Really, saving those 500$
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Depends what the model is. I got a quote from a company that wanted 10 grand just for a character model with no bones, just the geometry. Yea insane right?

You don't just buy a Hind model and chuck it in your game. You need an art director to assess it to ensure it fits stylisticly, and a tech-artist to ensure it fits the tech requirements,

So someone downloads blueprints of a hind and models it. They are going to be the same, there is no style if your going for realism. The texturing can be different but I've never played a game and gone: man that Humvee looks way different than any other game. And tech requirements are basically going to be the same on vehicles.[/quote]Yeah I guess all those people in lead and direction roles don't actually do anything at all. I guess there are no internal quality controls or processes for giving and acting on both technical and stylistic feedback within the art group. I guess everyone ignores their project's art bible.

Ironically, there's a lot more to art assets than how they look on the screen.

What makes their art different anyway? I guarantee that if you take a snapshot from both of those upcoming games you wouldn't be able to say which one is which. (other than BF's horrible looking trees if they still have them). People will pay for 2 versions of the same game because thats all we do pay for in series games.

My bad, I meant just looking at a single in game asset, not a full scene. Imaging snapshot a vehicle and then photoshop its context out and you just a model that nobody will know where if its a re-used asset or not.

[Edit]Also, because outsourcing is somewhat common, there's been some stupid incidents where dev's have been accused of plagiarism by the public, because modders have found identical assets in different games, which goes to show asset re-use by different companies does occur somewhat.