Working in the creative industries: is freelancing the road to success?

Introduction

In many Creative industries, not everyone working on a project is a regular employee of the company. Many people from other companies assist on projects along with people who don't belong to any company and work for hire. These people who work for hire on projects are what is known as freelance workers or freelancers. A freelancer is someone who the company hires for a set project or projects but are not full-time employees. Once their work has finished, they leave the company to go on to another company to work on another set amount of work. Freelancers tend to be able to control when and where they work since unlike regular employees, they choose the projects they work on. Freelancing is popular within the gaming industry as there tends to be more people looking for jobs than the actual amount of jobs available at one time.

Requirements

Freelancers are needed to have certain key skills to do well within the gaming industry. One of the biggest things they must be able to do well is maintaining a high quality of work while working quickly. Without being able to deliver a high quality of work, companies are less likely to re-hire the freelancer since they cannot trust that the work completed will be good. Freelancers must be able to ensure that they keep their work high quality and not degrade their work by not sticking to their brief enough or by taking on far too much work for them. A good freelancer who can do high-quality work at a fast speed will be more likely to be approached again by the company and for a higher pay as well.

Freelancers must also be good at working to their brief which is what gives the freelancer the instructions they must complete in order to be paid for their work. Without following their brief, the work they are doing may be entirely unusable and lead to delays with the project. Failure to keep to the brief could lead to a company refusing pay or taking legal action against the freelancer. This is easy to avoid, if any confusion with the brief occurs, the freelancer should clarify the brief with the client and make sure they understand the work they have been tasked with.

Some of the smaller skills that a freelancer will need would be the ability to keep the client informed about the progress on the project. Without keeping the clients updated, any developments would be unknown to them and they may grow worried about the state that the project is in. I can vouch for this skill especially since I commission art from freelance artists for decoration. The best and most reliable artists I've worked with, keep me well informed about how far along the piece is. If I haven't heard anything regarding the commission within the time frame they give, I'm not usually going to re-hire that artist. Freelancers need to update clients even when they are unable to work to let that client know otherwise they run the risk of the clients thinking that their work is being ignored.

Positives and Negatives

So we know which skills are required for a freelancer to work but what exactly are the positives and negatives to this type of workstyle. I feel that in order for freelancing to be called the most best road to success, the positives should outweigh the negatives.

As for the positives, there is actually quite a few notable ones. For example, freelancers are in charge of their own work. As long as they keep to their briefs, any decisions they make are entirely their own and they can work on whichever sections they choose rather than specifically what a boss would tell them to. Another big plus of being a freelancer is since they are for hire rather than employees of the company, they tend to be paid more than the regular employees. This is because they do not have the same level of job security of the regular employees and they leave the company once their project they were hired for is complete. Freelancers also have the major positive of being able to choose the projects they work on and who they work for. Freelancers are able to choose against working on a project they feel they aren't fit for or for a company who they may not agree with the actions or rules of. The final major positive for freelance work is that you end up working on a variety of projects and will end up developing a lot of skills a regular employee just wouldn't have. Experience in different situations and environments will allow for a freelancer to work well in a place a regular employee just won't.

The positives all sound pretty nice and interesting, who wouldn't want to earn more money or develop different skills. However, the positives are not everything about freelance work, it has just as many major negatives as well. An example of this is the lack of job security. Whilst it does lead to a higher pay and different experiences at other companies, it's major downside is that freelancers have to be constantly looking for new work after or even at the end of a project. Without any other jobs, a freelancer is out of luck for getting paid. Heck, without actual job security, freelancers are not even entitled to paid holidays. For freelancers, there is very little downtime where they can afford to not be working. The other big negative for freelancers is that they are solely responsible for making sure they have the things to complete their work. Any problems with their work equipment, the paperwork or any complaints, is dealt with entirely by the freelancer. From my research, it appears to be a heavy burden on freelancers. The game industry is known to be a stressful environment and taking on all this extra responsibility cannot be easy for the mental health of freelancers.

Alternatives

So we've heard a bunch about freelancers and how freelance work has its ups and downs, what are the alternatives to it. Well within the gaming industry, you don't have much. Without being a freelancer, you pretty much only work for a company. Working for a company is different from company to company depending on their size, workload and just their overall rules. The main two-types would be triple-A developers and independent developers.

Triple-A developers are very different to small, indie developers. Job security within a triple-A developer is usually not an issue. However, your choices on what you want to do are usually limited. Since its a regular job, you tend to be assigned work to do and to keep it to the vision for the game. Triple-A developers also tend not to vary on the types of games they develop, employees may find it very limiting to be working on the same types of games throughout their employment. The biggest issue an employee may find at a triple-A developer is crunch, the act of long hours spent working on a game close to completion usually outside of work hours. Constant overworking can take its toll on anyone but it's a major issue for employees of triple-A developers where the higher-ups want to get a project done in time for a specific date. Due to this, Triple-A developers tend not to have the best employee retention. The toll this type of job can take on people tends to make them not want to stay at a company as shown on anonymous company review sites such as Glassdoor.

As an example, Insomniac Games' Glassdoor shows many reviews where people state long hours as a con - https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews/Insomniac-Games-Reviews-E269543.htm

This is also a great video with sections showing how a game can be troubled by crunch and the effects it has on developers -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i55EWQWKQuo

Poor working conditions at triple-A developers is just one of the reasons that independent development studios or indie developers have become much more widespread recently. Indie developers have much smaller teams working on their projects than triple-A developers do but usually with much better conditions. Indie devs are usually small in scale so people pitch in where they can, this leads to a diverse amount of work for an employee where they can develop skills they wouldn't at a triple-A developer. Indie developers usually are much better with giving their employees time off for mental health and do their best to avoid the crunch that the bigger developers rely on. The major downside to an indie developer is that job security is a big issue. As a small company, indie developers rely on their games doing well to stay afloat. Without successful projects, indie developers do not have the funds to continue unlike triple-A developers.

Conclusion

All in all, I do suppose I have to actually answer the question on if I feel that freelancing is the road to success within the gaming industry. I do think that this is very dependent on what you consider success. From a purely monetary look on success, I do believe that it is the best. Freelancers can choose their own rates, if they are successful. If they network and get hired enough to grow their skills, then they for certain can earn more than those employed at a company. However, if you choose to measure success from a view of being satisfied with where you are and how you work, I don't really believe freelancing to be the most successful way to work in the gaming industry. I feel that though freelancing, your success is entirely dependant on luck. You need to be lucky to maintain constant work as a freelancer and in the end, I feel that it's not true success if by the end you have money but no happiness since you've worked yourself into the ground. In my own beliefs, I feel the true route to success in the gaming industry is by joining an indie developer. Although it may be reliant on the success of your games, the ability to not force yourself to crunch and work quickly will lead to a better mind space for yourself. Indie developers are always the best for keeping their employees happy with their work, to me, that is true success within the gaming industry.