Lunar New Year / Valentine's Day / 93% off Sale, all my stock media asset packs are now an astounding 76% off (individual asset packs) and 93% off (bundled).
That includes all the [stock media] asset-pack items listed to the right of this. Take a look through those listings to get a sense of what is currently included! --->
THE $1 NOTE - depending on the payment method used and location of the buyer, it may not be possible through Itch.IO's platform to make a transaction with an amount below $1 USD. What that means is there's zero upside whatsoever for, say, US PayPal users to buy individual asset packs instead of the bundle. What that all means is, in some cases, this bundle - or individual items - might require a transaction of a full dollar and not 97 cents [or less] due simply to the nature of the larger Itch sales platform and its payment systems. Sorry.
But in theory, at least, even if it is often 3 cents more in practice... 97 cents for all my asset packs and indie game pre-order projects! $0.97! Even lower than previously planned!
That includes 2000+ asset files already present across my profile, or just over 20 assets per penny. 3d assets, seamless texture maps, video VFX elements... a ton of solid content at a really insanely low price point.
A dollar is still an amazing deal for everything included here.
This pack includes the following already-downloadable stock media spread across 7 different downloadable asset packs:
All the same...
THIS IS AMAZING FOR VFX/3D ARTISTS AND GAME DEVELOPERS, GAME ARTISTS.
Plus you will notice, a few indie game preorders thrown in as an extra along with the various gamedev and 3d-art asset packs.
That means the games are still being completed, debugged, and are not yet complete or polished enough to be downloadable. Some of them have been in development for up to four years already. I'm really trying to get them done not in rotation but one after another, one at a time now - so that should be very interesting to many of you. I will aim for 'Panoramic Worlds' first, then the minigames, then Miniature Multiverse, then Vivid Minigolf.
Any order placed here from now on acknowledges this fact and accepts that the games, in particular, will not be downloadable immediately* but that all of these should be released one after another over the next 18-20 months at most.
Currently, I'm looking at some work remaining on various projects - almost a month worth of work still before releasing 'Panoramic Worlds', about three more months of work on the new Vivid Minigolf [including the new courses] and another four or five months' worth of work left on Miniature Multiverse. The minigames, collectively, also add up to at least a month and a half of work remaining. Simply put, add all those timeframes together and you get close to a year. That is roughly how long it'll be before all of these indie game projects are done. Although, it's understood that a lot of things can take longer than planned in game dev, so that's why I'm saying '18-20 months' at most even if I think what is left can very likely be done within the next 12-14 months.
WHY WOULD YOU TACK THESE PRE-ORDERS ONTO THIS BUNDLE?
Simple. It adds a bit more value to throw them in. I didn't have to include them, but I am doing just that, even though the stock media on its own is worth well above the current sale price.
Plus, if this sale goes well, and I'm still hoping it does, even with just one day left, whatever fragment of the funds raised I actually keep will help me greatly in getting these projects done faster. Depending on how this goes, production might accelerate a bit faster than what I've estimated.
I was going to set a specific sales goal here and make promises of what I'd be able to do if that goal were actually met, including some admittedly pretty much outright begging for some of you to post feedback and comments/reviews as that could be absolutely transformative around here.
And indeed, I will agree to spend a few hours making and posting two new free assets and four paid ones somewhere among my asset packs, for every 'star' review or rating posted during this sale up to an upper limit of 50 reviews or ratings total* (I am really getting desperate for actual user reviews!)
The first couple of such batches of new material are already in the works anyway and could be fast tracked the moment this sale results in actual user reviews. In other words, posted within as little as 2 hrs. of review being posted.
What if, ten of you bought the bundle for 97 cents or $1 while the sale is still ongoing?
What if that same ten people each honestly and quickly reviewed five of the asset packs in the bundle, also by the time the sale ended?
That would be 50 reviews total, which means I would be committing to post 100 new free asset files, and 200 new paid ones. I would be committing to spend roughly the next month or so of my life delivering a ton of additional value to the itch.IO gamedev userbase... in exchange for $9.70 in sales which - I explain this a bit later, bear with me - I would keep less than half of, plus the reviews themselves which would improve things longer term here.
Though, admittedly, that would also mean some delay [up to another month] on the games themselves due simply to the time trade-off involved.
