should we make skins for making money?

Skinning is a hobby, not a career. People who skin for money are doing it for all the wrong reasons and really should not skin in the first place. As far as paying rent, bills, taxes, ect, there are real jobs out there. People who don't have a real job outside of skinning need to get off the computer and get a job and work, even if they can't get the job they would like to have, any job is better than none.

Playing tennis is a hobby, not a career. People who play tennis for money are doing it for all the wrong reasons and really should not play tennis in the first place. As far as paying rent, bills, taxes, ect, there are real jobs out there. People who don't have a real job outside of playing tennis need to get off the tennis court and get a job and work, even if they can't get the job they would like to have, any job is better than none.

...er...

I've known a lot of people with a lot of hobbies in my life.  It is great to watch them improve doing something they love.  And I have always been thrilled to see them begin to reap some benefit from the hours they spend learning and improving and practicing their skill, and the resources they put into their tools.  Many, many hobbies lead to careers. 

Young people with a love for animals eventually turn into vets, football players go pro if they are good, young republicans in high school go on to political life.  And yes, even skinners have the right to gain some benefit from their skill.  Hobbies are as much a process as an end product.

Money paid for subscriptions goes to help pay for bandwidth, and equipment, so this site can continue to operate. The subscriptions come no where near covering the costs of running the site. Stardock pays the lions share.
No skinner is forced to submit his/her skins here. Everyone can start their own site and sell skins......... but without the FREE exposure here, how far do you think that will go?

If a skinner is good enough to make money selling premium skins, he/she has every right to do so.

Skinning is a hobby, not a career. People who skin for money are doing it for all the wrong reasons and really should not skin in the first place.

So you are saying that SkinsFactory, SkinPlant and like should cease their business? That including the commercial skins Stardock is offering? Why should skinning be exclusivly a hobby? Considering that Nvidia, ATI, Alienware and Microsoft, to name a few, utilizes skinning for their marketing I find it hard to agree with your statement that skinning is not a carrier option. Microsoft'scasestudy of Stardock talks about skinning in the commercial world. (Thanks to Black Xero for the link)

Reply #3 By: Madam GoodMorphing - 6/26/2005 2:57:44 PM I've known a lot of people with a lot of hobbies in my life. It is great to watch them improve doing something they love. And I have always been thrilled to see them begin to reap some benefit from the hours they spend learning and improving and practicing their skill, and the resources they put into their tools. Many, many hobbies lead to careers. Young people with a love for animals eventually turn into vets, football players go pro if they are good, young republicans in high school go on to political life. And yes, even skinners have the right to gain some benefit from their skill. Hobbies are as much a process as an end product.

Well said Madam GoodMorphing. As I am working on a wb skin (first) I have come to appreciate and respect the amount of time, creativity, and effort that goes in creating a wb skin a lot more now. I have no objections if someone wants to make money from this if I were alot younger and I was looking for a career maybe I would pursue this. I still have a long way to go before anything I do is worth selling I surprised that someone hasn't started something like that up HMMMM.

I play guitar and sing. If some guy or girl joined up with my band, the first question was, is it for the money or the pleasure. If they said money, they weren't hired. I will play anywhere, any time for free. I can remember seeing people, not really paying any attention to what I was singing, and then, they would here a line or lyric that brought a smile to them. That was worth more money than I could ever make. I can't figure out skinning. God, I wish I could. I have bought three skins just recently, and I am not even using them. I know it's a lot of work, but, learning a new song, or writing a new song, then teaching it to the rest of the guy's, then getting on stage and playing it, is hard work. By the end of a session, the guitar feels like it weighs 200lbs. You're mouth is dry, but if I made one person's day a little better, I was happy. Money came second. I have sat and played at party's by myself for free for 8 to 10 hours, and was wore out, but I enjoyed seeing the other people enjoying it more. As a matter of fact, I was playing at a friend's birthday party, a bunch of bikers, and a guy came up and said, here's $500 for playing, I told him, "Bull" was a good friend, this was free. So, it's up to the person doing it. if you're doing it for money, don't put it on Wincustomize and try to charge. Open a site, and sell you're ass off. Peace. Hippie.

P.S. By the way, right now, I have some kinda red car, I think it's a chevy. I live in a house, that's maybe 1000 sq. ft. I have five guitars and a computer. I'm crazy, but I'm happy.

