Deciding the resources. Originality vs Stock Assets

When deciding resources, there're two ways to go. One that use stock asset (can be RTP/Store/Free assets that comes from amazing people who shared them), and one that prefer to go original / exclusivity.

I saw some people who prefer to use / see original made assets. Even if it means the quality is questionable compared to stock assets. Most of the reason is because "It gets overused". But at least they see something that had never seen before in other game, or feel proud because the resources is only used in their game or because it's made by themselves.

But the dilemma might comes when there're some stock assets that actually would fits better to present their game. Which in other hand, people would also using these too, no originality / exclusivity. And you're unable to say "I made them".

Then there's an extra third way, a commission.
Some people with enough luxury could pay some professional to make an exclusive resource for them.

Which one are you? Are you having trouble deciding the resource? Are you the one that prefer originality? Or are you the one that don't mind using people's stock resources?

I make everything (aside from the music which I commission) myself, if I dont I dont personally feel like its my game or product. I use stock music in my video production for work but its not something I am personally invested in unlike my games which are a form of self expression.

There's nothing wrong with using resource packs, but you should try to add in some of your own personal touch as well. Definitely make your own characters, or edit them a little if it's too daunting.

Stock assets, because I prefer to be working on making the game playable instead. I liked making my own assets more for RM2K/3 since it had lower resolution screen, making it much easier to create custom stuffs for. Newer RM programs aren't really pixel-art friendly, so I stopped working on it for my games.

Well, if I could choose... my priorities would be like this:

1. Professionally-made or good-looking self-made original assets
2. Quality DLC assets
3. Self-Made low-quality assets or The RTP - whichever you can make look better, I guess

As I don't have a budget or a necessary skill, I'm currently at step # 2.

The stock-original cocktail is always my go-to.

Some shared assets (like tileset packs, music packs) do just fine without compromising much of the 'originality' while some others require more than a touch to make it distinctive (primarily sprites, windowskin and the faceset). The temptation to go with whole original stuffs is always lingering around me but you know, unless I have money to spend like it's water, I choose not to make/gather exclusive resources.

RTP stuffs are too good to be left behind despite its infamous reputation among RM devs, anyway. Also, I've seen some people put a lot of efforts in creating original assets for their project only to be either discarded, scrapped or shelved soon or later. Those efforts should have been put into actually making the game itself rather than making only the assets, yes?

I don't like overused stock graphics. For music, I'm morr lenient as long as the music fits the scene.

For actual use, I'm probably going to keep doing completely original because that's the draw of RPG Maker for me, but if I was to focus on making a game first I would use a mix of premade and original. There's a wealth of really fantastic premade assets out there, and not all of them have been used much, and with a little artistic ability you can really mix them up and make them your own. There are a few sets I've collected that I keep meaning to see if I could blend together, and that would be loads of fun to do when making a game, at least for me.

If you're using the word stock to mean the resources that come with RM and original being everything else, that's different. I don't actually like the look of most of the resources that come with RM, the exception being the XP resources. If limited to those, I would probably not use them at all. Even XP is a bit noisy for my taste and would take more work to fit together with my own styles, more than would be reasonable for game creation. Sometimes it's easier to just make something new that is exactly what you want than to edit something to get close.

As for what I would like others to do, I just wish people would put more consideration into the art matching the game. The RTP is free and extensive and I've seen some pretty amazing things done with the Ace RTP, but it's not really the best fit for everything. Plus, just because there's not as many options in that style, a lot of really great and free resources get ignored. I'd love to see more people learn to work within those limitations and make a game that's perfectly suited for those resources. I especially would like more outside the RTP use of sound effects. Sounds don't seem like a big deal, but that's because the effect they have is passive. But passive things, when done correctly, can do much more and effect people more deeply than the active in your face stuff. I mean, my brother changed his text alert to a game sound and out of context I instantly knew which game it was, what it was associated with, and was reminded of the feelings I had while playing it. The sound wasn't even from a popular game. I'm sure we've all had a similar experience. The passive elements can have a cumulative effect too, each part making you feel exactly what the creator wants and invested in that game's world. I've seen way too many games with all original art paired with the default RTP sounds and I just want to cry.

Edit: BTW, I have always wondered why people don't often hire an artist to do alterations. A good artist could make key additions, edit existing things into fun new things, adjust things to suit your game more closely, unify cobbled together assets, and all sorts of things that aren't making things from scratch. With the right artist the whole thing would be loads cheaper and look way better.

I mainly use a mix of the stock resources and some free stuff I've come across on here, and a few bits of paid DLC I've gotten in sales. I would love to use more original/non stock resources, but the free ones often don't fit in with the rest of the look of the game, and I can't afford to pay someone to make a buttload of assets for me lol.

If I could make half-decent original resources, I'd almost certainly use them. But as it stands my skills in that area aren't up to par, and I'd rather focus on actually making a game rather than spending hours on hours trying to learn how to make resources.

So for the time being, I'll happily take stock resources over self-made ones, because I think those actually look nice compared to the pig waste that's all I can manage right now. That being said, I'd at least try to edit some to make them more "me." I'd also consider commissioning a resource or two, but considering my limited funds right now I'd likely just limit myself to getting original stuff for the final boss and use stock elsewhere.

Maybe in the future, if I can ever prove myself a competent game maker, I'd consider assembling a team to cover my deficiencies and make a game with original resources that way.

