This whole notion of people getting paid more is nice but that really isn't what that author was ranting about. They just want more money for themselves. There was no mention of how markets adjust for local cost of living or the inevitable migration towards an integrated world economy. It was just whining.

What artists used to get paid was because those developing markets were completely excluded from consideration. They didn't make any money at all in the developing countries. Now they do and that means they are gaining access to money they never had. It also means values and payscales are adjusting to the reality of artists in those countries having access and the true value of a service balanced against the whole world market.

There's only so much stuff to go around and the 1st world consumes vastly more than it produces. It also has a vast disparit amount of the wealth per capita. This is an example of that wealth being redistributed. It really lays bare it isn't about 'I just want those poor people to make more', it's actually about 'I don't want to share work with people who will charge less'.

This whole notion of people getting paid more is nice but that really isn't what that author was ranting about. They just want more money for themselves. There was no mention of how markets adjust for local cost of living or the inevitable migration towards an integrated world economy. It was just whining.

I don't think we are reading the same article. He broke down the time invested in an average piece and then a per-hour breakdown of what that amounted to.

Saying that his expertise is worth more than $3.50-$7 an hour doesn't sound like whining.

This whole notion of people getting paid more is nice but that really isn't what that author was ranting about. They just want more money for themselves. There was no mention of how markets adjust for local cost of living or the inevitable migration towards an integrated world economy. It was just whining.

I don't think we are reading the same article. He broke down the time invested in an average piece and then a per-hour breakdown of what that amounted to.

Saying that his expertise is worth more than $3.50-$7 an hour doesn't sound like whining.

That's just it, in a world economy using local cost of living, his skillset isn't worth that anymore.

If they're making more than $5-10 dollars per book profit, I'd be shocked.

The bigger bulk you print the cheaper it becomes and if printed in say places like china et.. even cheaper. Take the I-phone, it only costs a few dollars to actually make and sells for hundreds of dollars. FF Makes good money of their numerous product lines and they showed that in their one announcement(which I have no clue where the video is. The one from the big convention.)

They pay artists so little for the simple fact that they can, other companies like AEG, white wolf, etc all pay similar rates..

the problem is good paying companies like Wizards, and cool or not mini don't hire as many artists and getting an in is all about who you know..

FF is a nice foot in the door if you can get some work from them but long run it really hurts.

so all that game designer time is worth nothing to you? the book may only take a couple bucks to print in the volume they print them at. but all those game designer and freelancer hours have to be paid for too.

Saying that his expertise is worth more than $3.50-$7 an hour doesn't sound like whining.

It may not be whining, but it's also not (objectively) true.

According to the people who would be paying for him to invest that time (ie. the people who matter), his time is worth exactly $100 dollars, regardless of how long it takes him to produce the piece. Using the time argument leaves an artist open to the very reasonable counterpoint of, "So you feel you should be paid more if you work slowly?"

Of course, there are two sides to any transaction, and he's certainly entitled to exercise his right to reject the offer (which it appears he has), and all that means is that his idea of what his time was worth was higher than the prospective buyer of the efforts of that time. The concept of value is by its very nature, highly situational. Big-picture, though, when the situation expands to include all such potential transactions, it would appear (based on the fact that FFG continues to put art in their books) that the blog author is the one with the less-accurate estimation of the worth of his time and talent within the greater context of the community.

It's a bitter pill, and hard to convey without sounding rude, but maybe the blogger just isn't good enough/fast enough/famous enough to command more than $100/ea from FFG...and that's basically the beginning and end of that issue. The rest is just us sitting around discussing the implications.

If they're making more than $5-10 dollars per book profit, I'd be shocked.

The bigger bulk you print the cheaper it becomes and if printed in say places like china et.. even cheaper. Take the I-phone, it only costs a few dollars to actually make and sells for hundreds of dollars. FF Makes good money of their numerous product lines and they showed that in their one announcement(which I have no clue where the video is. The one from the big convention.)

