Can you make a good game without using the asset store?

Yeah I think its good to occasionally play other peoples games and really analyze what you actually pay attention to when you do. At least for myself, I notice that I ignore all sorts of "flaws" even in big blockbuster games that I have wasted time noodling over in the past in my own developments.

Then again, have to know the audienec too. I been playing games too long, what is new and exciting to me is totally different from the idiot who was just born yesterday.

The real hard truth I think we constantly have to acknowledge though is that biggest factor to market success is marketing. ALmost everything about game design is subjective - it can be argued over forever and nothing useful will be accomplished. But the only consistent winners are the ones that invest in serious marketing strategies. The hype campaign sells the games way more than the games sell themselves. And the hype campaign changes how people interact and critique the thing too. It's not like game design is some objective reality.

Thats how it looks to me anyway.

 

I think it's entirely possible to make a "good" game with assets but you run the risk of your game looking "similar" to other games.

"oh I've seen that x model in 3 other games". This is the biggest problem with solo/indie developers imo. having assets that are unique to your game can have a huge impact.

You have a few options.

1) model/texture everything yourself
2) author custom commission work from artists
3) take models from the asset store but re-texture them and make them "yours".



I can be 100% certain that no other game will have these specific models and/or texture combinations because I modelled and textured them myself.

Again, it's very unlikely that any other game will have these particular assets or texture combinations because I modelled and textured everything myself. The one down side is "quality" especially if you are new to modelling/texturing etc.



Ultimately I think that you have to use what you have. Not everyone wants to learn programming, modelling, texturing, lighting, graphics, etc and you can never be "great" at all of them. However, you have to understand the trade off is that the spider you use in your game (that you downloaded from the asset store) appears in 50 other games.

 

I see Kitbash3D have announced they are now supporting Unity/Unreal formats directly...