Is there a place or group that makes games on request or payment?

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Just curious. Now just need to make the post at least twenty characters…

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I’m sure some people here would be happy to take commissions, if they’re looking for inspiration. Just be aware that making a full game is a lot of work, and expect to pay accordingly.

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Interesting question. I’ve done this a few times, but I’ve done it for free because I enjoyed the challenge and the project. The people I’ve worked with have allowed me the freedom to make changes as I see fit, although I always discuss this with them first.

I would be happy to get paid for it, but that opens a can of worms. Some things to consider:

  • You need a contract.
  • The scope must be clear. Does the customer provide the design and you merely code it, warts and all, or do they provide the concept or idea and leave you to implement it? Or is it a collaboration? Beware of scope creep.
  • How do you price it? I’m not sure about choice-based projects, but text adventures (parser-based projects) have a tendency to snowball. Beware of fixed-price contracts. Time-based payments are better, but make sure you have a clear project plan with payments at specific times or specific milestones.
  • In either case, your contract must stipulate that any change request from the client requires additional work, hence additional payment.
  • You must be clear on ownership of the finished product. If you are paid for a project, then the customer is employing you and they probably own the copyright and all publishing rights. This must be made clear in the contract.
  • What happens if the client cancels the project? Make sure that you still get paid for the time spent on it.
  • Allow extra time for meetings, status reports, demos and so on. The client is paying for this, so you need to keep them informed and demonstrate that progress is being made.
  • Don’t hand over anything that they can use (source code, assets or executables) until you’ve been paid for it.
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I’ve had contracts for 4 different commercial games before (choice-based) and they ranged from $7000 to $16000.

I tutored math on the side to get out of debt and had pretty low rates ($25/hr). Most of my non-tiny parser games which are polished take something like 100-200 hrs, so to be financially compelling it would have to be around $2500-$5000 for a parser game.

Although I have made games for people as an IFComp prize before on three different occasions for free (and would like to do that again soon).

For a big game like Never Gives Up Her Dead that I wrote, no amount of money would work, only passion could keep me going that long.

(Garry has some great points about ownership, two of my contracts were cancelled but the rights were reserved to the company.)

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