Quoted for agreement. It’s all so simple: don’t buy it if you think the price is too high.
Only of you sell them once, that is exclusively for one game.
If you sell them in numbers like you do with games, then they should not exceed the game price.
After all, if I bought from marketplace and used the asset in my game, then the same asset would pop up in many other games and players will be like ‘well, cheap stuff that game…that market place asset again in this one’
In the end, all threads so far about pricing went like this: sellers say it is too cheap and we want industry rates like for exclusive content, buyer say it is too expensive, some say do not buy if you think it is too expensive… good advice, and after all I do not want my game to be the 100th game having the same bug ridden tree from the market place in it.
Except nothing on the Marketplace is even CLOSE to industry rates. Even the most expensive stuff is pretty cheap.
The fact persists: They should not exceed game prices if they are sold in numbers like games. I mean, come on, how can you even attempt to argue about this.
I really hope UE4 market place soon hits the price range of Unity Asset store so that pricing freestyle stops.
Every product when sold in quantity is cheaper than in a single sale. Higher quantities -> lower price. At least in the economics of the rest of the world. Not here…where every rookie can conjure up their own prices.
My main reason for not buying from the market place is that I do not want my game to look cheap when people recognize that one UE4 market place asset again.
Time will cure this, there will be more content and better competition over time. When turbosquid was launched first same discussion occured. Over the years because of thousands of different content, pricing mentality changed for the better of the consumer.
Let the artist do their job, let them post prices however they want, soon, pricing models will have to change “naturally” since this should be a “liberal” market, right?
Laissez-faire…
You are correct. My 14+yr career in games has focused on art outsourcing, and the bulk of my experience is in building full-project art budgets and managing distributed art teams for tiny indy games all the way up to AAA blockbusters. The price of Marketplace content overall is staggeringly low compared to the numbers I’ve dealt with for most of my career. But that isn’t to say that it’s necessarily a fair comparison.
That doesn’t make sense, and that isn’t a fact. The flawed assumption here is that the market of people buying Marketplace content is exactly the same size as the market for people that buy video games. As of 2015 the global video games market generates $100bn in revenue every year, and as much as it may disappoint people here to find out, the Marketplace doesn’t do $100bn a year of business. If it did, I’d be typing this from my yacht, inside the swimming pool of my superyacht. 
The pieces you’re missing here are the size of the market, and the fact that the market is growing over time. You’ve made a lot of strange assumptions in these arguments, and you’ve been making them more and more aggressively. Please remember that we’re all here trying to do our best, and we’re learning as we go. There’s a difference between expressing an opinion about how something is priced, and telling someone they’re greedy and that the time they spend creating content to help their fellow developers isn’t worth anything. Making people feel greedy or attacked for making the best guess they can for how much to charge for their time, effort, and labor is unprofessional and poor conduct.
Your house, you make the rules. I will be less ‘aggresive’ and will stop calling people creedy (do not remember that actually, but again, your house your rules) and I will sing in tune from now on.
Not going to buy from it anyway for the ‘used in the 100th game’ reason
I generally don’t like to get involved in these types of discussions, so I won’t say much, but just felt I should say something at least.
I really really love making content for the Unreal Marketplace. Generally the community is very friendly, it’s a lot of fun to create these assets knowing that hopefully many people will find them useful and they will stretch out to the far corners of the globe to help people on projects for fun or in final production level games. I would hope that I can continue to make Marketplace content and would even think about doing it full-time if the marketplace continues to grow. If I had to lower my prices too much though, I don’t think that would be possible and it might get to the point where the Marketplace is no longer an option. In freelance a simple tree or a 4k terrain texture can range anywhere from $1000 - $3000 for AAA work. I think with my price point of $69.99 for a Procedural Nature Pack is extremely reasonable. Anyone from a hobbyist to a full development studio can afford that and use it for the rest of their life in any project they want. That is amazing!! What Epic is doing here and the possibilities they are creating for developers and consumers eventually purchasing these games is so cool to me. Just as developers are trying to make a living, so are the artists spending days/weeks/months of their time creating this content and from what I have seen the prices are very fair on the marketplace in general. Not in all cases, but then it’s their decision how they price the content and it’s everyone elses decision if they want to buy it at that point. That is all
Everyone else here I think has already made some good points and I would definitely value what has to say as well as since they know this industry very well. drawing KitatusStudios hahaha
For whatever the heck it’s worth I’ve made like… 4 or 5 packages for the marketplace which have all been pretty well-received, at various prices, and it’s going to be a long time before any one of them has “paid for itself” if you consider the outlay to be the hours I worked at minimum wage, and there hasn’t been a single one that people haven’t chewed me out about pricing too high. If you people want to be able to buy stuff you have to be prepared to pay us enough that producing it isn’t clearly a bad idea. I dunno how much more plainly it can be put.
Let me bring in another bit of food for thought.
Assets should be really cheap because they have nothing exclusive to them. I buy them, potentially 1000 more people buy them, the will show in 1000 more games and make my game look cheap because of this. Yet you still bring in industry prices for a single exlusive asset as a justification.
Imagine I bought some trees. No way to change their shape. The same tree shape will pop up in countless other games, making my game look cheap.
What you have to realize is that when you make the point ‘Anyone from a hobbyist to a full development studio can afford that and use it for the rest of their life in any project they want.’, then that really is not a pro, but a contra for the assets.
(Sorry for singing a bit out of tune)
Some assets might be a bit overpriced depending on the viewpoint, but they as in games might go on a sale when they dont make enough money for the developer.
Then again, some assets are way underpriced looking at what they deliver (for example im looking at you Generic shooter), but thats my opinion.
