Are programmers more generous than artists?

#41 @Weston - well said Mate :)

#42

Quote:The real question should be: why do programmers get paid more than artists?

The reason is one of economics... programmers in the regular computer industry get paid high salaries. If the game industry weren't somewhat competitive then they wouldn't be able to get developers because they'd just defect to the mainstream IT industry (though most IT guys that are interested in the game industry would be willing to take some paycut, they can only afford to take so much).

#43 @Cliff

Yeah, that's pretty obvious. I was just trying to point to the unfairness and seeming devaluing of art in the game industry. Considering how important good art is, you'd think the artists would get a fair split.

#44 Fair enough.

I thought artists LIKED starving? (sorry, couldn't resist).

I'm beginning to sense, though, that my "Rhetorical Question Alarm" failed to go off. Sorry for stating the obvious.

#45 Weston,

Programmers get paid more than artists? That completely depends on the art and the programming work.

#46 Sure an artist with 6 yrs experience makes more than a programmer with 1 yr experience, but on average, according to Game Developer 6th Annual Salary Survey:

<3 yrs exp
Programming:
$57k
Art and Animation:
$45k

>6 yrs exp.
Programming:
$88k
Art and Animation:
$71k

Should it be that way? I dunno, I say pay everyone $100k.

#47 You know, it's probably got a lot more to do with market forces than anything else.

#48 I am generous with code because writing a resource can be a nice break from whatever I am working on at the time. I don't really know why artists don't share as much work because I'm definitely not an artist. That's just why I make programming resources.

#49 @James Ford

But you forget... artist's are a dime a dozen. You can go to school to be an artist. You want to learn to make games... you are on your own. The pay is very well deserved in my opinion. actually, i agree with you, everyone deserves higher pay. except the middle management who deserve to be bitch slapped for being middle management in the first place.

#50 Artists tend to have longer hair than programmers.

#51 Thats because Artists cant afford to get their hair cut :)

#52 Nor do we want to ;)

#53 Pesonally, I would pay top dollar for the _best_ in any field, as I feel it's money better spent than on 2 or 3 mediocre practitioners of their art.

That being said, I have long hair and am neither a programmer nor an artist, but one of those doomed to never be any one thing. Could it be the hair is irrelevant?

#54 I've had a "Medium-Taper" haircut since '95. As far as the art goes, I believe the first thing people look at is the screenshots of a game (ie. the artwork).

-Keith

#55 Yeah, programmers are more generous than us, artists. Or whatever.
Statistically, they are also more likely to go to heaven than us and are better husbands/wives. And they can hack into Pentagon which is always a bonus.
We got the Hair, though.

#56 @Nauris Krauze

Artists have 'the hair'?? I defy any of you to show me cooler hair than...


ROFL!!!

Ok. You win.

#57 I am sorry that I started this thread and havent had a chance to respond. All interesting comments but how much money one makes has nothing to do with their generosity. In fact I believe that poor people are usually more generous than rich people. You think that because a programmer makes more money than an artist he wouldnt want to make an extra buck by selling his code?

I actually started this thread as an experiment. Notice that I started this thread www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=61339 30 minutes earlier and I got 0 responses. There isnt a single soul in this community that is willing to donate an animation for me to play with and hopefully give back my resulting code?

#58 Duh...just become no one responded doesn't mean that no one is willing to do that.

More importantly, however, you sound kinda like you're owed this thing. That won't help!

Try begging.

#59 Personally I think the main thing is that art is so style specific tied to the game that most art resources given away tend to be essentially of little value to their intended users. And things like Turbosquid don't really help either, since you have hundreds of different models all with different styles, which probably don't meet the desired style of the game. For instance, I've seen LowPolyCoop before, and checked it out, but nearly 100% of the stuff there is inapplicable to my own game simply because of setting, if not style.

Also, art is stupid hard. Like, alot.

So in the spirit of comparing apples to apples, giving away a custom model fully rigged and textured with all the necessary maps etc. is probably more like having someone write and give away a complete app for you than giving away a resource. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a programmer that would write up a whole GUI app (of the boring, soul crushing variety) for free. Especially on a deadline (unless that's in programmer days, which means "never" x2).

@Ben M: I've seen the dragon statue in Oblivion :) I think I recall looking at it for several minutes in fact, admiring. If I remember correctly, my first thought was "damn, I wish I could fight that" then "if this were D&D I could cast stone to flesh...."

#60 You guys are silly. The answer is simply that Garagegames.com isn't geared for artists.
Gamebeavers and Digitalboneyard both attempted to have free repositories of art and apparently never generated much interest.

Plus, we don't get to be at our job and work on free projects instead of our work. ;)