Mind on Money
It's a little strange to me, but several money-related issues have come to my attention and been on my mind over the weekend. Potentially ranty...
Commissioned Artists
A post over on Furaffinity was pointed out that spoke about commissioned art and prices. Largely, it seemed to be making the points that 1) artists often don't charge enough for their time, and 2) commissioners should understand this and be willing to pay more. Those are some valid points, but the post was horrible narrow in its view. The assumption seemed to be that every piece of commissioned artwork ought to earn at least minimum wage, based on X hours available and so on. It sort of ignores that some percentage (I want to say a majority, but I guess I don't know that) of artists have an actual job as well. If art is one's hobby, then making any money at it is more profitable than how a lot of us spend out time outside work.
It also ignores that art is very much a luxury item, the market ruled by supply and demand. I, for one, have always been under the impression that anyone who makes a living selling their art (whatever the medium) is some combination of very good and very lucky. Reaching that point tends to, from what I've seen on the sidelines, require a style that appeals to a lot of people and a wide popularity base built up before leaving behind any other sources of income. Anything less, and there either aren't enough people willing to pay for the artist's work or the people willing to pay can't pay enough. I think if every commission-taking artist on the site said "well, I need to start charging $200+ per piece to live off of," a vast majority would simply price themselves out of business, though certainly there are some who already can do that and have a steady stream of clients.
Worthy consideration, but any artist needs to take a wider view than just what was posted there.
Business is Business
I've also recently had other conversations directly with a friend. I think such things more often than I say them, but once in a while I can't keep from speaking up. So the initial conversation went something like:
Him: "So is selling pretty well, I'm happy."
Me: "Oh? Cool. How much money has it brought it?"
Him: "A little over $20."
Me: "Oh. And how much did it cost to make?"
Him: "Well, we paid $200 for the art."
Me: "And how many hours did you (or anyone else) put into producing it?"
I appreciate optimism. Really, I do. Nothing would ever advance in the world if there weren't optimists. But...
If you put out a product at a loss, it may be nice to say something was published, but it's bad as a business model. And yes, a product like this will continue to sell for a while, so it's not a given, but some consideration really ought to be put into a break-even point. How many sales are required to start making money back?
Then there's also the other angle. Time spent writing and editing should be a cost-consideration too. Many people over the years have slaved away at their RPG projects, large and small, above and beyond any pay to get them out the door. I understand labors of love, but time has a cost in a business sense. You can't call a product a rousing success when it hasn't even generated revenue to cover the costs that went into making it. Keep it up, and a company will go out of business - or perhaps "should."
And all this is very, very basic. I don't have any business degree myself, just a little common sense when it comes to math. Things certainly can get more complicated. Seeing disregard for such basics... urgh.
If I actually considered myself to be an investor in the company, I'd be asking to see some actual accounting information by now.
Pay to... Not Play?
I've also been taking a couple deliberate steps in GW2 toward a legendary weapon. I'm getting "close" on badges of honor. I capped weaponsmith and chef professions and bought the required recipes for both. Of course, this still leaves a bunch of exploration runs through Citadel of Flame and... a bunch of stuff from the auction house.
The precursor weapon is still the biggest expense-hurdle. Technically, you can luck out and acquire one other ways, but that's so unreliable it's silly to count on. So that's close to 600 gold. Then there's 100 gold would of purchased materials, plus a lot of traded ones that... I don't know, be very rough and estimate another 100 gold. 800 gold is... a lot.
So I started poking about blogs and forums for gold-earning advice. There are a lot of methods out there, such. Earn a couple gold an hour this way or that way. One of the "best" ways I saw suggested chain-running dungeons, using alts to avoid diminishing returns, to average about 1 gold per ten minutes. Well, I don't have that kind of focus and dedication usually, but 6/hour seems on the higher end of what I've read.
Then I saw someone suggest "buy it via gems," the argument being that actual money is easier to come by given the time investment. This gave me pause. Usually I dismiss such suggestions outright, but I looked at the gem store and plugged in some numbers. They fluctuate, but at the time I looked, $1 translated to a little less than 2 gold. Estimate lower and say $1 equals about 1.5 gold. Comparing to the above method, 6 gold would be $4. Hmm. Yes, I do earn more than $4 an hour. So "spending" an hour of work and converting that to in-game gold do generate more than I could earn in-game in the same time. That... seems so logical. It would save so much time.
On the other hand, that 800 gold is over $500. Somehow it's a little more sobering to look at that way.
This got me thinking about how we value our time. Certainly, anything outside of work hours rarely generates the same level of income. A lot of times, it's an income-sink. If all time was weighed the same, it would be a simple choice in that regard, but it isn't.
It also got me thinking about the psychology involved in something like legendary weapons. Right now, GW2 legendaries are.. cosmetic. They sort of have a baked-in guarantee that if/when ascended-level weapons are introduced, legendaries will get a damage/stat buff to compensate, but right now they're not any better at killing virtual creatuers than the much more attainable exotics. But they go make a good goal to strive for, if a player is interested. It seems that way for me. Yet anytime I think "I'll never be able to afford that precursor and the chances of it dropping are infintesimal," I almost give up. I've sort of hit that point in WoW due to the nature of the step of the legendary chain I'm on there.
But... if I did buy those hard-to-find pieces, what then? I get a legendary weapon. I save myself a bunch of time grinding things in game. And... I no longer have a goal in the game? Hmm. That actually sort of seems like a negative...
Is it worth the expense and potential loss of direction to save time and potential burn-out?
Commissioned Artists
A post over on Furaffinity was pointed out that spoke about commissioned art and prices. Largely, it seemed to be making the points that 1) artists often don't charge enough for their time, and 2) commissioners should understand this and be willing to pay more. Those are some valid points, but the post was horrible narrow in its view. The assumption seemed to be that every piece of commissioned artwork ought to earn at least minimum wage, based on X hours available and so on. It sort of ignores that some percentage (I want to say a majority, but I guess I don't know that) of artists have an actual job as well. If art is one's hobby, then making any money at it is more profitable than how a lot of us spend out time outside work.
It also ignores that art is very much a luxury item, the market ruled by supply and demand. I, for one, have always been under the impression that anyone who makes a living selling their art (whatever the medium) is some combination of very good and very lucky. Reaching that point tends to, from what I've seen on the sidelines, require a style that appeals to a lot of people and a wide popularity base built up before leaving behind any other sources of income. Anything less, and there either aren't enough people willing to pay for the artist's work or the people willing to pay can't pay enough. I think if every commission-taking artist on the site said "well, I need to start charging $200+ per piece to live off of," a vast majority would simply price themselves out of business, though certainly there are some who already can do that and have a steady stream of clients.
Worthy consideration, but any artist needs to take a wider view than just what was posted there.
Business is Business
I've also recently had other conversations directly with a friend. I think such things more often than I say them, but once in a while I can't keep from speaking up. So the initial conversation went something like:
Him: "So is selling pretty well, I'm happy."
Me: "Oh? Cool. How much money has it brought it?"
Him: "A little over $20."
Me: "Oh. And how much did it cost to make?"
Him: "Well, we paid $200 for the art."
Me: "And how many hours did you (or anyone else) put into producing it?"
I appreciate optimism. Really, I do. Nothing would ever advance in the world if there weren't optimists. But...
If you put out a product at a loss, it may be nice to say something was published, but it's bad as a business model. And yes, a product like this will continue to sell for a while, so it's not a given, but some consideration really ought to be put into a break-even point. How many sales are required to start making money back?
Then there's also the other angle. Time spent writing and editing should be a cost-consideration too. Many people over the years have slaved away at their RPG projects, large and small, above and beyond any pay to get them out the door. I understand labors of love, but time has a cost in a business sense. You can't call a product a rousing success when it hasn't even generated revenue to cover the costs that went into making it. Keep it up, and a company will go out of business - or perhaps "should."