I've always been against the selling of skins personally. Like, if you go and make a single WB skin and sell it for $8.00 or whatever the case is. I don't know why, but I've always been bothered by this, probably because I know if it catches on...anyone who is good at it will opt to sell them instead of give them away for free. I would hate to see it come to that. I feel as if skinning started out free...it should remain (and has remained) free. Selling skins on a corporate level however, is the way to go. Something like The Skins Factory or Skinplant. Most of their business comes from selling skins/making skins for other businesses. If you want to persue a career in skinning, I feel that is the best way, both economically and morally.

I forgot. I also work on computer's. Didn't go to school for it, I just know how to do some things. Anyway, this friend of mine, that live's about 100 miles from me called and said he had something on his computer called "Windows" and it freaked him out, so he deleted it. This was back with Window's '95. I went to his house. Spent 8 hour's trying to fix his mess and did. When I left he said, what do I owe you. I said about $2 for gas. Go to Best Buy, and have them put in a video card. $200 for the card. $50 for them to put it in, but I've never even been able to get them to do it and it work. I usually wait till the warrenty runs out and do it myself. I just sent a check for my ISP, Hoping it doesn't bounce, and when it runs out, I'm quitting the internet. It's becoming a buisness instead of pleasure. Peace. Hippie

It's [allegedly] a free world.

If people want to sell their WORK/ART/ARTIFACTS whatever the motivation that SHOULD be OK to all...if not, then it is the dissenter that has the serious issue, not the vendor.

If people want to buy the skins the same argument applies....

Firstly, people have made jobs out of their hobbies. Don't let money corrupt the way you think about a hobby; if you can make money doing something you love to do then go for it.

I am sure their are people who love to sing or play music but also want to make money from it as well. I like/love technology, but I also know it will be a career that will pay in 2 ways: my own business/contract work and as an employee for some company.

Some people like jewlery, but you don't see stores that sell and make jewlery doing custome designs for free.



It is true that you should do something you like or love and if that comes first then your good to go, but putting down someone for trying to make money off of something they like to do is wrong.

You have:
Skinplant
The skins Factory
essorant
Pixtudio
Petrol Designs
Adam soley (Solution designs)

and some others who started out as hobbists and turned into a business model. Own a trainset? Takes up your whole basement? Your whole house? All of a sudden, your hobby has become a business where you invite people to see you model train set.





As I wrote before, don't let money making corrupt your thoughts on what could be a profitable hobby. Do you know many people who do what they love for a living? Don't knock them for making money while doing something they love.

Just my 2 cents but..

I have only been paid for 2 of my skins, and it was really a great thing to be paid to do something i really enjoyed. Just because something is a "hobby" doesn't mean that we shouldn't make a profit from it, the 2 are not mutually-exclusive. I mean if my hobby was say.. GOLF, and i got good enough to get invited to play in something that had a prize then why would i not go? If my hobby is making bowls from wood on my lathe, and i give a bunch of them away, then someone sees them and wants one, and maybe wants one that is special to them, etc, then why should i not bill them for my time/material. Skinning is strange because there is no "physical" thing to hand someone, its all virtual, but my time is still my time. When i spend 30-40-50-60 or more hours building something, be it a widget, or wmp skin, or whatever, and I GIVE it to the world by uploading it here, then its out the, and gone.

I think that there is a middle ground between paying for every skin, and having all the skins free. Why could we not have some sort of credit for skins. It would have to be based on things like rating, downloads, etc. This would help the person who made the skin pay for their subscription to WC or for upgrades at Stardock, or even for premium skins. I see this as a win win for everyone, the person get to get a free upgrade to the next version of the program, or a continuation of their subscription to WC, and WC and Stardock get good skins to show on their site, and give people a good reason to purchase their software.
I know the issue is not a simple one, but a credit system rewards "good" quality skins, not SCREENSHOTS or things like that, but really good working skins and things, and allows this site to keep some great skinners skinning.

As i said at the begining, this is just my suggestion. I know that if people could get some kind of return on their time and effort, there might be a lot more and better skins out there.

