Should we be encouraging?

[firecat]

Also: a kind of art pricing thread, where artists can go to quickly get some kind of feedback as to what their art is worth. This would have really helped me out when I was starting out and had no idea what my art was worth.

well the do that at deviantart and so far it hasn't been good. if someone draws cartoons style from adventure time people mostly randomly say different price but they would also say to leave that art style for another. however if you draw anime style then people judge it by quality not art style and will also bring a random price tag. as you can see this kind of stuff doesn't work, people view art in many ways which sometimes cause problems with buyer and seller.

[trooper6]

I want really high quality artists to come to LSF and advertise here. Those people are expensive. If they look around and see that we don't pay our artists here...or when we do, we are very cheap...they are going to think LSF is not a place that it is worth it for professional artists to spend their time looking for commissions.

But is it really? Professional artists charge 400+$ for one piece, music is 600$/piece, I don't even want to think how much is professional writing - is there really anyone here who can afford that?
I mean, is that really so bad to be a community of hobbyists? I thought that was what Ren'py is for - so that everyone could come and easily make their own game, professionals can hire professional programmers.

Where does it say that this is supposed to be a community of hobbyists exclusively? When I look at the mast head is says, "Lemma Soft Forums: Supporting creators of visual novels and story-based games since 2003." not "Lemma Soft Forums: Supporting hobbyist creators of visual novels and story-based games since 2003." When I look at the Forum Mandate under the Rules and Moderation Policy is says, "0.) Forum Mandate
The purpose of this forum is to promote the creation of visual novels and story-based games by providing a place for the creators of those games to teach each other, improve their skills, forge collaborations, and promote their work." It doesn't say, "0.) Forum Mandate
The purpose of this forum is to promote the hobbyist creation of visual novels and story-based games by providing a place for the hobbyist creators of those games to teach each other, improve their skills, forge collaborations, and promote their work."

Let's talk for a moment about programming. Are there hobbyist programmers here? Yes there are. Heck, I am a hobbyist programmer. But there are also people here who are professional programmers. What makes LSF so valuable and useful a place for me is not that this is a hobbyist programming place, but that there is a continuum of programmers, hobbyist to professional. It is vital to what I think makes LSF valuable that when programmers become professional they don't leave LSF. That they feel like this is a place that also serves professionals. They stay and then help out people who are still hobbyists. I think it would be disastrous if programmers felt this was a place you graduated out of once you became professional.

So, what we have on the programming side I want on the side of the other artists as well. Sure our recruitment forums can have hobbyist artists who don't really have a handle on anatomy and aren't flexible in their ability to draw different things charging nothing or $5 a sprite...but I also want those amazing professional artists who are charging a LOT more than that and whose art work blows you away like woah! and everything in between. I want the artist and musician and writer equivalent of jacknorton here...and everything inbetween.

I think having a continuum of artists will only help us. It will give hobbyists something to aspire to and make these forums more useful for those people graduating from hobbyist to semi-professional to professional and beyond.

More, not less.

[BrokenAngel75]

I do think it's important to have professional people here in all mediums however my problem with this is the fact the sky rocketing prices will definitely hurt those who make vn's just for fun. I'm not saying prices should be low at all, but I think some type of balance is needed. Also, as I've said before, no on should go into vn's thinking they'll make lots of money. Even with EVN's growing it is still not a very big community

In all honesty paying 75 dollars for a half body sprite is a bit pricy. I'd likely only get a few expressions at best. For this price I'd expect a half body price, with 7-9 expressions, and one free outfit. That is much more fair and is worth the money.

Do note as well that many of the professionals don't use Lemmesoft as much. They start out here which is good, but if they manage to become professional they aren't as active on the forums. Heck one could argue that a popular game was originally created by a hobbyist but they turned professional because their marketing and story are good.

As I said before though no artists should undersell themselves, but making prices too high can be a bad thing. I do feel like if this were to happen that a good few would be left out. For me I think people need to make prices fair for both sides. Everyone deserves to have their creations come out and shouldn't be limited because of money.