And all this is very, very basic. I don't have any business degree myself, just a little common sense when it comes to math. Things certainly can get more complicated. Seeing disregard for such basics... urgh.
If I actually considered myself to be an investor in the company, I'd be asking to see some actual accounting information by now.
Pay to... Not Play?
I've also been taking a couple deliberate steps in GW2 toward a legendary weapon. I'm getting "close" on badges of honor. I capped weaponsmith and chef professions and bought the required recipes for both. Of course, this still leaves a bunch of exploration runs through Citadel of Flame and... a bunch of stuff from the auction house.
The precursor weapon is still the biggest expense-hurdle. Technically, you can luck out and acquire one other ways, but that's so unreliable it's silly to count on. So that's close to 600 gold. Then there's 100 gold would of purchased materials, plus a lot of traded ones that... I don't know, be very rough and estimate another 100 gold. 800 gold is... a lot.
So I started poking about blogs and forums for gold-earning advice. There are a lot of methods out there, such. Earn a couple gold an hour this way or that way. One of the "best" ways I saw suggested chain-running dungeons, using alts to avoid diminishing returns, to average about 1 gold per ten minutes. Well, I don't have that kind of focus and dedication usually, but 6/hour seems on the higher end of what I've read.
Then I saw someone suggest "buy it via gems," the argument being that actual money is easier to come by given the time investment. This gave me pause. Usually I dismiss such suggestions outright, but I looked at the gem store and plugged in some numbers. They fluctuate, but at the time I looked, $1 translated to a little less than 2 gold. Estimate lower and say $1 equals about 1.5 gold. Comparing to the above method, 6 gold would be $4. Hmm. Yes, I do earn more than $4 an hour. So "spending" an hour of work and converting that to in-game gold do generate more than I could earn in-game in the same time. That... seems so logical. It would save so much time.
On the other hand, that 800 gold is over $500. Somehow it's a little more sobering to look at that way.
This got me thinking about how we value our time. Certainly, anything outside of work hours rarely generates the same level of income. A lot of times, it's an income-sink. If all time was weighed the same, it would be a simple choice in that regard, but it isn't.
It also got me thinking about the psychology involved in something like legendary weapons. Right now, GW2 legendaries are.. cosmetic. They sort of have a baked-in guarantee that if/when ascended-level weapons are introduced, legendaries will get a damage/stat buff to compensate, but right now they're not any better at killing virtual creatuers than the much more attainable exotics. But they go make a good goal to strive for, if a player is interested. It seems that way for me. Yet anytime I think "I'll never be able to afford that precursor and the chances of it dropping are infintesimal," I almost give up. I've sort of hit that point in WoW due to the nature of the step of the legendary chain I'm on there.
But... if I did buy those hard-to-find pieces, what then? I get a legendary weapon. I save myself a bunch of time grinding things in game. And... I no longer have a goal in the game? Hmm. That actually sort of seems like a negative...
Is it worth the expense and potential loss of direction to save time and potential burn-out?
In regards of the third topic. Pay $500 to no longer have a goal in GW2. Is that worth it?
ReplyDeleteThat's what it boils down to from one angle, and looked at in specifically that light, I'd have to say "no." I'd prefer to have a game I can turn to when I want rather than not having one available. But... if I had a legendary weapon, would I find another goal? if I played through all the grinding to get one, would I just plain be burned out anyway? If I have to earn it all in-game, will I reach a point where it feels unobtainable and quit? Those are all valid questions as well, that I don't have answers to. Overall, though, I find it an interesting question to consider. For me, purchasing things for games usually boils down to something like: If it's not more than a few days of lunch money and it's something I feel would be useful in a game I play, I'll consider it. If it's more than that, or just cosmetic, I won't bother. Thinking about it more deeply, I'm finding implications I never saw before.
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