A Quick Look at Gears of War 3's Paid Weapons Skins

You guys were wondering how long it takes to make animated or simple tiling textures for guns (or any object). Being the Lead Weapons artist on Farcry3, I think I may answer the question.

Modeling (high res -> low res),baking, texturing, rigging the guns themselves is pretty hard. It's usually the same workflow as creating characters and not just any 3D artist can do it. It's pretty hard for third person shooters, and gets harder for FPS games, as there are more moving parts, you need to be able to switch from a high res model in FPS view to a 3rd person model, LODs, and so on. (around double the amount of work, 2 weeks per FPS gun (AAA)).

However, applying a tiling texture onto a gun as a replacement is ridiculously easy. Creating a tiling texture, anybody could do that in photoshop in maximum 30minutes, especially basic tiling textures like flower patterns and camo patterns (unlike tiling rock, brick, concrete, scifi, environment textures which do take some time).

So I'd say total time spend creating lets say... 10~15 tiling patterns would be a day, by one artist, maybe a half-asleep one. You may have to re-unwrap your gun to be able to support all tiling textures, but that's yet again a 30 minute affair.

Besides that, there is the job of creating the linking architecture, custom materials, and so on, that will make it possible for you to apply those patterns on the guns, but that's about it.

Charging $3 for a tiling pattern is ridiculous, and what shocked me personally is the first time I saw the Portal 2 Store where I believe but I may be wrong, I remember seeing alternate textures for the robots costing $5. (however, unlike tiling flower patterns, those were full modifications of the actual unwrap of the robot, i.e. unique and can't be applied anywhere else, i.e.2: requires actual work).

THANKS GOD FOR DLC!

Jeff you are the most awesome of the awesomers

edit: omg after a third game, gears of wars still have a poorly balanced multiplayer

Wow, Dom's backward waltz into the frame and then observation of the rainbow gun was brilliant.
 
I'd like the ocean skins to be honest. The thunderstorm one looks cool but would be really distracting.

Don't yo badmouth Horse Armor.

no offense Giant Bomb, 'cause I love you and everything, but It's kind of hard for me to get worked up over paid weapon skins when you're asking me to pay you to watch you play Halo 

But that's not all you're getting with your giantbomb subscription. And after you've paid for your subscription, you're not asked to pay again by continually charging you each time you watch a video, or whichever would be the equivalent to the micro-DLC Gears is pitching.
And if you don't buy the skins, you'll be seeing their marketing in the form of Floating Dollar Signs Every Time You're In That Menu.

@RandomHero666 said:

@normalpants said:

no offense Giant Bomb, 'cause I love you and everything, but It's kind of hard for me to get worked up over paid weapon skins when you're asking me to pay you to watch you play Halo

Without money from subscriptions Giantbomb would be gone, pretty fucking different to paying that much to look like a complete idiot on a vidya game

Have you subscribed?

@Xsnipd: That's complete bullshit, sadly. There are tons of games out there that have had dedicated servers forever. And they didn't resort to nickel and diming anyone.

Jeff is just trying to fill the hole in his heart and wallet left by gameroom

@ProfessorEss said:

Yeah Epic's got it all wrong. You're supposed to wait 9-12 months and then put this stuff in for free. ...well, free when you buy a full new retail copy of Super Gears of War 3. As usual, this won't effect me because I have no need or desire for it.

If that's a jab at Capcom then it's a pretty bad one. SSFIV had a lot of new content to justify the new retail version, I don't mean it couldn't have been DLC, but it was worth the price it came out for. Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 will be much the same. Both of those games contained (in UMvC3's case, will contain) a full rebalance, new characters, stages and online improvements making it a good deal. Capcom actually put some effort in with those new versions. Oh and they only cost $40 despite having more content than the original games did at $60. How about that.

@FifiChiaPet: Don't get me wrong, I think the prices are ridiculous, but there's not really a going rate for weapon textures. I doubt it takes too much to make these, so they can pretty much charge whatever they want and in all honesty I'm sure plenty of people will buy one or two and they'll make a killing on them. I'd never buy 'em, but I understand why they're selling them the way they are.

Hey Ice T earings got pay themselves back, in one way ore the other?

the rainbow gun seems ok, at least it's dumb and adds a sort of taunting onto your guns.

Imulson too, since that have something to do with the whole background story and the lambents

but those digital/camo and flowers skins are just friggin lazy

at least make those stupid flowers spin FFS

Thanks Jeff and P for getting these, and thanks for once again making me disappointed Epic.

Seems like a simple unlock method would be that you get the skin by killing someone who has it. Yes it could be abused, but at least there's a no-pay option.

I would have less objection to the skins if they didn't all look like they came from a royalty free image library run through a photoshop filter. It's not just about being good or bad. It's how incredibly lazy they are.

Other people can spend their money however they want, so if they want to pay for something like this it's their business.

Me, I'd rather support developers like say CD Project that offer full on content updates and dlc for free, rather then charge me $2-3 for a simple skin. I'm mainly a PC player so something like weapon skins have always been free from the mod communities or unlocked in game itself and this seems as silly as Horse Armor.

Watching streams on twitch.tv at the moment, quite a few people are using that rainbow skin.

"Don't do this."

Last year game room took Jeff's money now Gears 3 taking it

98% of those skins look atrocious and completely out of kilter with everything else. Blegh.

What's next, DLC grenade explosion skins?

Oh god Jeff, you´re so dumb and compulsive. I love it! Hopefully they will release more of these stupid things and you´ll have to record more video- gameroom style!!

And by the way, this whole "deal" Epic got us here makes horse armor look like the best thing ever.

