Has anyone else stopped uploading new models due to low sales?
Discussion started by ecati
Hi everyone,
Over the past 6-8 months, my sales on CGTrader and TurboSquid have dropped significantly — almost to zero. Because of this, I have stopped creating and uploading new models.
I am curious: are other artists experiencing the same situation? Have you also reduced or completely stopped uploading new models?
What do you think is the main reason for this drop? Is it AI, market saturation, or something else?
Any thoughts or experiences would be appreciated.
Thank you.
Answers
5
Let me offer feedback as a buyer - it's what you both suggested with your replies and it applies to my field as well very much in the similar fashion, or worse. I've been here basically since day one, but have limited my purchases to an absolute minimum, very little. IAnd the reason comes from what you're both saying - CGT needs numbers and volumes for different reasons and with that, the quality control is basically zero. The amount of stolen assets is staggering. I am annoyed with CGT to allow all of this and to actually delegate what is their job to contributors - either content creator or buyers - to report stolen assets. I am not here to do their job. Accounts with stolen assets get rarely removed - just the reported assets which is automated and that's that. This is terrible practice overall. With licensing stolen assets they're directly putting their own customers at legal risk and you can bet once something goes south big time, it's not gonna be a corporation or a big company that gets screwed over - it's gonna be me. So.. thanks, but no thanks. Not to mention I've been directly challenged over sitemail by a "content creator" when confronted them about licensing stolen assets, that I can report all I want please do so, as they have multiple accounts.
This, at least for me, is something that more or less ended my spending here after long years of liking CGT. It's what it is now and I don't expect to get any better for you and for me. Good luck and thanks to all real asset creators who do the dirty work and try to survive in this corporate grind and market where everyone needs to be squeezed to the last drop.
8
Looking at the top navigation bar of CGTrader right now, there is a prominent "Create with AI" button.
For years, independent 3D artists built this platform by uploading quality models and creating the marketplace. Now, the platform itself is actively encouraging buyers to generate models via AI instead of purchasing human-made assets.
By putting AI generation at the very top of the interface, CGTrader is directly competing against its own sellers. Why should creators continue spending hours modeling, optimizing, and uploading when the marketplace itself directs customers away from our portfolios?
Is CGTrader shifting away from being a creator-driven marketplace to an automated AI tool? How do other sellers feel about this direction?
And of course we now have another Royalty rate drop of 5% across the board. They are putting the majority of sellers into a payout bracket so low that they might as well just go and sell at Turbosquid. At least they did one massive cuit and stopped at that. Not this constant undercutting of sellers. First Charging us for payments, then cutting rates, then automatically enrolling us to donate our models for AI generations without our consent, then the same thing with cut price corporate bundles, and now a second cut. It is beyond a joke. They clearly do not want our models.
Your answer
In order to post an answer, you need to sign in.
