Artists like all contractors should be free to set their own prices. They’re either worth it or not, for everyone involved, and if it’s not then there won’t be a deal. It’s as simple as that.

Whining that someone deserves more pay won’t change anything, refusing to work for less will.

Also, it was an interesting piece of discussion (Incubator vs Saltsman; now it really makes me laugh). Educative.

“Because we force our community to sift through the good jobs and the crap jobs themselves?”

Have you ever considered, even for one second, that smaller projects that pop up on your site are just that: small and personal. Just because the pay isn’t _amazing_ does not make it ‘crap’. Branding a project ‘crap’ is as insulting as the supposedly poor pay rates you are complaining about. It also presents you and your site in an extremely unprofessional way: grow up.

It’s an uphill battle trying to make a living with contract work alone, that’s why it’s more expensive than a steady paying wage/salary job. There’s no security in contract work. No health benefits. 401ks. Pension… You might get a contract job one week and then not have anything for another 2-3 months! How would somebody support themselves on contract work alone? Surely it’s done. There are plenty of people who work as independent contractors, hell the game industry thrives on them…

It’s easy to think in 1-to-1 ratios here. Maybe you asked around and thought to yourself “$800 for 20hrs, sounds great! it’s not even a week and they have $800 in their pocket!” But it _is_ an insult. It’s also a GROSSLY underestimated amount of time for the work you’re asking for. Granted, these are mistakes easily made but don’t be surprised when more experienced artists come in and try to help out their brethren. Adam would be a terrible person not to at least _attempt_ protection of more inexperienced folks.

The real problem is that these kind of dogmeat offers don’t actually get these artists anywhere. They can’t actually pay bills with one of these contracts every few months. They’re stuck working a day job and slaving away on your project for what amounts to just enough to keep them going but not enough to get them out of the hole and into a career they deserve.

That’s what pisses me off, and the cycle continues…

I’d like to say that both of you kind of have a good point here. It’s true that 20 dollars an hour or so might be insufficiant for a professional artist. However, for me, 20 dollars is a nice rate. I sometimes even work for 15 if I really need the money or if it’s a really fun job.

I do think that ‘paid work’ is a rather wide term. For me 40 dollars is a real lot of money. I’ve never asked for it, nor has anyone ever offered this kind of rate to me. However I can imagine for an industry level this is not that high.

The thing is though; Aren’t most job offerings on Pixelation Indie? After all, most big companies only hire employees for longer terms. Whereas most of the jobs posted on Pixelation are single gigs. And most indie games come out of people’s own pockets. You can’t expect them to pay industry rates, that’s ridiculous.

Also I have to say that banning Radek is a bit too much here. Just because you have a different opinion, that doesn’t even collide with the rules, you ban him? The conversation’s not even on Pixelation!

I do understand where you’re coming from Adam. But the fact is that you’re telling him he’s not okay with the rules, even though these nowhere state clearly what a fair amount is. And this is hard to estimate. So especially if you’re not exactly aware of how time consuming pixel art can be, it can be really difficuly to make an estimate.

Still, that was the situation I was in, and I think I went about deriving an offer from it in a fair way.

I also wasn’t calling anyone a racist. The comment I made was simply a response to Adam stating that judging me based on the actions of other posters of Pixelation — not just my own — was fair. I didn’t think it was, and I mentioned racism and sexism as two extreme examples of prejudice that I didn’t think anyone would argue to be fair.