Whilst not necessarily disagreeing with your point, the iPhone example you post is flawed. Manufacturing and materials costs are only part of it. There is an immense amount of R&D cost that has to be recouped from the initial investment as well. So it's not simply sale price minus manufacturing cost (and distribution and advertising to make people think they need it ).

This, There is a lot more to the cost than just the manufacturing cost. And your attempt to deflect that is the same as the suggestion that paying an artist $100 is unfair.

Production costs include, but are not limited to,

All the time spent by All staff doing:

Brainstorming for ideas,

Writing up the drafts,

re-wrting,

In house playtesting of the product,

Reviewing feedback of in house and out sourced playtesting,

Meetings to go over suggested changes from playtesting,

Rewrting based on feed back from playtesting,

Production Layout,

Meetings to go over Layout draft,

Reviewing and selecting art for Layout,

Including art in laying

Time spent finding and dealing with Printing company.

Reviewing production samples for approval. (this could go several rounds)

SHIPPING COST from the printer.

Cost of the Buildingand utilities you have used to do all your production in, and to warehouse your stock.

Cost of Distributing the product out to Buyers and distributors.

Cost of time dealing with claims and returns.

Cost of oversupply that doesn't sell and gets sold off at a discount (This publishers, in the RPG industry, try to avoid at all cost, They would rather underestimate their sales a little and need to order a second printing, having sold out, then have extra books they can't unload at original value and have to discount to get rid of.

Also, Even though we are talking a $60 book, In the majority of sales, The Publishing company does not get the full $60.

Likely they get about half that, Which is what all their costs and over head come out of. So they have to not only cover their costs (Which includes everyone's times doing all of the above mentioned) But also, Hopefully make a Little bit more that will keep the company going until the next product is completed and shipped out for sale.

So yes... From experience,... $5-10 dollars "Profit" from a Published book is actual Doing really well. That is likely what WOTC/Hasbro is getting from from their Core books.

More likely the actually Net profit per book is in the $2-$5 range.

Yes, there are a few that order directly from the publisher, and then the publisher gets a little more as they sell the book at full price/MSRP, but those purchases are minimal, and their costs [er book actually goes up, as it is Cheaper labor wise to be shipping off cases of books, than time spent packaging and shipping out individual books.

But then this is part of why a lot of small press RPG companies also are going to a direct Pre-order opportunity for their fan base, They get a better read on demand, and they get more profit from each book pre-sold.

so all that game designer time is worth nothing to you? the book may only take a couple bucks to print in the volume they print them at. but all those game designer and freelancer hours have to be paid for too.

Some people don`t seem to realize that concept artists and illustrators are involved in and are essential to every movie, tv series and game being made.

When someone asks if anyone should be able to live from art(the craft, not so called "high art"), well I guess that depends on if people want these things to be made or not.

Edit: Not to mention illustrated books and comics.

so all that game designer time is worth nothing to you? the book may only take a couple bucks to print in the volume they print them at. but all those game designer and freelancer hours have to be paid for too.

Some people don`t seem to realize that concept artists and illustrators are involved in and are essential to every movie, tv series and game being made.

When someone asks if anyone should be able to live from art(the craft, not "high art"), well I guess that depends on if people want these things to be made or not.

The topic here is about freelancing, Movies and Tv shows, typically, Do not use freelancers for such work. They have a production staff artist that typically does this.

As I mentioned, My brother is an Artist, He works for a company that does animation and story books and so forth. My brother Often does concept art for the company. That is part of his job that he is paid a fair wage for. Not freelance work done for a small press company.

That being said, He has Also submitted art work to companies looking for random piece work of certain subjects, As a freelancer. He isn't being commissioned to do specific work, jsut companies have put out general "requests", or you might say they publicly advertised, for piece meal art work of certain types. They pay a set price per peice they accept. And just because you submit some work doesn't mean it will be accepted. He sumbits "Lots" of art work he has done in his free time. Some get accepted and some don't but this is extra for him as it was stuff he wasn't getting paid for in the first place.

Along side his work are Thousands, if not Hundreds of thousands of submissions they have to filter through and choose from. Competition and supply are huge in todays freelance market.

Now he isn't going to just give them the art for nothing.... he does expect compensation, But he submits to these companies Knowing what they are offering per piece.

