Gamedevs should work together with 3D artists

[morphnet]

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Did you actually read ANY of what you posted? Seriously any of it?

Your first link

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Is about indie studios and publishers it's literally in the first line

" When you go with a publisher on an independent game, one of the most critical parts of the equation has to be the Revenue Share "

It discusses the funds after the investment and the article is using numbers like

" Consider the following: if you have a project that costs US$200,000 (including service costs) and the Publisher is recouping at 70%, that means the developer will be at approximately US$85,000 developer revenue if the game performs well enough to hit US$200,000 revenue for the publisher, which is at US$460,000 revenue total (assuming a 30% platform fee, which is the most common platform fee). For irony, note that at this point, the platform is making more revenue from the title than the developer (at this point, they'd have made US$122,000). "

Also of you actually bothered to read the link YOU provided you would see he had other links in the article

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" Too high a budget at worst looks arrogant - too low a budget at best looks incompetent. "

Your second link

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Turns out your "it's common in the industry, with artists and with coders" is so common NO ONE is using it and a handful of people are complaining.....

Your third link

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Sadly I did actually read all the comments, so your third source of "it's common in the industry" is a bunch of people arguing over art vs code, people pointing out 50/50 of $0 is $0 and people can't even agree on whether the thread is giving good or bad advice....






Your forth link

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It is also an article directed at established companies, if you read the article it clearly covers LTV and CLV and starts it's example with " When you’re considering the direction your company is taking, " and as you can see above it clearly says it is NOT for everyone and best implemented a supplemental income.

Your fifth link

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19 ads and only 1 closed the oldest is from jan 09 2021, highlighting how hard it is to even find someone to fall for..i mean go for the idea.... (context)



sixth link requires login so skipping

seventh link

This is the only one that even comes close to what you were saying but is at least honest unlike you.

But hey, I guess if you can't find it, it doesn't exist.

So when you said common in the industry, common for freelancers and coders, what you actually meant was not common at all, not used by ANY major sites and not applicable to your "get an experience artist"... and from the same reddit thread as above



Also I never said it doesn't exist, I said it's NOT common place.

I said educate yourself, not collect links to fuel your confirmation bias and then come back to mislead others into believing you would actually know how the industry works.

Google it up.

For someone who just had to Google things due to a lack of personal experience, you're presenting your opinion far too confidently.

For someone accusing others of making assumptions.... so please tell me, what exactly is my personal experience in the field because I never mentioned it.

Now you wasted even more of my time because I had to disprove the false claims you made.

What exactly did you disprove? Half your links are unrelated to the topic, the other half prove only that there are a handful of people using this method and even among them some say it's a bad idea.... (context)

I won't bother with the rest of your post, as I spotted numerous other mistakes and logical fallacies that aren't worth going through.

Of course you did, your reading has been top notch so far...

Would you like to tell us again about the time you linked an article about an established indie studio rev-sharing with a publisher...

I also find it funny that you accuse me of

collect links to fuel your confirmation bias

When you refuse to add the posts that go against your claims.

You should just stop trying to educate others about fields you clearly have no experience in. You may ask for clarifications, you may express that this model wouldn't be something for you personally, but please stop spreading nonsense about alleged 'misinformation' just because you're unfamiliar with the topic.

Well let's see,

Have you proven that rev-share is common in the industry, common with freelancers, common with coders? No
Have you proven your knowledge of the market in terms of payment models? No
Have you proven your knowledge of the salary of those you have mentioned? No
Have you proven your knowledge of the industry as a whole? No

You have pitched an idea that has only worked for a handful of people (in the context you are using it in), even your links show AND say it is NOT for everyone and that MANY requests go unanswered. Your links also prove that it is NOT a viable option on a large scale (option for many dev's to use) and yet that is included in your pitch.

Your views are unrealistic at best and the fact that you have managed to get so many details, facts and information wrong even with your own examples and links just shows that your pitch should be ignored.
If you can't be trusted to fact check your claims or sources then how can people trust your information?

 

[OsamiWorks]

Finding a 3d artist that can legitimately fit the needs of a dev is hard. Tbh if you become a 3d nsfw artist you will be hit up by "devs" constantly, even if you arent that good. They wont pay you, they want sweat equity and revenue share often without putting in an equal amount of work, they have no concept of how much work goes into 3d art, and they are mostly a waste of your time tbh. Also some the best nsfw 3d artists I know started wanting to make a game, or in some way adjacent to that. So most or all competent artists have a decent amount of know how to do it themselves and they will filter you out especially early if you dont know much on your own. Some artists that are less competent do get followers and pretend they make stuff but it just comes back to that artist cant do the work you need as a dev.

