Hi Benjamin! Chance pointed me in your direction. I just read through the thread, and I think this is a cool idea that’ll really benefit the community. However, I’ve been thinking about this, and I don’t think this would be a good fit for the Marketplace. In order for the Marketplace to grow, I’ve been working on developing it into a place where content creators can promote their work and make enough money for it to be a worthwhile and profitable side venture, with the eventual goal of being able to make a living off of the Marketplace. That in turn would bring in even more talented creators. And that’s one of the primary reasons we don’t offer free content. With the approach you’re taking here, if this were on the Marketplace as either free\almost free, it would essentially be subsidizing content development and undercutting the prices of everyone that’s investing their own time and money into developing Marketplace content. Unfortunately, that’s not in line with the goals of the Marketplace or the way we want to support our content creators.
That being said, I think this is a really interesting model, and I encourage you to keep moving forward and working with the community to develop it outside of the Marketplace. I’ll be keeping an eye on it, because I’d like to see how all of this works out.
Hi @Jon_Jones,
I’m glad you got the time to go through our thread fully & yes I do understand that what we are proposing could be very disruptive to the UE4 Marketplace if not handled correctly & thus why we have been working on a code of conduct for how we would go about releasing content in such a way which doesn’t undercut other developers working on commercial asset packs + potentially scare off potential UE4 Marketplace content creators (this was briefly discussed with Chance Ivey via Skype)
With that being said,
We have been looking at potentially upgrading our http://patreon.binarysword.com/ website that we have in the works from a simple 2-3 page website to a full blown website with eCommerce, etc just in case the situation of being permitted to release free asset packs on the UE4 Marketplace was turned down.
Furthermore,
We will most likely release our Goal & Pledge banners + a proper introduction & FAQ as an update to the very 1st post on this thread either come Friday or early next week.
NOTE: We would have done this sooner but due to both our content being themed around Easter (easy to remove) + things changing drastically, we felt it was best to hold off until we had the full picture on the situation.
Is that not far away, from the “free” idea, where it started? [FREE] Various models - Community Content, Tools and Tutorials - Unreal Engine Forums Why spreading words about that “free” project, when you use $ in your text often?
Is it not the same, like offering assets, and sell them, like on the marketplace?
Forgive me my worst case, rusty english.
Best regards Stefan
Hi @Luftbauch,
The idea is that the assets themselves will always remain FREE! but the prices mentioned above are a part of a collective tip/donation system to either be powered by Patreon.com or directly through our website at patreon.binarysword.com which is currently in development.
Think of it this way,
The more collective money we receive on a per-month or per-release cycle will allow us to provide larger ‘Asset Crates’ which will be offered FREE! for all the UE4 Developers and well the community at large if we cannot release directly through the UE4 Marketplace.
An example of this is that we release say a Weapons Crate valued at around $1,000 USD for FREE! on either the UE4 Marketplace or our own marketplace, now lets say that 100,000 people download that Weapons Crate for FREE! but the Weapons Crate is after all valued at $1,000 USD (not marketplace equivalent but exclusively commissioned rates) that we would only need 1,000 people out of that 100,000 to provide $1 USD each to raise the $1,000 USD needed to create that Weapons Crate
Now obviously we could be making a lot more $$$ if we were to charge for the content per-person at UE4 Marketplace’s average prices of between $5 to $100+ per-asset crate/pack BUT we believe strongly in supporting the developer community and those with money to spare can help those without, by pledging as low as $2 USD (the price of a cup of coffee) on our Patreon or website page to support the development of these FREE! Asset Crates.
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We also understand that we may very well raise $0 on a per-month or per-release basis and if that is the case we will still release FREE! Asset Crates here and there BUT we will not be able to provide customised content specifically for the developer community and instead we will just release assets when we can that were created for our internally focused projected (FPS & RTS games).
Some of the team might also pitch in with some of their own personal assets they have created in their spare time but that is a BIG MAYBE.
Because at the end of the day we need to eat… and have coffee… LOTS OF COFFEE
I regret to inform you all that I’ve had to take sick leave between the 27th of April to the 3rd of May. My apologies for not being well enough to state this earlier and hopefully one of my colleagues can provide a little update on where we are currently on the initiative until I am well enough to update the the 1st post of this thread with the appropriate information.
Hello all my name is Ferretti,
I’m the Web Designer on this project & have been working at Binary Sword Pty Ltd since the beginning. I know Benjamin from long time ago when I was still messing around with code on Moddb.com, I’ve been working with him since 2009.
I would just like to provide an update on what is currently going on regarding this project or as Benjamin calls it “initiative”
We are currently in the process of slowly developing the infrastructure to such an endeavour as this one including:
A fully functioning website patreon.binarysword.com to host news, content updates & marketplace which will now have to include the proper infrastructure to also host the files & not just link to them on the UE4 Marketplace as we had hoped to do.
Leo has done animations for a MP5SD in the past way - YouTube in 2013 and is happy to have the chance to redo it with all the new tricks & skills he has gathered since then.
And of course we have been working on the Patreon Goals & Perks/Pledges which benjamin.smith will be updating our 1st draft announcement banner on this forum thread as soon as he is awake as it is UTC+10:00 over there, so it’s around 5-6am for him at the moment.
Also we are working on a solid download center on the future patreon.binarysword.com website, a place where you can just download all the free asset crates from a secure network without having to open up (and probably update) the UE4 Client. We are also looking for other avenues of payment and distribution outside of Patreon.com.
