After having a look through the market place, there are some good, bad and ugly. I agree with the landscapes one especially since I am an en environment artist, and using a tool such as the terrain tool is as easy as chips with a little practice for a novice. With most of the marketplace assets these are mainly aimed at place holders and more in depth looks which can be great for concepts and alphas, but full release games should have some originality. Its fine to use a few assets which are just right for your project by final release, but most marketplace assets you will never see in a final release.
It all boils down to price and usage. A lot of things on the market place look quite good, but its down to the user/developer to put a price tag on what they expect. For me, and maybe many others some assets are really over priced, and some are under priced. One asset which really stuck out and i actually purchased is the Star FX starter kit. For 5 bucks, that what the marketplace should be about. Its an asset and can be used in even a AAA title! And for the price and versatility, the marketplace should have more assets like that, at that price.
What i would suggest is to literally have an unofficial marketplace like has been suggested, but that has to be regulated too. I think it would be a good idea to have a submission process where the asset is quickly checked out to make sure it works, then is immediately listed in the âunofficial market placeâ or Testing area. Epic could then see what is most popular and what is best to be featured in the âofficialâ marketplace. That way everybody would have a lot more choice (choice is lacking at the moment and just a few assets in each category shows its limits to usage and game types using U4). I for one have many models which i could get up on the market place, but probably the same as others, the whole process is too time consuming for me.
Variety is the spice of life, and having more assets is better for the engine, for Epic, The asset creator and the Dev. For most games, there is not one asset devs can make any use of, and if they could there is not much of a choice in the marketplace.
not quite. hourly rate and amount of time spent to make the asset is something that is only relevant to the scenario of custom-made art for one client.
in shortâŚ
you say: if I spend 2 hours working on an asset and have an hourly rate of $15, I sell it for $30
I say: if I spend 2 hours working on an asset and have an hourly rate of $15 and sell it for $30, and I sell 10 copies of my asset, then my hourly rate became $150
before the thread dies and hoping I can guide it back on topic,
I would like to agree with one view expressed here. if you donât like it donât buy it. Iâve seen some of the marketplace stuff that I might buy and some that I know I definately wonât buy.
even if I didnât own WorldMachine Iâd never buy any terrain. not only because my game might look similar to another guyâs game, but because then my gameâs world layout becomes limited to what the original terrain artist depicted, not what I want for it. and editing the terrain will only work a little bit before some stuff will be completely off (flow map, depo map, color map, and a big etc)
the actual problem for judging before buying is the marketplace has only a few well-placed and staged pictures of the assets so sometimes itâs misleading
potential solution: require much more preview material for all assets. a video at least, more technical images (wireframes, physics views, etc). maybe also an html5 preview (but then you can reverse engineer them I guess)
Yes, I also think that video and demo scene should be mandatory, whatever the asset is.
As Chosker said in some cases screenshots are more like âbullshotsâ, technical description is sometimes lacking useful info or contains false specs.
If I was to do it with the hourly rate Itâd be something around $120 for a map and $600 for the pack of 5 maps. But Itâs $75, $15 for each map meaning Iâm doing it much lower than the hourly rate. But the main here, is some people say even if you are doing it much lower than the hourly price still these prices are higher than the sky because someone else on the planet could have made a map for $1 and put it on Unity Store. And what means to me is if there is anyone working cheaper than you, thatâs the normal price and you are expensive. Which I totally disagree. You can go for example into 10 website design companies and order the exact same website you want but all ten of them come up with a different price. I do not agree the cheapest is the usual price and the other 9 are expensive.
Just wanted to clear that up in case you misunderstood my post above.
The problem with the lack of images isnât that there is no requirement, but that the most we can submit to Epic is 5 - one of which has to be a group photo if it is an asset pack. I personally would prefer to have more images, at minimum 10 to show off as much as possible in packs that could benefit from more screenshots. Fortunately though some marketplace developers post threads here prior to submission, which can be an alternative for displaying more images beyond the marketplace capacity.
Well, the inverse logic would be that you can make up disproportionally high prices and they would never be considered expensive.