Also the logistics of it too. Finding someone that can do the technical work of bringing assets into engines and utilizing them is very different from the work of making or at least modifying existing assets, which is a drastically different from the skillset of an artist that can competently use them. There are people that have multiple skills, but its 1 sided going up the chain with people who are using borrowed assets being the most common.

 

[Waaifu]

Some devs ended up regretting doing rev sharing once they needed a team.

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Originally the 30% rev share is fair because there were only 2 of us working on the game. But now that the team has expanded to 5 people, the artist taking 30% of revenue (gross, without deductions) means that he got paid as much as the sum of the other 4 of us.

There was Designer Notes podcast episode with the creator of Armello, he described a similar situation, they had initial co-creators on rev share, but kept updating the game for a long time after launch and it all grew into a massive clusterfuck with new people joining, others leaving the project etc. iirc they ended up 'buying out' all the revshare people and move exclusively to salary-based compensation.

 

[GNVE]

Some devs ended up regretting doing rev sharing once they needed a team.

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Yeah that was something that was nibbling at the back of my mind as well. Though that success is the reward for the risk they took with you in the beginning. Maybe you could limit this to a maximum in some way (e.g. 7.5K a month for instance or over 30K amount the profit share will drop to 25% etc.)

There is also taxes. In my country I can earn a little from a hobby but pretty soon I'd have to start a business and start paying taxes. The oft vilified Patreon helps a lot in that regard as they pay VAT which would be an enormous headache (and means you don't have to part with 15 - 25% off all earnings before anything else.) but there are a lot more taxes and the IRS equivalent don't care I send money to someone else before thinking about taxes.

Also having revenue share means that 2 people might have to live for a longer period of time without making enough money to live off of the game. I mean OP speaks of 5K a month but I live in a high income country and I'd need something like 3K - 4K to live. (including taxes, sick days, vacation days, insurance and other expenses that are usually shouldered by the employer). 3K would be 40H at minimum wage. If I want to make median wage You'd be looking at 4K - 5K. (I once read you have to take your own wage and add 30% to make the same as a business before it is worth it).

 

[Fuchsschweif]

Did you actually read ANY of what you posted? Seriously any of it?

Your first link

And again you would've profited from simply asking about things you don't understand, instead of jumping to conclusions and telling us again what the world must look like, according to your imagination.

Your first link

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Is about indie studios and publishers it's literally in the first line

" When you go with a publisher on an independent game, one of the most critical parts of the equation has to be the Revenue Share "

Guess what position you're holding if you're the game developer who holds the rights on the IP, manages the promotion, the sales, the customer service, the revenue and all of that. Yes, correct: You're the publisher of your own game. Who would've thought that! Mindblowing.

But yes, let's apply your amateurish ideas without any actual understanding on how to operate a business whatsoever to the world of professionals. It's of course way better if you manage all of the above just for free and consider yourself just as "the coder" only, even though you're working for 5 other roles as well.

I would be laughing right now if your attempts to save yourself from admitting that you don't know what you're talking about wouldn't be so desperate.

Also of you actually bothered to read the link YOU provided you would see he had other links in the article

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" Too high a budget at worst looks arrogant - too low a budget at best looks incompetent. "

You didn't even understand your own link here.

This isn't about how much budget you have available at the start of your business, but what you do predict you'll have earned by date XY in total. And it's about pitching your project to a potential investor to fund your development. This has nothing to do with our subject of independent developers and artist working together, self-employed, sharing their revenue.

Your second link

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Turns out your "it's common in the industry, with artists and with coders" is so common NO ONE is using it and a handful of people are complaining.....

People are complaining because a rev share option is usually common on all distribution sites, and they would've expected that itch.io does prioritize that as well. Your logic is so flawed that I don't even know where to start. According to you, everything that the Epic Games Store doesn't prioritize - tons of lacking features that Steam has, that are highly popular and largely used on Steam - isn't common.

This is a very unintelligent statement, to put it friendly.

