Alright, well my last team tore itself to shreds because none of the people involved had any respect for eachother's jobs. In particular, the concept artists thought the programmers were mindless code-monkeys with no talent that could be replaced in a heartbeat, the programmers thought the concept artists were idiotic layabouts with a job involving no actual work that were of no value to the project, and both of them thought the same of the designers (myself and Jeremy) that they thought of eachother. I couldn't keep them together, and they hated me for even TRYING to reconcile their differences. This is the third time this EXACT thing has happened. FUCK. ME.

WHY is it so hard to form a team without them fighting over petty garbage? HOW can I keep them working together when they don't have ANY respect for anybody's role but their own? I can't keep them from interacting at all, no matter how much I wish I could since the moment they start talking all they do is fight, because they need to interact to do their bloody JOBS. How does anybody deal with this? What the FUCK am I missing? I am seriously at a loss, and I can't keep a team together long enough to accomplish anything until I have this figured out.

my last team tore itself to shreds because none of the people involved had any respect for eachother's jobs. In particular, the concept artists thought the programmers were mindless code-monkeys with no talent that could be replaced in a heartbeat, the programmers thought the concept artists were idiotic layabouts with a job involving no actual work that were of no value to the project, and both of them thought the same of the designers (myself and Jeremy) that they thought of eachother. I couldn't keep them together, and they hated me for even TRYING to reconcile their differences. This is the third time this EXACT thing has happened. FUCK. ME.

WHY is it so hard to form a team without them fighting over petty garbage? HOW can I keep them working together when they don't have ANY respect for anybody's role but their own? I can't keep them from interacting at all, no matter how much I wish I could since the moment they start talking all they do is fight, because they need to interact to do their bloody JOBS. How does anybody deal with this? What the FUCK am I missing? I am seriously at a loss, and I can't keep a team together long enough to accomplish anything until I have this figured out.

Justin, it sounds like your team needs a producer, and GOOD concept artists, and GOOD programmers.
Your concept artists need to turn out art that commands the respect of anyone who sees the concept art.
Your programmers need to create code that makes the game function well - then other members of the team won't disrespect your programmers.
Your producer needs to pick that kind of people, and to speak positively of everyone on the project, and everyone on the project needs to be deserving of that kind of respect.
An artist who speaks ill of the programmers needs to be warned, the warning needs to be written, and after 2 or 3 warnings, fired.
Same for a programmer who disses the artists, assuming the artists are not idiotic layabouts.

BTW, are you just forming teams from unpaid volunteers? And you're the designer, the game is your idea, so you're the team leader, and you don't have professional project management experience? That sounds like a recipe to cause just what you're describing. If your teams are unpaid, do you have a clue what motivates them? Maybe you should get some clues.

So... It's my fault then, for being socially inept? Well, I can't say I disagree with you. I'm going to take some time to think about the suggestions given and keep them in mind next time around.

They're semi-unpaid. They're working for a share, which will be nothing if a game isn't made, plus $1000 each guaranteed pay upon completion. But no, they're not getting paid until the game is up on Steam. Of course, they won't let me use their resources now that they've left, not even concept art, so I have to completely restart. And I just figured the pay checks and shares were sufficient motivation, myself. Maybe that's a problem, I don't know.

1. So... It's my fault then, for being socially inept?
2. They're semi-unpaid. They're working for a share, which will be nothing if a game isn't made, plus $1000 each guaranteed pay upon completion. But no, they're not getting paid until the game is up on Steam.
3. I just figured the pay checks and shares were sufficient motivation, myself. Maybe that's a problem, I don't know.

1. So... you're saying my guess is correct. Your project does not have a producer. Only a designer who is trying to get people to make his game for him.
2. So... you're saying my guess is correct. They're unpaid.
3. Your promises of future payment are hollow, empty promises. No pay easily leads to a lack of professionalism. It's possible to have a successful project with unpaid amateurs, but extremely difficult, and low probability. As I said before, you need to understand what motivates your people, and you need to encourage a positive atmosphere. If you're going to be the producer, you need to be a good producer, not just an idea guy.

With no sight of income you will have to show exceptional leadership and spokesman-ship in order to keep the team together.