And yes, I know someone will say 'But then save the money,' but we all know things can happen so that's not the best solution. Many don't have the budget to pay 75 per sprite. I'm like that actually and I don't think it's very cool for others to call someone cheap just because they might try and haggle a bit. True you shouldn't ask for 25 instead of 75. But asking for 50 is not bad and the artist still makes a lot.

[Rossfellow]

Sky rocketing prices will definitely hurt those who make vn's just for fun.

This is a contradiction. If gamedev is your hobby, then you will make money to support your hobby, not the other way around.

In all honesty paying 75 dollars for a half body sprite is a bit pricy. I'd likely only get a few expressions at best. For this price I'd expect a half body price, with 7-9 expressions, and one free outfit. That is much more fair and is worth the money.

This is what happens when you place orders one at a time. The people who charge that much per character sprite ($100 for fullbody w/color) are usually busy, in-demand artists who bounce from client to client. You are really paying for that place in the waiting line, and the exposure the work is going to get just by having his/her name attached to the work.

Which brings us to the fact that so, so many factors go into the pricing of each individual artist. Skill, time, and brand are among them. Its really impractical, if not absurd, to find "balance" between each one. At the very least, I'd like to remove low self esteem from those factors.

[BrokenAngel75]

Sky rocketing prices will definitely hurt those who make vn's just for fun.

This is a contradiction. If gamedev is your hobby, then you will make money to support your hobby, not the other way around.

In all honesty paying 75 dollars for a half body sprite is a bit pricy. I'd likely only get a few expressions at best. For this price I'd expect a half body price, with 7-9 expressions, and one free outfit. That is much more fair and is worth the money.

This is what happens when you place orders one at a time. The people who charge that much per character sprite ($100 for fullbody w/color) are usually busy, in-demand artists who bounce from client to client. You are really paying for that place in the waiting line, and the exposure the work is going to get just by having his/her name attached to the work.

Which brings us to the fact that so, so many factors go into the pricing of each individual artist. Skill, time, and brand are among them. Its really impractical, if not absurd, to find "balance" between each one. At the very least, I'd like to remove low self esteem from those factors.

I didn't mean hobbyist's won't make money from their games or sell them. What I meant was that sometimes a hobbyist who does games for fun don't have the money for 75-100 dollar sprite. If prices go too high there is a chance of limitation for those who don't have much money.

If that's the case for some artists....I'm not sure I'd want to end up hiring them. Rates should be based on time, skill, and maybe style. Not for a place. Also this method seems to work better for single commissions. For vn's I don't think an artist should go blindly in thinking it's like commissioners are like the ones on places like Dev. If it takes time or they are busy that's fine. But like I said, I'd want to pay for the quality of the work and not a spot.

I agree with the low esteem part. No one should feel like their work is bad or have someone down grade them. That's not right.

One thing with artists though is they are in higher demand especially for VN's. They have a much higher chance of finding work. I feel that writers undercut themselves much more. For example I've seen some charge 5 cents per word and that's very cheap even if the game is 200000 words. I know artists have it hard and have to deal with bad commissioners at times, but writers have it a bit worse. Vn's creators sometimes don't think they have to pay writers or if they do it's very little.

[firecat]

Which brings us to the fact that so, so many factors go into the pricing of each individual artist. Skill, time, and brand are among them. Its really impractical, if not absurd, to find "balance" between each one. At the very least, I'd like to remove low self esteem from those factors.

you also forgetting that buyers are interested in your work and they could one day be a regular costumer. not every artist is likely to be a freelancer forever but some do it as a hobby as we talked about before. if you price your artwork without a good reason (like only 2 months and 7 commission) then that customer might move on for that reason. the problem is not the artist or customer is how economics works on the internet. rising prices as proven to make people stop paying for services (like that evil gachapon on games that no one wins) the only reason to rise the price is due to because of a good reason not a way to gain more money.

so ya its a love-hate thing with buyers and artist, this whole discussion will never be finish and we will never find the right answer to fixing it.

[truefaiterman]

Wow, this thread got pretty big in a relatively short time... I'd like to put my two cents about all of this, too!

