Yo, this topic is dedicated to the discussion of properly paying programmers for work in game engines, specifically ones like Unity or Godot. Things like getting a gauge of what to pay for, types of payment, how much to pay programmers in general are the main points of this. Also want to ask about good practices when communicating with programmers.

For starters, I'm working on a small Unity 3D browser game, typical scenario. Don't know where to start with learning programming, yadda yadda, came to the conclusion of commissioning out some work as a means to get the ball rolling. Figured for roughly 20-30 hours of work, 200$ usd is a pretty good starting point, at least for a newer programmer.

That being said, commissioning out something like programming seems to be kinda rare, at least in a piecemeal fashion for a game, which leads into my first question:

Could commission based programming be something that could potentially benefit NG?

I feel like creating a system for programmers like this could have far reaching benefits for the community. Anyways, another question I have is this:

Would programmers be willing to work at a lower rate for things like prototypes and other shorter form projects?

Fostering a system that supports lower risk endeavors at first could lead to more widespread adoption. If both parties have some breathing room to assess whether or not they wanna continue working together once things get going, more people might engage with the system.

My final question relates to the payment amount directly. I only did a few hours worth of research, and there were wildly different answers, anyways:

Is 200$ usd a good starting point for programming based commissions? Would more be appropriate? Less so more people start commissions, etc?

Ok, I'll leave it at this for now. Feel free to discuss your own projects, but no hit and run advertisements please.

Cheers.

Maybe it's just me, but I've noticed there's a relative...taboo almost? of paying programmers for commission based work on non-commission-centred sites. Far often instead they're offered a % of the revenue, which is in no way near the amount required with commission rates. And given how projects frequently fall through for some reason or the other, this basically translates into programmers not getting paid at all (or getting "paid in exposure").

In the past decade or so I've been here, I've seen and been offered commission work once - and the hourly rate was similar to the one you quoted, but that was for a very simple 1-2 hour task. Not sure how it would be for full fledged games.

Thanks for the reply, insight into the programmer side of things is super valuable. I definitely didn't consider all the risks posed in a commission based system, maybe doing a hybrid of both revenue and commission would be a solid approach for developing a technical preview / prototype. Such projects could even go on to exist on kickstarter / steam early access.

Gonna take some time and think about the hybrid payment system. A failsafe payout that would trigger if the projects becomes inactive / a set amount of time passes would be cool as well.

If you don't want to commission people here on NG, and maybe you wouldn't, there's always upwork.

I’m gonna say from experience that it’s a tough situation. Non-developers don’t have a realistic idea of how long a project will take. Example: I’ve spent over half a year working on a project without pay that was pitched to me as a 2 week game jam. It’s not fun slaving away at something that you don’t have creative control over, and being given ideas that will take way more of your time than they understand. I don’t have much patience for an “ideas guy,” cause I have plenty of ideas I’d rather be working on.

$200 USD for 30 hours of work is $6.66 an hour. 40 hours is $5.00 an hour. That is less than the current federal minimum wage in the US which is $7.25 an hour. A game programmer can make $200 a day for their work and that's at the low-end.

A lot of people here on Newgrounds work together on projects. I'm not saying you can't be an ideas man and have people work with you to bring it to fruition. You better have some form of pay or cut of a project's profits. If you just want games to be made by programmers for you here on Newgrounds with nothing to show for it for them. That's not gonna work.

Heyo, more great thought provoking replies, hell yes. So, for starters, definitely wanna figure out a solution with NG in mind. It's a hard line to walk, as the heart of this site is in true collaboration, which usually happens with no money involved. That's the tough part about this all; not only agreeing on a payment plan that is fair, but also matching programmers to projects they are genuinely interested in.

As for the initial amount of 200$, I agree that it's a bit low, started with that amount because of other commission costs, like modelers, texture peeps and animators. That being said, a better budget could be made that'd allow for more of a percentage to programmers. Kinda reminds me of heists in gta lol. Anyways, definitely wanna get all commissions to equal AT LEAST minimum wage, so that is a priority as well.

Another goal of mine is to look into legal protections for anyone doing the work, as that's only fair. A payout system after a certain amount of time sounds good on a surface level, but I'll have to look into it more.

All in all, my goal with this thread is to make a rough blueprint that other aspiring game makers can follow, whether they be artists, programmers, sound / music focused, etc. I want the total quarterly costs of everything (with a LOT of elbow grease to save costs) around 2000 usd, at least for starters. Obviously, 8 thousand usd is overkill for a privately funded project, but it's more about creating a team, something that will outlast a single game.

Alright, that's all I got for now. There's a ton of details missing from the overall picture, but things are being kept fluid rn on purpose, not trying to paint things into a corner.

Do people make money off the works they put on NG, like in general? I know some people have made it big, but for most of us, it's just a passion thing, right? And maybe artists or programmers like me could put it on our resumes.

With my very limited understanding, it seems like most creators do patreon or commissions, not sure if there's any ad payouts or things of the like. Prize money for events is the only thing that comes to mind right away.

What would be a fair price be for someone to make a custom player controller for use in my project? Like say, something momentum-based, adjacent to classic Sonic?

And as a bonus, how much on top of that to make and publish a tutorial detailing how it was done for newcomers, who might want to make a similar game, to use as a resource?

A fair number of games here have links to Steam pages. IDK what percentage of them actually make it big, or make anything at all. But some folks are trying. They seem to be in the minority though, and I'm personally just a hobbyist.

Depends on how complex you want to make it, but adding momentum to a character is easy enough to just post a question about. Make a variable of velocity and have the player's input increment or decrement the velocity each frame (have velocity.x += input.x * delta instead of velocity.x = input.x), along with code to not let the velocity exceed some maximum velocity (if velocity.x > velocity_x_max: velocity.x = velocity_x_max). If you want to add dampening so the player gradually slows without input then have a variable like dampening = 0.4 or so and add a line of velocity.x *= dampening ^ delta.

Writing tutorials is more work than writing code, I did it for a gamejam game I made to teach beginners Godot 3, but for something small like just a player controller IDK if it would really need a tutorial. The other thing about writing tutorials is that a lot of people are amateurs and hobbyists who might not feel like they write pristine enough code to serve as a model for others to emulate.

The biggest issue with commission based programming is that the time needed to complete the task increases as the complexity of the project increases. More systems means more dependencies. Even in engines like Godot that try to guide you into making objects that can run on their own, you will eventually have to piece those things together in complex ways when you code the game loops. And that's not even considering having a different programmer picking up where another left off as even the person who wrote it will have forgotten how it works within a few months.

As another pointed out already, the time it takes to make things work is incredible. What seems simple from a human perspective might have a large amount of logic involved. For example, a Match 3 type of game seems so simple from the human point of view. Try coding that without a framework and you'll quickly find that there's way more involved than expected. In my opinion, this is the most difficult idea to convey to someone who has no experience programming. It is simply way more time consuming than you expect.

I don't think there would be a way to systematically align the needs of both parties with a pay rate that low. You would have to provide another incentive to the programmer, who is likely to spend more time completing the task than they charged. That extra incentive would be completely different for each individual.

*8,000 usd per year

Yo yo yo, so, very glad thread is getting some replies. Gonna look at this problem with a way wider lens, commission isn't the right word to describe this system. An ideal solution would apply to both things like game jams and longer form projects, with pay scaling based on the commitment ofc. Biggest takeaway so far is to spend some cash learning to code lmfao, at least so I can grasp the perspective.

Anyways, I got a lot to rework in this blueprint, this idea, this fuckin' spaghetti plan lol. Cheers.