In my opinion you guys have to say goodbye to the hourly rate thinking, as your products are not used only one time for a game by a publisher who will by them only once and therefore pays hourly rates to you.
On UE4 market place the item will be sold orders of magnitude more often than when you do freelance jobs for certain customers.
Therefore the hourly rate thinking is simply displaced here.
Not to mention that mainly hobbyist and beginner will buy your stuff, and they are very unlikely to make millions with their creations. The point that industry products for which you get a hourly rate make millions also contributes to the fact that you get hourly rate, i.e. you get a relatively high price for selling only one package of your product, not thousands like in the UE4 market place.
You simply can not apply industry hourly rates to UE4 market place products. UE4 market place is deviating in too many points from usual industry freelance work.
Well, that said you can always try. But yes, if one guy shows up and sells his comparable stuff cheaper than you, then your stuff is expensive.
Good job with making a quote out of a bigger post. If you read that post entirely youâll understand hourly rate has nothing to do with marketplace content packs. Where of my sayings you donât understand Iâm no sure but youâve been putting words in my mouth for 3 days now. Please donât do that.
Then why are you always referencing the UE4 market prices to your hourly rates?
The main reason you and brought in for the prices of your (nice) work is the reference to your hourly rates. From the outset.
ok, right.
not quite. but you did say that going below $75 (for your pack that contains 5 maps, which youâve spend 10+ hours on each) would be funny (as in, not profitable and/or a joke). but again wouldnât be exactly true if you were to sell 100 copies of your pack. or 1000 copies.
the point here is that the marketplace stuff is generic material
the marketplace is not like ordering a website to a design company. the marketplace is like going into themeforest and buying a website template (that anyone else can also buy)
is $30 bucks the price a web design company would charge for a website design? of course not. yet you can buy a website theme for $30. it wonât be custom-tailored and unique and will need customization, just like the UE4 marketplace content.
I agree with you that there needs to be a lower limit.
but getting back to original example I would also say that $150 for the photorealistic landscapes pack is too much. not because I donât value the effort put into it, but because people pay for 4 landscapes out of which most likely only ever use 1.
if I could buy 1 for the equivalent of $37.50 I would actually think about it. if the shader was doing interesting things (which isnât) then for learning purposes.
but mainly I would be interested because of the included textures. though one is really sketchy: it says itâs 18 made up of diff+normal. is that 9+9=18 or 18 of each? what really is âhigh qualityâ if I canât judge by seeing some texture flats? by my own standards Iâd already doubt it to be âhigh qualityâ and claim it to be âphotorealisticâ if Spec/Gloss/Roughness maps are not included, or claim that it âwill be elegible for next-gen gamesâ when all 6 screenshots are aerial views and none shows any ground closeup detail
bottom line, and repeating myself: we need more material to judge if things are worth our money or not
Chosker has a point regarding prices on the marketplace not at all being related to asking a company for a quote on producing a website. My company charges anywhere between $800-1500 for a website properly optimized for SEO from our customers. Yet you can go to Theme Forest and pick up a template to use in your own project for fairly cheap. Marketplace content is more like the template rather than a highly complex and custom developed project.
Just my two cents on the topic (not related to the fight between two content providers ) because Iâm also quite frustrated with current Marketplace.
I wonât buy anything from Marketplace till rate&comment system is introduced. Also only those who bought item must have the ability to comment and rate it. is a simple and yet effective system I can think of. Right now prices on Marketplace are too high (imho) and quality is not always good. I donât want to browse/search forum to just understand what buyers think of the item they had purchased or any other feedback related to a product.
[sarcasm]
Yeah, and remove all free stuff from there / forbid to publish free stuff.
[/sarcasm]
I think what everyone is missing in regards to whether an hourly rate is whether we are making enough to sustain a reasonable standard of living from the work that we do. If we are arenât then no one will make any assets for the marketplace and any debate as to what is fair or unfair will go out the window. If the work we are putting in pays less than going out and just getting a job at a fast food place it hardly makes sense to invest the time and money to do work here for the community when we can make more flipping burgers.
