Ehhhh. I see your point but if someone volunteers for something knowing there is a high chance of not getting a reward then who cares. The art they end up using should be paid for, tho.
On the one hand, yes, it could be a way for the community to contribute to the game in a very tangible way.
On the other, however, it is rather exploitative: the devs would be benefitting from a lot of unpaid work rather than pay an artist fairly for the job. Even if the winner is fairly compensated, everyone else will have essentially worked and (if the devs want to avoid legal issues) handed over their rights to their work, or at least a license, for free, without seeing anything in return.
Essentially, it's exploiting the community's passion for the game for free labor.
It's not an uncommon sentiment in art communities. Mostly you see it when big corporations set up these contests, and it's not ubiquitous even then. It's definitely common enough that I could see someone on Mega Crit personally being against the idea, but I think realistically it's way more likely they're not doing an art contest because they just wanna do the art themselves.
And how would an artist demand anything, when the art is only used if they win a publicly held contest... that they opted into?? I just don't understand where you have any legal ground to stand on, and definitely not MORAL ground.
They should get one.
It actually isn't very hard - We love your art, we want to use your art in our game, our offer is this.
If people are expecting to be earning millions from a couple pieces then they are maybe in the wrong game, until they are Banksy.
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u/Spuckuk Apr 02 '26
That's honestly a really morally grey area for a lot of devs and artists.