runic knight said:
I am sorry to all, this is long as hell.
Olas said:
As seems to be a pattern I've noticed, the real underlying issue appears to be Steams lack of responsible moderation. To reach out an olive branch, I agree that Steam does need to regulate their store more and better. If they did, would you agree that allowing modders to profit from their work is a good idea?
I never disliked the idea of modders getting profit itself, and I doubt anyone would be opposed to the idea that they can make some money from it. The problems stem from either terrible execution or the conversion of an existing system that is free to one that is profit-driven. Both are detrimental to modding in general and both impact free modding negatively.
Well I disagree, for reasons we'll explore below.
I am all for a donation button/tip-jar function or the use of popular mods to "vote" for modders to be allowed to make dev-ok'd user made DLC.
We're in agreement on this.
Youtube has the same underlying problem as Steam: no actual oversight. They want to be able to fix every problem with an algorithm so that they don't have to pay actual humans to properly manage their market.
However, the relevant comparison here isn't between Youtube right now and some perfect version of Youtube. It's between Youtube right now and Youtube if nobody was able to make any money from the videos they create. How many big Youtube channels do you think would remain if suddenly nobody on Youtube could make any money off their videos? Allowing people to profit from their work has expanded the quantity and quality of content by an order of magnitude.
I remember youtube back before everyone was trying to make money. I watched it transition into what it is now. I can assure you, lack of good content was never a problem.
I remember it too, and of course there was plenty of good content, but I would never think of going back to it now. I'm almost certain the majority of the channels I follow wouldn't exist without Youtube monetization, as flawed as it it, it's better than nothing.
Hell, in some respects quality has gone down actually as the atmosphere of competition and the financial incentive has brought some of the worst out in people. DMCA's have been weaponized and because people make profits, they have more weight.
You're delusional if you think the quality of Youtube videos has gone down, in any respects. Being able to make a living off Youtube has turned it into something ordinary people can safely invest significant time and money into. I can't even believe I'm having to argue this point. This is how the free market works, how capitalism works, people work for money.
That isn't to say I don't think people should be unable to make money off youtube, merely I saw life before monetization and it really wasn't worse then now, and was in many respects better for it. Less frequent updates for some, certainly, but hardly a inherent lack of quality in an overall view.
Ya, just keep telling yourself that.
As for how many would cease to exist if they cut the funds to the shows that grew into what they were because they relied on the money? I am sure plenty. But I am also sure that without the big heads to compete with, more newbies would try and we'd never have to worry about stagnation.
Oh, something would probably fill the void, but you'd have amateurs, not professionals. Right now you have both, and people can transition from one to the other. Why would you want to get rid of that? Right now the only argument you seem to have is that the current system isn't perfect, and the non-monetized system wasn't terrible.
Steam won't make any money if they wreck the modding scene and prevent creators from developing new content as you're suggesting. They have as much incentive to make this work as anyone. I don't see any logically consistent scenario where only Valve comes out ahead.
I also just don't understand how this is such a deterrent for modders. Nobody's being forced to participate, so if you don't like Steam you can ignore it. If someone steals your work and tries to monetize it they'll only be spreading your work farther with no cost to you, and nobody will pay for it anyway if they realize you're giving it away for free somewhere else.
Oh I agree they have no incentive to kill the mod scene, but as their actions show, and their recent backpedaling even cited, they don't really understand what they are doing when it comes to the mod community. Good intentions pave the way to hell.
Then they should be given a chance to learn, a good idea implemented poorly can be improved upon.
As for how it would deter modders, well what exactly do you know about what has motivated the modding community from inception?
I wouldn't pretend to know what the motivations of other people. If I had to guess I'd say most did it because they wanted to improve the game and test out and improve their skills.
I know most do it for love of the game or for the fame it can get them as being a popular name in that community. I know many teach themselves by gathering resources and help from others in a very hodgepodge manner. I know that people are protective of the work they put into things and want to protect it, not because they could make money off it, but because it is their baby.
And I'm sure none of them would ever want to make money off it if they could.
The only reason money hasn't been a part of the modding scene until now is that there hasn't been system in place for it. Every other kind of intellectual product, whether it be music, comedy, art, etc has been successfully monetized, and it has never stopped amateurs from existing alongside professionals. It's never stopped people from learning and teaching one another. You think the fact that people buy and sell music prevents people from teaching skills to each other?
