Getting paid to mod? Great! Paying for mods? Ohh....

[Lyanheart]

I would donate to modders who consitantly put out high-quality content, or at least one or two big mods that are well-polished. I bought all the DLC for Morrowind and Oblivion, but that was the "official" stuff. Many of the fan-made mods were much better and free. I already donate to the Nexus, so I do support this modding community as much as they ask for.

[PsYchotic666Joker]

Morrowind didn't have DLC they just had 'offical' mods and were free

 

DLC was not known till Oblivion came out and changed the way added content was introduced for games, now every game is greedy as hell -.-

[Mshai]

• I refuse to pay, but would donate.
  
• I would rather accept donations from satisfied gamers.
  

 

And I stand behind it. One of the reasons why I was so looking forward to Skyrim is cos I am preparing to create whole series of mods. I totally disagree with the p2p system with mods - cos as it was said by some above, not everyone can afford it. To hell, not everyone even has the technical part working (working online credit card, paypal... etc) so that they can really buy stuff. I am an artist, and I really do know what happened to my art when money got involved in it. Something that was holy to me, got dirt on it from money. Something that I was doing for myself, for my soul, for fun, for friends... Is now oriented to be done for money, and I hardly have time to do something for myself again.

 

I will not buy a single mod. Not today, not tomorrow. Not ever. Imo. Period.

 

On the other hand, if I find a brilliantly done mod (e.g. I could count at least 5 from Oblivion at this moment) I will be more then glad to donate 1-5 $ to the author, and Im sure that from 20 downloaders 1-2 would do it - now calculate the number of downloads of some mods from Oblivion - the positive feedback would be rewarding and motivating to those authors.

[Matth85]

Getting paid to mod is like getting paid to go to high school. It is idiotic. You learn, and it is a hobby.

Getting donations, however, would work. Mostly because then you don't force money from anybody, they give it to you if they got the economy and you have done a good job.

[OnlyOneWing]

Getting paid to mod is like getting paid to go to high school. It is idiotic. You learn, and it is a hobby.

Getting donations, however, would work. Mostly because then you don't force money from anybody, they give it to you if they got the economy and you have done a good job.

Some modders deserve far more credit than "high school" quality work. Some modders are professionals who mod as hobbyists, and some are extremely talented and creative.

No one is talking about save-games or retextures. Think more The Lost Spires mod with grown ups doing the voice acting. lol

[Ultimatepurge]

Maybe if it was a really high quality mod like Nehrim or The Lost Spires. Sure. That's a big effort. But then I want the money in the mod guys pocket, not Valve or Steam! Oh no.

Otherwise? Nah. When everything is free = everyone shares their stuff.

Imagine if a group of 'elite modders B)" has a special homemade version of nifskope that did some real magical stuff with meshes. Would it be in their best financial interests to share it? (Answer: NOPE.)

Tools, techniques and tutorials in general would not become as public as now! We'd have people sit on insanely great solutions, but making too much money not telling anyone about it... it'd be bad for modding!

 

So all in all? NOPE. While it is nice gettin' paid and all, it would just make it worse for the mod community.

[Handofbane]

I would have no problem donating to help along some mod project I felt was truly epic in scale or added something invaluable to the game, but a mandatory charge is right out - I would simply refuse to get mods and just do it myself (failing repeatedly of course). I also would likely refuse donations towards anything I worked on - I make enough IRL to get by and not be impeded financially by my game/modding time put in, this is a hobby, that happens to be fun and educational in its own way. Not putting down anyone who would accept donations, but nobody should go into this *expecting* to make a profit in anything besides actual enjoyment of the time they spend modding and gaming, and the appreciation of those they choose to share their mods with.

[Matth85]

Some modders are professionals who mod as hobbyists

Some hobby painters are amazing. They don't earn thousand upon thousand as some other does.

 

Game developers start as modders, so yes. However, what do they gain if they force people to buy their mod? If you make a good model, you head over to the known sell-sites, that the industry buys from, and set it up for 5-20 bucks. You don't force anybody here.

