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Re: Should mods be free?

#31
Mistycica wrote:
cfhd wrote:
Modding games isn't meant as a job or a way to sell things. Games and tools that come with them that allow you to mod aren't the same as game engines you buy or programs artists buy so that they can sell their work. So, yes, in this case if you want to get into the games industry and you don't want to shell out thousands of dollars for a legit game engine that is used to develop games then you can use the free tools that come with a game to sell your skills to a potential employer. You aren't doing free work for the employer here. You are providing a mod for the gamers.

If you want to become a digital artist you buy a Wacom tablet and you buy photoshop and you spend years learning them to produce your art and then you sell your art based on what you can produce with those tools that you paid hundreds or thousands of dollars for. You don't buy a game that happens to have a tool in it that allows you to draw in the game and then think youre going to get paid for the drawings you do that can only be viewed in that game.

With Bethesda games, you aren't buying a game engine for $60. You are buying a game to play that you can develop content for using their tools and their rules. If you were buying the rights to use their Gamebryo engine or Creation engine or whatever its called then Bethesda would be charging you an initial cost of thousands of dollars for the rights to use their engine. You are buying a game not the rights to an engine.
Second Life does the exact same thing you're saying it shouldn't - monetizing tiny content, only viewable in their environment, for minor amounts of money. It works. People do their things, learn a lot, have fun, get exposure, and still get paid for their trouble. Not to mention that they didn't buy Linden's environment either, just do stuff in Ps and Blender, like modders usually do, and pay their share to the devs when they earn something.
I don't see how that's fundamentally different from selling a set of Skyrim armor or an LTSL script for ten cents, how it suddenly becomes more immoral or less viable.
Isn't the entire second life "game" based around the community creating things for players to do? Like the whole thing is user created isn't it? At least thats what I got from the website. It sounds like that sort of place and design is specifically catered for the type of mod selling you are talking about. One thing I could tell though was that Second Life is definitely not some AAA game with an awesome engine in it. From what I heard in the past as well its less of a game and more of a social experience, or am I wrong about that? It seems more like comparing apples to oranges to me.
Post

Re: Should mods be free?

#32
aspman wrote:
Poet1960 wrote:Hmm. Mods have pretty much always been free. So let's see. There are generally two types of people who mod, ones who do it for fun and/or to learn how to code, and ones who feel they should get paid for it.

Now I am not opposed to rewarding someone who puts in effort to make something fun, but as far as mods are concerned, I think it should be a situation where they can take donations if people are so inclined, but not to force them, because there are some people who might be willing to pay for it, and others who never will.

If you want to get paid for coding, then perhaps you should either create your own game, or go work for someone who makes games. Just my thoughts on it.
You maybe need to digest my op, as you appear to have missed the point of "challenging" the existing thinking in order to benefit everyone.

My goal was to get to market the mods I would want, and would be happy to pay for.

However to play devils advocate, lets go with the "I want a career as an indie developer" side of things based on your viewpoint, and what I do for the next 6 months.

Your way: I cannot get any revenue from modding LT so I will go use Unity/Construct2 or similar and make my game. I release it on the app stores and come back here and say "Hi, I just made this excellent game you can buy it here" (blatant advertising rule aside)

Challenged way: I write my game in LTSL using state of the art PCG engine. In 6 months I come back here and say "Hi, I just made this excellent game/mod which will really enhance your LT experience if you enjoy [subject] elements to your game - $3 - and its on try before you buy"

As mentioned in the OP, donate buttons wont cut it from what I have read from Skyrim modders, its a nice gesture and gets a bit of revenue, but not the level to attract indie devs to switch to providing top quality content in LT.
First, why do you feel the need to "challenge," the existing thinking? Benefiting everyone? Who is not currently benefiting? What definition of, "benefiting," are you using? Are not mods already available for free, are there not already mods that you would want that you don't need to pay for? It almost sounds like you are implying, that just because you pay for a mod, it somehow makes it "better" than a mod you did not pay for. There is no need to "market" those mods as they already exist for many games and are free, very good mods.

I see no need to change the current system when there are excellent mods that people either do for free or donations. Monetizing mods, will not somehow create a new level of mod quality. The only thing it will accomplish, is to force people to pay for the same quality that they once got for free.


