Eh, I tried to play Goldeneye on my buddy's Nintendo 64 last year and it gave me migraines. That's an awesome game but I simply can't look at it anymore. In that respect I completely disagree that people play games for code and not graphics. Now, both are equally important to the success of the project. You can't have just pretty pictures and you can't have just a well-coded game. It's a black magic sort of mixture for people to play.

Aww, I loved playing Goldeneye growing up...

But yeah, I admit understanding patent and IP law isn't my forte, so I appreciate the brief primer. There is a symbiotic relationship between art and gameplay, I just wish art assets weren't so expensive (from my perspective).

The first thing I would suggest is for small indies to make a better estimate of how much art costs prior to even thinking about games. A lot of people have the idea that any budget can do what they want for pro quality "if they look enough". A lot of non-artists also have no idea how long certain art works take. For you, you want 35 backgrounds. A well-done background with little to no details at all can take a superfast artist 5 hours. Even at US minimum wage, that's $35, and artists who are that good and that fast are undoubtedly going to charge you more than $7 an hour for their work. Even if you found someone for $35 a background, that's still 35 backgrounds they have to do. My suggestion would be to cut that number down drastically in your design AND compromise how much detail goes into each one, and you should be able to get maybe 10 backgrounds for $350-500 if you look really hard.

Again, my advice is for small budgets, not impossible ones. A small budget is say, $1000 for an RPG Maker game's sprite and tileset art, using supplemental pieces from existing and open source sets. An impossible budget is trying to do an MMO on $1000. The first is extremely possible with some searching, the second is pretty much impossible no matter what you do. Use a low per piece price for your budget estimates, and if there is just too much art, cut down the number of necessary pieces. Good games need good art to get that popularity, but they don't necessarily need a gazillion pieces of good art. Small budgets need to learn how to put that toward a few art pieces that will really make their work fabulous instead of trying to get a lot for a lower-per-piece price that will never fly.

It is 100% completely reasonable for an artist to say "I own all rights and you cannot make money from this", especially if you are paying very little. Oftentimes, the price for people on DA are just the cost of the labor to make the piece. If you want to sell it, you need to add something. Calling this "exploitation" is your first problem; just like you'll want access to work you did if it made money, so do they and they have a right. Respect your artists and stop thinking in terms of money you may or may not make later on.

However! Not all artists charge extra for commercial use of their work. My group is starting out but fairly talented, we charge a medium market rate for our work and only really account for our time. There are actually plenty of people like this on DA, you just have to search them out.

(Plus, for most art, if it gets published, you can buy the rights later from the same artist anyway, so don't think you're out of the running in case you get that luck.)

A developer who wants to make money is foolish to expect anyone else to "have more of a vested interest", but especially artists. Artists do their own projects all the time. The money has to be at least viable enough for them to want to ditch their own projects for yours; especially since with low budgets, you're likely looking at hobby artists who happen to be good, not full-time artists, and it's got to be worth their free time on top of their other job, or enough to pay their bills. It's tough, but there are definitely such things as too much for too little and a dev must learn to accommodate.

Calling this "exploitation" is your first problem;

Um, why is this a problem? Isn't that what it is?

def: to utilize, especially for profit; turn to practical account: to exploit a business opportunity.
(dictionary.com)

Isn't that the point of this thread, that when it comes to art and games it all boils down to money?


Also, there was never a point of contention about

It is 100% completely reasonable for an artist to say "I own all rights and you cannot make money from this", especially if you are paying very little.

We all agreed that its the artists right to dictate the terms of how their art is used. But if I'm trying to run a business, why am I going to sink $1000 into art that I can't use? How will I benefit from that?

Respect your artists and stop thinking in terms of money you may or may not make later on.

Once again, I'm trying to run a business. Businesses run on money. I have to think about it. (and might I add respect is a two way street as well)

Although I do appreciate your perspective on some of the inner workings of creating art. You're right, as a non-artist I have no idea how long it takes to produce some concept background art. Knowing that will definitely help me budget accordingly. And like you said, its all a balancing act. You've got to get the right mix of detail, style, and quantity at something that makes the project feasible. And it is a relief to find out not all artists charge a premium for commercial work, plus I never considered the ability to buy the rights later. The devil really is in the details!

The word exploit has a nasty connotation to it, and artists don't want to be told they're exploiting you by asking for a fair pay for their work, and they're not exploiting you anymore than you would be exploiting your own employer at wherever you may work.

Many artists, even if they don't hand over all rights to you, will let you use their work royalty free in a single commercial venture. But those artists are not the highest of the high end. Tbh, I don't know why you've had so much trouble with it; I've found a million artists who are pretty good, have a very open policy about it all and are willing to work with indies. It took several hours of digging through random artists on DA, but we found them, for sure.

Respect is not necessarily a two way street when you are essentially asking for a favor. Doing art for extremely cheap is practically a favor. Doing it on time is an even bigger favor. Would you not consider it a favor if your boss begged you to come do something for 1/3rd of your normal pay when you could be doing...anything else? What if another person offered you 2x your normal pay to use the same time slot? You'd be especially pissed about it if your boss suddenly started getting an attitude while you're working for shit pay and saying "WELL I AM RUNNING A BUSINESS". In the same way, treat the artist with the utmost kindness; they're that guy getting a small portion of their normal pay to work on your project. No, I'm not saying to let your artist walk all over you, but you need to give them a certain extra benefit of the doubt.

In addition, yes, you should consider the money, but if you cannot get the project off the ground, $0 is $0 anyway.

[quote name='Songbird' timestamp='1307062310' post='4818928']
if I'm trying to run a business, why am I going to sink $1000 into art that I can't use? How will I benefit from that?

Wrong questions.
[/quote]

Technically it is a rhetorical question.

But all that aside, I would like to point out that paying $1000 is not the same as asking for it for free. Even if I can't get all the art I want for that price, I have to say I have learned a lot about the inner workings of the freelance art business. As for using the word 'exploit', I apologize for assuming that it would be taken in the context of the sentence and not automatically associated with the most negative connotation of the meaning (although I still feel it is the best word for the job, I'll have to pay better attention to that in the future). I guess that's why they say when I assume I make an ass out of 'u' and me.

When I get to the art part of my project I'll have to a little deeper digging on DA. Its possible I've passed over a few talented artists with an open policy, so its comforting to know they're out there.