He has, at times, actually gotten Commission jobs, that pay much better, from the "exposure" of his work being sent into these companies. Not unpaid exposure, He doesn't do that. But he could never make a living off of selling the random stuff. Fact is, he discovered that the time that would be involved trying to make a living off of Freelance commissions, would never be stable nore good for supporting a family. (unless he suddenly became famous) So he doesn't rely on it, He has a REAL job doing art.

He once said, the only way he could Live off his freelance commission work and have the time to actually put into trying to Get Freelance commission work, would be if he was single, r his wife worked and made what he makes as a Production artist for a Web based Company.

When someone asks if anyone should be able to live from art(the craft, not so called "high art"), well I guess that depends on if people want these things to be made or not.

That's a tired argument (and a false dichotomy) that gets paraded out any time a discussion like this takes place.

It should be obvious from the very situation that spawned the discussion that this isn't a realistic scenario: the very reason that prices for art freelancers as so low is specifically because there are so many unpaid, talented freelancers out there doing the same thing for free, just for the fun and satisfaction of it.

As I've said many, many times here, it's a simple question of "Is freelance art a pursuit that one should reasonably expect to be able to live off of?" and the simple answer is, "No."

I tie flies for fishing, and I'm not bragging when I say that I tie very well. That said, I'm not about to quit my day job to try and make a living doing production tying. Very similar to our current discussion, filling orders for a shop, the pay sucks, and the vast majority of that mass production fly tying is outsourced to the Chinese, who are willing to do it for what the major wholesalers are paying. I do occasionally take small custom orders ("commissions?") from friends and friends-of-friends, but it's on a small-batch, selective basis. Even then, I'm generally charging enough to cover my costs in materials, plus a fairly arbitrary profit margin (usually because they're friends, I keep it pretty close to what they could expect from a retail source, with the added benefit of my greater skill, materials, and attention to detail). Have I invested a lot of time into developing my talent into what it is that goes into those flies? Absolutely. Is it a skill that not everyone can do? Sure.

Is it a highly specialize skill, aimed at a niche market, in which there are lots of similarly talented freelancers, and a huge overseas labor force (sound familiar?) that make any expectation of being able to make a comfortable living at it utterly ridiculous wishful thinking?

Yep. And you don't see me griping about what wholesalers "should" be willing to pay for my work.

Some people don`t seem to realize that concept artists and illustrators are involved in and are essential to every movie, tv series and game being made.

When someone asks if anyone should be able to live from art(the craft, not so called "high art"), well I guess that depends on if people want these things to be made or not.

Well, that's the point: in this case, the simple truth is that not enough people want those things to be made, or if they do, the price they are willing to spend is low...somewhere above zero, but practically unquantifiable.

In all honestly, I'd buy the books without any art because a) I want the rules to play the game; b) I have a decent imagination; and c) there is a lot of relevant free art out there to pick from. If there was no art, I'd probably pay the same price for that as I do for the current books. That's not to say I don't appreciate the art or it has no value. If I had a choice between books with art, and books without, I'd probably pay more for a book with the art...so long as it's not another Wookiee tossing up another cantina (hi, WEG)... But I really don't know how much more I'd pay. The designers and rule writers deserve their cut, and their contribution is critical to the product's success in a way that the art is not. The fluff writers are somewhere in between...not essential but providing important context for the rule decisions.

Unfortunately, art gets the short stick in this context. We all love the good stuff when we see it, but it doesn't necessarily make us reach deeper into our wallets. There's no real way around that.

It's also worth pointing out the author complaining about $26,000 a year in the US is also relative. That's slave pay in Brooklyn NY. In Huntsville AL, maybe not so much. If you tried to impose Brooklyn payscales on Alabama the only thing you'd do is cause mass layoffs in Alabama.

Payscales are like water that will seek it's own level. The more the developing world integrates over time, those people making $100 will garner a lot, if not all the work, but once they do, they aren't going to settle for just $100, and at that point pay rises. All of this is just occurring in some industries on a global scale and it takes longer.