I think the major point of thread is to devalue the work of artists, coders, sound designers, and everyone else to the point that we are working under unsustainable conditions so that someone can buy high quality work for bargin bin prices in order to avoid paying fair market prices. That wonât happen and as such makes the entire thread moot.
Almost no artist or coder is going to create work for your project below the minimum wage unless they are just starting out and beginning to make a new for themselves. If that is the case though you are going to find yourselves hiring someone who can only create amateur or beginner level 3D work or code for your project and whatever you save on the costs of developing your project, you will lose out on due to competition in the marketplace between your own projects and those that are getting free lit on Steam. That is what everyone is suddenly finding out about the marketplace when they finding the quality of the assets theyâve purchased are far below what they had expected or that the collision is all wonky and needs to be redone. Quality and craftsmanship costs money.
The truth is that it doesnât matter whether most people on the forums can afford our work or not. There is a basic standard of living we as workers intend to achieve that is defined by those countries in which we live. If we have to decide whether to create art for your project and going without food or getting a job at a supermarket to make ends meet, we will always choose to put food in our mouth first. Devaluing the work of artists and coders because you happen to be unable to afford their work is taking those people for granted and vilifying those same content creators for asking for a fair wage. That is unscrupulous.
I contend that comparing our work for an hourly wage to the work we do for the marketplace here in community is the most evenhanded and fair thing that we can do just as itâs whats been decided in most developed countries around the world as being just. Just because is the internet doesnât mean we should be paid like weâre in Somalia. No oneâs project is that important that we should go hungry because of it.
I am going to be plain honest here. Sorry for the honest opinion thatâs about to come.
If you have to rely on the UE4 market place to pay your bills, then you did something wrong so far. I understand that a VFX career is tough to establish and to get a permanent and well paid position. People who make it have typically masters in computer science or in more direct VFX courses, but typically computer science. If you are one of the million and million of guys who used Blender for years and other cheap software, without experience in the heavy weights like Maya, Nuke, Renderman etc. and without the ability to code in C++ and so on, and now think you can make a living from it, think again. The reason is because anyone can buy a $100 world machine license and subscribe to UE4 for $19.95 a month and can start making the terrain. Every half-neerdy kid can do it. If was in any way possible, to make money that pays bills from something like the UE4 market square, then do not you think there would be thousands and thousands of submissions daily, especially when the base investment is one world machine license and one UE4 subscription?
If you seriously think about UE4 market place as a replacement for a carrer and to generate income from it, that can replace a regular 9-5 income, then you severely misunderstood the concept.
I am not in for people putting stuff on a hobbyiest engineâs market place with price tags that are supposed to pay their bills that would have otherwise been paid by a regular job in the VFX industry.
Tagging prices on market place items with the intention of replacing a regular income can not be good for the market place.
Maybe it is better to get into Maya, NukeFX and so on and apply for industry jobs instead of buying a $100 world machine license and subscribe to an indie game engine and hope to make a living from it. is just delusional. If worked, there would be countless people doing it. And there would be countless people not going to work for the VFX companies everyday 9-5.
Take the Free Foliage Starter Kit from the forum as an example. The user gives it away for free. By your logic, he would have put it on the market place and, in my opinion, could have at least asked for $50.
You just have to realize that UE4 is a hobbyist engine.
I donât really have anything to say about , But calling Unreal Engine 4 a âHobbyistâ engine and an âIndie game engineâ are both incorrect
Iâd like to remind people however, That isnât something to get angry over and argue about.
Some people want to make a living off the marketplace; So what? Let them, Itâs their choice.
I mean I earn a living from writing FREE books on Unreal Engine 4. The only money I get is from the sales of the psychical versions of the book, in which I make I think 70p a sale? Yeah, Iâve managed to make a living off 70p a book (Which is offered for free online), so why is it impossible for a developer to create content for the Marketplace?
The reason people create content for the Marketplace is to create convenience for the end user, as well as being paid for their work.