Your third link

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Sadly I did actually read all the comments, so your third source of "it's common in the industry" is a bunch of people arguing over art vs code, people pointing out 50/50 of $0 is $0 and people can't even agree on whether the thread is giving good or bad advice....

Wow, really a mindblowing find! There do exist people who don't like this payment model as well! Congratulations - this doesn't change a thing.

It is also an article directed at established companies, if you read the article it clearly covers LTV and CLV and starts it's example with " When you’re considering the direction your company is taking, " and as you can see above it clearly says it is NOT for everyone and best implemented a supplemental income.

It's an optional suggestion. Of course it *would be* advantageous to have it as supplemental income. It's even more advantageous if you had investors and stakeholders. It's even better if your parents are rich and fund the whole thing.

This has very little to do with the reality for many indie artists.

The recommendation is directed at bigger ventures. The link was supposed to show you an overview about the general payment model that "doesn't exist" according to you. Not to show off how it's being handled in game design specifically with indie developers. For that I attached the other dozen sources from actual game dev boards.

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19 ads and only 1 closed the oldest is from jan 09 2021, highlighting how hard it is to even find someone to fall for..i mean go for the idea.... (context)

Many entries from just the past weeks, being clicked over 3000-4000 times in just this short timeframe. But hey, let's look at how old the oldest entry is so we don't have to admit that there's a high interest.

seventh link

This is the only one that even comes close to what you were saying but is at least honest unlike you.

Uhm. You're aware that they used the jobs for themselves, and didn't pay out loan, right? It's a comission only model, as he stated in the very first sentence that you did cut off here. Of course people have side-jobs in the beginning, what they're supposed to survive from? Air? I covered this already pages ago:

That's normal in the beginning. But as the side-business grows, people slowly start to shift their workload over. Full time becomes part time, which leaves more time for the side-business. This on the other hand generates more and more money so that full time work isn't required anymore as main income source.

That's how most self-employed businesses start.

But I guess I must be dIsHoNeSt because your lack of paying attention.

For someone accusing others of making assumptions.... so please tell me, what exactly is my personal experience in the field because I never mentioned it.

So you're doing this on the regular? You register yourself to a forum about engineering, read a post from some engineer explaining how they handle to build machine X, and then write something like:

"GUYS! Don't believe him. I just googled what he said and after my research I can safely say that he is WRONG. I understand the subject better than the engineer with his university degree and 10 years of experience in the industry.

@ the engineer: It's nice that you want to change things, but your informations are simply false and misleading".

Because that's exactly how you behave in this thread. Do you see how you make a massive clown of yourself?

You went through every single entry one by one, trying to find things to disprove them. Your agenda is so obvious. You stepped into tons of logical fallacies because you are unable to correctly classify the information you find due to your lack of competence in this field.

But it's entertaining to see that you can't go "the comission only model you talked about was nowhere to be found, it doesn't exist!!!!" anymore. Of course you didn't admit you were wrong, let alone apologized for your false accusations. Instead you're just trying to move the goalposts and defame all the new informations that disproved your claims.

 

[Fuchsschweif]

Also the logistics of it too. Finding someone that can do the technical work of bringing assets into engines and utilizing them is very different from the work of making or at least modifying existing assets, which is a drastically different from the skillset of an artist that can competently use them. There are people that have multiple skills, but its 1 sided going up the chain with people who are using borrowed assets being the most common.

That's required from the 3D artist himself. People who do a certain aspect for games are also required to know the tools for the implementation. Even soundtrack composers need to be able to work with tools like WWise. There's no extra person with only the task of implementing art. If you apply to a job offering but can't implement your own work, you'll most likely not get the job. Except there's some time ahead for you to quickly pick up these skills.

Some devs ended up regretting doing rev sharing once they needed a team.

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He doesn't regret doing rev sharing, he does regret that he didn't have the knowledge prior to the making of the contract, to correctly implement the clause that if the team size grows, the % of rev share for the individual might decline. This is something that you usually cover in the contract.

Mistakes with contracts happen, especially for newbies, but that's true for all sorts of contracts. There's a lot to cover, way more than just the payments, which leaves a lot of room for mistakes.

There is also taxes. In my country I can earn a little from a hobby but pretty soon I'd have to start a business and start paying taxes. The oft vilified Patreon helps a lot in that regard as they pay VAT which would be an enormous headache (and means you don't have to part with 15 - 25% off all earnings before anything else.) but there are a lot more taxes and the IRS equivalent don't care I send money to someone else before thinking about taxes.

