Search Unity

  1. Megacity Metro Demo now available. Download now.
    Dismiss Notice
  2. Unity support for visionOS is now available. Learn more in our blog post.
    Dismiss Notice

How can I make my "Human" asset store package more appealing? (It's not selling, and idk why)

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by infinitypbr, May 24, 2016.

  1. infinitypbr

    infinitypbr

    Joined:
    Nov 28, 2012
    Posts:
    3,149
    Hey everyone! Once again, as you've helped me before, this is NOT a ploy to get eyeballs on my work.

    About a month ago I released my "Human Base + Barbarian" package on the asset store. Since then it's had just a handful of sales, and I'm not actually sure why. I had expected it to be more popular, perhaps more popular than my Dragons Pack, which has become the #1 "Creatures" package (thank you very much for the support!). [If I'm reading google analytics correctly, it's getting about 1/3rd the Sales:pageView that my other stuff generally gets]

    I spent more time and $$ on it (way more) than I usually would.

    So I'm wondering if I'm missing something. Often being "inside" my own work, I may not see things the way that others do. Is it confusing? Is it just not as high quality as I think it is? Is it too expensive?

    I'd be VERY curious to hear your thoughts about it, and hopefully take some of them into reality to help make the package better for everyone!
     
    Last edited: May 24, 2016
    chelnok likes this.
  2. JohnnyA

    JohnnyA

    Joined:
    Apr 9, 2010
    Posts:
    5,041
    Regardless of how much you spent the characters (or at least the stills) look much less professional than your dragons. They have poor skin texture/shader and have a very stiff and square look to them. Although I'm sure its just the poses/animations it almost seems like there is something wrong with the rig.

    Once you get to the videos there looks to be a huge amount of content/customisation possibilities, but personally I wouldn't have gone past the first few screenshots.

    - John A
     
    chelnok, infinitypbr and kittik like this.
  3. kittik

    kittik

    Joined:
    Mar 6, 2015
    Posts:
    565
    I was tempted to buy your Humans pack, but am put off by the lack of variety of body types shown in the images. I would like to have thin/fat, young/old, but characters shown are all ripped.

    In this video, it appears that the male and female bases have 3 potential hairstyles - I would expect a couple more.

    How easy is it to alter the clothing on one of the humans btw? That is one other factor I would want to know before buying it. In a current project, I foresee having different humans wearing different clothes.
     
    infinitypbr likes this.
  4. kalamona

    kalamona

    Joined:
    Aug 16, 2011
    Posts:
    727
    Hi,
    I think it is a highly specialized product. It seems to have a lot of custom scripts, which buyers probably don't want to learn. I sure wouldn't like to learn an interface about how to assign custom materials and clothes to the character, because I am a lazy bastard :D

    I don't think that the character is bad quality, but the animations aren't really great (for example the character walks with very wide steps, as a sumo champion would do).

    I think even people who use the asset store like to create their own main characters. That makes main characters harder to sell.

    75$ is a bit too much. People can pay 75$, but only to those they trust. Your product is relatively unknown, so people don't trust that this 75$ is well spent. I think if you had a lot more good reviews, that would be a good thing to this product, because that would mean that others tried this product and find it good, increasing your "trust rating". Maybe having a sale, or giving out vouchers would help in this.

    And at last, I think Asset Store isn't as stellar income source as it once was, there are other engines around, and Unity isn't the only one with asset market anymore. So it can be a general thing too, that things don't sell as well.

    Well, those are my thoughts. There are some assets of mine which costed quite some time and money, and don't sell as well as some others which are relatively simple. So you are not alone :)
     
    chelnok and infinitypbr like this.
  5. neginfinity

    neginfinity

    Joined:
    Jan 27, 2013
    Posts:
    13,554
    As far as I can tell, the issue is that you wrote a customization tool when there's already Morph3D/UMA project

    And the project page doesn't advertise the customization tool properly. The first thing I see is screenshots. And on screenshots models looks like something I could model myself given enough time. Because of that package is perceived as overpriced.

    Now, I'm not sure how good the customziation tool is, when UMA is already available and can handle changing limb proportions (doesn't seem to be the case with your tool). Also, for someone who can code, UI you display in youtube video looks like something that can be written from scratch. (One of the first things I written for unity was character customization system. Then I found UMA. It was a good training exercise, though).