You will be the problem solver, the middle man, the glue and you also have the job of telling the team who important they all are and why the whole Clock will break if one person(wheel) breaks off or stop.

Look up social engineering and management on the net.

Also you need to read about Mintzberg's roles in companies:

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/management-roles.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Mintzberg

Also google mintzberg model and look at the picture.

A leader needs to make people in the organization get over their controversies. If a conflict among group members become too big then you might wanna split them up in lesser groups and act as the middle communication link. Some skilled people simply just do not get along. In order to save a project from the sure death you might wanna choose such a solution.

In other situations taking the whole group out to drink and shake them together in the same bag so to say and hold a speech about how strong the team is when working together toward the same goal(making the game) might be a good start on a beautiful teamwork.

In some very rare cases where a person is completely out of reach when common sense is applied one will have to get rid of a person.

• No art no game. No tool(game engine etc.)
• no events, no story or script no sense of entertainment(sometimes).
• No game player programmer no sense of advancement.

It is your job to fully communicate those fact out to the group. You as the organizer hold the future of the whole project in your hand. You have to say the right things to make people feel the right way and respect each other. That becomes even more important when a conflict pops up. Make the team into a part of their identity and make them feel like a part of the project.

If you cannot do this then you will see other in the group step up to do this(natural leaders) or the whole group project fall apart.

You Need To Learn Management.

You often get what you pay for. These people aren't acting professionally because they aren't professionals.

Are you all working locally or is your team distributed? Knowing each other face to face often helps. I'm sure you've seen how strangers behave on the internet.

With no sight of income you will have to show exceptional leadership and spokesman-ship in order to keep the team together.

You will be the problem solver, the middle man, the glue and you also have the job of telling the team who important they all are and why the whole Clock will break if one person(wheel) breaks off or stop.

You Need To Learn Management.

And yet again, we get right into my social ineptitude. I get the feeling that adding a friend to the team who is generally more socially capable than me or Jeremy in order to act as a manager would be a good idea. Here's hoping he's willing to join up.

You often get what you pay for. These people aren't acting professionally because they aren't professionals.

Are you all working locally or is your team distributed? Knowing each other face to face often helps. I'm sure you've seen how strangers behave on the internet.

The first two times they were over the internet almost entirely. This time we had a solid split. Myself, Jeremy and the two concept artists are all local, the two programmers, texture artist, 3d modeller and texture artist/modeller were from the internet. I don't remember many conflicts with the texture artist, 3d modeller or the gal who did both, but the programmers were total assholes to everyone else and the concept artists weren't much better than they were.

And yet again, we get right into my social ineptitude

There is a big difference between being socially inept, which implies that you do extremely poorly at social interactions, being about average at socialising, and being the kind of brilliant social leader / motivator who can easily build and the kind of team you're describing.

I cannot say where you are on that spectrum, but I don't think it is fair to say that the other responders are putting you at the lower end.

Maybe the staff's perceptions of each other are all correct, and the problem is that they lack the capacity for self-reflection required to temper their own ego and the tact to politely test other's.
i.e. They're young :P

I was in a team like this. My advice would be:
give the programmers the freedom to design, as they're the ones implementing, so they're the ones who can most easily riff on design choices. Same with concept artists an visual design, and with 3D artists and props/items. Let the design be flexible enough to accommodate everyone - the game will likely be better for it, and the team will be more engaged.

Have everyone release their work into the project accompanied by a standard text file saying they grant the project unlimited license to use the work (removing the capacity for manipulative copyright shenanigans) - or better, use the MIT/BSD/WTFPL instead of your own custom made text file. Don't accept any Zips/etc where the text file is missing.

Stop offering payment if you don't have the cash up-front. Unless you've already formed a real company and have had your lawyer draft up a shareholder constitution, a schedule for issuing shares, and contributor agreements, then a promised profit-sharing scheme is NOT going to happen. If you are lucky enough to finish the game, you're going to have to do all of the above at release time, plus setting up bank accounts,shitting your pants over IRS forms, etc... And it's extremely likely that you will all get legally fucked over in the process.
It also makes anyone with any experience instantly see your project as a scam, dooming ou to inexperienced contributors.
It's much healthier to admit that this is a fan/hobby/portfolio project only, with no money involved. If you want to show your appreciation to your team-mates, send them an unexpected gift instead. If you want to dangle a carrot, say that if the ge is popular, you will form a studio to professionally create a sequel, with money that time.

