FOSS games and content
Many of us "know it better than you"-people have already told the tale of why FOSS games can not compete with commercial grade games. Yes we are all talking about content, we lack the content to look as dandy as the gem-sparkling commercial games.
We don't even make it easy to create the spark of a jaded plastic toy either. No, we make bad choices over and over again, cramping out the life-force of contributors. Forcing the entry level of contribution sky high just due to one of the contributors being very good and the rest just 'willing to help'. The problem here is not that the general Joe can't accomplish the level of skilled contributions as that of the sole contributor-god. No the problem is that we don't harness the creativity of that sole good contributor, and help him help the others to do great contributions.
I was browsing a forum the other day and noticed a "graphics needed" thread, being me I was drawn to it like a moth to light. But reading the thread got me just annoyed and irritated.
figure 1 - Example of a photo, a illustation and a 3D render, all are objects.
In this particular case they needed images for objects that was in the inventory of a container/vessel, call it inventory. Immediately I think RPG style icons, ok size, easy to eye and place for other elements to use needed space. But no here we got full 512x512 px images, all in different forms; 3D renders, photos, Illustrations (see figure 1) - you might now be thinking "good they accept any kind, many contributors" which might be true. Now think of the 'quantity or quality' question; is it better to have a 'sea of shit' or a 'pond of gold'? To me the answer is easy: I want a lake of brass.
For being a graphic designer it's not really the flashy elements that makes me accept a product, I can well settle with a not so super designed thing, as long as the style is coherent.
Regulations is good for all
How would a smart graphic project manager go about asking the community for this? Well I got a couple of ideas to solve this kind of issue. First, decide on what kind of images you accept - the more who are able to contribute to this the merrier, but don't go overboard. Second, decide on a size for the images - in this case i would go for a max size of 128x128 px as that is a standard large icon size, could go down to 22x22px to you then just need a bit more skill to make it look good. Third, do a template, make them all fit together on some way, be it background, shape or another but for the love of milk don't let them be all and every kind.
Allow me to play devil's advocate here for a moment and come at it from the developer's standpoint. Based only on the description you gave, it seems to me that the developer was trying to not cramp the style of any artist willing to contribute to the project. The hope, probably a vain hope, but the hope being that some artist would latch on and produce a good set of images for the game and those would have a cohesive theme because they are all coming from the same artist.
I have a project right now and I have a very clear idea of the kind of graphics I'd like to see for it some day. I would like them to have the simple graphical style reminiscent of the Community Chest and Chance cards from Monopoly. I think that would add even more to the humor within the game. However, I figure that if I were to suggest that then any artists would either say, "I can't or don't want to draw in that style, therefore I'm not going to contribute." By suggesting something specific I'm driving away somebody who might have a good idea.
If somebody did have a good alternate suggestion and was willing to do a substantial body of work with a particular style then I could and would point to that and say, "I want something like this because I already have some existing graphics in that style." Before that point, I don't think most would feel comfortable suggesting anything.
John Munsch’s last blog post..Google Tries To Make Microsoft Completely Irrelevant
Hi John! A valid point you got there, yes I agree being small and not having a big following will make it harder to get a good contributor-base, so a more slack approach is needed, but still regulations feeds creativity(no argument can sway me on that point).
I'm happy that you got a style already planed out for your game, that will help you, help the artist create better and fitting graphic to your game(s). Sadly I don't see many devs in the small to medium game sizes that even have that. I can even say I feel that it is rare in the whole floss scene.
My annoyance was bought up by a rather big FOSS-game, I won't tell any names as I don't want to point a finger at anyone and laugh. But they have enough of a community to build one of the best FOSS-games. And not using the community better then what I have seen to this point, is a bit sad.
And thanks for your reply, I'll do a follow-up-post to this, with some ideas based on my experience.
Hey there. Big thanks for the article. I don't have time to write lately, so it's good to at least read some interesting thoughts.
I agree with John that some devs may be afraid to scare away contributors on the "I don't want to do this" basis. Instead they may be scaring them away on the "I don't know what he wants" basis. Another problem is that some devs really simply don't know what they want. And still another sort is that which does have some vision and hopes the artists will guess what it is.
That's why I try to advocate developers learning at least a little bit about content creation - this would not only enable them to make some art themselves, but also make them aware of the way the artists work and what kind of data they may need.
Now being mainly a developer but also having some minimal artistic knowledge I know that both artists and developers have things that they would prefer to be set when they get to work. Perhaps FOSS game artists could compile some sort of a list of things they:
1. Have to know before getting to work. It's like the programmer has to know the programming language he should use or what are we coding.
2. Very much prefer to know - they are not necessary, but greatly simplify cooperation. It's like the software design documentation.
3. Have some personal preferences, but are willing to adapt to project guidelines as long as they are sensible. It's like the coding standards.
A great comment, I agree to the fullest and will post some note on the topic of "guidelines" in the follow-up-post.
Perhaps we could start drafting such document on the libregamewiki?
m64’s last blog post..The only thing better than starting small is starting smaller
Tips on how to manage contributors?
If that is what you mean, by all means yes, but is not the freegamedev wiki a better place for that? As it is oriented to project management and development, rather then a encyclopaedia of foss games?
Yes, certainly I've meant freegamedev wiki, I just mistyped.
m64’s last blog post..The only thing better than starting small is starting smaller
I agree that instructions on how to deal with contributors are likely to be helpful and support the creation of such instructions on the FGD Wiki. :)