Although we started in 2016, our business model has always been selling assets and add-ons through the service BlenderMarket and things are going to change in the future.
It all started by trying to sell a product on BlenderMarket, then it ended up being my main source of income. The fact is that BlenderMarket is such a helpful service that helped selling my products since day one.
Meanwhile, I always aked myself a basic question (one of those that make you think): How do the Blender Foundation and other open source projects make money if they don’t sell anything? Turns out they all make use of some sort of donation systems.
Now, I’ve always believed that making a living out of donations only would be hard (but totally possible) and so never did the switch. But now I’m more motivated than ever, because not depending on selling the assets means that they could be shared to everyone and not only to customers of the product, meaning everyone would be able to benefit from them.
Some examples like PolyHaven made me realize that it’s not only possible to get money also selling CC-0 assets, but it’s a much better way than selling and keeping the products “closed”.
These and many other motivations are bringing us to start the switching process (which may take 2 years or so) to a donations system. We have chosen PayPal and LiberaPay which gives contributors the opportunity to also be anonymous.
We have some specific goals, and once each goal is reached then we make one of our products public.
The plan is the following:
First goal: 20€ per month
Release all the Pebble short film assets under CC-0
Second goal: 40€ per month
Release Real Sky under CC-0
Third goal: 80€ per month
Release Real Grass models under CC-0
Fourth goal: 200€ per month
Release Real Trees models under CC-0