Seeking socially-minded developer for contract / revenue-share game development

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Seeking socially-minded developer for contract / revenue-share game development

(20 posts) (10 voices)

Started 1 year ago by helpingothers
Latest reply from aimacworx

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helpingothers
Member

My goal is create a game development company the purpose of which is to use games to increase awareness and raise money for philanthropic causes.

I am seeking to develop relationships with Cocos2D developers who are able to work on a contract basis at a discount rate in exchange for revenue-share and to be part of something that helps others.

The first game I want to make is designed to raise awareness of tropical deforestation and raise money to fund groups that are fighting deforestation - 50% of sales will be donated.

Initially released for the iPhone, game play would be traffic management using line-draw mechanics (similar to those of Flight Control and other line-draw games on the iPhone, more: http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/iPhone/feature.asp?c=14712)

I'm hoping to find someone who I can provide a concept to and can handle everything... Please let me know if you would be able to handle all development, server set up, UI and game design, sound design, ongoing updates and maintenance, etc. - basically what is your skill set, include examples of past work.

I can provide game details to those who are qualified and interested.

What I bring to the table is a burning desire to develop business models that increase human well-being, several years experience producing client and web-based interactive campaigns, an ongoing fountain of ideas... that is hard to turn off ;), and will lead in getting the word out about the app through ongoing outreach to the media/etc.

Thanks!

Posted 1 year ago #
AkumaStreak
Member

So... you're looking for people to do all of the work, basically? Other than spraying your idea fountain, I mean. If you're out to help these causes, and don't mind paying the developers for the work, why do you get a cut again? You see the sad thing about "business models" these days is that they revolve around money (as a society we have chosen to make money central to our lives/activities). Having it to invest, making it to sustain, stashing it to profit. Sorry to be an ass -- convince me of how I'm wrong on this.

Posted 1 year ago #
helpingothers
Member

Thanks for the quick response AkumaStreak.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying exactly?

Posted 1 year ago #
AkumaStreak
Member

Others will clarify.

Posted 1 year ago #
helpingothers
Member

Re-reading your note, maybe this response address your question:

I'm looking for the product development team here. There is a lot more to a business than the product. When the game is done and perfect and accepted by Apple, that's only half the work. Next comes sales/marketing/etc. I've updated the post to include a bit about the role I will play on the marketing side. But basically, the value that I bring to the table is a lot of different things. One is the vision of a company that is designed to create products with embedded generosity. Endangered Species Chocolate is an example of a product with embedded generosity that I love: http://www.chocolatebar.com/. With each sale of the chocolate bar, 10% of net profits is donated to help save endangered species. Cool right? I see the vision as the business DNA. I believe you need someone at the helm who can sustain that vision and integrate the ideology into every fiber of the business - the products, the marketing, the team, everything.

Beyond the vision, there is sales/marketing/PR/partnerships/finance/legal/etc., etc., etc. I'll be working to ensure all that happens and in the right way.

When you look at the Endangered Species Chocolate bar, do you think that the people who make the chocolate are doing everything? Who is negotiating the deal with the super markets to get distribution? The person making the chocolate? Who writes the copy that appears inside the wrapper? The person making the chocolate? Who talks to the non-profit and deals with the donations? The person making the chocolate?

Well this went off into ridiculous land... but hopefully has helped paint a better picture that sounds like what you were looking for.

Posted 1 year ago #
AkumaStreak
Member

Ok. Best of luck! I want some chocolate.

Posted 1 year ago #
yarri
Member

@helpingothers We've been doing something similar, please take a look at http://www.playngive.com and drop a note to my partner at twitter.com/playngive if you'd like to chat more. --yarri

Posted 1 year ago #
helpingothers
Member

@yarri This looks great - just what I'm talking about. Will connect w/your partner thanks!

Posted 1 year ago #
helpingothers
Member

@AkumaStreak You should try their chocolate! It is super good, I especially dig the one with the blue butterfly, yummy dark chocolate!

