How much it cost to create a cosmetic item ?

iixviiiix

People keep saying about cosmetic this and cosmetic that , it make me wonder how much to create a piece of cosmetic item right now

Artist payment cost ?

Copy right cost ?

Time cost ?

rojoArcueid

I don't have an answer but I would think a cosmetic item is very cheap, specially when there are modders creating better content for just "tips".

btdt

A cosmetic item is merely an asset in game (be it a pet, mount, item of clothing, toy, et al) that supposedly does not contribute to the overall power of a character.

It costs no more in man hours to create than any other asset in game of like type.  

Some cosmetic items are free.  Some you pay real money for.

They don't copyright assets, they copyright the body of the work, so anything created as an asset is automatically grandfathered into the game's copyright.

Cash shops basically sell cosmetic items for real world money.  Some cosmetic items are dubious in that they sometimes do contribute to the overall power of a character.   (Star Citizen ships for example).

Vrika

It depends on the type of cosmetic item: If you're creating new cosmetic color variations for existing item you can make multiple cosmetic items in a day, but if you create something like new mount with its own model, animations, sounds and textures it can take hundreds of hours.

There is no copyright costs with creating it, not unless you purchase a cosmetic item elsewhere and pay for the right to add it to your game. All it costs are the time to plan it + create it + add it to the game.

Amathe

The cost to conceive of the item and then draw it + the cost to render it graphically + the cost to code it into the game + overhead + marketing?

iixviiiix

Amathe said:

The cost to conceive of the item and then draw it + the cost to render it graphically + the cost to code it into the game + overhead + marketing?

Yeah , people keep saying that game can run fine with just cosmetic alone , so here i wonder how much cost to make a piece and how many need to sell to get profit to keep the game running .

Palebane

Not trying to judge anyone but its a little horrifying to me that people spend so much on digital vanity. I love options and looking good in a game. I just can’t justify it, personally, even a dollar or two. To the question, I assume vanity items are one of the cheapest and easiest things to create in a game.

Amathe

Reminds me for some odd reason of "what can you make of this" from the movie Airplane. "I can make a hat. I can make a broach ...."

alkarionlog

iixviiiix said:

People keep saying about cosmetic this and cosmetic that , it make me wonder how much to create a piece of cosmetic item right now

Artist payment cost ?

Copy right cost ?

Time cost ?

depend if the company don't make a "competition" for the comunity to make the skin and how many colors they have for same clothes, and copyrights on skins? good luck on that

Ungood

Depends on the Item.

Something like a Weapon could be very cheap and easy, while making sure a pair of boots don't clip across a dozen races and armor types could be a nightmare.

Sovrath

Palebane said:

Not trying to judge anyone but its a little horrifying to me that people spend so much on digital vanity. I love options and looking good in a game. I just can’t justify it, personally, even a dollar or two. To the question, I assume vanity items are one of the cheapest and easiest things to create in a game.

Friends of mine would say that they couldn't justify spending time or money on video games.

So yeah, it's subjective.

The thing here is your missing (or don't have appreciation) for a certain axis of thought. That the presentation is as important as the game.

For me, if a game doesn't have a certain look (or if I can't find it within myself to "forgive" its art design) then I can't play it pure and simple.

It's one of the reasons I have such huge difficulty with Lord of the Rings Online and am constantly searching for ways to make my character more in line with what I want to see.

To that point, after I played a bit last night I had to launch and play a bit of Shadow of Mordor just to get a more "Lord of the Rings" feel as the art design in Lord of the Rings Online is piss poor crappypants.

So to me it makes complete sense as to why people would spend money on cosmetics. But it's more about spending money on "experience" than actually having something.

It's like spending money on a going to the movies or a show. The money is for the experience.

Panther2103

Ungood said:

Depends on the Item.

Something like a Weapon could be very cheap and easy, while making sure a pair of boots don't clip across a dozen races and armor types could be a nightmare.

This.

If it's a full armor set, across multiple races, genders, body sizes, and it's detailed? It could be very expensive. 

Ungood

Sovrath said:

Palebane said:

Not trying to judge anyone but its a little horrifying to me that people spend so much on digital vanity. I love options and looking good in a game. I just can’t justify it, personally, even a dollar or two. To the question, I assume vanity items are one of the cheapest and easiest things to create in a game.

Friends of mine would say that they couldn't justify spending time or money on video games.

So yeah, it's subjective.

The thing here is your missing (or don't have appreciation) for a certain axis of thought. That the presentation is as important as the game.

For me, if a game doesn't have a certain look (or if I can't find it within myself to "forgive" its art design) then I can't play it pure and simple.