But yeah, comparing a relatively small demographic (unreal marketplace and its potential customers) against e.g steam userbase where one can actually sell thousands of copies of a single item isnt really fair in my opinion since the userbase cant really be compared due to sheer size difference.
Edit; and of course what i said had already been stated. Need more coffee…
Edit no2; Its kinda funny and sad at the same time, that nowadays when we have the internet and all the tech and entertainment available to almost anyone people arent that willing to pay for other peoples hard work since the whole market is so saturated with stuff but still feel “entitled” to the same level of quality.
Lets take music for example, since now theres spotify etc, who here is actually willing to pay 20bucks for a cd?
Or hire a professional photographer to capture those significant moments in life due to dslr kits are relatively cheap and someone in the family has one?
Not many.
I might just be rambling incoherently and comparing apples to bridges but i hope i made some sense 
The massive assumption here is that sellers are selling heaps of units. I don’t think that is the case. I’d be very surprised if any of the sellers have reached the 1000 unit point.
People have priced their asset in a way where they are able to generate some money. Until people start buying more, the amount of content increases in the marketplace, and the variety improves- You won’t see the prices change much.
You’re directly reflecting what I said earlier. You’re probably an amateur/hobbyist (I am too), who hasn’t released a single game in their life. Firstly, the assets aren’t industry priced. They’re far from industry priced. Even the most expensive asset on the market right now is worth over 10-20 times more if it was created uniquely for one game. Let’s say someone creates a character that would be worth $2000 for a freelance project. Now they sell that character on the marketplace for $100. You’re paying only 5% of what that character is worth, simply because it isn’t unique. That’s a very good deal. You also say 1000 people buy an asset, then 1000 more games will show up with that asset and make it look cheap. Are you joking? Out of those 1000 projects (1 purchase per project, not looking at reuses by same people for other projects), how many do you think will actually be released? Out of the ones released, how many do you think will gain a large audience to the point that the “cheap” asset will become noticed? I really think that most, if not all, of the people that believe that the assets are overpriced are people that have never released a title, or even completed a full game from start to finish.
Neither of these things ever happen.
well, the ARK game uses market place assets and people are already like ‘they just bought a few asset from the market square and threw them in…’ because they recognize them.
It is definitely going to fall on your feet if you do it.
If there are 10 games out there in 2 or 3 years, all with the same tree from a UE4 market place asset, then all 10 will have the ‘cheap’ badge on their chest and people will chat about it.
Of course, the 1000 is an over the top number, but so is the $100bn used earlier to describe the success of my game and to justify why asset are cheap when sold in quantity.
I mean, my game will reach that number, I am sure, but most games won’t 
It’s your choice to use an asset, if you think that it will make your game look cheap by using assets that other games are also using then you don’t have to use them. You could pay for an artist to make a custom asset for you, but that would be much more expensive.
With a marketplace it’s a benefit to both the seller and the buyer. The seller has the potential to make more by selling an asset than they would usually make by being commissioned to make it, and the buyer can buy such an asset for much cheaper than it would normally cost.
Also part of the benefit if you’re worried about an asset being recognizable is that you can use the asset as a starting point to modify it or learn from it to make something new. For most assets if it saves you a few hours then it’s already paid for itself.
I would think as well that few people in any asset marketplace make more off an asset than they normally would doing a job for someone. Unless it’s something like a code plugin which usually do very well.
Especially with the UE4 marketplace given how young it is, if sales are high then prices can go down. If there’s more stuff in the marketplace then that means more competition and prices can go down.
When it is said assets will be ‘recognised’, how many people do you think will recognise them? While the circle of indie devs is growing thanks to the availability of excellent tools, they should not really be your dominant market for the games you release. But these are the guys/gals who would most likely recognise the assets (a small minority). 9/10 video game consumers will be oblivious to the assets used and will purchase the game to simply put, enjoy the game. So if you buy a quality asset and use it in a quality way the voice of the few will in no way ‘cheapen’ the work you’ve done as hopefully the praise of the masses will drown them out.
did not say anything about your game. Let me quote what he said.
If not exactly $100bn, it is anything close to it.
On the other hand, the number of people who think the assets are cheap easily outrun the number of people who think they’re expensive. I’m pretty sure you’ll be converted too if you try to hire someone to create some exclusive content for you.
I am also in the mood for doodling…
Just did those assets the last hour. Wind included. All three plant assets below 100kb resource size. LOD’s set up.
Used Vue e-on software for it.
I want, ahem…10000$ per pack, because, ahem…that is industry rate…and ahem, because people should appreciate this.
With the right software and and workflow set up, such stuff really does not take long. Yeah, I know, because I am the bad guy here: ‘they look cheap, they look wrong, dadada…’
You know what, I will quickly prepare a project and give them away for free. Just because I, ahem… do not see industry rates in them.
The terrain in the picture was also made in less than half an hour. There are background mountains on the marketplace that, with all respect, I could rival easily with that terrain and that charge like $50 or so. Silly…
There was a guy here some time ago who gave away a huge package of plants, flowers, rocks etc away for free, just asking for donations. Of course everyone downloaded it and no one donated, but that’s what makes the difference between professionals who pull this stuff out in no time, and hobby guys and freelancers who need ages for it and want ‘industry rates’ for it.
Or look at this guy:
There is a distinct difference between professionals and ‘professional freelancers’ who would charge for that. I am sure most guys who say market place is cheap would go for $100-ish for this pack because it ahem…took them months, and ahem…industry rates…and ahem, people should appreciate how long it took me because I am a bit slow. For him it was a quickie, did not need them anymore, gave them away for free, moved on. That is the difference.
&stc=1&d=1437061818
Curious to see one example on the marketplace that is any close to “Industry Rate”. Care to show us one? (If you know the industry rates of course).