What really is an Asset Flip??

Try putting this guy in a movie and see what happens:



He's a good actor, so good that thousands of people will never be able to get over how much they hated the character he played. He'll be forever associated with that.

99% of the stuff you can buy on the assetstore isn't the "quality equivalent" of George Clooney or Angelina Jolie, or are "popular darlings of movie enthusiasts", and they aren't famous for "being in good movies" - they are D-list actors, famous for being in some of the "worst movies ever made", to go with your analogy. People hate what they associate them with. People hate bad low-effort games. If the game is objectively good and they see the effort that went into it, they won't burn it down as an "asset flip".

I bet most consumers don't even grasp what exactly Unity is or does, they just see the logo time and time again associated with terrible trash games, so they get conditioned to hate it. RPG-maker probably has a worse reputation than gamemaker. I'm not aware of there being significant hate towards gamemaker on steam.

 

Dude, I don't see that as a risk at all. I'd definitely submit to their group because I see it as free PR...

I'd prefer to submit a little closer to launch though since some may go on to buy it.

 

I agree most consumers... most gamers.... don't know or certainly don't care in the slightest. We're talking about the fanatics. Groups dedicated to a cause.

 

Cool. That is the best way to go. Find out firsthand. Everything else is just trying to interpret exactly what their intentions are, what their criteria is and so forth. But submitting a game that would seem to definitely be an asset flip (based on 95% of the content) is a real acid test.

 

He quit acting, said it was not for him. So I don't think we will see him again, unless he changes his mind, which happens. So basically, he was an exclusive model. No one else can use him.

 

I don't know too much about this group you're referring to, but are they really a huge problem or representative of gamers in general? I mean, even Sterling was prepared to give the zombie game the benefit of the doubt even though pretty much everything was not only from asset store but also highly recognizable.

Maybe this group just needs to be ignored, although as I said, I don't really know anything about them.

 

Me either other than based on posts in their group they have brought many games to Jim's attention. And one member... the main one... founder I believe... told a game dev 1 or 2 assets is fine. No more. Because it comes down to are you making the game or are you trying to release a game someone else made.

Anyway I am just posting to reply. Lol I am not pushing the group or pushing the view that more than 2 assets is a flip. I posted just to share what I found to give an answer to what really is an asset flip. The answer is it depends on who is answering the question and I shared this as an example of an extreme.

 

The point is "one or two assets is fine" borders on a meaningless statement.

What constitutes an 'asset' varies by such huge amounts it's almost impossible to even generalize.

 

I disagree. I would say maybe 70%, most of it free or a few dollars a pop. But there is some really great stuff out there, very well done, especially models. Yes, the textures might need some tweaking, but they can be made to look amazing with some good lighting and texture maps.

There is also some stuff out there that is fabulous, very well done, almost or at AAA quality, such as Peter's Rome pack. He also makes an awesome low poly pack. Malber's horses are beautiful with amazing animations. 3dforge makes a nice modular pack that gives you a lot of options.

Hobbling together a game with bits and pieces that do not match and cost little probably would not work but neither would buying them off of Turbosquid or CGTrader and having an inconsistent art style. A newbie to modeling would do even worse. lol And purchasing all custom assets is out of the question for most solo developers or small teams.

So, by basically saying all this stuff is crap, other than 1%, we are not only dismissing the good work of our asset developers, but we are saying that as an indie, just give up. No sense in even trying if you do not have a $100k budget.

My take on this? So what. Let people try. First game might be crap. Second one a bit better. Maybe they will learn to model or maybe they will find a friend who can model. Maybe they will buy only the best assets. Maybe they will tweak the assets to be unrecognizable.

So many options. You cannot stop people from making bad games. They will do that with or without assets. They will do this with or without the asset store as their are plenty of assets out there for sale elsewhere.

What you can do though is build up those new games, compliment those who use assets wisely, support our asset store developers so they can do better work and charge more and sell the quality stuff.

That is what will make Unity games better.

 

Heh, that's ludicrous.

So, does font's count as asset flips, because they technically are...

It totally depends on the game you are making.
If your making a semi realistic shooter it's only so many ways to model a Glock 19, and no one can tell the difference anyhow.

 

For the record, I've actually replaced some fairly expensive freelance art with asset store art that was simply better and fit the game better...

"Custom" does not mean good, "Stock" does not mean bad...

Shades of grey, people.