First of all...

Should we be encouraging the artists on here to up the average price for art?

Hell yeah!

I've been seeing some brutally low prices, and they don't necesarilly come from amateur art, either. I don't know how's this market with other disciplines (well, I've also seen incredibly low prices with translators, which is kinda aggravating, since they have to be both good translators AND good writers to make a decent job), but there's both artists that don't really value their work (I won't even say their quality, just the sheer amount of hours and effort put in their work), and clients that don't know how to value the quality they're looking for (or even worse, don't care. I've met some of those, both in and out of art).

With that said, I'd like to adress some points (there are a lot of great opinions here, by the way).

I haven't looked in the recruitment sub-forum recently so this mightn't still be the case, but I've noticed in the past programmers wouldn't share any examples of their code. So: [Insert list here]

I'm... actually surprised this isn't something usual. Not only it helps showing your value to any potential client so they know the efforts needed to code, but also to showcase your skills and advertise yourself, just like any other kind of worker here in LSF (artists showing art, musicians uploading their compositions to soundcloud, VAs putting their demo reels, writers with examples of their work...)

The geographic distribution of artists may reflect how much they ask for commissions.

This is important, every country has differents needs and wages. But once again, one also has to consider another the market you're aiming at. You may be able (I'll just say random numbers) to pay your expenses with 10$ per work, but if you barge into an industry with an average 30$, that 10$ won't benefit other workers (who, if you have enough success, may have the need to lower their own prices. Which may sound excessive, but I know actual cases of certain industries having to go for a cheap-as-dirt approach because of a single person or two), nor it will benefit you (because... duh, you can and are kinda expected to win more).

A middle ground is benefical to both sides. Of course, there are cases like this.

"I charge rates according to our local market(Philippines)'s standards. The fact that I get clients from overseas is actually unexpected. If I raise my rates in accordance to the stronger currency(dollars), then PH clients will no longer be able to afford my work. If I charged clients differently based on where they live, then that would be terrible business practice."

But as this person says, the overseas clients are an exception, not a rule in his/her case. I'd dare to say that most artists here at LSF aren't illustrators with a steady job in their own countries (as artists, I mean) so this shouldn't be that big of an issue. Of course, I agree with charging differently to a client depending on their placement is an awful idea, of course.

With that said, what I'd consider the obvious is considering the budget and the scale of the client. Going big in the examples, if suddenly Applibot or Square-Enix came here and asked me to paint for them, there's NO WAY I'm charging them what I'd normally ask for in this forum.

Which takes me to...

I want really high quality artists to come to LSF and advertise here. Those people are expensive. If they look around and see that we don't pay our artists here...or when we do, we are very cheap...they are going to think LSF is not a place that it is worth it for professional artists to spend their time looking for commissions.

I want some of the best professional people to advertise here and not be scared off by people saying that artists shouldn't get paid $100 for their professional work and musicians don't need to be paid at all.

While I agree with the base idea behind this, once again we should consider the market we're aiming for. As far as I'm seeing, this is not simple a hobbyist community: the moment you put money into it, and try to win the same you've spent or more, it' not a hobby anymore, it's professional work (regardless of quality). But one has to consider this is mostly an Indie dev community, and a relatively cheap one.

I remember how the media was amazed by World of Goo, a game made by two people, programmed almost entirely (or entirely) by working on Internet café's computers, and with an extremely tight budget of 10,000$.

That's double the usual budgets I'm seeing here. Damn, I've seen developers worried about needing a budget of 6000$ and being extremely afraid because that was HIGH here.

My point is, while it's good to create a bigger market, and to attract bigger creators who work with higher budgets, there's a point where it's just impossible. I mean, if an artist like Ryoichi Ikegami came here and offered his services as an artist, he wouldn't be charging 200$ per sprite. I'd say that 400$ would be waaay too low for someone like him. It's like trying to attract here a Magic The Gathering artist who usually charges +100$ per hour (I've heard some of them mentioning such prices during streams), it's just impossible, even if we wanted to create projects big enough for such workers. The market is just too small.

Of course, it would be awesome to grow as workers, while the industry itself is growing (which is happening right now, but we have to remember this is still a niche, indie world), but if someone were to look for too high standards in the first place, I doubt the place to go would be a community like this, at least for a few more years.

[trooper6]

I want really high quality artists to come to LSF and advertise here. Those people are expensive. If they look around and see that we don't pay our artists here...or when we do, we are very cheap...they are going to think LSF is not a place that it is worth it for professional artists to spend their time looking for commissions.

I want some of the best professional people to advertise here and not be scared off by people saying that artists shouldn't get paid $100 for their professional work and musicians don't need to be paid at all.

While I agree with the base idea behind this, once again we should consider the market we're aiming for. As far as I'm seeing, this is not simple a hobbyist community: the moment you put money into it, and try to win the same you've spent or more, it' not a hobby anymore, it's professional work (regardless of quality). But one has to consider this is mostly an Indie dev community, and a relatively cheap one.

I remember how the media was amazed by World of Goo, a game made by two people, programmed almost entirely (or entirely) by working on Internet café's computers, and with an extremely tight budget of 10,000$.

That's double the usual budgets I'm seeing here. Damn, I've seen developers worried about needing a budget of 6000$ and being extremely afraid because that was HIGH here.

My point is, while it's good to create a bigger market, and to attract bigger creators who work with higher budgets, there's a point where it's just impossible. I mean, if an artist like Ryoichi Ikegami came here and offered his services as an artist, he wouldn't be charging 200$ per sprite. I'd say that 400$ would be waaay too low for someone like him. It's like trying to attract here a Magic The Gathering artist who usually charges +100$ per hour (I've heard some of them mentioning such prices during streams), it's just impossible, even if we wanted to create projects big enough for such workers. The market is just too small.

Of course, it would be awesome to grow as workers, while the industry itself is growing (which is happening right now, but we have to remember this is still a niche, indie world), but if someone were to look for too high standards in the first place, I doubt the place to go would be a community like this, at least for a few more years.

Hi Truefaiterman! I really enjoyed all your comments in your response. I just want to comment a bit on this section.

Yeah, Ikegami would charge a lot more than $200 for a sprite. And yeah, some of those Magic artists charge $100+ an hour.

Hm...Okay, I have two thoughts which are contradictory...I'm going to say them both and see what you think.

1) Sometimes the great expensive artists aren't actually the best for VNs because they don't have experience doing work for VNs--which isn't exactly the same as other media. In terms on art...can you work for LiveComposite? Or are you used to static finished products? This gap is particularly obvious to me when it comes to music. I have played a few video games where they got a famous film composer to do the music...and it isn't very good because they didn't understand how to make music for an interactive experience. So sometimes the big, famous people are not actually as good as the less famous people who understand better how to create for the medium in specific. So...big famous is not always better.

That out of the way...

2) You are right, we aren't that big yet. But I think one of the reasons we aren't that big yet is that we often don't reach outside of our very insular community. There are EVNs that have done well within our community...there those EVN who were really successful because they could tap into the market of people who like JVNs...but the potential market is so much bigger than that. And I think to get that market, we need to reach beyond the traditional EVN community. Juniper's Knot got a lot of mobile users and other users through really gorgeous art and great design. Now, as a person who has played a decent number of VNs...(this is just my opinion)...I don't think the writing was as good as a lot of the VNs I played coming out of the LSF community. But it was reaching a new market who aren't used to some of the great things we've done here. Christine Love hit a much bigger market, so did Cinders. Cause of Death had a great market for the years it was around before EA decided it wasn't making EA level money.

Could you imagine what kind of potential new players/readers you could potentially get if you got Ikegami to do art for your game and marketed in some different places than the usual? That could be amazing! If I were doing a really pulpy crime game that I thought I could market to the readers who buy Hard Case Crime books and if paying a good amount of money to get Robert Mcginnis to paint the main title screen would help with that? That would be worth it. I don't think you can go from zero to commissioning Mcginnis or Ikegami...but I think you can build up to it. And someone else mentioned, when you commission a more famous professional with a following, you potentially tap into their fanbase, and that can help expand the market.

I think becoming a big fish in this pond is great! I think staying hobbyist is great! But I think we have some amazing potential to go amazing places...but that might well need to spend a LOT more money than $50 for sprite.

Now, having more expensive people on these boards will not erase the less expensive artists. If, for some crazy reason Ikegami decided to put up a recruitment thread saying he did sprites for $500 a piece, not everyone would automatically up their prices to $500...because who here is Ikegami? But generally speaking, I am in favor of a broader range of artists offering their services: cheap people brand new to art to expensive well known indie names.

I was really excited to see jhibbs put up a recruitment thread. I just want more high end folks. It gives us something aspirational to look up to.

[Rossfellow]

So, who gets to put the bell around the cat?

Who here in Lemmasoft is willing to shell out five digit figures for a five-star asset like Noizi Ito or gain rights to stories from bestselling authors? Because what it takes to bring them here -is- someone from here to hire them and put them into the Ren'py game gallery. And because that's as absurd as it sounds, we won't be seeing that for a while.

In the next month or two, Tokyo Dark will have a playable demo, and they'll be coming back to this community to advertise it. That's a $220,000 project. Let's see how that goes.

I was really excited to see jhibbs put up a recruitment thread. I just want more high end folks. It gives us something aspirational to look up to.

I wouldn't have known this if you didn't bring this up. That's awesome!

[trooper6]

So, who gets to put the bell around the cat?

Who here in Lemmasoft is willing to shell out five digit figures for a five-star asset like Noizi Ito or gain rights to stories from bestselling authors? Because what it takes to bring them here -is- someone from here to hire them and put them into the Ren'py game gallery. And because that's as absurd as it sounds, we won't be seeing that for a while.

It is absurd for *me* to do that right now (I don't have money or a track record I could use to leverage funds or contacts...yet)...but considering the success of some Kickstarters...I'm not sure it is completely absurd. I think it is doable. Not for the average LSFer...but I do think if somebody hit the right note in their Kickstarter they could get the funds for some high end indie priced assets. And bestselling author? Probably not...but there are popular authors in niche's that might bring in new audiences who might be accessible.

I feel like it could happen!

[BrokenAngel75]

So, who gets to put the bell around the cat?

Who here in Lemmasoft is willing to shell out five digit figures for a five-star asset like Noizi Ito or gain rights to stories from bestselling authors? Because what it takes to bring them here -is- someone from here to hire them and put them into the Ren'py game gallery. And because that's as absurd as it sounds, we won't be seeing that for a while.

It is absurd for *me* to do that right now (I don't have money or a track record I could use to leverage funds or contacts...yet)...but considering the success of some Kickstarters...I'm not sure it is completely absurd. I think it is doable. Not for the average LSFer...but I do think if somebody hit the right note in their Kickstarter they could get the funds for some high end indie priced assets. And bestselling author? Probably not...but there are popular authors in niche's that might bring in new audiences who might be accessible.

I feel like it could happen!

But that's just it people don't usually have the funds for hiring prices like that. Using Kickstarter as a way to get money for your game before anything is really done is very risky. Only a few have managed to get funded with limit assets. Also there are professionals on here, but they just don't have massive high prices like the ones your saying. I've seen a lot of good art that are both anime and western styles. I think if you are professional or not you need to have reasonable prices in a market like this. If a price is too high I have this feeling that EVN's will be less made. As I've said no artist should undersell themselves though and I get there won't be balance with prices, but having prices so high is not a good idea. I feel like it might go wrong and will limit who can make games which I find unfair.

[Rossfellow]

Also there are professionals on here, but they just don't have massive high prices like the ones your saying.

Remember that talk about "Brand"? That decides prices too. There's a price tag that comes with "People will check out your work because my name is on it", and that price is usually very expensive.

