So, it’s been a tense few days and I’ve seen a lot of hate on the artistry of the game. As a graphic designer, this low key offends me because I know exactly how much work goes into designing cartoon characters, plus the detail in every furniture/room item, plus the drop icons, plus the awards for completing tasks. Are all the themes my jam? No, but it is someone else’s. ATA has been clearly reading hunt suggestions and hunt guesses threads because they are taking them and making them happen (except you diehard alien fans-I’m sure your time will come. but just keep in mind that when you are insulting the artistry of this game you are directly trashing something someone put countless hours into, in an ever short time frame. to put it in perspective, each avi probably from start to finish takes 8 hours or more. For me, an artist, be kind to my fellow artists.
aaaa support! ✨ i’ve always felt terrible seeing all the hate for the art (esp avis) recently.. and i’d actually love to see a thread from the creative department further explaining their idea or concept and design process for a hunt, just so people can see how much work was put into designing and producing all the visual assets!
I’d love to see that actually! I know that some of us players have ideas on what designers might have been thinking, but it would be cool to see where their inspiration came from.
Agreed when it comes to concepts. There genuinely were a couple times when the art was just very poorly drawn but that hasn't happened in a while
If I was an avi designer, I would just draw stick figures with different clothes. 🥴 Like a hat and a cane.. idk.
I like that you’ve made a thread on this form a graphic designer point of view! If I don’t like the look of an avi/dorm I try not to say anything bad about them because of how long it’s probably taken them to come up with the ideas and to then design everything. Plus I could make anything like that myself so who am I to judge 😂
I think I would be more open if people were more vocal about why they disliked avis but majority of the time it's just like "these avis are fucking disgusting!" I mean you're welcome to think the avis are disgusting, or ugly, or whatever, but give some feedback on why so ATA's artists can actually improve upon it.
You're missing the point here. Players are unhappy not because the art is "ugly" (there is no ugly art) but because ATA clearly replaced their old designers, which were pretty good, with some new ones, whose style isn't as polished as the one before. Old players are used to more detailed avatars, ones with good body proportion, smaller outlines, better face expressions, detailed outfits, and overall looking like something worth the money players are willing to spend. Mind you that people are paying real money for the avatars, and in order for ATA to keep the game enjoyable for players, I believe the style should evolve in a better way and not digress as we've recently seen it has. As a spender myself, I can't say I'm hooked on the new avatar designs, and have noticed I've spent less money on the game lately due to finding the avatar designs less interesting than the ones before, looking slightly cheap and rushed, with a more simplistic look, and overall not something I am willing to pay for, though I do have to admit we get some decent ones from time to time. I can't say I'm an artist, but I also draw, and am somewhat aware of how much time and work is spent on drawing a single avatar, but let's be real, it feels like the new designers don't spend nearly as much time on recent avatars as the designers before them. Or perhaps it's just their style. It's not a bad style by any means, however when people compare it to old styles, they are more likely to prefer the old ones rather than the new. When a company wants their business to grow and draw more members in, the least they could do is invest the money we've spent on the app, on better trained, professional artists. This is the first time I'm expressing my personal opinion on the designs in public, as I normally wouldn't criticize other people's art out of respect for their hard work, but today I felt like being honest for once. You can disagree, this is just my opinion.
I think though, you are forgetting the short time frame in which they now have produce. There is this video on YouTube that explain what a mobile game like this takes to create new content every week (or two weeks). Crunch time never ends. So if everyone on the game is constantly trying to meet the hard deadline only for the next one to start... that’s exhausting. from what I have heard, there is more content to create now than before per hunt, which also were longer. Again, I’ve been playing for a year and a half, so this is from conversation’s with people. Just keep in mind we aren’t seeing the whole picture.
You are absolutely right on that, thank you for the response! While there is no doubt that pulling out new hunts every week or two is stressful, ATA[Strange] had admitted that the team is always planning several hunts ahead and are constantly working on a few at a time. I am not sure how many people the whole company consists of, but perhaps it would be better if they expanded their team and hire more artists to save time and polish everything before putting it out to the game. This is again nothing more than my personal opinion and by no means I would tell a company how to run their business, but if they take this advice into consideration, then maybe more players would be happy in the end and therefore contribute more to the company's profit.
So here’s the thing, in order to hire more team members, they need to earn enough revenue to cover the cost of salary... which is probably why things cost more... and why they put monthly Avis up for sale. This is not a defense for them, just a probable reality. I am not interested in getting into the politics on the monthly avi situation on this thread because it has been mostly positive and there is a place for that. However, it was relevant and worth mentioning in direct response to this one post.
Also I wanted to point out that just because they work on hunts ahead of time it doesn’t change the time frame they have to keep up with. They have to keep up the pace to not literally create content on the day of.
This would make sense if they were a new rookie company, which they are not. Increasing the price on monthly avatars is not going to help them profit, as it is proven that the most profit a company usually gets is when they actually decrease the price of their products. Hence why sales and discounts prove to be more effective when persuading their customers to buy more and in bulk. This is why Black Friday is also the time ATA and every other company get paid better during those times, because of the price drop. Even if it's a minor discount, a customer's mind is always drawn towards the big red letters that spell "SALE" and are more likely to buy that product. What ATA did was the exact opposite, which unsurprisingly got negative reaction. Back on the topic, and I will keep it short,t do have the money, considering how pricey ECs and everything else is in the game in comparison to other games, and people still buy them, but the problem may perhaps lie on the possibility that they don't know how to handle their income and invest it in something that would make the game design better.