3 times in a row is a bad streak, so I understand your need to assess the situation (and that's a good thing to do).

First of all, my instinct would be to find the underlying cause. It is POSSIBLE but UNLIKELY that you just happened to hire a full crew of misfits, and even if it is the case, this could be boiled down to one underlying cause.

So let's examine the likely culprits:

1. Were the people on the team the RIGHT people?

When working for free, you generally have to select from a much smaller pool of potential individuals, and oftentimes without proper background. It's not that they don't have proper skills, but without previous experiences, it's very hard to judge of a person's worth.

Thus, you end up hiring a lot of people without much of an idea of what you're doing.

Put the wrong blend of people together, or even just one 'bad' person in the mix, and before you know it, things all go to shit...

2. Was the vision clear?

It's perfectly possible you've hired a bunch of skilled people to do the 'next RTS', but everyone had a fairly different idea of what that meant.
Since your team is working for free, they're all hoping to achieve something more from this product. For some, it's a step into a day job in the video game industry, for others, it's learning, for others yet, it's doing something amazing without external influences from a publishers, etc.

Was that clear with all team members from the get-go? Did some people join despite not being aligned with the general or specific vision of the project? (This is more based on SC than C&C for example, or here are the core values of this game, etc.)

3. Was the RIGHT person in charge? And was there really SOMEONE in charge?

Most projects benefit from having a single entity that has total and complete power over each area of development. This can be broken down per section (a lead for art, a lead for programming, a lead for management, etc.) but there needs to be someone.

Was it clear before the project started who these individuals would be, and how they would exercise their authority? How much freedom was given to other team members?

Finally, in practice, who ended up 'making the calls'. Was that as intended?

It takes development skills to contribute to a team positively, but it takes a much different skillset to LEAD them. Did anyone in your team possess this skillset and some experience?

Video game development tends to mix 2 major things: creativity & problem solving (pragmatism).

Creativity can come in the form of art, and design (mostly), while problem solving comes under Management, Programming and QA most of the time (depending on the project that can often vary, and most designers, especially level designers, tend to fit both sides of that coin).

This is a constant clash between several groups of individuals that happen to be at different points along these two scales.

As a general rule of thumb, unless you happen to come across a (much desired!) technical-oriented and organized artist (possibly with freelance experience which hints at a good ability to self-organize), you're generally dealing with 'chaotic beasts' that can really contribute to your project creatively, but need to be handled very differently from say, your programmers. Likewise, Programmers will generally tend to be more pragmatic (unless you come across a pearl of a gameplay programmer!).

Depending on your personal background, you will interface better with one group, and much less so with the other. As a result, you will tend to understand the concerns of one group, while the other's will elude you. Despite fully trusting your team, it will be easier to act on things you understand than things you don't.

Now, imagine that everyone on your team has this issue.

If the situation is left unchanged, 'clans' will form, and they'll blame each other for everything that is wrong instead of trying to fix the problems. This is bad. Very very bad.

What it needs is management, that is, someone that will take point, 'translate' the information for one group to the other to help bridge out communications, and take the blame for everything (and I mean, EVERYTHING). You don't want them to live with the feeling they're surrounded by slacker-no-good-doer-enemies. By giving them a leader, you're telling them:

If there's an enemy, then there's only one: me, but fear not, I'm on your side, and I'll bleed to help you achieve what you're trying to do.

It is much harder for a team to hate one another when you point the cause of everything bad on yourself, and remind them of what successes they're having as a group.

A bit more on being the 'bad' part of the team: I realize there are two different approaches to this. Some prefer to say we fail as a team, or we win as a team, and I tend to practice that a lot, but from my indie experience, I've had more success being the 'weakest link' as it provides unpaid teammates with a tangible reason for all of their 'why's and, imo, it works better with people with less industry experience & maturity.

In both cases, the most important part is to remember that you need to be there every step of the way, and help wherever you can (whether you've done 'this' before or not, whether you care or not, whether it feels important or not). Sometimes, it is true that the best thing the leader CAN do is bring donuts: these are the good days, when your team knows what it's doing!