Graphics Would public domain assets hurt sales?

[YanBG]

I hope to sell my game on Steam, somewhat successfully. Most of the content is either made by me(graphics) or exclusively for that game, like voice acting. Music is from our fellow forumer Eric Matyas and it has positive reception.

Sounds are very bad and i can't find good free ones actually but i'm most concerned about the terrain tiles. They are from FLARE RPG and great looking but i've seen them used in a few games already. Like Exiled Kingdoms:

Spoiler

And that's in my game:

Spoiler

I benefit from making my own characters and it's harder to notice the similarties. I like the tiles, because it would be time-consuming to re-do them and they might not turn that good.

Thoughts? ...Some devs made kickstarters for even less

 

[kburkhart84]

I don't think it is that big of deal. If all of your graphics were from a single pack, it would be more obvious. Or if your "primary" art was from some commonly known pack it could cause issues. When I say primary art, I'm referring to characters, or anything else that is actually the focus of the player generally, and grass is not typically the focus in games like these. And when I talk about issues, I mean issues with players noticing and possibly mentioning it, not legal type issues.

 

[Posh Indie]

I hope to sell my game on Steam, somewhat successfully. Most of the content is either made by me(graphics) or exclusively for that game, like voice acting. Music is from our fellow forumer Eric Matyas and it has positive reception.

Sounds are very bad and i can't find good free ones actually but i'm most concerned about the terrain tiles. They are from FLARE RPG and great looking but i've seen them used in a few games already. Like Exiled Kingdoms:

Spoiler

And that's in my game:

Spoiler

I benefit from making my own characters and it's harder to notice the similarties. I like the tiles, because it would be time-consuming to re-do them and they might not turn that good.

Thoughts? ...Some devs made kickstarters for even less

Realm of the Mad God used public domain assets and it did very well. This is really a case-by-case thing. See, Realm of the Mad God used very simple sprites that were easily extendable with little skill requirement.

When you get into more intricate or specialized public domain art (like you have here) and people take notice, the problem is less of "They used free art!" and more of "Will this game be getting significant updates? The assets might limit that unless the creator can contract the original artist to continue the asset pack, otherwise risk clashing assets."

Now, if the assets are widely used you could get some backlash as well (Not saying these assets are, just making a general statement). Using Realm of the Mad God as an example again, there were many rogue-likes that used the same asset pack. They all endured accusations of theft under the mindset of "One of these developers has to be the original creator." instead of "This is a public domain asset pack."

In the end, it really depends. Some games with public domain assets do well, and some do not. That's no different than games without public domain assets, though.

 

[Jabbers]

If you are taking random images to use for your graphics, it will be a lot less cohesive and thoughtful compared to commissioning purpose-designed graphics for your game. I can't see how you could avoid compromising the quality and execution of your game idea if you are making do with what you can find. For this reason, I would recommend against it, unless you intend to use public domain images sparingly. It doesn't matter so much if you just want a texture, an interface button, or something else non-essential. It does matter if you are looking for pre-made character sprites or world elements.

Avoid royalty free music, it is tacky.

 

[YanBG]

Thank you for the replies!

@Posh Indie the models are also released and some people made snow and desert reskins. Their lights and shadow direction already clash a bit with the rest of my game but i'm not sure which style to keep(e.g. is better) and which to re-render.

@Jabbers Could you elaborate on the music?

 

[Genetix]

It may not be all that noticeable - your game is zoomed farther out quite a bit, and their is quite a difference from environment art to character art. Even some subtle color tweaks (if allowed) could distinguish things further. Hard to say exactly how it will all effect sales on Steam though, one way or the other people need to see a visually appealing game as part of their process in choosing what to buy, and many may not realize or care where those graphics came from. I don't think it is to bad of a problem assuming that the assets are being used with permission or the correct rights. The game looks good by the way!

 

[Posh Indie]

Thank you for the replies!

@Posh Indie the models are also released and some people made snow and desert reskins. Their lights and shadow direction already clash a bit with the rest of my game but i'm not sure which style to keep(e.g. is better) and which to re-render.

@Jabbers Could you elaborate on the music?

As long as you can extend the asset pack you should be fine. I think you should be less worried about public domain assets and more worried about people drawing a parallel to Diablo. Resembling Diablo is not, in itself, a bad thing. The problem will be more of differentiation at this point.

You probably don't want to be in direct competition with an established title made by a company with a fanbase as large as Blizzard's, so you will want to find a way to shake the image of competition. There also lies a problem with differentiating from Diablo, and that is the people who will expect it to be like Diablo based on appearances alone. My advice is to find a way to let people know it is different from Diablo, and make sure they know how it is different from Diablo before they purchase (You do not want the wrath of Steam's refund policies).

