Hello friends. Last month, I was looking for more work and finally secured some on Reddit from a guy who needed help with preproduction on his Tabletop RPG / Card Battler. After a meeting with him, he showed me what he had and it was quite impressive. He had a prototype of a card-battler using a tabletop RPG battle system, but he had little to no documentation or planning—he's been chiseling away at his game for a few months in his spare time after work. I suggested that before I dive into art, we flesh out the game design and the rest of the game up to around an 80% mark and let the last 20% be changes, additions, and that sort. As your game evolves, it'll come into it's own and you'll find things that need changed or added, this accounts for that. He agreed and I asked if I could work on all this since I did that with my game Alligori and lead the team from start to finish with our vertical slice, and I know tabletop RPGs very well. He agreed and we did the whole song and dance with paperwork, and he sent over a retainer and I began work the following Monday. Three weeks go by and we're working great together. I'm fleshing out his game, adding some meat to the backbone of his prototype with classes, abilities, etc. My goal was to write out as much as possible and then trim content to fit it into a 1-year development cycle. So I flesh a bulk of his game out, and then categorize it more into a game design document that clearly conveys concepts, ideas, and mechanics. Catching up, last week was the final week of my first month and payment was due. He just up and disappears like a fart in the wind, I have no idea if he's alive, incarcerated, on vacation, or what. He didn't remove me on Discord, so I don't entirely suspect malicious intent, but he gave no notice. That's the risk you run with working 1-on-1 with a client remotely, one day they can just up and disappear. I do have paperwork, so I may pursue legal action. If he doesn't log on by Friday, I'm going to publicly release all my documentation and the GDD I wrote on here.
Michael Grinberg
4mo
Been through this during my naive years, thankfully only missed out on a few hundred dollars but it's still wrong and since then I haven't worked for free for individuals or companies beyond consulting and advice which anyone should provide. Unfortunately as we've seen - not even contracts completely protect people but it's still important to ask for documents before doing any work.
Sterling R.
4mo
The worst I had was when someone owed me $6k, for a month of work that I also owed others than helped me at least $2k. So not only did I not get paid, I had to pay other people myself! That was such a bad, bad time. That experience is the reason why I left freelancing.
Samuel Horton
4mo
That is the worst. If he does not come through for you, please do identify him, so we have the means to avoid him!
Heidi McDonald
4mo
Yup, I had a client ghost this year, too. I wrote the overarching narrative and all the scenes for the point-and-click adventure, with a list of interactive objects in each scene. POOF, into the wind, not answering any form of contact, never paid me a dime.
Colin Searle
4mo
Unsure if you tried this, but something I like to do with prospective clients is to invoice a tiny upfront fee before any work begins (usually alongside the signing of a WFH/contract agreement). This isn't anything 'extra', its normally a small chunk of the project's flat rate, or coverage for the first few hours of work. It's a great way to filter out 'potential problems'. Think of it as a business practice, standard procedure, nothing personal. A legit client is unlikely to get squirrelly about this, which has been my experience. It's usually not necessary with larger firms or established companies (who may say no to this anyway), but its a fair practice with smaller/newer companies or individual-level clients with no track record.
Gloria Rodriguez
4mo
In my experience, just because someone didn't block you on Discord (or any other service for that matter), doesn't mean they didn't have any malicious intent. While I do think we need to give people the benefit of the doubt, and a chance to come forward as you are doing. It needs to be taken into account that many of the people who come off as very nice, charismatic, friendly, etc, aren't necessarily how they actually present themselves. Many I have met who acted that way did in fact have malicious intent and acted as such because they know people are more likely to trust a friendly person as opposed to someone who isn't nearly as friendly. I'm sorry this happened to you and hope it gets resolved.
Justin Randall
4mo
Good will and big hearts with promises must go both directions. Asking for escrow or work bonded with sureties is not evil. Trade must be to mutual benefit. Even "sweat equity" work is fine if it is high risk with zero up-front capital but a truly equitable payoff when it is proven and profitable. This is a conversation that happens too frequently with artists and should be a pillar of principle for mentors preparing new generations of professionals. Good pay and benefits are a pimple on the rear-end of a spreadsheet for large firms. It is starve or feast for the one person with only an idea in their back pocket. This is no defense of 1-on-1 rip-offs. It means setting expectations are even more important, much like paying ante to the pot in a friendly game of poker between friends. It keeps it civil. There is no game to play if only one person can ever win.
Michael Greenhut
4mo
That sucks. It’s an unfortunate risk when you work for anyone who isn’t part of a big official corporate machine (I even know a small time company owner who once owed an employee almost $50k and I suspect he never paid it back, though I can’t officially prove that last part), but that doesn’t make it right. There’s got to be a better way to bring these people to justice.
Yea, I was contacted by a company some years back, when i was looking for work. They wanted me to come in for a full day's work, promised they'd pay my hourly rate...to make a short story shorter, I worked 8.5 hours on their project and was never contacted again. Never paid, never even told, "hey thanks but we're moving on." Some people just want work for free.
Director @ Halo Studios | Digital Engineering, Operations
4moWhile it may not be helpful after the fact, platforms like upwork.com can offer a safety net for freelancers, as funds are placed into escrow before the project begins. Although Upwork takes a percentage of the payment, the security of guaranteed payment, even at a slightly reduced amount, can be preferable to the risk of not getting paid at all.