Back to a bit of a gaming post this time around, a bit of a contentious one but one that seems to be happening pretty regularly unfortunately. That is, asset flipping…
What the hell is asset flipping?
Asset Flipping is a fairly new ‘phenomenon’ I guess, in a nutshell, it essentially refers to a game that’s been created primarily by purchasing and ultimately using pre-made assets from any asset store out there on the Internet.
Why is that a bad thing?
Well, that question has several different answers and I guess depends on your point of view.
Generally, when you asset flip, your entire game (or 99% of it) has been created using these pre-made assets, now these assets don’t have to just be ‘physical’ i.e. models, artwork etc. but can even boil down to the functions and programming parts of it too.
Now generally, there isn’t anything inherently wrong with this on the face of it. By that I mean, you aren’t going to land yourself with a court case by buying assets and making a game with them, ultimately that is their purpose and generally as long as you follow the copyright guidelines for said asset, legally you’re fine.
Morally however, that’s where it turns a bit shitty…
Do elaborate Delo…
The issue with asset flipping games, and any type of “shovelware” (that’s basically low-quality, quickly made software) I guess, is that the whole purpose of them is to put as little effort into a project, and get the most amount of profit out of that project, and given the fact that these asset flippers deliberately go for lower quality assets (no black mark against the creators of the assets there) it is quite easy to make a profit.
Generally how this is done is, using your game engine of choice, generally UE5 or more commonly Unity, you purchase an asset pack you like the look of, force it into the game engine and build around it.
Now considering most major game engines have thousands of pre-built assets to use, asset flipping is a fairly easy process, sure you need a bit of knowledge around how the engine works, how it all fits together etc. but that’s pretty much it.
Now I’m not a game developer, but I know my way around various programming languages as well as multimedia/3D design going back to my university days. I know the workflow games generally “should” follow, but just thought I’d preface teh rest with, as always, this is just opinion.
Looking around the various asset stores, your assets vary from basic particle effects, to pretty much full blown engines within Unity/UE5, and by engines in that context, I mean “assets” that generate full worlds for you after entering a few parameters. You can even find full on assets that essentially build the “first person shooter” aspect…of a first person shooter game, health systems, ammo, reloading etc. just provide a model or two and you’re set – which can obviously be more bought assets.
But Delo…buying assets is fine, they can help fill in skill gaps within development…
I know…I know. I’m pretty certain some of my favourite indie games, will have bought assets of some description, I get it. Some of these games are built by less than 10 people the majority of the time, and more often than not, that number is less than 5. Asset stores help these people develop the next best thing, filling in some odd skill gap, why hire someone for X amount on a salary or contract based work, when someone has developed it – I get it, I don’t have an issue with that.
The issue I have is all the games that seem to be coming out recently, that all look the same, play the same, but just with a slightly different “selling point”.
The main culprit for these generally have “Simulator” in the title somewhere.
One that comes to mind, is the influx of “Supermarket” based simultators, or basically “Service Worker Simultators”.
Now these type of games have risen in popularity lately, it seemed to stem from a couple of games, one of which went very viral. That was called TCG Card Shop Simulator. Now this wasn’t an asset flip really, you could tell some effort was put into it, especially around selling collectors cards, appraising them and things like that. From there, we got “Supermarket Simulator” you had a supermarket, you stocked its shelves, sold stock – rinse and repeat.
Because these games went semi-viral (TCG Sim for sure did), so many similar games were spawned, and played identically, models were pretty much the same, especially for your customers, it generally just followed:
- Here’s your <INSERT SHOP HERE> – have fun!
- Buy some stock to stick on your shelves
- Whether that’s produce, beer, computer parts or whatever
- Wait for customers
- Sell stock
- Give them the correct change back
- Serve next customer
- Repeat
That’s it, that’s your loop.
Now don’t get me wrong, that type of loop I enjoy, especially if it’s multiplayer, which a lot of these games become, because obviously that’s another asset to buy. But everything was just identical.
Case in point, just searching for the word “Supermarket” on steam currently yields 444 results. That’s insane. Some admittedly aren’t the same as others, but having that many games with just that keyword is just crazy to me.
You’ve written too much…what’s your point?
I know, it’s been a bit of a rambling post this one.
My point ultimately, if these games were free, it wouldn’t bee too much of an issue, there’s a great game called “Supermarket Together”, it uses bought assets (again this is fine) but it’s multiplayer, has a good loop and you know what else – it’s free. Completely free, and updated pretty much weekly to boot…the only paid for part of it, is cosmetics – I can live with that.
The issue I have is that some of these games, a lot in fact, are selling for at least £15 a piece, sometimes £20 or more.
“But they’re paying for assets!” I hear you cry. That’s true, but ultimately, they’re paying for assets and that’s it, maybe programming for a day or maybe a week to throw their own gimmick on it, but ultimately, the guts of the game are all identical and the same assets. Why should it be £20 for the priviledge of just getting something slightly different – I’m looking at you Call of Duty releasing the same game every year for £60…besides the point I know.
Video Games are supposed to be a creative outlet, something to get stuck into, lost in. Now you can admittedly get stuck into this asset flip games, but they’re just gutless, there’s no passion in them.
That’s all I’ll say on the topic, it’s a bit of a ranty post, but I guess I just wanted to address it.
Delo out!