CG Cookie is gearing up to launch 'Blender Market', a marketplace that allows artists and developers to sell their work
Jonathan Williamson writes:
In the coming weeks we will be launching the Blender Market, a marketplace exclusively for the Blender Community, enabling artists and developers to create and sell professional, production-ready resources, assets, and tools. A goal of the Blender Market is to build a sustainable ecosystem that helps the whole community, from basic users to advanced professionals to developers.
Blender Market is actively supporting Blender by encouraging all sellers to donate a part of their revenue to the Blender Development Fund. On top of that, 5% of all sales during the first 90 days will be donated to the BDF as well.
How do you think this is going to affect the Blender ecosystem?
28 Comments
Just awesome!
Awesome, can't wait, this will be really handy!
I just hope that this becomes the standard central repository for all Blender addons that this comunity so much needs!
This is better then the BlenderCloud!
I've been following this on Twitter. Was hoping to hear an update on BlenderNation soon. Nice to see this bit of news.
Very cool!
I think this is terrible. I use Unity and Daz studio and I'm certain they are made to not quite give you what you need so you spend money to 'finish' the product on add ons and content. 20% to BDG for life is more reasonable and you need to have the strictest quality code going, as the above mentioned could easily cull 60% of there catalog as its c**p. Your trying to make money out of people who are trying to produce finished products to make money as a living. Madness Jonathon. The best thing about blender is the chance of realising your goals without having to be in a financially superior position.
Have you considered that many, many people in similar fields make their living because of marketplaces? Marketplaces often offer a great amount of exposure that otherwise new players to the field may not be able to get. It can even become a step to greater, more independent ventures that otherwise would not have been possible.
People like you are why the Blender community would remain in the back of the entire graphics industry's mind.
People like Jonathan Williamson are why Blender can and will only grow beyond the negative stigmas of this community commonly being non-progressive, amateurish, crude-assuming, readily sentimental, and unwelcoming.
Your comment is not only ignorant, but behind the times. Clearly, you have no awareness of people making full-time living using such asset marketplaces. Go visit TurboSquid or the Unity Asset Store sometimes.
Why do so many Blender users around here still persist on believing that nearly anything involving making money using Blender is somehow going to ruin the nature of Blender being free and open?
You're clearly not a professional as well, since you'd know that assets often save you money by saving you time. When you need a model in a crunch, or don't want to hire a specialist for a project, a ready asset can save you a lot of time and money.
Blender needs to step into the 21st century--professional potential included. We're way too limited in the industry. Asset marketplaces are big business, but Blender finds little welcome in most marketplaces. Moves like Blender Market benefit our community, not hinder it.
And if I were going to trust anyone to do it, it'd be CG Cookie, one of the first names in Blender education and Blender evangelism. They've done nothing but advanced our community forward. How dare you accuse them of something wrong here.
If you don't like the service, don't use it. But don't try to tear down this pillar in the community along the way.
I don't have the intelligence to create the tools that I get thanks to the blender community. I appreciate it at the deepest level. I'm not ignorant. I purchased about 200 dollars of unity add ons that are know being left useless as they are going to be included in the new unity 5 to soon come out. If blender starts regressing in development because everyone is fighting there own battle to earn money the whole open source thing becomes a joke. The following image is created with Daz content and yes I'm not a professional. Just someone who paid way over the odds for content from a content market. I don't understand the aggression involved in me having an opinion.
My "aggression" comes from your tone of accusation and ready assumption. You accuse and assume wrongly here. But my tone will be lessened now.
I still don't see your problem here. Just because there will be add-ons sold at the Blender Market doesn't mean that every development will be seeking to be sold. You're worried over nothing.
We've always been free to sell add-ons. Apparently, most people still give theirs away freely. Why is that? Various personal reasons. Generally, Blender developers like being generous.
Often times, people create scripts for their own needs, and since they already made it, just share them with others, by their own choice. Usually, since they had to develop it anyways (maybe for a job), they don't ask for anything back for them.
You won't see "everyone fighting their own battle to earn money" with their scripts. We've always had the option to sell our add-ons. If add-ons are free, they're free from one's generosity alone.
Though, sometimes, the more complex and time-consuming developments do require greater incentive than sheer generosity, in order to advance the development itself.
A place like Blender Market allows for certain developers to create more great scripts, with an incentive that can keep them more focused on more complex offerings.
Most of Blender's core functionality is either already finished, already in development, or left to the responsibility of Blender Foundation. You'll never have to worry about this such stuff being sold on a marketplace.
