Creative What do you think about map commissions?

[DerxwnaKapsyla]

I've posed this idea before in a few other places but never really gotten any feedback outside my own friend circle, so I feel like posting it to a bit of a larger community.

Basically, people take commissions for a lot of things; fan art, fanfiction, sometimes entire games get commissioned and paid for like that. Within the Pokemon fangame community, the concept of making custom assets such as new Pokemon and alternate graphics for UIs and tilesets isn't unheard of to be commissioned by someone. But what about maps? Maps are a big cornerstone of a lot of material in general, not even exclusive to fangames. You can use them to design a region for a tabletop campaign, you can use them for a video or sprite comic series, it doesn't need to be strictly for fangame development.

The reason I bring this up is, I love making maps. I fancy myself at least a moderately good map designer, and it's one of my biggest passions to just design levels and create a traversable world for people to explore. I also am in a position where making money is not something I can do easily, as a result of some complicated situations. I figure, why not try and make money doing something I enjoy?

So basically the question is, how would you all feel if someone decided to open up commissions for map design? Do you have any issues with the idea of it, stuff that would need to be addressed? How would you want it to be handled if so? What other thoughts would you have in regards to this?

 

[doof]

Well, personally, I don't see a problem. If someone is willing to pay you to do it, then why not do it? Personally, I make my own maps, and it's typically the only thing I'm good at, so I doubt I would hire someone to make maps.

I think your main issue would be that making maps isn't hard (at least, regarding the fan-game mapping). It doesn't take a lot of effort to make a map - and then ask for feedback here or elsewhere, and then build off of that. And that can be all done for free.

Also, just so you know, Relic Castle doesn't usually allow talking about offering/requesting payment on the site, if I remember correctly, so you might need to find another place to start looking for such things.

 

[Tomix9tomix]

I don't think anyone would think worse of you for accepting money for making maps. But I'm not sure how many people are looking for that sort of thing. But I don't think it should be frowned upon or anything, it isn't like you are forcing people to buy maps, it is their choice how they spend their money. So while I wouldn't pay for a map, I see no problem with it.

 

[DerxwnaKapsyla]

Also, just so you know, Relic Castle doesn't usually allow talking about offering/requesting payment on the site, if I remember correctly, so you might need to find another place to start looking for such things.

I actually forgot about that part, but I don't know if I'd go about hosting it on here regardless. Though that does bring up the issue of promoting it elsewhere, because anywhere else would be far too niche as a result. I'm still just trying to work out the logistics of this, and nothing is concrete! I intend to operate within the rules of the site, and if it isn't allowed here then here it will not go!

 

[doof]

I actually forgot about that part, but I don't know if I'd go about hosting it on here regardless. Though that does bring up the issue of promoting it elsewhere, because anywhere else would be far too niche as a result. I'm still just trying to work out the logistics of this, and nothing is concrete! I intend to operate within the rules of the site, and if it isn't allowed here then here it will not go!

I don't think that asking for people's opinions on the subject would really go against the rules. I just wanted to make sure you knew before you did something wrong.

Anyway, you could possibly try DeviantArt. I don't know how that site works, but it could potentially be a place to do some maps for commissions. And there are a lot of fan-game devs on PokeCommunity that could use some mapping help - thought they'd probably want it for free - if it's not against their rules, it might yield some results somehow.

 

[DerxwnaKapsyla]

DeivantArt could be a good idea, I'd have to look into it some... I don't necessarily think PokeCom would be a good idea, but it couldn't hurt to look into that as an option as well.

 

[Luka S.J.]

It's basically equivalent exchange. You're offering one form of goods/services for another. As long as it's a consensual agreement in which both the parties entered, there isn't much to be said there. Of course, people may have butting ideologies when it comes to that; then again ... I don't know if there is an ethical issue here either.

I'm just worried about your potential target market. See, if your goal was to perhaps find some monetary success within the Fan-game community ... I really wouldn't know how much confidence you can have in that market. Keep in mind that most people do this kind of stuff as a hobby and are either broke on the side, or aren't of the age where they have free manipulation of their own monetary capital. So I honestly don't see much revenue to be had in this particular sector of game dev (I may be wrong though). Even though you can see a lot of people trying to recruit mappers, I doubt most of them are willing to cash up on that premise. It's a tricky one. If you're really serious about the cash making aspect, you'd have to smartly investigate the market first. You may find more success in areas outside of the Fan-game community.

 

[Deo]

As someone else mentioned earlier, advertising such services here on Relic Castle is prohibited. Commissions, donations, patreons, etc aren't allowed, even links to it in signatures.

 

[DerxwnaKapsyla]

@Luka S.J. It wouldn't be geared specifically towards the fangame community, but I'd see it being a large factor of it. Initially, I was thinking about just making the maps and then distributing renders of them for the person to do what they want. You are right that I would definitely have to do more research, and I don't plan to just do something like this without careful though and planning.

@Deo Not to worry then! If I ever do decide to open up commissions, I won't be posting it here!

 

[Djaco75]

Honestly, I don't see a problem with creating maps if you really want to make a game like that. You get your map and the person gets paid. Simple. There is one limitation I can think of though. When asking someone else to do a map for you, it might not be tailor-made to fit what you want it to be. After the commission, you might have to change a few tiles or most of the map, which could end up being a waste of money. I've never asked anyone to make a map for me, so I don't really know what the standard is, but they're just my thoughts.