Minecraft Curbs P2P Servers - Should Garry's Mod Follow? - Garry's Mod

[url]http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/06/07/minecraft-paid-servers/[/url] Its no secret that Garry's Mod is littered with P2P servers were VIP & Donator status not only "Fund" the server but fill the pockets of their owners who in most cases would never get a loan never mind our hard earned cash. Would it be good to see such rules imposed over the world of Garry's Mod.

Garry has already said something about this, actually.: [url]https://twitter.com/garrynewman/status/475211366757064704[/url]

[QUOTE=joshjet;45036168]Garry has already said something about this, actually.: [URL]https://twitter.com/garrynewman/status/475211366757064704[/URL][/QUOTE] Ye I read that to and in general Garry always says you should be credited for your hard work which is so true. The only issue is everyone's hard work gets drowned in everyone else's cheap shit throw together's and then the only people getting the money are those who are doing the least work. Videos are one thing but I fail to see many servers that are worth the amount they charge nor give them impression they are trustworthy or reliable.

Minecrafts certainly in a different league of the P2P situation though. The worst case I've seen in gmod is servers selling custom classes/perma guns etc, making 100-500$ from a single player. Minecraft however I could easily expect some of the larger/older server groups to have earned a literal 7digits USD over the years. I know you probably think that's insane, but there are garrysmod communities that make 100k USD a year. I know of 1 GTA themed communitythat's netted $87k in the 3 month it's been online, $22k of that in the first 6 days of June, and that is not the biggest out there by far. Notch has to set boundaries, when other people start making millions out of your work you need to jump in.

[QUOTE=Pantho;45036536]Minecrafts certainly in a different league of the P2P situation though. The worst case I've seen in gmod is servers selling custom classes/perma guns etc, making 100-500$ from a single player. Minecraft however I could easily expect some of the larger/older server groups to have earned a literal 7digits USD over the years. I know you probably think that's insane, but there are garrysmod communities that make 100k USD a year. I know of 1 GTA themed communitythat's netted $87k in the 3 month it's been online, $22k of that in the first 6 days of June, and that is not the biggest out there by far. Notch has to set boundaries, when other people start making millions out of your work you need to jump in.[/QUOTE] Notch's public explanation was "We get a LOT of support errands from parents of kids that bought items for hundreds of dollars, wanting their money back". There is no liability on 99% of these servers with the exception of paypal which is more popular in gmod then minecraft. People use the term "donation" thinking they exempt themselves from any. Its fucked up and out of control on a scale we probably can't even imagine and it screws up the game and we end up top heavy like now.

Yeah and non-tech savvy parents believe that Mojang supports the purchases and when Mojang tells them they cant get a refund, it makes the brand look bad. I gave up on Minecraft multiplayer a long time ago

[QUOTE=Pantho;45036536]Minecrafts certainly in a different league of the P2P situation though. The worst case I've seen in gmod is servers selling custom classes/perma guns etc, making 100-500$ from a single player. Minecraft however I could easily expect some of the larger/older server groups to have earned a literal 7digits USD over the years. I know you probably think that's insane, but there are garrysmod communities that make 100k USD a year. I know of 1 GTA themed communitythat's netted $87k in the 3 month it's been online, $22k of that in the first 6 days of June, and that is not the biggest out there by far. Notch has to set boundaries, when other people start making millions out of your work you need to jump in.[/QUOTE] Who are these communities?

Alright, here we go, my 2cents. If your kids are using your credit cards/PayPal info without your consent, either because they're a cunt or because you didn't raise them right, and you blame the server owners/gamemakers = You're a Cunt.™

I am a community owner who runs a few servers within Garry's mod and if anything like this would be implanted to Garry's Mod it would mean good bye to my community and many others. Im not going to lie I run servers purely for the money it started for the enjoyment but that changed as the years passed and I got tired of the game, the fact I made 50k last year from Garry's mod solely is the only reason I still host servers, and I know for a fact many servers that make more then me and would follow me out the door if we were not allowed to make profit. Glad to see Garry allowing us to keep going and keeping his community afloat. [QUOTE=Deamie;45055404]Alright, here we go, my 2cents. If your kids are using your credit cards/PayPal info without your consent, either because they're a cunt or because you didn't raise them right, and you blame the server owners/gamemakers = You're a Cunt.™[/QUOTE] This has actually happened a few times on my server and I was happy enough to ban there kid and refund there money and explain to the parent what there son/daughter has done, always got a kick out of it.