Either you disagree with the entire way the modern world operates, or you think that mods are somehow fundamentally different from every other type of good that has ever existed.
You're looking at a model that has only existed one way because of technical constraints, and assuming that it's the only way it can or should work.
And paid mods invites a cancer into that. Aside from flagrant theft of ideas, there are other issues.
Plagarism is as old as art itself. If you think the fact that people will inevitably try to copy each others' work is a reason not to try to commercialize it in the first place than you should be against every professional artist who's ever lived.
First is modders seeing each other as competition keep things closer to the vest.
The community nature to help and teach vanishes when there is a limited number of people willing to pay. And even the free modders will suffer once people start withholding what they learned, or start to charge for it.
You seem to have a very optimistic view of people when it suits you, and a very cynical view of people when it suits you.
You think the same people who would spend time creating content totally for free, would then refuse to help newbies because of the off chance that doing so will reduce their profits a miniscule amount?
Anyway, I know first hand this isn't true of programming. I'm currently perusing a degree in Information Systems and despite there being a lot of money in writing programs professionally, the amount of free resources available is enormous. I simply don't know of any real world scenario that has played out like the one you're describing.
The idea of gaining fame also becomes far less likely when mods will be ripped off and no one will know for sure who made what.
I would think simply checking which version of a mod was uploaded first would answer that.
Modders up til now have relied on the honor system about that since there was no real incentive to steal and a lot of community negativity to it. Now though? I could steal a lot of mods from nexus, mess with code a little to remove any mention of the original creator and poof, I stripped a free modder of the only reward they wanted in recognition.
Oh please. How exactly is the existence of your mod costing them any recognitions. If the mod still exists on Nexus you haven't stripped the modder of anything. Chances are one of the first reviews for your mod will be someone linking to the original free version and then they'll get additional traffic and publicity from you until your mod gets taken down.
As for realizing you can get it free elsewhere...you wont. You will have to go out and search it, probably under a different name and different creator, since any theft worth their salt is going to make tracing the path more difficult.
If it's for the same game, under the same category, it will be discovered very quickly, if not by Valve than certainly by the community. When The Slaughtering Grounds stole art assets from someone's deviantart page it was discovered very quickly, even though it was only an element within the game and not a copy/paste of the entire thing.
Garbage which will in no way affect good mods.
Except when it comes to trying to find those other mods amid a sea of shit,
The good stuff will rise to the top. How do you think popular Youtube videos get recognition amongst that "sea of shit". If people can't find the mods they're looking for it's the fault of the store for having a poor navigation and search functions.
or when those mods start DMCA'ing the competition like youtubers resorted to,
Well, seeing as how these are mods that wouldn't have existed in the first place without monetization, I don't see how the possibility of them getting DMCA'ed is a drawback.
or when the lack of effort and rampant hostility that comes from competition drives them out of the community itself in disgust.
Ya, because competition usually results in a lack of effort. Again, I don't see how competition would drive out any person who was creating mods out of a passion to begin with. Once again it sounds like you're saying the people who are already working for NO money would leave the community if they couldn't make ENOUGH money.
An inevitable market burst? You can't just throw that out there without explaining it. Why would a market burst be "inevitable"?
A combination of effects already determinable based on human nature and effects this will cause.
First is the increase in junk mods for cash. This harms the overall community, reduces it, makes it less friendly and generally poisons the whole thing. This causes a massive flood of shovelware mods into the market while also undermining the core reason that "market" existed in the first place: the fact mods are free and the community is cooperative.
Next is the point I just mentioned, that longevity will shrink when mods start to cost money. This means that market that got flooded suddenly has a lot less audience to sell to. This is also impacted on the fact that the mods themselves, being shovelware, will likely be shit or theft and thus very untrustworthy as mods the players investment are worth.
Finally, because of that, what buyers there are will simply stop. Similar to the housing crash in the states, the toxic assets, unscrupulous dealers and fed-up customers will cause the bubble to collapse in on itself. And the result will takes years to clean up.
sigh...
I guess modders will just have to give away their worthless creations for free then.
Anyway, if this is the inevitable route of the modding market, why hasn't there been a Youtube crash? Or a mobile games crash? Where is the precedent for this elaborate scenario you've made up?