I'm not sure if I get your last sentence right, but you generally have to deduct taxes first and then share the net revenue amongst all participants.

Also having revenue share means that 2 people might have to live for a longer period of time without making enough money to live off of the game. I mean OP speaks of 5K a month but I live in a high income country and I'd need something like 3K - 4K to live. (including taxes, sick days, vacation days, insurance and other expenses that are usually shouldered by the employer). 3K would be 40H at minimum wage. If I want to make median wage You'd be looking at 4K - 5K. (I once read you have to take your own wage and add 30% to make the same as a business before it is worth it).

As mentioned earlier in the thread, comission only based developments usually happen while people are still having main jobs. The project starts on the side and it might be possible to slowly change working shifts from your main job to your own business, if the income stream allows for it later.

 

[GNVE]

I'm not sure if I get your last sentence right, but you generally have to deduct taxes first and then share the net revenue amongst all participants.

I would agree but the example listed seemed like it was just I take X and whatever is left needs to do the rest (pay other employees, taxes etc).

As mentioned earlier in the thread, comission only based developments usually happen while people are still having main jobs. The project starts on the side and might be able to slowly change working shifts from your main job to your own business, if the income stream allows for it later.

Yeah but there is an issue as well. A lot of contracts do not allow you to work next to your job or have prior approval. At least it is common here. A reason to deny a request can be that you need to work too many hours (it is illegal for me to work more than 48 hours cumulative from all jobs a week over a period of 16 weeks). Another reason to deny it is because you could sully the reputation of the company.

 

[Fuchsschweif]

Yeah but there is an issue as well. A lot of contracts do not allow you to work next to your job or have prior approval. At least it is common here. A reason to deny a request can be that you need to work too many hours (it is illegal for me to work more than 48 hours cumulative from all jobs a week over a period of 16 weeks). Another reason to deny it is because you could sully the reputation of the company.

That reeks of bad employee rights in your country. In my country it's forbidden by law that a contract wouldn't allow you to work for others as well. If an employer puts this clause into a contract here, they'll get a warning.

There are very few exceptions here where it's allowed that the employer forbids it through the contract, such as working for a direct competitor - obvious things. But you won't have problems working on a gaming side project, as that's none of the business of your employer.

 

[GNVE]

That reeks of bad employee rights in your country. In my country it's forbidden by law that a contract wouldn't allow you to work for others as well. If an employer puts this clause into a contract here, they'll get a warning.

There are very few exceptions here where it's allowed that the employer forbids it through the contract, such as working for a direct competitor - obvious things. But you won't have problems working on a gaming side project, as that's none of the business of your employer.

It's actually because of strong employee rights. If you work 100 hours a week the only place your going is an early grave. So employers need to protect their employees. They can't deny you working for another employer even non-compete clauses must be narrowly tailored. But they must still follow the max hours laws.
They can't just outright deny you to seek self-employment but you need to be open about it. (though again making a porn game might be a bit much for most employers. although I don't know if you need to disclose it to that degree).

 

[Fuchsschweif]

It's actually because of strong employee rights. If you work 100 hours a week the only place your going is an early grave. So employers need to protect their employees. They can't deny you working for another employer even non-compete clauses must be narrowly tailored. But they must still follow the max hours laws.

This was mainly direct at "A lot of contracts do not allow you to work next to your job or have prior approval".

Good employee rights are when the employer can forbid things that are actually in his interest but no further. What you do with your free time is none of his business unless it negatively affects your performance when you work for him.

In my country you also have the right by law to reduce working hours. So if you're working 40 hours a week now but want to reduce it to 30 so you can spend 10 on your side project, the employer has to reduce your hours. (You don't have to state why you want to reduce hours).

 

[morphnet]

Guess what position you're holding if you're the game developer who holds the rights on the IP, manages the promotion, the sales, the customer service, the revenue and all of that. Yes, correct: You're the publisher of your own game. Who would've thought that! Mindblowing.

So you are the publisher AND the indie studio and the article about the indie studio repaying an investment from the publisher applies here how?

But yes, let's apply your amateurish ideas without any actual understanding on how to operate a business whatsoever to the world of professionals. It's of course way better if you manage all of the above just for free and consider yourself just as "the coder" only, even though you're working for 5 other roles as well.