[QUOTE=jkropp;45100063]I am a community owner who runs a few servers within Garry's mod and if anything like this would be implanted to Garry's Mod it would mean good bye to my community and many others. Im not going to lie I run servers purely for the money it started for the enjoyment but that changed as the years passed and I got tired of the game, the fact I made 50k last year from Garry's mod solely is the only reason I still host servers, and I know for a fact many servers that make more then me and would follow me out the door if we were not allowed to make profit. Glad to see Garry allowing us to keep going and keeping his community afloat. This has actually happened a few times on my server and I was happy enough to ban there kid and refund there money and explain to the parent what there son/daughter has done, always got a kick out of it.[/QUOTE]50 freaking thousands, wow. So how do your system work? Do you guys have your on little currency? Or Do you charge much for vip/special ranks? I know some communities earn much more. I just can't get that people spend so much on a game.

[QUOTE=Icejjfish;45100335]50 freaking thousands, wow. So how do your system work? Do you guys have your on little currency? Or Do you charge much for vip/special ranks? I know some communities earn much more. I just can't get that people spend so much on a game.[/QUOTE] The worse part of this is that I ran Casual Bananas and buying bananas was completely voluntary. People could play to earn everything, even VIP was earnable (and permanent). All they had to do is be an active player, be good at the gamemode they like and they could easily save for all the models they wanted (or hats, who cares). The thing that amazed me is that we had a peak of $3.600 in one month. For buying bananas, something that isn't required, as you can get them for free. One guy did the most though, he donated $1.337...

[QUOTE=Cyberuben;45101735]The worse part of this is that I ran Casual Bananas and buying bananas was completely voluntary. People could play to earn everything, even VIP was earnable (and permanent). All they had to do is be an active player, be good at the gamemode they like and they could easily save for all the models they wanted (or hats, who cares). The thing that amazed me is that we had a peak of $3.600 in one month. For buying bananas, something that isn't required, as you can get them for free. One guy did the most though, he donated $1.337...[/QUOTE] In your case however you were buying the bananas so essentially buy vouchers and as I recall you were doing things through the correct channels. Buying and Donating are two different things. I don't agree fully with both however when people claim your making a donation you expect that any profits go back into further funding and that clearly just doesn't happen these days.

[QUOTE=Cyberuben;45101735]Snip[/QUOTE] Then again, if people just make it near impossible or extremely hard to get then they're gonna buy it. It's like iOS apps saying Get 6000000000 more people on CandyCrush and you can continue.... Or pay a dollar.

[QUOTE=jkropp;45100063]I am a community owner who runs a few servers within Garry's mod and if anything like this would be implanted to Garry's Mod it would mean good bye to my community and many others. Im not going to lie I run servers purely for the money it started for the enjoyment but that changed as the years passed and I got tired of the game, the fact I made 50k last year from Garry's mod solely is the only reason I still host servers, and I know for a fact many servers that make more then me and would follow me out the door if we were not allowed to make profit. Glad to see Garry allowing us to keep going and keeping his community afloat. This has actually happened a few times on my server and I was happy enough to ban there kid and refund there money and explain to the parent what there son/daughter has done, always got a kick out of it.[/QUOTE] How much did you pay in taxes?

[QUOTE=Icejjfish;45102497]How much did you pay in taxes?[/QUOTE] For my community, I ended paying like ~$7000.

[QUOTE=YourStalker;45102476]Then again, if people just make it near impossible or extremely hard to get then they're gonna buy it. It's like iOS apps saying Get 6000000000 more people on CandyCrush and you can continue.... Or pay a dollar.[/QUOTE] It wasn't like that at all. It was not hard to earn the model you want. Play for a week and you'd have earned your model. I don't see how that is any bad, as making them able to earn it in a day would just be overkill and we'd have everyone walking around with every model after 10 days.

omfg it's a actually a common for thing for "communities" to make that much money?? That's actually insane and kinda seems unfair to all the people making the free stuff that those servers make use of.

