[QUOTE=Cronos Dage;48924796]shit I said "like before"
I meant $0 min, sorry
I think "like before" I meant like donations on nexusmods or some shit[/QUOTE]
oh yeah that'd make more sense
Why won't they just add a donation button, make so that when someone presses subscribe, a message pops up and asks the subscriber if they would like up donate. If they are going to add paid mods, they shouldn't get 75%of the money. When they first did the skyrim paid mods, valve took 50%, game developers took 25% and the mod maker only got 25%, that is messed up.
[QUOTE=KillerJaguar;48934938]Mods like Deus Ex: Revision are so far and few that they are exceptions to the rule. They require teams composed of people with a variety of skills. Mods of that caliber are built from passion of the source material, and at best offer a donation link, which is usually just for server hosting fees. They know that by introducing a paywall, group dynamic instantly shatters as everyone wants a piece of the pie.[/quote]
I think you're generalizing quite a bit here. I'm sure there are plenty of teams out there that could function just fine if money were suddenly introduced - but in the large majority of cases as mods are concerned, most are single-author. The number of developers attached to a mod don't guarantee it'll be any more or less useful/neat in the eyes of the community it's attached to. Also, if you've read my full thoughts you'd know we're already talking about 'exceptions to the rule' - I'm specifically against a 'free market' system for mods as I can't imagine how such a market could be handled properly.
[quote]It's not about whether they should be financially rewarded for it, it's about if they would even accept the money. Building on their favorite game is their reward. Money isn't a consideration for them.[/quote]
Note that I said 'should be given the option'. As in we as developers shouldn't treat them as interns and just shrug our shoulders at them - we should consider giving them pay for their work. Whether they want to be paid is their business and whether we feel they ought be paid is ours.
[quote]It's funny you mention Egosoft, because I think the exact opposite: Egosoft is why paid mods would be a bad idea.[/QUOTE]
None of the reasons you listed are 'reasons why paid mods are bad'. It's not 'rewarding Egosoft for releasing broken games' if that's what you're implying. The mods were being made for the X series of games long before the community content was ever offered as official DLC - as such, the community was always going to 'fix the game'. Additionally, the X series has suffered from bad bugs since X1 and the 'rewarding Egosoft for releasing broken games' part isn't from mods - it's from people still buying the X series of games despite most knowing they're going to be buggy on launch (see also: Paradox games or for a more extreme example anything by Derek Smart). Edit: Unless your argument here is 'they shouldn't be paid because then maybe those mod authors would leave and finally the games would remain as bug ridden as they should be', in which case I don't have an answer for you since your argument boils down to 'I dislike Egosoft and want them to fail - if they're only being propped up by said paid mods then we should remove that pillar.' (Though of course the mod authors wouldn't leave - for them the X series is a passion and they'd have made the mods anyway)
Additionally, are you implying that they shouldn't be making money where, in the argument you've provided against my example, they are [I]actively and directly[/I] increasing the game's sales by 'fixing a broken game'? They shouldn't be rewarded for doing so, the community suffers for it (??), and the developers also get worse because now they're paying money out of their own pockets in recognition that folks have helped them fix a broken game? I don't agree with any of that so if that's your opinion we could only ever agree to disagree on that. I'd like to hear your reasoning on why the paid mods made the community worse, as well, because I've been in that scene since X2: The Threat and nothing seriously changed beyond the mods getting more and more sophisticated all the way through Terran Conflict from my vantage.
I'm against it because I've seen what happens in the past, even know in Garry's Mod, paid for scripts for minor things in places like roleplay servers is killing everything there.
We're no longer in the days of say, Wiremod needed for a shit load of things(thank fuck), but we're still dealing with mods completely locked behind a paywall unless you pirate it.
I've seen this happen before with a community driven experience in the Sims community, which I mentioned before and will re-iterate, it completely fractured and destroyed the Sims modding community which hasn't recovered at all and its why you don't see the heavy duty mods that came out for the Sims 2 come out for 3 or 4(besides other reasons).
