So far I've joined, contributed too, and left multiple different Sonic fangame projects. I'm not super involved with the Sonic community's fangaming scene (I come from doing game development work outside of it) but my experiences have strongly indicated to me that a lot of these fan projects (in less than charitable words) seem to mostly be hype-fueled grifts?
I had assumed lack of success from fan projects was primarily due to failing to manage scope, but my experiences so far have been across multiple projects with extremely different levels of scope for their end-goal. And the problem seems more to be the result of outright exploitation, incompetence, and dishonesty.
Going by what I've experienced, the people who put themselves in the position of project leadership/organization know next to nothing about game development to the point its actually destructive. They gather large groups of people by presenting a concepts in-tune with the fandom's desires, but then have no actual skillset of their own and nothing else to contribute. Project leadership's inability to identify skilled artists and programmers causes the internal culture of the teams that form around these projects to be primarily clout and have little to do with actual qualifications.
The people who are both interested in and actually selected to take on more responsibilities (especially leadership responsibilities) tend to be motivated by the power they're granted within a social heirarchy, and I've witnessed these types of people lie about their own capabilities, neglect their own responsibilities, constantly clash with and talk down to those below them on the pecking order, take credit for other people's work, attempt to upheave established concepts and direction to suit their own preferences, and generally fuck shit up by making bad decisions.
The actual talent putting in the work is often motivated by the hype fueled by the project's foundational concept. But they're also stuck in a position where their contributions can't actually move anything forward, struggle is unrewarded, and their concerns and feedback are not listened to. They get put through an environment filled with disunity and unnecessary social heirarchy, and people leaving these projects feeling bitter and disappointed is common. For many of them, I expect that they see this as their big chance to be part of something, to learn and grow. And those hopes are ultimately taken advantage of and then betrayed. Crash-outs, internal drama, and the formation of grudges are common. And as the dysfunctional nature of the environment becomes clear, those who haven't been too directly exploited or belittled quitely make their departure. Many of these talented people lose their chance to form geniunely important connections and grow skills alongside their peers.
(Obviously these kinds of scenarios are also possible in a professional environment, but there's certainly something about the lack of anyone actually getting payed for their labor that dramatically increases the frequency of these situations.)
For a fangaming community as large and active as the Sonic fangaming community is, this all seems incredibly destructive and unhealthy. You've been around this community for a while, is this a "Same as it ever was." situation? Is there any way to better equip the fangaming community at large with the ability to identify and avoid these kind of exploitative environments?
Whoa! They let you write asks this long now? That's awesome. Because it's so long, I'm gonna have to break my reply down to address specific parts.
...my experiences have strongly indicated to me that a lot of these fan projects (in less than charitable words) seem to mostly be hype-fueled grifts?
As someone who was once behind a hype-fueled grift... yeah, kind of. It's sort of like wanting to be a movie star. At least at first, you're doing this to prove yourself to someone.
Because when you're new to making video games, what do you see video games as from the outside? You see the pageantry. You get hype for trailers at industry events, the beta tests, and developer names that are spoken like celebrities. It's a lot of glitz, glamour, and presentation. It is incredibly easy to get lost in that idea, of one day going out on stage in front of a thousand people, and demonstrating your game for a captive audience.
A good wake-up call, even for me, was the post mortem on the failure of Anthem from one of the lead developers. Because even at the scale of indie development I'm used to, hearing him talk about working at Bioware and EA sounds completely alien to me. Like the idea you get your game greenlit on a storytelling concept but nobody even knows what that game looks or plays like yet. Like you don't have characters, you don't have a world, you don't have mechanics, you just have the vague promise of "the future of storytelling" and you hire a bunch of people after the fact to fill in everything else around that.
(I understand that's still probably uncommon, and probably a signifier of the problems with Anthem, but there's still a lot of nuts-and-bolts business he talks about that is completely strange to hear. Teams and sub-teams and committees and investors, that kind of stuff)
And that's me, at 42 years old. Imagine you're dealing with some kid that's under 25. Fresh out of high school. Maybe still in high school, in some cases. They have no idea.
Going by what I've experienced, the people who put themselves in the position of project leadership/organization know next to nothing about game development to the point its actually destructive.
Well, yeah. Anyone can pick up a copy of Godot or Unity or Unreal and just start making games. Maybe they've taken a course to show them the ropes of how the software works, which is geared towards them working alone. They've probably had little to no experience working in a team, or delegating, or anything like that.
To some degree it's a case of learning by doing, but you also have to think about how even on Steam, something like 40-80 games get released every day, and almost all of them are failures. Probably less than 1% of the total games released on Steam actually become successes, and that's because they're built by people who actually know what they're doing.
Or, to put it another way: most people who open their own restaurant fail and have to close down their business within less than two years. A lot of people aren't very good at running their own business, because they are poor managers.
The people who are both interested in and actually selected to take on more responsibilities (especially leadership responsibilities) tend to be motivated by the power they're granted within a social heirarchy, and I've witnessed these types of people lie about their own capabilities, neglect their own responsibilities, constantly clash with and talk down to those below them on the pecking order, take credit for other people's work, attempt to upheave established concepts and direction to suit their own preferences, and generally fuck shit up by making bad decisions.
People like this exist in real jobs too, sadly.
You've been around this community for a while, is this a "Same as it ever was." situation?
The version of the community I'm most familiar with was one where everybody was basically solo. Teams were uncommon. You might have two friends team up, but a traditionally structured team, where you have a level designer, a programmer, an artist, etc. as separate roles? That's very far removed from what I'm used to. Even now, almost all of my game development is by myself.
But, well, consider SRB2. A large number of people have touched that project, including me, and three entire development teams have gone through there for various reasons. People grow up, people want to move on, people are discovered to be toxic and get booted out, and so on. Honestly, toxic people being dealt with and the truly passionate taking over is probably the exception rather than the rule in most of these scenarios.
Is there any way to better equip the fangaming community at large with the ability to identify and avoid these kind of exploitative environments?
That kind of feels beyond my pay grade, sadly. I do not have much experience with larger teams. SRB2 was the largest team I've ever been a part of, and I kind of drifted into and out of it pretty carelessly. Another one of those things I beat myself up about because I didn't take it as seriously as I should.
Which is the other thing, I guess: fangaming is not a job. It's a hobby. A lot of people aren't taking it that seriously. It can be a job, sure, but I do think there's kind of a fun and carefree element that's a draw, too. Some people don't want to take it seriously. Some people want to make a game, they complete a single playable demo, and that's good enough for them. They got their taste. As I get older, I'm starting to think that's fine. It's okay to just mess around.
And that's sort of the point, as I see it. You want to make a game, so you try, and either you learn from your mistakes and soldier on, or you flame out and quit. Some people can thread the needle. Most can't.
Getting people to identify and avoid these kind of scenarios falls in the realm of like... I dunno, finding a unionization flyer in the break room. It has its place, certainly, but it's more of a groundswell common knowledge thing. A different category than game creation tutorials or asset packs. It would have to be a, like, workshop or something. But some of these things are going to still be problems all the way up the ladder, at every professional level, in every industry. It's just with fangames there's less reputation to judge the quality of a given team on.