 

@frosted I am not disagreeing with you. These views 1 or 2 assets are fine are not my view. I'd say use whatever you can to make the game better. I was looking "out there" beyond the Unity community (where obviously here people have a very different view of asset usage.... it is part of the dev culture here to use assets a lot)... I wanted to find some of the driving forces behind this anti-premade asset stance. That led me to watch many videos and find a network including this Guardians group.

Again these are not my views. They are one answer to the question in the thread title. And perhaps an explanation for why Unity games seem to be targeted more.

 

I see the value in the group and I certainly don't "blame" you for bringing it up.

It's just not worth using a random comment from someone from the group to be an "acid test" for what makes an asset flip.

The real criteria that real gamers will use to judge a game (both for criticism and praise) depend on subjective feelings, not hard rules.

In all honesty, I side with those guys. I was always a PC/Steam loyalist, and it's really bothered me that Steam allows such low end stuff on the store. Asset Flips bother me as well, as a gamer, and dev.

 

Ouch! Asset store to the rescue again

This group isn't out to review games - they're reviewing the amount of 3rd party asset use.

A vast number of AAA games use sound banks, 3rd party fonts, trees, textures and more. There have been people mistakenly posting about big developers stealing assets, and it turned out they just bought perfectly good 3rd party textures. You'd think that, for example, id Software would make their own flare textures, but that didn't always seem to be the case

So I wonder if anything at all would pass their test if they were to review every game by the same criteria they review Unity games.

 

Dude, these are a bunch of enthusiast gamers. They aren't going to use scientific methods and image recognition software to do an exhaustive, accurate review.

They're going to look at screenshots and see if anything jumps out at them as being commonly used in crappy games.

Even if they recognize something, they will ask themselves "is this ok?" and if it passes their mega subjective 'feelings' test then they'll move on.

 

Well, when I'm sitting in a tree in the Caribbean in Assassin's Creed 3 or thereabouts, I'm seeing SpeedTree assets as far as the camera goes

 

For sure.

I actually think the 'stock' free speedtrees are becoming dangerously widespread. It's gotten bad when you can start to recognize a specific tree model.

 

I think if they start knocking good games that happen to use assets the right way people who play games will see a great original game called out for being an asset flip and loose respect for their reviews. Gamers will see good games that dont even look like they used assets being poorly graded for no apparent reason and all credibility will be lost. In fact it may be good if they do this. Consumers will see games they like on the bad list for using assets and reexamine their stance on asset use.

 

That isn't at all the point I was trying to make. Let me phrase it differently: If for example weapon models on the asset store were famous for being used in Call of Duty and Battlefield (or Minecraft, if you want to look at different styles), people would react differently to seeing them elsewhere, than they do with weapon models that they have seen in the infamous Slaughtering Grounds.

Also not the kind of attitude I wanted to convey, but I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few gamers would like the barrier to entry for steam to be so high again, that for all intents and purposes that statement becomes true. Two people working fulltime on a game for a year or two, would roughly be the work-equivalent of that budget, and that doesn't seem unreasonable from a perspective of which games are successful on steam. If you consider how many people for how long have worked on your game, you're probably way past that threshold already.

 

No doubt, but I was talking about money just to hire an artist.

As for people reacting badly if one reused assets, I think that really depends on a lot of things. For example, our game is niche. It is the type of game that this niche group has always wanted but rarely exists. They are not hardcore gamers, they do not care as much about art, and they just want a place to create their own stories and role play.

From responses I get from our followers, they would have been happy with art much less quality than we are using and are in fact, very happy with the art. I do not use many art assets straight from the store, but make many of my own and re-purpose some from the asset store.

But just as many use Daz and UMA and Morph3d, I do use some assets that will look very similar to other games.

However, the game mechanics will be different and it is those mechanics that make the game work for the niche of players we are targeting.

So people like these Guardians are very dangerous to people like us because they are making an assumption that they are saving gamers from bad games, rather than understanding that not all gamers care as much as they do and not all games are bad just because it is not a game you would play.

Anytime anyone tries to narrow the acceptable range based on their own likes and dislikes while disregarding the minority, bad things happen. In this case, a niche type of game that is wanted very much by a small group of players could be trashed and thrown in the garbage by an unsanctioned group of vigil antes.

Does not seem right to me. Of course, we do not have to use Steam but it would at least be nice since some of our followers prefer to access games through Steam.

