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Asset Dev taking the p*ss

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Whippets, May 9, 2018.

  1. Whippets

    Whippets

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    hippocoder likes this.
  2. carking1996

    carking1996

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    I agree much much overpriced compared to the rest on there, but he can price them how he wishes.
     
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  3. aer0ace

    aer0ace

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    Sad part is, somebody's gonna buy it. Someone who doesn't know better and/or has money to burn.
     
  4. Amon

    Amon

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    Even sadder is the probability that the asset dev knows this and is just waiting for that one person/s.
     
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  5. RockoDyne

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    Maybe they put the decimal in the wrong place or were thinking in the wrong currency. I can hope, at least.
     
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  6. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    Or maybe they're inexperienced with the Asset Store here? There are other storefronts where that pricing would be considered normal.
     
  7. Kiwasi

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  8. zombiegorilla

    zombiegorilla

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    Indeed, in the grand scheme of things, that price isn’t outrageous, though it’s definitely on the high end for the asset store market. In the end it’s up to the publisher, if they don’t shift any, they can adjust the price.
     
  9. Doug_B

    Doug_B

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    That, surely, is the key point here.

    Let the guy charge a million pounds/ dollars/ euros/ yen/ bitcoins. The primary purpose of a market is to bring together sellers and buyers and allow for price discovery. Who knows what the 'correct' cost really is?

    After all, this is not a life-saving item under discussion. Everyone is completely free to walk away from the deal.
     
  10. nipoco

    nipoco

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    If that would be a huge set of really high quality PBR environments and props, I could understand that. But these are just a bunch of simple low-poly assets, a half decent artist could create over the course of a weekend.

    This is either a mistake, or the seller has no idea how much he overestimates the value of his set.
     
  11. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    IMO market forces are what determine the final price and it's 100% acceptable for a seller to be pricing however they like. If someone wants to spend 500 quid on a penut then that person can. If someone has 500 to spare on penuts then they can help themselves.

    Anyway pretty sure no action is going to be taken.
     
  12. Billy4184

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    There's nothing wrong. It's a free world, nobody can tell someone else what to do with their money. You're just assuming that nobody wants to pay that much because you wouldn't do it yourself.

    Tbh, it's quite pleasant to see an example of this extremity of store pricing when all I seem to see everywhere is its opposite.
     
  13. aer0ace

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    Soon enough, artists will be promoting something like just a quad with a texture flood filled with orange, in a gilded frame, called "Orange", for $1500.
     
  14. Billy4184

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    Why not be bothered by all the fantastic stuff being handed out for free? There are a lot better options than those assets, in my opinion, being dished out at heartbreakingly low prices. If someone wants to sell a lowpoly cactus for $1000, it really doesn't bother me to just not pull out my wallet.

    The asset store, at least in terms of artwork, is one long sad story of underpriced craftsmanship being sold to guilt-ridden devs who are worried about their underpriced games being called an asset flip.

    Seriously, I don't know what's the story with this thread.
     
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  15. BIGTIMEMASTER

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    The price isn't as outrageous and some make it out to be.

    Yes, the art style is simple, but making appealing hand-painted textures like that is harder than it looks. It takes some talent. The modeling -- yeah that could be done in a weekend even by a very junior artist like myself. So, I might estimate that it's anywhere from 15-30 hours of work (this isn't only modeling and texturing, but lookdev time and testing everything out in engine, setting up prefabs, all that stuff). If the artist charges $30 an hour, which is low for a 3d artist, that totals into the 400+ price range.

    I think the issue is that these are very generic assets, and stuff like this people are usually just giving away for free, more or less, on the asset store. I get that most of the people in this thread are probably just having some fun poking at this content creator, but if anybody is serious about, "this stuff is so simple, why they charge too much!", well, you are free to make simple assets yourself (which means owning the licenses to the appropriate DCC's, as well).
     
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  16. aer0ace

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    I completely agree with this. A lot of the objects available on the asset store serve as the identity for your game. Once you realize your game is using the same assets as some other game, it's like you have that feeling people get when someone is wearing exactly the same outfit as you, and the more expensive the more embarrassing.

    Sure, you can use these as placeholders, but cubes and cones work just the same. I think it would give artists a lot more respect for them to show off their wares on artstation and the like, rather than sell themselves short with whored out generically used objects.
     
  17. hippocoder

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    There's nothing like a good old forum moan thread in between games to play and make.
     
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  18. Ryiah

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    If I thought my programmer art was valuable I would be uploading it right now. :p
     
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  19. nipoco

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    It‘s all about supply and demand. That determines the market value eventually.

    You can not really estimate the price by taking the hourly rate and the time invested into the work. Simply because this is a non-exclusive product with limitless quantities, rather than custom work for a client.
    Nobody would pay a couple of million dollars for a single copy of a triple A game, just because it took that much to pay the people, who worked on it.

