My Philosophy on Commissioning Art as a Game Dev (or how to avoid exploiting people when/because you have no budget)
(This post cross-posted from My Patreon, where I share development insights, prototype builds, and devlogs from my games as I work. Please consider supporting!)
The other day I was speaking to an indie developer who was complaining how prohibitively expensive it was to pay an artist to make art for their video game project; they essentially complained at length about how difficult it was to find artists who would work at affordable prices for devs, especially in contexts of working as a solo dev and being self-funded.
I won't mention their name but it was certainly a complaint that I empathized with greatly as someone who works regularly on a shoestring budget and loves collaborating with artists on my games. However, I think it's terrible (and interesting) how much awful rhetoric and exploitative thinking surrounding paying people for work has propagated through our industry even at the lowest level, and how indie devs can easily normalize the exploitative capitalist practices carried out by larger studios at a small scale.
I want to hit on some of the topics in that conversation thoughts I have on them as they relate to development, as both someone who has both been an artist taking commissions and a self-funded solo developer who has sought artists to commission for working on my game, and provide my perspective on them.
Some of the common arguments I've seen for undercutting artists:
1) "If an artist charges too much, I'll find someone else who will do it for cheaper."
Seeking out artists who charge less is the kind of behaviour that drives artists to devalue their work; other artists see someone charging less who is getting more work than they are and say "well maybe I should be charging less" and then begins the race to the bottom which results in no one getting their fair wages. Sure there's often opportunity to compromise with an artist - maybe strike a deal with them, or work out a payment plan that suits your needs - bit if you're seeking the highest quality and lowest cost then you're directly enacting patterns used by capitalist exploitation, and you as a creative need to challenge your relationship to labour and how you treat someone who is offering theirs.
There's also an underlying assumption to these statements that some artists are overcharging for their work - but understand is an exception and not a norm. The reality is that artists are exceptionally underpaid for the work they do, and finding ways to underpay them further only exacerbates the cultural issue of devaluing art and the labour artists do to create.
2) "Some artists want commercial use fees when I own the IP to the game, and it makes it too expensive. My game isn't even big/expensive enough to warrant paying commercial fees!"
Consider this from the perspective of an artist: they don't know the extent to which you're using their work, how much you're profiting from it, or how successful your game will be, or how that success will reflect on them. Many developers and commissioners, at a baseline legal level, can't be trusted to be honest or impartial about what value your project has, and any artist is within their right for charging you what they anticipate the risk or gain will be to them. Especially these days when projects can go from 0 to trending overnight, how is there any way of guaranteeing an artist is being compensated fairly for the exposure (or lack thereof) your project might provide?
The reality is that even if you think your game will be a flop or a passion project, an artist kept at arms length doesn't know that and can't risk missing compensation based on 'vibes' or your gut feeling on your game's success. Developers don't even know for sure how successful their game will be, why should an artist be expected to charge you fees appropriately in response?
On top of this, Commercial use fees aren't a one-way street and they can protect developers too; it often means you're given permission to use their works for promotional materials, logos, marketing copy, presskits and the like with their advanced permission, and can give you legal protection in the event they try to rescind that arbitrarily. It's a two-way street that empowers you to promote your work by using theirs and is well worth paying the money to them, and it can protect both parties in the event of a falling out. It isn't a random restriction in place to charge more money arbitrarily, it's there for a reason.
If commercial use fees are a problem to you, you might be inclined to seek out artists who don't charge them: once again, this is enacting the practices outlined in #1. In fact, this is even worse as now you're actively seeking artists who don't have protections for themselves in place or might not be aware of commercial fees as a concept.
In my opinion, as a developer, if you find an artist who doesn't mention commercial fees in commission prices you are morally obligated to explicitly ask them about if they charge commercial fees. It could be likely they simply aren't aware of them, and this makes them a vulnerable target to exploitation by others who approach them in the future. If they don't know about commercial use standards and you choose to commission them for a commercial work then you're taking advantage of someone's naivety which is incredibly exploitative.
3) "If my game is a breakout hit there will be more work for them later, or I can come back and pay them what they're owed after it makes money."
Even if your heart is in the perfect place, the reality is: you probably won't. I've seen well-meaning people fail to pay others for a whole host of reasons, from clerical errors, sudden bankruptcy, or even just being too dang busy and forgetting to send an email. Even if you have the money it doesn't take much to forget to connect it with someone even if you're well-meaning and you have a healthy working relationship. I've definitely been on the receiving end of this before!
