[gameprogrammer] Creation and Sharing of Game Assets

Hello list,

I was thinking that there are a lot of (often hobbyist) game programers,
and unfortunately only a few game artwork providers: for example,
finding graphical content, like animated characters, is often difficult,
which is less the case for sounds and musics.

More precisely, most game programers cannot afford to hire freelance
graphic designers dedicated for their projects, companies selling game
assets do not provide too much relevant content, and usually artwork
kindly shared by hobbyist artists is not enough to make a full game.

So I was thinking that the game developers who would be interested
*could* join their efforts and finance the creation by freelancers of
the assets which would be lacking the most, gathered into a content
library. Each of the financing developer would end up with a
non-transferable non-exclusive unlimited license for that artwork.

There are some short-comings though: of course a common set of content
needs to be determined, and quality and homogeneity would have to be
ensured. As for me, it is absolutely not a problem to see in other games
the artwork I would have bought that way.

In terms of content, I would imagine for example that isometric (bitmaps
rendered from 3D) character animations for RPG in fantasy setting could
interest a lot of people here (at least it is my case!).

Finally, defining the overall most needed assets could already motivate
hobbyist artists and have them create a first part of the content (since
they would know for sure their artwork would be used, due to the number
of projects interested, and with a proper licensing), the remainder
being produced by freelancers.

What do you think about that hypothetical idea?

As a side note, there are rather beautiful assets lying in past games,
like Baldur's Gate and al. What a pity the (mainly hobbyist) community
cannot persuade game editors to let them use (at least partly) their
artwork for their projects (beyond mods), either for a fee or for free.

Thanks in advance for any feedback,

Olivier.


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