Open discussion: Pay what you want system

Post about creating and skinning models here
ShortyMX
Posts: 245
Joined: Fri Sep 14, 2012 1:00 pm
Team: Skullcandy
Location: Germany
Contact:

Open discussion: Pay what you want system

Post by ShortyMX »

Introduction


As some of you have noticed, I'm trying to introduce the "pay what you want" system to MX simulator.

Why is that?

I think it's not fair to pay 15$ or even more for a set of digital gear, a single .psd file. For 20$ you could get Witcher 3 GOTY which is at least 150 hours of pure fun. Just trying to find a comparison, because I think some people here have lost their feeling for money. I'm not only talking about the greedy skinners that release their half-assed gear for 15$, but also the people that buy it.

Since I play some other racing games such as Assetto Corsa, I saw how much more advanced these big communitys are than us. They're selling complete model packages via the "pay what you want" system on their own sites they created with sellfy for example. That is much less work, and therefore more money in the end.
I can understand that skinners don't want to give it out for free when they spent countless hours on perfecting their skin. That's why I believe that this system is much better for the community and growth of MX Simulator.


Now, numbers:


Time spent on making gear psd, cleaning up, etc. etc.: about 20 hours
Downloads of public .saf: 450
.psd's sold: 8 (.psd's downloaded: 51 #leak)
Price: 2,99€ min-15€ max
Money earned in total: 50€
Most frequently payed total: 5€
Average income per .psd: 6,25€


Pros and Cons



+ Friendly customers that were grateful for the price and easy to speak with
+ more money earned on average than the min. price
+ probably sold more .psd's than if it was 15$ = More people that can enjoy the game
+ probably less leaking
(Rookie mistake for me: should've uploaded the files seperately and let everyone confirm they downloaded it, then delete the upload and upload it again for the next customer, so that they can't just send the link to someone else)

- not a lot of people understood the system, probably due to poor description in the thread
- it leaked more than I expected, but due to my own mistake



What can be done better?


- upload .psd's seperately, then delete them
- work out a better description of the system


Your opinion


Now it's your turn, I already layed all my cards on the table.
Artists: What do you think of the system? Did you make more money than me? Would you like to change to this system as well? If not, what is hindering you from doing so?

Players: What do you think of the system? What do you think of the normal gear prices? Do you buy .psd for your own use only, or for a team?


Outro


I believe MX Simulator and it's community can profit from this system. Like "back in the days", when 90% of the models and skins were free and our community grew fast and got better very quickly, ultimately leading us to where we are today. It's undeniable that with the amount of hours you have to put into models (especially, however I focused on skins here more because I know more about that topic) and skins, it wouldn't really be fair to the artist to release it completely for free as well. However, we are not a huge esport community. We can't use Sellfy and other shops because of copyright and so on. We can't make a living out of this and shouldn't try to milk the last penny out of our fellow riders. In conclusion, this is our free time and passion.
Let's have some more damn fun with this game.
Image
ImageImageImage
MOTOZ293
Posts: 3054
Joined: Wed Mar 06, 2013 7:17 pm
Team: Hog Heaven Racing
Location: Ohio

Re: Open discussion: Pay what you want system

Post by MOTOZ293 »

I actually kinda agree with this, this is a great idea. But i think there should be a different min-max with seperate things. Such as:
Gear (what you said)
Bike/Graphics (5.99-20)
Models (40-75)
Private Tracks (maybe a little more bc of how much goes in to that)
Racing (maybe stay the same or slightly more bc they put a ton of work into everthing for us a deserve more than what they receive now)
Image
ShortyMX
Posts: 245
Joined: Fri Sep 14, 2012 1:00 pm
Team: Skullcandy
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: Open discussion: Pay what you want system

Post by ShortyMX »

MOTOZ293 wrote:I actually kinda agree with this, this is a great idea. But i think there should be a different min-max with seperate things. Such as:
Gear (what you said)
Bike/Graphics (5.99-20)
Models (40-75)
Private Tracks (maybe a little more bc of how much goes in to that)
Racing (maybe stay the same or slightly more bc they put a ton of work into everthing for us a deserve more than what they receive now)

That are good points! 100% agreeing on the race fee side, it's a good thing, as long as the promoters actually put it back into the series by paying track creators and giving away prize money and so on. I don't see a big need for PWYW there.