I would be laughing right now if your attempts to save yourself from admitting that you don't know what you're talking about wouldn't be so pathetic.

Of course your reply is aimed at me instead of the points, you want to draw attention away from the fact the the first link you give covers an indie studio with support from a publisher and how they handle rev share in that relationship. In other words nothing to do with your pitch

You didn't even understand your own link here.

This isn't about how much budget you have available at the start of your business, but what you do predict you'll have earned by date XY in total.

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" that means your budget needs to be at the very least the amount of money your team requires to develop the game. "

What were you saying again about not understanding YOUR link....

Ahh cool, now you know it even better than actual artists on itch.io and simply claim they all would be lying.

The recommendation is directed at bigger ventures. The link was supposed to show you an overview about the general payment model that "doesn't exist" according to you. Not to show off how it's being handled in game design specifically with indie developers. For that I attached the other dozen sources from actual game dev boards.

You really are good at making things up, quote me!

Many entries from just the past weeks, being clicked over 3000-4000 times in just this short timeframe. But hey, let's look at how old the oldest entry is so we don't have to admit that there's a high interest.

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MANY entries from the past week you say.....
Been clicked 3000-4000 times in just this short timeframe you say...., short timeframe = Oct 18 2023 - Jun 21 2024

Seriously is it not enough meds or too many?

and yes they have 3000-4000 clicks and no one is interested.... funny how you left that out even though anyone reading can clearly see that 19 ads, 1 closed between Jan 09 2021 and Oct 18 2023 out of 118 pages

Uhm. You're aware that they used the jobs for themselves, and didn't pay out loan, right? It's a comission only model, as he stated in the very first sentence that you did cut off here. Of course people have side-jobs in the beginning, what they're supposed to survive from? Air? I covered this already pages ago:

You mean MAIN jobs, you know the ones that pay the bills, feed and cloth them and look after their families and themselves.

But I guess I must be dIsHoNeSt because your lack of spending attention.

While NOT the first indication that you have no grasp of reality it is one of the bigger ones....

So people working a full time main job JUST move them to part time.... In what reality can people just go into work and tell their boss I'm working less now.... NOT everyone is a freelancer or self employed, you keep throwing out these wild ideas as if they have any basis in reality.

"This on the other hand generates more and more money" REALLY?

"So that full time work isn't required anymore as main incomes" Seriously? What did you say again? 5K is a realistic goal for a good game? 1500 for the artist and 3500 for the dev.... you consider that enough to support a family on? You consider that enough to support a better life style than working a main job?

I'm also going to give YOU the benefit of the doubt here and assume you mean 5k after patreon took it's cut....

Not sure what marshmallows and unicorns fantasy you are living in....

So you're doing this on the regular? You register yourself to a forum about engineering, read a post from some engineer explaining how they handle to build machine X, and then write something like:

"GUYS! Don't believe him. I just googled what he said and after my research I can safely say that he is WRONG. I understand the subject better than the engineer with his university degree and 10 years of experience in the industry.

@ the engineer: It's nice that you want to change things, but your informations are simply false and misleading".

Because that's exactly how you behave in this thread. Do you see how you make a massive clown of yourself?

and why exactly did you need to change that to a weird example? I'll fix it for you no worries...

So you're doing this on the regular? You register yourself to a forum about pirating porn games, read a post from some random explaining how they make porn games using rev-sharing and how successful it is heard about it while being in the industry for 9 years, and then write something like:

"GUYS! Don't believe him. I just googled what he said and after my research I can safely say that he is WRONG. I understand the subject better than the random with his university degree and 10 9 years of experience in the industry.

@ the random: It's nice that you want to change things, but your informations are simply false and misleading".

Oh right now I see it...

btw if you keep changing your qualifications people might think you're full of BS
Unless today or yesterday was your 10 year anniversary "maybe" in which case congratulations
You now also have a university degree, good for you... notice you don't say what in....

It takes talent to get so many things wrong.....

P.S. don't forget to quote me in your reply where I say it doesn't exist

 

[Advent Games]

This discussion has devolved into cherry-picking, wishful thinking and side tangents.

 

[Fuchsschweif]

So you are the publisher AND the indie studio and the article about the indie studio repaying an investment from the publisher applies here how?

That's correct, if you put personal investments into the development while the other members don't, that's naturally something you're supposed to be compensated for. If you would have paid attention, you'd have noticed that the one reddit post with a couple of hundred upvotes did even made an example of this.

