Since I think some people here are thinking: Low poly is just a cartoony style.
Low poly Is Not a cartoony style, cartoony styled is smooth plastic, usually sharp edged sometimes and curved edges, etc.
Low poly can be both realistic or non-realsitic. Depending on the situation. Making a couch with bump maps, leather texture, etc, can be considered low poly depending on how many polys you use.
The difficulty in making realistic objects is the limiting of how much polys you use, the less you use, the more optimized it is to use in-game, the more polys you use, the “better” it can look (depends) but the more processing is required.
The cost of hiring for making low poly assets is entirely dependent on how much time and resources are used in creating it. After that, people up the prices sometimes to compensate or cash grab more . More popular devs may do this but so do other popular devs increase and decrease prices.
It entirley depends on the person who is making it. If it takes them 5 hours to create something, of course they’ll charge more, if it takes an experienced person 2 hours to do something, they’re probably gonna charge less and yet get more sales done quickly.
Mario games use low poly, zelda games use low poly, probably doom games use low poly, the UGC hats can be low poly, etc.
This would cost around 8-15k. Pricing may seem high but breaking it down, it really isnt. Homestores can take 4-10 hours or more to build. Some developers sometime find themselves working for less than minimum wage when working for people. Fix an appropriate price for each hour put into your homestore and pay them for their services perhaps?
Of course, but when for instance you want the same size of map with same time one developer may put an unpleasantly price while other developer can put a reasonable price. You really need to be careful with people that are trying to grab more from you. But still I think you are right, the prices are developer’s choice. It’s really interesting to see what kind of effort they put and compare with each other. Will less paid develeloper make more effort than more paid developer? To find an an answer to this question you only have to guess.
I do agree you have to be extremely careful like I said previously there are a possibility of you getting scammed or ripped off. But you don’t necessarily need to guess if the low poly builder which is less paid make more effort than more paid developer? You just need to look at past work and past clients to see if the developer is legit and not trying to rip you off.
Exactly, seeing portfolios of the developer will make you understand the style of building that they will build for your game and that’s how the prices are made depending on the effort they made. Great! I will also make sure to use what I said when I will need collaborators.
Please don’t think of low poly as a style of your game. Low poly is used to optimize your games, less polies means less memory consumption. Most ROBLOX players play on mobile devices and weak computers. What you need it meshes that don’t consume much memory, same for textures or decals. Low poly is not only popular because of its looks because of how it runs on low end devices. Excellent example of properly done game is ADOPT ME.
Also if you don’t want to spend much, try spending few hours on blender. Low poly models are super easy to make!
. More popular devs may do this but so do other popular devs increase and decrease prices.