About two weeks ago, I published a story here about my experience working on a particular game with a specific client of mine. If you were one of the people who got to read my original post before I pulled it down last week, congratulations.
If you did not I’m sorry you missed out.
Originally, this post detailed how the aforementioned game project went horribly wrong. While I placed a lot of the blame on the project leader, I took took a share of the blame too. I mismanaged my business and didn’t pay attention to my gut, and I faced the consequences. In the end, this experienced pushed me to leave freelancing behind (for now at least) and to apply and eventually start working at DreamLine full-time.
Oddly enough, I guess I found out that the pen is indeed mightier than the sword.
This blog was never meant to be used in any sort of way to try and reclaim the remaining balance owed by this client. It was me, sharing my experience, which is what I do. That’s what this blog is. I was contacted about two weeks after original post by the client who asked I take it down and, in exchange, offered to pay the remaining balance owed to me for the work I had done on the client’s project. This time I took the path of least resistance. I took the post down as soon as money changed hands. I’m now paid up for this project, for the most part.
I do think that one day, I will re-release the blog AS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN (I name names and go into details, and rip on PayPal) in an appropriate amount of time. It’s a story that I want to tell so others can learn from my mistakes and be prepared for some of the roughest aspects of freelancing. But, as the game is live and actively in development, I will abide by their wishes and keep my experience off of the internet for a while. The fairness and ethics of my choice can be debated but I made a choice that was better for my finances this time around. I haven’t always done that and I took advantage of the opportunity to do so.
I don’t want to leave any reader without some sort of lessons from my experience with this client, so allow me to paraphrase a few of them.
- Always trust your gut. If something looks bad, it is likely bad.
- Don’t abandon your business principles for a pay day.
- Sometimes you need to cut your losses early and walk away.
- Always look in the mirror and think about what YOU could have done better.
- Speaking out can be scary, but sometimes it works (This one was new!)
Dan