Of course your reply is aimed at me instead of the points, you want to draw attention away from the fact the the first link you give covers an indie studio with support from a publisher and how they handle rev share in that relationship. In other words nothing to do with your pitch

I did reply to the points, that was the part you intentionally cut off from my quote.

And yes, many indie studios do publish themselves and yes again, the members who fulfill the roles of the publisher should be also compensated for handling the entire business side.

You must be registered to see the links

" that means your budget needs to be at the very least the amount of money your team requires to develop the game. "

What were you saying again about not understanding YOUR link....

You still don't get it. This is about the budget you want to get from your investor.

It's obvious that you have to at least ask for the amount you all need to survive and cover operating costs, if you plan to work full time under the funding of someone else.

Still has nothing to do with the original scenario this thread is about, which is without investors.

Also that wasn't my link, it was yours. You came up with it and said "here look what I else found on the website".

But I'm not surprised you're starting to lose track of all the excuses you've come up with.

You really are good at making things up, quote me!

Easy:

After doing what you asked and searching on google and also duckduckgo and bing it turns out that all of the major hiring platforms, art hosting and sales platforms and blogs I found had no idea what you were talking about (and neither did the search engines for that matter). You would think if it was sooo common I would have found something...anything....

No I searched google like you said and they weren't there...

MANY entries from the past week you say.....
Been clicked 3000-4000 times in just this short timeframe you say...., short timeframe = Oct 18 2023 - Jun 21 2024

I actually mixed that up with other screens that I took out of the OP yesterday, because I wouldn't think you're stubborn enough to keep arguing against the huge amount of resources disproving your assumptions.

Here you have some job offerings from other boards, just a couple of days / weeks ago:









That took me 2 minutes. If you manage to learn how to use google, you can find plenty by yourself.

While NOT the first indication that you have no grasp of reality it is one of the bigger ones....

So people working a full time main job JUST move them to part time.... In what reality can people just go into work and tell their boss I'm working less now.... NOT everyone is a freelancer or self employed, you keep throwing out these wild ideas as if they have any basis in reality.

In any 1st world country with employee rights. If you scroll up you'll have a good read about this. In many countries employers have to reduce hours by law.

But even if not - people manage to switch jobs, even in 3rd world countries. They're doing it right now, in this very second you're here, whining in a forum, that it's sooo impossible in reality.

You're projecting your own fears here, but the world out there doesn't give a shoot about what you're personally afraid of. All the succesfull devs and artists have found ways to make their side-hustle happen. And all of them met people like you who told them how hard and impossible it is and that they shouldn't do it, before they did it. It happens so frequently, that it became a meme.

That's what our entire conversation basically is about: You whining about things "not being possible", "hard to archieve", "misleading". You sound like someone who has some cope-trauma over dreams he was too afraid to chase, so you constantly need to positively affirm yourself how hard and impossible things are.

It's a common pattern amongst regretful people. But you don't have to be afraid for others.

All the brave people out there running their own business, working as freelancers had to take the jump at some point. That's just a part of the journey.

"So that full time work isn't required anymore as main incomes" Seriously? What did you say again? 5K is a realistic goal for a good game? 1500 for the artist and 3500 for the dev.... you consider that enough to support a family on? You consider that enough to support a better life style than working a main job?

Why don't you make up another example, with a guy who has 5 wives and 15 children and who couldn't even develop a game if he was gifted 3k a month and a house to live in, because it's still not enough to pay for his family? This way you can keep pointing at the sheer impossibility of becoming self-employed no matter the opportunities.

I'll give him another 1k! Oh shoot, his mother is in hospital in a country without good healthcare and he has to pay another 2k a month for he treatment. Now he can't become a game dev again! Poor Robert.

Maybe self-employment and taking up on a risky job like being a game developer isn't for anyone? Why would you even try to bring a group of people into the conversation who are naturally unqualified for the job, due to their life circumstances? Ah yeah, I forgot: because you've been throwing one thing after another in the way just to avoid facing the facts.

and why exactly did you need to change that to a weird example? I'll fix it for you no worries...

You don't need to fix it, it showcased your behaviour perfectly fine.
That's exactly how you behave here - embarrassing, I know. The cool thing is you don't have to, you're free to stop making a fool of yourself anytime.

btw if you keep changing your qualifications people might think you're full of BS
Unless today or yesterday was your 10 year anniversary "maybe" in which case congratulations
You now also have a university degree, good for you... notice you don't say what in....