Maybe egosoft found a way to get around this but I would also venture that mod piracy is almost running rampant. Further, as I've again pointed out, groups who've done massive area adding mods such as Path to Elsewhere have stated they'd end up paying more than getting back in return.
Also, 'more and more complicated' well no shit if you have recurring modders and the engine/scripting difference between the different X games isn't too great. Just look at Oblivion to Fallout 3 to New Vegas to Skyrim or similarly, look at the earlier Red Alert Games. Sophistication doesn't mean money is helping, it means experienced people are using their new skills to the fullest.
You're making generalizations in your argument without realizing it and attributing those generalizations toward the fact that money is now involved when it is infact most likely not the case as studies have shown that adding more money into a system doesn't actually make people more productive, it actually makes them less.
[QUOTE=Firgof Umbra;48937123]I think you're generalizing quite a bit here. I'm sure there are plenty of teams out there that could function just fine if money were suddenly introduced[/quote]
I will concede that a simple donation system can work, because they're usually used for server hosting fees. Modders don't see the donation as their reason to mod, it's just an added bonus. If modders required people to pay for their mod, teams will easily fall apart.
[QUOTE=Firgof Umbra;48937123]but in the large majority of cases as mods are concerned, most are single-author. The number of developers attached to a mod don't guarantee it'll be any more or less useful/neat in the eyes of the community it's attached to.[/quote]
Single author mods don't run into the team logistics of involving money, but money as the driving motivator degrades mod quality because of the cheapest route issue. But most mods that would qualify for paywall status involve multiple people, because one man can only do so much.
[QUOTE=Firgof Umbra;48937123]None of the reasons you listed are 'reasons why paid mods are bad'. It's not 'rewarding Egosoft for releasing broken games' if that's what you're implying. The mods were being made for the X series of games long before the community content was ever offered as official DLC - as such, the community was always going to 'fix the game'. Additionally, the X series has suffered from bad bugs since X1 and the 'rewarding Egosoft for releasing broken games' part isn't from mods - it's from people still buying the X series of games despite most knowing they're going to be buggy on launch (see also: Paradox games or for a more extreme example anything by Derek Smart).
Additionally, are you implying that they shouldn't be making money where, in the argument you've provided against my example, they are [I]actively and directly[/I] increasing the game's sales by 'fixing a broken game'? They shouldn't be rewarded for doing so, the community suffers for it (??), and the developers also get worse because now they're paying money out of their own pockets in recognition that folks have helped them fix a broken game? I don't agree with any of that so if that's your opinion we could only ever agree to disagree on that. I'd like to hear your reasoning on why the paid mods made the community worse, as well, because I've been in that scene since X2: The Threat and nothing seriously changed beyond the mods getting more and more sophisticated all the way through Terran Conflict from my vantage.[/QUOTE]
X is a special case because modding has actually caused the game to suffer in a way. It's become accepted for Egosoft to release a buggy, broken game and rely on the community to patch the game. Having to pay for the mods to fix X would just make everything even worse than they are.
[quote]It's become accepted for Egosoft to release a buggy, broken game and rely on the community to patch the game.[/quote]
They were releasing 'buggy broken games' before and 'people were relying on the community to patch the game' before mod authors were even given the vaguest idea that being paid for their work was even possible.
Are you sure you read what I wrote?
[quote]but money as the driving motivator degrades mod quality because of the cheapest route issue[/quote]
It's not the cheapest route or the driving motivator if all involved have no guarantee they'll even make any money - or even know when they might even be offered to be given money or how much the developers think they ought make.
Edit:
[QUOTE=Swilly;48937242]I'm against it because I've seen what happens in the past, even know in Garry's Mod, paid for scripts for minor things in places like roleplay servers is killing everything there.
We're no longer in the days of say, Wiremod needed for a shit load of things(thank fuck), but we're still dealing with mods completely locked behind a paywall unless you pirate it.
I've seen this happen before with a community driven experience in the Sims community, which I mentioned before and will re-iterate, it completely fractured and destroyed the Sims modding community which hasn't recovered at all and its why you don't see the heavy duty mods that came out for the Sims 2 come out for 3 or 4(besides other reasons).