I have happily purchased a few premium skins and see no problem with skinners donating them to help support WC, but at the same time, I'm also pleased that many skinners offer up their works for all to share for free. Things work well this way, everyone has the choice to buy or not, and it would be a shame to see it change. Furthermore, many would be quite reluctant to pay the subscription if all skins were for sale and not to share, so it needs to be a balance of both to attract all-comers.

If a skinner wants to sell their work to cover costs, etc, there's nothing wrong with that either, but that sort of thing could be done from their personal pages rather than the public gallery. As for turning skinning into career, why not, it's a legitimate pursuit which should be a matter of personal choice and not criticised. Skinplant and others have done so, yet they still submit works here for WC subscribers to share freely. They're happy, we're happy. Now what's wrong wih that?

I have more primium content out there then most, but I still skin for fun as well. I just posted the Icon-A-Day Iconpack Free, after about 5 or so months of doing Free Totorials, trying to build the skinning community. If you dont like my stuff dont buy it, if you dont like my free stuff, dont download it.
The entire question comes down to this, is art (any kind) a labor of love, or just Labor. Anyone who makes a living as a artist can tell you the answer. Its both.

I don't think that being a subscriber should mean you should sell your skins. I subscribe and I don't put enough time into skinning these days to warrant being paid for it. I think that's one of the differences between those who can create 'premium' content and hobbiests. Premium skins are generally much more detailed and have had a lot more time go into them.

They deserve to be premium skins!

Everyone has the right to sell what they create. Period. JoeSkinner selling UberSkin v3.0 isn't going to destroy the skinning world, it just means that Joe may make a buck or two off of his work. Nothing wrong with being rewarded for hard work.

Sure, most do it for fun and as a hobby, but every now and then someone may invest a significant amount of time and effort on a skin, or an icon set, or a widget or whatever, and to them it may be worth selling. How does that harm those who don't sell?

The fear that it'll all turn to premium content is an unfounded one. Fact is, a large majority of the content at WC is not even close to premium quality. I can't even count the number of skins and themes I couldn't use because they were missing some artwork, were unreadable, or completely broke at high resolutions. They may work great at 1024x768, but if you go larger than that, forget it. For me, often the Premium Skins are the only ones that actually work for me. I'm willing to pay for quality content that actually works. Most content though is made purely as a hobby, and that's why the Free community will never go away.

This is true for all art. The only thing is skinning hasn't been around for so long, so people haven't been making money off it for so long. I know of few people who say "hey, you can draw, but you should only draw for free". It's expected that some of the best people who draw are going to go into business drawing for a living (and that doesn't mean they won't still be drawing for fun). The same for programming - I have written code for a living, but I still write some for fun/for communities I care about, too. Skinning is no different.

As for having to pay everyone, because they're doing skinning instead of something that will get them money, that's a different matter. As I've said before, "If you're starving, you have better things to do than desktop customization."

kinning is strange because there is no "physical" thing to hand someone, its all virtual, but my time is still my time.

So is webdesign.

So is software, for that matter.

"Skinning is a hobby, not a career"

Nice gallery, did you spend a lot of time on your skins?

Yes i did take lots of time on my skins Super Wizop Hippy. Glad you asked.

Yes i did take lots of time on my skins Super Wizop Hippy. Glad you asked.

Your Gallery has 1 boot skin listed. Are you hiding the rest ?

since premium skins already exist bash2cool it would appear that people already are charging for their endeavours. perhaps the real question is whether the market would support this trend going mainstream. would i pay for a skin?. i already have. would i pay for more? i don't think so.

Whether someone chooses to charge for the thing they've created with their hard work (skinning is tedious & time-consuming now with the explosion of variables & options in WB4) is entirely up to the skinner/artist and none of us should criticize anyone for choosing to do so. Instead, we should be expressing our gratitude to all the skinners, amateurs & pros alike, who've made their wonderful work available for us to enjoy, whether gratis or for a modest fee.

For me, there would be criteria to be met for a skin to merit a purchase price - truly original content, inclusion of all supported skinnable GUI elements, that sort of thing, but such criteria might be different for someone else. Whether to give away or to sell is a personal choice we should all have the prerogative to make for ourselves, free of criticism, and whether to buy is, as they say, up to the buyer.

Cheers,
Daiwa

I have purchased every premium skin available. I will continue to do so for the simple reason that they are "premium".