Maybe click the link to the guide in the OP

Also I didn't switch qualifications. Mentioning that you have a degree in the field you've been working in for a decade isn't switching anything.

That being said, I'll stick with what I announced earlier: I won't engage in further conversations with you. It's just a waste of valuable lifetime. You're just guessing into the blue without any actual knowledge of subjects and it's tiresome to sift through your fantasy constructs and correct all the mistakes.

 

[Fuchsschweif]

Now back to topic. Which isn't about whether the comission only models exists, but about how this can be beneficial for indie game developers, who otherwise would lack the funds to engage in such a high quality collaboration.

That's by the way also what this post was about, and despite what morphnet claims from his fantasy, it's a common way to make collaborations possible that would have been too expensive to pay for upfront.

 

[Living In A Lewd World]

Noone actually questions, that a model of "revenue share" exists and that developer try to use it. This is a well-known model and there are multiple threads from people in the "Recruitment and Services" category, that at least searched in the past artists for revenue share here on f95, see e.g.:

https://f95zone.to/threads/emmerald...-commission-or-revenue-share-long-term.92968/
https://f95zone.to/threads/seeking-2d-artist-revenue-share.47763/
https://f95zone.to/threads/looking-for-a-prgrammer-and-3d-artist.51497/#post-3639637

The problem is more how successful it is to search people for such a project, especially when you are a passionate amateur dev, as most of the devs that are here active in this pirate-forum are. And yes, many amateur-devs try to search an artist on revenue-share basis, but probably fail most often, as good artists will think 3 times about whether they want to work with a newcomer or not.

It might be under certain circumstances be interesting for a lewd game studio, from which some exist, but which are here not really active. I can also not speak from this perspective, as I don't know that. So, you won't find many of them to discuss the topic from this perspective. Here you find rather the passionate amateur-league.

 

[shabadu]

You just confused it again. You literally just repeated the same mistake and mixed up "experience in the industry" with "working under this payment structure by oneself".

How exactly am I getting this confused?

The business models I talked about in this thread are common in the professional freelancer industry especially for artists.

I also have personal insights into my industry (digital media, as stated earlier) and know that comission based pay is one of the common ways to pay freelancers.

That's why I suggested to run with the provision payment model. Like I said, that's common in the world of freelancers and start-ups. Many people don't have that initial budget, this is how they get things to run.

In this case it's even a bit easier because..

..the 3D artist still can get experience and more projects into his portfolio. It's not always about doing what you want. Committing to do XX amount of animations in a certain timespan can help immensely to grow as an artist. It's good against procrastination, many artists work better under pressure with actual deadlines, and of course money is a good motivator too.

In this case the work wasn't for nothing. Also don't underestimate the skills picked up when working with a bit of pressure and constantly on a project over a couple of months. It's also something to put into your CV, improves your soft skills and so on and so forth.

It seems like you yourself are implying that one can have experience in the industry by working under such a payment structure, are you not? To me, these are not mutually exclusive situations. If you have a job in the field of digital media and this employment is paid in some kind of revenue share, then wouldn't part of your professional experience include that revenue share?

Uhm, no. If you talk with a professional footballer who has been with different clubs over a decade, spoken with many of his teammates about their contracts and conditions, and observed how things played out for them, it doesn't matter whether he has personally tried all the different contracts to understand what players from various leagues and experiences are being offered and under what circumstances this happens.

I never claimed that you didn't know these wage models exist. My whole point is that you have no problem throwing around your experience when it suits you, but then deflect from and downplay that same experience when it seems like it might not wholly support your own views. You are cherry picking in way that comes across as highly disingenuous and possibly even malicious by using said experience as an excuse to be condescending and dismissive.

I don't like to theorize about another's mindset and motivations, but it's seeming more and more likely that you have the common problem of taking your own lived experiences and extrapolating that out into some kind of ideal world, and then acting personally offended when not everyone can meet your standard. Your responses suggest that you are utterly incapable of engaging with concepts that don't align with your preconceived notions because you've become emotionally invested in being Right and Correct, which ends up leading you down some twisted paths of logic in order to justify yourself.

(A bunch of stuff that isn't an answer)

Please answer the actual questions.

