Game Devs Crying About Asset Flips?

It was not an entire map, it was some subway station assets

 

Which is more causal, so... well, what did I say

 

And I don't want to restart arguments which have died, but PUBG is absolutely not casual, nor are most of the popular shooters. Casual is something like Bejeweled, a relaxing game anyone can play, not a hyper-competitive shooter that demands hundreds of hours to be successful at.

Furthermore, dismissing these as "games for casuals" is kind of arrogant and myopic. Anyone and everyone can learn from their success in some way or another, even if you're making a totally different type of game. These things don't become popular purely because they're "casual" or at least not as technically accurate as other games.

 

Maybe dumbed down or forgiving is a better term

 

I definitely would not call PUBG "casual". Overall, PUBG is a very hardcore game that is often brutally unforgiving, especially in solo mode. You can't call PUBG casual just because the devs simplified the ammo system enough to make the game enjoyable. "Candy Crush" is a game I would call casual. PUBG is not casual.

 

Dumbed down is exactly the same--it's still a pejorative. Accessible is perhaps better, because it's literal without being a value judgement.

One should remove one's emotions from such an analysis, because they're going to color your opinion of these things, and thus color how you design your game, and how you interact with people who talk about these things.

If a user asks why you need all these different kinds of ammo in your game, are you going to give a "because this isn't a casual, dumbed-down game like PUBG" response? That will only make you sound like a salty jerk throwing shade at things more popular than what you're making (kind of like the video this thread is based on, from what some have said).

You need to be able to step back and analyze this stuff dispassionately.

 

"Dumbed down" is not a good term to use, either. It is not accurate and it sounds negative.

 

Accessible is a word we use when a building is altered so that disabled people would be able to enter it. I think many gamers would be greatly offended by it.

 

Only some assets? Why the quote says map? But point remains it's something improbable. Even if someone noticed a re-used subway asset in a game, maybe didn't spot those other 100 re-used assets used in those other 100 games.
That very same game probably had GUI, SFX and re-used other stuff ... flew past him.

It's a similar logic to knowing many people won the lottery around the world, but for one person to win the lottery it's very hard. Similarly there are many cases of people spotting re-used assets... but it's unlikely that it happens to you. Even in the small pond of VR games.

 

well it has happened more than once, like here



People are extremely sensitive to art assets being used in more than one game. I feel sorry for the asset store artists, they can only sell one copy for 30 USD of their asset :/

 

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Those extremely sensitive people will make a lot of noise so it seems that everyone thinks the same way, and make you think an angry mob is out there waiting to destroy you and your evil low budget game with non-original art.

But they are simply not your target market.

 

Again these sensitive people are likely involved in game dev / game coverage to one degree or another. I wouldn't assume that TimmyTonka is solely a gamer. He may be a game dev keeping an eye on what others are doing. He may review games and is more in the know about asset usage from doing that and so forth.

EDIT: Well that didn't take long... TimmyTonka

A couple of his hundreds of videos...

 

Actually on that subject... this is quite likely the Plastro that commented in your first example.

A couple of his hundreds of videos

So hey on the plus side you have at least two of the smaller YouTubers following your game.

 

Yeah, but its very boring with these comments all the time, why not focus on the unique mechanics instead, why moan over and over about assets, they are just empty shells you add your mechanics too and awesome stuff happens

 

I agree. Focus on mechanics and try to make a solid game.

 

Totally, but it's so much easier said then done. Very few developers even ones with a lot of experience can avoid all of the rabbit holes that are so prolific in game development. And that's when you know what you should and should not be doing.

What's interesting to me is that I'm completely convinced that art assets and visual work should come as late as possible. I think you can almost mathematically prove that is the most efficient flow. But hardly anyone does that, even among larger studios. I don't think it's because the people there are dumb. I think I understand a lot of why this happens, but figuring out a systematic way to break out of it, that has eluded me.

 

I absolutely agree with you. I see it basically this way but a lot of people don't at least many game devs don't seem to see it this way. For me making a game out of cubes/rectangles or other primitives is ideal. As you said these are just empty shells. What brings life is the story/theme, the goals, the mechanics, the AI etc. This is "the game". Well actually is it is one form of "the game". Or can be seen as this is "a game". And the same game can be reskinned with different presentation assets. And different graphics can definitely influence the mood and theme of the game.

