At what point is a game an asset flip?

[hardcore_gamer]

Everybody hates on asset flips for flooding the steam store, and for good reason. But at what point is it actually fair to call a game an asset flip? I mean there are of course the obvious examples where 90% of the game is pre-made assets and models. But what about people who for example, download/buy textures/materials/alphas etc and then use them on their own models? Do such games also count as asset flips because they involved the use of something the author did not make? Or what about games where all the important models and assets are new but some of the less important background props come for asset packs?

At what point is it fair to call a game an asset flip?

[wildweasel]

Intent is a huge part of it. I was once sent a free key for someone's zombie FPS game and figured it'd be a decent way to kill a few minutes. I hadn't seen any of the Unity Asset Store before, so I was going in with no expectations. But on the first map I played, a level set in a police station, I was seeing computer monitors and posters that all read "OFFICE PACK." As if the monitors and posters were just used as-is with no modification at all. Later decided to do a search on the Unity store...and didn't even have to type anything into the search bar, because the Office Pack used by that game was right at the top of the Most Popular section, with screenshots identical to what the game was displaying. A game that, at the time, was priced at $20.

[Nash]

When you see a mish-mash of 4k textures and blurry textures, character models with 100k triangles, full facial rigs and cloth physics thrown into square BSP levels and low poly props thrown in... top it off with amateur Mixamo animation cycles and extremely bad gameplay design and core game systems... at that point, it's a damn asset flip. =P

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

I think if it's being sold for money, then the majority of the assets had better be original. Though I suppose there's some leeway since Doom et al. used stock sound effect CDs and the occasional "borrowed" bit like the gargoyle textures. Even for free mods throwing together a bunch of rip-and-remix stuff and calling it a day is kind of lame, but at least there it can be excused for being an amateur just-for-fun thing.

[nazakomu]

I think if it's being sold for money, then the majority of the assets had better be original.

Agreed.
I expect anyone who is going to make a commercial product to exert every bit of their own effort in making original assets. And, in my opinion, it has to be original.
Being inspired is one thing, but if your asset is a derivative, to the extent in which people can identify that pre-made assets were used to make your own, is another thing. With that, I would strongly undervalue the latter and prefer the former.

[Matt]

Consider:

Sounds in Doom taken from asset collections
Monster designs in D&D taken from dime store toys

If the end result is good and you're not breaking the law, anything is excusable.

It's an "asset flip" in a pejorative sense if you don't do anything creative with what you've taken. (I may have more thoughts on how to define this)

I don't really make a distinction between commercial and non-commercial projects since shitty asset flip projects are as easy to spot as a fool is easy to part their money from, and I can just not buy a commercial project as I can just not download a free project.

However, on a practical level if the author is just in it for the money and there's no love for the thing itself, the creative aspect of it almost by definition must be very low or nonexistent, or at least compromised and distorted in some significant way. [insert any of Graf's complaints about AAA gaming here]