A character creator is something that nobody has ever had to pay for before. AAA studios might get away with trying this if they can weather the huge backlash, but if you are an indie dev then nobody will even give your game a glance.
I can guarantee you that the sales that you would lose for trying to pull this kind of stunt will absolutely eclipse the amount of money you would make from people willing to pay the $1.
Phone games make you pay for character customization all the time, including buying individual elements of customization such as hair color, but those are phone games. I don't think it would pass on anything outside of that.
A lot of games have character creators because the game is about letting the player create a role and act it out. Other games don't have character creators because it's about portraying someone specific in a story. That's how you should decide if you have one or not.
If you have a game that can benefit from a character creator but you charge players to use it instead of one of the defaults you're going to get a lot of unhappy players, not a lot of money.
What's the rest of the context? Game design questions don't really exist in a vacuum. My larger point is that so many games have character creators now, I don't think people would pay for it, I think they'd play another game instead. But if you are trying to ask something specific you need to give all the other details. Right now this feels like a product marketing question by someone who doesn't really _get_ games, but I expect there might be more to it than that.
Thanks u/MeaningfulChoices. I'm learning unity and game design, and wanted to give gamers the option to change characters, more than just the default ones that I'm providing.
I guess i got good answers here.
In summary, correct me if I'm wrong, in games where character customization is allowed, gamers do not want to pay for the characters, even if the platform allows to tweak it to their prompts? Instead they will prefer using the default or the free character options provided in the game.
Of course there are many other factors that might change it - like how good the custom characters are, what is the storyline, etc. but, the above statement holds true by and large.
You seem to have a vision in which the custom character option is some kind of premium feature, but in reality, any game with custom character creation already has the customization tools made to allow the player the realization of their character to the best standard possible by the game's developers.
If you, as an indie developer, implement a paid character customization option/tool, it will, to the players, look like (at the very best case) very similar to those already being free by standard in any game with a possibility to customize a character.
In short: You are visualizing selling something others are giving for free. The customers won't like it.
I doubt you can actually provide a quality that someone would expect from a "truly custom" character that they have to **actively** pay for on top of buying a game.
If all you are providing is a standard set of features (eg. look at Elden Ring at available options, you can make anything from Shrek to streamers lookalikes) then this is already part of many games. Expensive one mind you (this editor has higher budget than a whole typical indie video game) but it's modular and serves millions of customers.
You need to do **better** than it for it to be a selling feature. We are talking full custom model, rigging, unique VFX etc. Essentially go into gacha territory (aka the place where people are paying not $1 for a character but some are more than willing to spend hundreds) and "make your own protagonist" potentially.
The caveat - this makes no sense financially. At all. A development cost for something like that is probably 200+ USD for a turnaround and 1000 USD for a model + rigging + texturing on the lower end of the spectrum. Then potentially extra 500 USD for voice acting and additional pile of money for animations/moveset. For a single customer - they will never agree to such a price tag (unless they are giga whales). You would need at least a month of time and several hundreds people interested. Otherwise at this point you are not making a game, you are making VTubers.
I really don't see what $1 design would bring to the table that anyone would be interested with. It's not enough money for ANY custom work. An artist draws you a sketch in 3-4 minutes, maybe. At $1 it means you are just using a preexisting character creator and in a fully automatic fashion change some sliders. Or in other words - this should be free and it should be part of the core game. Any actual per player customization starts at a 100-1000 USD range and that's a VERY hard sell (not impossible I suppose but you would need a very specific type of game).
>Instead they will prefer using the default or the free character options provided in the game.
The choices aren't "pay for a custom character or play with the default free character". The options are "make a character with the free custom character creator or play with the default character".
No.
First of all, nice try EA.
Second, $1 for a custom character means you're making it with AI, which means it's going to be garbage for the overwhelming majority of players.
Third, this is a gimmick that doesn't serve to make the game any better, rather only as a revenue stream for "nickel-and-diming".
Hard pass. Also, the set of answers you've allowed here is **very** disingenuous. "No, and I think it's a bad idea" is not presented at all.
I don't really understand what you're asking.
Are you asking if people would pay a dollar to be able to make what they want with extreme detail?
If they would pay a dollar to like own the idea of the character? Like a picrew kinda thing, but you can use the art anywhere.
Or pay for extra features to create a character in extreme detail where they couldn't otherwise?
Do you mean like similar to an AI prompt where players assemble a prompt and the game spits that out?