@marbleCmoney said:

I don't really get the outrage about this stuff. It doesn't really affect the game at all. It's arguably overpricing weapon textures, but if you think they're dumb, or that they're too expensive you don't have to buy them.

I'm going to have to disagree with you slightly. I think the outrage, like most internet outrage, is certainly hyperbolic, but there is nothing "arguable" about this being overpriced.

It's fact--and I can prove it mathematically.

When I finally did the math in my head and realized he spent $45 on those skins, I almost threw up.

I even checked my math with a calculator because my mind couldn't accept this as reality.

"Suck it Pixar!" -Klepek

Well I won't be buying this crap that's for sure. I mean if they sold versions of the guns that actually did unique things and were cheap I'd be temped just for the lols but a fucking retexture pack? the sort of shit even I could mod in to a game if it were on PC in mere minutes. Fuck that. This is publisher greed at it's worst, its the new god damn horse armor.

@lunalicrichard:

I heard that it would support the dedicated servers. They cost a lot of money you know.

Wow, stupidest thing I've seen on this website and that is saying something.

Hey guys remember when Epic released cool shit for free? No?

You're telling me that was six years ago? Fuck I'm old.

Seriously. Just for this, Cliff Bleszinski, you shall always and forever be referred to as Cliffy B.

Fuck you very much.

This is why we can't have nice things.

98% of those skins look atrocious and completely out of kilter with everything else. Blegh.

I like how hurt Patrick is after Jeff bought the guns lol.

Also, why is the volume on the Dead Island ad so damn loud.

I can accept the season pass, but an animating weapon skin needs to be pocket change for me to purchase it for the shits and giggles.

Do people really complain about weapon skins being available for download? Think of all kinds of stupid shit you've probably bought like avatar gear, or look at how some free-to-play games make good money on just cosmetic stuff. It's just for people who want it, who cares?

Edit: Hadn't seen the prices yet. $2 is pushing it even, but for some of them to have the gall to ask for $4+? Bananas!

I have no problem getting the season pass but will not be buying those skins.

everybody who pays 3 bucks for some dumb ass skin in gears is an idiot ! The season pass i get , that save's cash and is fine . but 3 bucks for a skin that is half assed to begin with ? NO WAY ! In my book epic has made an ass of themselves with this crap and showed us the dont give a f***** as long as we pay up .

Epic has taken a nosedive as far as cool people go .

No refunds.

Sorry.

"Don't do this."

This sort of DLC is liquid AIDS for the gamingindustry.

I just bought all the skins because of this video, thanks giantbomb. Now I cant afford to eat for the whole week.

Man fuck this game.... oh wait i just bought it :( damnit! xo

@JAH_Donuts said:

@RandomHero666 said:

@normalpants said:

no offense Giant Bomb, 'cause I love you and everything, but It's kind of hard for me to get worked up over paid weapon skins when you're asking me to pay you to watch you play Halo

Without money from subscriptions Giantbomb would be gone, pretty fucking different to paying that much to look like a complete idiot on a vidya game

Have you subscribed?

The point isn't who's subscribed, but the fact that paying for a Whiskey Media subscription actually gets you quite a bit more than those weapon skins.

I'll agree with somebody who says $50 is a little overpriced for a yearly Whiskey Media subscription, but I pay for it anyways because I support everything Jeff & the guys do, and it's nice to get a few extra perks.

I'll also accept if somebody says it's a fair price. Even though I think it's a bit much, I wouldn't concider $50 a year to be a crazy price.

But if somebody tries to argue that $45 for 21 weapon skins is a fair price, then I'm going to say they're out of their fucking minds! Let's do the math here... that's about $2.15 per skin, if you bought the pack. I could go spend $2 at a fast food place and get a burger & fries to go with my Gears 3. In fact, I could do that 21 times, spend $45, and have a MUCH better Gears 3 experience than somebody who bought those skins would be having.

At the end of the day, does it really make the game any more fun? no. Are they forcing people to buy it? no, but that doesn't excuse them from even TRYING to charge for this stuff, which looks like it was thrown together a couple of months before release. It's disgusting.

Am I going on for too long? Probably. I think i'll just go on record saying that anybody who uses this stuff online, i'll be trying to kill EXTRA hard, simply because i'd get so frustrated that somebody would actually pay MONEY for that crap!

@normalpants said:

no offense Giant Bomb, 'cause I love you and everything, but It's kind of hard for me to get worked up over paid weapon skins when you're asking me to pay you to watch you play Halo

Except that you don't pay per video........

Horse meet armor. Armor meet horse.

I love you

As cool as Gears is, this is paid dlc thing is more of a rip off than game room was.

Btw, the rainbow and other animated ones? Those are actually the easiest to make, its just a fucking shader that they probably already have, so adding it to the gun is nothing more than checking a box.

I'm kind of blown away that they can get away with selling what is literally just a texture for this much. Look at oblivion or any other mod heavy game and there are a lot more better textures, and even models, for $0.

Making a texture for an existing object is really really easy, the profit margins have to be through the roof.

already a bunch of people running around with these in multiplayer! It was better before when they showed up as -1 msp but then when u went to buy it it said it would cost 429 million microsoft points xD

Jeff is lucky because he can purchase realllly dumb shit and then its a tax writeoff. Well some of it is.

@ThePhantomStranger: No, those three games are probably going to be great. I just don't have time to play every triple A blockbuster that comes out this fall. Just Consider the value of Gears 3 at $60; 3 different ways to play through a 10- 12 hour campaign. Beast mode, horde mode, and a stellar multiplayer w/dedicate servers. Why not charge $3 a piece for weapon skins. In almost every review I've read, gamers are already getting a lot of bang for their buck. NOBODY IS MAKING YOU BUY IT.

Looks like market saturation for stupid shit addons has begun... hopefully.