You the artist and game maker, make the game. The 3d models you make, you post for sale on platform such as cgtrader.
The game is not finished yet, but as you make artwork for your project, you publish them for sale.
How do you think about this business design?
Only problem I can see, is copyright protection. It cost $65.00 per copyright on each model.
Itās a great business model, your 3d models act as good marketing for your up-and-coming game and when the game comes out itās even better marketing for your models. I think most donāt do it because itās a lot of work to set up shop for two enterprises and provide support for game-ready models on top of a game-ready game. If the models take off you may get more requests or chase popular trends not relevant to the game. If the game gets popular then you may simply spend less time modeling, it can be tough to juggle.
Why does it cost $65 to copyright your models? In the USA the DMCA is implicit and free to act on/request a take down of your works. You have other posts worrying about copyright, itās up to you to act on others stealing intellectual property, you will never be āsummonedā or forced to a court room for publishing your own artistic works in the United States. You would have to want to takedown a illicit actor and itās usually a done deal through email and the offending site. i.e. someone re-uploads your works on itch.io, then you email itch.io and they take it down, ban the bad guy.
What has happened to artist, the person takes the art, then files for copyright on it. After having the copyright on it with the copyright office, then they can own it. The Judge will rule in their favor, because they got the copyright with the copyright office, first.
If filing just on single model, it cost $65.00. When filing ten models at same time, it cost $85.00 for all ten.
Thatās still too much, even at $8.5 each, because I have to file all ten.
Did a lawyer tell you that?
This has been the word about it from the year 2000. Basically what your told, is never release or publish anything until you have the copyright on it with the copyright office. Because they can and will steal it from you. Now, tell me? What can stop them from doing it?
Are you asking about selling the models you created for your games?
If money is your goal, I guess that could work, but Iād rather not have my models reused, as it might be perceived by the audience as an asset flip. While not inherently bad, it has a negative stigma around it.
Selling models that I personally create for my own game is what I am talking about here. But, I can see why they would assume it was asset flipping. A misunderstanding of their own, because they assume something from their imagination. Anything that would allow them to use hate against an individual.
The idea is posting the models on cgtrader during the production of the game. This way your producing art at the same time your developing games. Because one, the game production can take a full year. Even after the game is finished, according to statistics there is a 90% chance of failing. The artwork would be giving your time a second chance at making little bit of money from your work.
It is a great idea.
But you do not need to register for copyright, it is automatic. You do not have to pay anything. And uploading a model to a shop/platform to sell it, is great evidence of when your work was created or for the start of your copyright claim.
You can pay for those āproof of creation dateā type services, but you most certainly do not have to, and they are, although not a scam, a bit unnecessary.
As soon as your work is public it can be copied. But you have the copyright as they cannot go back in time and make it public before you did.
However that is the case in the UK, I am not a lawyer, and it might be different I suppose in the US or some other country. Anyway, you canāt spend all your time worrying about these things. Your plan was sound.
I suppose if I published my work on say, gumroad, gumroad could be recognized as a legit source for a time stamp on the artwork by the judge. Then if they tried to take my art by getting a copyright paper on it fro the copyright office, I can defend myself, even challenge them. I have heard of this happening too, someone has said to me someone had this situation, and won the court battle, because of the time stamp.
I think I will give it a try. I can produce some artwork and publish it on gumroad, and also use this in my own game production. Or would this be seen as asset flip? What if I was telling them itās a model being used in the production of my own work?
I think there was a million dollar AAA company who did this? They sold license rights to their models from a game and made, millions from it.
But youāre making the observation from a position where all information is present. You know the game came first and youāre selling the models on the side, but a person who finds your game via a store doesnāt know that.
Iād try to position myself in their shoes and see how that would be. Iām not sure if it will impact it much, all Iām saying is that it could and thatās something to consider 
I think it would be better to put the models in the game that is to be released, and not sell the models. It could mean higher quality for the game, as the models are not stock models.
Someone has told me that market is so saturated with models in all price points, with all of them high quality, that the chances of selling a model is very very low. Keeping the models exclusive to the game you make would be best for quality control.
It is in my opinion that the best games would not use stock models. They would use custom made models. For example the AAA, as far as I know you will not find a cgtrader model in one of those. They have a team of artist making the AAA art for that title, and itās unique to it.