Only when Valve fails to do their job properly. Sure some legal scrutiny is inevitable, but it's just a side effect of a marketplace going legit. You want something to be more than a side hobby for a bunch of enthusiasts? You're going to have to put up with some legal issues.
Valve has a history of implementing half-assed ideas and never finishing them. you want me to have any confidence they can hand this on even the most basic of levels, ask me when they fix the Greenlight system. I would rather not have a community I like be destroyed because valve wanted to try a social experiment for a little extra cash with no ability or no understanding of how to handle the mess it makes.
You know, none of this makes any goddamn sense. Why does the community you like have to respond to Valve at all if they don't want to? Valve isn't coming into Nexus and stealing away all the mods and putting them behind paywalls. You and the community can completely ignore Valve if you want to. If nobody was making any money to begin with what can Valve or Steam possibly do to them?
This is just so stupid.
I'm not sure what you're referring to here. It seems like these little social circles are just a result of the internet in general. I'm not sure how it relates to monetization.
Monetization feeds excuse to use underhanded tactics, as now it is money on the line. I recall money was also a motivating reason why the youtube atheism v. christianity went the way it did, and part of why the following civil war of youtube atheists became so sour and bitter.
Yawn. And I'm supposed to care about this why?
Treating an independent modder like a large company delusional stupidity on the part of any consumers. Any modder selling their content should be free to clarify who they are and what they do so that there's no confusion. Some tension between supply and demand is going to occur, but that's for the best since it drives prices to a reasonable equilibrium that works best for everyone.
In a perfect system. Which we don't have and never would by the groundwork layed by steam. Also, modders for decades HAD an equilibrium that worked best for all involved. That was free,
I'm not sure you understand what the concept of price equilibrium is. Modders didn't decide their content should be free, they didn't set that price. It was the only price available because no monetization existed.
since the modders got rewarded in means other then financial. Notoriety, experience, community...
Ya, why can't other markets operate like this? Next time I buy a sandwich at Subway, I'll tell them I'm paying them in my respect for them and their work.
It was and is good for modders of decades past and most today.
It was good enough for the modders willing to do it for free.
Why does the system need to be shattered in such a ham-fisted way to cater to people motivated by money? Why not merely implement a system where mods can apply to developers to be commission to make user-made DLC instead?
Wouldn't that also be motivated by money?
Also, virtually every single product you use was created by people motivated by money, from the computer you're typing this on, to the website we're communicating on. The idea that money somehow poisons the well just negates the entire way our world works.
I just don't get why this is seen as such a drawback. Any popular market is going to become filled with shovelware. So what? When the Wii became a hit it got flooded with shovelware. As a Wii owner, did this bother me at all? No. All it did was give me some amusement to look at the ridiculous crap people were pumping out for it. As long as there's still a way to find the stuff worth purchasing, I don't care what else exists. Besides, who has the right to declare any particular game, app, mod, or video "shovelware". For all you know some people may genuinely enjoy it.
Because Nintedo's quality products weren't living in a system akin to the wold west where no one had oversight and people weren't trying to screw them over or steal their work.
Eh, we're getting back to implementation again. I don't want Steam to be a "wild west". I just think it would be preferable over the socialist utopia you seem to envision.
As for declaring it shovelware, you understood the concept I was arguing well enough, so the point was made. Not that people can't genuinely enjoy them, merely that a market flooded with low quality, quickly tossed out attempt to gain money detracts from the quality work if there is no real way to distinguish between.
If only there existed some sort of, I don't know, review system. Like, where people could rate games and give them recommendations. Nah, nothing like that could ever work.
Nintendo has popular character with brand recognition. Modders do not.
You think the only popular Wii games were first party titles?
That's not specific.
Neither is that.
Anti-consumer: Terrible quality, poor customer service, underhanded marketing tactics, dishonest claims of product features, unrepresented prices, withholding or consealing information relevant to the purchase, etc.
Okay, now explain why these things will result from monetizing mods
Cash-grabs: Efforts done solely to make a quick buck, often a lowest amount of effort project that relies on some marketable aspect as opposed to quality or value itself. off the top of my head, selling a "zelda overhaul" mod on the idea of converting models and textures to represent that game, and ending up with one that changes the texture on the chickens and promises to finish the mod "in the future".
Ya, I don't see that taking off.
I'll grant you that copyright and IP laws are super outdated and unequipped to handle markets where the product is software. I don't know what the solution is, but I don't think it's to just remove the markets for said software entirely.
