When people ask me why it takes so damn long for me to finish a game, and I tell them it’s because I’m doing it all by myself in my spare time, someone, on occasion, will ask me why I won’t gather a team with which to share the load. With a team, they argue, my game will not only be finished more quickly, but will also be better in terms of graphics, music, etc. After all, if I get a professional artist to draw for me and a professional musician to compose for me, I will end up with a professional-feeling game. Then, I’d be able to sell it and make millions of dollars[1] and all will live happily ever after.

Personally, I disagree with this sentiment. The concept of teamwork is a good one, but when it comes to amateur game design, it is usually not very effective in practice. Most artists, if they produce good work, are not willing to create art without receiving some sort of reward for it. The most obvious kind of reward is one that is monetary in nature. If I were to pay people to help me create my game, I would have to either have a lot of money now, or expect to have a lot of money after selling the game. Being a student, the first point is automatically nullified; therefore, I would have to create a game that is expected to sell well, meaning it caters to a large group of people. Considering that my purpose in creating a game is to let loose and bring into fruition my own ideas, having to target said ideas to the masses would severely hinder my ability for creativity[2] and therefore defeat my purpose.

Since making a game with the expectation of making money from it is out of the question, I would have to enlist the help of people who are willing to work for free, or at least for very little. I occasionally see people on adventure development forums who are all too eager to offer their services free of charge to someone with a great idea. Unfortunately, such enthusiasm tends not to last very long, as one discovers that creativity is time-consuming, and if there is no motivation to keep on going, your artist or what-have-you will get tired of making your game and disappear[3] .

Non-monetary motivation is therefore necessary, and I believe that the most effective form of such motivation is creative input. I have noticed that people are more likely to work hard on something if it is their own, and not that of someone else. If you want your team members to continue helping you, you are going to have to give them some input in the game’s overall design. Some people are willing to do this, and I say, good for them. I, on the other hand, have already come up with the entire design of my game, and have more crazy ideas than I know what to do with. Thus, if I were to hire team members, they would end up having virtually no creative input at all, hence no motivation.

Taking this into consideration, working on a game by myself is much less of a hassle than forming a team to help me and keeping said team motivated enough to continue helping me until the game is finished. This isn’t to say I’m against teamwork altogether; it’s just that I believe that having other people help you make your game is not necessarily going to save you time and energy. There, now, you can all stop bugging me.