Posted 1 year ago #
michaelm
Member

I think what AkumaStreak is pointing out is that ideas are easy. I have a thousand of them right now most of which I'll never have time to try let alone make. General diffuse ideas like I want people to make things for social consciousness are even easier, they don't have anything to back them and aren't even concretely defined as a useful full app idea. If you want to do this, YOU, should learn coding, server side, and the skills to bring this to fruition. Study and work hard to create your vision.

Start developing it, working out the ideas into the concrete, then instead of asking other people to do all the work, people might want to join you. But bringing that little to the table, it's a tough sell to say I want you to do all the work and I get some of the money. It's almost insulting.

Posted 1 year ago #
AkumaStreak
Member

I gave him the benefit of the doubt -- perhaps he's a marketing mastermind. In my experience, however, most marketing masterminds do a lot of the same things the rest of us do (YouTube/Facebook/etc. promoting), so at the end of the day you might still be left with an app that's not getting many eyes on it (and now you're only getting a share of the profit).

Posted 1 year ago #
Codemattic
Moderator

@helpingothers we've seen a lot of people post here and on other developer boards that they have great ideas for games/business looking for someone to join them and do the technical work. Personally Ive never seen it pan out. It doesnt help that your game idea seems vague and consists of copying an already hit game. But seriously, Id love for you to prove us wrong. Good luck in your project.

Posted 1 year ago #
LongJohnnyE
Member

My first project I ever worked on with a more experienced 'marketing guru' who had a good idea and plan to market it, I spent ~150 hours building a pretty dandy online application while he drew mark-ups in paint and did bug reporting. Later on when going over rev share, he said that if a dev wants a share of gross rev, typical values are low, under 10%, as there are 'many other business costs besides development'.

Needless to say, nowadays when people come to me with ideas, I tell them that if I develop it, I'll keep 95% of gross revenue, and only payout a maximum of $5,000 for the idea. I don't get too many keepers with that :). However, this has no real connection to helpingother's post, as he mentioned a 'discounted contract rate' which actually means paying a dev for his time, which is cool :).

I do have one comment though. You said:

Beyond the vision, there is sales/marketing/PR/partnerships/finance/legal/etc., etc., etc. I'll be working to ensure all that happens and in the right way.

Every one of those items, Apple pretty much does for every iPhone developer. And if they don't do it very well (marketing not great because the game is never featured), then most people have no ability to improve the situation. Other than that, Apple manages the legal side, the finances, sales, refunds. You really don't have anything to do with those items even if you wanted to.

Posted 1 year ago #
AkumaStreak
Member

In response to LongJohnnyE -- one of my base rules at this point is to never proceed to work for a for-profit project like you described without contracts detailing percentages up front (not saying that you were naive -- it takes experience/hearing of others' experiences to realize that people might take advantage of you). Too many ways to get taken advantage of otherwise. Non-developer types don't understand the amount of work it takes to bring polished projects to fruition. To think that 10% is fair for such a development role is a joke.

Posted 1 year ago #
helpingothers
Member

@michaelm - agreed ideas are a dime a dozen, it is all in the execution and then ability to bring it to market. Would love to learn to code/etc. but would need to be young again and have the time :)

@AkumaStreak - thanks for the benefit of the doubt! Looks like we'll turn out to be buds afterall! The marketing mastermind ideas you mentioned are all nice low-cost methods of marketing using the social media and social networking services out there. Of course that is just a fraction of what you can do, especially when you get into paid media buys/PR campaigns, etc. Regardless, I too have not come across any marketing masterminds out there and those who say they are tend to be charlatans...

@Codemattic - yes I'm getting the sense that these boards have seen some poor results for folks. Regarding the game idea, it was intentionally vague as the valuable portion of I'm not eager to share - as they say God is in the details. Will work hard to prove you wrong but not sure I'll come back to post here once that is done due to the harsh reception.

@LongJohnnyE - agreements are all flexible and always should be done upfront. You're totally correct that I'm not looking to find someone to develop this for free. In fact, I'd almost be willing to pay non-discount rates as I understand that money is what puts food on the table. What I'm really looking for is someone who doesn't want just a 'job' but wants to be part of something more. It's totally selfish on my part becuase I want to work with people have their shirt in the game and rather than a client-vendor relationship, our interests are aligned.