Why is it that there needs to be a market in the first place?
Because people like to make money? And I'm willing to give someone money if they offer me something I want in return for it? You know, the free market system that's used for practically everything? I'm sure if people couldn't sell videogames for money some enthusiasts would still create some in their free time and put them online for free. It would just be a lot smaller and wouldn't feature anything remotely resembling Triple A titles.
And I'm sure you'd argue against letting video-game developers charge for their games because it would lead to theft and selfish hogging of assets and cause creators to leave in disgust and ultimately cause a collapse.
and why must it be in the rotting corpse of the modding community after this idea kills it? I am curious why a system and community that has worked for decades needs to be made into a market in the first place.
Riding horses worked for thousands of years, why did we need to replace them with these cars?
So far all I hear is vague idea of "it will make mods better" with no actual evidence other then the presumption that adding money to the mix will improve quality.
Well there can't be actual evidence of whether it works until it's been attempted. You know that as well as me. People are just applying the same logic to modding that's been applied to every other artistic medium. If it fails as horrendously as you're predicting at least then we'll know, but I don't see that happening.
Instead, I have seen the threat of such a system chill the community, result in many mods pulled for fear of what will happen to them and only a select few even making profits.
The fact that modders are pissed that they'll have to pay money for stuff doesn't prove that the model is broken. It proves that human beings are acting like human beings always do.
It wont make mods better, it will make a very small group of modders a little money, and the developers and steam a lot more.
Well then even that is something. Those modders deserve to make money.
It seems to me that the state of the mobile games market is at least partially the result of apathetic consumers who just want a distraction while riding the bus. If the majority of people who play these games actually devoted large sums of time and money to them, like gamers do for major releases, they would probably demand more from it and seek out genuine quality. That's how I see it. I could be wrong.
tell me, if you have to pick between investing large amounts of money into a game or investing a little amount, which will you do? You'd probably do it based on the audience, with some metric to justify the more money only if you have a big enough audience.
Modding has no market that is measurable, it only has potential markets because of the popularity of it. As such, anyone with money to invest will do so sparingly, that means small. Or they will try to turn profits made into the next mod, which will still be small.
Exactly my point. You can't have large investment in mods if there's no return. Some people will be willing to produce content for free up until a point, but only a small amount will, and they will have to fit it alongside their actual career.
That doesn't seem like a great example to use. Flappy bird was a huge hit. For some reason, people loved it. And the creator could have made a fortune off it. I don't know why he wanted to kill it (well I sorta do, but his stated reason is ridiculous) however, if he had been successful in destroying it he would have taken away a game a lot of people enjoyed.
Note, this would have been just as true if it weren't monetized.
My point is that you just demonstrated that nothing about this is about the creators. As you said, the creator could have made a fortune off it, but didn't. Instead, he wanted to kill it, but others took his idea, ran with it and made their own profits. It was never about the will of the creator to make money, but the fact that someone wants to make money off any idea, regardless what the actual creator wants.
The creator didn't want to make money anymore, so he didn't. Seems like he got what he wanted. The fact that he couldn't kill the idea says nothing about monetization, if he had never monetized it to begin with he still wouldn't have been able to kill it. You can't kill a concept as simple and easily reproducible as Flappybird was, end of story.
You see a group of people gathered into a community and your thought is how to monetize it. Not for the good of the community, not for the good of the creators, but for the sake of monetizing it.
Oh for gods sakes, so Valve isn't doing this for the right REASONS!?! Ya, how dare they try and tap into an untouched revenue stream. It's not like they're a for profit business for fucks sake. And they have every reason to believe it will benefit both the creators and even the consumers in the long run. This is an obvious idea, and a good one.
That's a tautology. Of course it wasn't money based, how could it have been when there was no money? That doesn't prove that those creators wouldn't have preferred to make money. It doesn't prove that allowing them to mod as a full time job wouldn't have improved the quantity and quality of their work. It doesn't prove that there aren't more people who would have tried modding if they could make money from it.
And nothing in what you have said has proved that adding money will make it any better.
No, but you can't know if you never try. If the prerequisite for trying new ideas was having empirical evidence that they will work ahead of time we would never try new ideas.
