Need some input on a possible map selling plan

[Indrah]

Hello, ladies and gents. Today I come to you in a slight panic after a very scary, scary, SCAAARY visit…to the bank.

So long story short my money is running out fast and I won’t be getting money from the commercial project we have on the works for months yet, and commissions are both time consuming (due to requirements and back and forth communication) and random.

So I was thinking of some way to make profit from my one skill, aka maps. The question is:

If I made map packs without any set requirements (just general dungeons and towns) in sets of 5 to 12 maps in RTP, would anyone be interested in buying them?

That mans:

-Full RTP

-No specific requests, tho I may take general suggestion

-Number of maps per area from 5 to 12 or similar (will usually be around 10 maps).

Price:

Not sure, but I would probably charge 5$ per single map. So if the area has 10 maps, that’d be 50$ for it.

Dealing:

1-I make the area, take some screenshots and upload them to show with a small summary of what’s in the area and its structure.

2-Someone shows interest in the map and contacts me.

3-They send me the payment via Paypal, and I send them the maps enclosed in a game project (VX Ace!).

Ownership:

Once sold, the maps are yours to do whatever the f*ck you want with them.

Destroy them, use them, edit them, change the tiles, expand them, I don’t care. The maps are yours then and even if you want to pass em around to a friend for free, it’s not my business anymore.

Likewise, I won’t take requests (for free) to edit the maps in any way. If you want a particular thing, go to my mapping commission workshop.

All I ask is that you put me in the credits if you use my maps in the game. More business, ya know.

And that would be the plan. Do you guys think anyone would be interested? I’d need a more or less frequent stream of sales (I can probably put out two or three dungeons a week easily enough)?

Any comments and suggestions welcome, thanks for your time.

If you want examples of my work you can see my comission workshop here.

(I apologize if this wasn’t the right place to create this topic, but since it’s just a question and not an actual service yet I didn’t want to put it under commissions).

 

[Chaneque]

It's a good idea, but I just wouldn't buy them because yeah I'm poor :/

Still, maybe it would be better if you changed the map price depending on size. Dunno. Just my thoughts.

 

[NPC]

I might no be able to buy full packs all that often for the same reason that you need money yourself, but if I like the maps, I would gladly buy them. My maps aren't all that good, so it would be pretty cool to get some pre-made maps to work with. 

 

[Andar]

It depends on the maps, and without seeing examples no one can tell whether or not 5$ would be too much or not.

And there two other problems with that idea:

1) because those maps aren't customized to the game, you can make only general maps - and because that the interest in them will be low, only from people who have more money than time to make their own maps.

2) you can't place events that are more than eye candy because any real event system would require you to specify which switches and variables are used - otherwise the buyer would have to change the existing variables. Same goes for treasure chests or shops - you can't include them because they require access to the database.

There are a good number of reasons why there aren't many map commission offers - perhaps you might fare better with map packs, that remains to be seen...

 

[Indrah]

@Andar: there already examples of my work in the linked comission topic, but sure I'll try to get some examples up tomorrow if I have the time.

Also when it comes to requests, I find a lot of people don't really have much of an idea of what they want. "A forest" a "magic ruin". Sometimes (of course not always) people are so not used to mapping or have little needs in the way of puzzles they just request an idea rather than a puzzle dungeon.

There's also the simple idea that they could jsut take the maps layout and appearance wise and add what they need, push in new maps where they need eventing puzzles or whatever. There's also the fact that maybe you just need a place for the characters to run around for a while before going to the next big puzzle dungeon.

And well, maps as a bought resource of course not something everyone is interested in, but knowing business so far I'm concerned more on frenquency and pricing than anythign else.

 

[mlogan]

I didn't vote, because I felt my answers didn't quite fit the choices.  My thoughts are:  Good idea, I MIGHT buy them if I had need, and I am thinking of a project I have in mind that I will keep you in consideration for.  As for prices, I think they sound fine.  The only adjustment I might make is do $5 for an individual map or $45 for a pack of 10 or even $6 for individual or $50 for 10, that way people feel like they are getting a bit of a deal "buying in bulk" so to speak.

 

[Indrah]

I left 5 per map because it does not take into account the SIZE of each map. To balance it out in each set some maps may be larger and some may be smaller.

 

[mlogan]

It was just a thought because sometimes people are more willing to buy if they think are getting a deal.

 

[Dalph]

A few questions Indrah:

1 - Can your maps be used for commercial projects?

2 - So 3 dungeons (with 10 maps each) would be a total of 150$?

I hate mapping so much, I'm not that bad at it but I find it boring as hell...anyway you're an excellent mapper, I will consider hiring you in future. I'm too busy now with a contest on another site.

 

[Indrah]

@Dalph:

1-The maps are yours, that means yes, use them for whatever you want.

2- Correct

 

[Ruby]

I would buy them. What most people aren't thinking about, is that you said we could do with them what we please, correct? That means, if we need to tweak the general idea of them, we could do so. Indrah is the type of mapper who maps not based on visual beauty, but necessity for game. If we want to add something, or don't think it's quite perfect, adding something small is easy rather than creating the whole map.

