Jim talks about the idea of people buying assets and even complete projects from the asset store, and using them as is to try and get on on steam (sometimes successfully). He discusses people buying different assets each with there own art style and putting together and ending up with is a hodgepodge mess of a project. He shows 3 instances of unit z on steam greenlight (one of which actually ended up steam. Near the end of the video, he talks about his community outing people that are using nothing but “asset flipping”.
I’d have to agree with Jim. The trend seems to be increasing on Steam. One solution might be Valve policing Stream a bit better maybe some type of Q&A before something can be green lighted?
I don’t see a problem in purchasing art/sound/code packs to compliment ones game due to having a limited budget, but at the end of the day, an original game would be nice from developers not copy and pasting example projects.
Jim also says that using Assets is fine for indies. But buying the whole template and selling it is what he talks about. He also accounts for assets which are visibly ripped from the asset store.
Valve should indeed assign some of their workers to quality control incoming greenlight games before actually allowing them to be displayed on greenlight. People voting for a game is a good idea, but controlling flow of games should have been added as soon as greenlight came out.
Yup, I did this because I have 0 talent in art. My game looks like crap. In an industry like this, you just can’t do things alone (or at least it’ll be really hard).
I believe we’ve talked about it before. There is nothing in the asset store EULA that prevents this. Selling just assets as a game is perfectly legal.
If steam is dumb enough to green light them then that’s their issue. But again, no laws broken, no real harm done.
The guy in the video may have wandered off into rant-ville but he presented many valid examples and issues in the process. Some solutions he suggested:
Make your own art (not possible for many indies)
Build off AS art but stylize it for your game, A.K.A. use it as a foundation (possible but very difficult)
Stop making games (absolutely evil)
So yeah, they were next to worthless. Still, simply being conscious about the issue of inconsistent art makes our games that much better.
But generally, the video is very true. Assets should be a starter point, example, or help in some field where the dev team has no experience. Not a “buy this, put to steam” thing.
An other thing, that pains me as an asset creator, when someone wildly misuse my asset. No matter how great the model is, if it has no lighting, doesn’t fint into the environment, and basically lacks any atristic skills in its implementation, it will look like a bad model.
Pure epizeuxiated blowhard on another bloviated bodewashery flinging ego trip. Keeps using that same rant asset over and over and he could use a pro artist to tighten up his mesh and texture…heh…
What a bunch of morons (devs Jim showcases in this episode). In Computer Virus Simulator the only asset store assets I’m using are code assets and it’s only when I can’t figure it out on my own.
I think this is the big deal here, being consistent with your art style rather than mish mash a bunch of art objects from the asset store together.
I saw assets I am using in another game but mine looked so different that had I not known they were the same assets beforehand, I never would have recognized them. The lighting and textures of theirs were entirely different from mine, both of us had deviated from the original asset, and both of us had modified the originals, making them look unique. Their style was also entirely different from mine, more gritty and dark while mine was more gentle and pastel. Even the lighting was different.
Props can easily be reused as long as it fits into your art style. Who cares if another game has the same crate as yours? As long as your photo-realistic buildings don’t sport cartoon crates, I doubt anyone will notice.
UI’s are probably pretty noticeable but they can be modified to be unique through color and placement. Main buildings might be an issue, but maybe not. I have seen items from the Medieval Village and Medieval Environment packs used in multiple settings with different lighting and they look great. I am not sure any player would be bothered by this, to be honest.
I taught myself to use Maya just so I could modify assets from the store. It has helped a great deal and I can even make buildings to match in style to extend the uses of assets. I have take roofs off of assets and used those on my artwork or put a new roof on a house from the asset store. I have even taken entire buildings apart and put them together in unique ways. Making assets modular, like Cobus’ 3dForge products allows developers to make very unique buildings, especially if they learn to re-texture.
It is easy to criticize people who just dump a bunch of assets into a game without any consistency and then pop it up onto steam or if they use a template for game code without any changes at all. But for most folks, this is a learning process and the focus is on game play rather than art. I think that is fine. If people buy and play the game, then they obviously don’t care…if they don’t, then the game developer has gained experience and will hopefully do better next time.
I agree with most of what he said. I don’t like crappy games like that getting greenlit over my crappy game which took far longer to make!