 

I'm not entirely following you here. What I shared was basically things that summarized the views. It's not a random comment but direct response to a game dev about how they view games and premade asset usage.

It's not a random one person online. It is a group of people coming together to try to "get rid of lazy game devs" and includes YouTubers as well as working with people like Jim Sterling. It is a large effort certainly as compared to a random lone person out there.

And the lazy game devs include those using a large number of assets whether the games look good or not. Whether they play well or not. Those things are not the point. The point is on the laziness aspect. Lazy being using things created by other people instead of creating it yourself. Something we can see reflected in Jim Sterling's videos as well. "It is a good zombie model but I know the developer didn't make it and there is the problem".

I think for some reason you are not getting that part of it. Maybe because it just seems so illogical which I completely agree it is not logical.

 

There's two points, sorry if I'm not communicating clearly. What I'm saying is:

It doesn't matter if a group of gamers says "more than two assets are bad" because frankly, it borders on completely impossible for an end user to determine how many assets were used in a game.

Beyond that it's difficult even to define what exactly an "asset" is.

Because it's impossible for a to determine what constitutes an asset, and it's impossible to determine how many were used, we can all safely ignore the stated criteria.

It's not that I don't "get it" -- it's that we can all safely ignore it -- even those of us who use many assets.

What they really mean is: "if I recognize a bunch of stuff and/or the game sucks".

 

It is is weird gauge of laziness, though. For example, a modeler could make their own 3D models and slam them into uFPS (with Unity) or the FPS template in Unreal, and that would be judged as "Not Lazy". But if a programmer spent months or even years building a game and used a bunch of purchased 3D models, then that would be judged as "Very Lazy". Counting the visible assets in a game is not an accurate predictor of time or effort spent building a game. This specific example of laziness judgement is definitely skewed in favor of modelers and against programmers.

 

Oh I agree completely and this is the part that ticks me off. The focus on visual assets. Sure they can take screenshots of those and run them through a reverse image search (one of the things they mentioned doing in one of their posts or videos) but you are absolutely right... why focus so much on visual assets?

I've said it makes no sense to me because a game is a lot more involved than just the visuals. If they focus the same on programming assets it would be different. I think the whole reason they focus on visual assets is ironically laziness on their part.

Graphics assets are the easiest to track down by using tools such as reverse image search. Audio would be the next easiest but not as easy as graphics. Programming assets would be very difficult to identify. If they could find a software that scanned a game and listed all premade assets being used for graphics, audio and programming then I think they would do that. But right now it is not easy. It takes a lot more effort. So they take the lazy approach and target graphics.

 

Absolutely!! They blame assets for bad games because it is easy to see. Not everyone puts visuals above all else in a game. Again, I think it is very frightening that one group is going to curate games unofficially. Having Jim Sterling involved does not make me feel better. What he do if no one used assets anymore? Half his hyper fanbase would leave him.

If indie game developers were lazy, there would be no indie games. Obviously, some make what they say is a game but is actually just a demo. But a lot of us work very hard to make a game, and to make something other than the usual fps/zombie/hack and slash rpg/survival game.

The inability to see beyond the visuals is just foolish. There are a lot of games that would not exist if the visuals were the yardstick the games are measured by.

 

I also do not see the point of criticizing games based on number of reused assets used in them. The closest argument that I can imagine which might make sense is that reusing too many assets would result in plagiarism.

It's a valid concern, if that's what those who love to hunt down 'asset flippers' really meant. But if we examine it further, an argument against artistic plagiarism in general can be split into two distinct concerns, namely that of authorship and of originality.

Of course, the issue with asset flipping has nothing to do with software piracy, so we can safely assume that it all boils down to the question of whether, or how much reusing assets would affect originality of the work.

I believe there can't be an easy answer for that question, and I don't think there could be any failproof criteria that can be used to determine how original a piece of an art is - what entitles one to say that a game with two reused assets can still be considered original while another one with three assets not?

Neither the number of reused assets is an only measure that can affect originality, nor originality always guarantees quality - no one will think a game which exactly replicates the gameplay of Minecraft to be 'original', even it doesn't share a single graphic asset with the original game. And few would appreciate it, if some indie developer of a FPS game decides to replace AAA quality weapon models that he purchased from Asset Store with the ones that he - who has never done any designing before - created himself, some highly original looking guns which consist of only primitive cubes and cylinders.

I don't deny that there are some badly made games which are nothing more than some incoherent aggregation of slightly modified demo scenes which come with various purchased assets.