I think what we can expect to see specialized secondary developments, such as:
• add-ons that allow Blender to work with external software, specialized tools that speed up specific workflows (such as what Contours does for retopology)
• add-ons that extend some convenient functionality to Blender (perhaps such as a kit-bashing system, complex generators, highly-specialized Add objects, etc.)
• add-ons that add novelty functionality to Blender (features you don't need, but may want for a little personal touch)
• ready finished project scripts for Blender games
...and other such kind of stuff that won't hinder core Blender development.
I myself have been working on a new set of terrain/environment creation tools for Blender, hopefully with import/export support for Unreal Engine 4 (as soon as Blender's .fbx support is finished). I've also been designing a new clothes creation suite for Blender. But it's been a side-project for years.
That's generally the kind of stuff you can expect at Blender Market. Do we need a sort of Vue and Marvelous Designer within Blender? No, but we may sure as heck want one. Should Blender Foundation stop core development to provide these? No.
Would I release these for free? No, but they'd be worth their value, and I could guarantee new future developments, since I'd work full-time. Could I sell these developments anywhere else and expect successful support? Not a chance.
You're not going to see things like core developments for Cycles on the Blender Market--stuff like that gets integrated into Blender's core, and according to Blender Foundation's own development agenda.
Blender Foundation guarantees the biggest and most important developments for Blender are free and will remain free, and things like Blender Market help ensure Blender Foundation can continue their effort. You need not worry over Blender Market hindering this.
We can finally start seeing a new era of premium add-ons come from what only full-time development allows. Currently, no one makes add-ons a full-time effort. It'd be nice to have more developers who did. Blender Market will change this.
What Blender Market allows in general is for more creators and developers to potentially work full-time as asset creators, which promotes a healthy Blender economy and supports Blender development. Spare-time volunteers and full-time Blender developers simply cannot do everything.
this will probably devolve into having a very,very basic object with nearly everything from colors to parts needed to even use the model being sold separately.
and, if the practice is encouraged there's a chance that a licensing system will get built into blender it's self.
Why do you so readily assume such?
other software does it because they accepted a model to do so. while blender hasn't (yet) officially declared it, changes like this make it more appetizing for the developers to work on and more likely that such a change would be declared.
Sorry, but that's nonsense. You simply cannot compare what others do with what Blender developers do. Blender plays by entirely different rules from the entire industry, with a great number of reasons.
We've always been free to sell add-ons. Most people don't, even knowing they can. Not that it matters much anyways, since you'll have to share the code openly anyways due to the GPL license. Most Blender developers simply like being generous.
We're more likely to see people utilize this market as a way to specialized, more complicated developments that require a little more support than merely hoping for sparse donations.
Frankly, most Blender users never pay a thing towards Blender developments, so these developers would likely be targeting the more specialized user.
There's no reason to assume this market will become a hotspot for developers ransoming Blender developments. The store hasn't even opened yet and already you people around here are bashing it. If even Ton's not worried here, you simply shouldn't be.
you underestimate the power of suggestion ;)
and I really don't care who is or is not worried. I've seen companies change their models and there's no guarantee this won't either. likely not in the short term, but eventually.
I'm taking a wild guess here: You're clearly not a working professional who uses Blender. Your think such endeavor will somehow ruin Blender's freedom for them. But Blender addressing what the professional needs goes in favor to things the sheer hobbyist wants.
Blender Foundation creates a software that's free and open-source. They operate completely different from any other company out there. They rely on donations and revenue from their shop to fuel development. You can't even truly "lock" access of your scripts for Blender, simply because of Blender's open license.
How can you possibly compare any other company's business model to Blender's own agenda? Blender runs completely (and I mean completely) against the grain from everybody else--its business models included. Since Blender's not even remote close to being of high interest to most of the graphics industry, Blender needs our own solutions for its own users.
Working professionals get very few services for Blender in the industry. We could sorely use a marketplace that's geared to our professional needs. Blender needs higher support. It can sorely use the likes of a marketplace, which are very lucrative businesses today.
A marketplace for Blender is a nice solution to the two ends. It supports both user and developer, with specialized high-end needs. This simply won't ruin the generosity of core developments for Blender. It doesn't have to be some sort of company compromise as you've described. See the bigger picture here.
1.) things can change over time. even if it's against the grain now, what stops it from morphing later?
2.) if it is designed to be suited only for professionals, why doesn't it have more features, and why did they make the interface clear and simple to use compared to some other tools? after all if it works for pros there, why would it not work for pros in Blender? while I can see they're aiming to please, some re-design will be needed to force use of very specific practices.
1) Are you kidding me? Blender might see many changes, but overall, its slow rate of development hasn't changed much in well over a decade.