It's one of the reasons I have such huge difficulty with Lord of the Rings Online and am constantly searching for ways to make my character more in line with what I want to see.

To that point, after I played a bit last night I had to launch and play a bit of Shadow of Mordor just to get a more "Lord of the Rings" feel as the art design in Lord of the Rings Online is piss poor crappypants.

So to me it makes complete sense as to why people would spend money on cosmetics. But it's more about spending money on "experience" than actually having something.

It's like spending money on a going to the movies or a show. The money is for the experience.

That might be because Standing Stone does not have an In House Art Team, or at least didn't when I stopped playing.

Vrika

ikcin said:

Panther2103 said:

Ungood said:

Depends on the Item.

Something like a Weapon could be very cheap and easy, while making sure a pair of boots don't clip across a dozen races and armor types could be a nightmare.

This.

If it's a full armor set, across multiple races, genders, body sizes, and it's detailed? It could be very expensive. 

Body sizes Really? You have vectors, so the size actually does not matter.

Often even the races do not matter.

Females normally get different armor from males because androgynous chest doesn't look good, but other than that usually one armor model fits every playable character.

Sovrath

Ungood said:

Sovrath said:

Palebane said:

Not trying to judge anyone but its a little horrifying to me that people spend so much on digital vanity. I love options and looking good in a game. I just can’t justify it, personally, even a dollar or two. To the question, I assume vanity items are one of the cheapest and easiest things to create in a game.

Friends of mine would say that they couldn't justify spending time or money on video games.

So yeah, it's subjective.

The thing here is your missing (or don't have appreciation) for a certain axis of thought. That the presentation is as important as the game.

For me, if a game doesn't have a certain look (or if I can't find it within myself to "forgive" its art design) then I can't play it pure and simple.

It's one of the reasons I have such huge difficulty with Lord of the Rings Online and am constantly searching for ways to make my character more in line with what I want to see.

To that point, after I played a bit last night I had to launch and play a bit of Shadow of Mordor just to get a more "Lord of the Rings" feel as the art design in Lord of the Rings Online is piss poor crappypants.

So to me it makes complete sense as to why people would spend money on cosmetics. But it's more about spending money on "experience" than actually having something.

It's like spending money on a going to the movies or a show. The money is for the experience.

That might be because Standing Stone does not have an In House Art Team, or at least didn't when I stopped playing.

To respond to this (even though the poster is banned) the art design was set in stone when the game was first developed. I don't know why the heck they thought the current art design was good but I remember people hating it and even dissing on some of the earlier weapons (like the bow that looks like it was cut from a branch) yet this is what they came up with.

On topic, it doesn't cost "that much" to make an item though I'm sure it takes longer to create, go through iterations, test, etc than a modder might take in for an item in an Elder Scrolls game.

I've seen amazing items created for the Elder Scrolls games but many of them have had small issues, metal not "rendering" correctly, being too shiny or glowing, weird artifacts for an open helmet, odd clipping, etc.

So it might take a modder x amount of hours and he/she is done. But for the developer they are thinking of the entire game, whether or not an item fits, whether it can be made better or altered, and of course it has to work with all animations, body types, race types, etc.

In the end, there is probably some number that they aim for with the idea that certain items need to make x amount of dollars before they create another one.

Wizardry

One day if organized,2-3 days if slow,coffee breaks ,chit chats with neighboring stalls,need confirmation several times by your boss but the boss is hardly around so might take longer.

Let me put it this way,there are people doing 1-2 hour You Tube videos of complete animated work and cosmetic items are less effort,so do the math.

Sovrath

Found this, this is one person's experience and another poster seems to think it's reasonable:

6: Good Assets Take Time.

When I started doing modeling and animation, I jumped straight into doing characters, weapons, and scenery models. This was such a huge mistake that I can not even start to tell you how much time it wasted. The player characters and weapons were redone FROM SCRATCH several times, and yet another redo was on the way when the project finally died.

So for every aspiring artist out there, here is the breakdown on project times per asset *IF* you are familiar with the process used and you are already pretty competent at doing these things. This also assumes that they can be dropped right into the engine with no extra work. such as defining a configuration file or a text file for it.