    So, because of this, dragon pack looks more attractive. You see, there's "Makehuman", poser and other tools that can be used to generate humanoid characters. However, there's no "makedragon" tool.
     
    Last edited: May 24, 2016
  6. Martin_H

    Martin_H

    Joined:
    Jul 11, 2015
    Posts:
    4,436
    ArachnidAnimal and infinitypbr like this.
  7. Whippets

    Whippets

    Joined:
    Feb 28, 2013
    Posts:
    1,775
    Being able to customize weight, facial features, proportions, etc would be a good place to start. Both Morph3D and UMA allow for this.
     
    infinitypbr likes this.
  8. Ryiah

    Ryiah

    Joined:
    Oct 11, 2012
    Posts:
    20,964
    I feel like it's primarily the cost. Just check out the Morph3D assets that are available. A rough approximation to your asset might be the MCS Male: Beast Warrior that costs $15. It requires one of Morph3D's bases but there are free options among those bases.

    In an earlier post @neginfinity mentioned that there aren't any "MakeDragon" tools. He raises a good point in that there aren't any solutions for making enemies with a process similar to the ones we have available for humanoids. That might actually be a good niche to try out.
     
    Last edited: May 24, 2016
  9. neginfinity

    neginfinity

    Joined:
    Jan 27, 2013
    Posts:
    13,554
    My point was that because there are human-generation tools, it is going to be much harder to sell a humanoid character, unless quality is extraordinary.... or unless it is in certain style.

    Someone could definitely try to create "make a monster" tool, similar to spore. It is doable, but it would require significant time investmenet - at least few months.
     
    infinitypbr and Martin_H like this.
  10. Ryiah

    Ryiah

    Joined:
    Oct 11, 2012
    Posts:
    20,964
    If extraordinary quality were necessary though would you even bother with the asset store?

    I wasn't thinking about a generic monster system but rather more along the lines of a solution for each monster type. Any complexity would be dependent on the creature type. A spider, for example, might have options for changing the overall dimensions of each body part, an option to make it hairy, etc.

    It might be a bit of a stretch calling it a tool but we don't have any solutions like this on the store that I know of.
     
    Last edited: May 24, 2016
    GarBenjamin, infinitypbr and Martin_H like this.
  11. neginfinity

    neginfinity

    Joined:
    Jan 27, 2013
    Posts:
    13,554
    Replace "extraordinary" with "extraordinary compared to the price point".
    There are some very high quality assets released for free on the store. Blacksmith assets, unity-chan, etc.

    Can be done too, and will take less time than spore-like system. You'll still end up with some general-purpose framework underneath, though.... something that won't generate the whole creature but could be configured for specific type (biped/quadruped/hexapod, etc)
     
    infinitypbr likes this.
  12. Billy4184

    Billy4184

    Joined:
    Jul 7, 2014
    Posts:
    6,008
    1. I expected to scroll down and find an image with a line-up of them all side by side, something to quickly show me the contents of the package. It's kind of hard to tell (without watching the videos?) exactly what I would be getting.

    2. Price is way too much for characters that are not incredibly well detailed. For placeholder art I would not spend anywhere near that much, I would probably make something in MakeHuman, and would spend maybe $10 if a character happened to fit precisely into my game.

    3. There's something a bit Baywatch about them that I personally don't like, and the little shields look strange to me. I would want something that looks a little more powerful and rough around the edges, like the guy from Witcher or something. As it is, they look a bit like they're on a reality TV show.

    Also, the idea of making very high quality art packages that don't go very far in covering the art needed for an entire game, and selling them at a high price, is really not a great idea. An environment package goes a long way, a customizable dragons pack goes a long way (since you probably only need 1 kind of dragon, besides there not being too many other options) but a few of human characters? What about the other hundred or more?

    Just imagine what you would think if you were making a game, you had a list of all the hundreds or thousands of assets you needed, and you saw a package that covered a only few for $75? If you spent the same way on all the other assets you'd run into the tens of thousands. For most hobbyists that's going to be just a bit too much.
     
