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Comment by devindotcom | Hacker News Reader

I've been saying there will be a huge middle man market for assets for years. A whole studio specializing in different models for boxes - every era, every state of decay, every material. A studio dedicated to the most realistic rain effects possible - at the lowest price and graphics overhead. You don't have to worry about the "Wilhelm Scream" of boxes or rain effects though because there will be a lot of choice, a lot of options, and probably a tracking system for which assets are being used by which projects. Oh, Crysis 4 bought up all the high-def palm fronds? Sounds like there's a market for a tropics-based object studio!

I got carried away. But yeah, an asset marketplace will be essential in the future if only to keep art team sizes manageable.

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Unity3d has this already ( https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/ ). I'm pretty sure the reason why they made their engine/IDE free is because they're making so much money from their asset store.

Yep indeed. Unity3d has this for a long while.

No, the reason they made their engine and IDE free is to cater to indie developers, hobbyists, and students. Unity is to these people now what Flash used to be ten years ago—an initially simple but ultimately powerful game-making tool. And the small percentage of those that graduate beyond just doing it as a hobby or experiment end up sticking with the tools they know. It's a very bottom-up approach to the market.

Remember also that they offer a Pro version that costs money, and that they restrict the use of the free version to companies that make less than $100k per year.

There are a lot of people wanting to get into game-making these days, since tools have gotten better and the indie market has proven its worth. It's telling that Epic is putting even more emphasis on their tools than their games these days. In a gold rush, as it's said, the ones that get rich are the ones selling pickaxes.

I know, I actually started developing with the Unity engine for a side project about 6 months ago (I'm primarily a web developer with no previous game-dev experience).

The fact though is that you can publish commercially (even to mobile app stores) without a Pro license. The reason why making the base version free is commercially viable for them (aside from their hope that some users upgrade to Pro) is because of the success of their asset store.

Pretty much all Unity developers spend money on the asset store even if they're on the free plan. I myself have spent a few hundred dollars on the asset store of which Unity gets a cut thus allowing them to immediately monetize their free users.

It'd be interesting to know what proportion of their revenue the Asset Store accounts for. My own guess is very little compared to the revenue from licensing Unity itself. When a 20-person company licenses Unity Pro with iOS/Android support and the Asset Server, that's either $100,000 in licenses up front (plus upgrades later), or $2450/mo for the subscription option. And there are quite a few companies that size (not to mention bigger). I would be surprised if Asset Store revenue is really rivaling that. Hence my guess is that the free version of Unity is mainly intended as a "freemium" product to drive later sales of the Pro version.

This sounds nice from the point-of-view of somebody looking to put something together in a hurry, but this sounds awful from the point-of-view of the guy getting hired to model boxes all day.

Maybe that's not a huge difference from what a lot of people are doing at AAA studios anyway, but my god.

You will be amazed at some of the things people get really passionate about.

Some people get really excited about boxes. I could see making a collection of boxes in different styles being a neat project, though there's certainly some busywork involved.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tUHJnl8qPM

That's more of a management issue. If you decide to be (or are assigned to be) the "box guy" then it may be mind numbing. However, reasonable management would shift you around to different projects to keep work stimulating.

heh, I think you'd be surprised. Doing it well would mean hiring photographers, texture artists, illustrators, and so on. I'd think it would be like a collaborative still life if anything — people working together to create a perfect depiction of something, even if (as in the original still life paintings) it's just a plate with some grapes. The fun is in the process, and people will pay for it too!

The market might exist, but I predict it won't be nearly as large as you're suggesting unless there is a departure from Unity's model. In Unity's asset store, the real money-makers are editor plugins. Given the effort put into some of the visual assets on the site, I can't imagine pure one-time sales are anywhere near profitable enough to sustain a business. A small indie shop that churns out a diverse array of content, maybe.

Perhaps Unreal will introduce some new ideas there such as a first-come, first-licensing or bidding model. Another idea might be a royalty system.

+10 to this.

Once the channels for management can provide a painless experience to customers (studios, artists, etc.) this will do to assets what iTunes did to music.

While this may be convenient for developers, I doubt gamers are going to want to see the same rehashed textures, objects and effects with each game they purchase. Reusing art assets - to me - just sounds lazy. Like something you'd find in one of those poor 'Game Creator' apps.

I've heard this kind of comment about reusable content throughout my career in many different contexts and it's always equally true and false.

Here's the reasons I think you need to be a little bit more nuanced on this topic:

a) Sometimes it doesn't matter - The plate and chair in the background don't need to be invented from scratch everytime

b) Sometimes it's just a starting point. You won't know it's library content because it's been edited, enhanced or used in new ways.

c) Sometimes it's just part of a bigger whole. You're not going to notice the brushed aluminum bump map when it's combined with the libraries 'scratched specular map' and a few other ingredients - a cook isn't cheating when he uses bouquet garni or a garam masala from the catering supplier.

Daz Studio is all about this: http://www.daz3d.com/

Their (free) app is 90% geared toward using content purchased from their store (not free).

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