Hi guys,
i just couldnt resist anymore, so my few cents here
Yep, thats actually the biggest question of all and noone will be able to answer. Even if you got many more salesnumbers from current marketplace packages, including searches and the time people stayed on a specific asset page, you will never really know.
Right before releasing the first version of my Topdown toolkit i had no idea what to charge, and i literally sat there for days thinking about the pricing. I ended up just thinking, what would i pay myself for such an asset, and thats how the pricing was done.
Though i may have to admit that i am not (yet) dependent on marketplace sales so it was a bit easier for me. Maybe i would have gotten more profit if i charged 15$ instead of 20$, maybe not. I’ll never know.
While i thought that the pricing for my package is reasonable, i still got requests from people to make it cheaper (even in this thread there was a discussion about making stuff 2$), or even give it away for free. But if its sold for 2$, what about support for the asset? Would you expect strong support from a package priced that cheap?
In any discussions talking about asset pricing, i never see people talk about support for the packages.
I my case i always tried to give as much support to people as possible; I usually even implement some changes or new features into the toolkit so they have an entry-point for extending it. Need vehicle-support to step-in and out, and auto-change the camera? Or some Ally-AI that helps you with enemies, etc
I have to admit that i wouldnt do that anymore if the package price would be 2-5$. I would still be fixing bugs, but not anything more. I am also in regular contact with some other sellers, and the support they give is similar to mine, but that mainly applies to blueprints.
Depends. Often their contract wont allow them to create something in their free time and sell it. Thats not an unusual thing, when i worked for some big IT companies in the past i had such a contract too. Even if i would’ve invented a new vac cleaner and sold it, they would’ve held the rights for that and not me.
Also, sitting down for a week after work wouldnt produce really much assets. Lets say you work around 10h a day and afterwards you work for 4h a day on something for a marketplace, after a business week you have invested 20h. Do you really think that models or blueprints are created that fast?
Usually for AAA models, it takes hundreds of hours for them to be finalized, and we are talking about a single model here. Of course the models on the marketplace are not all in that range of effort, but still its nothing thats done within 20 or even 30 hours. If you really think that way then its no wonder that you would think that pricing should be much cheaper…
And you are always referring to the same package regarding quality. Yes, there is one provider on the marketplace that poorly converted his unity assets to UE4. I’m not sure really, why he still is on the marketplace, maybe the sales were so high.
So your main problem for opening this thread is you want to pay less because you are making a risk by buying a package that might not be what you thought it is.
If you do not seeing anything written in the description of the urban pack about entering the buildings, if you do not see any images of buildings interiors and such, why would you think it might have all that. There’s no need for trying out as long as you ARE getting exactly what the package description says.
They don’t show the full movie at cinema and say at the end if you liked it, pay for the ticket. 99% claim they didn’t like it.
Well, I know one week would be enough! I see quality like on the market place produced within a week regularly. My major focus is not on modeling, but I know enough modelers that work under pressure at AAAs, and if those guys keep hitting it for a week say every evening 2-3 hours, they produce at least the quality that is on the UE market place. At least! They have been this field for years. Most of them have their own private licenses at home at are in full juice if it comes to workflow and techniques.
For example SF_JonF Assets, which are nice by the way:
The geometry is not complex, neither are the materials. Both is very nicely done though and just satisfies modular asset needs.
It took him probably more than a week. But I am 100% percent sure, the professional modelers with experience could pull it off in one week. Even though the comparison lacks a bit, because they do it day in day out under pressure, and have been doing so for years. One of those guys at home on his private licenses…he would have a market place asset ready in no time.
All I want to say is, hurry up Epic. Right now the market place is a wasteland compared to the Unity Asset Store. Submission takes ages, and that would be fine if quality reflects that, but it does not.
High prices also does not help to make the market place more lively. You usually pay in the $100 range for assets on other websites, but there you get the files, the source file usually. UE assets are to specific to UE4 to ask for normal 3D model prices.
But yes, time will tell…maybe I misjudge it.
Ok, so why arent they publishing content after content to various asset stores then? And sell it for 2$? If they are able to push high quality models out this quickly, they would be rich pretty soon.
I didnt look at his assets, but even if professional modelers could push them out that fast (which i still doubt personally), ever thought of the actual idea / concept / planning for the whole thing? Its not that you would just begin with the first model and have the full picture for all assets in your mind in a second.
Ok, partially i have to admit you are right. The marketplace is still some kind of wasteland and the submissions take ages to get published right now. On the other hand, the quality may not reflect the length of the process, but it is so much higher than in the unity asset store.
Well, i know its not the complete real thing but…ever tried “Export” on a Mesh in UE4? This will generate an FBX file which works fine (at least when i last tried it).
Generally the view everyone has on the marketplace and the pricing is very dependent on a few base things (like which country / region you are from) ; Also its quite different if you need to make a living from it or not. But in that case, if you need(!) to buy models from marketplaces/stores for your game AND you dont have a sponsor/enough initial money to kickstart your project, you should think twice if you are really in the right business (no offense meant, just saying generally).