[QUOTE=LennyPenny;45107069]omfg it's a actually a common for thing for "communities" to make that much money?? That's actually insane and kinda seems unfair to all the people making the free stuff that those servers make use of.[/QUOTE] We made everything ourself, apart from HL2RP which we bought.

[QUOTE=Cyberuben;45108881]We made everything ourself, apart from HL2RP which we bought.[/QUOTE] [del]Casual Bananas is the only example I can think off which was, as I recall, I registered company that probably paid tax and advertised everything as a purchase not a donation.[/del] The only qualm I can have is the fact it's now not here and therefore for all these people that had paid anything regardless off it been optional have lost out whereas you have gained.

[QUOTE=Effektiv;45109430]Casual Bananas is the only example I can think off which was, as I recall, I registered company that probably paid tax and advertised everything as a purchase not a donation. The only qwarm I can have is the fact it's now not here and therefore for all these people that had paid anything regardless off it been optional have lost out whereas you have gained.[/QUOTE] So does [URL="http://thatdarkrpserver.com/"]ThatDarkRPServer[/URL]

[QUOTE=Effektiv;45109430]Casual Bananas is the only example I can think off which was, as I recall, I registered company that probably paid tax and advertised everything as a purchase not a donation. The only qwarm I can have is the fact it's now not here and therefore for all these people that had paid anything regardless off it been optional have lost out whereas you have gained.[/QUOTE] We actually really pushed the fact that things were a donation, because it was a familiar term in Garry's Mod and we did not want people to charge back their money once they donated. Things really started as donations, with some benefits, but later people took matters in their own hands and started to call it purchases. Technically you could say it was a purchase, but if you make users agree with a set of rules before they donate, you can claim that what they got is a reward for helping out the server. So, what we did, was make the user agree that they did not purchase something, that they wouldn't donate for personal benefit and that they understand that the bananas are not a right, but a benefit for donating. Stupid or not, I don't really care what other people think of it. I just really dislike the fact that without setting rules like that, PayPal will accept all chargebacks in favor of the buyer if you don't have rules like this. If people buy something and they break the in-game rules getting them banned, they charge back and PayPal simply agrees. Rediculous. If I have a website that requires you to check a checkbox before you can pay gives you way more influence on a PayPal chargeback. Even though Casual Bananas was a company, I did not really ever run it for the money. Yes, it was a nice source of income and yes, I quit my job to spend more time working on Casual Bananas, but it all started as a company because we received a lot of money and PayPal required us to give them details about us, including Chamber of Commerce information, which we did not have. Before we started the business, we made a plan where we wanted to do software development next to the community. Excl focussed way too much on the community side, something we said we would let other people take care of, so we never got to the point where we would develop apps, other than a single app that Excl made for our high school that I never seen a single euro off (I agreed on that). I quit because Excl had way different ideas and the fact that he made me powerless by threathening people with permabans if they said something negative about him or the community. Bug reports were closed by "quit lying" and the usual drama. I feel like starting as a coder, developer, programmer, whatever you want to call it. I have a few projects I want to start on, open source projects that I just want to share with the community, a (few) gamemode(s) that I still have in mind and some work-related projects. Let other people manage the community, I make the infrastructure work, make people not able to annoy me using PMs about community drama, make a bug report section and my work will be done. Speaking of the gamemode, I currently study International Game Architecture and Design and since my study has a lot of talented people (only 200 a year are accepted), I have a few people I might ask to help me with this gamemode. I'm going to ask a friend of me to make a balanced level design, balance weapons for me, then I'm going to do the mapping and coding. Maybe ask some Visual Artists to create me a small amount of models, but really, I'm going to create my gamemode in "professional" way, not just code my idea and that's it. Game Design Document is already being worked on.

[QUOTE=Cyberuben;45108881]We made everything ourself, apart from HL2RP which we bought.[/QUOTE] That's pretty ignorant to say. The wiki was created by the community for the most part, every resource that is on facepunch and so on. You must be some pretty hardcore guy to never have used anything that the community made open and free Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with people selling stuff on coderhire for the most part and stuff, but it's pissing me off that noone gives a flying fuck about the people that made all that possible. Especially if people start making more than a living off of it. And yeah since gmod went all commercial we have seen a decline in all the free and open stuff for gmod, which is super sad. Let's just hope it won't kill what originally made gmod so fucking great.

