Making money from our craft.
polycounter lvl 11
I thought we could use a thread detailing how to make money from our art. A lot of the time our creations end up sitting in a hard-drive until it fails; why not sell that M16 you modelled, or model a character you can use in a game for iOS? So I figured we could have one place where we could dump all useful information regarding this, in three main areas. Selling assets, Games Creation, and Freelance Websites. This is the format I was considering.
SELLING ART ASSETS
http://turbosquid.com/
Pros:
Cons:
http://3docean.net/
Pros:
Cons:
GAMES CREATION (iOS, Android, Unity, UDK, PSN, XBLA)
Video on approaching app development (Good advice)
http://mobile.tutsplus.com/articles/marketing/video-spotlight-am-i-ready-to-build-an-app/
DOWNLOADS
UDK: http://www.udk.com/download
UDK- Paid
http://eat3d.com/udk_mobile
MOBILE APP DEVELOPMENT TUTORIAL BLOGS
http://mobile.tutsplus.com/
http://active.tutsplus.com/
MOBILE GAMES DEVELOPMENT BLOGS
http://www.zombox.net/
RELEVANT WEBSITES
http://www.the-app-shack.com/
FREELANCE WEBSITES
We could separate the sections into free and paid sections (i.e. a free website with tutorials, versus an informative book that you bought and read. Thread is obviously very W.I.P, but I'll update this post as people throw in links. What does everyone think?
SELLING ART ASSETS
http://turbosquid.com/
Pros:
Cons:
http://3docean.net/
Pros:
Cons:
GAMES CREATION (iOS, Android, Unity, UDK, PSN, XBLA)
Video on approaching app development (Good advice)
http://mobile.tutsplus.com/articles/marketing/video-spotlight-am-i-ready-to-build-an-app/
DOWNLOADS
UDK: http://www.udk.com/download
UDK- Paid
http://eat3d.com/udk_mobile
MOBILE APP DEVELOPMENT TUTORIAL BLOGS
http://mobile.tutsplus.com/
http://active.tutsplus.com/
MOBILE GAMES DEVELOPMENT BLOGS
http://www.zombox.net/
RELEVANT WEBSITES
http://www.the-app-shack.com/
FREELANCE WEBSITES
We could separate the sections into free and paid sections (i.e. a free website with tutorials, versus an informative book that you bought and read. Thread is obviously very W.I.P, but I'll update this post as people throw in links. What does everyone think?
Replies
Not to mention the time spent babysitting a community, once you have accumulated the player base.
I look at it this way. How do most professional artists get paid in the games industry? By getting hired to do a job, either by employment or contract. This works because nobody will get anything from you for free because they're paying for your labor. If the resulting assets are consistently what they want, you've justified the cost of your labor.
The tricky part is finding the proper funding model that will keep you employed. The current model is one that sells work that has already been done by making copies of it and selling them like they're toasters or shoes. This would be the publishing model. This only works so long as the publisher can exist as the only source for a digital good (the internet has destroyed that monopoly). Publishers use investor money to pay developers to create games, then mass produce copies to sell them at a very low cost per copy in order to recoup the initial investment plus profit. The problem being is, that which is worth paying for was already paid for (the developer's labor) and the copies are easy to copy, thus not worth much in the eyes of the public. But those developers, they are worth a lot and publisher essentially stand between them and the consumers.
Establishing a direct developer/customer relationship (we're talking actual dialog between you and your fanbase, not just boilerplates and press releases) is your best tool. Make your customers your best friends. Your friends wouldn't rip you off would they? No, so they wouldn't either, if you earn their loyalty. So make them loyal, not to just the company but, to the people that work there who do the kind work your customers care about. When you make a game, you're having a conversation with your audience. What do you want that game to say to your friends? "Pay us or we'll call you thieves" or "We lovingly made this great game for our very good friends and we hope you'll buy it so we can make more"?
But, there are other things that can make copies worth paying for. Services like Steam that offer free unlimited downloads of games you purchase; free storage for your games on their servers so you don't have to keep it on your hard drive or keep a pile of burned discs on your shelves or filling your closet. Elastic pricing. When you go digital, you can play with the price all you like to get the most possible sales out of your games. Not getting the buyer frenzy you were hoping for at $60? Try it at $30 or $25 or $15. I've bought games I never before considered because they were less than $20 and available on Steam. Turn an apprehensive buyer into an impulse buyer. There is all of that, and Valve is very friendly to indie developers.
That ran on a bit and got slightly off topic, but it's good to get those thoughts out of my head and in an more organized form. Don't like it? Don't agree? Not my problem. Moving on...
I was going to say 'Get a job, hippy!'
