to find like web-based democracy software.
Litigation: if you murder someone, and I’m not saying you should!, I’ll put on the best damn trial you could ask for
I refuse to head any organization that would elect me.
Guess I will list my skillz here too for the hell of it:
Graphics
Photoshop: my art skills are a bit rusty these days, but I can do pixel art, concept art, textures etc
3DsMax: haven’t used this in years, but I could probably pick it back up if I could get a hold of a copy
coding
Python(only used for Django though, however)
Java/Android
Objective C
C# (barely use it these days though)
PHP (cos that will obviously come in handy here)
GameDev engines
Game Maker Studio: I’m pretty good with this, only really dabbled in GMS2 though. I have a half finished game that I should probably show off on here at some point.
Totes!
Here is a tricky thing.
If we were really serious about an employee owned cooperative, we’d all have to buy-in at a certain share price. This cash would go into the cooperative coffers to fund our ventures. Any future member-employees would also have to buy in (probably at a price we set).
This is pretty serious, though - we’d have to set up enough governance to deal with money, have a treasurer, etc. On the plus side, those of us with high demand skills (like artists) who also tend to have more financial trouble, could be paid from the cooperative bank account for work before we sell any product.
I can tell you right now that if I have to pay in, that’s gonna mean I’m out. I can’t even afford the taxes on my current job
I can barely afford “free”