How about this, with all of your years in the industry, how many artists have you known to enter into a rev-share employment contract with no guarantees of pay and the possibility of starting 6+ months without a single cent being generated in revenue? How many have been successful? How many have regretted or otherwise been soured on the experience?

 

[asen-de]

In Japan different talents (artists, programmers) make "circles" and work together on one project. The west is lacking in has a lot of lone wolfs.

What I take from some conversations here is that you dudes always are thinking about a professional 3d artist doing the stuff for your little "idea". But that is complete nonsense to think that way.

How about you look for a hobby-andy 3d artist as you are a hobby-andy dev yourself.. and don't aim for the "state of the art" 3d design and maybe compensate the lack of "quality" with your own unique style in order to compete. If the idea is good enough the project will find it's support and grow and with the time the quality of the hobby-andy 3d artist and your own will grow with it.

 

[Fuchsschweif]

In Japan different talents (artists, programmers) make "circles" and work together on one project. The west is lacking in has a lot of lone wolfs.

What I take from some conversations here is that you dudes always are thinking about a professional 3d artist doing the stuff for your little "idea". But that is complete nonsense to think that way.

How about you look for a hobby-andy 3d artist as you are a hobby-andy dev yourself.. and don't aim for the "state of the art" 3d design and maybe compensate the lack of "quality" with your own unique style in order to compete. If the idea is good enough the project will find it's support and grow and with the time the quality of the hobby-andy 3d artist and your own will grow with it.

Exactly.

I think people confuse this because the fact that the game developer "is hiring" but "cannot pay" makes him look like some sort of beggar and the 3D artist must be out of his league. But the truth is that the 3D artist couldn't financially hire a programmer either. So both just have to work together at their skill- and budget level, grind and grow together.

Game developers and 3D artists who are more advanced with a few impressive projects in their portfolio will look elsewhere anyways. So people will always team up at their league.

 

[desmosome]

Boring thread. Working with randoms online is a pain in the ass, especially in such an informal and non-professional setting. It's great if it works out, but chances are, they will flake on your or cause bullshit. Better to just learn the skills yourself.

I agree with your artistic perspective though. POV shots are completely retarded for many sex positions and scenes, but self-inserters want what they want lol.

 

[Living In A Lewd World]

Exactly.

I think people confuse this because the fact that the game developer "is hiring" but "cannot pay" makes him look like some sort of beggar and the 3D artist must be out of his league. But the truth is that the 3D artist couldn't financially hire a programmer either. So both just have to work together at their skill- and budget level, grind and grow together.

Game developers and 3D artists who are more advanced with a few impressive projects in their portfolio will look elsewhere anyways. So people will always team up at their league.

The problem here is at least for a standard VN with some branches, you don't really need a programmer. Ren'py is in it's basics so easy to learn, that you can do it basically in one or two days without programming knowledge. So a skilled 3D-artist with interest in creating a lewd game doesn't need a programmer for the start to become a developer.

The problems start, when you want to make more sophisticated things. Even a sandbox engine in Ren'py would probably require some learning but still be relatively easy to create, as one can just learn from what already exists and adapt accordingly. Ren'py doesn't hide it's code, so one can see everything. And you would probably create the engine only once per game and then just add content. It gets really hard, when one wants to create a side scroller or real 3D-game, where one would need unity or another more complex engine.

Storywise it is the same. Writing just something down can go relatively fast and already generate a big audience when you rely mostly on the images, as many people probably would not even read it. But when you really want to create a complex, long story with characters with interesting, unique personality who are in conflict with each other, where the stories has really an arc, follows a structure and works on a meta-level and the characters use well thought language that is pointive but fits to their characters, you will need probably a lot of time to write and a skilled writer.

So when you just make a VN with a simple story but great and consistent images, the creation of decent images is currently the hardest and most time consuming part of VN-creation. So a skilled artist or even someone who is just interested to learn the artistic side and dig deep into the world of 3D-image-composition and -lighting with a simple engine like HS2 can just start his own VN instead of taking all the risks that come along with working with an amateur programmer and writer.

EDIT:
Unfortunately still every image-creation skills are worthless (in sense of creating a financial outcome) when you don't fit the taste of the audience. I think, you can immensively increase the probability to make a successful game, when you put your well made images in a college setting, have a alpha-male MC who starts to generate a Harem and other men are only there to be put to the ground.
Games, that don't follow this scheme can be successful, but it is much harder.