Remember the first time some neckbeard trustfund kid snuck Brad 40k under the table, and his parent's fund manager found out and put a stop to it right quick.
Good times good times!
To be fair, it isn't like much was done by his old team. If anything most of the Sparkles era people were more of a problem for him than anything with the drama they were causing here and on other sites. I mean, shit, if you had to pay for fuzzy trolls, wouldn't you just keep $40k instead?
Side note, is there anything generally wrong with using the Unity Asset Store? From a business perspective I'd rather spend $5 to some amateur artist's Unity store creation and have full rights to use that IP in my game than to spend $40,000 a year (per person) on a concept artist, animator, texture builder, modeler, list goes on.
It's the same concept as what EQ1 was doing in the beginning... look at the sounds in EQ, they're from a Hollywood sounds pack that was reused over the years. There were a few original sounds at low quality. The art in EQ was made at a time where you could load up MSPaint and make bitmaps of all the art by hand as it wasn't insanely detailed. And it didn't have to be, and it still sold millions. Probably, EQ1 was made on the same budget as Pantheon.
And let's be real here, do you think anyone who gives a shit about gameplay cares if the Gnolls they're slaying look like disfigured orcs if the gameplay is good?
Just saying; if your game is good you'll attract talent based on who you do business with anyways. When artists get their names out there through making a Unity game's art, that's all they care about and it makes your end users happy. I know people that went to Art school who do nothing but make games and chiptune music, waiting for that next big thing that gets them a few bucks.
