Re: Gaming projects

[Pieter Hulshoff <phulshof@xs4all.nl>]

On Thursday 10 June 2004 18:01, Gregor Mückl wrote:
> Unfortunately. Most of the time it's not the programming which kills the
> projects, though. We're still missing artists. I've started to go through
> great efforts to get artists for my current project. Although I'm
> developing exclusively on Linux, I also provide Windows versions of the
> engine so that at least artists and musicians can keep their familiar
> working environment. And the best surprise of all is that it works although
> I never tested this thing in native Windows.
>
> I also have to give up on the idelogical part of "free gaming" if I want to
> succeed. The artists ususally love to see money for their work - at least
> those with reasonable talent. Having nothing to offer for them, it's quite
> difficult to build up a good team.
>
> The more experience I gain, the more I recognize the need to do game
> projects on a commercial basis. It sounds bad. And it is even more
> disappointing.

*nod*, I think we've had this discussion before on the artist mailinglist. 
There are a few reasons why many artists have a problem with "free gaming":
1. Cost of equipment to create music is quite expensive. I don't know how this 
works for graphics artists: is The Gimp good enough?
2. A musician has little to gain from others 'improving' their music. The same 
goes for graphic artists.
3. Programmers often involve themselves in the music/graphics part of the game 
by setting restrictions on what it should be like. Word of advice: don't!
4. There are a lot more programmers than artists around. If you look at the 
credits of a professional game however, you see that these groups are usually 
of equal size (programmers, musicians, graphic artists).

Pieter Hulshoff
Programmer & Musician ;)