This guy has no history on his account aside from other posts asking this same question. Combined with the stupidity of this question, I believe they are either a troll or a very out of touch person
Unless its a free 2 play game and has an insane amount of detail that no game has ever had before no. Also I never pay for stuff in free games unless the dev/publisher is very good at deciding what/hoe much to charge for and what to give out for free. If you ask to pay for character customization ill never pay a dime in your game but I may watch ads at most.
Tldr ahahahaha NO!!
A hotly anticipated game Dragons Dogma 2 by world renowned Capcom initially made it hard to delete your character or start a new game, prompting (at least Steam users) to get very very angry at the idea that Capcom MAY have made that choice to limit you in creating more characters with the implication that they hoped users would have to pay again. They patched this quickly if I remember correctly due to the backlash.
If your game is a hotly anticipated major title with a solid core fan base and you have tons of good will to burn, you might be able to do this?
I think the strategy is to entice people with your game and THEN ask them to pay for something that is hopefully attractive enough for people to pay for. Plus, this is a gamedev community and certainly not your audience.
If I had my consumer hat on my first thought would be, "Eww, gross" after reading this. I don't want to just blindly doodoo on your efforts but this is not the best way to go about this. Best of luck.
Edit: Also, If you're looking for honest feedback, you need to rework/ditch the multiple choice options. Right now it reads like:
"Would you pay if I charged $20 for a hot dog?
-Yes
-No, but I like it.
-Yes, but only during playoff games.
-No, but if it was during playoffs I understand.
-I hate hot dogs."
You're just not going to get useful feedback with those constraints.
My biggest thought is that if I'm answering questions for you to base my character on then either you are creating the character by hand or feeding my answers in to a character generator. The first option is a terrible idea for you and the second, well, why not just include the generator in the game.
If you are talking about custom avatars/costumes on the characters then yes people pay for that in many games. So long as they don't get an advantage in game and its purely cosmetic you wouldn't get much kick back against that.
Hell tf no.
>Imagine a game feature where you can have your characters created based on your specific input and preferences.
This is just a character creator. Those are free.
Most games that feature character creation already provide it for free, whether it's single player or multiplayer.
What value would your system offer?
Or are you asking whether gamedevs are selling them short when they build comprehensive character customization systems and just give it away for free?
A character creator is something that nobody has ever had to pay for before. AAA studios might get away with trying this if they can weather the huge backlash, but if you are an indie dev then nobody will even give your game a glance. I can guarantee you that the sales that you would lose for trying to pull this kind of stunt will absolutely eclipse the amount of money you would make from people willing to pay the $1.
Phone games make you pay for character customization all the time, including buying individual elements of customization such as hair color, but those are phone games. I don't think it would pass on anything outside of that.
A lot of games have character creators because the game is about letting the player create a role and act it out. Other games don't have character creators because it's about portraying someone specific in a story. That's how you should decide if you have one or not. If you have a game that can benefit from a character creator but you charge players to use it instead of one of the defaults you're going to get a lot of unhappy players, not a lot of money.
Thanks u/MeaningfulChoices ! Do you think gamers will pay for it if I charge? Like paying to play a character created by them.
What's the rest of the context? Game design questions don't really exist in a vacuum. My larger point is that so many games have character creators now, I don't think people would pay for it, I think they'd play another game instead. But if you are trying to ask something specific you need to give all the other details. Right now this feels like a product marketing question by someone who doesn't really _get_ games, but I expect there might be more to it than that.
Thanks u/MeaningfulChoices. I'm learning unity and game design, and wanted to give gamers the option to change characters, more than just the default ones that I'm providing. I guess i got good answers here. In summary, correct me if I'm wrong, in games where character customization is allowed, gamers do not want to pay for the characters, even if the platform allows to tweak it to their prompts? Instead they will prefer using the default or the free character options provided in the game. Of course there are many other factors that might change it - like how good the custom characters are, what is the storyline, etc. but, the above statement holds true by and large.
You seem to have a vision in which the custom character option is some kind of premium feature, but in reality, any game with custom character creation already has the customization tools made to allow the player the realization of their character to the best standard possible by the game's developers. If you, as an indie developer, implement a paid character customization option/tool, it will, to the players, look like (at the very best case) very similar to those already being free by standard in any game with a possibility to customize a character. In short: You are visualizing selling something others are giving for free. The customers won't like it.