You're arguing that modders haven't been working for money as if that proves anything when they had no choice in the matter. It's like saying that people back in the 1920s must have preferred radio to television because they always listened to the radio instead of watching TV. It's blatantly faulty logic and I think you're well aware of it.
As for creators preferences, well as the flappy bird guy shows, there are creators that don't.
The flappy bird guy was fine with monetizing his game initially, it was only when it exploded into a phenomenon that he backed out. Besides, this is one anecdotal example, and an unusual one at that.
As the community at large shows, there are a lot of people that don't want their community made into a "market".
Then they can continue to distribute it for free. You make it sound like Valve's chopping down the rainforest. Nobody's home is getting destroyed. What part of
voluntary don't you get?
As the hsitory of modding has shown, it has grown and been successful in the way it existed without monetizing.
I think it has done admirably well in spite of the fact that modders cannot profit from their work. I think many of them would like to, some of which have said so themselves.
As youtube has shown, adding money can have negative results to the community.
Youtube is a success story. Why would you want to use it as a bad example? Youtube practically owns the online video market. I wish there was more competition, but you can't look at Youtube and say, with honesty, that the monetization isn't working.
So the options were:
a. Make mods for games you love for free
b. Make a completely different game from scratch and just accept that the game you already love will never be improved in the way you want.
People didn't mod because they wanted to do it for free. They modded because they wanted the games they loved to be better, and the fact that they had to do it for free was out of their control.
or just off the top of my head
C. request permission to mod a game and sell it as DLC
And that's different than charging for mods how? If your only issue is that the mods won't be authorized by the original game developers you haven't brought that up in this entire discussion.
No, the fact that they had to do it for free was because they knew nearly no one would pay them upfront for a mod (that itself is nearly always incomplete, buggy, and the source of conflicts with the game or other mods),
That doesn't speak to well of the modding community then. Although I don't think you're giving these mods nearly enough credit, some of them introduce entire new weapons, enemies, and features. You think people wouldn't pay for that? I probably would, depending on the price.
The way you present it is if all the modders would be happy to be paid for their work, and indeed they all would with the same happiness I would be to be paid to wash my clothing on a regular basis.
That's a weird analogy to make. But ya, I guess it works, if people were willing to pay me to wash my clothes for some reason.
I don't want to misrepresent people, but it seems a lot of them, you included, are against the IDEA of letting modders charge for their work, in addition to complaints about specific implementation. If this was just about the specific implementation of Steam, then I wouldn't be having this discussion because I mostly agree with you on that.
Perhaps part of mine and many other's reaction is to the idea of being charged for a mod, you may have a point there.
I didn't say that you were against it because you didn't want to pay for mods. I said you seemed against the idea of letting modders charge for their work in concept, and not merely Steams specific implementation.
I don't care what personal motivations you have for thinking this way. An idea is right or wrong regardless of how you feel about it.
I mean considering the behavior of developers to remove parts of a completed game to instead charge extra money for it or to lock it behind a paywall, it would certainly make sense that people would respond negatively to a previously free community-driven aspect was uprooted because a select few wanted to instead charge for their not-professional, fan-made work.
Vote with your wallet then, you don't like it, don't buy it.
But if that was the case, why would so many be crusading for a donation button then?
I don't care.
Why would so many be willing to give money and set up a system that rewards effort without it being obligatory or exploitable?
I'd guess it's the non-obligatory part. Since they won't have to pay any money. Once again though, it doesn't matter.
I will be honest, the idea of charging for mods upfront is one I detest on a personal level. I view it akin to someone picking up a piece of trash on the street walking over to me after and demanding a payment for the effort.
That's not a fair comparison. Nobody is demanding that you ever pay for anything. You don't want to buy the mods, don't.
Something the community was doing for free before now being given a pricetag because someone wanted money.
Oh, the world is so unfair.
Modding has a community built around cooperation, sharing resources and putting in passion for recognition or just the hobby itself.
You sure are a good spokesman for it.
Putting a financial incentive into that system changes it. It breeds competition and distrust. It turns fan-projects into jobs and deliverables.
I've never heard someone talk so negatively about competition. Competition breads quality, everyone knows that. It's about as universal a truth as you can get. Whether it's competition between species, or sports teams, or nations, or businesses, competing makes people work hard to improve.
Remember what people are getting. An untested,
Untested? What kind of mods do you use?
depends on the mod, some are very professional, DESPITE being made for free.
fan-made thing that may not work right, may conflict and may never be updated after first release.