Except that little dude breaking stuff, those assets sort of fit together, but I don’t know how good the game is, other than it needs a better character controller, and better camera control.
Most of those games were extreme. They were not some developer using BEP trees or MK4’s houses, they were people using an entire template/game off the asset store and making very few changes. While I truly believe the market will take care of people like this, I also think it is rather lazy, to be honest. On the other hand, making game get’s you some “teen” credentials, right? I bet telling your dude and gal friends that you made a game can be mighty uplifting.
I disagree with the concept that customers are being exploited. Sorry, but if someone spends $1.99 on a game that lame, then they deserve it. My guess is most of the sales are from friends and family.
Yup. We bought a few art packages, but didn’t use them yet. And when/if we buy a complete project we agree’d we’d change everything we can, and add more. After all, all these complete projects are supposed to be a starting point, or used with another pack that fits. Its like you said, the environment stuff can be used more often without raising any alarms, while characters, and even weapons, are usually the focus of the players attention.
I don’t know about “teen” credentials tho. I always felt like I need to do it myself to brag. xD
Why is it not possible? Even if I worked by myself, I’d spend the time necessary to learn and make assets. Artwork is probably one of the most difficult portions of game making agreed, art tools are a pain in the ass to learn no doubt. But it’s a very useful skill, even if you’re a coder you should have an eye for level design and artwork especially in Unity as you’ll code shaders.
With Maya LT being a cheap complete package and other low cost tools about (SD, Quixel), there’s little excuse not to be able to do your own artwork or at LEAST re-factor (re-sculpt / add to) the packages you have. There are vast amounts of textures libraries available if one is willing to invest in the game they’re selling.
Don’t get me wrong, a rock is a rock and a tree is a tree. There’s little point in re-inventing the wheel when you have some defacto assets like speedtree (used in a lot of AAA games).
Think about it this way, if people are buying these pieces of crap then something with a little effort should go down a treat.
If an “old” lady like me can learn to use Maya LT, then anyone can do it. You youngin’s should have no problem, at least to modify and tweak. I guess my only asset in all this is patience. My kids have no patience…they want it all to work now.
The big issue that Jimbo is concerned with is the dilution of quality on Steam. (as well as the flooding of the market) And there is reason for him to be concerned.
One of the largest collapses that occurred in the game industry was because of over-saturation and a lack of oversight. Mr. Stirling is probably considering that historical precedent when he rails against practices like these on Steam Greenlight. Steam has come a long way, and currently carries a significant portion of the PC gaming market on its back. While a few competitors are starting to make some headway against it, Steam is still the big-game in town when it comes to on-line PC digital distribution. Having Steam suffer a major backlash from over-saturation at this point could be devastating to the revitalized PC gaming market.
I don’t think that is actually going to happen. Valve is nothing if not cautious. If their metrics indicated any such consequences they would have already stepped in and clamped down on such practices. The fact that they haven’t means that they don’t consider “Asset-Flipping” to be a major threat.
The real threat that asset flipping represents is not to the market, but to the reputation of the indie development scene. Practices like this make indie development look bad. And it also makes the Unity Asset Store and its contributors look bad. That is what we should be concerned about.
Every business, every market, has those who make the rest look bad. It is futile to fight that. The best thing to do is to release good games to counter the bad ones.
The market will decide what is good or bad, not us. If the “asset flipping” games sell well and rise to the top, then we as indie developers will realize that players are not as particular as we originally though…OR that Steam is full of people who are not particular. My guess is this will not happen and the top games will continue to be quality games.
Mr. Stirling is doing his part by drawing attention the problem. Other than educating the masses, there is not much else we can do.
You are most likely correct. Since the asset flippers aren’t technically violating any laws, there’s no means to actively stop them from doing what they’re doing. And honestly, it is quite likely that most of those asset flipped games will never sell particularly well.
The best way for the asset store community to counter this type of bad press is to simply generate as much good press as they can. Set a positive example by releasing high-quality assets and tools to empower indie devs. Those assets will not always be used properly, but that’s just the nature of the beast.
Also, a little cross-promotional assistance never hurts. If you see a solid indie game using Asset Store assets properly, trumpet that game to the heavens. Point it out to others and encourage them to like and subscribe. Helping the good examples rise to the top is another constructive option.