Indygoof and all other ‘full time’ market place assets creators: Why are the pros not publishing on the indie/hobby UE market place…?
In a nutshell:
Reply A) They, the hundreds and hundreds, are not as clever as you guys if it comes to recognizing business opportunities.
Reply B) They are not publishing content after content because they realize that they will never make the same living from it than they make with the day job. And so should you! So please stop hamming and slowing down the market place with your ‘industry’ rates thesis. If you want industry rates, then go work in the industry.
First, i am not a ‘full time’ marketplace asset creator. I have my day job and i love it, but i also love doing stuff in UE4, so i am not dependant actually on my marketplace sales. On the other hand, if at some point it would become possible to live from the marketplace stuff, i guess i would actually retire from my job and do that
Second, i would choose Reply C): Income from any marketplace is never as secure as having a “normal” day job. Sales could theoretically drop from one moment to the other.
And going with your example:
If that Pro is able to create the same quality for an asset pack besides his day job within one week, i guess we could safely assume that he would be able to push out at least(!) 2 packs a week when doing this full time. Further lets assume he does that for 2 months (~9 weeks), he would have 18 packs ready to be sold.
As he is a nice guy and doesnt want to overprice anything he sells each of this packs for 20$. Now, with a pessimistic estimation, lets assume that he sells 20 copies of each asset per month (which is actually a quite low estimation from my experience).
This would give him 202018=7200$ per month, substract Epics 30% and he would still earn 5k$ per month. If the payment at game companies is so much higher than that, so he cannot make a living from it: Epic, here’s my application for a job!
Why this example would actually never work: You wont be able to push out 2 packs per week. You wont even be able to push out 1 pack per week in fact. It may be possible if you already have the whole concept art and everything prepared, since then its just the doing itself. But making the models conformable to each other so it fits in the theme of the whole pack, to think about what all to include, package everything, doing the textures right, etc, all that takes much time, even for Pro’s. Usually in AAA game companies, there is not a guy that does the whole thing and does it every day. There is one guy that makes the model, the next guy does the rigging. Another one does the animations while someone else does the textures. In big projects even the UV unwrapping is done by a distinct person.
Of course everyone of them knows generally how to do the whole model including everything. But its usually not their day job to do everything on their own.
Please note also, that i never said anything about industry rates and stuff like that. I just dont think that having prices like 2-5$ would justify the work. Of course customers will always want to have it cheaper. But as with any goods, there is a point in pricing where its just no longer worth it. You can say the same actually about games: Why do they cost 50-70$? They should be much cheaper, and the quality is also not even remotely justifying the pricing. But games do cost quite much in production, and when game companies would be forced to sell everything for 10$ instead of 50$, they wouldnt produce much games any longer, or the quality would be even worse. Maybe we would still have pixel graphics then, since creating HD content is a time consuming and pricy process…
Nope. Assets can be bought by multiple people. Windows did not cost 200$ to make.
Regarding the idea of putting it on 15$ without a license, that’s not good, objects in the marketplace are supposed to be for people who want to use them in games, that’s the whole purpose of the marketplace, anything else is off topic.
Said Pro does 1 pack/week, not 2.
Gives 2.5K per month.
Said Pro will stop after 10 packs to not actually create competitive packs to his own packs.
Gives 1.25K per month.
Said Pro does not sell each month 20 packs because demand saturates and bad reviews/star ratings do the rest. He will average 10 packs per month over 1 year
Gives 0.625K x 12 = 7.5K income per year before taxes.
Said Pro decides not worth it, if it means that he has to do what he does 8-9h in the office during the evening as well for many weeks.
Said pro considers asking for a higher price. Said pro realises, that with the majority of customers being hobby people, he will sell much less then. Said Pro decides to skip it and instead focus on his day job at Electronic Arts to eventually get the Senior Artist role.
That’s why said pro, and all the hundreds more, are not on the market place. Not because it takes 1 months to create a vegetation pack or so. Where does all the time go? Well, it goes into the difference that made said pro said pro working for EA, and a UE market place ‘Pro’.
So would you guys please switch WiFi off, close the browser and get working on your packs instead of arguing about milk and food. Of course it takes you ages if you do everything but working on your stuff.
I saw the Koola forum member. He makes progress, and works on his stuff without arguing about milk.
Nope. Said pro does at least 2 packs per week if he is doing it full time, as he can do 1 pack in a week when only working 2-3 hours per evening:
And said Pro seems to have some issues with numbers
10 packs * 10 sales per pack = 100 sales per month
100 sales * 20$ per sale = 2000$ per month - 30% for Epic = 1400$ per month
1400$ * 12 = 16800$ / year as opposed to 7.5k.
Now consider that 10 sales per pack per month is REALLY REALLY low. My pessimistic estimation with 20 sales was already quite low (well, maybe JonSF could shed some experienced-light into this? ). The actual number would be actually around 30 - 40 sales per month, without much of a drop in the course of one year.
Additionally, as this Pro is a modeler, who hinders him to sell these packs on the unity store too?
Said pro could actually just do 1 pack as a test as it only takes him 7*3 hours to do and see how well it sells. Of course it would be high quality since its a professional, so there wouldnt really be bad ratings.