The min-max obviously has a lot of potential to be discussed about, it's tough to say if there should be general prices or if every creator could choose these themselves. If it was general it would obviously be great feedback as good models bring in more money, however some of the artists that put in those extra 20 hours probably would be pissed.
ImageImageImage
dawsonsleeper
Posts: 899
Joined: Fri May 12, 2017 2:23 am
Location: Alaska
Contact:

Re: Open discussion: Pay what you want system

Post by dawsonsleeper »

I agree a lot on this. You go thru TM-Factory from like 2012-2013 and there are models all over the place with JMs, PSDs, blends, and sometimes even objs. Now, we have people selling virtual dirtbikes for 150$ and ive heard (unconfirmed) that the prime design Honda was 1000$?! That's ridiculous. I'm not saying everyone should just give out their models for free, but come on, like 150? That's why so many get passed around, nobody wants to pay that obsurd amount so they just get it from their friends. I know I would buy so many models if they were cheaper, and I think a lot of other people would too. Just something to think about.
jlv wrote:WTF I love Trump now! Make America great again!
ShortyMX
Posts: 245
Joined: Fri Sep 14, 2012 1:00 pm
Team: Skullcandy
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: Open discussion: Pay what you want system

Post by ShortyMX »

dawsonsleeper wrote:That's why so many get passed around, nobody wants to pay that obsurd amount so they just get it from their friends. I know I would buy so many models if they were cheaper, and I think a lot of other people would too. Just something to think about.
this^2
This is the core thought of this system. Cheaper, less leaking, more happy customers, more money. All sides happy
ImageImageImage
jonracer594
Posts: 576
Joined: Sat Sep 12, 2015 4:17 pm
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: Open discussion: Pay what you want system

Post by jonracer594 »

Image
Image
Jeremy150
Posts: 3324
Joined: Mon Jul 30, 2012 9:56 am
Team: MV Films

Re: Open discussion: Pay what you want system

Post by Jeremy150 »

You can't go into content creation for this game with the idea of making a profit as your top priority. Everything that I make, I make because I want to use it. I just sell it as well to pay for things like the adobe cloud, and computer parts, etc.

I personally am not a fan of selling things for a cheaper price in order to get more sales, I would rather have a higher price with less sales. I believe when you sell things for a cheap price, the files get spread out very fast. I will never understand the logic of people paying around $100 for a file and then sending it out to all of their friends. Then you have the people that are on the fence of wanting to give it to their friends, but they decide not to because they paid so much for it. If they only had to pay a fraction of the original price, then they would be much more inclined to send out the files.

One thing I would like to point out is, I feel a lot of people do not understand the amount of time that goes into creating a bike model. I would estimate that if you start from scratch, a bike would take about 200-300 hours from start to finish. Also, there is no way you actually put 20 hours into a set of gear. That should take at most, around 8 hours. So it's not really fair to compare the two on pricing at all. The average wage for a CG artist in the USA is about $65,000. I won't pretend that we should be making anything near that amount of money, but if we did, then the price of a bike would be around $6000.

The only other system that I could possibly get behind is doing a community funded project. Its been tested in small scale in this community and has worked a few times, but I'm not sure how it would work on a large scale when it comes to bike models.
Image
ShortyMX
Posts: 245
Joined: Fri Sep 14, 2012 1:00 pm
Team: Skullcandy
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: Open discussion: Pay what you want system

Post by ShortyMX »