But if they are bad games, it's because they failed to deliver any additional values over what those reused assets provide, not because of the fact that it used more than some specific number of purchased assets. And I believe that actually is the dividing line between a work of plagiarism, and derivative, but still original work of art.

 

Well we have a good number of those people here I think. lol But anyway... Teila I certainly didn't intend to frighten anyone. I just believe in taking a good look around to see what is really happening. We can discuss things to death here and write things based our own opinions and how we want to interpret things. But it's good to step away from the forums and take an open-minded look.

And again I think their intentions are good. They mainly focus on games that are near 100% asset flips. I just wanted to be sure people realized this doesn't seem to be as much about quality of the game or fun of the game as it is about the lack of effort involved. This is something I think people have misinterpreted. Their focus appears to be summarized as this: if you are going to sell something then you should put a tremendous amount of effort into it. And the more premade assets you use the less effort you have put in.

Now we know there is some small truth to it. Flipping UnitZ as your game is near 0-effort. But if you took UnitZ and made some huge awesome game out of it that would be a tremendous amount of effort. And here is where I think any real cause for concern should be. From what I have seen it doesn't matter if you did put a ton of effort into the game in other ways it if looks like UnitZ then it is an asset flip.

I think it is this kind of thing that I find interesting about this initiative.

Take this video for example. While near the beginning he talks about the focus being on removing these vile developers who do asset flips to try to make a fast buck for near zero effort there are other points of interest if a person keeps an open mind. One of these appears at 3:35 where he states "with these games in particular, I would actually be tempted to give them a positive rating given the polish of the game, the playtime involved and the price tag. By every indication it's good value. Except it is indeed merely an asset flip." and then he points out Super Platformer 2D on the Unity Asset Store.

Sleengster (no longer on Steam)

Super Platformer 2D

So this is leading to the ultimate question I guess... it is an asset flip but does that really matter to anyone other than the fanatics (perhaps including game devs) who seem to be solely focused on the amount of effort involved? What I mean by that is for all of the gamers an asset sitting on the Unity Asset Store is of no value to them. They are not going to get Unity, buy the asset, download it, open the project and play the game. At least no gamers that I am aware of do that (I am sure there are a few... there are always some people who do near anything we can think of but anyway)... I think this is the ultimate question.

If a game is truly just an asset flip and yet it is a very well done game is this wrong to buy it and release it as a game that gamers can enjoy? Obviously, only the first person to buy the asset could do such a thing because that game would be original, unique. Or is this truly only about the amount of effort going into the creation of the game by the game developer? In this latter case it is a vile thing to do (as the guy in the video above says).

And if the answer to that question is yes indeed it all comes down to the amount of effort that would be the cause for concern. IMO. Because it leads naturally to the next question... well how much effort is enough effort? How many premade assets can be used? And their answer seems to be 1 or 2.

See I find this particularly interesting because if I set out to make this game doing all graphics myself it would not look anywhere near as good as this does. It would be entirely original. But it would NOT have this quality level of visuals. And reading between the lines it seems to be a case where that would actually be preferred because at least the developer made the graphics themselves. And what about if the control really sucked? Would that also be well at least he programmed it all himself?

I just think this whole thing is very strange because they are not judging the important things about a game. They are judging the amount of effort put into making a game. Or at least this seems to be where the primary focus is at. And that is a stupid metric to judge a game by.

Still this is just one group, one network. I am sure there are many more out there. And there are other groups who want pixel art games. And other groups who probably love seeing devs use assets. Again, I just shared this particular example group because it shows some of the extreme views out there.

 

One to two what?

Water is one.

Shaders another.

Speedtrees.

A modular house pack.

Rocks

Already, the game is an asset flipper according to them. Unity's water and terrain are not good so one needs shaders and water. Trees? We all want Speedtrees.

And sorry, but rocks are just minor...why spend time making them?

Houses....well, I get that the same house is boring, but a modular pack is limitless if you add your own pieces and retexture.

So...who are they to decide on 1 to 2? I betcha most games out there use more than two.

 

I agree for sure. Luckily they have enough people to target that are doing true asset flips (I mean buy asset sell as a game) to keep them busy. Or at least did. I do wonder though as less people attempt that wouldn't that just naturally lead to them having more time to focus on... aha! Partial Asset Flips. Lol The next big buzz term maybe.

