WARNING to players, teams and designers - Page 2

On June 04 2012 11:36 Sprungjeezy wrote:
I'm kind of surprised at how upset you are. It was pretty clear to me almost immediately that this guy was flakey and you yourself are clearly inexperienced about taking money for this type of work (not necessarily inexperienced in the work itself, just merely the financial aspect). As someone said, giving an estimate at the beginning/possibly requiring payment first (although if you want to get payment first, I recommend getting a portfolio/website together if you don't have one already as this makes it more clear that you are not a kid who just torrented PS and looking to sell cheaply made overlays) and generally making it clear the money is not too negotiable. The more clear it is that you full intend on collecting money, the easier it will be to weed out flakey individuals.

I really don't think this guy was trying to rip you off, I think at the beginning he was definitely interested, but over time he thought about it more and wasn't sure if he needed/wanted it in the end.

But yea, main thing I'd suggest is get used to this unless you build a website/portfolio so you will appear more professional/serious than a passing interest in GFX. Also I recommend a set price for different things whether it's a set of overlays for ingame/out of game or a website template or whatever you intend to sell. Generally after you make a few they're pretty easy to make and won't take long.




edit: too bad mannered for me to post I suppose.

On June 04 2012 13:01 PiGStarcraft wrote:
I coach sc2 and used to do it fulltime so have some experience with people like this! (I used to get 35+ hours a week of paid sc2 coaching.)

I also started out green and charging next to nothing and so occasionally had to put up with some people like this but luckily mostly ballers want coaching so it wasn't something TOO Regular. Basiucally you learn to do exactly what Mr. Black posted above and be completely upfront with money estimates, plan of what you will deliver roughly etc. and even if you end up spending more time you give the original quoted amount and get better at quoting for future.

As you progress with these clearly laid-out foundations you come to easily recognise the dodgy people just by the manner they communicate. As soon as someone tries to negotiate I am completely firm with them that they can only get the set deals I offer and anything else is a no-go. That I give a damn good service for low cost and if they try to undermine me as "just someone that does X" I end the communication because they are clearly trying to manipulate me.

Anyone that breaks contact I will send them an email reminder (Everything should be done through email not skype, msn or facebook.) once or twice if I'm desperate for work but otherwise not think about it and assume the deal is done. Essentially if they aren't replying or contacting you they've left your shop and the opportunity is gone. If you go chasing after them they might abuse the power they realise they have.

Be strong knowing you offer a commited service and are attentative to the clients needs all for a fraction of the usual price and as such if someone disrespects you, or treats you with a lack of respect you have every right to tell them to gtfo out of your store. It's an imaginary internet store but think of it that way nonetheless

Gl with your graphics business mate!

On June 04 2012 23:58 TheToast wrote:
Having done my fair share of photoshop and Cinema 4D work, I know that if you've got some talent and experience you can do a pretty great looking overlay in under a few hours. It's not like doing full screen artwork, the actual area you're covering is pretty small and I highly doubt you did any custom renders, you probably just cut out a bunch of crap from Blizz artwork and stuck it in there.

Yeah it sucks that you got stiffed half the money, but realistically I bet you still got paid a pretty fair sum for the amount of work this took. Second, it's partly your fault for not giving the guy a FULL estimate ahead of time. I'm guessing whatever you charged him was pretty astronomical for doing an overlay and he wasn't prepared to pay that much.

On June 04 2012 19:58 John Madden wrote:
I do freelance work all the time, it sucks to hear that that happened to you man.
Hopefully everyone learns something from this

On June 05 2012 02:05 LGSaxon wrote:



First of all he was quite aware to my rates prior to contacting me. Its one of the reasons he did because I was in his "price range" If you read any of my responses you can see that TL removed a big important img with all of this information. They also removed to link to my portfolio so for you to assume that I just copy pasted a bunch of images together to make this design when all you can see is almost thumbnail scaled images you see in the emails is a bit foolish of you. Other than a single clip from a cinematic everything else was custom design. The font was even custom made (granted not my best font work but it was what the client wanted). Could I have done as you said "pretty great looking overlay in under a few hours" sure. Would it look like every single overlay that's already out there...? More than likely. In fact this particular design ended up even more generic that I usually like to go because that's what the client asked for. My price was not "astronomical" for the work I put into it and for tolerating his disrespectful manner.

On June 05 2012 03:09 TheToast wrote:


Did you actually give him a real price quote or did you just send him an email that said "somewhere around X to Y dollars"? There's a big difference.

Also, can you rehost the overlay you did? Just the image without personal information. Watermark it if you need to, but I think it would help if you could actually prove that you did satisfactory work. All too often with these types of threads the 'accused party' comes back and tells their side of the story which is entirely different. Making accusations like this is pretty serious and needs backing up.

He is in my opinion the definition of a “swindler” and lacks ethical and moral fiber. He is not to be trusted in business any transactions. In my opinion his actions are equal to maphackers and stream snipers."