What really is an Asset Flip??

Yeah, well, I have kid models I got off the kid asset store.

 

lol

 

I'm not that new to Unity but whenever I name the unity game engine I call it "Unity" or "Unity 3D" or "Unity 2D", What do you old geezers call it?, what's wrong with calling the unity engine "Unity 3D"

 

Awesome engine that saved us from having to make our own... or just Unity.

 

Ah... what an imbecile I've been all this time, I vow to change my ways and give Unity the praise it deserves.

 

Code is never asset flip because it is "engine", like unreal, frostbit and ubi soft tower. But nobody like ubisoft tower so there is that.

 

Hmm... did you intentionally choose that wording due to the subject of this thread?

This sounds an awful lot like a lack of effort... even outright laziness.

 

Funny thing is, reinventing the wheel is a bad thing when it comes to software, I wonder what my costumers think of this, asset flip probably... Did you use a SDK for that rope simulation!?

 

Accidental laziness.

 

Yeah I get that. Just found it funny because she wrote that in a way that seems to perfectly match how some people out there are viewing things at least as far as asset usage is concerned. "Oh?! So you didn't want to spend the time and make the effort to make your own X? Another damn lazy game dev!"

Basically just illustrating the point whenever you measure something by effort that is a slippery slope as they say. I bet right here on these forums there are huge differences in views in what is acceptable and what is not for making a game to sell. Some probably think use whatever you can it is stupid not to. Others probably think have some pride (another thing that group says) and make your own stuff you shouldn't be flipping other people's assets in your game if you plan to charge for it. And many more between these two extremes.

But the whole thing is built on quicksand kind of the pot calling the kettle black kind of thing because unless you're making all of your stuff from scratch (and that would include not using Unity, GMS or similar engines) you're doing the very same thing. And the YOU in that is not literally you @AndersMalmgren the you is anyone.

That is the thing. How far do we take it? I don't see how anyone can count using premade visual assets as flipping other people's work and not count using premade audio and code assets as flipping other people's work. That is just hypocritical. Obviously. Or I sure would hope it is obvious to any game dev.

And then once you go down that path... where does it end? That is the real danger here. A year or so ago it was using premade kit assets to release incomplete / bad games and selling them that was attacked. Now it is using premade kit assets to release complete and good games that is attacked as well as just using assets here and there in general (although of course the more you use the more easily they can be found the greater the risk) that is attacked.

It doesn't take a genius to see this train is moving broadening what is considered bad, lazy, evil. It will be interesting to see how far it is pushed. Will the day come when truly a game made in Unity, GMS and others automatically loses out on 1/3 or even 1/ 2 of the potential audience because of the stigma attached? Seems very unlikely right now but anything is possible.

 

This "developer" made around 100 games with asset from the store just from last Cople of years, would it be considered as an asset flipper or a developer? http://appshopper.com/games/extreme-water-surfing-stunts-water-racing-17
I can understand why some people does that. But when 100 000 does the same thing over and over. And knowing how difficult it is to release just one simple game for the sake of love. It s just depressing to see how the market evolve. But without the asset store I wouldn't be able to have what it takes to make my own game.

 

I am sure it is seen as an extreme example of flipping. Honestly for me I don't care if they have used a single premade kit/template asset to make all of these games. As long as the games themselves are good games. I mean we could all go to wikipedia and look at a list of Battlefield and other games. And in reality I don't see that as being a whole lot different to someone buying a template asset on the Unity store and using it to create a line of dozens of similar games.

If they are all identical then yes I would see that as just a waste. Flooding virtual shelves with the exact same game with different names. But if the games each have something different (maybe one has you driving a bus and another has you driving a 4x4 and another has you driving a sports car, etc)... this kind of thing I don't see as being different from if one developer made a bus driving game, another developer made a 4x4 driving game and another team made a sports car driving game.

Also... if this person stole the asset to begin with... say it is pirated... then yes I think that would (rightly so) be frowned upon. If they simply bought an asset and customized it to produce a large number of different games then really what is the problem with that? Some gamers would find the 4x4 aspect appealing. Other gamers would find the bus more appealing. And others the sports car. And so forth. I don't think it should be bad just because one person puts out 100 games instead of 100 different devs putting out those 100 games.

Again it all comes down to what exactly is the focus here? What is being measured?

 

It is very possible that the most vocal people regarding asset flipping would like to largely criminalize/punish/ban small indie developers. Maybe it will eventually get to the point where some people start demanding indie devs to show their receipts to prove they spent at least a certain amount of money creating each game. For example, maybe indie devs would be required to spent at least 1000 hours personally plus at least $100k on each game to get ok'd by some future asset hunting group.

Regardless of how ridiculous those demands become, it is all moot because stores like Steam have a completely different world view than asset hunters. Steam wants to sell games, not impose arbitrary criteria on how developers make those games.

 

That is true but I'm not sure why that makes much if any difference. Sure Steam wants to sell games. This subject doesn't have much to do with Steam though.