Most importantly, we want to hear your feedback, to see how many of you are interested in this project of ours, how many of you can actually invest money in this and how many can’t wait to download plenty of useful game-assets for free.
Please stay tuned for more updates, we have so much to share with you and we can’t wait to do just that!
Regards,
Ferretti - Director @Binary Sword Pty Ltd
Jeez sorry guys, I totally forgot to notify everyone on the 05-15-2015 via an update post (what I’m doing now) that the original post in this thread has been updated with a shiny new banner.
Anyway we are always updating the banner & would love to hear your feedback while we work on http://patreon.binarysword.com/ as to shape the direction of its development
I would just like let you know that we are still here slowly on the project but things are taking a lot more time due to needing to build our own website, launcher (similar to the Epic Games Launcher) and forums + voting system e.g. UserVoice or something similar now that we were denied access to distribute content to the UE4 Marketplace for FREE.
We require this foundation of infrastructure to truly support something like what we have proposed to the fullest and we hope that you can all understand the situation.
Our other option is to fold and release content for a PAID price on the UE4 Marketplace but charge at the lowest amount possible, which currently sits at $4.99 USD. We believe by distributing through the UE4 Marketplace for a price would undermine what this project is all about and thus we are going with option 1 as mentioned above instead.
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I would like to state that we are currently working on a UE4 Plugin which we fully intend to commercialise and if it is financially successful, than we can use some of the money to speed up progress on this free asset pack(s)/crate(s) initiative.
If I may make a suggestion, as the permission was turned down, why not sidestep the market? Make a plugin for Unreal Editor that allows you to create, download, and import asset packs and distribute them for free, similar to CPAN for Perl.
@AoiGhost perhaps, however as mentioned above we do intend to commercialise this project in-directly through Patreon or through our own solution on our website but of course the Asset Crates as we are cooling them will always remain FREE and it is completely optional if you wish to contribute to the project with your hard-earned cash.
When going down this path you are obligated to provide a good service to the customer and a place for the community to gather.
However,
Perhaps someone out there might be interested in donating their time to help work on our website and other integrations to cut costs down internally for us?
In exchange we could offer them an exclusive Asset Crate and/or provide them with Sponsorship Status either for a limited duration or a special tier which is permanent for them?
I would like to hear everyone’s thoughts on this proposition.
You can also find one of our older incomplete websites for our cancelled Knoll project here: knollthegame.com (website never fully completed), which we might very well release some or all of the assets to the general public either for FREE or for a price as mentioned here (with screenshots): [FREE] Various models - World Creation - Epic Developer Community Forums
I forgot to mention in my previous post that we might consider using Gumroad at first than incorporate Patreon into the mix after we’ve proven ourselves to the UE4 Community that we can deliver quality ‘Asset Crate’ products on a smaller scale i.e. smaller versions of our Material, Prop Sound FX/Music, Environment & perhaps also Weapon Crates
@_cDub much appreciated and this is why we wanted to create such a service for the public where 5-10% of the community pays for the content for the rest, similar to ‘Free-to-play’ monetization but in our case our core content will always remain free and those who do contribute money through our Patreon will be rewarded in other ways such as receiving some/all of our research, private Google Hangout sessions, source files for such programs as 3ds max, zbrush, photoshop, etc. as part of certain Patron Reward Tiers.
[HR][/HR] @Sadaleus Yes this project is still alive but we have kept quiet about it, as to not disappoint people with the lack of activity of late and also due to this project’s complexity (Patreon, website, custom UE4 Marketplace Launcher similar to that of the Epic Games Launcher, etc) we have had to push the project back while we work on freelancing contracts and a couple of UE4 Marketplace (PAID) Asset Packs + a UE4 Plugin which we will be releasing soon.
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We hope that these paid products will allow us to raise enough funds to put aside so that we can dedicate ourselves to working part to full time on getting the ball rolling with this project which will (pre-announcement spoiler) be named Game Dev Crate moving forward
So if you would like to support us financially than we’d very much appropriate if you’d consider purchasing some if not all of our UE4 Asset Packs + Plugin once they hit the UE4 Marketplace hopefully within the coming month or two.
NOTE: We have yet to submit these paid asset packs and plugin (looking at a couple of weeks) so it may take slightly longer due to the UE4 Marketplace submission process.
In the meantime,
If any of you are still interested in this project than feel free to follow, like and subscribe to the various social networks we have setup:
Just keep in mind that we weren’t planning on making a proper announcement per-say until March / April so don’t expect to see any of those above social networks active for awhile.
You can also bookmark our domain name if you wish at GameDevCrate.com
Thank you for your reply glad to hear that you haven’t abandoned this project because I think it is great and I will keep my fingers crossed to make it successful. BTW your Patreon site is down so only way to support you is by buying upcoming marketplace assets?
Just giving a quick update that our UE4 Plugin ODIN Tracker is now LIVE! on the UE4 Forums
Our other UE4 Marketplace Asset Packs have taken a back seat for the time being while we put a larger focus on ODIN Tracker in preparation for its Closed-Alpha.
[HR][/HR] @Sadaleus Yes our Patreon page has yet to launch so the URL link will remain broken for anyone wishing to access it who isn’t the owner/creator of the campaign until we click Publish and launch the GameDev Crate campaign.
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