Definitely don't lose sleep over it. But I'd definitely keep it in back of mind as well. Especially with these people saying devs who make alterations are trying to hide their use of asset flips. Isn't that crazy? I think it is. I would think they would see that as a good thing. The dev put forth effort to try to change the assets. But no... that is merely you being sneaky trying to not get caught. Lol

Anyway, I didn't intend to post so much about it really. Just seemed like what I was sharing I was not communicating it very well and it was not getting across the message.

This kind of thing is really another reason why people should take the time to find their niche audience and build up the community. So even if a potential future customer comes across a video one day that says LOOK THIS GAME USED 6 GRAPHICS ASSETS FROM UNITY ASSET STORE! the person will say either "So what?" or "Yeah those were great choices!!" And you are doing that @Teila so shouldn't have anything to worry about at all.

 

You are kidding me. That is ridiculous...sorry, but I cannot understand anyone defending that.

And they want us to submit our games to them for approval. What happens if we do not? Do we get bombarded with bad reviews? You say they have enough true asset flippers to deal with...but they think we are all asset flippers.

They are going to destroy the asset store if it gets worse. I can see developers deciding not to develop for Unity anymore if people are afraid to buy their assets.

I am not worried about me...I am worried about people who have fewer resources and skills than I have. At least I can model and texture and I have real artists on my team.

Who are these people to judge our games? Should it not be the people who play the games that judge us?

I am surprised that people are okay with this, honestly. It could hurt all of us, even if you never touch an asset store item. Do you really think this is going to help Unity's reputation? It is a minority that is flipping demos, but my guess is most folks here use more than two assets in their game.

I won't lose sleep over it but I may not use Steam after all. What garbage.

 

Nothing. They are not in charge of Steam, and they certainly don't have time to manually judge each game that pops up on Steam. There are currently 300-400 news games added to Steam each month. They'll probably only have time to focus their outrage on really obvious asset flips, where somebody posted a demo directly from an asset pack without making any changes.

 

Good point. Thanks.

 

Well it's just a bunch of very passionate people with I guess some very strong opinions on how games should be made. Again I don't quite get that angle on it makes me think these would be more likely to be game devs than gamers but I don't know because Jim Sterling occasionally makes comments alluding to the same way of thinking and I don't think he is a game dev in any way at all. But then based on posts I browsed in that group they notify him of many games to cover.

When I come across things like this it makes me want to do some Unity game dev again.. by purchasing some asset packs and submit them to their forum and see what they say. "Yo! I made what I think is an excellent game. Please let me know how it can be improved. I don't have a lot of time and I always hear you should work smarter not harder so I bought an asset and used that to make the game. Appreciate your time!" Or maybe just do a few of them and throw up on the steam files thingy then tip them off kind of anonymously about my own games. lol

If I had energy I would but the past week or so I just can't get myself to do anything on game dev. Even the idea of buying an asset and building the ready made game then submitting it sounds like far more work than I want to do. At this moment people doing full asset flips seem like very hard working motivated people to me.

Lately I wish I could just put a headset on and tell the computer what to do and it makes the game for me.

 

With the ease of getting games onto Steam I have to wonder how long until someone tries submitting a trash game under an alias at the same time they submit the game they want to sell.

 

Its already a thing, it even doesnt matter if you were first using the asset



The comment is from 10 months ago, meaning around in October sometime, we had worked on the map for months offcouse before releasing the first video about it. This fellow is a fan of our game and he's a nice dude, so all cred to him, he just wanted to give a heads up, but it shows what people thinks about using same assets as other games.



Then there are the guys thats polite, but still needs to comment on it


And then there are reddit, everytime we show content from that map we get comments



And the list goes on


Its actually a bit tiring. Plus I know the other game does not have cool networked features like this on the map

 

So Asset flipping seems to be a modular permutation problem that we as the Unity community and asset providers should be able to fix?

If assets had more configuration options that would make their possible permutations much larger wouldn't it be harder to go into a game with assets and see the flip straight away?

What if Unity had a permutation rating on assets so that assets with more configurations and permutations would be given a higher score?

E.g. A character with 5 shirt, trouser, hair, shoe, eye, nose and accessory settings has a potential of 16,807(? maths rusty) permutations. Add in some colour parameters and size distortions and you could easily draw a crowd with four characters (man/woman/girl/boy).

 

Can people start replying to asset flip videos with links to world of warcraft? I mean it's clear all these videos are just making people dislike games they would otherwise be perfectly happy with...