If games are listed on Steam with many low ratings and comments along the lines of "I just can't recommend this game because basically the developer just took a bunch of assets from the Unity asset store and used them to make a game" I think the odds are pretty good that will put off at least some percentage of would be customers.

And if people search on YT to check out the game before buying and see your game covered in a video talking about "overall it is a good game. I'd recommend it but we just can't support these kind of developers. At least half of the graphics in the game came from the Unity asset store. Sure the developer tried to hide that by changing the textures here and there but again this kind of lack of effort should not be rewarded" I think that has a good chance of putting off at least some percentage of would be customers.

They are different subjects entirely. You are talking about the store. This thread is talking about the stigma of asset flips and what exactly it is. The store is irrelevant. It could be Steam. It could be mobile. It could be Itch.io or any other store. Unless those stores themselves do some kind of rating on the games that may override such comments (again possibly even coordinated group attacks) I don't see how the store actually matters much.

 

I don't know the more I think about all of this I think probably I should not write more about it. Probably the best thing.

I guess I will just say this...

Personally, I don't see why in the heck anyone cares what or how people have made the games they are releasing. Whether they buy a template asset from the Unity asset store made by someone else and release it as a game OR if they make their own game engine from scratch and then use it to create a game making all content from scratch and release it.

Whether they use a Unity template asset made by someone else to release 10 similar games or they build everything from scratch and release 10 similar games.

Whether they make games that gamers are only buying because of the trading cards or they make games gamers are buying because of the game.

What does any of it matter. And why should anyone else about it other than those developers and those customers? The only thing I get out of this whole thing are elitist views of how a game should be made or that only certain kinds of games should be allowed on Steam. And ultimately it all seems to come down to one thing... people being jealous because some devs are making money doing things in a way that others thing is wrong. "They are making money and not putting in enough work!!!!"

What is wrong is people trying to dictate how games can be made & what kind of games can be made. What is wrong is trying to make it so gamers cannot buy games only for the trading cards. This clearly shows such people really don't give a darn about the end users... the gamers. Because if the gamers themselves are happy buying what some people see as crappy games only to get the trading cards... then let them. If the people spending the money are happy saying "Great deal I got 10 trading cards for only $2!" then why should anyone else care?

 

But what did these gamer do? If they aren't satisfied why don't they make their own game? Buying a game you haven't made yourself is pure laziness!

/s

 

All this harsh talk speaking out against laziness. I think lazy is a good thing to be sometimes.

 

I can spend hours making tools so I don't have to do any work - I'm that lazy.

 

If we werent so lazy and such flippers we would write our own OS, like temple OS

 

We all know the damn truth, real developer aren't lazy, they use butterfly

 

This is funny because some of us have literally had this exact conversation in real life. Personally, I love using nano. I think vi is garbage and emacs is powerful but somewhat bloated.

 

The who works harder nonsense is nothing new. Anytime there is technology that can save time, some people talk about how that is lazy or cheating. I remember plenty of people complaining about C vs assembly and about C++ vs C. I even boasted to a guy once about some assembly code I had written and saved to cassette tape back in the day. He just laughed and told me a story about coding machine language using punch cards. He called me lazy for using a keyboard to enter my assembly code. I explained (and this was many years ago obviously) that entering assembly using a keyboard was a more efficient use of my time than coding each binary bit manually using punch cards. It is pointless bickering, since there is always somebody older that did things "in a less lazy way" at some previous point in time.

 

It's odd because I've been focusing for quite a while now on reducing the amount of effort to produce games of a certain scope & quality level. I wish it really was as quick & easy to make games using pre-made assets as those people think.

I think it's also very easy for other people to sit around and criticize what other people are doing calling a lack of effort / laziness. That's always easy. Of course, it is the money thing. If people were spending 40 to 60 hours on a game and releasing it for free they wouldn't care. But if they see the person selling it and maybe the game makes a couple of thousand dollars oh my gosh what an outrage.

I'm not sure where they are coming from. For me personally if I was doing this as an Indie Game Dev I'd want to average $50 per every hour I had spend on each game. Otherwise it is not even worth it too me unless it is something I am doing just on the side no care at all of treating it as a business. Say I put 50 hours into a game using as many pre-made assets as I can. That means I need to make $2,500 to cover my development time. And I spent $500 on assets this means I need to make $3,000 to cover my out of pocket investment. And I spent another 20 hours focused on marketing activities. Now I need to make $4,000. Steam takes 30% so I need to make nearly $6,000 from this game for it to have been worthwhile.

From what I've seen a high percentage of games out there are only making several hundred to a few thousand dollars in sales even when the developers have put in months of work.

I'm just not sure like I said what they are thinking. Like they seem to think me making $6k for such a project would be an outrage. No it isn't. I would be making exactly what I should be for it to cover expenses and be worth my time. Meaning being able to treat it like a business.