How to Negotiate

Like many artists, I've always wondered "how much should I ask for my work?"

There's a lot of things that go into what you should charge, and there's never really a 'right' answer. Hopefully these points I talk about might help you in some way...

Time vs Effort

Whenever the question of pay comes up, I always consider how much work I need to do and I do a few quick calculations in my head.  If the amount of work seems too much for the amount of money it is, I will explain that I won't be able to do it for that little.  (It's that simple).

If you think the amount of work is just about right, or a little under what you expect, you can still agree to it, but make sure not to spend more time on it than necessary.  I know you're an ambitious artist...stop being so ambitious...

Example - 

I need to make a 10 backgrounds, a main character, animate that character, and make some user interface stuff.  That's already a ton of work, and I'm told to do it for around $300.  To me that seems very unreasonable, so I renegotiate it to at least $500.  Still low in my opinion, but I'm able to reduce the amount of effort I put into it so I'm not overworking myself.

Experience

If you're still in school, your rate will definitely be lower, or you might have to spend extra time on the project because of your lack of experience.  Conversely, if you're an expert in your field, you're free to charge more because you know what you're doing.  Showing confidence in your field is almost as important as your actual skills, because that's how you'll get work.

Non Artist Bosses

Creative people have to deal with non creative people, accept that as a reality.  You're going to be questioned about why you need to be paid what you're asking for because people don't understand how much it takes to create art.  If you come off as not thinking visuals are very important, you might as well quit being an artist because no one's going to hire you with that attitude.

Visuals are one of the most important things - it's the first thing people see, and if what they see is hideous, that will turn down a significant portion of people.

How We Got Greenlit in 2 Weeks

A lot of people have questions about how it all works, so I'll write how things went for us.  I also had no idea what I was doing when I started coming up with videos/screenshots, but there are a lot of other posts about this subject that helped me get on the right path.  Hope this one helps others too.

How Does Greenlight Work?

Before getting into how we got it done, it's important to understand how the system works. There are tons of submissions that go on greenlight everyday, so obviously there needs to be a system to control the flood of bad games that could pass.  Users vote yes/no/ask later on games they see and choose to write a comment to help the developer.  Here is the process -

• Upload - the game, write a description, add videos/screenshots and submit
• Get to 100% - this one was something I wasn't aware of.  Every month, steam does a flush of the top 100 games that people like, as long as your game is among the top 100, you will be greenlit most likely.  If you were game 101, you'll be one of the first to be greenlit the next time they pass more games.
• Ranking - if you manage to get to this point, you should breathe easy now because you already got to 100%.  The ranks hold no real meaning, it just shows you're one of the next people in the queue to get greenlit. 

Our Experience 

We got to 100% within the first day (plus a couple hours maybe).  After you hit the top 100, you start getting ranked to other games that are in the queue to be greenlit.  Ours got up to #12, but again, that number holds no real value since it's comparing yourself to games that are currently in the same process.

Things we did to help us

It's important to note that our case is a bit different than others, here's a few reasons why -

• Started on Web - The game has been online for a few months now, albeit in a smaller form.  We got a lot of attention by doing this which definitely helped us in the long run.
• Youtube Let's Players - Since the game was available, we got a surprising amount of people that played it, that definitely spread the word out about our title.
• The Subject - A bit obvious that our game has a distinct theme that people are intrigued by.  Not every game can do this, and some developers might not even want take this path, but it surely did effect our views.

Make it Pretty

Goes without saying that the way you present your game is vital.  If you don't have the best video, cool screenshots and a catchy title, you might struggle trying to get attention.

Title & Thumbnail

If you haven't homed in on a title yet, be sure to spend some time to come up with something good.  The thumbnail for greenlight is square and decently large, can also be an animated gif.  These 2 things are the first thing people will see if they're browsing a list so it has to catch their attention.

Spend the most time on your video

This is the first thing a viewer will see when they go to your page, make sure this is is the best part, even if it means you spend less time on other aspects of your marketing.

• Do This
• Make it short but informative.  The viewer should know what the game is about but shouldn't have to sit through a 2 minute long promo of it.
• Show the best parts of it, stuff that people would actually get excited about and would be encourage to vote on your submission.
• Try not to be too flashy.  Don't make a lot of live action stuff or add special effects that obscure the game.  Most of your video should be actual gameplay.
• Don't
• Leave out the video.  This is a crucial mistake some make and it'll cost you a lot.  People downvote submissions purely because there wasn't a video showcasing it, and you can't really blame them.  It shows you don't care much about what you made, or you're scared to show what the state of the game is.  No matter how bad it is, include a video or stay away from greenlight until you're far enough to make a good one.
• Start the video without gameplay.  Your viewer shouldn't have to wait 10-15 seconds before they actually see what the game is.  Unless your game is purely story driven, you should show off what the game is all about because that's what a lot of gamers base their decisions on.