Thanks for contributing, I believe not many other modelers have the guts to write something. And you showed me why it was good to put my focus on skins because I can see that I don't know a lot about modeling now :mrgreen:
Jeremy150 wrote:I will never understand the logic of people paying around $100 for a file and then sending it out to all of their friends. Then you have the people that are on the fence of wanting to give it to their friends, but they decide not to because they paid so much for it. If they only had to pay a fraction of the original price, then they would be much more inclined to send out the files.
Most people just aren't willing to pay that much for it. We can only imagine how much hours are put into a model. And we can all see the quality of models like yours that are on a whole new level compared to what the people at MvA spit out. But it's just a digital bike at the end of the day, and for privateers or small teams 80$ is a big investment for such a "small" thing, even though it's pretty reasonable.
All it takes is one stupid member that sends it to one of his stupid friends and the snowball starts rolling.
My thought was that a lot more people would actually buy instead of using the ripped one- questionable is, however, if the total will be less or more money.

I have big respect for the work you do, and I didn't want to compare modeling with skinning a gear set. Maybe I was a little too unprecise there. I needed 20 hours on the seven gear because I'm slow, not experienced in photoshop, still use cs2, started from scratch and put a lot of my love into it :lol: I believe however that it can be done much faster, no question.

I don't think a game studio would pay you 6000$ for a bike model. The love for detail you have is an art- and that's just not respected in capitalism I guess. I believe they would rather have 5 mediocre bike models in that time than one of yout photorealistic models. I know you wanted to put things in perspective but that is not realistic from my point of view.

But! Crowdfunding for models is a great idea. With models, I think the copyright stuff isn't a big issue if you don't put any logos on the skin. You could easily put in on crowdfund, and with the package system they have PWYW is kind of included as well. Like 3$ for the saf, 20$ for .psd, 50$ for blend, just as a dumb example. Skins can still be found on the forum. If the goal isn't achieved, people get their money back and the artist can still sell it like we are doing now, but I think it'd be worth a try.
ImageImageImage
dawsonsleeper
Posts: 899
Joined: Fri May 12, 2017 2:23 am
Location: Alaska
Contact:

Re: Open discussion: Pay what you want system

Post by dawsonsleeper »

Jeremy150 wrote:You can't go into content creation for this game with the idea of making a profit as your top priority. Everything that I make, I make because I want to use it. I just sell it as well to pay for things like the adobe cloud, and computer parts, etc.

I personally am not a fan of selling things for a cheaper price in order to get more sales, I would rather have a higher price with less sales. I believe when you sell things for a cheap price, the files get spread out very fast. I will never understand the logic of people paying around $100 for a file and then sending it out to all of their friends. Then you have the people that are on the fence of wanting to give it to their friends, but they decide not to because they paid so much for it. If they only had to pay a fraction of the original price, then they would be much more inclined to send out the files.

One thing I would like to point out is, I feel a lot of people do not understand the amount of time that goes into creating a bike model. I would estimate that if you start from scratch, a bike would take about 200-300 hours from start to finish. Also, there is no way you actually put 20 hours into a set of gear. That should take at most, around 8 hours. So it's not really fair to compare the two on pricing at all. The average wage for a CG artist in the USA is about $65,000. I won't pretend that we should be making anything near that amount of money, but if we did, then the price of a bike would be around $6000.

The only other system that I could possibly get behind is doing a community funded project. Its been tested in small scale in this community and has worked a few times, but I'm not sure how it would work on a large scale when it comes to bike models.
I do get where you are coming from, but if the models were cheaper, I think more people would buy them so that they could release the skins and the uodated parts and such. If you’re psd is only 20$, instead of someone saying well, I’m not paying 100$ for a model just so I can release a cutout I made, they might say well, i may as well just pay the 20$ so that I can release cutouts and I can release team packs. To me, if I knew how to model, it would be a no brainer. I would sell mine for a lot less than 150$ for a blend file.
jlv wrote:WTF I love Trump now! Make America great again!
dawsonsleeper
Posts: 899
Joined: Fri May 12, 2017 2:23 am
Location: Alaska
Contact:

Re: Open discussion: Pay what you want system

Post by dawsonsleeper »