[QUOTE=Effektiv;45109430][del]Casual Bananas is the only example I can think off which was, as I recall, I registered company that probably paid tax and advertised everything as a purchase not a donation.[/del] The only qualm I can have is the fact it's now not here and therefore for all these people that had paid anything regardless off it been optional have lost out whereas you have gained.[/QUOTE] Hmm no, plenty register as companies. Including my community. As for the buying and then no longer able to play as the community died, that's kinda the course of most games really. You play a big MMO, invest time and money, it dies, the end. That's kinda gaming 101, it's how they continue to make money.

[QUOTE=Pantho;45111021]Hmm no, plenty register as companies. Including my community. As for the buying and then no longer able to play as the community died, that's kinda the course of most games really. You play a big MMO, invest time and money, it dies, the end. That's kinda gaming 101, it's how they continue to make money.[/QUOTE]What's the name of your community? And can you guys also name some of the biggest Garry's Mod communites?

[QUOTE=Pantho;45111021]Hmm no, plenty register as companies. Including my community. As for the buying and then no longer able to play as the community died, that's kinda the course of most games really. You play a big MMO, invest time and money, it dies, the end. That's kinda gaming 101, it's how they continue to make money.[/QUOTE] We're getting into a complicated world here but anyway... In terms of registering as a company are people just doing this so they can get paypal business and if yes why are they not going as charities and getting the same without the expectation of so much tax.

[QUOTE=Effektiv;45111776]We're getting into a complicated world here but anyway... In terms of registering as a company are people just doing this so they can get paypal business and if yes why are they not going as charities and getting the same without the expectation of so much tax.[/QUOTE] Because no one is going to save up a few thousand dollars in their PayPal to keep a legitimate "charity", or "association". It costs money to get your community going, it takes time to keep it going, so why would you be happy with investing a horrible lot amount of time and rejecting the pile of money that's piling up right in front of you? Even though I never ran it for the money, it is nice that I got somehow "rewarded" for my work. I could have done other things in that time, such as having a job, but I decided to work for other people so they can have fun. Everyone is allowed to have their opinion, but I think that benefiting from donations isn't a bad thing. [editline]15th June 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=LennyPenny;45110465]That's pretty ignorant to say. The wiki was created by the community for the most part, every resource that is on facepunch and so on. You must be some pretty hardcore guy to never have used anything that the community made open and free Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with people selling stuff on coderhire for the most part and stuff, but it's pissing me off that noone gives a flying fuck about the people that made all that possible. Especially if people start making more than a living off of it. And yeah since gmod went all commercial we have seen a decline in all the free and open stuff for gmod, which is super sad. Let's just hope it won't kill what originally made gmod so fucking great.[/QUOTE] I see your point, and all I meant to say is that our content was CODED by us, and not taken from the workshop, not taken from CoderHire. Obviously there are resources such as Facepunch and the Wiki, but still, you can't say that the people who made the wiki made our gamemodes. They provided the resources to do so. All our gamemodes were coded from scratch, other than the DarkRP which got us starting, HL2RP and NVRP (which we had for like a month)

[QUOTE=Cyberuben;45111955]Because no one is going to save up a few thousand dollars in their PayPal to keep a legitimate "charity", or "association". It costs money to get your community going, it takes time to keep it going, so why would you be happy with investing a horrible lot amount of time and rejecting the pile of money that's piling up right in front of you? Even though I never ran it for the money, it is nice that I got somehow "rewarded" for my work. I could have done other things in that time, such as having a job, but I decided to work for other people so they can have fun. Everyone is allowed to have their opinion, but I think that benefiting from donations isn't a bad thing. [/quote] Well the whole point of a charity and donations is you can't turn a profit and in the event you do it has to be reinvested. Taking money out or taking the money is embezzlement unless it's your wage by which you need to declare it etc with all taxes paid otherwise your then defrauding. Everyone seems to want a business with the freedoms of a charity when it comes to liability and paperwork.

