Do you like money?

Posted by Glen on March 29, 2012, 6:34 p.m.

Hey guys, I just have a few questions for everyone regarding the payment of each person involved in a commercial game project. More like a survey.

How much should an artist get paid for each image? I'm talking about character designs, animations, and environment. All 2D.

How much should a musician get for the songs they make? Let's say I wanted an original sound track just for the game along with sound effects.

I'd like some feedback from artists and musicians. If a person were looking to manage a serious project intended to generate profits, what would the people making the art and sounds demand?

I'm thinking about doing something soon. Right now I'm saving up a fund and planning a budget for a game I've been developing on my own that I wish to take commercially as my first "official" game.

I'm not taking any applications or providing game information at the moment. I'm simply just looking into what kind of money artists and musicians want for their work.

Comments

Acid 12 years, 8 months ago

An even portion. Great graphics and great sound are worth just as much as great code.

BUT, if there isn't much to the graphics or only a small bit of sound, you should probably discuss it with your respective artists. Decent people won't be dicks about a price.

Cpsgames 12 years, 8 months ago

I came for the money. I saw no money. :(

Eva unit-01 12 years, 8 months ago

Yea, just discuss the payment with them individually. This is usually how it works when dealing with royalties and freelancers. You come to an agreement.

Now if this was professionally, you wouldn't be worrying about the payments, cause you wouldn't be the one handling it.

edit: I FUCKIN' LOVE MONEY

duckman 12 years, 8 months ago

One million dollars…

JuurianChi 12 years, 8 months ago

I am only in it for the money.

blackhole 12 years, 8 months ago

This depends greatly on the amount of effort each person put in and their own expectations. Some teams feel that everyone should split the profits evenly. Other teams prefer to prioritize things they feel is fair. The only thing that matters is that no one in the group is unknowingly getting shafted, and everyone is happy with the resulting split.

If you are commissioning things, these usually work as one-time payments. These prices depend entirely on the artist you hire. Note that licensing is different then composing an entire song. I charge $50 for a nonexclusive license for a single song. Naturally if someone wants to buy a bunch of them I'd probably give them a discount, but that price is chosen as the low-end of standard pricing. If someone were to have me compose music for their game I'd either charge a flat-fee or a per-hour wage. I personally would expect about $350 for each song made, so that's about $10 an hour (which is really cheap, considering normal market prices).

A lot of artists tend to do flat-fees for artwork, but I do not know what the default prices are and there are a lot of arguments going on about them. I've seen full color prints for around $250-300, but many people say it should be ten times as much. Professional digital artists seem to hover around $1000, currently. Ask an artist for better info.

For any small game you are usually better off assembling a team that wants to do it for the love, and then figure out a revenue split you all agree on.

Alert Games 12 years, 8 months ago

whatever they agree on. start out somewhat low, theyll disagree possibly and say higher then you go lower than that.

think about how much you anticipate on making, and divide it by the workload minus the amount of effort of planning involved with certain people.

Mordi 12 years, 8 months ago

Visual artists and musicians should get at least one thousand. Programming is easy, so they only really need maybe fifty bucks. Most programmers don't eat much anyway.

Eva unit-01 12 years, 8 months ago

Worms need food too D:

JuurianChi 12 years, 8 months ago

I agree with Mordi's post.

Because well, it's kinda true.

it's also very sad, because in the real world.

Everyone loses.

also, I love money!!!