Asset Flippers

[Tdarcos]

A guy on Youtube reported a new form of shitting on customers who want to buy games.

He referred to them as "Asset Flippers." The guy will purchase a game framework for Unity from someone selling it for $50-100, then taking that framework - which is intended to be used to provide the base mechanics of a game, allowing the developer to skip over coding the minor parts and put more time into the actual game - packaging it as an actual game, with nothing added, and selling it on places like Steam Greenlight (or whatever replaced it after Steam discontinued it) for prices from $5 to $8.

This in effect is selling a demo that has no value for the price of a reasonable game.

The guy looked at some of the games that this slime had released and identified them as three unchanged or minimally changed Unity asset packs that sold for a few dollars each, and flipped them into three fake games that, after the minor expenses and Steam's cut of the sales price, made around $120,000, $65,000 and $16,000.

This slime gets a 6 figure return on a net "investment" pf less than $400. Something tells me I'm in the wrong line of work.

The term comes from people who buy houses, do some repair and paint, and resell the improved property at a profit. Only difference is house flippers do a hell of a lot more work.

Another nasty trick is to stitch together two of three of these asset flips into some incoherent mish-mash bastard hybrid of a "game." And that is presuming the game even works.

He pointed out that when you pay for a game, no matter how much, or how little, you should be entitled to three things: (1) That the game will run; (2) that it will not crash; and (3) that you receive reasonable value relative to the price paid, e.g. a game you paid $5 won't have the same level of graphics or length of game play as a $10 game since the publisher has more money with a somewhat more expensive game to spend it on resources.

These "flippers" often produce "games" that violate 1, 2, or all 3 of these.

[Tdarcos]

Here's one of his videos about a company doing this on a massive scale:

[youtube][/youtube]

"Bertiev has the massive cojones to charge $15 for this bag of offal from a diarretic camel."

[The Happiness Engine]

This slime gets a 6 figure return on a net "investment" pf less than $400. Something tells me I'm in the wrong line of work.

Don't buy garbage, pretty easy. Also when did collecting a welfare check become "work"?

[Flack]

This slime gets a 6 figure return on a net "investment" pf less than $400. Something tells me I'm in the wrong line of work.

To nit pick, you misspelled the word "of."

Another nasty trick is to stitch together two of three of these asset flips into some incoherent mish-mash bastard hybrid of a "game." And that is presuming the game even works.

To nit pick, you used the word "of" instead of "or." It should read "two or three," not "two of three."

[Tdarcos]

This slime gets a 6 figure return on a net "investment" pf less than $400. Something tells me I'm in the wrong line of work.

Don't buy garbage, pretty easy. Also when did collecting a welfare check become "work"?

And how do you determine from a fairly slick demo that the product is garbage? And your statement is exactly what people will do: not buy indie games. The scammers win.

Where did you get the idea that I receive a welfare check? I have never collected a welfare check in my life. I receive Social Security Disability Insurance payments due to my inability to work based on premiums which were deducted from my pay checks when I worked.

The statement "I'm in the wrong line of work," was a bit of hyperbole, when someone notices someone else making what appears to be a large amount of money for very little effort, that's often a sardonic response.

Again, I appreciate your diligence in catching my errors. Fuck you very much.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Again, I appreciate your diligence in catching my errors. Fuck you very much.

Take a time out for a week.

[Flack]

Don't buy garbage, pretty easy. Also when did collecting a welfare check become "work"?

Again, I appreciate your diligence in catching my errors. Fuck you very much.

I... wait. Do you realize the different names on the left hand side represent different people on the other side of the keyboard? Do you realize there's another side of the keyboard at all?

This explains so much.

[The Happiness Engine]

Flack: fair cop.

ICJ: If I shit on Paul he is allowed to tell me to fuck-off, even if it's part of his autistic fixation on one idea for a week or so.