When hiring a Graphics designer on commission what percentage is fair to pay?

ozboybrian

I've got a couple great Graphics designers working with me on a commission basis.

I really come to be un sure on how much I should pay but people keep telling me i'm TOO generous.

What's the going rate? What can I pay that is fair but not ripping them off.

steve86

well it really depends how many graphics they made for your game.. if you made most of the graphics and you just outsourced like a couple of sprites or a background.. maybe 20%.. in THAT case where they just helped you a tiny bit you probably should want to pay a fix price and ask them how many hours they worked on your project and pay them based on their hourly price.. Because if your games makes little to no money they wont be very happy.. and if your game makes like 5,000 dollars in a couple of months you wont be very happy. I strongly suggest plotting scenarios. ej: if game sales are > 'x' amount i'll pay you 'y' percent.. if sales reach 'x' amount I'm done paying you.

In the other hand if your designer is doing the ENTIRE graphics for the game and you have a games that require lots of artwork you could just split the income 50/50..

It really is up to you and how much of your game is being made by the designers.

Hope that helped.

Cheers.

Steve

ozboybrian

Oh true - I usually do 33% times 3.
33% for profits to me.
33% to Designer.
33% to cover expenses and go towards more stuff for next project.

That's the idea anyway.

rlehm

50% upfront 50% when they are done. I recently paid 100% upfront. He is doing a bang up job!!

kapser

I think it depens on the project complexity but this is fair if he is doing a great job. Making art is actually pretty long, and GameSalad makes coding pretty quick. For most games, the longuest part is making the art and levels.

Plus, he will be more involved into the game and making next projects if this is a fair split. If he's making simple vector graphics and a small amount of sprites, he is probably only gonna spend a few hours so you might want to lower % if he says it's too generous. But if he's making full HD pixelart, this might be the longuest task in making a game.

The game might actually only sell a few copies or be a big hit, and he's taking that risk with you so a fair split could help the complicity in your team.