... in a notoriously difficult-to-get-into industry.
That's a bit of a stretch, but there's merit to this comment. Plenty of talented folks not getting hired because there's simply no jobs for them.
That and companies would rather pay people outta school really cheap to make their games, instead of paying 4x the price for an experienced person.. This doesn't happen all the time, but I see it more and more lately.
if everything worth doing was easy we'd have done it all already
3d artists are required in plenty of other industries. There are jobs out there for people willing to take them (e.g arch-viz). It's not the best job in the world, but at least you're not homeless and starving.
and often better payed, and with better working conditions.
Yep. I'm an animator in the health care industry right now. Finishing up my BS in Computer Science then going to spend my time working towards an artist/tech artist position. Other industries are a great starting point to get real world experience.
My work has a gym attached. We are encouraged to work out for an hour during the day, and outside our normal lunch hours. I also get 3 weeks vacation. Not sure how that compares, but I thought it was pretty nifty for my first full time job.
Go figures...
http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/gto-judge-3d-model/632467
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=related&v=tc72cNLuoYo&feature=related or some of the indy iphone artists.
if you skills are at a hire-able level freelancing and selling assets are great alternatives,
I am employed. In the CG industry. Good money too. But I also want to make a game for a mobile platform one day soon, because hell, I love games, and I love moneys. Would make a nice portfolio piece too. Hawken has done it, Rooster has his own personal project going, are you saying only the jobless should be pursuing this? Cause they are succesful dudes. What if I want more money? That iphone 4S isnt gonna buy itself ya know! I just thought, it would be nice to share my studies with the community. Remember that thread you posted about contributing to Polycount?
Thanks for pulling that out your ass Zac!
Yep!
I know y'all kiddin though
But as mentioned before several times, artists who make their own games most often become more game developers than artists, so that have to be a clear choice.
And creating a successful product is also not that easy, it's comparable to hoping to slip into a senior artist position at your favorite games company, it can happen but requires some extreme dedication and a ton of experience and skills.
Again: it's not a way to make money, because most won't be successful, and all will eventually become less artists and more developers.
People WITH jobs should be the ones to pursue it though, as they are the ones who can still go on and work for their living if things don't sell :P
It really really really isn't. There is some atrocious tosh on the appstore. So if some idiot can make an ugly game that rips off Angry Birds or Plants VS Zombies, surely someone with an ounce of sense and ability can make a pretty side-scroller, say. Or at least a pretty rip off of Angry Birds or Plants VS Zombies. Sure, the days of making big money on the appstore are loooong gone. Indie developers for the iOS are battling for 3% of the market share. But don't you like games? Don't you want to work in the games industry (i.e., make games).
Of course it is hard. That's what this thread is for, as previously stated at least twice. To make the search for related know-how easier. I am completely confused as to why so many seem opposed to this idea.
There's a bigger market than just the ios market.
The ios market is a bit of a gamble, where it probably is the easiest to just rip someone off, or have the best ability in marketing (yet another area outside of art)
But the thread title is misleading if that is the objective here, as you're no longer making money of your craft, you're learning a new craft with only a small chance of every making money :P
There certainly are other markets, but I don't know of any bigger ones. Plus UDK don't export to Android. UDK is far more relevant to us. 90% of this forums posting members have used it at least for presenting work, so we have experience in it. Mind you, if you have links you want to share related to game development for other platforms, please, do share. :thumbup:
Yeah, splitting hairs is normally super-unhelpful :P
Personally I believe it's better to make sure that whatever you are creating is somethin g you really enjoy. That way, if it ends up not making much money, you will have fun doing it. That's opposed to trying to create something in an effort to make lots of money and potentially failing at that too. Then you had no fun and no money either.
Whatever, it's better to work with other people. You should not be put off the idea of making an iphone game if that's what you really want. Can't program? Find a programmer who is looking for an artist.
I'll pretend this thread is about becoming a game-developer with full awareness of the sacrifices that comes with it
If anything for a solo developer I'd suggest unity over UDK, it's a bit lighter and easier to prototype things in, only go UDK if you have a ton of experience in either unreal tech or heavier things. Just using UDK as an artist might not be enough to justify using it over something that might be a bit easier to start with.
If you're using a platform and engine such as these, then articles related to the difference between platforms might not be the most important thing first, learning the basics behind programming will be the first one, then learning the basics behind how most games are structured.
Then prototyping, which includes little art and lots of tested ideas :P
popping over to www.gamedev.net is one thing.
Opening up unity and messing around with objects and what you can do with them with attached scripts is another thing. http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Manual/Unity%20Basics.html
Read the statement I quoted right before I said he was splitting hairs ;P
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