[QUOTE=Effektiv;45112397]Well the whole point of a charity and donations is you can't turn a profit and in the event you do it has to be reinvested. Taking money out or taking the money is embezzlement unless it's your wage by which you need to declare it etc with all taxes paid otherwise your then defrauding. Everyone seems to want a business with the freedoms of a charity when it comes to liability and paperwork.[/QUOTE] No, you asked "why not a charity", so I gave you the reasons why people would not want it to be a charity. People do not want money to stack up. If you have $500 in expenses a month, and $2200+ coming in a month, wouldn't you like to get some profit, get rewarded from your work? I would, and so do most of the community owners. Again, people spent time and money to get things started and keep things going. I think I deserved money for the work I did. If you divide the amount of money I made (profit) from Casual Bananas, and divide it by the hours I put into it, I earned something below $1.00 a hour. But it's the amount of hours that I worked that made me earn more than my friends who had a regular job.

[QUOTE=Effektiv;45111776] In terms of registering as a company are people just doing this so they can get paypal business and if yes why are they not going as charities and getting the same without the expectation of so much tax.[/QUOTE] And you're an idiot, I say this because you state things you obvious know nothing about. You don't need to incorporate to open a PayPal business account. (At least in the UK, as I've had mine as a business account an eons and was only incorporated in the past few years). There are many reasons behind this, the main 2 being PayPal doesn't adhere to banking regulations(Although I think you can actually get business accounts at banks while self employed in the UK anyway, not sure there) the second being you can gross any amount while being self employed on eBay for example, people only incorporate for better tax reasons. Example: (I suck at finances, but this is a rough guide as I understand it) If you earn £100k per year you're taxed at roughly 20% for the first 40k and then 40% for the last 60k. If you incorporate into a business it's a flat 20% rate, minus expenses (which can be a laughable amount btw) and then you pay your staff/self out of stock dividends... Forgot to calculate your tax free allowance into that, but you get the point anyway. Also, I despise and hate the annoying communities who use the word "Donations". I abolished that word off my website about 5 years ago and constantly correct people. Constantly getting messages from folk asking if they can donate 50-200£ etc for a better ingame rank or custom jobs etc. But we simply tell them to buy friends VIP like they would in other games if they have spare money, we don't take donations. It's annoying, I mean I only make 20% of what I used to on ByB but I still like it and enjoy keeping it open, but I never plan to take 'donations' under the profit goes below zilch. Last time we did take donations was when we where young and building a 1u rack server to host in Lancaster :) [editline]15th June 2014[/editline] -Edit Oddly CoderHire has both helped and stunted this kind of profiteering. On the one hand larger unique servers and communities have seen a major dip in population and purchases and the mass clone of "lols 25 coderhire addons = win" servers have seen major spikes with there "Custom jobs with 1337 kids with $250 spare this week". Although it is nice to see some of this money going back to Lua developers it is sad that it's shifted the profit side of server hosting away from unique content servers and onto the clones.

[QUOTE=Pantho;45112796]You don't need to incorporate to open a PayPal business account. (At least in the UK, as I've had mine as a business account an eons and was only incorporated in the past few years).[/QUOTE] Same here, however, PayPal has a limit, where a user can not earn more than a certain amount of money (€2200 EUR in one year). Since I was 17 at the time, I'd get my account blocked if I sent them my personal details. Only option would be having a legitimate business. Even then, you need someone who's over the age of 18 to represent the business, meaning, I was not allowed to own the PayPal account. My dad registered an account with his name, using Casual Bananas as the "business" he worked for. Since my dad was my legal representative (or however you should put it), he is the person that has to "sign" things for me, so, creating a PayPal account was also within his reach. PayPal blocked the PayPal account for almost a full month for the reason being they thought it was a fake account since my previous account got blocked for not meeting their regulations. After €100 worth of calls to PayPal (yes, that much), I finally got them to unblock my account, after I explained my story to 7 different people, called for hours, waited for hours, convinced plenty of people I had a legitimate company and my dad owned the account, not me. The last person I spoke to was "assigned to me" and when I'd call PayPal, I could ask for him, they'd push my call through and he is the person that talked to the other departments to get my PayPal account unblocked. Community almost went down because of it, luckily Limestone was nice enough to not cancel our servers and let us fight this out with PayPal. [QUOTE=Pantho;45112796]Although I think you can actually get business accounts at banks while self employed in the UK anyway, not sure there[/QUOTE] Same here in the Netherlands. I have a business account and I have a "1-man company" as it'd be called, no idea what the term would be in English. I think it's self employed, but I bet there's a more formal term for it.