You see some American companies actually wanting to move manufacturing back on shore for some of that very reason, but that's durable goods, and brings shipping into the mix, not an issue with this since art is a left click from delivery. In the end though it's about letting markets sort themselves out. Price and pay manipulation by governments doesn't have a great track record.

Former professional musician here, and let me tell you, selling a song for 99 cents is a considerable slap in the face, considering how much time goes into creating, refining, recording, polishing, mastering and distribution. And consider now what percentage of that buck goes to the musician - even the best deals only net 40 cents on the dollar if you're not running your own label. Now divide that 40 cents amongst the musicians to calculate the hourly rate. Suddenly $100 for a picture doesn't sound so harsh to me.

I don't mean to blame anyone for anything, it's just the way the industry went and continues to go. You adapt or you starve.

Former professional musician here, and let me tell you, selling a song for 99 cents is a considerable slap in the face, considering how much time goes into creating, refining, recording, polishing, mastering and distribution. And consider now what percentage of that buck goes to the musician - even the best deals only net 40 cents on the dollar if you're not running your own label. Now divide that 40 cents amongst the musicians to calculate the hourly rate. Suddenly $100 for a picture doesn't sound so harsh to me.

I don't mean to blame anyone for anything, it's just the way the industry went and continues to go. You adapt or you starve.

I think your comparing a different situation there.

If your talking about .99 cents per "track" sold on sites like Itunes and so forth... That would be more along the lines of an artist selling a "print" of an art work, where they are going (or are hoping and expecting to) to sell multiple copies of the same piece. Not selling the piece to a Publisher/producer for .99 cents.

An artist might be doing good if he sells 20-50 copies of the same print, looking to get $5 to $20 per print (basing off the prices I see at conventions for up to 8x10 prints, a Popula artist might be asking $25 to $100 a print) so if they sell 20 at $10 they have $200 gross profit.

In the case of a Song sold on off a Website... at .99 cents a Download, they might be hoping to sell (not saying this is a known quantity, or even realistic, I have no idea here) several hundred, or even several thousand downloads.

That venue is more comparable.

If a musician SOLD (that is gave away the rights to a producing company) a song for a gross profit of .40 cents... I would say they only have themselves to blame.

Former professional musician here, and let me tell you, selling a song for 99 cents is a considerable slap in the face, considering how much time goes into creating, refining, recording, polishing, mastering and distribution. And consider now what percentage of that buck goes to the musician - even the best deals only net 40 cents on the dollar if you're not running your own label. Now divide that 40 cents amongst the musicians to calculate the hourly rate. Suddenly $100 for a picture doesn't sound so harsh to me.

I don't mean to blame anyone for anything, it's just the way the industry went and continues to go. You adapt or you starve.

I think your comparing a different situation there.

In some regards, yes, but in another regard: it's an artist making art, and that has changed in our lifetimes. We must come to grips with it, because the industry's not going to change back.

I'll spare everyone the gory ins-and-outs of how the music business used to be versus how it is now. You have the objective right, though.

The Clone Wars sparked off when Nute Gunray received Naboo wages for his Neimoidian art. Gotcha.

When someone asks if anyone should be able to live from art(the craft, not so called "high art"), well I guess that depends on if people want these things to be made or not.

So what is your solution? Force companies to pay certain rates for art? What happens when the prices of final products rise and customers aren't willing to pay those rates? Will you then subsidize the products so they sell? What happens when the government needs more money to pay for those subsidies? Will you raise taxes? So everyone is forced to pay for what a small group of people want to buy so the artists make more money. What about other people who aren't paid a "fair wage", will you subsidize those industries so they can afford to pay their fast food workers whatever your fair wage is?

