I’ve been following the discussion, and want to add my thoughts as a seller:
There’s been quite a few threads on this topic that have arisen since the marketplace debut. People see what they deem to be outrageous prices (many using Unity for comparison) and request price reduction or regulation. I want to give you some insight into how it is for me as a content creator for the marketplace. I see some people who like to infer that we are pricing our content for what they consider high prices due to our desire to get rich quick, or for a lack of competition. This is not true, content creators not only put a great deal of time in development of these assets but also a great deal of money into the software and services required to create them. Take me for example, I have to pay software fees, whether it’s monthly fees or outright full priced licenses, the costs of which add up. I also need to market my products, which is where the website and all associated fees come in. Then there’s the enormous amount of time that goes into planning, developing, and polishing content for the marketplace. Even more time goes into making the assets highly modular, both physically and materially so that each user can set themselves apart from one another. Epic takes 30% of your products sales, so that is another thing to consider. Then we have personal bills, expenses for things such as food, electricity, etc. Add on top of all of that, some pretty high taxes for income that is considered self employed. We have to pay both the employer and employee portion of the SS and medicare taxes (Known as the self-employment tax), which is 15.3%, in addition to the income tax which is another 10-15% added onto that depending on how much you make. So I’ll use my product as an example, it’s priced at $59.99, I get $41.99 from epic, and then $29.29 after I pay taxes on it. Someone mentioned earlier that no one should expect to be able to live off of marketplace sales. I disagree, how can you tell someone how to live their life or what profession to choose? We should be encouraging and supporting one another, not judging or discouraging them for their goals.
I work as a marketplace provider full time, I am trying to make it my job. So far, I have been very successful thanks to the continued support of this great community. To show my appreciation, I have gotten into the practice of releasing free expansion updates to my content packs, the first of which was a considerable overhaul and expansion. I have a sequel pack coming out this month, and a second free update for the first pack. The work it takes to do these free updates is quite considerable, and I’m already near taxed to capacity in terms of time. I also have no guarantee that it will affect sales, nor is it why I do it. My goal to provide awesome continuous content for this community is equatable with my goal to be successful. One does not take priority over the other. All of these things are taken into consideration when pricing my content, and I can tell you it isn’t a very easy thing to decide. For the first month we are running blind, and won’t be able to tell until weeks later whether the hard work and resources we put into the content packs yielded success. (Though recently has kindly taken it upon himself to inform content creators of the sales stats a couple weeks into it’s life.) We are trying to provide awesome content to the community, and make it as affordable as it can be. However the costs of production, whether for games or marketplace content, is not free. I’ve given a few examples of the expenses I have to account for, and I’m sure other content creators will have similar experiences.
I also want to talk about competition, and it’s perceived impact on pricing. It isn’t as clear cut as some people make it out to be. As a content creator, if you’re going to undercut your competition at each release it will be a quick race to the bottom. The best ways to set apart packs from one another is quality and features, not undervaluing the work. As an example, Oliver Garrigue made a pretty cool scifi environment pack, and priced it for $54.99. As a content developer, I can’t release my next product at $49.99 to try to make my pack more appealing. Just as Oliver did, I have to price the product based on how much I think it’s worth given the time, effort and money put into it, as well as the minimum I hope to get back on that investment. (Also factoring in the expenses mentioned above).
I want to bring my contributions to this thread to a halt by saying, just try to understand the content creator and what may drive them to choose the cost of the content. I can’t speak for everyone, but this is a glimpse into what I have to deal with as a creator. Hopefully it can give more insight into what goes into developing and pricing assets. =)