A question you can't answer: how to determine credits

[togFox]

In my mind, every LOVE project that is reasonably mature has three components:

a) creative designing and software coding/engineering (usually same person)
b) audio (music and effects)
b) visuals (graphics and images inc animations)

Hypothetical, if you were had to put a percentage of work effort for those three things (for credit reasons) how do you think that generally plays out? For example:

40% of work effort is coding, 30% goes into graphics, 20% goes into audio (40/30/20)

There is no right answer here and every projects is different. Just keen to here perspectives around where ppl think most of the work lies - and we're clearly not talking AAA studios.

[MikeHart]

Correct, there is no right answer. And with 40% coding... how do you messure that?
From my experience from past projects I have worked on as a software engineer and artist...
If you work as a team for the whole period of time to create a game, everyone gets the same share. That is fair and noone can complain.
If not, as an artist I would not touch a pay by share project. It is never fair. Time spend, amount of assets, quality of the output, all this would have to be taken into account.

[dusoft]

I would say, the time spent on coding depends on if you are using a previously created engine (or a loosely bundled bunch of libs) or straight up from scratch. I would say the coding is definitely more time intensive than 40%. But also I am not so good with graphics, so I tend to go with simpler production.

Also: credits are decided either by copyrights (or CC licenses) and use of libraries and sounds/music/graphics of others.

[togFox]

I guess for me, thinking about that a bit more, as a one-man-band, I do all the coding, the graphics and the audio.

Audio is usually royalty free (with credits) from ppl like our own Eric Matyas.
I can't do graphics so that is royalty free d/l's or AI generated.
The coding is me of course.

I found the workload split to be about 40/40/20 - the easiest being the sound effects and music. If I were to pay myself, I'd pay myself in that ratio. 8-)

[zorg]

If you're doing all the work, you don't need to do any math, 100% of it is to your credit. "Programming / Writing / Audio / Graphics by <you>"

If not, then if you're using royalty free stuff, just give credits, as in, mention them.
If you also have team members or contracted people, list them too; as for payment, you should already have that figured out beforehand anyway.

[togFox]

How would you figure out payment before hand given everything is so subjective?

What would signal a "probably fair" arrangement?

[knorke]

If both parties are happy with an agreement then it is "probably fair."
For example if a random online musician is offering his soundtrack for $20 per track and you are willing to pay that price then it is fair.
Why should it matter to the musician how much time you spent coding? He wants to be paid for his time.

It could still be unfair if one party is not transparent with all details, for example the number of expected downloads/sales.

[zorg]

As knorke also said, by probably fair, i meant that all relevant parties agreed. That's all.

Of course, there can be lots of minutiae that can come up in the future regarding people becoming disgruntled that instead of just a flat fee for x things you agreed upon, your game becomes a big deal and they're mad at themselves for not negotiating a percentage of sales/profit instead (or both ways, depending whether that's acceptable for you as well)... which is sore loser behaviour to be honest.

However, all of that by contractual agreement should have been done before the point of release of the inital release version, hopefully mitigating such headaches.

Besides, as an example, Terraria's team does hire their "musician of choice" to create more tracks sporadically, making the game even more amazing... that does depend on how well the game does, of course. Even then, payment is agreed upon, even if terms change and all parties agree to the new terms; if not, time to find another person for the role you want to fill.

Another thing i missed from my previous post regarding non-monetary credits; you probably also see games mentioning libraries that it used like the game engine or middleware like WWise and stuff. Credits rolls are not hard to implement and fill with stuff. The more the better chance you don't miss out one you actually legally need to give mention to.

[TonyTheTGR]

100%/100%/100%

A big part of why this question is hard to quantify is because each game is affected by these elements very differently. A turn-based RPG is less dependent on a spacial representation of hit detection compared with say, a jump-n-shoot or fighting game. Music and sound design is a bit more relevant in a rhythm/music-sim game and has a greater direct impact on gameplay than it would either of those others - although a banger soundtrack and compelling art style will be just as intrinsic to attracting and retaining a player's value/attention as the function of the game itself - which the latter two hardly accomplish if the game barely holds itself together (RIP years 1-4 of PS4).

If I had to give tilt to one direction over the other two, I would *slightly* favor music/sound design, which people can always consume/play independently of the other two layers, but even a banger game soundtrack without a game to fit it also feels like like a cup half-full of possibility space. I can also enjoy the soundtrack to a game I hate playing... and while I can play a game I don't enjoy the sound design to, it's still less overall compelling. But maybe that's just my subjective consumption habits talking and not universal.

Thank God we don't judge them on flavor, too.