Long story short, you're a great mapper. I'd definitely buy from you. <33

 

[Pugh95Bear]

I think it would be a little better if you did it by Tileset type when you do individual maps. For example, someone is doing a FF style RPG and needs a huge world map. That would, of course, be the Field tileset, and the size would probably be between 150 or 250(width) and, say, 125 or 225 (height).


Field: $10-15


Exterior: $8-10


Interior & Dungeon: $6-8


These prices are *PER MAP* made with their respective tileset (since you are going basic RTP). You may also want to take size into consideration though, too.


If, additionally, you do a map-pack style, you could display and sell them as sets, but then give people the ability to mix and match what they want and have guidelines if doing so.


You're right that not a lot of people have real requests, but more of just ideas, so making this as a kind of "extension" to the basic preset maps that come in the system would be a great add.

 

[Indrah]

@Pugh:

I...I'm sorry, what? When I say RTP it obviously means ALL of the rtp (obviosuly when making interiors I won't be using world tiles...?), so it could be anything depending on what the area is (town/field/dungeon etc).

Either I'm being very thick because it's late of I'm lackign a lot of context, because I'm not quite understanding what you mean. Can you please rephrase it again?

As I had thought of it, I would balance complicated/simple and large/small maps by having mixes of each type per set to balance the pricing of a flat X per map. That way I would not have to go into detail when making a set and putting up the details for purchase, and making it simpler to consider (X maps * X price per map= final price, instead of havign to look up map types and so on).

(then again, I'm not entirely sure if this is what you meant?)

Also world maps in my experience are too strongly dependant on your actual game to be made at random, so I probably would not be making those at all.

tl;dr: it seems I'm thick today, please try explaining again? Sorry but I must be being extra dense OTL

 

[Andar]

I think he was talking about prices for single maps in different sizes (which would require individual pricing) where you were talking about packs of a dozen maps in different sizes purchased together, so that the price averages itself out.

 

[Celianna]

I've moved this thread to Commercial discussion. Please be sure to post your threads in the correct forum next time. Thank you.


Honestly, you'd garner far more interest if you offered parallax mapping than regular mapping.

 

[Indrah]

I'm afraid that's not really profitable time wise in my case :< It would take me far too long for it...

I've never really got much practice for parallax mapping. (And besides, for random, egenral idea maps I have no idea of what I would parallax).

 

[Pugh95Bear]

I think it would be a little better if you did it by Tileset type when you do individual maps. For example, someone is doing a FF style RPG and needs a huge world map. That would, of course, be the Field tileset, and the size would probably be between 150 or 250(width) and, say, 125 or 225 (height).
Field: $10-15


Exterior: $8-10


Interior & Dungeon: $6-8


These prices are *PER MAP* made with their respective tileset (since you are going basic RTP). You may also want to take size into consideration though, too.


If, additionally, you do a map-pack style, you could display and sell them as sets, but then give people the ability to mix and match what they want and have guidelines if doing so.


You're right that not a lot of people have real requests, but more of just ideas, so making this as a kind of "extension" to the basic preset maps that come in the system would be a great add.

Okay, so that I can reiterate lol.


Paragraph 1: I was just giving an example. For the most part, I think it can be disregarded.


Paragraphs 2&3: Like Andar said, I was talking about prices per map. When you think about it, you have a general idea of what Exteriors, Interiors, and Dungeons would look like, especially in regards to the sizes of the maps. So organizing prices by the tilesets used *shouldn't* be too hard. You obviously wouldn't use the Dungeon tileset onan Exterior size/style map. See where I'm getting at?

 

[Indrah]

That's fine and all but some people are already saying 5 per map is high: any higher and I don't think I'd be able to sell that many.

Besides, there is no real difference difficulty wise in Exterior/Dungeon per se, the difficulty comes from specific setups like towns (the hardest), places with eleveation and so on. I will probably balance those out with a bonus (we shall see).

I's not a bad idea or antyhing, but I don't think it would make things more fluid (specially on the price tag -_-). The whole point, for me, is to find a good place in time/effort/income. If the stuff I make doesnt sell (and considering my comission prices already stand at 7$ per 20*20 map there's no point just going higher) that will be bad. What I wanted to see is if low price/low time (rtp is fast for me) map sets would work.

Personally, I think a flatrate is more appealing because there's no thinking involved or compliaction: X maps = X price, balance them out by size/effort within the set, and if they have specially difficult stuff (town exteriors, a lot of elevation) apply a bonus.

tl;dr: What I mean with all my ranting is that I feel that by adding differentiated prices and complicating the process I would have less customers, which would make me lose money even with higher base prices.

But of course, I could be wrong too :X

 

[Pugh95Bear]

I see what you mean. That makes sense. I wish you the best of luck! heck, I may even purchase a map or two once I see some things

 

[Celianna]

I'm afraid that's not really profitable time wise in my case :< It would take me far too long for it...


I've never really got much practice for parallax mapping. (And besides, for random, egenral idea maps I have no idea of what I would parallax).

But then you could charge more. You should know better than anyone how much parallax maps are wanted here. People want unique looking maps, not maps they can make themselves.