EDIT:
As was previously pointed out by others, modding is a hobby, not a career choice. So if they need to make a living, I suggest they get a job and not a hobby.
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
Post

Re: Should mods be free?

#33
OK, so what I am getting from this, is something along the lines of ...

Mods are hobby stuff, contribute $ if you want but not paid for.

So rather than the traditional way we cant seem to break away from with our thinking, lets consider this to help, as an alternative ...

LT Game $30 (or whatever RRP it ends up) - produce free mods using LTSL
LT-DLC-Creator $xxx (and/or revenue share model) - produce DLC using LTSL (same thing as above, just gives right to charge)

Now it is OK to charge because we gave Josh loads more money, and users are happy to pay because its branded DLC. :?

And if that is correct, then on top of whatever the modding community are up to, a potential ARMY of indie developers will be chucking quality DLC at you all over the place.

ninja'd by Poets reply. To which I say - if that is the case then you make a very good argument for me as a consumer. I would prefer free to paying for sure. I was challenging things, as per the OP due to another conversation about game monetisation and other people challenging the current business models and not being happy with them. Why do we blindly accept mods as being free? But my post above kinda circumnavigates this. If your vision of things pans out and all the content I want comes in because people want to make it for free, thats great, but i doubt it will be any time soon if people can only code for a couple of hours a day. I only replied you directly btw as your post inferred about making a career in programming and I wanted to address that.
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Re: Should mods be free?

#34
aspman wrote:...
ninja'd by Poets reply. To which I say - if that is the case then you make a very good argument for me as a consumer. I would prefer free to paying for sure. I was challenging things, as per the OP due to another conversation about game monetisation and other people challenging the current business models and not being happy with them. Why do we blindly accept mods as being free? But my post above kinda circumnavigates this. If your vision of things pans out and all the content I want comes in because people want to make it for free, thats great, but i doubt it will be any time soon if people can only code for a couple of hours a day. I only replied you directly btw as your post inferred about making a career in programming and I wanted to address that.

No problem. The one question I have about this little bit is this. Why would it really be a problem to wait for new mod content? So what if they can only code for a few hours a day? How is that a problem? I only see it being a problem for people who want everything now and have no patience.

EDIT:
The other thing is, as a general rule, there is no great demand for mods when a game first comes out because people generally play the vanilla version for a while, before they decide to start messing around with any mods that might be in the works, which gives the modders some time to get to work on whatever they may be working on.
Last edited by Poet1960 on Thu Dec 04, 2014 4:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
Post

Re: Should mods be free?

#35
cfhd wrote: Isn't the entire second life "game" based around the community creating things for players to do? Like the whole thing is user created isn't it? At least thats what I got from the website. It sounds like that sort of place and design is specifically catered for the type of mod selling you are talking about. One thing I could tell though was that Second Life is definitely not some AAA game with an awesome engine in it. From what I heard in the past as well its less of a game and more of a social experience, or am I wrong about that? It seems more like comparing apples to oranges to me.
I still don't see how the same system becomes something else when applied to another engine and game. Gaming became a fully social experience, as we are proving it here on the forums, even for single player pieces. Bethesda games, for example, are much more about community modding at the point too than the actual content the developers push out - I wouldn't bear playing any of them without modding the godawful level system out. If you don't mod it, you're not getting the full experience, and doing it plain wrong. Slipping Nexus into a marketplace is not a huge stretch of imagination.

I'm not saying that all games should be about monetized content creation, much less that they are now. But they could be, and it could benefit everyone, and in my opinion, it's the next logical step for a lot of examples in the genre, especially in single player.
Poet1960 wrote: As was previously pointed out by others, modding is a hobby, not a career choice. So if they need to make a living, I suggest they get a job and not a hobby.
That's what the Greek said about politics, and look where it ended up :lol:
To be serious, a lot of mod projects just cannot keep up with time or get orphaned precisely because of the lack of funds. If it was ensured that they will be done in not a month, but in two years, sure, the impatience thing would stand. But who games with a five year lag to make developing mods for something not fresh make sense? Most ambitious and otherwise brilliant projects end up halfway done on ModDB as testament to how sad modmaking is.
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Re: Should mods be free?

#36
Poet1960 wrote:
aspman wrote:...
ninja'd by Poets reply. To which I say - if that is the case then you make a very good argument for me as a consumer. I would prefer free to paying for sure. I was challenging things, as per the OP due to another conversation about game monetisation and other people challenging the current business models and not being happy with them. Why do we blindly accept mods as being free? But my post above kinda circumnavigates this. If your vision of things pans out and all the content I want comes in because people want to make it for free, thats great, but i doubt it will be any time soon if people can only code for a couple of hours a day. I only replied you directly btw as your post inferred about making a career in programming and I wanted to address that.

No problem. The one question I have about this little bit is this. Why would it really be a problem to wait for new mod content? So what if they can only code for a few hours a day? How is that a problem? I only see it being a problem for people who want everything now and have no patience.
Plenty of promising and ambitious mod projects never get finished because the authors don't have the time necessary to finish them.
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Re: Should mods be free?

#37
Poet1960 wrote: No problem. The one question I have about this little bit is this. Why would it really be a problem to wait for new mod content? So what if they can only code for a few hours a day? How is that a problem? I only see it being a problem for people who want everything now and have no patience.
Everyone, hands up if you want LT right now, or in 4/5 months. :D

You got me, I want it all and I want it now! Realistically I want it as soon as possible, not years and years away.

I still think if we turn away an army of commercial developers and say "No we don't want your quality content and your fast development times to improve our games" we could be missing out.
Dinosawer wrote: Plenty of promising and ambitious mod projects never get finished because the authors don't have the time necessary to finish them.
This
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Post

Re: Should mods be free?

#38
Mistycica wrote:
cfhd wrote: Isn't the entire second life "game" based around the community creating things for players to do? Like the whole thing is user created isn't it? At least thats what I got from the website. It sounds like that sort of place and design is specifically catered for the type of mod selling you are talking about. One thing I could tell though was that Second Life is definitely not some AAA game with an awesome engine in it. From what I heard in the past as well its less of a game and more of a social experience, or am I wrong about that? It seems more like comparing apples to oranges to me.
I still don't see how the same system becomes something else when applied to another engine and game. Gaming became a fully social experience, as we are proving it here on the forums, even for single player pieces. Bethesda games, for example, are much more about community modding at the point too than the actual content the developers push out - I wouldn't bear playing any of them without modding the godawful level system out. If you don't mod it, you're not getting the full experience, and doing it plain wrong. Slipping Nexus into a marketplace is not a huge stretch of imagination.

I'm not saying that all games should be about monetized content creation, much less that they are now. But they could be, and it could benefit everyone, and in my opinion, it's the next logical step for a lot of examples in the genre, especially in single player.
Poet1960 wrote: As was previously pointed out by others, modding is a hobby, not a career choice. So if they need to make a living, I suggest they get a job and not a hobby.
That's what the Greek said about politics, and look where it ended up :lol:
To be serious, a lot of mod projects just cannot keep up with time or get orphaned precisely because of the lack of funds. If it was ensured that they will be done in not a month, but in two years, sure, the impatience thing would stand. But who games with a five year lag to make developing mods for something not fresh make sense? Most ambitious and otherwise brilliant projects end up halfway done on ModDB as testament to how sad modmaking is.

Yes, it is true that some mods, even good ones, fall by the wayside for lack of funds. So think that through. If there were not enough people who felt compelled enough to donate money for whatever reason, do you still think that those same people are going to give money when forced to, or do you think that they will just walk away, never try that mod, and use one that is free instead?
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
Post

Re: Should mods be free?

#39
Mistycica wrote:
cfhd wrote: Isn't the entire second life "game" based around the community creating things for players to do? Like the whole thing is user created isn't it? At least thats what I got from the website. It sounds like that sort of place and design is specifically catered for the type of mod selling you are talking about. One thing I could tell though was that Second Life is definitely not some AAA game with an awesome engine in it. From what I heard in the past as well its less of a game and more of a social experience, or am I wrong about that? It seems more like comparing apples to oranges to me.
I still don't see how the same system becomes something else when applied to another engine and game. Gaming became a fully social experience, as we are proving it here on the forums, even for single player pieces. Bethesda games, for example, are much more about community modding at the point too than the actual content the developers push out - I wouldn't bear playing any of them without modding the godawful level system out. If you don't mod it, you're not getting the full experience, and doing it plain wrong. Slipping Nexus into a marketplace is not a huge stretch of imagination.