    There are even a dozen better looking sets with similar style, for a reasonable price. You don‘t have to sell dirt-cheap but over 400 US Dollar is definitely over the top. I‘m pretty certain nobody is buying that, ever.
     
  20. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    Then the seller will choose to or not, to adjust the price.
     
  21. BIGTIMEMASTER

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    It's a place to start, and gives some perspective.
     
  22. zenGarden

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    There publishers trying to sell similar models to other publishers and trying to push down the price,
    it's refreshing to see someone pushing prices up :D
     
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  23. BIGTIMEMASTER

    BIGTIMEMASTER

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    Some people like a bargain. Other people like Gucci handbags. Same leather. Probably the same factories. 1000x higher price. Makes a person feel special, you know?
     
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  24. angrypenguin

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    I'm not an artist so I can't tell in this case, but often "simplicity" is mistaken for "ease". Yes, the models are simple, but that does not mean they were easy to make.

    Take the Diablo 3 character models for instance. They're pretty low poly, but I'm pretty confident that they took months each to perfect at the very minimum.

    Personally, I place very high value in an artist who can make something extremely simple while still achieving everything else that needs to be achieved. And if you think about the price of having an in-house artist...
     
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  25. nipoco

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    I get what you trying to say. And I agree with your overall sentiment. Simplified style doesn‘t mean it’s easy to make. And I appreciate everyone who values the artistic work.
    However, in this particular case, the assets are really easy to create for any decent experienced artist.

    I mean, these models are extremely simply. Look at the one rocky landscape for example. It consists of mostly beveled cubes, or other simple geometric shapes with a generic grey texture. If each asset would be at least carefully handpainted...
    It‘s not even a lot of assets, that this pack offers.
    Maybe the seller thought, this would be in their own country’s currency, where 400 bucks are like 4USD?

    At the end, sure they can sell their stuff to every price they want. If it sells is another story.
     
  26. Billy4184

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    Well that's a different story. The point is that if you're going to sell stuff, sell it for at least what it's worth. Either make a cone and sell it for $1, or make something awesome and sell it premium.

    I think the price of those assets is of course extreme. @angrypenguin I may be wrong, but my take is that fairly simple assets take about the same amount of time for a really good artist as it does for a noob, except one comes out much better than the other. The time I took to make a model when I was starting out was much more than it does now, and I dare say it looks a lot better now. The difference is the accumulation of experience.

    But anyway, the way I see it, the asset store is very lopsided on the side of 'too cheap' and this is one of very few examples of the other extremity. So it's good to see things even out a bit. Nobody is getting taxed to pay for these assets so if someone pays this seller 650 for some lowpoly stuff, I say 'well played' to all participants.

    Maybe in the end if asset prices go up, game prices will have to follow and people will become more choosy about what they buy.
     
  27. angrypenguin

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    I can agree at least as far as the first pass is concerned.
     
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  28. Tom_Veg

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    It is bad business for him to price something like that that high without looking at competitors. But that is only his problem. It is perfectly ok to price asset how ever you like. You can price it million dollars if you want. It's not like anyone is forcing you to buy it.

     
  29. Martin_H

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    If I was selling on the assetstore, I might even actively try to be the most expensive seller in the given category, so that if people sort by descending price, my asset comes top. Some people associate price with quality, less sales means less burden on support and you can actually justify a good level of support financially. An art asset retains higher value for customers, the less often it is seen in released games, and often enough people are willing to pay high prices, behave much less entitled than people getting things for almost free. I fail to see the downside.
    As an artist, I wouldn't make this asset pack for this price as a commission, I'd charge more.
    And even if it sells 0 copies, the difference between spending e.g. 2k worth of your time on making something and then selling 0 copies, or selling 200$ worth of copies plus having to invest 200$ worth of your time (i.e. 3-4 hours or less for a professional freelancer) into answering support questions is basically nonexistent. I'd pick the zero copies sold if I had that choice, because it is less stressful.
     
    Last edited: May 11, 2018
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  30. AndersMalmgren

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    Well, good packages do cost more than average so actually its not a bad way of finding good assets. Though its not always the case so you might miss some gems :D
     
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  31. elbows

    elbows

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    Gems, ha that reminds me of someone who put an app that was just a picture of a red ruby on the iOS store in the very early days of that store, and Apple pulled the app because it was called 'I am Rich' and cost $1000.
     
  32. Rowlan

    Rowlan

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    Is there actually no Unity rule for ridiculous stuff like that? Because if not, I'm gonna create a rock model, substance paint it with gold and sell it for 1,000,000. Just because :D
     
  33. AndersMalmgren

    AndersMalmgren

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    Here in sweden there was a thing a few years ago that brats ordered a vintage champagne and asked the waiter to just waste it in the bin.

    Tremendous alcohol abuse if you ask me