What they charge, why their doing it and if they think it will succeed, it doesnât really bother anyone else other than the Marketplace seller. Well it shouldnât anyway.
I get the feeling that everyone is taking things a little too personally here. Why? I have no idea, but people: Please remember, is a place to discuss our views in a friendly and/or professional manner.
If youâd like to add a point, By all means, Feel free to add it. But please take into consideration that when you say âIf youâre planning to make a living off the Marketplace, then youâre doing something wrongâ, As you canât see the person, It seems like youâre dissing their plans and work which is most likely going to annoy them and stir the bee-hive.
There are a million different ways that everyone can get their points across without angering other members of the community, So I ask can you please try and keep the conversation a casual one? Thereâs no need to spiteful digs, disrespecting other peoples work and whatnot. Thatâs just not the vibe the community has been trying so hard to build here on the forums.
Anyway, enough with giant hippy-spam-wall-of-text, Iâll get out of everyoneâs hair, Just please remember that youâre not talking to some computer robot, These are real human beings on the other end of these messages and if you disrespect them, They are going to be angry. And that will lead to an argument and that leads to a giant mess which will eventually give the community a bad name (It can take one rotten apple to spoil the pickings!)
So everyone just chill, Take a breather and remember: is a discussion, not a political debate. Let people make up their own minds about things (Chances are, if they are reading thread, They already have and are just preparing to share their point of view).
Lets address because its the main point of your post with my own point: It doesnât matter that if anyone relies on the UE4 marketplace to pay their bills.
Thatâs none of your business. Itâs none of your business how artists, coders, blue printers, sound designers, and animators decide to price themselves or if they decide to rely on the Market Place to make their living in the first place. Moreover there is nothing wrong with relying on the UE4 market place to pay our bills. There is nothing wrong with asking to be paid a fare wage for the work we do regardless of whether weâre selling it on Unreal Market Place, the Unity Asset Store, Turbo Squid, or through freelance work. The places, stores, and market places content creators choose to sell their work is irrelevant to the conversation and your depiction of the Unreal Marketplace as a kind of Dollar General moreover slanders the reputation of the Unreal Market Place on the whole.
To reiterate: I think the major point of thread is to devalue the work of artists, coders, sound designers, and everyone else involved in game development to the point that we are working under unsustainable conditions so that someone can buy high quality work for bargain bin prices in order to avoid paying fair market prices. The Unreal Market Place place doesnât exist in a vacuum from the rest of the game development industry no matter how much you would like for that to be true. To argue otherwise is cruel, belittling, and ignorant to the general demands of reality where we have families to feed, bills to pay, and lives to live.
is what content creators generally earned in 2014 for their work. sets the rate for what people charge in the Unreal community and the marketplace and itâs important everyone here know whether they are selling themselves, and their work, for too cheap.
Programmers: $93,251 ($44 an hour)
Artists and animators: $74,349 ($35.50 an hour)
Game designers: $73,864 ($35.50 an hour)
Producers: $82,286 ($39.50 an hour)
Audio professionals: $95,682 ($46 an hour)
Quality Assurance: $54,833 ($26 an hour)
The Unreal Marketplace doesnât exist in a vacuum away from these rates and salaries. These are the rates the industry has set as being the average rate we should earn in a year and so the Unreal Marketplace is subject to these rates and prices as well (as are YOU). In addition the more likely it is that content creators can earn industry standard rates on the Marketplace, the more likely it is that more people will flood the Market Place with higher quality assets, more sustained developer support, and more varied content than what currently exists. That is only going to make the Unreal Market Place a better venue for game developers to shop for their projects. Not worse.
I agree with what you say, just donât make the mistake of comparing apples to oranges: you canât compare base rates working for a project where your work is made for just one client who gets exclusivity of your âproductâ to selling stuff on the marketplace where any number of users can buy it and thereâs no exclusivity, itâs just not the same thing.
Exactly. They are not the same thing and for that reason we are not taking (Artists and animators: $74,349 ($35.50 an hour)). Why is the complain going on yet? My very own pack which is $75 has ended up $1.5 an hour for me.