If you are not afraid of a possible backlash from Blizzard's fanbase, then you can put yourself in Diablo's realm directly. They will either appreciate it for what it is or raise the torches and pitchforks (Diablo 2 had gotten a relatively recent update, so Diablo 2 may not have actually run its course even with Diablo 3 being released for some time now.)

As far as public domain music is concerned, I would say "Be very cautious". My reason for this is better explained through a question, "How many times has a song come on the radio and you recognized it within the first few notes?" Music seems to be very easily recognized and I would say it is less acceptable to reuse musical assets than it is to reuse graphical assets. Graphical assets are easier to mask when repurposed whereas musical assets are harder to mask (There is so much to a musical score that flat out gives it away. The changes you would need to make would be great enough and impactful enough that you might as well just make your own music to begin with).

A disclaimer, though. The games industry is fickle. Predicting the industry is hard because you are analyzing a huge and diverse group of people. Extrapolating information from data guarantees nothing because the industry can sway at any time and in very drastic ways (Also your data would need to be large enough to accurately represent everyone). Marketing to your target audience is very important since it reduces the "variables" in prediction. Most definitely focus on that (Does not mean you definitely have to pay money to do so), because games that succeed without marketing hit the market in the sweet spot and at the right time to leverage word of mouth (Great and cheap tactic if you can hit the market just right). In short, "Your game can succeed just because, and it can fail just because, as well."

The fun is actually releasing, doing what you can to improve the odds, and seeing what happens.

 

[Jabbers]

@Jabbers Could you elaborate on the music?

Public domain music lacks identity. Indie game devs tend to not take sound or music very seriously (I never used to either) but the impact of well designed audio is huge. As with graphics, if you simply find a piece of premade content, you risk cheapening your game and undermining the style and personality of your game design. Imagine if a game like Portal had opted to use royalty free techno music, instead of their iconic custom soundtrack. It wouldn't be nearly as good.

I used royalty free music from Kevin MacCleod in a game I made once. One of the customers who bought it posted a topic on a forum (operated by one of the distributors I sold though) and questioned if I had stolen the music from one of his favourite games. I had to explain that the music is royalty free and is used by a number of projects. Indeed, potentially thousands of videos and games combined had used that soundtrack.

I'd never release a commercial game that had royalty free music, because I feel it shows people that you are willing to cut corners, and there is a good chance they already associate that music with someone else's work.

 

[Fern]

As @Jabbers has said, music is important. You want to make sure whatever music you use sets the right mood and atmosphere. Don't skip out on assets that will hurt the game.

 

[YanBG]

@Genetix Thank you! I have also zoom but i get what you mean.

@Posh Indie I started changing it to play less like Diablo. Adding turn-based combat, dialogue options and enemies won't respawn. However, i want to keep the isometric style and skills etc. I'll make sure to explain what the game is exactly about with the trailer.

The music i use, for now, is relatively new(~1 year old). I haven't heard it anywhere else so far, i've played some similar rpgs to sample the market and i choose tracks that fit the mood of each room(town, cave, forest etc).

I agree that it can be better and tailored for the game but it's toned down and more like an ambient, there are weather effects and other general sounds that are more important for the player to hear. I'm more concerned about the sounds, for example the attack is always the same and low quality.

 

[Yal]

I'd say that as long as people aren't aware of any stock resources you're using, it won't hurt you - using, say, the KevinMcLeod piece IHE uses as his video intro WOULD make people realize you're using stock resources instantly, but some random tileset is much easier to mask since it's part of a bigger picture with lots of other contributing graphics... music generally isn't, so it's much more obvious when it's stock.

 

[Sake_v2]

I think you shouldn't worry about that that much. I'm also making a game and I also don't have a lot of resources. The characters I'm making myself, but some stuff is public domain (or licensed through CC 3.0 or something). I'm trying to get from different sources to not make the game that much similar to some game out there that could be using the same pack, but also getting content that the graphics work well together and it doesn't look like it doesn't fit. Doing that, you should be fine, I think. I, for an example, have no resources (financially) to have all the graphics unique, not now, so we need to start small. I "should" be trying to join college at the moment, but instead I'm kind of putting all my effort and really risking it to do what I love. Could end up on the streets, but I'm doing my best not to, lol. I gotta start small, and I'm guessing so do you. You can view it as a investment to improve on your next game, and I don't think you're gonna get negative reviews because of that alone. Good luck on your project, bro.

 

[gmx0]

As long it truly is public domain, you should be fine. Only people who play a lot of stock games notice, or already work in game dev enough to use those stock art.

But there are other assets other than art and music, too. Intellectual properties like Sherlock Holmes are public domain, too, for instance.