Do credits matter to you? Kind of a stupid question—of course they do. As freelancers, they’re our most valid proof of experience. But I’m not just talking about that.
In the last couple of months, I noticed that I’ve been having the same convo about credits with new partners, old partners, and oomfies (hiii).
Some background: I stopped freelancing in late 2024. In the 5~ish years I was active, I handled more than 35 in-game gameloc projects (so not copy, support, or otherwise).
Among those, my name is maybe credited in two or three. I couldn’t tell you exactly; they were usually titles that didn’t matter, so I didn’t bother checking.
What did matter and what I bothered to check usually didn’t list my name anywhere. But I didn’t mind much; pay was decent, and 7/10 times, I could prove my worth if I got a potential client to shoot their test my way.
But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t bother me on a personal level.
Recognition for a whole loc going to the in-house teams who barely did anything. Players praising a loc that needed 3 underpaid external editors to slave away on it for months on end to come out ‘okay’.
In a career path almost entirely defined by passion, that chips away at your psyche. That, among other things, is why I walked away from freelancing despite doing well financially and having excellent rapport with most clients.
There’s just too much red tape.
I was not getting recognition for my most visible work. I wasn’t even allowed to talk about that work. In fact, I was actively wasting my talent making others look good.
And, pardon my French, why the fuck would I want to keep doing that?
And so came our crediting policy, which I touched on before (link in the comments): staff + studio credits by default. But I never touched on its feasibility, which based on the DMs since is probably the most interesting part.
Truth is? More than half of our partnership negotiations fall through due to that policy.
Even when former freelance clients wanted to retain me through loclait on the condition that we’d only be credited by name, I made it clear that in this specific regard, it’s my way or the highway.
For most, the highway it was. And I’m totally fine with that.
Even though I’m not constantly busy translating legal/copy (which I hated) or working on AAAs anymore, I’m now getting exactly what I want.
Good work. Properly paid work. Well done work. Work I can call my own. And through that work, I can secure - for me and my colleagues - even better work.
So here’s a shoutout to our fantastic partners at loclait <3
The common thread between them all is that they didn’t flinch at the thought of a lil public outsourcing. That part of the ‘negotiations’ was a pretty short convo mirroring their own industry grievances.
In fact, one of our earliest (and bestest!) partners agreed to it on the spot, which gave us the much needed confidence to push for this w/ all of them.
I guess credits do kinda matter to me. What about you?
By Seif Chaib.
Originally posted on Linkedin.