I'm not saying that all games should be about monetized content creation, much less that they are now. But they could be, and it could benefit everyone, and in my opinion, it's the next logical step for a lot of examples in the genre, especially in single player.
I don't see it benefiting everyone at all. I still stick with my point that Bethesda games and modding them are so insanely popular simply because the mods are in fact free. That, hands down is why they are popular and the most modded games in existence. As soon as modders start charging a buck or two per mod then all that goes away. It makes the whole thing less accessible for all players.

Just look at Bethesda themselves. The joke about Horse Armour DLC is from when they first tried to charge a couple of bucks for horse armour DLC for their game that had no benefit except for cosmetics. The players freaked about that so badly its been an ongoing joke for years.
Post

Re: Should mods be free?

#40
aspman wrote:
Poet1960 wrote: No problem. The one question I have about this little bit is this. Why would it really be a problem to wait for new mod content? So what if they can only code for a few hours a day? How is that a problem? I only see it being a problem for people who want everything now and have no patience.
Everyone, hands up if you want LT right now, or in 4/5 months. :D

You got me, I want it all and I want it now! Realistically I want it as soon as possible, not years and years away.

I still think if we turn away an army of commercial developers and say "No we don't want your quality content and your fast development times to improve our games" we could be missing out.
Dinosawer wrote: Plenty of promising and ambitious mod projects never get finished because the authors don't have the time necessary to finish them.
This
Heh, I want LT now too, but I also know that things take time, so I am willing to wait, because in the end, I feel that Josh will turn out a quality product. I would rather wait a bit and get a great game, then to get it now and get a so-so game.
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
Post

Re: Should mods be free?

#42
Poet1960 wrote: Yes, it is true that some mods, even good ones, fall by the wayside for lack of funds. So think that through. If there were not enough people who felt compelled enough to donate money for whatever reason, do you still think that those same people are going to give money when forced to, or do you think that they will just walk away, never try that mod, and use one that is free instead?
I think they'd spend on them quite readily with a good system behind it. I mean, people buy video games. People buy single player only video games, with no benefits whatsoever over the pirated copies. It doesn't make sense if you look at just the cost.

Donation is a very fickle thing, because people are stingy; if you offer them the option to get away with it free, they will. But if you present your product well, then ask ten cents for it, they will still pay that (especially with a good convenient unified 'mod wallet' framework) without giving it much thought. It's an insubstantial amount of money, and it gives them the happy to actually 'own' something, and to have helped the creator, even if you just tunnel them into it with no free option.
panic
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Re: Should mods be free?

#43
aspman wrote:Obviously. I should have phrased it "if you could have what he is going to deliver on release day".

LOL. Then of course, I want it NOW!!!

Mistycica wrote:It's an insubstantial amount of money, and it gives them the happy to actually 'own' something, and to have helped the creator, even if you just tunnel them into it with no free option.
Uh, if they wanted to help the creator, then the donations would have been enough. They don't want to own it, they just want to use it. They already paid for the game, a mod is a modification of that game. So it doesn't matter how insubstantial it is, if they didn't donate to "help" the creator when it was an option, it is certainly not going to be a major driving force to get them to pay for what they could have donated for in the first place.
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
Post

Re: Should mods be free?

#45
Poet1960 wrote:
Mistycica wrote:It's an insubstantial amount of money, and it gives them the happy to actually 'own' something, and to have helped the creator, even if you just tunnel them into it with no free option.
Uh, if they wanted to help the creator, then the donations would have been enough. They don't want to own it, they just want to use it. They already paid for the game, a mod is a modification of that game. So it doesn't matter how insubstantial it is, if they didn't donate to "help" the creator when it was an option, it is certainly not going to be a major driving force to get them to pay for what they could have donated for in the first place.
That's the point. They don't want to donate if it's voluntary. But they do if it's a small amount but forced, and then rationalize their spending as something they did out of their own good heart after the fact, and connect more with the mod they chipped in for, for the same reason. They'll see it as a huge bargain, they got a cool mod for about the price of three pieces of peanuts after all! The big word is cognitive dissonance reduction, I think. People don't do things because they thought them through, they just rationalize the choices they made.
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