As far as I am concerned, though, it would be well worth it. Ratings and reviews don't just give other future buyers an idea of what to expect, they also help increase visibility and sales long term, which helps me add even more value to the bundle over time... and that will be great for everyone concerned.
That would improve on the already truly outlandish value of this sale - $15+ of awesome content already - stock media asset packs containing thousands of high quality textures, 3d models, video VFX elements and decals, overlays, all sorts of useful items for VFX/3d artists and indie game devs and a batch of indie game pre-orders on top of that, now all priced for under a dollar - and I'll agree to work hard to make new updates and post them as soon as I am able, regardless of how well this sale ultimately goes. But realistically? Other gigs might consume some of my time, things (freelancing, etc) unrelated to these indie game asset packs and gamedev projects.
So if the ratings and reviews do delay things a bit short term due to my related commitment to making more asset content, well, they'll also speed things up after that simply because they will help increase sales activity in the future, and minimize the bit of time each week spent on unrelated freelance junk.
Things will, therefore, progress faster and more efficiently, of course, if I have more resources to work with, but it's not like I'm the only one out there who could use help, so I also am agreeing to give half the total sales volume to the World Food Program this time around. That's 50% of every sale amount made during this sale.
10% is the Itch.IO cut, 40% I will keep and use to further develop more game and stock media content.
My decision to do this was driven partly by data showing that the number of people on the edge of starvation globally has spiked to 390 million by the start of 2021, essentially doubling in the past 18 months largely due to the economic side effects of the current pandemic.
If this goes well at all that would be amazing, for me, for all of you, for the Itch.IO platform, and for the poorest of the world's poor. I will post the donation receipt here when the sale ends and create a $500 'goal' for this sale just so everyone can see exactly how much I have raised here. Not that I really expect this to hit anywhere near that high a target in a single sale or anything, given past performance and the fact that I haven't even hit a total of $100 in sales the entire time I have been on itch.IO! But... if you, and many other visitors, do opt to buy this, you never know, you all very well could surprise me!
I'm giving you one more extra day to make this happen. The sale now ends at midnight at the end of Feb. 17.
I've already had one order placed, and am hoping there will be more as this draws to a close. It'd be really cool if this all worked out.
You can also contact me at my REAL personal email address, matthornb@gmail.com, and I will try to respond to any message which isn't spam. Send any questions, suggestions, comments, whatever. Or you can comment and provide feedback on any of my product/game pages on my profile. That would be awesome as I usually don't get much feedback but when I do I take it seriously. (The last person to comment prompted me to spend over a dozen hours of work trying to improve things based on the comment feedback.)
I want you as a community to hold me to the promises I have just made. I actually do want to fulfill them.
So if you have any other request, a suggestion, question, complaint, reaction, etc, relating to a product included in this absurdly cheap 97-cent bundle, it might be worth posting that as there is a good chance I will be responsive to it. Even before posting a review or rating, before even buying anything at all.
Thanks, everyone, for reading this and visiting my sale / profile! Sale ends on Feb. 16 so if you are interested grab the chance while it is still here!
UPDATE, sale is over and has been for over a week. The next sale is March 10-17 leading up to St. Patrick's Day. After that, the next one is Easter, ie April 2-4, 2021. In both those cases the bundle pricing will be $1.10 aside from St. Patricks Day and Easter Sunday themselves (the exact days of the holidays, March 17 and April 4) when the price of the bundle drops to $1.00 exactly.
https://itch.io/s/46976/st-patricks-day-sale-2021
https://itch.io/s/46977/easter-sale-2021
As for the receipt for the donation, I will screenshot that and post that here shortly. It is a $7.50 donation so instead of giving 50% of the ($1) raised as pledged, I am giving 750% of the pledged amount. Plus covering the 3% transaction fee.
Seemed like the right thing to do, IMO, even if not exactly what I had said I would do. The 50% thing was really a minimum bar to clear anyways. ;)
I'm also giving a bit more to a few other causes unrelated to this but this particular receipt was promised here so it's the only one I'm posting visibly on itch. And yes, my real name, email address, and mailing address appear in the image. It's not like any of that is a secret - since I have already posted my email here and my address is already visible to anyone who orders items from me on Etsy, eBay and the like.
Includes the following items:
