On Jul 15, 2006, at 12:44 PM, Andre Garzia wrote:
Rick,
it is not about flames, many times here, I was replying to some one
pointing them on some very different direction than the one their
we're going and yet, we can always be nice. Be honest is one thing,
but you can always write your email in a more polite way. You don't
call other peoples projects and ideas joke on public lists just
because you fell that they are a joke. Or if you want to call it
that way, you send it as a private email.
Andre,
I was not referring to you or your comments personally at all.
Sometimes being nice and politically correct all the time fails to
make the point.
What caught my attention was that someone was asking for the Moon and
the Stars,
and offering to pay very little in return for those qualifications.
I said nothing about their idea, or project being a joke. I was
discussing their
extraordinarily high expectations of the quality of candidate they
were looking to get
for the little money they were willing to pay.
It is also a bit of a long shot to ask for all of those
qualifications, lack of pay, and
also to have an interest in Hindu ideology. An extremely tall order
for most people.
I didn't send it as a private email because there are a few on this
list who could use
a reminder about how much one should expect in the way of
qualifications when
paying for programming services. You could have responded to me
privately as well.
I know you have my email address. Any future responses you can
please direct to me
offline.
I am working for the Kauai Hindu Monastery, I am sure many on this
list would not have accepted the same contract I did accept but I
am having the best moment of my life working with them. Its a very
inspiring thing to see your work actually helping people out there,
not only making money but actually making people live better. I am
not saying that you were wrong but that there are multiple ways of
looking into something, no one holds all the truth in their hands.
It's nice of you to donate your work to a cause you believe in, if
you like working for little or no pay that is your business.
However, if you are charging below market rates, remember that you
are potentially dragging down the rest of us
who still need to eat and keep a roof over our heads. Places like
Froogle, eBay, and eLance are actually dragging down
profit margins worldwide. As a friend of mine put it, "eBay is a
place where buyers are looking for stupid sellers, and sellers
are looking for stupid buyers". The whole world economy is based on
ignorance of prices and the true value of products or services.
Now that everyone in the world can go to Froogle to find the best
price for any item, it drags everyone else trying to sell that
same item down to that lowest price, the result is that profit
margins are disappearing. When profit margins get too low it
for a product it is no longer worth making or selling that product.
Here is another example, there is a friend of mine who already has a
full-time job working for a company. Since he is doing this
his other business on the side, he wants to help people out from the
good of his heart and charges only 1/5th the market price
per hour for the same job. He isn't concerned at all for himself
because he has his other job keeping him afloat, but he is
damaging all the similar businesses in this area. His unfair
competition is putting them out of business! He isn't considering
the damage he is doing to his own local economy by charging prices
way below market value. (But I digress.)
I never claimed to hold all the truth in my hands. Of course you
don't qualify for that either, so that statement is a wash.
I am sure you're talking honest and that many will think just like
you and that is not wrong but someone on this list might want to
enter such project not all for the money but for something else too
and then a very nice game might emerge, I'd give all my help to see
such project fruit.
Like I said, if you want to just give your talent away for free that
is your business. I actually have several very heavy projects of
great value that could use your free time and efforts which would
make you feel just fantastic because you'd be helping out the
world!
I've seen more than one small-no-budget-for-you project rise and
get the big bucks, this happened because the people who worked on
it were passionate about it and then reward came. Remember it's a
game about Hindu concepts, Hinduism has a very huge following and
it also may appeals to other crowds such as new age people or if
the game is fun enough, to gamers in general. Knowing the works of
the monks in Kauai, their magazines and books and how far they can
reach, knowing that computers and games are very popular in asia
and in america (where you have many many Hindus), I am sure such
project could soar.
I've seen a lot of shareware and small no budget projects go
completely to waste, and never earn any money to speak of. The big
bucks ones
are usually the rare exceptions. I was not referring to the subject
matter of their game at all in my comments, just candidate
expectations and pay.
Perhaps I've just seen too many examples of programmers who took a
lot of abuse from managers that they never should have in the past
and that
has colored my view of the programming world. I've met more people
in my line of work who think that programmers should just give them
hours and hours of blood, sweat, and tears without ever compensating
them properly. There are also a lot of managers that have never
programmed one line of code, but yet believe that code should just
magically appear in front of them after 2 minutes of programming time
has elapsed. They suffer from the "Is it done yet?" syndrome. I've
met others who think that because you work with computers, it means
that you must therefore know everything there is to know about all
computers, and all software programs that exist in the entire world.
I really believe in the hard work that programmers do with Revolution
and other computer languages. I also believe strongly that they
should be
adequately compensated for their efforts with at least fair market
value pay for their respective areas of the world. Programming
authors who have written
20 games know all about Versiontracker, Tucows, and other
distribution points for their software. They are probably so
successful at that level
that it would be highly unlikely for them to want to work on a game
which promises little pay for their efforts.
Oh, and just to state some of my other beliefs a little more clearly,
Music is not free just because one can download it and duplicate it.
Likewise software is not free just because one can download it and
duplicate it. These things are only free if the author or creator
of the work states specifically that the work is free. Otherwise,
you must pay for these creations.
Don't mistake them for amateurs, they were coding and doing
computer projects and dtp since a very long time. They may be naive
about game markets, but if they trully want to make this game, I am
sure it will reach far.
I was trying to get them to pull back on their extra high
expectations. Anyone who has 20 games out on the market with all of
the rest of the
qualifications listed will not work for them for peanuts. I was not
trying to discourage them on their project.
PS: ... the side effect of working with Monks who are also a
publishing house is that you learn much, not only talking to them
but reading them, nothing beats walking besides Sivakatirswami
listening him explaining what is karma!
Cheers
Andre
Please contact me off list for any further comments.
Thanks,
Rick
On Jul 14, 2006, at 7:47 PM, Rick Harrison wrote:
Sorry, I couldn't sound nicer about this. I'm sure I'll get
flamed for just trying to be honest.
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