My original aim was to make all the graphics and music for my game, but I eventually realized that my current level of skill wasn't good enough and that the idea was turning from an ideal into a daunting obstacle. I found some tilesets I liked, bought them, found some music packs I liked, bought them for "inspiration" - and realized that I might as well actually use those music packs rather than bogging myself down with extra work. Nowadays, I used the mixed approach: I'm doing character art and some tileset additions by myself, as well as a few tracks of music, but everything else is stock resources, possibly with a few tweaks.

I think that all the three answers in the poll are viable. I have a lot of respect for people who do everything by themselves, especially those who do enjoy it and don't get burned out (like I sort of did), but I hope that no one feels ashamed for their project if they opt for stock resources for any possible reasons. Perhaps the most important thing in my eyes is to make sure that the art styles or the music styles don't clash too much.

As someone who makes 'stock assets' for others to use, I can say that it takes a lot of time and effort to create original assets (especially ones of quality). So much time that I haven't worked on a project of my own for almost a year now.

Now if we were to talk about music, I'd say with 100% confidence that I'm practically tone deaf. Trust me, you do not want 'music' made by myself blaring down your ears, ever!

The way I see it, and the way I intend my own work to be seen is: 'stock assets' exist to free up time and allow the user to focus on what really matters; coming up with their own individual game idea which puts these 'unoriginal' assets to use in a unique way (i.e. in the case of my assets, creating a unique battle system which gives these battlers new life).

I run an indie music label, so music i could have done myself but I'm still going to ppl who commission and do free music specifically for games, same for everything else.

Reason being is this, in my travels I've learned there are countless great talents out there, and many go undiscovered. My RMMV game is not gonna beat out persona 5 and its safe to say none of our games will, but what our games are in truth is a gateway form of self expression, and maybe it's the musician in me but nothings better than getting others form of self expression involved to make something beautiful.

Sure, im damned good with photoshop, I can't create new things from scratch but I can edit and alter something to the point you can barely recognize the source material but why do that when I can help some other artist (one whoCAN do something from scratch) get some exposure or even put a few dollars in their pockets for helping me manifest my idea into reality.

I'm gathering the plugins and setting my battle system first (only thing i'll photoshop) as well.as writing plot,
Once I finish the detailed outline of my game I'm gonna recruit a mapper, when the game is well into being evented and mapped I'm gonna commission a digital artists for the title, character busts and maybe a book cover rendition as I would like to turn my story into a book as well. As for enemies and other stuff I'm fine using the free for commercial use and certain RTP things, the more mixture the better as long as u have a unified theme in the end.

Never shy away from pooling others talents, outsourcing can be magical.

I'm definitely a mix of both - I use the RTP and tileset resources people have shared here and other places on the web as much as I can. If I need something that I can't find, I'll edit or make it myself. If it's too hard to make for myself, I'll find someone to commission to make it.

I do make all the character sprites/window skins/facesets myself, though - it's the tilesets that really set me back. Since my game isn't battle-focused I don't have to worry about battlers, but it's still a lot of work.

I took two game music classes in college and bungled my way through both of them, so those will definitely be stock/commissioned, though.

I think we would all prefer to have a completely 100% original game. The better question is how much of that is feasible.

Voted for 'Stock', but I want to point out that using RTP Assets vs. using assets from some of the deeper resource packs (like Rural Tiles) or free assets from collections like PandaMaru are two very different things.

RTP Assets, obviously, are going to be overused, because they are universally available, known, and easy, for everyone who buys RPG Maker. A lot of resources you'll find elsewhere are, by contrast, underused, and it's unlikely that your audience will have seen them before in an RPG Maker game unless they were used in an incredibly popular one. Differences in style can be a concern, but outside of character sprites and battle (enemy) sprites, I've found you can usually get away with a little more stylistic contradiction than you'd expect.

I commission assets where I can't find an appropriate one for free (e.g. a giant sunflower, a set of autumn crops in haybales, a ghostly carnival barker), or when I need something that's very specific to my game (e.g. GUI for a scoreboard overlay, a background which depicts an NCAA-style tournament bracket in an artsy way).

I made some resources myself for non-commercial games in the past, where I couldn't find any good ones, as I feel the audience will accept my best effort when I'm not selling them anything. But differences in graphic quality tend to be easier to spot than differences in graphical style - so for my commercial games, I find or commission everything.

There's nothing wrong with using stock resources as long as you put them to good use and they fit your game environment well. But for the sake of originality, you can edit them a little and you should try to create your own characters. I'm not a pixel artist and I don't even know the p of pixel art lol but I love to work with 3D. So I render stuff and use them as doodads. That's easier than hunting for resources that you can use in your game, in my opinion. Because it's so hard to find horror tilesets that fit my game *sigh*

Unless you're just trying to make a fun project for yourself and don't care what other people think, in my opinion I'd ALWAYS use something different than the default RTP assets. Even if you feel that they fit the style of your project the best, the default assets (especially the default tilesets) are an instant turn off for anyone even slightly familiar with RM games. Even adding some free/paid assets or just editing the RTP assets enough so they look different is enough to get people interested in your game, since almost every project out there already uses the default for everything.

I prefer to use all original assets mostly just because there will always be a voice in the back of my head telling that i'm being lazy and will stand out better with more original graphics.

For my game I am making it entirely in stock assests first while I make the game itself and mechanics. I may add in as much original art as I can later though. For now I just heavily edit and parallax to make mine different or more appealing.