yeah, this is what I generally do now.
Yeah but that is really dope, i didnt think Epic would allow such things. I bet the cryengine people is happy about that lol
on the jacket thng, I think developers shold have demos up you can try before you buy so you can get a feel for a product, I made the mistake of paying above a price I wanted for something I thought was good till I got it and it doesnt work right and 6 months later still does not work right. a demo scene would of stopped all that …dont know how that works though tbh or if you can steal from a demo so I am just speaking on a consumer mind state
Seriously, , or maximum-dev, or whatever your name is, could you please just continue working to get your stuff out on the market place.
With all the time you have spent arguing about food and milk here, you could have revised the fern meshes that I was just looking at to have them less look like an elephant just rolled over them.
Flat-fern 
We’re actually working on different approaches to an embedded 3D preview to give people a clearer idea of what they’re buying, in addition to massively revamped technical specifications based on community input. (link: #technical_specifications) Starting next week, we’re going back and contacting all our existing sellers to update their technical specifications to meet our new standards. It’s really important to us for potential customers to understand what they’re buying and to feel as confident as possible in their purchase, and we’re continually listening and improving how we do that.
And on a general note, I think this thread is awesome. The discussion of how to price things and what ‘value’ means to different people is fascinating stuff, and I’ve really enjoyed following the posts here.
You know…a commercial and personal license of the same project might not be doable, but some kind of sample would work. If the product is large enough to provide samples, have a download link. If not, have a packaged game, like how generic shooter has a downloadable demo, that shows off what it can do. Other products focus on one or two models (often a really really really high quality one); if it is a gun, they could set up a packaged game free to download that has a single level with a shooting gallery and displays of the weapon.
This would especially be good for environment assets, people can walk around looking at what it could look like and not through a youtube video.
This isn’t something that has to be a part of the marketplace, but just common practice with content creators.
It might not keep anyone from saying the prices are too high, but no one can say they didn’t know exactly what they were getting.
Unity has the Unity Web Player which allows for previews of assets. They’ve stated that they are working on producing a similar thing for Unreal, but no date on how long that will take to produce.
That’s the tricky and frustrating thing about announcing features and timelines. We are indeed working on that, but I can’t give an ETA. For example, let’s say I announced a date for that to launch, and suddenly, development pivots in a direction that adds awesome new features, but causes a delay. Regardless of the truth of the situation, slipping on an announced date looks more like a a broken promise with some spin on it instead of simply showing the reality of how development and flexible timelines work. 
As a result, I’m very careful about what we commit to doing, while trying to give as much information to the community as I can.
def a good start
Appreciate your candidness and input.
A full packaged game?
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. =)
(☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞ JonF!
Thank you for being so open and detailing everything out like you did. That’s fascinating, and I recommend that everyone read that through.
Thanks! I just felt obligated to share my experiences, as many people don’t see this side of content development. =)
I understand what you are saying but in reality you know the risk you are taking when you go into business for yourself and easily can’t ask a consumer base to make up for your taxes/medical /house and etc. you can not go “ok buy this toy for 500 dollars form me because I have a house n taxes to pay instead of the big mall who sells it for 5 bucks”
also competition is key to any business envirement thriving. Also how can you judge pricing on something like what you mentioned when you have no idea what you are going to sell(amount wise) if you price something for 49.99 and sell two because you have taxes and etc as apposed to pricing something at 25 dollars and selling 400 of them, how are you losing anything by being more consumer based and friendly?
Any smart business man will include cost of production in the price. Otherwise they’re not in business long. I agree with your point about the lack of information making it hard to set an informed price, but it’s better to start at a high price and reduce it later, than to increase it later.
My main argument is the competition thing lol but I do have a small pick with the cost of certain things. but I rarely complain about cost at all and buy everything I need . if it cost to much here in the marketplace I will hire out on a freelance site and get work done super cheap. my thing is you are right about cost of production BUT when it comes to a home made business you price your own time worth. and not everyone is going to agree your worth 65 dollars an hour, if the majority agree you are then you are on a great path and keep it the same, but if the majority start teetering on certain things being to high you should probably re-evaluate your process of thought…this is all just my opinion but as I said I been doing this a long time working with companies and etc doing marketing and sales and promotion at a very satisfactory level but in the end its still just an opinion of mine.
A business will not last if costs of production outweigh revenue. I think you misunderstood my post, the costs I outlined were necessary for running my business. It is non negotiable, I cannot forgo the self employment tax, or the production costs, or anything that is vital to the basic operation of my content development. I never once disagreed with your sentiment regarding competition, simply it’s effect on pricing. We are in agreement that competition is integral in the success of a marketplace as well as for quality assurance for the consumer. I may be a lot of things, but I never thought I’d see someone accuse me of being unfriendly to the consumer. I create high quality assets that are very affordable, and I continue to offer post release support and free expansion updates for my customers who have been very supportive of me. I approach my business not only as a seller, but as a consumer. I provide service to my customers that I would like to receive myself, which is why I do things such as the free updates and maintain a positive, hands on relationship with my customers. The reality is, the marketplace is a business, and businesses cannot remain open if they are not making enough money to keep up with production costs. I’m not in the business of selling content at outrageous prices, but I will not and cannot undersell my work as that will cause me to go negative and then there will be no more content packs. Such is the reality of marketplace development, or any product development. High quality assets take a lot of time and resources to plan and develop. The prices on the marketplace are in my honest opinion very fair, consumers are able to access AAA quality work at affordable prices. Contracting out a freelancer for equatable work will increase a developers expenses significantly. There’s nothing further I can add to this discussion, I’ve offered my experiences and opinions on the matter as best as I could. I simply hope people will take the time to consider the reality from the content creators perspectives before rushing to judgement. =)
I wa snot syaing you was unfriendly, I was speaking in a broad term about a business in general,. not you specifically at all and more about this thread .
You know I have been thinking bout this a good bit since earlier, and I think a big with pricing is the risk factor, I have no idea how that can be lowered but I know if people could test a product or see a demo of a product they would probably be a lot less likely to complain based on spending 150 dollars for a product that you thought worked right only to find out it doesnt and have to go through the hassle of trying to get it refunded. I have been burnt by products here and while i usually write it up to lesson learned and risk taking some people simply can’t afford to do that so you are asking them to gamble with 150 dollars when they may just barely have the 150 to use in the first place or in some cases they don;t have it at all. I also understand there has to be a sturdy structure for sellers but often times I see the sellers get way more protection and coverage then a buyer especially when there asked to buy blind or buy off a youtube video thats 2 months old or a few pictures with a quarter of a paragraph to go off of.
I respect almost every seller on here because you have the talent to do something I do not however I sympathize with the buyer more because I to have been burnt
a good amount of times buying an item that was promised completely different then what was delviered.
But thats my opinion and I know Epic is doing all they can I just think there should be a way to either test or get a lot more info about a product before you drop any amount of money on it. while it may be easy for you to gamble 5 dollars it does not mean it is easy for someone else to.
Will be interesting to see how the market place evolves, or in what price range items will be sold in the future.
By all logic, it will converge to the situation of the Unity Asset Store in terms of pricing.
I would be careful to put too many hopes on making a living comparable to a permanent position at a large studio.
Just very simple thinking: There are really a lot of professionals who do AAA models at any large studio. Why are they not simply sitting down for a week after work, create something nice and sell it here.
If the prospects of making a living from that were realistic, the market place would be flooded with AAA items.
In the end, asset prices will be in the same range as for any other indie/hobby engine.
Quality already is:
https://www.unrealengine.com/content/9b680e2c37bf4143affb8f79a28e94d6