Asset flip

An asset flip is the practice (often considered unethical) in the video game industry where a developer purchases ready-made game assets (models, textures, sounds, animations) from marketplaces like Unity Asset Store or Unreal Marketplace, makes minimal or no changes to them, then quickly “packages” new products using these existing resources and sells them as “new games.”

Practical example: Someone buys 50 game asset packages (3D zombie models, environment textures, sounds) from Unity Asset Store for $500. Instead of creating an original game with original design, they create 10 different games that are essentially identical—just with different names and arrangements. All games use the same assets. They sell them on Steam for $4.99 each. That’s an asset flip.

What’s the problem? From customers’ perspective, they expect original games—original design, original art, original concept. Asset flip is fraud because it attracts buyers promising original experience but literally everything is marketplace-purchased. Also, it devalues creative artists’ work who created those assets.

From platform perspective like Steam: Asset flipping clutters their catalog and creates poor user experience. Steam introduced better verification systems, but asset flips still exist, usually on other platforms or marketplaces with minimal oversight.

For startups: If you develop games using marketplace assets, that’s OK—many respected developers do it. But you should: (1) Combine marketplace assets with custom assets; (2) Make significant mechanical and design changes; (3) Communicate what’s sourced and what’s yours.