GUI or menu graphics 4 - 8 hours
One level texture 1 - 2 hours
One scenery object 4 - 8 hours
One detailed object(animated or seen up close, like a gun) 8 - 12 hours
One good room in a map 2 - 4 hours
Modeling and painting a character 30 - 50 hours
Rigging a character 4 - 8 hours
Animating a character, per short animation 1 - 2 hours

Note that these times are for detailed, professional looking assets, and that the times will vary depending on your competence, experience, what assets you already have at your disposal and the complexity of the assets themselves. If you spend less time and just crank something out to fill immediate needs and wants, you'll pay for it when you have to redo it later.

https://forum.freegamedev.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3994

Gruug

One thing to remember about any "item" you purchase in a game is that the "item" itself does not belong to you. You simply have unlocked by the additional payment the right to use it in game. You cannot take it with you. In most cases, you cannot gift its use to someone else. The game publishers still OWN that item. So, if you think you are making a purchase like you would a car or a house, you are not. It is not an asset.

gervaise1

"What's the cost?" Wrong question.

Correct question: "What is the delta cost".

Otherwise you could produce e.g. an mmo for $100 - or whatever the delta cost is.

ChildoftheShadows

To say that modders create item for free is to say that their time has no value. Even if they don’t put a price on the item for the player, they still spent their time $ making it. Time that could have been spent making money elsewhere. 

There’s nothing like the ignorance of armchair devs making claims like “look at what soandso made in his spare time and you guys suck blah blah blah”

To the op, like many have stated there isn’t s set price. It’s going to depend on the team, if they have a dedicated art team or if they commission their work and what kind of item they are making. 

The only instances I can think of where I would consider it a total ripoff were the glasses in Eve because they were like $500 or something ridiculous and then the horse statue in shroud of the avatar because it was a free asset from the unity store and they were charging silly prices and charging more for larger variations. 

ChildoftheShadows

ikcin said:

Vrika said:

ikcin said:

Panther2103 said:

Ungood said:

Depends on the Item.

Something like a Weapon could be very cheap and easy, while making sure a pair of boots don't clip across a dozen races and armor types could be a nightmare.

This.

If it's a full armor set, across multiple races, genders, body sizes, and it's detailed? It could be very expensive. 

Body sizes Really? You have vectors, so the size actually does not matter.

Often even the races do not matter.

Females normally get different armor from males because androgynous chest doesn't look good, but other than that usually one armor model fits every playable character.

Females normally get different armor because most players are males and sex sells.

And because bodies are shaped differently, but you know science and common sense are going out of style so what do I know.


The bikini armor though? Yeah sex sells. 

ChildoftheShadows

Gruug said:

One thing to remember about any "item" you purchase in a game is that the "item" itself does not belong to you. You simply have unlocked by the additional payment the right to use it in game. You cannot take it with you. In most cases, you cannot gift its use to someone else. The game publishers still OWN that item. So, if you think you are making a purchase like you would a car or a house, you are not. It is not an asset.

Hopefully blockchain will become more prominent in games then this will be a thing of the past. 

ChildoftheShadows

ikcin said:

ChildoftheShadows said:

And because bodies are shaped differently, but you know science and common sense are going out of style so what do I know.


The bikini armor though? Yeah sex sells. 

I doubt Jeanne d'Arc wore armor with tits Indeed the body structure is different, but that does not affect the armors. Also there are large number of lingerie armors. Even in WoW where the sex does not sell.

Real life female armor, since you brought it up, was in fact shaped different than men’s. 

Sovrath

ChildoftheShadows said:

ikcin said:

ChildoftheShadows said:

And because bodies are shaped differently, but you know science and common sense are going out of style so what do I know.


The bikini armor though? Yeah sex sells. 

I doubt Jeanne d'Arc wore armor with tits Indeed the body structure is different, but that does not affect the armors. Also there are large number of lingerie armors. Even in WoW where the sex does not sell.

Real life female armor, since you brought it up, was in fact shaped different than men’s. 

This is an interesting video on the subject

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBtvS5yhTA8

I would jump to 1:50

kitarad

I think where cosmetics are concerned one is only limited by their imagination. In a lot of content created you have to worry about how something can be supported by the game engine. This aspect is perhaps something that is by its nature low investment high yield and therefore very easily monetized and capitalized.

ChildoftheShadows

Sovrath said:

ChildoftheShadows said:

ikcin said:

ChildoftheShadows said:

And because bodies are shaped differently, but you know science and common sense are going out of style so what do I know.


The bikini armor though? Yeah sex sells. 

I doubt Jeanne d'Arc wore armor with tits Indeed the body structure is different, but that does not affect the armors. Also there are large number of lingerie armors. Even in WoW where the sex does not sell.

Real life female armor, since you brought it up, was in fact shaped different than men’s. 

This is an interesting video on the subject

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBtvS5yhTA8

I would jump to 1:50

Hmm, I could have swore I've seen videos showing armors made for females where the chest plate bulge was higher with a longer narrow waste. I could be delusional.

Either way the point of it be the aesthetics of the time period is all that matters really. Different time period we're in, different aesthetic we depict in our stories.