One key thing missing from this analysis is whether the investment in art would in turn drive more sales revenue (be it from more copies sold or from being able to justify a higher price per copy, or both). If hiring a full-time artist means needing to sell 40,000 copies instead of 25,000 to break even, but doing so results in selling 50,000 copies, then that seems like it'd be a worthwhile investment.
That's of course the issue, though: it's hard to estimate whether professionally-done art would result in sufficiently-higher sales. Only strategy I know of that'd be able to assess that would be to outright poll the customerbase on whether they'd pay more for something with better art.
The big-box studios all seem to invest heavily in art and asset design relative to everything else, and they make money by the bucketload even for games that play considerably worse than your average indie game. Then again, AAAs and indie devs tend to target very different niches.
That's of course the issue, though: it's hard to estimate whether professionally-done art would result in sufficiently-higher sales. Only strategy I know of that'd be able to assess that would be to outright poll the customerbase on whether they'd pay more for something with better art.
The big-box studios all seem to invest heavily in art and asset design relative to everything else, and they make money by the bucketload even for games that play considerably worse than your average indie game. Then again, AAAs and indie devs tend to target very different niches.