For us, the video was kind of a difficult process.  Initially we had one video, and people started complaining about some meme we had that I wasn't aware of.  We then switched it out to have some Let's players, but we got backlash for that too because some people didn't like those guys.  Eventually I uploaded a final one with more gameplay and cutting out some unnecessary stuff and just left it.  There wasn't much I could do at the time to fix it and we were already at 100%.  I can always change the video once the game is released.

Good Description, Graphics & Screenshots

I kept things simple for my description and I made sure to break up paragraphs with some images (you can actually embed those with a code in steam).  Screenshots I mocked up since our game wasn't in a finished state for fullscreen yet.  I probably spent the least time on this part because not as many people will look further into it, but be sure to add enough so your game looks more legitimate.

Other Notes

Do you want to buy this game?

One of the most frustrating things about greenlight is this question.  It's asking the viewer if they would like to play the game instead of asking if it looks like a decent game you might recommend.  Because of this question, a lot of submissions get lots of 'No' votes.

Participate in the Discussion

Players see it as a good sign when the developers go into the comments section and respond to some of the concerns or questions that people have.  You can also figure out why your game might not be doing so well if you see a lot of people complaining about something.

Don't be Discouraged

There will be a lot of garbage thrown at you for the most minuscule problems.  There's no way you can please everyone, so just keep your head straight and work hard to keep going.

Don't Get Too Stressed

You already submitted the game to greenlight, so there's not much else you can do but wait.  It might take a few months before you're greenlit, but in that time be sure to keep working and stay positive.  If you made a good game, you shouldn't have a problem.

Your Job's not Done Yet

Unless you've completed the whole game before deciding to greenlight it, you've still got a ton of work ahead of you.  Lots of games are currently greenlit and unreleased, you can bet that a lot of them won't see the light of day.  Don't let your game be one of those.

The End

Please write any corrections in the comments about some of the stuff I wrote if it's not right or you have different opinions.  Other than that, feel free to ask anything else or say whatever is in your mind.

Flash Problems - Small Grid When Zoomed In

The Issue - very annoying/eye straining grid that shows up when you're zoomed in and causes objects to snap to it, making fine adjustments impossible.

The Fix - View > Snapping > Snap to Pixels

Flash Problems - Stage is Restricted

Had this problem happen a while ago and it took me forever to figure out how to fix it.  I eventually realized it was because I was using a keyboard shortcut I wasn't aware of.  Had people randomly ask if I knew how to fix this problem, so I'm assuming this is pretty common.

The Issue - Stage is locked at the top left and you can't pan.

The Fix - View > Pasteboard or Ctrl+Shift W

Flash Problems - Dragging Objects Only Shows Border

The Issue - Was starting a new project and soon into it I noticed that dragging stuff leaves an outline of the object instead of dynamically showing the actual object.  Looked online but couldn't find much about it, which is probably because it's a real simple mistake.

The Fix - To avoid it, make sure to pick actionscript 3.0 when starting a new doc.  Copy over everything into that doc if you're far ahead into it, but I doubt you get that far without getting annoyed by this issue.

5 Benefits of Placeholder Art

Placeholder (or coder) art is one of the most useful things game artists (and coders) should do whenever they make a game.  Definition - it's literally in the name, holding the place for something in the future that will be refined and acceptable for the final game.

Here are the 5 Benefits of using placeholder art in your games, as well as some examples from my games where I've used placeholders.

Quickdraw - 4 Leaf Clover

Here's some quick steps to make a 4 leaf clover, in the spirit of St. Patrick's day this month.  In many games, a 4 leaf clover is used to represent luck because historically, they're very rare to find.  If you find one in real life, you might keep it to bring you luck.  

If you had to use 1 small image to represent luck in your game, a 4 leaf clover would be the best way to do it.  Let's get started on drawing one

How to Draw - 2D Scrolling Backgrounds

In this tutorial I'll be showing you some quick 2D BG looping art.  Drawing the assets will be fairly simple, but you'll need to know good composition and some color theory to make it look good overall in the end.

Valentines - Hearts

Valentines is coming up and you know that hearts will be involved.  Let's dive into how they can be used in games to show how much health you have.

Become an Indie Game Developer

I've heard so many people say they are amazed that making games is something feasible when I tell them what I do.  It's getting close to a decade since I started dabbling in the industry, so I thought I would start 2015 with talking about my experience and give some tips on how you can get into the market yourself.