So taking this to Star Wars, the Empire plays the game you are talking about. Subsidizing certain industries they find beneficial to the Empire while penalizing others with punitive taxes so they have the credits to pay for the subsidies. The end result of this is a mess of often conflicting regulations making the rim systems suffer with shortages of core world technology and consumer goods. It's not that there aren't enough of the goods to go around, there may be warehouses full of speeders, medicines and synth-food products that the rim worlds would love to have but the dizzying list of regulations, shipping tariffs and the like make it impractical to move the products. Thus come in the heroes, the smugglers. Those brave sapients who see the Empires regulations as an opportunity to make money. Buying up cargoes of innocuous products in core systems then skipping past all the customs inspectors and export tariffs to deliver them to desperate colonists on the rim who don't care what starship the speeder, blaster or new breed of nerfs fell off of. Because of this the GM can make anything into a cargo for their players to move for profit. Shifting regulations can make a cargo seem like the big haul but by the time they get it to the destination the Empire has lifted the ban on the new breed of nerfs for exportation to rim worlds and that cargo is no longer all that profitable. So sad...

Life is inherently unfair. Attempts to make it fair are destined to make things worse.

What? That's just self-defeating. "Attempts to make it fair" are why most of us don't live as peasants anymore, why, despite pushback, most of us have worker safety laws, hours limits, vacation time, minimum wages, etc. Basically, we took some power from the plutocrats (and plenty died doing it) and spread it around...the irony, which appears to be lost on the plutocrats, is we made it better for them too.

Life is not fair, agreed. I'll also agree that becoming an artist is a choice that puts you in a different labour category than most. Personally I would be happy to see a greater portion of my tax dollars be spent on "the arts", whether that supporting the local symphonies or local artists. But for wages on commercial products it would simply have to be whatever the market would bear. The process of making art is too difficult to quantify to set a "minimum wage" for it because the hours it takes for a piece would vary wildly.

But, overall, attempts to make life more fair are a moral imperative IMHO. We might not always get it right, because we're human and it's a work in progress, but we have to try.

No matter what you do in the end the wealthy and powerful will be given special privileges and not face the same consequences as the rest of us. It's been that way since the dawn of time. Sure the rising tide lifts all boats and today we are better off than 2000 years ago. But when is the last time you heard of the government bailing out some guys corner coffee shop after he ran up his debts to some crazy level? We clearly live in two different worlds and that wont change no matter what.

Now, to tie this back to Star Wars clearly the dichotomy between haves and have nots is shown in the rim worlds. Powerful crime lords do what they want while the average colonist must worry about the Empire taxing them into poverty. It's not much better in the core worlds where the corporations get special privileges while the citizens must worry about the forces of the Empire tromping on them for the slightest of offenses. Those who accept the inherent unfairness of life and find a way to slide around the rules and accept the risk of being caught are the heroes of the story.

Life is inherently unfair. Attempts to make it fair are destined to make things worse.

Right.. Why did we ever end slavery, give women the right to vote and all that nonsense? It only made things worse...

Again I am not saying a rising tide doesn't lift all boats and making the peasants more equal to each other wasn't a positive thing. What I am saying is there will always be a division between the haves and have nots that cannot be fixed and you will never develop a society that can eliminate all unfairness. Marx and Lenin (Karl and Vladimir, not Groucho and John) tried to create a society without divisions where everyone was treated fairly. That didn't work out so well.

Again, back to Star Wars. Anakin Skywalker was upset at the unfairness of life and how the Republic was incapable of making things fair. His desire to make things fair resulted in his turning to the dark side. He was willing to give the Emperor power over everyone in the galaxy in order to achieve that fairness. In the end all he did was make things worse, the divisions between the haves and have nots grew under the Emperors regime. The only way to seek fairness is to colonize a new world. Then you will be away from all those wealthy and powerful folks. However you may not be equal to the various carnivorous beasts that see you and your little colony as a new source of food... Better hope that the Empire doesn't put an embargo on ammunition for your blaster because the only thing making you equal to that nasty variant of rancor is that kilo or two on your hip.

Most companies pay artists for their work, all serious ones do to my knowledge and experience, and they pay well too if they are buying the commercial rights., so I don`t know why this discussion has gotten so out of hand and people claiming the market is so and so now, so artists in western countries don`t get paid at all. I once got $577 to design a small snowboard-sticker ,for example, and they were really happy with that price. From my experience art actually pays well(when you can get the work, that is the hard part when you`re freelancing).