  13. infinitypbr

    infinitypbr

    Joined:
    Nov 28, 2012
    Posts:
    3,149
    Hey! Great feedback so far and WOW I think I made some misjudgments along the way :)

    In my head, I always thought that a humanoid character would be the first thing people get when making a game, since so often the human is the main character. But of course there are other humans on the store. I'll try to reply to a lot of the things mentioned by you guys -- a lot of which was mentioned by multiple people.

    * Face / Texture quality. One thing that I wanted to do was facial animations. Sitting in front of my camera for hours doing faces to see what works. Unfortunately the cheapest system I've found is something like $1500 for a year of the software and doesn't run on my mac (BOO!!!). Face shift was the software I wanted to use, but last summer, like 2 weeks before I went to buy their stuff, they got bought by Apple and Apple shut down their software. (DOUBLE BOO!!!). I do think it'd be nice if they had faces that moved, right? Would that solve some of the uncanny valley stuff? idk.

    * Add-on Packs. I wanted to create add-on packs eventually for different "classes" of characters. Each would come with a new male and female face, new hair, and a full set of clothing (like the current, with many options that can't all be used at the same time) plus new class-specific animations. [In the queue is a skeleton package, and the clothing there should be able to be used on the humans, for instance -- and human clothes on the skeletons.] I didn't like the idea that the knights were always "THIS" body/face, and the Barbarians that. Etc. I also liked the idea that you could mix a barbarian skirt with a knight chest plate, if you really wanted to. I could be wrong, but from what I gathered, the only way to make all of this work would be to have a system that would somehow attach the bone structure from a clothing item to that of the base body. (I could EASILY be wrong, as i'm not personally an artist)

    * UMA etc. I still want to make this work with UMA, and have talked to a few people in that community. It's all above my head, unfortunately, so far. I would like the idea of doing UMA type stuff for all of my characters, actually. Beyond just the scale, it'd be great if the horns on the dragon could be resized, or the wings, or if the bumps on the head of the mushroom could grow and shrink per the users desires.

    * Price. I may lower the price. I priced it as a flag-ship package, expecting that I'd be able to produce much lower-priced add on packs. But considering I spent more on the human than any other package by far, both on the model and the animations, I won't make any add-on packs unless there's a solid user base that wants it! So I nee that user base.

    I do want to provide a way to change the physical size, to some degree. On the add-on list is "NPCs" which would include less ripped base bodies (but probably keeping the same "Size", so that the clothing works -- unless I can figure out a UMA or similar thing that makes the clothes conform to the body). Similar for "Royalty" which may have a "fat belly" add on piece etc. The add-on packs I mentioned would come with additional hair. It's very easy to change the clothing -- they're just sub-meshes, to click them on or off.

    I'm gathering I need to do a better job of showing the customization options that are present, rather than action poses etc. I'll see if maybe animated GIFs work in the asset store page. That could help.

    The "customization" I have is just the Substance files for the textures. I'd love for the human to be UMA-ified, but I'm not sure how (I don't do the modeling, and don't really understand much of the process).

    Morph3d only works with their stuff, though, right? It's not something I can somehow apply to my model I don't think. Although if there was a way to do something similar, I'd be on board instantly.

    For the cost (another reply), Morph3D is being aggressive, I think, since their big money is Daz, which seems to constantly be high-volume lower priced sales.

    __________________________________________

    All in all this is GREAT feedback. If you have more, let me know . I certainly have a lot of thinking to do later today during a lunch break or something!! :D
     
    chelnok and kittik like this.
  14. Acissathar

    Acissathar

    Joined:
    Jun 24, 2011
    Posts:
    677
    Morph was/is supposed to be releasing a tool to create / modify items so that they work with their system, but their forum communication seems to have dropped off completely in the past few months and I haven't seen anything about it recently. (I do still get emails about new add on packs all the time though.)
     
    infinitypbr likes this.
  15. Billy4184

    Billy4184

    Joined:
    Jul 7, 2014
    Posts:
    6,008
    Just to reiterate a bit, I think you need to look at your package from the point of view of someone making a game. Most art on the asset store is going to be used as placeholder art, and $75 for a few pieces of placeholder art, when people are used to getting stuff for free (i.e. the whole engine!) is asking a bit much of your average Unity dev. There's simply no way to justify that cost for something that isn't final, when not only you have so many competing products, but also character creators that could do a decent job of furnishing a whole game's worth of human models, of all shapes and sizes.

    I also thought human models would sell well at first, when I first thought of selling on the asset store it's the first thing that sprang to mind. But if you browse around, they don't sell anywhere near as well as even low-quality environment packs, and I'm sure it has to do with Makehuman (for 'lower class' games) and Daz3D/Fuse (for higher quality games). Btw Fuse just got bought by Adobe and is free afaik, so you have some free wipeout competition.

    You know what I think will sell well? Clothes and armor. Someone even posted recently on the Asset store thread about this. It's easy enough to generate a human base model using a character creator (since human form is 'standard') but clothes and armor generally need to be created by hand. That's where you can play to your strengths.
     
    chelnok and infinitypbr like this.
  16. neginfinity

    neginfinity

    Joined:
    Jan 27, 2013
    Posts:
    13,554
    I think people would want character generator and clothes for the character, because they might have specific human in their mind, not "any" human. Also, unity has mecanim animation system, aniamtion controllers can be swapped between different characters, etc.

    So, someone making a game will be either looking for a very specific human on the store, similar to what they imagine (which they probably won't find), or for a tool to make that character. When someone wants a dragon in their game, however, they often don't need a very specific dragon, almost any dragon would do.
     
    infinitypbr likes this.
  17. Steve-Tack

    Steve-Tack

    Joined:
    Mar 12, 2013
    Posts:
    1,240
    Beyond the money, it's extremely difficult to get different assets by different authors to match up in terms of style and quality. A pack that includes several characters (or whatever) that actually match in style is huge.
     
    chelnok, ZJP, Socrates and 3 others like this.
  18. hippocoder

    hippocoder

    Digital Ape

    Joined:
    Apr 11, 2010
    Posts:
    29,723
    You're just selling it badly. Nobody wants to sit through videos of you setting up characters until after. Seeing a screenshot of 30+ variations immediately tells you at least a handful can be useful to you.

    The name of it is awful. "Human Base + Barbarian Pack PBR"

    What?

    The content is great - better than most indie games will achieve, but you need to know how to clearly sell it, so nice job starting this thread.

    Regarding UMA, that's pretty terrible for our needs, we evaluated it, saw how terrible the performance would be and how difficult it is to work with in a real production, and skipped it. So there's definitely room for competitors.
     
  19. QFSW

    QFSW

    Joined:
    Mar 24, 2015
    Posts:
    2,906
    Looks like the main barrier for indie dev is also the problem for asset store business - marketing
     
  20. Billy4184

    Billy4184

    Joined:
    Jul 7, 2014
    Posts:
    6,008
    @Steve Tack I think that the day someone comes up with a relatively 'standardisable' way to create and attach clothes to bodies (maybe they have? I haven't been looking) then people will go straight for character creators (I know I would!), since they can make the faces exactly the way they want. So maybe in the long term (beyond 1-2 years) selling packs of characters who match in style only because of the clothes will not be a good investment, and selling base human models will only be worth it if they are compatible with people's chosen character creators.

    Since creating the art itself of clothes/armor is pretty much impossible to standardise into a generic 'clothes creator', and such art can probably be reconfigured by animators to work with any system that comes out, it's probably a good long-term product.

    Since the OP wants feedback of all kinds, I'll comment that I really think the armor/clothes/material design is not great. They don't tell a story, they lack character IMO. The girl looking up and holding a sword in one of the pictures looks like she's wearing kitchen gloves, and the materials look almost modern. Don't take it the wrong way, I think the artistic skill is there but some of the design choices were not great.

    Maybe it's personal preference, but I would want someone that looks a bit more like they've been through the war, someone that looks tough, rugged and wearing some practical armor, bit more like this:

     
    Ryiah, infinitypbr and frosted like this.
  21. hippocoder

    hippocoder

    Digital Ape

    Joined:
    Apr 11, 2010
    Posts:
    29,723
    *any business.
     
  22. QFSW

    QFSW

    Joined:
    Mar 24, 2015
    Posts:
    2,906
    so, so true
    I just thought about how a marketing business would need to do marketing so that they can do marketing
    mind = blown
     
    Kiwasi, Socrates, Martin_H and 2 others like this.
  23. frosted

    frosted

    Joined:
    Jan 17, 2014
    Posts:
    4,044
    It's totally a ploy to get more eyeballs on your work. ;)

    Nothing wrong with a little self promotion, but let's not be coy.
     
    infinitypbr and shaderbytes like this.
  24. Steve-Tack

    Steve-Tack

    Joined:
    Mar 12, 2013
    Posts:
    1,240
    That's the idea of the UMA system, but I've not seen a lot of compelling content for it and it sounds like it has some issues. Great idea though.
     
    infinitypbr and Billy4184 like this.
  25. Billy4184

    Billy4184

    Joined:
    Jul 7, 2014
    Posts:
    6,008
    @frosted I Iike these kinds of threads, they're good info for any asset store developer. If it wasn't specific it would be pretty difficult to make it useful!
     
    infinitypbr likes this.
  26. infinitypbr

    infinitypbr

    Joined:
    Nov 28, 2012
    Posts:
    3,149
    Maybe I'm wrong -- but clothes and armor need to be set to the body model right? That's part of the appeal of UMA, though, where the clothing can be made independent and work with all UMA base models. In theory at least. I was told that if I were to UMA-ify my human, my stuff would likely only work with my stuff, although it would be able to be morphed around, because the base is the wrong size.

    Yeah, that's true -- very true. I had a similar thought process when I thought of the human. Not everyone needs a mushroom in their game, but everyone needs a player character. I think that works for the dragon, to some degree -- a lot of people need a dragon! But I guess for the human, I was slightly wrong.

    I'll see about changing the name. Any suggestions? I'm actually terrible at any marketing related stuff. It's the type of thing (along with stats -- not looking at them, but computing them) that makes my head hurt.

    This is great feedback, actually. (The kitchen glove!) The animations mostly don't include hand grips, because that would depend on if the character is holding a weapon or not, so my photos are limited because I can't do two animations at once -- I take the photos without pressing play.

    But the dirtiness of them. That's something a user could add using the sliders on the material, but isn't something I did before taking the photos. Perhaps it'd be wise to do that before taking the photos.

    I actually went with "Barbarian" first, rather than a knight or a ranger (the witcher looks like "Ranger" to me, or something like that), because I needed the character for my game "The Barbarian" (interestingly, the game was named that because i needed a human character for the main character, and the "Barbarians" package from Polygonmaker was good for that -- somewhat modular so players could choose their character!).


    It actually really isn't :) Twice before I've done this and gotten REALLY good feedback. Both times I modified the way I do things. (all my "Monster Packs" are because of the 1st time I asked for feedback on how I do things). If it helps, I haven't gotten any sales of the human today :D (or for the past 2 weeks for that matter...maybe one in the past two weeks)

    One thing I think I'll do...
    At first I was going to drastically lower the price of the human to something like $39 or $49, see if that drums up sales. But I don't like doing it that way. Cutting prices isn't a good strategy in many cases, I think. maybe not all. So Instead I want to do a value-added thing.

    Dragon is popular, Human isn't. Human will be made better, since I don't stop working on any of my stuff (even the damn Mushroom). So I'll make a "Classic Characters Pack #1" (Or is there a better name for it?) which will include both the Dragon & the Human (With an upgrade from each package -- so anyone who already has the dragon, which is a good number, can upgrade for just $25), and will include Skeletons (which work w/ the human clothing & armor) and Goblins. (Goblins MAY work with the clothing and armor...it may be harder because their body shape should probably be different...so idk about that).

    Basically if it's true that lots of people need Dragons, then maybe lots of people who are making fantasy type games also need Skeletons and Goblins, the way that a town needs a Rat infested sewer?

    QUESTION: I may try to add sound effects to the packages. I figure I needed that when I was making my game, so it'd be cool if specific sounds came with the character that fits the animations. Is this a worth while investment?


     
  27. Aiursrage2k

    Aiursrage2k

    Joined:
    Nov 1, 2009
    Posts:
    4,835
    I'd try making an arena and sell that as a separate thing, now add some monsters or whatever that the Barbican can fight, now you'll get some people who will buy all three items and make a game out of it
     
  28. infinitypbr

    infinitypbr

    Joined:
    Nov 28, 2012
    Posts:
    3,149
    Like an arena environment asset pack?
     
  29. bart_the_13th

    bart_the_13th

    Joined:
    Jan 16, 2012
    Posts:
    498
    Try to go japanese anime style, I think it will sell better...
    At least that's what I'm missing from MakeHuman and Fuse...
     
  30. Aiursrage2k

    Aiursrage2k

    Joined:
    Nov 1, 2009
    Posts:
    4,835
    I don't Know something like that. But it doesn't have to be that just something that people can make a game with using limited art assets. But how many people want to make that game, so then you just start thinking about it, so collections of assets that people can use to make various games with. Because if you can simply buy all the pieces from one source then they might spend a few hundred or thousand
     
  31. Billy4184

    Billy4184

    Joined:
    Jul 7, 2014
    Posts:
    6,008
    Frankly I think making an environment just to market characters is a waste of time (unless the whole point is to sell an environment or a starter kit!). People look at you characters and they don't like it for some reason. They look at certain other characters and they do like them. You need to find out why.

    I'm not sure if you've already decided to address this @sfbaystudios but at least me and hippo mentioned that you need to show the contents much better. For example, take a picture of rows of characters standing side by side with each one different (hairstyle, clothes, blood, dirt whatever on different settings). It would really show all the value that your pack can give, in one image. When I first got to the page, I wasn't really sure what your pack contained, the images on the video icons didn't grab me (Characters maybe? Doing stuff I think?). I didn't want to click on videos just to find out what the package contained, and I was kind of annoyed that I couldn't really tell what I would be buying at a glance.

    Also the name, yeah, that needs to change.
     
    kittik and Socrates like this.
  32. infinitypbr

    infinitypbr

    Joined:
    Nov 28, 2012
    Posts:
    3,149
    That is somewhat the idea behind the "Dungeon" package I've released, and will keep adding to. It's very very modular and able to be really almost any look -- a decent chunk of that image could be done already. (Pedestals, pillars, statues of a human [just a human character w/ stone materials in a pose] etc).

    But that's a good idea :)
     
  33. infinitypbr

    infinitypbr

    Joined:
    Nov 28, 2012
    Posts:
    3,149
    What's a better name ? I'm terrible at names!

    I haven't addressed the images yet, but I will when I update it. Which should be in the next day or two.
     
  34. Billy4184

    Billy4184

    Joined:
    Jul 7, 2014
    Posts:
    6,008
    Btw I went to the asset store and searched under Characters by Popularity for an example of what I thought was a well done presentation. It was telling that on the first two or three pages, there were virtually no human characters that were not free, absurdly low-priced (e.g. $2) or a Morph 3D/UMA asset. Might be a good idea to do a bit of research there! :)

    Anyway, here's one that I think was presented well, all the key images immediately show me the variation that I could get from it, and the first few store images also show frontal shots so i can get a good look at what I'm buying. The videos are not center stage, but they're there if I'm still interested.

    As for the name, it needs to be simple and informative imo, maybe something straight forward like Medieval/Fantasy Character Pack? If I was making a medieval/fantasy game that would be enough to make me click on it, and 'Pack' is always click-bait when searching for assets.
     
    infinitypbr likes this.
  35. infinitypbr

    infinitypbr

    Joined:
    Nov 28, 2012
    Posts:
    3,149
    THANKS!!!!!
     
  36. Socrates

    Socrates

    Joined:
    Mar 29, 2011
    Posts:
    787
    First of all, dragons will outsell humans because dragons are just cool!

    Secondly, dragons will outsell humans because dragons make great enemies that you can use multiple times in your games, but basic barbarian targets are far less interesting.

    Then, quite frankly, your choice of images for the Barbarian asset store page make them look more like toy action figures than quality models. This says to me that they're designed as cheapish enemies that don't need high detail.

    Those same images are also poorly set up to make your barbarian figures look interesting. The angles are kind of odd in places. They feel much more "Saturday Morning Cartoon" than "Prime Asset" to me.

    Additionally, your dragon pack is priced $16 LESS than your barbarian. When comparing the two, I would subconsciously automatically classify the barbarian's price point as aimed at a main player-controlled model, and it just doesn't seem to live up to that when compared to the cheaper dragon package.

    Finally, dragons are just way cooler than barbarians.