I know what you're saying, and I'd like to believe it too, but it doesn't work that way. The game/animation/comics industry isn't as fair as we'd like it to be. The price of art doesn't hinge on skill alone. But that's not so bad. This market is -huge-. A whole ocean to fish from, and there are about millions of different kinds of fish. If you can't afford an artist you like because the price range is enormous, you can find another one within your reach. You just have to learn how to find them.

Underselling is a choice people make because they value the work over money. That work will build their resume. They will move up from it, given time.

[BrokenAngel75]

Also there are professionals on here, but they just don't have massive high prices like the ones your saying.

Remember that talk about "Brand"? That decides prices too. There's a price tag that comes with "People will check out your work because my name is on it", and that price is usually very expensive.

I know what you're saying, and I'd like to believe it too, but it doesn't work that way. The game/animation/comics industry isn't as fair as we'd like it to be. The price of art doesn't hinge on skill alone. But that's not so bad. This market is -huge-. A whole ocean to fish from, and there are about millions of different kinds of fish. If you can't afford an artist you like because the price range is enormous, you can find another one within your reach. You just have to learn how to find them.

Underselling is a choice people make because they value the work over money. That work will build their resume. They will move up from it, given time.

I see what you're saying.... The industry is sadly can't be like that. And it's true there are many artists around and a game dev can find one. I guess I just worry if the prices skyrocket this place will become less of a community and more of a place of competition. And of course there is some competition one this forum, but I find this community to be friendly and helpful. I won't lie if it becomes a Youtube or Dev I likely won't stay. In truth I'd prefer artists who value work over money as well.

Also that's another thing to take into account. This place is a community. It has many talented people and is a place where visual novel lovers can go and express themselves. Super high prices may hinder that or change this forum into something unfriendly.

[Rossfellow]

Also there are professionals on here, but they just don't have massive high prices like the ones your saying.

Remember that talk about "Brand"? That decides prices too. There's a price tag that comes with "People will check out your work because my name is on it", and that price is usually very expensive.

I know what you're saying, and I'd like to believe it too, but it doesn't work that way. The game/animation/comics industry isn't as fair as we'd like it to be. The price of art doesn't hinge on skill alone. But that's not so bad. This market is -huge-. A whole ocean to fish from, and there are about millions of different kinds of fish. If you can't afford an artist you like because the price range is enormous, you can find another one within your reach. You just have to learn how to find them.

Underselling is a choice people make because they value the work over money. That work will build their resume. They will move up from it, given time.

I see what you're saying.... The industry is sadly can't be like that. And it's true there are many artists around and a game dev can find one. I guess I just worry if the prices skyrocket this place will become less of a community and more of a place of competition. I mean it ways it's like that, but I find this community to be friendly and helpful. I won't lie if it becomes a Youtube or Dev I likely won't stay. In truth I'd prefer artists who value work over money as well.

Also that's another thing to take into account. This place is a community. It has many talented people and is a place where visual novel lovers can go and express themselves. Super high prices may hinder that or change this forum into something unfriendly.

It's a community between gamedevs, artists(all kinds), and VN enthusiasts. When things involve profit(which comes from clients willing to invest in your work and not someone else's), art will always be a competition.

So no, nothing will change if 5-star artists suddenly decided to come to this place. It just adds more options. It only becomes as "unfriendly" as you say Youtube and Tumblr are if the net becomes so big (we're talking about a userbase of millions of users) that it catches bad fish too.

Let me clarify this.
Professional: Works for profit.
Hobbyist: Works out of passion.

This is why it's contradiction when you say that a proffessional's presence will hurt hobbyists. It won't. In fact, it's the other way around.

This thread was originally about professionals who use low rates to get work. Personally, I don't see anything wrong with that, as long as low self esteem isn't the only reason for it. There has to be another purpose. Something like starting small, or building a resume.

[BrokenAngel75]

What I mean by hobbyists being hurt is the ability for them to be able to create games. There are a good number who can't afford 100 dollar single sprite. I am one of them. Should we be limited from a certain style just because we're not rich? No. Should we try to pay cheaply? No. Like I said I know we won't get balance but there is a problem when prices go through the roof.