I think a lot of it is just game devs in general doing it for the same reason as the fella in the OP... they feel like someone has cheated... someone didn't work hard enough... and yet that same someone might make money maybe even more money. AND it is people who have a steady part-time or full-time "job" reviewing games and because of them looking at so many games they notice the asset usage and are far more sensitive to it than most people.

I guess just have to work 3x as hard on the non-visual stuff so it is noticed and overshadows the obvious surface stuff.

 

You simply need to get over it already. This has been harped on for more than a year by you. Some people like art. It cranks their wheels and their limbic system responds throwing juice to the cerebellum. Witness the towering achievements of civilization. Gothic Cathedrals, The Louvre, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony All made of unit components but structured to provide something well beyond the component parts and transcendent in nature due to the excessive as well as muted decorations thereof. Mechanics is for dopamine and the body brain. It doesn't matter if assets are reused. it is not simply mechanics that sell a game. It is a virtuated promise that yer brain is gonna get juiced in the manner that is suitable for your individual sensibilities. Carry on assuaging whatever it is you all are fussing over. Where are your games you all spend so much time triviating over the minutest aspects of whilst pretending not to have this same foible you accuse others of.

 

Just unselfishness. People who make games, play games. If your game is broken, you need to be able to admit that you wouldn´t enjoy playing a broken game. A lot of the really bad ´my first game´ on Steam are not bad because the developer was bad, they are bad because the developer was too selfish and put up a game he wouldn´t play but expected others to play.

 

One thing in this discussion that I think really misses the mark is the idea that it is possible to deploy a game on the assumption that gamers will see your art as simply a foundation on which to build interesting mechanics. Regardless of personal opinion, I think it's pretty clear that art does not naturally have the character of a supporting attribute, and it's very difficult in fact (unless you get rid of 99% of it) to convince people that that's not what you want them to focus on. The entire role of art is as a medium of emotional stimulation, especially of human instinct. The very fact that art is present which does not stimulate, is a failure of its responsibility.

Of course, it's true that the sophistication of the art is not really all that important. Good art can be very simple or very complicated. But nothing changes the fact that it must fulfill its artistic role and succeed in pleasing the player. And the same way that it's very hard to make a satisfying and inspiring painting by taking bits and pieces of other paintings and patching them together, so it is with game art.

It's easy to think that the art in a game functions only as a way to communicate to the player that they are doing something in the game. At a basic, moment-to-moment level, I agree. But maybe it's also worth considering that when the game mechanics are good, perhaps these mechanics then slip back into a supporting role for those fleeting moments where you become completely immersed in a game world and its symbols. Moments where the story, graphics, dialogue and your sense of excitement and purpose - artistic things - come together in a memorable way and give meaning to all the fetch quests and looting.

I've been playing a bit of Mass Effect 1 - an old game with plenty of blurry textures, warped UVs and simple geometry. Although I'm a fan of next-generation computer graphics, there's no doubt that the game scene has been handled with a lot of artistic skill, and it really pulls me into the story. Although the game art is at (or below) the technical level of a lot of asset store art, would the atmosphere it gives me survive the presence of a cocktail of asset store art? I doubt it.

 

I think that if you took all the in game art and replaced it with cubes -- BUT -- you kept the voice work, the sounds, music, and gui... I think it could. In fact, I think it would survive far better than with a mishmash of asset store replacements.

It's impossible to say of course, since extremely polished games tend to have the budget to include extremely polished visual art, so there aren't any examples where a game has absolute top shelf everything else.

In general though, the main challenge to working with asset store stuff is maintaining a strong aesthetic. It's very hard to do.

@KarenLCrawford - your game looks pretty good from the screenshots (I didn't download) - especially given that you were working with 100% free assets. I'd really recommend you try to get a WebGL build up - very few people will actually download a small game like this - you'd get a lot more plays if it was in browser.

 

Its easier if you go for realistic look, you couldn't tell this scope and the M4A1 was from different asset store assets? The scope not even Unity but converted UE PBR textures.

edit: fixed the time code

 

I agree. More realistic is kind of the easiest common denominator.

But more realistic also tends to have weaker 'aesthetic' - as in like mood and atmosphere. Achieving some kind of thick mood while using asset store stuff is really tough.