And who deserves donation? That is up to each to say. A guy might make the best model in the world, yet I would not pay him a thing. ANother made the most complicated script, and i'd throw money after him. I would not pay somebody for a good model, as the model itself should be enough for the artist. A script, however, got a lot less artistic and more debugging, and I know is more a pain than a model.

 

And about getting paid. I would never take money. If I worked at a mod team, I'd take donation and share it to people who needs it, or to run any websites that is being run. I got no problems with my economy, and I do not need paid.

Heck, if people want money, they choose the wrong genre of work if they go for Game Developement! There is easier jobs to get, which earns twice as much. Modding/game developement is a collection of art, and should be fun before money.

 

My 2-cents at least.

[jimhsu]

"Donate" for both. But I would actually be in favor of a "bounty" system, as many open-source-ish projects have adopted: that is, worthwhile projects are explained on a centralized site, and people who want to see the project come to fruition would contribute whatever amount they want to a central fund marked for the project. At certain cutoff levels, the funds are released to the mod author, who can then get a proper development team going to make enough content for the next milestone, which causes additional funds to be released, and so forth. The stipulation, however, is that the mod that comes out of such work can only accept contributions in a donate-only model - i.e. no payment.

 

There are certain advantages and disadvantages to such an approach:

+ Aligning the interests of modders and players. Players stipulate what they want, while modders give what players want.

+ Aligning economic interest with player interest. Completed work (to to a milestone) is rewarded with additional contributions.

+ Collaboration. This compensation scheme rewards modders that help others, both in the form of financial incentive and making a great mod happen for a game.

+ Counters project stagnation - a milestone system that rewards partial development as well as the complete project allows even failed projects to contribute to the development community.

+- No royalties. Less profitable for modders in general (possibly), but discourages "milking" of existing assets / monopolies.

+- Improves project quality - contributors will only contribute to projects that they believe are worthy - i.e. they "vote with their money". Developers will only start projects that they believe will get money (i.e. will be well received by the community). Possible negative in that it somewhat discourages new/unknown developers that try for overly ambitious or projects that only appeal to a "fringe" community.

- Difficulty of implementation. Fairness? Reinforcing milestones?

- Security. How are the funds held? Trust?

 

(very simplified) Example: High Rock expansion mod - $1000. Minimum contribution $1.

Milestone 1: Development of weapons and armor assets. $100.

Milestone 2: Development of landscaping, cell data, etc. $200.

Milestone 3: Development of NPC/quest/scripting. $300.

Milestone 4: Official release. $400.

 

Upon release, mod is free to distribute, with stipulation that a donate link is attached to mod documentation.

 

If project fails at any point, the content up to that milestone is required to be released to the community. I.e. if project stops after Milestone 1 due to a key developer leaving, weapons and armor assets will be uploaded to be distributed. Donating players get back 1-100/X of what they donated - for instance, if the project is funded by $500 by the time that the first milestone is complete, each player gets back 4/5ths of what they donated. The right to cancel projects is shared jointly between the contributors (majority vote after a period of inactivity - i.e. 6 months) and the developers (who can back out at any time, with the conditions outlined above).

 

Further comments are welcome.

Edited December 4, 2011 by jimhsu

[SaturnFX]

Donate

If its pay for mod (say a dollar), I would not spend a single penny over that no matter how kickarse it was...and would feel robbed if it sucked, demanding updates, etc...aka, I would be spoiled.

 

If it was a donate, I would donate more for a very well done and expansive mod..perhaps even donate multiple times if they update well and expand, etc...donate system works a hell of a lot better than a standard fixed price (that will simply be pirated anyhow if it gets locked)

 

I always recommend donation system...people like free stuff, but will give a buck here and there when they become fans of someones work..also, motivates us to want to do better at modding when we think some wealthy gamer will truely appreciate your work and toss maybe even a 20 or so at you for doing what he suggested...also, its a good understanding as to if you hit on something good. if you are doing 3 different areas of modding, one is making tons of donations, and the other two are doing nothing, clearly you will put more work in improving the thing that everyone seems to like enough to donate.