Maybe egosoft found a way to get around this but I would also venture that mod piracy is almost running rampant. Further, as I've again pointed out, groups who've done massive area adding mods such as Path to Elsewhere have stated they'd end up paying more than getting back in return.
Also, 'more and more complicated' well no shit if you have recurring modders and the engine/scripting difference between the different X games isn't too great. Just look at Oblivion to Fallout 3 to New Vegas to Skyrim or similarly, look at the earlier Red Alert Games. Sophistication doesn't mean money is helping, it means experienced people are using their new skills to the fullest.[/QUOTE]
I didn't mean to imply money was 'making them better' or 'keeping them around' (though I can't say the money is 'definitely not the reason why they've decided to stick around'). Money in that community's sense is only being doled out to reward people who were already sticking around and who already were getting pretty good at what they were doing. What I was saying was that it didn't harm the community - things kept getting better; they didn't get worse. The community didn't 'fracture and break up' and so on; in other words, it's not a 'fact' that it'll cause issues just by existing, as proven by the existence of a counter-anecdote to your anecdote. To further expand on this point, the Sims community fractured because it did an open, marketplace style, approach to stuff (with IIRC very poor curation) - what I'm advocating is the exact opposite: a small, curated, selection of mods hand-picked by the developers of the game. My example of Egosoft and the X series is a manifestation of that approach - and it hasn't harmed its community.
IIRC, PhoeniX Storms was paid for their work when PHX was added to the list of stuff GMod came with a few years back and nobody cried foul on that - it was established, it was stable, and it was superuseful. If instead of Garry paying for the rights it was instead behind a $5 paywall, I think a lot of people still would've bought it (although of course a lot of people would also just keep the last version of PHX installed too I'm sure). I don't think it would've 'fractured the community'. People would be upset, sure, because something that was free is now paid - but I mean GMod itself had a free version that's old when it was paid-content. I think that mantra is a good one - when you transition to being paid, you leave a mature, stable, free version of your mod behind as you keep working forward.
Also, I'm obviously speaking about a particular subset of mods - mature, community-supported, mods which have had significant impact on the game they're attached to.
Piracy: I don't particularly care about piracy and I doubt mod authors do either. There's nothing to do against pirates anyway - they're just a cost of 'doing business' these days.
[quote]Further, as I've again pointed out, groups who've done massive area adding mods such as Path to Elsewhere have stated they'd end up paying more than getting back in return.[/quote]
I don't see how that goes against anything I've said. They wouldn't know when they were working on it that they were going to get paid in the first place so it'd be foolhardy of them to spend real money on it unless they're spending it with no expectation of that money being returned.
It's not about funding mod development, it's about rewarding and acknowledging the impact certain mods have on a game. Or at least in the system I'm proposing it's not about that.
[QUOTE=Firgof Umbra;48937287]It's not the cheapest route or the driving motivator if all involved have no guarantee they'll even make any money - or even know when they might even be offered to be given money or how much the developers think they ought make.[/QUOTE]
So effectively the system we have now. If you so much as advertise paid mods, people are going to jump onto it and compete for the developer's attention. The mods that would be worth paying for are so far and few that they have to be examined on a case-by-case basis. You can't set any precedent for them.
[QUOTE=Firgof Umbra;48937287]If instead of Garry paying for the rights it was instead behind a $5 paywall, I think a lot of people still would've bought it (although of course a lot of people would also just keep the last version of PHX installed too I'm sure).[/quote]
I completely disagree. That would have caused massive outrage, especially since they are considered GMod building fundamentals. People would have just post a download bypass to it. I don't see GMod being the kind of community to pay for something when they can just pirate it.
[quote]I don't see GMod being the kind of community to pay for something when they can just pirate it.[/quote]
GMod itself a lot of people paid for. In fact, so many people paid for it that Garry was able to start up a studio and has more money than he knows what to do with.