Yes, there is a big attitude problem from some(many?) companies and customers, but this also feels like it is slowly getting better too, since artists are speaking up now.

Of course, some companies and niche markets can`t pay as much, but it is clear to see from the standards and quality of the art that companies like WOTC and FFG spend money on their art. I mean, look at that art! It did not come for free. Maybe they offered a bad or inexperienced artist a $100 for a full painting, I don`t know

Have a nice weekend, guys!

If it's true that artists who are producing the interior artwork for FFG's Star Wars RPGs are doing these pieces of work for $100 then I'm going to commission a tonne of work.

To begin with, I want a giant rendition of this with Obi Wan Palpatine in his place.

This is a very odd thread to me.

I know my company is looking at a 10% return of equity? Why? Because of the cost of capital. If you don't make that ROE, you should get out of the business.

If you believe this random person on the internet, and this really offends you..... then stop supporting FFG. It's that simple. You've made your point with this post, but FFG is a business. And not a big one.

This is a very odd thread to me.

I know my company is looking at a 10% return of equity? Why? Because of the cost of capital. If you don't make that ROE, you should get out of the business.

If you believe this random person on the internet, and this really offends you..... then stop supporting FFG. It's that simple. You've made your point with this post, but FFG is a business. And not a big one.

My point was that I didn`t believe online gossip about FFG paying their artists next to nothing, you mean?

Of course I support talented artists` right to get paid for hard work. But looking at the FFG products I know FFG is spending good money on talented artists, if not, the books would look like crap. Also, they seem to be spending it smart and distributing the great art over several products.

I don't think anyone here is suggesting that in western markets Artists should be willing to give their art away for nothing, What Is being suggested is that the Majority of Artist, Due to the over saturation of available artists, shouldn't go into it expecting to make a survivable living off of freelancing.

I don't think anyone here is suggesting that in western markets Artists should be willing to give their art away for nothing, What Is being suggested is that the Majority of Artist, Due to the over saturation of available artists, shouldn't go into it expecting to make a survivable living off of freelancing.

Or they need to learn to work fast. as $100 die 5 hours of work is an awesome wage. and $100 for 20 hours is not. FFG has no control over how fast you turn around your assignment.

I don't think anyone here is suggesting that in western markets Artists should be willing to give their art away for nothing, What Is being suggested is that the Majority of Artist, Due to the over saturation of available artists, shouldn't go into it expecting to make a survivable living off of freelancing.

Or they need to learn to work fast. as $100 die 5 hours of work is an awesome wage. and $100 for 20 hours is not. FFG has no control over how fast you turn around your assignment.

Both of those depend on locality and the potential earnings of other fields in which the artist could seek employment. Where I live, doing what I do now, $100 for 5 hours work is not an awesome wage. Fifteen years and two degrees ago, it would have been great.

This isn't just about global economy. The digital age alone was the initial nails in the coffin. The speed and volume work could be cranked increased. The entry point for what would be considered basic skills and to be to able produce really good work was drastically lowered by computers. That increased numbers of artists and speed of production. Same kind of death rattle that turned cities like Detroit and the auto industry into economic bomb craters.

This isn't just about global economy. The digital age alone was the initial nails in the coffin. The speed and volume work could be cranked increased. The entry point for what would be considered basic skills and to be to able produce really good work was drastically lowered by computers. That increased numbers of artists and speed of production. Same kind of death rattle that turned cities like Detroit and the auto industry into economic bomb craters.

As both a traditional and digital artst, I`ll have to say you use the same basic skills in both medias. They both have their advantages and disadvantages. What is easier or faster depends on who you ask and what they prefer or are used to. Digital art has the advantage of saving your work by pressing a button and a lot of helpful programs of course and that is great! Just like any other profession, artists have to adjust with the times and take their craft seriously. Most paintings we see in the FFG books are digital paintings however. Some still prefer to work traditional and have no problem doing that and even work faster and more intuitive than they would digitally. Many, if not most professional artists mix the two medias, working both digitally and traditionally. Many started out traditionally and moved on to working partially or exclusively digital.

It`s all good