I've spent a lot of time on effects and stuff in order to try to tie together the visual look of the game and I still have issues (even while also limiting assets to only a couple artists).

I also think you did a great job on your game's visuals from a largely asset store driven effort!

But here's the question -- what could you have done to make the subway scene less similar to others who are using the same pack? Could you have avoided the complaints?

 

Thanks, scenes are much, much harder than single items. I'm, very happy with our items, they are basicly Triple A. Our scenes, not so much They need alot of work. But we are improving on them all the time, better lighting etc.

People will always find things to complain about. That said, the main hall is a direct copy from the demo scene, if I had made one from scratch maybe it would have been less obvious But truth be told we have put some more effort in it to be honest, for example the asset comes 1.25 times too big. The other game have ignored this, you look like a midget Here is one of our two in game characters next to a original sized vending machine



We also work on making the scene our own with adding alot of details, like actual working rotating gates

Another thing we work on alot is balance, since this is a MP game. Small things can make a huge difference
LIke this subway train. Old version did have a main engine train, so you cant move into the driver space and lay cover fire down the tracks. It was a chooking point the ALpha team often got stuck on. We changed the main engine to a coach train with windows, and now players could cover the tunnel, world of difference

Before


After

 

I don't think all gamers share that "empty shells" perspective on art assets. Keep in mind that some are willing to spend real money for cosmetic changes in games that do nothing for gameplay.

At least not in a video with poor youtube compression . I agree with your general point though.

Definitely. He kind of hinted at that point already with the "unless you get rid of 99% of it" part.

I think a distinct post fx look goes a long way, but much of that might be hard with VR. I don't know much about VR constraints.

 

It looks a bit funny with the rail being different color than the scope itself, but the actual scope looks like that

 

About re-using assets. Do people realize that some of the art assets found in Witcher 3 can also be bought on the asset store? I do think it is only unity developers who are making this complaint. Other than using main character models, would anyone really notice plants and rocks being from another game?

 

The larger problem is asking why these people are even heard. The reason they're heard is because we're brainwashed into thinking everyone deserves respect. They don't. Respect is very clearly given, not asked for or demanded, else we'd be giving it away to everyone. Oh, wait.

 

These people aren't complaining about those kinds of assets. They're complaining about, as you said, character models, and buildings and such. Those are far more noticeable than trees or grass.

No one really cares about Speedtree.

 

??

Not sure where this all came from but anyway for me personally... here it is... after years of laboring.

 

Actually, there are two notable artists from Witcher 3 that sell assets on the store. I believe some are very close to exactly what is in witcher, with only small tweeks.

Not just speedtree.

 

People will care as little about an assetstore asset in the Witcher 3, as they would care about a dev spending their live's savings on having one high quality custom asset made by a Witcher 3 lead artist in a game that is otherwise completely composed of assetstore assets. Neither have any impact on the impression that people get from the respective products as a whole.

 

Sure. I'd also say that "A good artist copies. A great artist steals" applies.

 

Afaik that quote commonly is supposed to mean you should seek to reproduce the best qualities of all things that are good, and not just copy one good thing. At least that's the explanation that I remember from where I heard it quoted the last time.

 

That explanation has never sat well with me. I prefer to think of it as the difference between imitating a technique and making that technique your own, hence stealing it. It removes the limitations of copying and opens the use of the technique in different contexts.

 

I always took it to be a little more literal.

When an artist copies another artist, it's instantly apparent. When you see it, you recognize the source work - you see the original work in the copy.

When a great artist copies another artist, something different happens. They take the source material, and make it their own. You don't see the original anymore.

The idea when applied to asset store stuff is - as you do better work with the asset store items - fewer and fewer people will be able to identify the source.

@theANMATOR2b 's example:

Even the original artist might not recognize his work here.

 

all artists have a latent ability that tingles whenever anything is remotely similar though

 

Might be wrong about it, but the way I see it, the idea is not to dismiss art completely, but keep its amount reasonable.

There's a slew of people who obsess over having infinite amount of detail and having every pixel handcrafted.

Spoiler

This is something I don't find fun, don't understand, and generally perceive as a waste of time and development resources.