As said, its quite simple. You would have to risk something at the beginning, the income is not as secure as in your day job, you have to think about the models you do yourself instead of getting all the concept art already beforehand. Then its a bit more work afterwards too, you have to give support for your package, best would be to help some people setting it up correctly (for normal meshes more likely not, but i.e. for grass etc. help how to set up wind and stuff). Thats more likely what hinders people doing it. I got a colleague that is doing AAA models. But he wont sell anything on the marketplace since with everything involved it takes MUCH longer to finish a package than 21 hours or even a fulltime week.
Just because someone works for EA doesnt make him a Pro as apposed to a ‘Pro’. The same applies to other markets: Just because someone works as a programmer at IBM doesnt mean, that he is better than someone not working there. He just was there at the right time when there was a free position, and he may be excellent, but its not automatically that way just cause his employer is a big company.
With the same logic, if you would’ve trained with 3dsmax or blender instead of arguing about the marketplace pricing here, you could’ve done the models you need already yourself.
I guess we could discuss like that for the next few weeks and wouldnt get to an agreement, so i will just stop this part of the discussion from here on, as its not really productive in my POV and its not nice insulting the marketplace sellers even if doing it ‘subtle’.
The interesting thing now, and the way i would really like this thread to go if possible, is: Is it somehow possible to get some rough numbers for model / environment sales on the marketplace? I dont mean, specific per package, but some average for the whole environments, characters, etc, just to get a feeling for that.
I think the packs are worth it as long as they’re quality products, we have an engine based around a PBR pipeline so PBR textures and PBR Substances should be defacto standard.
I’ve tried a couple of packages, in which I’ve had to either re-recode / re-skin or clean up. Making the market place assets cost ME additional money in time, this was a blatant on the Unity store as well. So I rarely buy assets or plugins any more…
I know we have some great content creators, but until the store is a safe bet I wouldn’t say it’s worth the money or the risk when our art team might as well start from scratch.
No offense but i really don’t understand the discomposure on this thread, the marketplace content at least 90% of it s not expensive at all. It’s always the same… Not only in the 3D Wold… People usually want the best of the best but don’t understand that quality has his price. I’m seeling but also buying on the marketplace, there is no other place “at least no one i know” i can buy such realisitc rocks for like 30 USD, or MoCap packs for 100 USD… I think some people simply don’t understand how much work it is to create quality content. SE_JONF explained it very well… You need some sofware to produce quality content, we have to pay tax and living costs… etc…
Everything in the world has consequences and when customer simply don’t want to pay a fair price for content, good content creaters will simply stop puting they’re stuff on the marketplace. And than what ? Than we will see new topics which say, why do we have no quality content on the marketplace ???
I mean it is really simple, you can’t get a mercedes or lamborghini for the price of a fiat and you can’t get black angus meat from argentinia for a walmart meat price… Don’t get me wrong, I also don’t like to overpay, the last thing i like to support is software or conent that is overpriced but this isn’t right now the case with the marketplace.
This is all true, that quality has its price.
It is just the situation right now that the UE4 market place is exactly not full of quality. Read through the link I posted above. Read through reviews. Hardly any items get 5 or 4 star ratings, because almost every item has flaws, or quality issues, where you see the seller was just throwing it out half baked.
To say the UE4 marketplace is supposed to have higher prices than other game engine market places because it offers higher quality…that simply distorts the truth.
Actually, lower quality would be fine for a lower price, since most flaws can be fixed with time invested.
But if people here insist on the current price level, the please: Only 5 star ratings and positive reviews in future. Not this medium-ish quality that the majority of the current assets display now.
comparing cinema movies to packages here is utterly ridiculous, most trailers contain full info about a movie and most descriptions barely suggests what it has in it. I see TONS of products not descriptive enough on here
But asking for price drops over all content packs because descriptions of some packs might not be fully detailed is not rediculous?
If a package’s description is barely offering any info then don’t buy it. Contact the developer and ask for more details. Or ask in his thread over the forums. There are many ways for that.
You, OP, and those who are afraid of the risk of paying for a pack to find out it’s not what you truly wanted should be after a way of implementing a previewer or something like that where you get to preview the model in 3D and also see all the texture maps individually so you’ll exactly have an idea what you are buying. Instead of asking for a price drop that’s not even near a solution at all.
when a developer does not offer a valid description and takes the time to describe what his pack does, after spending “hundreds of hours” as you guys claim which I know is false. should they not take the time out to make sure its properly described? this marketplace is set up for you and only you the seller there is no guarantee or protection for the buyer what so ever, and for a dev to just spend a “100” hours tkaing his time to make a product but dont have the time to include a proper explanation or demo seems like someone is lying or someone is trying to cash grab. cant be both and cant be completely the other way around either.
I hate seeing that as an excuse everytime, it is not the consumers responsibility to pay for your living spaces and taxes you should of taken that into account when you went into work for yourself. just cuz you got taxes does not mean you can insanely raise the price on items. plus if you charge AAA prices the quality should be AAA and you cant claim 50 percent of the marketplace is AAA quality
