Comment by shkkmo

> He currently uses contractors. What exactly are you arguing? That he is bad at using contractors, but that lack of skill is separate from his lack of skill in art?

He use contractors to do his graphics, not to do the art direction. He choose how to do them, when to do them and how much effort to put in all of them.

> How? I am sure he would love to have better art at no cost, so please explain these mysterious methods.

I already say it on the following paragraph.

> He said it himself in this new post that his latest game was much longer to complete because he invested MONTHS in a new engine.

Based on his budget, that's quite a bit of money spend for that. It would be easy to take some of that money from his budget and instead invest it on art.

That's also not considering that he most probably pay more than needed for some of its graphics.

The fact that he think it's worthwhile to invest months into a new engine show why an art director will help greatly. As a developer, he knows how building an engine is an investment that will gains more in the long term. In art, he clearly doesn't know much and don't want to know more by is own admission. He don't know what deserve more budget, what deserve less, what can be done to get a good look for less. Another comments gave a link to a picture of someone that did a few tweaks to one of its screenshots and it was already so much better. It was mostly color corrections.

There's so much he could do, that he doesn't. It's not that he can't, it just that he won't.

Again I'll repeat myself from many others comments, there's nothing wrong with not wanting to get better arts (at best it's sad to see that its stories won't be seen by as many people, but that's not a requirement at all). The only thing I believe is wrong is that he act like it's not his choice, that he legitimately can do nothing about it.