Art can be weird and not necessarily detailed or realistic, and hyperrealistic drawings can be seen as less valuable - because they display drawing skill, but not necessarily say anything useful.

 

As far as I know the original version of the quote was:

I like to think that that Joad was commenting cynically on this when he said:

I guess asset flips aren't a new phenomena

 

It's obnoxious procrastination when an artist obsesses over detail, usually on the employer's dime, causing delays, pissing off the entire company and eventually being fired, since it's usually mipmapped and compressed and has to be a far lower res anyway for streaming budget concerns.

As for gamers doing it, well good luck to them. I'm sure it's fascinating but I'd rather just play something.

 

Overcrunk is one thing. To dismiss art based on ability to produce said art is another and underneath the core of this steaming cauldron is simply that. People bitching because they want some kind of special category when they release that does not mitigate their lack of arts talent. On flipped assets and copies of whatever. I step out my door and I see hundred of copies of ferns, thousand of copies of many rock variants, about 12 species of trees. When I go to town there are maybe 10 major people variant types with about 5 to 20 types of clothing in various colors and patterns. There are about 25 main automobile styles that flow through the main intersection . Life is an asset flip. YouTube clownage like Sterling need to STFU and wash his filthy mouth out with soap.

 

SpeedTree was just an example. Martin kind of already addressed it, but I was mainly referring to the "importance" of the asset in the user's perception of the experience. Nobody really looks at trees because they aren't important at all to the user's experience (except survival games maybe, and there it's only to destroy them). But you do interact with characters, or they're typically an integral part of the experience (outside of games like Assassin's Creed, where they are actually procedurally generated). Something similar for buildings, though somewhat less so depending on the type of game (a user hardly interacts with the majority of the hundreds of buildings in TW3).

 

For argument's sake, the stock speedtrees are becoming repetitive in demos and small budget projects.

The problem is that a lot of people aren't actually using the speedtree modeler to make custom trees, so the 'stock' trees are more and more common.

In big budget games, when they use speedtree they generally aren't using "free_speedtree/red oak" over and over. They have custom speedtrees, and often have large numbers of them. Witcher has craploads of tree types, like hundreds.

You can do a S***ty job with speedtree also, or you can invest effort/money on customizing speedtrees so that the user doesn't notice the trees. Most of the time, people don't notice stuff because it's well done. When there are obvious problems, people do tend to notice. I've seen this in my own work over and over: when things are done poorly they stand out.

In other words, one reason nobody notices speedtrees being reused in AAA games is because - frankly - they aren't using the same assets. It's like saying that "substance designer textures get reused in tons of games". Sure, but in well executed games these are often customized.

If all those games used the same "speedtree tree pack" then yes, people would notice.

 

I wonder if the madness will ever grow to encompass assets in the same game. "ooh look... that grass is the SAME ONE I SAW BEFORE!"

 

Honestly, I'm waiting for "asset flipping" to become a problem on the asset store itself...

I think we're closing on the time when that will become more and more of a problem.

 

I've seen people complain about asset-recycling and forced "backtracking" in AAA games as being "cheap filler content". Or bosses being re-used as regular enemies later in a game's progression. Isn't that sort of what you meant?




It's absolutely impossible to make something that everybody likes. The sooner we embrace that, the better. You can try to play the odds and hope to make choices that maximize buys and minimize drama and complaints, but I'm not sure that's a game anyone can actually win.

 

Good point. And a good justification for assets with customization features (like SpeedTree, or Archimatix).

 

I don't think people understand why gamers hate asset flips.

Go through the games from this playlist to see how not to make a game. Also, Unreal 4 game on the list as well, so it isn't just Unity. It's just that Unity has been public longer with more assets available to abuse the system.

 

I'm guessing they equate it with being fleeced or deceived somehow, and because certain reviewers have made it an issue - everybody wants to see an exposé even if it's for something they otherwise wouldn't be interested in like an objectively poor indie game.

 

These poor quality Indie games are flooding Steam, overshadowing good quality Indie games which, let's face it, are a minority.

So what happens when players who DO like Indie games see mostly "asset flips" or scams (like those from the playlist) over and over again? They get angry and they start a witch hunt for EVERY developer who uses those assets. These hacks pretending to be developers are making it harder for even honest Indie's to buy and use assets from the store. Even the asset store sellers should be angry about this.