    I like your work and considered buying the dragon pack with the sale today, even though I am not currently working on game that needs a dragon. (Which is what stopped me. I can't justify buying a pack just to use it to taunt my D&D group.)
     
    Kiwasi likes this.
  37. infinitypbr

    infinitypbr

    Joined:
    Nov 28, 2012
    Posts:
    3,149
    Dragons are really cool huh.

    One of the biggest repetitions here is the photos need to be changed. They will be :D Right now I'm updating one of my "Packs" and making sure I'm including fewer videos (like one, maybe two), and fewer photos but photos showing more of the variety rather than more action. On the forum pages (I can't put them on the store pages), I'm including animated GIFs showing some action, usually the big magic spell w/ particle.

    I'll do something similar with the human.

    Yeah, the dragon was supposed to go to $75 before the sale started since the big "Dragon rider" update I had been waiting for was finished, but once they pick you for a sale, they lock the price, so I wasn't able to get it raised (even saying they could keep the sale price the same). So after the sale it goes to $75. but by then I should have the new pack that has the Dragon and Human together available for $99. I think that's a good price -- and eventually the pack will have Skeletons and hopefully Goblins or one other "classic" character set. Or maybe just more human clothes. Idk. Either way, updates will be free for people who already got it, and upgrade price of $24 will be available for anyone who got the dragon pack already, so hopefully people will like all that. Usually the "packs" do better than individuals I've found.
     
  38. Martin_H

    Martin_H

    Joined:
    Jul 11, 2015
    Posts:
    4,436
    I have a tendency to see things negatively, so take it with a grain of salt: Have you considered that the unusual occurence here isn't the humans selling poorly, but the dragon selling well for whatever reason? I just don't see the market for realistic human assets. Who should need those in the quantities you need to sell to make the pack a good investment for you? Going for games with realistic animated human characters is a poor choice for most solo indie devs, those that do, might not be looking for the theme your characters fit in, or they might already have other chars that have a different style to them. In general I'd say character assets are also the ones that players will have the greatest negativity towards when they find out it's an asset. As a gamer I'd be much more willing to accept the same kind of modular dungeon in two unrelated games than the same kind of main character or enemy.
    That's one point, the other is that I still believe that the overwhelming majority of assets that ever become financially viable for their authors are those, that look generic enough, that people buy them who don't end up using them. It's a market based entirely around the "feeling of making a good investment". E.g. pathfinding, IK and a post fx package, most people will be convinced they'll need and use them eventually when they buy them. Seems like a smart investment. For a dragon I still could see this somewhat happening. "Oh look, a nice dragon. Dragons are cool, I'm sure I'll use one in a game, eventually." I just don't see that with character assets, because they are so very "specific". You either know you need it right now or you know you don't.
    Better marketing won't hurt, that's for sure. Undercutting prices of competition is a bad idea, I agree on that. But why don't you just do freelance work instead of making these high risk time investments on the assetsstore? Did the Dragon sell so well that you couldn't have earned that much in the same time doing proper freelance work? With that I don't mean the ~200$ for a character offers that you often see around here, I mean the professional 50$ upwards per hour freelance work.

    Imho that's because it's easier with packs to make yourself believe that it's a good "investment" and you'll need or use the stuff eventually.
     
    Socrates, infinitypbr and Ryiah like this.
  39. Ryiah

    Ryiah

    Joined:
    Oct 11, 2012
    Posts:
    20,964
    Just checked Daz3D. A rough approximation to the barbarian and a base is only about $70.

    http://www.daz3d.com/kimo-7
    http://www.daz3d.com/island-warrior-outfit-for-genesis-3-male-s

    Better yet that same base can be used in multiple titles as it isn't simply a barbarian.

    http://www.daz3d.com/rugby-uniform-for-genesis-3-male-s
    http://www.daz3d.com/beach-vibes-outfit-for-genesis-3-male-s
    http://www.daz3d.com/eternal-desert-warrior-outfit-for-genesis-3-male-s

    Have to admit before checking I was under the impression they were way more expensive.

    Have to agree. The competition is simply too fierce. You'd have to severely undercut them to even stand a chance.
     
