Sketchfab has announced its new asset marketplace, the Sketchfab Store. The ability to make content available for download has been possible on the Sketchfab platform since 2014, but only via a creative commons license. Now users can offer commercial content as well, enabling them to monetise their work. Sketchfab claim that there are several advantages to selling and buying using its new platform: Firstly models are presented in a real-time 3D viewer with model inspector options that enables buyers to see exactly what they are purchasing. Thanks to this a lot of information is available to prospective purchasers that wouldn’t be obvious from renders alone. Secondly, files are processed by Sketchfab so the technical information is generated automatically, and is therefore certain to be accurate.
For greater interoperability downloads are also provided in glTF format for consistent rendering in many engines including Unity and Unreal. A Unity importer is available in alpha with an Unreal version promised soon.
At present sellers are vettted to ensure high quality content. Sellers must apply for an account and be able to provide a high quality portfolio with technical capabilities that meet industry standards. Paypal is currently the only way to manage transactions, but other forms of payment are promised soon. In addition to Paypal’s transaction fee, Sketchfab will take a commission of 30%.
To find out more about the Sketchfab store, how to set up an account and see examples of content see the post on the Sketchfab blog.
Make sure to apply with a portfolio to have the privilege of losing 5% to Paypal AND 30% to Sketchfab!
Maybe name some better alternatives? seems to be the norm for assets and game publishing these days.. Yes we pay them but what’s the alternative?
paypal deserves it for the ease of payment which expands availability.
sketchfab for giving you a good way to present yourself and exposure to many eyes/clients.
They are not stopping you from getting your own domain , presenting your models on your own website and accepting payments via bitcoin.
That way you would have the privilege to show the world how much of a winner you are.
Please do that.
Still, 30 percent seems a little steep. But yes, advertising and management costs money, and it makes absolute sense that they eat a piece of the cake. Your own webshop would cost you as well, and not only money, but also time. But 30 percent, is a lot for a “sleeping partner” kind of deal, especially when they don’t handle transactions.
If you are a productive modeler, you easily end up paying more for selling your productions, then you pay for Maya, photoshop and Zbrush, with this deal. So you will end up putting about 60 percent of your earnings into other people’s pockets, before you even pay tax.
These days, the middlemen are thriving a little too heavily on the working talent.
I remember how hum3d started. It was just one guy crunching to model cars.
My gang went over this over and over. We never had the balls to start but we researched it thoroughly. It is all about how much you sell, while you don’t work. So it is about numbers. For the first few hundred models, you are really in a very bad position. It is just as you describe. After 500, things start to turn. After a thousand, the selling starts to dwarf the costs. Even if you can produce 1 or 2 high-end prop models per day. That can be used in production, we are talking about 2-3 years of investment.
And you shouldn’t stay in a portal after some point of growth. You should open up your own store.
The market never saturates because there is an infinite number of objects you can model multiplied by the number of platforms. Evermotion caught the heart of vray and 3dsmax. Do the same for unreal .
And you can use blender & gimp to reduce the software costs.
I would agree that 30% is steep, but I suppose they’re positioning themselves as a high quality vendor so feel they can charge us for the priviledge (a bit like taking a unit in that glitzy new shopping mall). I would also disagree that Paypal deserve 5% of each transaction. Sure, Paypal are on the whole good at what they do, but they charge a premium for being market leader and those fees soon mount up.