#nightmareclients — Public Fediverse posts

Reading about recent events where #artists being taken advantage of by game companies, I have an anecdote to share.

A certain big multiplayer online game came to me for character concept designs back in my #DeviantArt days. I gave them a quote (I think it was $50 to design *multiple* character skins for them). They responded that my work wasn't even good, and the fact they wanted to use my artwork at all should have been enough.

I figured that it was a scammer pretending to be this company, because my stuff was in fact not very good, and just kind of forgot about it.

Years later I found out this was something they did a lot in the beginning, and most of the work they used was artists "winning" a contest and getting their stuff in the game was the "prize".
Wild they claimed to "#PayInExposure", because artists weren't allowed to put visible copyrights or signatures on any of their work, and couldn't take public ownership of it at all. 🙃

Now that I see the kind of company they've become, I'm VERY thankful they tipped their hand immediately, because it was a bullet ABSOLUTELY dodged. :blobfoxterrified:

So what I'm saying with this anecdote is:
Any artists that might be reading this, know your worth, and don't let any client bully you into doing things you're not comfortable with or devalue you. 🫂

#YoureValuable #NightmareClients #ArtistAdvice #Commissions #GameCompanies