Why the CGTrader Wildcat Platform is NOT for 3D artists. (First hand experience)
Discussion started by arecc9704
CGT has this no bidding freelance platform that Is wonderfully market to 3D designers on their website. I tried it for a while despite a ton of negative reviews everywhere on the internet. This is because I generally believe in trying things out myself. It is however the complete opposite of what they market. Calling the whole platform horrible is an understatement.
To begin with, the pay is very very low. Dismal at best. A large percentage of 3D artists are from first world countries like Ukraine where the 20$ average pay per model is a daily budget for coffee. The pay will not even pay for your software and hardware let alone pay your bills. A no skill job like transcription would pay better.
The other issue is models getting stuck in Q/A for a solid 3-5 business days. During this time you cannot take up another job. if a model goes for two rounds of review then that's more than 2 weeks on a 20$ task that should have taken a day.
The Q/A requirements are very high and picky. The Q/A guys nit pick on every detail. You would need to be incredibly skilled just to get your job approved. You will also spend a lot of time adding very minor details to models. The briefs are also quite ambiguous and this further worsens the issue. If you can manage to successfully get a model through Q/A then you are definitely wasting your time here. You should be working at Epic Games for 100s of times better pay that matches the quality requirements. I am not even kidding.
They also have a very frustrating automatic model checker. The checker gives 3 errors at a time. That means you will get new errors when you solve the first 3. The damn checker takes between 13 mins and a whole hour to process the upload. You can spend a whole day just troubleshooting the automatic checker.
The system also does not dynamically increase prices of models. I mean it only makes sense to bump up the price of a model when it's been collecting dust on freelancers dashboards for more than a month. Just to put things in context, about 80% of the models that were there when my account was approved, were still there when I abandoned it 2 months later.
Those are the issues I had at my finger tips. There are way more. and I mean waaay more issues with the platform. Apparently, it is in and has been in Beta mode for years, but that still barely explains its unfathomable mediocrity.
So WHY did I write this review? This is to save 3D artists time. I wasted like 2 months of my valuable time testing it out. [I could not find a detailed review of exactly what happens]
So WHO is CGT wildcat for? Nobody... If you're a beginner then I doubt your model will even get through the first round of review. If you're experienced then you can make waaay more elsewhere with a better working environment. If you're desperate for money just get a transcription or captioning job. No skill requirement, no hardware requirements.
I hope another company like TurboSquid takes up this idea and implements it well.
Answers
4
The only thing I would say it is good for are the tests that you have to do to become approved. I only say this because I passed both the tests on my 4th attempt for arch viz & 6th attempt for PBR. It gave me knowledge of what levels of detail are needed to get to the highest level. Also if you have the mental toughness to keep going when you get the very picky comments it makes you more able to deal with this situation doing other work away from Wildcat.
Recently, in my day job as a 3D lead It took me over a month to get some shampoo bottles approved by a huge global brand owner. Once they were approved & I had made over 60 pack shot renders of different variants for multiple European markets, all of these approvals were revoked by the head of marketing for this brand. Adjustments had to be made to all 8 of the master scenes. It took nearly 6 weeks to catch up, so I was back on schedule again.
Whenever it got frustrating doing this, remembering how bad Wildcat is & surviving that made me appreciate that going through this is nowhere near as bad. When I passed the tests I did do one arch viz task which was picking up an unfinished model. I had to fail it because the brief totally changed at round one amends doubling the original amount of work for the same price and deadline. Also the fact that I am paid the correct rate in my day job greatly helps too!
I would say it's the opposite - judging from numerous complaints, it's quite obvious that wildcat is regressing. I jumped on it almost since day one and i can say that it was much different experience to work for them back then. The tasks was scarce and quite difficult to get at first, but the pay was better, requirements was simpler and QA process was soo much easier. You could talk with someone from the team personally and they nicely helped you to solve the issues. It was never very profitable to work for wildcat, but it was nowhere near as bad as it seams today is.
0
You said you were aware of all the negative reviews about wildcat, yet this didn't stop you from trying your luck. Why then you think that your review is different and it will change someone's mind? I think you just wasted yet another 20 minutes of your life on a thing that doesn't deserve it.
You are definitely a critical thinker! However, most of those reviews date back to more than 2 years ago. This is like an update on the current status quo for those considering jumping in.
0
I agree with all these points. And my experience is the same.
-10
Hello and thank you for your feedback.
We are really sorry that you had a bad experience on Wildcat. Here on CGTrader we are constantly trying to improve our services and the experience of our designers, so any feedback is always welcome. Our team is dedicated to providing excellent support, though we acknowledge that there are some areas where improvements must be made.
We are aware of the issues you raised, and we are currently working on changing many things in order to perfectly meet the designers needs, in terms of better pay, faster support and QA. We are also working on optimizing the platform so the whole process will become seamless and time efficient for our designers. We are always excited to work with new and talented people, so providing them with the best possible experience is our top priority.
Once again, we really want to thank you for your valuable feedback. We hope to see you again on Wildcat and we promise to provide a far better experience next time.
Kindly,
Thanos from Wildcat
Quit it with the PR stunt. We both know this platform has been around for like 3 years and it's apparently only getting worse. And also CGT has been spamming me everyday that there are a lot of jobs waiting for me on the platform. I know and am not interested. Quit it with that too.
Kindly,
An angry former Wildcat slave.
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