1. There are a HUGE amount of artists here on FR. HUGE. People have choices coming out of their ears, all of whom are interested in drawing
the exact same things. You're not running into "I'll only draw Goku" and "Invader Zim and angels only" and "I'm good at mammal furries but not other ones". Everyone here has the exact same content base, which means competition is unbelievably fierce across every skill level. It's supply and demand, to some extent.
If you have three bakeries in the space of a mile, it's possible that they each might manage to make a decent living with loaves priced at $5, $20, and $50. If only one of them serves marbled rye, and you
really want some, you're gonna have to pay whichever price it costs.
If there are twenty-one bakeries in the space of a mile, and sixteen of them sell a variation on marbled rye, it is
extremely unlikely that the bakery selling marbled rye loaves for $50 is going to sell as much of it as the ones that are whipping loaves out at $5 bucks a pop, no matter
how good that $50 loaf is is--and twenty loaves a month at five bucks a pop is more cash in hand than one loaf at fifty every three months. Pricing lower to make up the difference through quantity sold is an actual economic tactic in the real world.
Now substitute "Coatls" for "marbled rye." and make it
at least a few hundred bakeries.
That's FR.
2. I have almost never seen a pet site artist actually get what their art is worth in real life. This is because it would take
massive amounts of either F2P or premium currency. That 3,000 gems you mention as being closer to "ample pay" for a finished piece?
That's only $30. You've already missed the mark by at least 70-170 dollars for what I've seen around as fandom pricing, and at least a couple hundred more if you want to
really start getting into actual value.
Most players do not have 30 million treasure laying around. Most players do not have 30,000 gems laying around. And if you think getting people to save up for real life commissions can be hard, wait until you try it on a website that literally thrives on the idea of multi-part impulse purchases kept constantly available, like FR. How many people crave Light Sprites for years and years but never own more than a couple of thousand gems or a couple of million treasure at once? How many people make posts showing off their two million treasure savings?
Plus, a lot of potentially earned in-game currency rests on the whims of the RNG and the other players and it takes a whole heck of a lot longer to earn than real life cash. If you decide to go to work IRL for 8 hours, you're going to get the same pay for each hour, and you know every hour is going to pay off. If you Coli grind for 8 hours, you have no guarantee you're going to get the same value in drops each hour. You also have no guarantee that what drops is going to be worth the same thing day in and day out to the other players who
also have limited and unstable income and are making similar decisions. So it seems bigger than it really is as a currency.
How long will it take you to earn 30,000,000 treasure for that piece of polished, colored, dynamic art with a background you want? Are you 100% sure you won't get distracted or need to purchase something else and set yourself back even longer? Are you 100% sure you're going to still own the dragon you're getting it for by the time you get there? You could always drop $300 real life dollars on gems, or skip the middleman and commission them with the money itself. Do you
actually want to do that/have the ability to do that, or does it just sound nice in theory and you'd rather pay with treasure? And if it's the second one, again: how long will it take you to earn 30,000,000 treasure?
How many more pieces could someone waiting on a single person to earn 30,000,000 treasure have done if they charged half that? A quarter of that? A tenth of that? Could they have made more than 30,000,000 in that same time by charging less? Does that mean they'll get what
they're saving for much sooner and avoid their
own increased spending costs?
Are they personally okay with knowing they're not getting every penny they're actually worth on every piece?
Some artists choose to lower costs because it at least means they'll get steady business and be able to buy things on the site. I'd love to get 1000 gems for each of my {
Bogsneak} {
adoptables}. But I couldn't even sell them when they were 300--and it's not like they're stick figures. So they're lower. At least I move them now, when I'm open. My hopes don't buy the stuff I need to get on FR. Treasure and gems do.
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Is FR's art pricing scene the most ideal situation for an FR artist?
Heck no. Should they ideally be able to get exactly what they want? Yes, of course. Art
is a luxury, and it
is a skill that requires a lot of time to practice, and it
does take a chunk of time to complete a piece. It definitely has a higher value than what it's given here on FR, no matter what it is or how good it is.
But to some extent, points 1 and 2
are things every artist here has to deal with when choosing what they're asking for from customers. Every one of them has to make a decision based on these things, whether they know that's why or not. And a lot of times, the answer to it is going to be "I can take the hit."
If you want artists to get more, then
give them more. Immediate problem solved! But the chances those 16 marbled rye sellers are all going to demand $50 for their loaves becomes extremely tiny the instant even
one of them sees that he'll pay his bank loan sooner than the others if he charges $45... and that's before getting into even more complex matters like subjectivity, self-esteem, and doing art cheaper for fun/practice.
