MODDERS GETTING GREEDY $$

[NeilWillis]

I have no objection at all compensating a mod creator's hard work. If it motivates them to do more, bring it on.

 

Might be a more useful contribution if he just came out and told us what the hell he is talking about. Otherwise it may have been better not to have spoken up at all.

[rjetster1]

I do not agree with what you have to say about community mods, not sure many people here do, but it’s your interpretation and opinion, plus you needed to get it off your chest and you did, and you have the right to say it... In my opinion nothing else then needs to be said.

[Midnight]

I get more reward out of making others happy when making my mods, money never comes into it :)

 

Almost the only one that read and understood my post.

 

As stated tn the first post: "It came to my attention that some modders are now charging money for their mods which in itself is great, my feeling is just that you should then post your MOD in the "Third Party Developer" section.

 

You are right rjetster1, enough said. This post was by no means an attack on modders.

 

Have a Merry Christmas.

[Vekkinho]

my feeling is just that you should then post your MOD in the "Third Party Developer" section.

 

 

You meant to say: Moderators should post these payware mods into 3rd PD forum secion.

 

Mod authors can't create new topic in 3rd PD section.

[Headspace]

The problem is that in many cases it isn't possible to perpetually support a free mod on a regular basis without funding. This is particularly true when the technological sophistication of the mod goes up. It produces an exponential curve in the form of programmer-hours needed, literature review required, and project management effort. All of this costs money.

 

When I originally developed TARS, some of the features it currently has were entirely unplanned. As both Teamspeak 3 and DCS changed, significant amounts of time were required to compensate. When TARS was originally developed, it was done so with a single pair of games in mind (BS1 and the original A-10) along with a Teamspeak 3 that had built-in sound support. None of those things exist anymore. Over the years, development efforts were made to integrate the mod into currently existing versions of both software products, which consumed all of the donations we received and then some. A project on this scale simply can't exist soley as donationware--it is economic reality.

 

Unfortunately, this isn't my first rodeo and I don't develop software soley as a hobby. I have supervised enough of these sorts of projects to have a general idea of what happens when the long term health of such a project begins to wane. When funding is needed, charging for work is the tried and true method of doing it. I am afraid that the only way certain large-scale mods are going to remain free in the future is if investment comes from the commercial sector in some form or another.

 

With that said, TARS will never go away (if I have anything to do with it) and this isn't necessarily a foreshadowing of things to come for my particular mod. I'm only trying to point out why it's laughable to suggest that creators of sophisticated mods that you get to use don't deserve some kind of compensation for their work, especially if they are sacrificing opportunities to do paid work in exchange for working on their mods.

Edited December 22, 2013 by Headspace

[piXel496]

Would you read the below intelectual mod if it cost $0.29 ?

 

 

 

-------- the intelectual mod to gain knowledge about payed mods -------------

 

 

In general making mods for free is luxurious. Low responsibility, uncompromised, learning "en route", no financial relevance, no commercial interferences, no strict planning. Just having freestyle fun. In doing so you could count yourself rich and free. As a side-effect others might enjoy what you like too.

 

Everybody should be rich and free and work on self-actualisation (link). Unfortunately other basic needs of life have to be in order first.

 

If mods are weighted by commercial value it definitively needs more effort then working on self-actualisation. That is the labour the mod creator invests and the user has to pay.

 

 

-------- the intelectual mod to gain knowledge about payed mods ends here----

 

If you don't understand the above. I have:

-- the explanatory mod of the intelectual mod to gain knowledge about payed mods --

on sale this week for only $49.95!!

 

 

 

.

Edited December 23, 2013 by piXel496
because I can, can I?

[Midnight]

LOL @ piXel, any sales yet m8?

 

Back to topic,

 

With that said, TARS will never go away (if I have anything to do with it) and this isn't necessarily a foreshadowing of things to come for my particular mod. I'm only trying to point out why it's laughable to suggest that creators of sophisticated mods that you get to use don't deserve some kind of compensation for their work, especially if they are sacrificing opportunities to do paid work in exchange for working on their mods.

 

I strongly agree with you, well said. This is especially true if it is a add-on and not just a tweak.

[john_X]

First of all, this "module" concept "killed" any modding for this sim. In the past these modders you call greedy put their shoulder in developing this sim, today these vultures they call themselves "third party teams" are removing completely the modders section. Many of these 3rd party teams weren't initially even focused on Lock-On, teams like Iris, Belsimtek, Razbam, RRG Studios and others you could only find them developing for FSX. Now because of these new modules they found the opportunity to "get rich". What happened with the modders next? They gave up their mods(my case) or probably started to ask for money for their work. What is that bad in the second case? I tell you it's very good because first of all we talk about enormous hours of work and the second, this way you have a cheaper alternative for the crappy modules you won't buy. Why do you talk about donations? My F-16 mod has 3000 downloads and nobody donated 1 cent for me, i'm sure you are very interested in how many hours i spent in creating this mod, well it's about 400 hours of free work. I doubt that VirevolteTigrou earned 1 cent for his excellent Gripen, 3GO team for their Su-27, Walmis for his F-15 or Beczl for his FC2 Mig-21. I'm sure you don't even remember who these guys are.