There's a lot of mays in there. As long as consumers aren't being misinformed about the content I don't care. If modders start lying about what the mod does, or saying it's compatible with other mods that it's not, then we have fraud which is illegal.
To say there is potential for cons and scams is an understatement.
Just like in any poorly regulated marketplace.
But the potential for it also shapes opinions of those who would otherwise try mods. Looking at mods as potential scams does not help the community nor the growth of it.
I agree, having an atmosphere of trust is beneficial, if not necessary for a strong healthy marketplace.
I think that's a good idea, but it's not a replacement for letting creators charge up front. Fun fact: most people on the internet aren't super charitable. Besides, there's already Patreon.
I would think decades of people making and submitting mods to the rest of the community is pretty charitable myself,
Earlier you compared it to washing one's own clothing. Either you think they're doing for selfish reasons or you don't. Besides, I'm not saying charity doesn't exist, I'm just pointing out the obvious and well established fact that most people won't pay for something if they don't have to. Some will, but it won't compare to if it weren't optional.
so I guess I have decent hopes that modders would be fairly nice. But if that is the case, instead of a pay wall, implement optional advertisements.
Works for me. The more options the better.
Assuming the dev wants to wade through mountains of mods waiting for approval, and assuming modders are willing to wait long periods of time for the possibility that their mod will be approved. I thought the point of modding was that it was independent.
Mountains? A basic voting system and measure of mod popularity to decide potential candidates would reduce that to very manageable.
If a voting system can measure the popularity of a mod and differentiate the worthy from the crap, then you don't need to worry about shovelware to begin with. Having to submit them to a developer seems like a needless additional step.
And once a rhythm is established, it could be regularly released DLC too.
As for modders being independent, you forfeit that when you change it from being a hobby to being a job.
You're joking right? Entire games are made by small teams or individuals. What do you think the word "indie" is short for?
And if I am paying for a mod, that is the same as me commissioning a work. I expect quality
Depending how much you paid. I don't expect the cheapest beer at the liquor store to be high in quality.
and I expect to get what I was promised. A free hobby project that someone gets to on their spare time is just that, you get what you get. Start charging money though and expectations change.
Exactly, which is why it leads to higher quality products.
But that is just another issue with the whole thing, and another example of why charging for mods sort of undermines the entire point of mods.
I'm not seeing the negative here.
Call me cycnical, but I suspect at least some of this reaction is coming from people worried they'll have to pay money for mods that they'd otherwise get for free. The issues you've stated aren't entirely without merit, but they're factors that come with any legitimate marketplace.
I'll mention this again, but you keep using the term "marketplace". Modding isn't one. It was never intended to be one considering the nature of how it formed and grew and the results of that growth.
I didn't realize modding was ever "intended" to be anything. Who's doing the intending here?
Then give me some examples. The mobile gaming market isn't a good one. It's thriving and full of good games. The ability to monetize games hasn't killed it.
You want me to give you examples... of something I was saying I haven't seen?
No, I want you to give examples of times that people said quality would improve with monetization, and it didn't. You said "it's remarkable" how many times this has happened.
As if passion and monetary compensation are mutually exclusive. If people are passionate now, why would they stop?
They aren't mutual exclusive, but only one actually accomplishes quality, and it isn't the money part of things.
Really? You don't think demand for money accomplishes quality? Sometimes it doesn't, but only if the consumer doesn't put pressure on the business to produce quality in the first place. If people are willing to pay for quality, people will try to provide it.
I don't care about the overall quality, I care about the quality of the mods I want. If there's a thousand shitty clones of a good mod, it doesn't somehow detract from the original. It does however open up the possibility that one of those clones will actually be an undiscovered gem that has actually improved on the original.
Unless the shitty clones flood the market so you can't find the good one.
Which has never happened in any marker I've ever participated in.
Or the creator never learns how to mod because the community deteriorated and the community-made tutorials and guides teaching people stop being made.
Something else which has never happened in any industry I've ever seen.
Or the creator gets fed up with people stealing his work and doesn't finish it.
We talked about plagiarism before.
Or the creator is DMCA'd out of the market because shovelware selling#765 saw him as competition.
Implementation. I don't like the idea of this any more than you do, but it's only an issue if the original creator stands to gain money in the first place.
