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Something that I've noticed here and there, but became even more apparent while working on my game, Discord, was that the harder I worked, the more work other people were willing to do. There are a few reasons for why this happens.
The first is that investing time and energy into an activity inherently makes it important to you, which leads to others feeling like their investment is worthwhile as well. Although, we are often forced to do things we do not like or want to, the more we work at them the more important they become due to the increased investment of ourselves. Friends tend to support each other. That's a basic definition of what it means to be a friend. So when my friends saw how much effort I was putting into making Discord, they gave a little bit more of themselves as well. By helping with this project that was so important to me, the importance of which they knew by virtue of how much and fervently I worked on it, they also were helping me in a tangible way that I would appreciate.
The second factor is team work. Plain and simple, people like to work on projects with each other. We are social creatures and although the size and scale of projects differs from person to person, there are few people who do not enjoy working with competent peers toward a common goal. By solving problems and sharing adversities we build stronger bonds and closer connections. I was putting in thirty plus hours of work into Discord a week and so it created a common ground on which many people could discuss and problem solve together. We commonly playtested for several hours, sitting around observing the games and discussing balance as well as game design only to follow it up by going to dinner and continuing the discussion.
The third factor is related strongly to the first. People are more likely to put in effort and work when they feel appreciated and that their work is going toward something important. I always thanked everyone for their help with my game and made sure that they understood how important it was to me that they contributed. In some ways, I made people feel like they were doing me a favor and that I was indebted, but the real intent was to make sure people knew that I appreciated every drop of effort they put into the game. I used to email Blizzard on a regular basis regarding issues with battle.net, starcraft bugs, and balance related concerns. Due to a lack of response as well as some general disagreements, I faded away from that position until I stopped emailing them all together regarding my concerns. Some of the disagreements were bound to happen as I have pretty strong opinions, but the biggest issue for me is that it felt like they didn't care that I had tried so hard to help. I felt like very few of my emails even got acknowledged and the ones that were acknowledged rarely included positive reinforcement like, "We've talked over your idea and came to x conclusion". Regardless of why I didn't hear much back, the lack of appreciation made me feel like I was wasting my time trying to help and so I eventually stopped. By appreciating your contributors you are more likely to get a bit of extra effort and help out of others.
Those are the main reasons that come to mind. One important thing to note is that a large amount of work will tend to result in work from others, but only at some fraction of the original amount. People will be more willing to pick up small bits here and there when they see how large your original investment was, but they won't take over the project and start matching that original investment of effort and time.
If you're looking for help or a team to work on a project, the first step is to take your own first steps. Show others how important the project is to you and make the first moves yourself. When others see what you've done, they'll be more likely to jump on board and maybe you can find someone as interested as you are to be a partner in the headlines rather than a footnote in the special thanks section.
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Brilliant little post! It's always good to keep in mind that if you want others to act a certain way, acting that way yourself is a good start.
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I agree.
nothing is more motivating than watching the leader work 10x harder than you expect. You'll just WANT to work as hard as you can for him/her
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To take the opposite angle, maybe people just don't like to do work for people who are lazy / don't seem like they're going to get things done any time soon / will take most of the credit for your work.
I dislike the social creatures platitude. Whether or not a person likes to work together with others is one of those super "it depends" questions. On the type of work being done, on the people you're working with, on the amount of vision you have for the project and the amount of compromise introducing new members might incur. We're social creatures when it's convenient.
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Nice blog. I'm just curious: since you say that basically thanking people and showing to them how important their help was to you helped them in some way to do a better hob, have you ever thought about thanking Blizz' in your Emails ? I mean put yourself in their place for a bit: thye must be getting tons of Emails of angry fans requesting a wide array of changes and improvements, yet I'm pretty sure they seldom receive "thank you" Emails.
Maybe if the community was more positive towards Blizz, they would respond better.
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It's not the customer's job to thank the content provider. Their 'thank you' is the paycheck every person at Blizzard generates for doing a good job. The reason it was so important for me to thank others is because they were helping me for free. I needed to make everyone involved understand how important the project was to me and one of the ways I did that was by always showing gratitude.
While I'm sure Blizzard would appreciate some 'thank you' emails, that's not the point I'm trying to convey here for the reasons I stated above.
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I remember you had a video on youtube suggesting unit revisions, I think this was around Hots being in beta. There, you suggested the Hardened Shield ability to become a spell for the Immortal or for surrounding units. I don't know if Blizzard ever saw the video or if you were still emailing them at that time, but it made its way into the Lotv beta somehow 
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Nice observations on what you perceive as work. It terms of creating something, kickstarter, game, etc.. I think your ideals are spot on. From where I sit ( insert stereotypical corporate office) the work dynamic is far different. I think money changes everything and from my observations people would absolutely take more money rather than finish a project they are working on that is important to them. People don't want to "feel" their investment is worth it, they want to "see" it. Just my unsolicited two cents.
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Yeah, the money aspect is a fair point. Still, call me an idealist but I think there are still some people at Blizz' who work for the satisfaction of doing great games rather than money. Maybe not as much as a while ago, but still.
On April 18 2015 14:32 qxc wrote:
It's not the customer's job to thank the content provider. Their 'thank you' is the paycheck every person at Blizzard generates for doing a good job. The reason it was so important for me to thank others is because they were helping me for free. I needed to make everyone involved understand how important the project was to me and one of the ways I did that was by always showing gratitude.
While I'm sure Blizzard would appreciate some 'thank you' emails, that's not the point I'm trying to convey here for the reasons I stated above.
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EPT
