SKINR Consorting

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I’ve dabbling a bit into SKINRs and I’m curious to know what has been the experience of everyone else, mostly on the selling side, with the feature.

Personally I’ve detected some problems:

  • There is a big problem of Discoverability, Designs being sorted by released dates makes it yet another bidding war and makes it hard to find really unique designs by might be hidden deep in the list. Funnily enough, the randomization of the HyperNet Relay would be perfect to allow more skins to be discovered.
  • Zero data on how many Designs are being sold. Is there even Demand for it??? I have a strong suspicion that the prices demanded by CCP are way too high, and thus discourage people from buying Designs, but we can’t even know since we have no idea how many Design are being sold :joy:
  • Community Engagement. We just got a reduction in production costs, but what would really help is Designs being actually spotlighted by CCP. I look all the ships around, and barely anyone is sporting those Designs, either people are not aware, or they really do not think that they are worth the price, and the only way to know that is to put eyes on them, and then see if people actualy buy them.

What is everyone else thinking? I think it would be a good idea to have a place where we can voice our feedbacks about the feature.

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Pretty much the same thing I was thinking in June of 2024.

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I was an early adopter of SKINR, and I’ll try to answer.

I agree. The EVE forum should have somewhere “official” where SKINR can be discussed. There are a few public threads posted by pilots, but you have to be aware of those threads. As I understand it, discussion does take place somewhere over on Discord; but, it you don’t use Discord you’re out of luck.

As to discoverability, my experience with interacting with the Paragon Hub interface led me to using the search function by ship hull. I’ve found that to be adequate. By using that, I also discovered there are numerous hulls that have very few, and at times, no ship skins listed for sale at all. That’s more of a supply problem. I know it led me to design a few skins for hulls I had not considered, or flown for that matter. My sales results were mixed, about half the skins sold. I don’t know if that was due to lack of traffic, or simply lack of awareness that someone was listing skins for that hull.

From my own experience there is a demand for it. I’ve had private commissions from individual pilots, and imquiries from larger organizations. (I’ve never managed to snag a job from an organization, as organizations in my experience will choose a designer from within the organization given a choice.)

Most of my sales come from free lance skin listings. I design for my own taste, and list the skin. If it sells and I really liked it, I make another for my own usage.

I do want to note, during the Winter Event, I did not make a single sale. I assume due to CCP’s reduced pricing. However, I sold 5 skins, immediately after the pricing sale ended, so make of that what you will.

One thing I discovered is I don’t really look at other pilot’s ships while in space. I used to, when I first started the game; but, now I play zoomed out as so many others do. So, I don’t know how accurate your statement is. My point in mentioning this is, this knowledge led me to design most of my skins for ship spinning in station.

So, in summary, I agree regarding forum representation, wholeheartedly.

I think there is a demand for SKINR products; but, I design, for the most part, complicated expensive skins and charge a reasonable price. I think some designers are pricing themselves out of the market. But, having written that, I have also priced a skin extortionately, if I just put it up for public viewing and actually had no intention of it being sold.

As to CCP spotlighting SKINR products/designers, SKINR was controversial in the beginning, and is still so. Lots of pilots, to be blunt, think it is a waste of time/coding by CCP. Personally, I do not, but I understand their position. So, should CCP stir up passions by showcasing SKINR, well, in my opinion, it’s a win-lose proposition still. Anti-SKINRs pilots will complain, no one likes to listen to complaints.

I do believe there will come a time when the controversy dies to “an acceptable level”, and CCP will spend more time promoting individual designs/designers.

One caveat, I list my skins for the most part for one week or two weeks. Outside of the very beginning of SKINR, I’ve only had one set of skins I listed for the full three months available for listings. I’ve found that time “placement” sufficient to sell skins.

But, there is a demand.

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Welcome to the design house!

And great observations, particularly regarding the default storefront sorting by time of listing. You’ll likely puzzle over that and other bits of ideal listing technique with the rest of us that design regularly for months to come–unless things change, of course. SKINr has plenty of quirks, and working around them can be a real minigame. I have mixed feelings about the quirks, but, risking sounding a bit like a shill here, am generally very happy with the depth SKINr’s brought to my overall experience in EO.