As for bugs and issues? If you want your mod to make money, it seems logical that you would want it to run as well as possible. The only possible downsides come from a lack of information, which there's no excuse for on an online platform.
Assassin Creed would like to argue that point with you. A shoddy, buggy mess that sold well enough because people were willing to pay it and the people selling it didn't care. You'd think mod makers would want to make mods as well as possible. And when it is a passion project, you'd be right. When it is a financial project though, getting it sold comes first, not quality. Sometimes the former comes at the expense of the latter.
Fine, I'll concede this. People need to stop preordering games. I can't help the fact that consumers are stupid and will eat shit because Ubisoft created a nice looking trailer.
Like I said, I'd prefer a wider selection of good and bad games than a smaller selection of good and bad games.
And you know what hasn't been mentioned already? The fact that the free modding communities were already filled with crap. Have you tried searching for Skyrim mods on Nexus? Have you seen how many shitty, borderline pointless, and often buggy mods it has? Stop treating the community like it was already some golden city on the hill.
Oh there is a lot of crap, I don't disagree there. But what was it you mentioned before about shovelware being something someone enjoys? Aside from that, you keep working on the assumption that the mods that exist now will stay there, that it will only add new mods to the system. That isn't the case.
I strongly disagree, the ability to earn a profit will create incentives and possibilities for many more people to create mods who aren't currently.
Aside from people pulling mods, others will try to convert their current into pay-for, removing their current ones.
And what's wrong with that? I didn't say it would increase the selection of free mods.
This would end up like taking hobbyists that make and share designs on PC towers having their community flooded by people selling madcatz controllers. After a point, the people that put effort into things will move on, leaving nothing but the vultures.
I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
Valve isn't going to "flood" Nexusmods.
Ya, there's certainly an argument to be made for money incentivizing people to do things. Considering it's how western civilization has operated for millennia.
No, money incentivizes people to a certain extent. Usually up til survival, basic needs, and basic happiness is met.
It's hard to attain these on zero dollars an hour. And if what you're saying were true, people wouldn't pursue high paying jobs and careers. You may not care if you're ever rich, but that doesn't mean you can say that other people don't or shouldn't.
Then it stops being an incentive. Hell, many businesses are learning this truth as they realize increasing pay doesn't increase work effort any.
And yet CEOs keep raising their own pay into ludicrous amounts even long after they've attained all the things you've mentioned above.
$400 is the minimum amount, not the maximum. Also, I don't know about you, but $400 doesn't sound measly to me, especially if I get it for doing something I love.
For over a 1000 hours, $400 is not enough.
There's no reason to suggest all mods will take 1000 hours to complete, and no reason to assume they'll make the minimum profits possible. Those are just 2 numbers you chose. And saying that $400 isn't enough when you're arguing for zero dollars is just driving me insane.
That was sort of my point, that at a point the amount of effort to make a quality mod will be so far above what they will ever make for it that it is absurd to think that providing money will increase the rate of those sorts of mods existing. Instead, it will be as little effort as possible charged for as high as the fledgling, unregulated market will allow.
You're speculating on how much money a mod could make, which is a baseless assumption, and then claiming that because of that people won't be willing to put effort into them, when they're already putting effort into mods for free.
And, a question I been pondering here, what happens when the person who would otherwise do a passion project to make an amazing mod decides to instead do a lot of small ones to make some fast cash because the feel they need to charge to justify the time spent on the mod?
That's their decision.
And if those projects are shitty people won't buy them and the creator will make nothing.
People make shovelware for a reason. It may never be platinum, but if it sells enough, that is all that matters.
If it sells well, then I wouldn't call it shovelware
The creators will not just make nothing and either change for the better or be driven out by market forces. They will abuse the system they exist within and make the money they seek.
In what ways will they "abuse the system"
Cookie-clicker was a free game created as a "passion project" by a French programmer in his down time. It wasn't until after it had exploded in popularity that ads were introduced and they haven't stopped it from being popular. Personally I think it's an ingenious parody of the skinnerbox gaming formula.
There is something inherently bothering about that set up. Something akin to a man on the curb telling you "the first hit is free".
Except in this case every other hit is free too, just eventually the hits will have some advertising on the side.
Still, you'd be willing to agree that a skinnerbox game formula like that being used in mods doesn't actually result in quality mods, right?
Of course.
gave a shit, I suppose.
