BLOG PIECE: Modding as a hobby versus modding as a career, and the position of the Nexus

[Thaiauxn]

The "Pay-what-you-will" model is an EXCELLENT idea.

One that (I think) meets (almost) everyone's criteria.

Except Valve's.

 

Always except Valve. :p

[Meisenbach]

In response to post #23595219. #23595369, #23595554, #23725649, #23781804, #23812314, #23813704, #23819184 are all replies on the same post.

Yeah, I don't expect to have my hand held. I only ask for help when I'm stuck. And the main reasons why I comment on mods is to give my opinion or constructive criticism and suggestions. Also, people who are new to this site don't understand what the people who make these big, popular mods go through. But if I were to make a popular overhaul, I think I would do whatever I can to help the people who downloaded my mod.

[H3xx]

In response to post #23595219. #23595369, #23595554, #23725649, #23781804, #23812314, #23813704, #23819184, #23825634 are all replies on the same post.

Kudos to you for that. I absolutely agree with you. I'm afraid that if Mods get monetized, we'll be flooded with after market "Horse Armors" left and right. No offense to the Skyrim Horse armor mods, I'm referring to the Oblivion DLC. All of these small, mostly cosmetic and costly mods will come out of the woodwork, and the large, massive content collaborations like Immersive Armors, Falskarr, etc will never see the light of day.

[Guinefort1]

I don't know if any others have pointed this out, but here goes: Assuming that gaming companies decide that they simply MUST have an official user-made content store, then having a database access fee might not be a terrible way to go about it. That is, a flat fee to access the servers and then let the mod users pick and choose what they want, rather than having to pay for each mod individually. That would bypass some of the I-paid-for-mutually-incompatible-mods problems and the like. Does that sound like a good idea, a bad idea, or both? Why?

[Thandal]

It might solve some problems from the players' and the game companies' perspectives.

Not so sure about the mod authors' though.

[Guinefort1]

It might solve some problems from the players' and the game companies' perspectives.

Not so sure about the mod authors' though.

That's a good point. Eh, that's why this is sort of thing isn't decided by me. :tongue:

[JustATac0]

i personally enjoy modding for fun as a hobby and would never pay for mods.

[Thaiauxn]

 

In response to post #23595219. #23595369, #23595554, #23725649, #23781804, #23812314, #23813704, #23819184, #23825634 are all replies on the same post.

Kudos to you for that. I absolutely agree with you. I'm afraid that if Mods get monetized, we'll be flooded with after market "Horse Armors" left and right. No offense to the Skyrim Horse armor mods, I'm referring to the Oblivion DLC. All of these small, mostly cosmetic and costly mods will come out of the woodwork, and the large, massive content collaborations like Immersive Armors, Falskarr, etc will never see the light of day.

 

 

Do you have any proof of that, if that's the case? Any past examples or evidence from similar scenarios?

 

New Vegas's DLC are really the new standard for me. They brought back the concept of Expansion Packs as DLC, which Mechwarrior 2, 3, and 4 had, as well as Total Annihilation and StarCraft. Those were great. All of those games also had their own large scale mods too. See: TA: Escalation, MechWarrior: Living Legends, BattleZone II: Forgotten Enemies, Black Mesa... two of these have my hand in them, in full disclosure.

 

The Horse Armour & Caravan/Tribal/Classic packs-- those were just gimmicks. Weapons of the New Millennium, Project Nevada -- those are professional quality and totally worthy of the same exchange rate as the bulls*** DLC. I'd lay bets that you'd get more of those from the community and less of the other if monitization were a thing.

 

The reason Valve's mods are all hats and crap is because those games are geared for that. It's like blaming Pokemon, or Magic cards for only releasing cardboard for profit. That's their purpose. Our purpose making RPGs and Action titles is radically different. So too are the mods.

 

Massive collaborations, specifically like Falskarr as you mentioned, are a really good example of the opposite of what you cited happening in the event of monetization.

 

AJV put everything on the line for his mods, Deimos and Falskarr. He decided not to go to college, to stay at home, worked out a deal with his father to focus on his skills an extra year, and treated Falskarr like a day job. I mean, if his family was as poor as my family is, with dad passed away and mom elderly, even with my job as a freelance camera operator and visual effects producer, I barely get by, and I have about 30 people that I can rely on when things get rough. Had he been in the same way, he could have ended up homeless, or worse. But he pulled it through, did what he said he could do, worked hard, and then put his life on the line again sending out applications to the AAA studios - which worked.

 

If his experience in the studios was anything like my Hollywood jobs, which nearly killed me a few times and left me in a very hard position, then he's a real badass to want to keep going. Honestly, just sending him a donation is a pithy way of showing admiration for that Herculean feat. I don't know if he's still on at Bungie, but that was a real amazing act of bravery and dedication that pulled off its objective successfully. I'd like to see a documentary filmed on it.

 

Our mod, Project Brazil, we lost a team mate to Lyme Disease. He has two kids, a family, a good job. We lost another older member who lost his home, his relationship with his wife, and as far as we know of the story, the guy was living out of a storage shed in California with the deadline on rent closing in. Haven't heard from him in 6 months. The main reason we lost other team mates was because of college, they didn't have time. Our current team are all employed, myself included, and finding time when we can for the mod. Two of us are employed as artists at game studios, one with a newborn baby. The new guy is on break for College, and I will probably lose him after Easter. I want him to keep his grades up, which is more important than the mod.

 

So if you're telling me that having the hope of making money - I'm not talking about buy a yacht and move to Dubai money - but enough to make a living wage for a year doing what amounts to an impossible, uncomfortable, almost banal job, is going to eliminate this as a form of expression... no, look, I'm telling you that the fact these massive collaborations exist at all is a god damn miracle. I've worked on 3 of these god damn miracles now, all have been released and blown the socks off those who played them.

 

If monetization will be the thing that ruins User Generated DLC, then I'd like to see what food, a warm bed, and shelter would do. Survival, hell, a nice way of living, will definitely destroy modding forever.

 

Edited March 27, 2015 by Thaiauxn

[EnaiSiaion]

In response to post #23829199.

True. There is no reason not to allow trading mods for money, because it's a free market and if people are willing to buy and people are willing to sell, who is going to stand between them? There is too much government intervention in the world already.

My main concern is that it will lead to feuds between mod teams and developers; those starving artists may not lose anything when another mod team next door releases another DLC sized mod, but some types of mods are mutually exclusive (overhauls, etc) and money would provide a very strong incentive for keyboard warriors to try and destroy each other.

Fix that and I'm in.

[EnaiSiaion]

In response to post #23595219. #23595369, #23595554, #23725649, #23781804, #23812314, #23813704, #23819184, #23825634, #23826809 are all replies on the same post.

I have a frequent saying "mod authors are not customer service at Wal Mart". If people come off as "toxic" it is because they are tired of these types of entitled users who post these comments when they get to use a mod authors hard work completely for free.

I disagree, the idea that mod creators can do no wrong needs to stop. The players trust the creator, not with their money but with their time.

Sure, bugs can happen. But too many mod creators can't be bothered to test or fix major issues that invalidate hours and hours of effort (save bloat, broken perks etc) and instead tell the users to go suck eggs because it's a free mod and they should be thankful the creator felt like uploading anything at all.

Mod creators like that honestly don't have the right to complain when someone makes an angry post about their mod. Edited March 28, 2015 by EnaiSiaion