Jeremy150 wrote:
I personally am not a fan of selling things for a cheaper price in order to get more sales, I would rather have a higher price with less sales. I believe when you sell things for a cheap price, the files get spread out very fast. I will never understand the logic of people paying around $100 for a file and then sending it out to all of their friends. Then you have the people that are on the fence of wanting to give it to their friends, but they decide not to because they paid so much for it. If they only had to pay a fraction of the original price, then they would be much more inclined to send out
However I do agree with this, I just think that there is a happy medium that everyone can afford but that it’s enough to where it’s like ehhh, I payed some good money. I don’t wanna give that out. Not everyone in the community has money to build some huge computer with an i9 and 4 1080tis. I’d say over half the people who play sim play on some crappy laptop they’ve had since they were 13.
jlv wrote:WTF I love Trump now! Make America great again!
checkerz
Posts: 8787
Joined: Tue Apr 22, 2008 4:23 am
Team: RaGe Factory

Re: Open discussion: Pay what you want system

Post by checkerz »

I wouldn't pay for a model in the middle range. Either, it's free or it's on the $75+ price range. Why? I don't want to pay 15, 20, 30 dollars for a bike model that everyone has. If I'm going to pay, I want something that only one or two teams are running. I'm willing to spend money to have something unique, but not just to have something.
ShortyMX
Posts: 245
Joined: Fri Sep 14, 2012 1:00 pm
Team: Skullcandy
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: Open discussion: Pay what you want system

Post by ShortyMX »

checkerz wrote:I wouldn't pay for a model in the middle range. Either, it's free or it's on the $75+ price range. Why? I don't want to pay 15, 20, 30 dollars for a bike model that everyone has. If I'm going to pay, I want something that only one or two teams are running. I'm willing to spend money to have something unique, but not just to have something.
I knew that models were going to be a tough topic :lol:
I'm not going to lie here, I simply disagree with you. I understand your reasons, but the way I see it, it's uniqueness for the ego. It would be unique if everybody had the model and you still could make it stand out (like in real life- thousand KTM teams, TLD still stands out as an example)

This doesn't have a lot to do with the discussion, I just wanted to say this. I still have a lot of respect for what you do for the community and I really enjoy your work.
ImageImageImage
vortexracingleader
Posts: 1192
Joined: Sat Jan 12, 2013 1:49 am
Team: MotoRAD

Re: Open discussion: Pay what you want system

Post by vortexracingleader »

I see it as, the creator of whatever it may be should set the price, as they only know how much man hours and work they put in, it is their product anyways. what i do see is wrong with the current way people go about doing things is people want to buy a model msg the creator not someone else thinking you will get a cheaper price.. does not make sense to me as your not even really buying the model, your purchasing it from someone who did not even make it ! but yes i do think price should be whatever the creator decides, people who truly want it will pay the price the creator set. if someone wants to charge 100$ for a track let them. you are not the one purchasing it , the person who wants the track is haha . if you want it, you buy it.. complaining about pricing of said thing is beyond me . just pay what is advertised .. real world works like that haha .
Image
ShortyMX
Posts: 245
Joined: Fri Sep 14, 2012 1:00 pm
Team: Skullcandy
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: Open discussion: Pay what you want system

Post by ShortyMX »

Well how am I supposed to set a standard price? Lol

My point in one sentence: sell work via new price system, make more money, have more happy people, less leaking all in one. The question: what speaks against trying the price system?

Jeremy made a valid point of personal preference, would rather sell less models for more money so the selling is less effort. Other than that, you are all kind of missing the real discussion worth point. Will this discussion change anything? Probably no. Is it worth a try? Fuck yes
ImageImageImage
vortexracingleader
Posts: 1192
Joined: Sat Jan 12, 2013 1:49 am
Team: MotoRAD

Re: Open discussion: Pay what you want system

Post by vortexracingleader »

What is the point of a system, if the creator wants a higher price so less people have it so be it, if the creator wants a cheaper price to sell more then let them.. i dont think we need a system.. if people would just keep the files to themselves or follow what the creator askes then the world would be a better place
Image
Post Reply