And while actors can be typecast, locations can't. Locations are actually essential asset flips. Or should we erase the statue of liberty from the skyline because someone's seen it before?

There has to be sane middle ground.

 

@AndersMalmgren I often wonder is most of the people making such comments are game devs. Like the one person in your list who mentions they saw that asset on the Unity store for about $80. I can ask family and friends who play games and are not in game dev and I am quite sure they would say they have never went to the Unity asset store. Because why would they? I wouldn't be surprised though if some said "yeah I've heard about it". I suppose some might go there out of curiosity just because so many people keep posting text and videos about.

But really I think the root of the problem may be right here or with other game devs "out there". It does seem like a lot of game devs even here think it is bad to use any premade visual assets in a game. And I guess I wonder if maybe that wasn't the whole root of this to begin with. People commenting "they didn't even make the graphics they bought them on the Asset Store!" and one thing led to another.

We'll never know for sure but I certainly think it is reasonable. So in that case @hippocoder the education would need to begin right here that using premade assets, ANY premade assets including visual assets, is fine as long as the end product ends up being very good. The elitist view of graphics have to be original, they have to be altered (hidden) needs to change. And that probably needs to start with game devs themselves. I just don't know if that is possible because it seems like a lot of people believe graphics are the most important thing in a game.

Beyond that I guess maybe it should be sorted out... is doing an asset flip such as the 2D platformer I shared above really such a terrible thing? Should the focus be on how much effort was put into making the game instead of how good the game is?

If so then maybe Unity can add a bold large text to every kit / template on the Asset Store "You must significantly improve this base kit before releasing a game". And if they do that they should make a page listing what "siginificant improvement" means and make that text link to it.

Really this all goes back to one thing... focusing on how much effort went into making a game or more specifically how much perceived effort went into making a game. I think that is just focusing on the wrong thing to begin with and again seems like something game devs would be upset about more than general gamers. They probably see such things as "cheating".

 

Buying and using 3d models in your game is not easy unless you are using an entire level. The vast majority of models I use need to be tweaked and sometimes, I just give up and remake them. It takes time to do that, and I am the only one on our team who can do it...at least at the moment.

So...while I am making terrain, which I do using outside tools, using many terrain assets to get the terrain to look the way I want it to look (I am picky) I am spending hours upon hours doing this. It is hard, not at all easy. Yeah, I could buy a terrain on the asset store and no one would recognize it, but I want my own world.

Also, this lazy developer is not only a terrain and level designer, but also has to work with the programmers, keeping them on task, making sure I give them what they need to do their job. I also have to give assignments to the artists, go over there stuff, make sure it works in the game or with 2d art, that it looks good together for UI.

I spend 12 hours a day at least working on this game, well 10 if you do not include my forum and chat posting. . My programmers must be lazy though, since one spends 4-5 and the other has to work this day job. lol

As an indie developer, we wear a lot of hats. LOTS of hats. So lazy? Geesh, someone needs to make a video of what it is like to be an indie developer. And really, I have it easy. I can stop working because games are not my main source of income. But not everyone can do that.

Lazy....really? I think those people who spend 12 hours a day PLAYING games are lazy. And then they want to spend hours a day telling those of us who are working hard to make something we can be proud of that we are lazy for buying a bunch of models so that we can actually realize the dream of our game being released?

I actually am past the anger part and into the amused part.

 

Very good point. Seems like butthurt wannabe devs. Or maybe these people really have no lives and must investigate.

No, because then you would be encouraging artificial fluff. The game is either: good, bad or a clone. And Asset Flips are the laziest clones of all.

Certainly effort is the wrong word to use. Because something totally original with very little effort put in can still be fantastic.

 

Yeah, but if you read the comments, it looks to me that some people do not care. They might notice, but your game is obviously better.

This is why these Steam Guardians are fake drama. The people who care about such things may not play your game. But those who see it is better and fun to play, will just gloss over stuff like this. It is sort of the same thing as glitches in games that never get fixed but the game is fun so players ignore it. AAA games make lots of money even when they do not fix bugs.

Not every gamer is going to jump on the bandwagon and let others tell them what to think or play. And while I agree that calling out bad games is not a bad thing, I think the group needs to redefine bad games. They should not be lazy but should play the games first, look at every aspect. Is the game fun? Does the developer update and support the game? Does it have value that supersedes the visuals, such as music, story, etc.?

