Reflections on The Game Industry as a 3D Artist
Hello, I’m Melih. I’ve been following the forum and trying to read the posts for a while. I hope I’ve opened this topic in the right place.
For the past 2 years, I’ve been doing all my work only in Blender. Learning the program took a lot of time. Before that, I was using CD4 (Cinema 4D). I used to create sculptures and environment designs in CD4.
Recently, since I’ve been focusing more on immersive art and video art, I needed to learn Blender. I’m quite unfamiliar with the game development world; until now I’ve only been a dedicated gamer. Producing models and assets was always something I wanted to start but never did. I’ve mostly stayed on the side of world-building and video creation.
For many years, I also didn’t really meet people working in the game industry. It always felt like a very closed community to me. Recently, after reading articles and criticism about it, I see that people who want to enter the industry—new graduates and self-taught artists—struggle a lot to build connections and find jobs. I think this is also why I couldn’t really connect with anyone.
In video art, it’s easier to form a team and work together for exhibitions. Two artists can come together under a shared idea and collaborate quite easily. If the work is good, it usually finds a place in exhibitions, even if it’s sometimes difficult. This has been my experience for the last 20 years.
But when I look at the game industry, I see people asking for free work, fake projects, and people chasing large-scale projects without considering skills or experience. After creating an ArtStation account and uploading a few works, I even started receiving several scam messages every week. It surprised me a lot. It feels less like collaboration and more like a competitive struggle.
In Turkey, the situation seems even worse. Even instructors in education sometimes hide information from students. Because I’ve been in the art world for a long time, I can notice this. My questions are often avoided or answered superficially. They mostly teach modeling, but not how to package a project, present it, build concepts, or optimize. An unoptimized project is basically useless. Learning all of this on your own can take years.
On forums and other platforms, I see many artists who are very skilled at modeling. They can create almost anything with strong artistic quality. But many of them say they cannot find a place in the game industry. I wonder if people trying to enter the game industry consider moving toward video or art fields instead.
What can a 3D artist actually do? Do modelers also focus on design composition and art fundamentals, or do they mostly just recreate beautiful scenes with lighting and color? Is the game industry really as difficult as it looks from the outside?
I’m not talking about technical difficulty like modeling or software skills, but more about the competitive culture and lack of collaboration.
This is my first time on this forum, but I really like it. As an old-school person, forums feel more comfortable to me. Coming from the ICQ era, I still prefer forums. I think people used to Instagram-style messages would probably never read such a long text.
Replies
The industry is in a super unstable place right now. Sure, games are selling like crazy, but production costs have exploded so much that it’s getting harder and harder for devs to even break even, let alone make a profit.
When I go to indie events, I can really see the struggle of these micro-teams trying to make a living off prototypes that, realistically, will most likely be forgotten in the depths of Steam after a week.
The reality is that there are just too many games and studios out there, and players only have so much free time. On top of that, a lot of the younger generation treats games mainly as a social hangout, leaving premium AAA single-player games to be mostly carried by the over-30 crowd.
We’ll just have to wait and see where the business goes. For now, I’m just hanging tight.
For example, 13 years ago when u needed body, u needed to sculpt it from scratch knowing anatomy, make textures, make shader, paint human skin (which was super hard) in order to get realistic results. Not to mention hair. That was a time where art was really appreciated. Nowadays everyone can be pretty good 3d artist. Take a look for example on substance painter, software is completely automated. Its all about technicality. A lot of automation is also involved, a lot of AI will be involved, a lot of base meshes people have on their table atm. Thats why 3d artists jobs are in decline. Nobody wants to pay person for it.
UE is free which gives the opportunity to everyone to make games - which kills industry and jobs immediately. WIth metahuman 4 example a lot of 3d cahracter artist positions were cut off. Everyone can play with it and assembly a character,hairs, and it will progress and become even better and better.
Btw, I see hundreds of new games good looking, with nice graphics, but all the same. Why would someone buy that? hundreds of first person and third person shooters, hundreds of strategic games, its all copy paste basically. Its suepr hard to invent something new.
What is the future - future will be dealing with technical stuff, a lot of assembly, node based programming. U will not need to sculpt or paint character, u will assembly it (or environment).
So, my conclusion is - as long as everyone can do it, there will be less or no work
However, there is something I have noticed. More and more people with limited artistic skills are entering creative industries through the use of AI. I believe this is causing a contraction across many design and art-related fields. It is a challenge that many of us are currently facing.
My personal view is that AI largely produces cliché and derivative work. Moreover, it often creates outputs filled with mistakes, increasing the workload rather than reducing it. For that reason, I believe that one day the market will want to return to work created by real people. Unfortunately, that process may take longer than our own lifetimes. At the very least, I do not expect it to happen anytime soon.
As for companies, the situation is not much different. Like any other business operating within a capitalist system, they seek greater profits. As profits become the primary objective, they spend more money to make even more money and constantly look for ways to extract more productivity from their workers. I think I am old enough to know that this system is unlikely to change anytime soon.
So the question that comes to mind is: what are we supposed to do?
That is the question I find myself searching an answer for. Of course, we must continue doing the work we already do. But can simply waiting really be considered a solution?
Sometimes I make a list of all the things we can do with our 3D skills and the other abilities we have developed over the years. The list is surprisingly long. As people who have dedicated their lives to 3D art, we often possess a broader technical and creative skill set than many designers or even many professionals working in other creative fields. I think that is an important advantage.
Moreover, the endurance of a gamer or a 3D artist in front of a computer is remarkable. The ability to work for long hours is difficult to compare with that of many other professions. In my experience, a 3D artist does not simply perform a job. They live inside the worlds they are trying to build. Because of that, they often continue working with extraordinary dedication, barely noticing how much time has passed.
When I think about all of these strengths, I find myself wanting to focus less on waiting for things to improve and more on what we can actually do with the skills we already possess.
Most of us would probably agree that trying to establish an independent game company and develop games together is an extremely difficult path with uncertain rewards. For that reason, I think it is worth looking at other possibilities.
One idea that comes to mind is treating 3D work as an artistic practice in itself and finding ways to exist through immersive experiences. The growing field of immersive digital art may provide a powerful platform for 3D artists to express themselves.
Personally, I create video art and immersive installations. Through exhibitions and galleries, I have observed an interesting trend. Many people from advertising and film backgrounds have entered this space in search of new markets, using AI to rapidly produce large quantities of similar-looking work. As a result, parts of the digital art world have started to feel increasingly saturated with repetitive content.
At the same time, however, I have noticed a strong reaction from the art community. Curators, collectors, and institutions generally do not want copied work or purely AI-generated pieces. On the contrary, there seems to be a growing demand for original and authentic work.
Collectors and digital museums do not want artistic production to be controlled by a handful of agencies or companies. Audiences recognize this kind of manufactured content very quickly, and it is often perceived as inauthentic and undesirable.
For that reason, I see 3D artists as one of the groups with the greatest potential moving forward. We are capable of producing original work while also maintaining a high level of technical and creative output. Many artists from older generations simply have not had the opportunity to spend years learning complex digital tools and adapting to rapidly evolving technologies. 3D artists, on the other hand, have grown alongside these technologies and know how to use them as creative instruments.
Because of this, I believe that 3D artists may become one of the communities best positioned to navigate and benefit from the transformation currently taking place across creative industries.
I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on this.