I’ve been designing since the feature launched. It has improved over time, especially in the design spaces and UIs themselves, but it’s missing features and optimization. There can be demand issues, but, like the quirks, there’s a bit of a minigame to getting in front of the demand that exists. There’s some luck to it all as well, but there are also ways to make yourself more open to that luck. Happy to talk SKINr in-game any time, but I’ve got plenty of posts on the subject here on the forums as well.

Here are a couple of things that I’ve observed and maybe guessed at that I think could help someone starting out now…

  • Understanding that listings are the most passively visible to buyers as they expire helps. There are small tickers along the right side of the screen as someone tabs over to the Paragon Hub window. The topmost ticker will show them skins for the ship they currently have docked. The first (leftmost) skin in the ticker’s list is the soonest to expire, and, unless they actively change their filter, listings ascend from there. Daily listings, while possibly a pain in the ahbazon for some, will make your designs visible in this way more often. If you can stomach it, list daily.

  • Related to the above, having a hazy understanding of timezones and how they might help you, uh, helps. This is a little bit of a generalization, and it could just be luck and coincidence, but I live in USTZ on the east coast, and most of my sales seem to occur overnight. This is true now that I’ve begun creating more overnight listings around midnight or so, but it was also true with longer listings before I began doing that. I’d list something for a week, and I’d wake up one day to find that it had sold. People in the EU are just starting their day as my listings come to a close, and I think EU players are buying.

  • Also related to the above, people most likely care the most about the ship they sit in to leave on-screen in stations, and that doesn’t necessarily have to be the ship they take into space the most. They like getting a close look at them. They like rotating the camera to see their killmarks. They like flipping through skins to see if something works better for their next explo op or not. It isn’t just a matter of what ships look great in space; what ships find their way back home and stay on-screen the most?

  • Design for hulls that look cool and see regular use as well. And, conversely, do enough research to understand hulls that don’t look cool and don’t see regular use. Hulls that are agreed upon by the community being underpowered generally take months to sell.

  • Re: skills – Prioritize tax reductions, increases to sequencing speed, increases to simultaneous active listings, and max save slots (in that order); save Multi-Thread Sequencing and Industrial Sequencing for last. Even if you intend to whale out, demand doesn’t seem to be there to support the kinds of sequencing jobs described in the skill tooltips. Until better branding tools and features are established, there isn’t a skin available on the market today worth creating in stacks of hundreds.

  • Sequence new designs in stacks of five, at most. Having a dynamic inventory allows for better investment security overall. You want to avoid situations where you have a stack of a design you haven’t tested properly. Even popular designs trickle out. Avoid excessive investment gathering dust.

  • Some Minmatar hulls can be a tricky investment. Comparatively, some Minmatar hulls offer little actual surface area for design elements, and the surface area they do have can be irregular and disruptive. Caveat emptor…

  • Triglavian ships are a relatively safe investment. Interestingly, they only have three design nodes along the left of the creation kit’s interface (as opposed to the normal four), so there’s just a lot of efficiency there. It’s easy to fill the hull with color, and the ship elements have a lot of flat surfaces with minimal disruption.

  • Use the Fade-In pattern for full hull coverage if you’re looking for a monotone skin. It’s cheaper than trying to apply a color to the nodes along the left! Apply the pattern and drag the sliders around until the entire ship is X color. Easy peasy…

  • Don’t be afraid to price high. Remember that SKINr is a luxury market. There are plenty of folks in the community that complain about high costs and high sale prices, but those costs and prices allow for this amount of customization in a game created by a company that has relied on cosmetic sales in the past. There’s also something to be said for establishing and maintaining a brand with prices that don’t push over entirely for the sake of easy sales.

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The above list is far from exhaustive, but hopefully some of those tips help. Again, happy to chat more about SKINr anything any time–happy designing!

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I managed to make ONE sale xD but it was really for a niche skin, I expected the others I have listed to have a lot more success.

I think it is critical we get a report or stats on the demand. From what I see from this thread, the demand seems… ok? But I have yet to see it reflected in my numbers.

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