Is working for free ever a good idea?

10 000 year old question all (game) developers ask themselves. “Should I make Roguelike or MMO?” Oh wait, neah. It’s the second one.

“Is it ever worth it working for free?”

Before I attempt to answer, let’s try to actually understand where does this question come from.
Sadly enough, it’s very common in game industry for people to take advantage of passionate developers. It’s probably true for all industries where people really love their work. It’s very easy to take advantage of someone who really wants to work on a cool project. Just give him a cool project, minimum wage, no time off and he will even thank you for the opportunity.

Probably no need for clarification, but that is really scummy and unfair behavior. Nevertheless, it’s very easy to get away with in gamedev industry.

As you can imagine, that makes people quite sceptical about doing any work for free or low compensation. Everyone is very afraid of being taken advantage of.

Very reasonable, but sometimes not the best course of action. I would like to rephrase this to:

“What do I want to work for?”

This is something I follow in my life. Whenever there is an offer or opportunity to work on something, it’s good to take a break and think about what do I get from it.

Generally there are three things I can get from putting my time into something:

1. Get paid directly
2. Get potentially paid a lot more later
3. Learn something

First one is the most common, I get hired to do some work. Usually job or a contract work.

Second one still pretty common, it can be equity in a startup, revenue share of the project or something that will make it possible to get paid a lot more in the future. (Project I can reference in my portfolio or getting in contact with people who are likely to do projects with me in the future.)

Third one I think is the most often missed. Learning is very important and it compounds very, very well.

If we look at some specific example: Joining revenue-share game and working for free sounds horrible if you consider time you invest and how much money you get from it.
Even if the game ends up successful, you are not likely to make more money from game sales than you would have if they paid you for whole development.

BUT

If we consider the project from our third point -> How much you learn, possibility of portfolio piece and connection you make… all of the sudden it’s turning into quite a good looking opportunity.

I am not saying I think jumping to work for free is always a good idea. But I think it’s worth considering other aspects than just direct monetary compensation when considering how you spend your time.

PS: If you are just starting out with game development, I wrote few articles just for you: