This is spec work, not a game jam

A topic by Polyducks created Aug 30, 2020 Views: 384 Replies: 2

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A lot of people have had a knee-jerk reaction to the jam. $12,000 is a lot of money for an indie dev! Of course it is. It's clear Marcus has a good intention for an investment to these causes.

Here is why it's spec work and not a jam.

Say you needed a wooden bridge building. $12,000 is a lot of money, but you want to make sure you get the best bridge for that money. So you ask a thousand people to build you a wooden bridge first so you can test them all out. The bridge is a very specific specification that can only be used in one place. Then you pick one of those people and make them rich.

However, there are now 999 people who are unpaid with a bridge they can do nothing with - in this case, a game with very specific characters designed to a very specific story.

In very real terms, you are asking people to dedicate a large amount of time to your project so that you can pick the best one. While probably not intentional, this is ethically poor, especially when you consider that you're doing it against a backdrop of issues people care very deeply for.

How to fix this: remove the tight specifications, remove the marketability of the final product, remove the microtransactions which pay off the $12,000. Currently this is not a game jam with prize money. It's spec work with an initial investment.

Video explaining why spec work is unethical:

MarcusStephensHost4 years ago (1 edit)

Hello Polyducks! Thanks so much for your thoughtful response. My name is Marcus, the host of this jam. Let me take a minute to respond.

This is not a Spec Work project for reasons I will articulate in a moment. But just to be clear, I’ve worked in corporate America for most of my life and spec work from designers, consulting firms, developers, screenwriters, directors, comedy / sketch writers, software providers, designers, etc., etc. is extremely common. I’ve worked with “famous” consulting firms who gave away astonishing amounts of work in order to land an account. Providers must always assess how much work to put in vs the likelihood of landing the deal, but it is an extremely common activity.

That said, this is not a spec work project because people who do not win the jam are free to do with their games whatever they wish.

By mandating that the game be commercially viable, I am essentially requiring that developers create a game that has at least a chance of making money for them. If I publish a viable game, I will then pour thousands of dollars into marketing that game. Non-winning teams are free to market their games as well if they choose. The story is robust enough that there will likely be a huge diversity of games emanating from it.

All of this is distinct from doing spec work for a company, where the company requesting the work nearly always requires that said provider sign an NDA which, among other things in my experience, usually introduces restrictions on the provider regarding usage of spec work for anyone else. I am requiring no such document.

Further, the micro-transactions do not pay off the $12,000. I see how this might be concerning, so let me be clear: when the publishing agreement is posted, it will indicate that the developers receive royalties for the game using the “from the first dollar” model, which means royalties will begin to flow to developers before I recoup marketing or contest costs. Very often, as I’m sure you well know, when an initial pay-out is provided by a publisher, the publisher will then withhold royalties until these expenses are recouped. We are not doing that. We will select a game in which we believe so strongly that we are willing to risk paying royalties from the first dollar because the game will be so good that there will be more than enough wealth to go around.

Lastly, the focus of this jam is creating games that give love to the social justice movement. I am enormously passionate about this movement, which is part of why I decided to go ahead with the jam, despite the fact that I am apparently making every conceivable mistake in the book. There might need to be an Appendix to cover all the mistakes I’ve made. I’m putting up sizeable amounts of my own money and screwing up sometimes but I’m passionate about this anyway and want to proceed. Let me explain – first from a business perspective and then from my perspective as a Black man.

Suppose 20 teams submit games. I will choose one winner, so 19 teams will not get the marketing deal and funding – but there will be 19 games in existence in the world that are focused on social justice, not just another boring af world-building game that has no value or relevance to what’s going on in the world.

Now look at this Jam from my perspective. I’m creating a Jam where tons of games will be created that will compete with mine. It’s entirely possible that one of the games from this Jam that I do not select takes over the world.

I would be happy with this outcome because there needs to be more games in the world that care about Black people and other marginalized communities. Practically every new game I see has no relevance to my life as a Black man – and developers just keep churning out more of them. It’s like no one in the gaming community even cares. But I decided to believe that’s not true. I decided to believe that there must be developers who care. So I figured: maybe they just need incentive.

So I designed a Game Jam with a) crazy generous prizing, plus b) a marketing deal worth thousands of dollars to help the winning viable game be successful - and c) a way to create lots of games that will likely compete with mine. From a business perspective this sounds completely insane. From a soul perspective, hopefully it will start to create shift in the thinking of game developers such that we get better, more socially conscious, super-fun games placed into the world.

So the video you presented - which is excellent btw – differs from this Game Jam primarily in that the non-winning development teams do not “walk away with nothing” for all their hard work. They walk away with a solid game, designed to have strong commercial viability, that hopefully does some good in the world.

I hope this helps address your concerns. & thank you again for your feedback.

Best,

Marcus

Polyducks4 years ago (1 edit) (+2)

Hi Marcus! Thank you for the well thought out and measured reply.

While spec work is certainly a culture of corporate America, its ethics are still in question, especially online. The large companies doing spec work have a certain financial backing and investment which makes them risk resistant, and independent game developers do not. Spec work is not viewed positively online, usually because most experienced game developers are ex-corporate. There has been significant backlash against people who have sought to do spec work via crowd sourcing on the internet in the past. Most notably, Shaq's request for prize-incentive animation.

It's reassuring to see that people are able to post their completed games. Even if we suppose that this moves the proposal outside of the definition of spec work, you are still having many users make a game to your specification (and political purposes) for free. Regardless of whether they're paid they're still filling the criteria you set out to invest in with your initial payment. (On a side, philosophical note, if people are making games for a monetary incentive, is the message still genuine?)

I can see that your decisions to do this jam are not malicious. I can imagine it's also very frustrating for you to be set so many questions when you just want to do something, right now, with the resources you have which will benefit the world at large.

I don't think you need to offer that publishing deal as part of the jam for people to make content. Most people are making games every day that fit the criteria you want to see. Many of these are on the front page of Itch.io or posted to Twitter under the relevant hashtags (usually a social movement paired with #gamedev or #indiedev). If you would like to amplify these messages, it might make sense to put some investment into people already doing work in the field.

If you do continue down the jam path, you should make it very clear what rights people do or do not have over the content they make, how the monetisation of the game will pay out and precisely what political messages you wish to make.

itch.io

Commercially Viable Game - Social Justice Game Jam #1 ($12,000 Prize Pool)

This is spec work, not a game jam