Check out the patch notes for the v17 Precursor Update here: http://maplestory2.nexon.net/en/news/article/53778/precursor-update-v17
Nearly
MapleStory 2 Rep: 335
Posts: 8
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in General Chat
It was said that all listing fees will be 490 merits. I already have to pay merits to create the item, but does this now mean I have to pay 490 merits just to *attempt* to sell a single item? If so, that seems pretty steep to me.
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heck, take the current ripping case of UGC that's in general forums here. The ripper made over 200K merrets, while the original creator sold maybe 10 copies. Meaning even if you're REALLY GOOD this is too much of a roulette to throw 5$ a try.
thanks a lot Nexon
First, 490 merets is not a steep fee at all. The listing period is 90 days; thats 3 months you have to advertise your content and for people to find and appreciate it.
Next, if your content is top quality, and I mean real quality, then you don't need to worry at all, because people will appreciate it and you will make sales. If you want to complain about the higher listing fee, doesn't that mean at some deeper level you don't have confidence in your work?
The cold truth is that some designs just plain don't sell. I am all for individuality, artistic expression, and would never outright call anyone's work bad. But I can look at a design and in my head judge whether I would spend money on this or not. A lot of those designs that are definitely original and unique, and advertised on world and channel chat, or wherever? I would not buy them. Sorry.
From the total population playing on a server, only a certain portion care about fashion, a smaller portion look at the design market due to being too lazy or not skilled enough to make their own UGC, and an even smaller portion will find any particular UGC and appreciate its aesthetics and values.
On the other hand it is SUPER cheap overall to pay a small fee and list your content. Even disregarding unoriginal and stolen content, there plenty of subpar submissions that oversaturate the market and make it harder to find legitimately good content.
So yeah, the fee is higher. There are some people who will feel its too high an investment, because quite frankly, they don't think their work will sell any more than 2-3 copies. But I guarantee there are plenty of people who think their work is great and will list regardless.
This will reduce market listings. This will shut down the below average artist. It will ultimately make it easier for people to find the real gems the market has to offer. And I'm okay with that.
Edit: I also completely forgot that with style crate and new additions to premium shop, there's less people than ever that want UGC. There's only so much you can do with the basic templates provided and most style crate options just look a lot better.
Optimistically, this might cut back on the sheer number of items which are just pepe and other memes pasted onto shirt templates, I.E. it would cut back on the number of stupidly lazy items and increase the quality of the shop, even if it doesn't stop copycats. I also can't imagine this impacts already-popular designers who already have merets from their existing sales.
It could go either way, really. I hope things go the optimistic route, because I am sick of all the lazy designs (stolen or not). Although if someone is serious about designing items and actually put in the effort, I don't see how the changes would be "punishing" them per se.
The stuff that I make is top quality, and does sell. However things are more likely to sell if they are on the front page. I've sold upwards of 30 copies of a single item, however it stops selling after 3 or 4 sales (2 days after the initial listing) since people aren't looking passed page 1 or 2 of a design page and instead opt to go to "most sold" or "most popular." Hell, another factor to whether or not something you make sells is its name. If the name is too long, or not straight to the point, people might not even click on your product. I for one do not have the disposable income to sink into maplestory 2 to hopefully sell something, but from my experience, you are more likely to sell things if you post them in the shop, take them down 2 days later, and repost them. I've found no success from posting in world chat; why would I? My guildmates and I don't even pay attention to the world chat, so the small portion that does pay attention to it are looking for key words: the names of the users that make a lot of content that they like, not some content creator that hasn't made a name for themselves yet. It's pretty much gambling: post your good design at the wrong time of day, when a bunch of people are submitting, or just get unlucky with the people that are looking when you submit, and your design will get overlooked and will not sell a single copy UNLESS you're a popular UGC creator already.
Violating the ToS is not a good thing, but to mitigate that, you should not charge your userbase an exorbitant amount. 5 dollars is a small amount to some, but this is a free to play game. Many people that play this game, whether they be artists and art majors (like myself), high school students and younger, or just average adults play it because they can't afford to put money into paid MMOs. I say just make it a review process: when you submit something, make it take 24 hours to show up in the shop, and during that time it is reviewed. A cursory glance is generally enough to tell if something is lewd or copyrighted. I like the UGC shop, but I can't afford to do it at 5 dollars a submission. Hell, I wouldn't be able to afford it at all even at 1 dollar a submission, that free initial listing is the only reason I got into it in the first place. If it had been a paid service to start with, there would be no room to complain here, but since it was, the casual artist or broke college student like me would of course be disheartened and unhappy about the change.
this is a graph taken from this thread:
http://forums.maplestory2.nexon.net/discussion/42049/ugc-across-regions-merits-to-account-not-server
of sales per server. I am on EU. I am yet to break even.
here are my creations:
http://forums.maplestory2.nexon.net/discussion/37504/mirtas-creations-novice-quality
this in particular:
has sold 0 copies. An American gave me 25$ up front to have the rights to the template, because he fell in love with it.
These two, received a lot of praise online:
0 sales EU.
this is my top selling item:
2 sales in its lifetime.
Heck yeah, I have no confidence in my work and for good reason. The market has shown that there's no reason for me to have confidence in my work. I'm a novice and I recently lost my job. This was something that I really really REALLY wanted to get into and one of the main reasons I played Maplestory 2. I don't have 7$ to spend on gloves now though. I had 10$ to spend a month on UGC. I'm better off going back to Sims and trying to learn custom item making there.
Cold hard truth? I would not buy any UGC. Why? I can get unique model clothing off Nexon for cheaper.
The guy whose UGC got stolen - the stealer sold 200K merrets worth, while the original creator sold 10 copies. You have no guarantee that you'll break even and with steeper entry and Nexon's inaction, it is a lot more logical to steal top Korean sellers. Why should I try to make something pretty for 2 days, if I can find a no longer active Korean artist that I know won't report me, make hundreds of thousands of merrets and know for sure that Nexon won't do anything with me, because there are items that got stolen from NA designers, tickets are 40 days old and they decided that there's insufficient proof? Outside of having a livestream running as you make the item, nothing will prove to Nexon that it is yours.