Regarding your last comment, "Apple pretty much does (all of those items) for every iPhone developer"... we must be talking about different scales of business. I'm not talking about a small business with a single developer at the helm, which is great. I'm talking about a game company. Does a company like EA rely on Apple to do all of that stuff? Does Apple protect your IP? Does Apple negotiate profit sharing deals?

@AkumaStreak - yes! put it in writing. even best of friends.

Posted 1 year ago #
LongJohnnyE
Member

@AkumaStreak I was naive, but it's okay...it was a few years ago, a good learning experience, and there was really not much money in the project. But you're right, the biggest lesson I learned was that non-devs sometimes think that all it takes is a good idea, which is definitely not the case. They either need the $$ to pay the dev for their time, or be willing to give up a good bit of the value of their idea to the person investing their time.

Posted 1 year ago #
Steve Oldmeadow
Administrator

Does a company like EA rely on Apple to do all of that stuff?

No, they don't. They are also losing $5 million a week.

Posted 1 year ago #
MikeTron
Member

So the other 50% how is going to be shared? How can you raise the social flag for make money? How can we trust on you if you try to make this dubious integrity bussines model? you make mi vomit, also I hate all the ecologist groups they spend money on saving chimps while here in the third world humans are dying from hunger, so this from me .I..

Posted 1 year ago #
Matt Rix
Member

I'm sorry, but your comparison to chocolate and saying that the game development is "only half the work" just rubs me the wrong way. Get your facts straight. Unless you've got an already established well known brand(which you don't) then the game design+development is WAY more important than anything you can bring to the table. I appreciate the philanthropic nature of what you're trying to do, but it comes off as something you're trying to use as a marketing gimmick rather than genuine altruism.

Oh, and the idea has already been done to death:
http://www.1888freeonlinegames.com/iphonegames/iphnimg/1624/car-troller-screenshot-1.jpg
http://www.iphonefootprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/car-mania.jpg

Posted 1 year ago #
aimacworx
Member

What's the point of this argument? In psychology, helpingothers made a wrong approach.

like akuma, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt, assuming his intensions are good and true. This are the projects that must be supported. To sort things out, I want to give my opinion (psychologically/socially) on how to approach the public without spoiling your "good and true" intensions.

If you are serious enough to help and build this company, DO NOT mention conflicting ideas like BUSINESS and CHARITY at the same time in the wrong emphasis and sequence. To make the approach more professional and not sound so dubious, one approach is do not mention anything about helping others, fixing the traffic, saving the trees and chimps YET while at same time you will promise to give percentage of it as payment for the job your offering. One of the reason why this website exist is for iPhone developers to share programming experiences on how they solved problems. Now If you want to try looking for iPhone developers/programmers in this forum site. Try to concentrate on your work and pay proposals first . Don't mention yet about any community service. Assuming you made an attractive deal and become successful to find a responder that agrees to the work terms, then its the right time to tell him the good news about helping others and blah blah blah. I'm sure they'll even hesitate to get maintenance fee. This works for me very well when i make deals with other programmers or painters to help me out (because I also do a little oil painting hobby). :)

On the other hand, most of the time you want someone who have a good heart who wouldn't mind a low pay. You can still tell that story about "saving the world" idea in this forum BUT you have to stress more on that, you give facts by giving out a reference (ex. link to a site on a complete description about it) to backup you intensions and do not convince about how your going to pay them financially. You give them rewards instead through recognition (this must give a big impact to one's honor/integrity) then to goes the financial reward sa backup. You as you claim your self as the overall strategist/planner/manager or whatever you call your self should not mention about the business goals like:

"What I bring to the table is a burning desire to develop business models that increase human well-being, several years experience producing client and web-based interactive campaigns, an ongoing fountain of ideas... that is hard to turn off "

This focuses on the idea that the company will collect more money instead of charity. (someone might think that i'm the devil who teaches potential devils to be successful.hehehe) The game developer shouldn't be informed about it right away (why would i care, this is the first time i met you in the FORUM), instead he/she should be informed more on what work is to be done with the idea of helping others at the back of his head.

Posted 1 year ago #

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