 

Speed tree will be next. God help you if you purchased valid speed trees but didn't make new ones with their editor. These whiny little mice will be crawling all over looking for cheese to nibble at because their hopeless millennial entitled lives give them no more purpose greater

 

They said they would include altered assets as asset flipping too. So a Speedtree with the same textures is going to be included. Even with new textures, Speedtrees are pretty distinctive.

 

That's the part I don't understand about it. With the focus being on lack of effort and laziness... where is the line? And who is deciding such things? Are 2 premade graphics fine or are 200?

Are tree systems fine or do you need to manually make them? And what about scripting assets? I'm sorry but laziness isn't the sole domain of programmers buying premade graphics assets. If using premade graphics is lazy lack of effort then I surely see using any scripting assets the same way. Because again... you didn't make it someone else did.

I don't even care if someone buys an asset that is a completed good game and sells it as is. The first person doing that is still bringing value to gamers. They are taking the risk of spending $60 for the asset (gamers aren't going to pay that) plus $100 to Steam and then making the game available for less than $10. Maybe less than $5. If a person cannot see the effort, risk and value happening there I think they are part of the problem.

This whole thing has just got "stupid". People flipping incomplete assets as games yes I was onboard against that. But not what it has become.

 

Just waiting for the harder to detect but much more common "code flip". Every AAA game is flipping code like crazy, and probably most if not all indies. Everyone using any engine ever is code flipping.

This observation alone should weaken the concept of the asset flip. But nope, people aren't that advanced at all. Code is just something automatic to them.

 

So having this discussion with my team, which also happens to be a teen and two young adults who live in my house (the others live in far away places so not in my house to hear me rant).

I think we have to accept this as a reality and that we are going to get called out on using assets in the future on Youtube, Facebook, etc.. How we handle it could be important.

In my opinion, we should stress what is original about our game. Several years of perfecting mechanics to make a game that is different from any game out there should be emphasized in our reply. Also, if I use a house off the asset store to save time so I can spend more time on terrain and level design, that should be part of our response. Not in a defensive way, but a way to explain how small teams are able to make complex games.

I can build a house, but would it look all that different from the house I put in the game? How much time would it take me to build houses when I could use that time to create lore, which is essential to our game?

What is the important thing about your game. Is it combat? Maybe you have a unique and exciting combat system so you purchased a dungeon level so you could use your time on the combat system.

Maybe your game is about the story, a beautiful emotional journey and you used assets that helped you realize that story in 3d. As a writer, you did not have all the skills to build the art, but you have an eye for what suits your game.

We have to not be afraid of responding to accusations of asset flipping. These Youtubers are being irresponsible in the way they are exploiting this. But we can help educate as well. I imagine many of these folks see this as being part of the fad and just go along with it.

Maybe if they understand the goals each of us had for our game, they will be better able to understand why we choose to make our games the way we do.

 

Hey, at least Call of Duty lovingly crafts whole new categories of bugs with every yearly patch!

 

I agree, but then are also teh fanboys, dont forget the fanboys, those that buy the game. Get 0.1 hours required for leaving review, leaves negative review and leaves reference to that other game thats much better according to them

 

I'm a genetic code flip with only a few tweaks :/

 

This is an interesting subject. Notice how "asset flip" is never used, despite this clearly being an asset. This speaks to the fact that people clearly see the fact that work has gone into the production.

More interesting though, so the problem here is two fold:

- One: you're working in a small genre and one of the biggest examples of the genre is using the same asset.

- Two: urban assets may also be in some ways more difficult to mix than scenes that are nature based, this makes it harder for you to use stock art without being able to "hide your tracks".


I've been working on largely outdoor medieval scenes and being able to mix trees, grass, ground, and a wide number of props allows me hide the fact that it's all stock art. An individual tree simply doesn't stand out nearly as much as the "Loans" billboard on that building does. In general, I think any text written on a billboard or sign might stand out too much and call attention. Players are just more likely to remember the "XXX" sign in that alley than they are most other things. It's tricky because those signs are also very important for splashing color and personality into the scene.

Natural environments also allow for a lot more variation than a tight urban setting does. You can "stick a rock here and a tree there" and create variation, whereas in an urban setting it might be more limiting as you need to cram buildings in everywhere.

It might be a point to note - if you're heavily leaning on store assets you may want to avoid heavily urban settings and stick to more rural where you can at minimum mix in lots of foliage.