This is despite GMod having been heavily pirated. Same with Rust: people are pirating it, it's still making money - people are still paying for it.
This community definitely pays for things even if they could pirate them.
[quote]So effectively the system we have now.[/quote]
Which system? The Steam Workshop system that they unveiled with Skyrim? As a steam developer I certainly don't have access to any tools that I'm aware of on steam that would enable the sort of system I'm laying out here.
[quote]If you so much as advertise paid mods, people are going to jump onto it and compete for the developer's attention. The mods that would be worth paying for are so far and few that they have to be examined on a case-by-case basis. You can't set any precedent for them.[/quote]
I'm failing to see the downside here aside from 'there's more mods being made, which may make good mods harder to find for end-users'. Who loses there aside from people hoping to make a quick buck?
The developers obviously aren't going to look at all the individual mods submitted - they'd just wait for certain mods to 'rise up from the rest', become mature, and then examine those independently. Or in other words the pre-Greenlight Steam Store submission gamut in effect.
And I feel it should be case-by-case. And slow. And deliberate. You should only be supporting so many mods officially as a developer as you're able to comfortably deal with having to officially support anyway, and that was always going to be a limited number.
Further I feel it's safest to keep it that way for now if we venture into paid mods until somebody figures out a way to solve all the problems I've outlined above with going free market. Ultimately, I'd like the mod scene to be able to go in the direction of a free, self-sustaining, market for mods - but for now I can't think of a way to make that work that doesn't collapse inwards on itself. Curation is the issue at heart here, I think, and I don't know how you'd 'automate' curation on the scales of something like Skyrim's mod scene and still realistically have 'good curation' - nor do I know how you could promise that all those paid mods would work and continue working for the end user.
[QUOTE=Swilly;48937247]You're making generalizations in your argument without realizing it and attributing those generalizations toward the fact that money is now involved when it is infact most likely not the case as studies have shown that adding more money into a system doesn't actually make people more productive, it actually makes them less.[/QUOTE]
Isn't it a huge generalization to say that adding money is bad because it makes people less productive? You wouldn't get much agreement if you went to GDC and insisted that indie games should be free because money makes people less productive; the indie scene is stronger than ever because of the recent development of viable monetization and distribution schemes for small studios. I'm not sure if it makes individuals more productive or not, but there are a lot more people willing to do amateur game design as a hobby now that Steam and other services allow them to sell their work.
I've heard some strong arguments for why paid mods won't necessarily take off in the same way, but the fact that money is involved isn't the reason. It's not that simple, and it's essentially special pleading when there are plenty of industries that started as hobbies and turned into much more once people worked out an effective monetization/distribution scheme.
If Valve ever make a Half-Life 3, get ready for all all these paid mods and micro transactions forced in it.
[QUOTE=SpotEnemyBoat;48942250]If Valve ever make a Half-Life 3, get ready for all all these paid mods and micro transactions forced in it.[/QUOTE]
HL3 is already a risky enough subject as it is - the expectations are simply too high. If they pulled something like that they'd lose so much money it isn't even funny.
Considering that 98% of mods are fucking terrible, and the majority of mods that I've downloaded aren't worth paying for, even if they were OK.
All of the mods that I would have paid for cross into or are dangerously close to being their own products.
Fuck paid mods, bethesda (or whoever) and valve should have no claim on ownership a mod and its profit, except for valve as the hosting platform.
[QUOTE=Grandzeit;48942342]HL3 is already a risky enough subject as it is - the expectations are simply too high. If they pulled something like that they'd lose so much money it isn't even funny.[/QUOTE]
Its become a pattern with Valve to have in-game stores with microtransactions in all of their games, for the last 6-7 years. Remember Gabe Newell said [I]"if you want to do another Half-Life game and you want to ignore everything we've learned in shipping Portal 2 and in shipping all the updates on the multiplayer side, that seems like a bad choice" [/I]in regards to a Valve employee wanting make a HL3 sequel that was faithful.
Valve is just dying for the chance to put their glorified third party DLC in L4D2 and HL2.
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