    Last edited: May 25, 2016
    infinitypbr and Billy4184 like this.
  40. neginfinity

    neginfinity

    Joined:
    Jan 27, 2013
    Posts:
    13,554
    Daz requires separate gamedev license, though, if I remember correctly.
     
    Martin_H and Ryiah like this.
  41. Billy4184

    Billy4184

    Joined:
    Jul 7, 2014
    Posts:
    6,008
    Isn't that only for commercial use, i.e., you can test the models in your project for free? If anyone ever gets around to releasing their rpg they probably won't have any trouble paying that $500 or whatever. And few actually get there.
     
  42. neginfinity

    neginfinity

    Joined:
    Jan 27, 2013
    Posts:
    13,554
    Actually:
    http://www.daz3d.com/eula
    This clause makes it nigh impossible to use DAZ 3D content in any product you are planning redistribute, free or not.

    Additionally:
    Additionally there's "CRT addenum" where they say that any sale of their content requires written permission from them.
     
  43. Billy4184

    Billy4184

    Joined:
    Jul 7, 2014
    Posts:
    6,008
    You misunderstand, what I'm saying is that you don't need to pay in order to use the characters for personal use, if I understand correctly. So until you sell the game (which few ever get around to doing) it's worth it to skip the asset store and just download some Daz characters to play around with.
     
    Ryiah likes this.
  44. Ryiah

    Ryiah

    Joined:
    Oct 11, 2012
    Posts:
    20,964
  45. Acissathar

    Acissathar

    Joined:
    Jun 24, 2011
    Posts:
    677
    @sfbaystudios As an update to the Morph tool, I got curious about the converter thing and sent them email. Apparently they plan to roll out the beta in June assuming all goes well.

    I know you have a weapon pack (spoiler: I bought it. Chainsaw sword is still sweet.) so maybe once this tool is out, just being able to use your weapons with their system, in addition to standalone or what have you, could help out. Possibly the same with the human pack / add on packs.
     
    Last edited: May 25, 2016
    infinitypbr, kittik and Ryiah like this.
  46. drewradley

    drewradley

    Joined:
    Sep 22, 2010
    Posts:
    3,063
    Well, yeah, but what's the fun in that? If that's all you want, just skip Unity and use DAZ Studio.
    I got it a few years ago, but since I've been collecting their stuff for, well since the very first Victoria I had already amassed a huge collection. The game I am currently working on has perhaps 100 outfits you can pick from!
     
  47. Ryiah

    Ryiah

    Joined:
    Oct 11, 2012
    Posts:
    20,964
    Is the "special price" on the licensing pages a sale price? Must admit without a big flashy "SALE" sign I couldn't tell. :oops:
     
  48. Billy4184

    Billy4184

    Joined:
    Jul 7, 2014
    Posts:
    6,008
    Because people who are looking for high quality placeholder graphics (i.e. most people browsing the store) would rather just use a couple of Daz models for free than pay $75 for this pack.
     
    Ryiah likes this.
  49. Teila

    Teila

    Joined:
    Jan 13, 2013
    Posts:
    6,932
    I may have said this before, but your clothing is so awesome. You should consider a side project and make them for UMA, the current body out there. We have only one clothing creator active and he is taking on other jobs now, so not producing as much. Your stuff would be a welcome addition.

    Yeah, your bodies are beautiful, but as someone said, most of us what a variety that matches. So unless you plan to make them morphable or make many many characters with different heads and body shapes, you will have a tough time.

    I love Mr. Necturus' Adam and Eve, but if I were to use them for a game, all my characters would look alike. So I chose UMA. Same is true of your characters. I need more than Barbarians and I need to be able to create unique characters from one base with a variety of clothing options. OR if I were making a different sort of game, I would need a number of models for characters and NPCs that looked and dressed differently but had the same art style.

    Morph3d is similar and it will probably corner the market for people who want ready made clothing and beautiful characters. I chose UMA because I can make clothing or hire someone to make it for me if I want. Morph3d does not yet have the tools to do this and they seem to be quiet on this at the moment. That may change though. We are too heavily invested in UMA to change though. :)
     
  50. drewradley

    drewradley

    Joined:
    Sep 22, 2010
    Posts:
    3,063
    No idea. But it's $175 with Platinum Club discount. If it is a limited time price, now would be a good time to get it.