I doubt you can actually provide a quality that someone would expect from a "truly custom" character that they have to **actively** pay for on top of buying a game. If all you are providing is a standard set of features (eg. look at Elden Ring at available options, you can make anything from Shrek to streamers lookalikes) then this is already part of many games. Expensive one mind you (this editor has higher budget than a whole typical indie video game) but it's modular and serves millions of customers. You need to do **better** than it for it to be a selling feature. We are talking full custom model, rigging, unique VFX etc. Essentially go into gacha territory (aka the place where people are paying not $1 for a character but some are more than willing to spend hundreds) and "make your own protagonist" potentially. The caveat - this makes no sense financially. At all. A development cost for something like that is probably 200+ USD for a turnaround and 1000 USD for a model + rigging + texturing on the lower end of the spectrum. Then potentially extra 500 USD for voice acting and additional pile of money for animations/moveset. For a single customer - they will never agree to such a price tag (unless they are giga whales). You would need at least a month of time and several hundreds people interested. Otherwise at this point you are not making a game, you are making VTubers. I really don't see what $1 design would bring to the table that anyone would be interested with. It's not enough money for ANY custom work. An artist draws you a sketch in 3-4 minutes, maybe. At $1 it means you are just using a preexisting character creator and in a fully automatic fashion change some sliders. Or in other words - this should be free and it should be part of the core game. Any actual per player customization starts at a 100-1000 USD range and that's a VERY hard sell (not impossible I suppose but you would need a very specific type of game).
>Instead they will prefer using the default or the free character options provided in the game. The choices aren't "pay for a custom character or play with the default free character". The options are "make a character with the free custom character creator or play with the default character".
I ‘m surprised « fuck off » isn’t a possible answer.
No. First of all, nice try EA. Second, $1 for a custom character means you're making it with AI, which means it's going to be garbage for the overwhelming majority of players. Third, this is a gimmick that doesn't serve to make the game any better, rather only as a revenue stream for "nickel-and-diming". Hard pass. Also, the set of answers you've allowed here is **very** disingenuous. "No, and I think it's a bad idea" is not presented at all.
I don't really understand what you're asking. Are you asking if people would pay a dollar to be able to make what they want with extreme detail? If they would pay a dollar to like own the idea of the character? Like a picrew kinda thing, but you can use the art anywhere. Or pay for extra features to create a character in extreme detail where they couldn't otherwise? Do you mean like similar to an AI prompt where players assemble a prompt and the game spits that out?
This guy has no history on his account aside from other posts asking this same question. Combined with the stupidity of this question, I believe they are either a troll or a very out of touch person
Unless its a free 2 play game and has an insane amount of detail that no game has ever had before no. Also I never pay for stuff in free games unless the dev/publisher is very good at deciding what/hoe much to charge for and what to give out for free. If you ask to pay for character customization ill never pay a dime in your game but I may watch ads at most. Tldr ahahahaha NO!!
Nah no one will want to pay for that. Just have a character creator in the game.
I wouldn't pay for it, and I wouldn't play a game that does this either. This seems very scummy.
Before you start thinking about microtransacting everyt basic feature first create a game that worth playing.
A hotly anticipated game Dragons Dogma 2 by world renowned Capcom initially made it hard to delete your character or start a new game, prompting (at least Steam users) to get very very angry at the idea that Capcom MAY have made that choice to limit you in creating more characters with the implication that they hoped users would have to pay again. They patched this quickly if I remember correctly due to the backlash. If your game is a hotly anticipated major title with a solid core fan base and you have tons of good will to burn, you might be able to do this?
No. If it is $1 it should be baked into the price of the game. It would probably piss me off that a feature like that was pay walled.
I think the strategy is to entice people with your game and THEN ask them to pay for something that is hopefully attractive enough for people to pay for. Plus, this is a gamedev community and certainly not your audience. If I had my consumer hat on my first thought would be, "Eww, gross" after reading this. I don't want to just blindly doodoo on your efforts but this is not the best way to go about this. Best of luck. Edit: Also, If you're looking for honest feedback, you need to rework/ditch the multiple choice options. Right now it reads like: "Would you pay if I charged $20 for a hot dog? -Yes -No, but I like it. -Yes, but only during playoff games. -No, but if it was during playoffs I understand. -I hate hot dogs." You're just not going to get useful feedback with those constraints.
My biggest thought is that if I'm answering questions for you to base my character on then either you are creating the character by hand or feeding my answers in to a character generator. The first option is a terrible idea for you and the second, well, why not just include the generator in the game. If you are talking about custom avatars/costumes on the characters then yes people pay for that in many games. So long as they don't get an advantage in game and its purely cosmetic you wouldn't get much kick back against that.
Hell tf no. >Imagine a game feature where you can have your characters created based on your specific input and preferences. This is just a character creator. Those are free.
Most games that feature character creation already provide it for free, whether it's single player or multiplayer. What value would your system offer? Or are you asking whether gamedevs are selling them short when they build comprehensive character customization systems and just give it away for free?