Whether your project makes money or no, everyone touching it needs to be paid for the work they do on it without chasing you down. Any artist is well within their right to assume they should be paid in full, up front, for all costs and risks associated with taking on your project. Moreover as a dev who should be paying someone you simply don't know their financial reality - maybe your payment is their grocery bill this month, or maybe they're jusy needing to make rent of this relationship. It's irresponsible to try and wiggle some of that payment away from them.
4) "Should I consider revenue sharing?"
As for the idea of paying an artist what they're worth later down the line: How many studios have you heard of who pays an artist for work and then comes back later to pay them royalties, without being badgered or taken to court over it? Why should an artist you're approaching assume you're the exception to this pattern? Why should someone only get paid on the condition you make enough money to pay them, as opposed to simply paying them up front for all the work you're asking them to do?
On that note...
Most developers I know of who entertain the thought of revenue sharing have never shipped a video game before, and they assume that once the game comes out there'll be plenty of money to go around. Unfortunately not only is that not true in almost every case (especially in cases where it's a game by people haven't shipped a game before). It's also a testament to how unreliable revshare models are - how many people who plan a model around revshare survive long enough to ship a game and properly enact that model afterwards?
Per #3, it's incredibly risky as a creator to simply trust someone will pay you everything you're owed after something launches, and there's risk your stinginess is imparting on the artist. Revshare doesn't protect artists if a project flops, or outright falls apart, or you run off with their work, or your computer catches fire, and so on. You're asking them to take on unnecessary risk with revshare that would be avoided if you pay them directly, up front.
Not to mention most people don't need promises of 'payments of unknown amounts delivered 3-4 years from now', most people need 'known quantities of money given ASAP'. There's no contest in equitably here.
---
"Devon you don't understand, my game probably won't make any money! How am I supposed to find or attract artists to work on it if I can't compensate them for it?!"
So here's the harsh thesis I guess: I firmly believe if you as a game developer can't afford to commission people to make things that would fulfil the vision you have for your game then I believe you should not be creating a game that requires this art to be made in the first place. Or minimally, you need to be more willing to compromise your vision and ideas than you are willing to exploit a creative in order to maybe be able to execute that vision.
Cutting things, changing ideas and re-thinking your process is all part of the act of making games, and it's always better to do that than it is to take advantage of someone in order to get what you want. If I can't afford someone to work on my game, my process is ask myself "Okay, well then what can I do instead?" and find a way around it that doesn't involve that specific skillset, or I take time to learn that skillset myself. If I can't find a way to plan my project around this weakness it means I've done a poor job of planning something that is achievable to make by myself, and I need to rethink my plan and execute it in a way that takes into account my abilities and resources at hand - both financial and labour-wise.
At the end of the day your vision or idea is simply not worth taking advantage of anyone else's labour, or else you will easily fall into practices that exploit the labour of others.
Having to confront the reality that you can't ethically make the thing you want to make is a bummer, but don't get me wrong, not all hope is lost: Not only has there never been more free, open-source and pro-bono resources for making games available online, but there's never been more opportunities than ever learn a new skill.
If you can't find an asset or resource for free that you can twist into working for you, you might as well try learning that skill that you're trying to get someone else to do. There's tons of tutorials and free resources that will teach you all about game development and its many facets, and you might be pleasantly surprised at what you're capable of if you apply yourself towards it. If you have time to make a game you likely have time to learn a skill.
The fact of the matter is that seeking means to create what you want without compromise at the lowest possible cost is the exact behaviour pattern that is conductive to abhorrent exploitation under capitalism - it's why AAA studios seek the cheapest outsourcing studios in the global south to make assets for them who can maximize labour and minimize profit, or why so many creatives in game development in general are underpaid for their skills relative to other industries.
If you want to avoid contributing to a cycle of exploitation then you need to be aware of what that cycle is, who it takes advantage of most, and how it works. Then challenge yourself to consciously act in a way that disrupts it, or else you will risk falling into it yourself.
t2t over here and BOY is it a lot of work to be this way. had to get a weird download from archive dot org and now i can't turn Microsoft Photo Manager off
That's rough. I've got a friend who is still on t1t and they have to load their gender off a 5.25" floppy disk every morning.
And a couple years back I saw one of the developers of MS-GOS (Microsoft Gender Operating System) at VGF (Vintage Gender Festival) explain how, back in the day, he was working on t0t and had to toggle a gender bootloader into the front panel every day just to have a driver to load the rest of his gender off paper tape.
I please my man in every way, all the ways. Wake him up. He gets to nut. Before he leaves out the door. He’s leaving. Empty nuts. At work, I am calling him like, “come outside it’s your lunch break. its time to get your nut off.”
romaincrisis
ellievsbear
snowghoul
turnnoffyourmind