It took nearly 10 years for Blender to see the common feature of n-gons. Heck, we're still waiting for an improved set of NURBS tools, the likes of which most other software have had before Blender was released.
I can name a great number of such long-standing issues that get passed by year after year, and when Blender finally does see them addressed, it's years late and often playing catch-up.
While Blender's still tinkering with adding thing like Pie Menus and advanced texture baking, everyone's moving on to other advances, such as supporting Physically-Based Rendering workflows and simplifying mundane tasks like rigging (via geodesic voxel binding, etc.).
Other companies have long enjoyed having reliable, modern advances of the latest technologies, such as geodesic voxel binding and PBR workflow support, readily available. By the time Blender arrives to such technologies, others are well onto implementing the latest standards.
Nobody else in the entire industry deals with the idiosyncrasies of seeing scattered development across scattered developers, who vary between a full-time minority and spare-time majority. Ad-hoc development is the fastest way to create a new software, but the slowest way to improve the software.
Blender sees frequent releases, which gives illusion of it seeing rapid development, but actually, its growth is often late, by industry standards. Blender widens quickly, but elevates at a slow pace.
This rate isn't changing anytime soon. Though, if there is to be any advancement for Blender's style of development, it's from what new miracles the like of freelance development for Blender can bestow.
Though, if half the community is already against such, you'll keep Blender's slow rate of modernization.
2) They never said that this Blender Market is designed to be suited only for professionals. And I didn't even say this.
What I emphasized is that those who'll most likely to support it are professionals. Professionals immediately find the value in such services, since we're dealing with always trying to save time, which is money.
Most novices and hobbyists won't find a whole lot of value in paying for assets, since it's typically beyond their means (in other words, not free). But that doesn't mean that some won't. You will still have such non-professionals buying and using assets.
Though, again, why are you judging the market so soon? The store's not even finished and open yet, and you're already assuming the worst. It's still in development, and like any brand-new endeavor, they'll need time to find their bearings. Cut them some slack, man.
I'm not judging just this market specifically, more of the suggestion behind it and others that may come along.
Just what "suggestion" exactly? I still don't see what you feel so threatened by here. If we're going to be worrying about mere hypothetical hazards threatening the fabric of Blender's philosophy, we might as well not make any moves for Blender. Sometimes growth calls for risk.
by risk that means moving everything to the cloud,as well as applying limits and encryption so the functionality is no longer in the user's hands and if anything happens to the host all the user's work is gone forever. that's the trend nowadays and Blender is very,very slowly edging towards converting to that.
1. Ok, but PLEASE use a different name.
Why not call it "CG Cookie marketplace for Blender" or something?
If the Blender Foundation and Ton was behind this, I could see it being called "Blender Market"
I hope the BF will clarify and defend the Blender trademark.
You certainly won't be able to defend it if someone else decided to make another marketplace called "Blender Market"
The BF foundation should be the authority on the Blender name, especially for financial gain.
2. Also saying you'll give 5% to the BF for 90 days is a neat thought, but seems very low.
How much is your cut?
We're great friends with Ton and work closely with him and the foundation weekly. The naming has never been an issue before with Blender Cookie (or Blender Guru).
Vendors get 70%, we take 30% normally, except for the first 90 days, where we'll take 25%. So far this has been very well received from all the vendors we've been working with.
> The naming has never been an issue before with Blender Cookie (or Blender Guru).
That's too bad. I hope they will defend it like Drupal is now.
(For a while, they didn't, and it was starting to get ugly.)
http://drupal.com/trademark
Replace "Drupal" with "Blender", and that's a good start I think.
I hope the BF will consider this.
" A. You receive an automatic license when:
You exclusively use the Drupal trademark to either extend or improve the Drupal software, or to encourage the use of the Drupal software (in short "foster the Drupal software" ). "
...
"'Exclusively' means that any direct profits generated by using the
Drupal trademark, must also be exclusively used to foster the Drupal
software."
...
Heh, i already see the kids trying to sell their first textured cubes ... :D
While i think it is a nice idea, i don't see the market really. When somebody wants professional work then he goes to Mixamo, Turbosquid, etc. . But time will tell. And you never know before you try. So good luck with it :)
Does this mean that community individuals who might previously have given away their models/scripts/textures for free, are now being encouraged to sell them instead? If so, that might sour the whole ethos of Blender, especially if newcomers find that getting a fully specified version of Blender means spending $50 on 'extras'.
I think one misconception people are making is that they think that because something ends up on the Blender Market it was going to be made period. I'm a member of the Market team. I know there are very prominent developers that are making products for the Blender Market because they hope it will be a sustainable source of funding the products development. Otherwise it wouldn't have been made.
It's Really good.