 

Now, the situation is very unclear, if modders are allowed to sell or not. I believe ED should clarify this situation immediately and the answer should be "yes, the modders are allowed to sell their work". Nobody has nothing to lose from this, if the mods are horrible nobody won't buy them, if they are good then the module teams would need to improve their modules. I believe it is time to show some respect for the modders.

[Midnight]

I agree with you totally John, furthermore I'm all but disrespectful to modders...far from it.

 

I guess the question is where you draw the line though, spending hundreds of hours developing a new ad-on (for free in your case) or charging 80$ for a tweak in the script*example only.

 

There are some names you can ad to your list...Grimes, Speed and many others. These guys did some great work and as far as I know did not charge a cent although they deserve $.

 

The question is, did you or any of the others expect financial reward or did you do it to improve your skills at whatever and make the sim more enjoyable for other simmers or because it's your hobby?

[john_X]

The question is, did you or any of the others expect financial reward or did you do it to improve your skills at whatever and make the sim more enjoyable for other simmers or because it's your hobby?

 

The F-16 mod i made and share it for free it was meant to be for free in a time that nobody asked for money for their mods. Now that the times have changed and i see these third party teams that are creating modules to be charged i'm wondering why don't they do it for free, specially when we have to be fair, at least the 3D part it's not the top of the class. I am a 2D and 3D artist and i can say "i have the eye" to separate the good models from the bad ones and some modules really "don't have it". So why they can charge a bad module and a modder not? Specially in the case when we talk about really good mods and to give you an example i'm talking about Tigrou's Gripen which i'd pay for it, if it would be converted to FC3.

 

The thing is that every modder should be allowed to chose for himself which would be the price or if it's to be shared for free. If it would be overrated and too expensive i'm sure it wouldn't sell so he would be forced to lower the price.

[LegoHeli]

I myself having much more experience being a modder of other games have tried both the free and the pay-for-my-work model.

 

Here's how it all turned out.

 

I've made skins for my own use for FSX, DCS, LOMAC, Race07 and many other games for years. I like it. I have to customize my gaming experience, and I've gotten pretty decent at it over the years. It's always been about me getting stuff in the game I needed that wasn't there in the first place.

 

Of course I used the mods of other people as well since I felt that there was no point in inventing the wheel twice; many skilled people do a lot of work for the various gaming communities around the world too.

 

Then a year and a half ago, I joined a very serious racing club online, and began making skins for people on that site. It was mostly based in Race07 and rFactor, and it was something I did because I wanted to get better at skinning for that particular game.

 

Then the payments started rolling in.

 

Let me underline I never, ever asked for money for my work, nor had it ever been my intent to make money from what I did for the communities online - flight simming is a narrow audience, we have to stick together - but I was now getting paid $20-$40 by the teams I made skins for. They did it simply because, as many others in this thread have stated, if the work is of high quality and the result pleases you, you might want to pay people.

 

Then I started actually charging for it on that site, but with lower prices than the volunteer donations that came in (from all but one team), and now I do make a bunch of extra money from making mods I enjoy making while enjoying seeing my racing club having gone from dreary standard colours to very interesting schemes.

 

It was never about the money, the money just came. And I think a lot of people who begin charging for their stuff just happened to be paid for their stuff without ever asking for it.

 

My DCS skins will remain free, as will future releases.

[john_X]

@LegoHeli - you are partially right, this case you presented here would be the best way things to happen, but it didn't happen to many modders here.. i don't know why but in this community of combat flight simulation people want things for free. I heard plenty of people complaining about the prices, even though they were low. It's like the community is composed by no salary 12 y.o. to 16 years old kids. I doubt an adult would complain about a 10$ mod, i really doubt. What is a 10$ sum today? And i'm specially talking when it's about mods that involve 3D modeling. I heard people saying they won't pay 5$ for a 3D model but would spend 10$ for a skin. I said my dear, a skin i can make in 20 minutes but a 3D model in 300 hours. People don't know the real value of the work and i suggest them to watch a tutorial to see how hard is to do this.

Edited December 23, 2013 by john_X

[Midnight]

:thumbup: Well put, now where do we put these payware MODs on the Forum?

 

A new thread maybe?

 

Then maybe a thread for "Just for the love of it MODs"

[john_X]

:thumbup: Well put, now where do we put these payware MODs on the Forum?

 

A new thread maybe?

 

Then maybe a thread for "Just for the love of it MODs"

 

 

Once again, i think ED is the one to make the step and clarify things. Personally, i'd create a separate new section like the one for third party modules, specially designed to payware mods.

[Midnight]

Once again, i think ED is the one to make the step and clarify things. Personally, i'd create a separate new section like the one for third party modules, specially designed to payware mods.

 

:music_whistling:That.. John, was hitting the hammer on the nail.

[Winfield_Gold]

Give us an example of the mod you are ranting on about. Who posted the mod? Who sent you a pm regarding the cost of the mod? or if you don't want to name names then describe the mod you are talking about.

 

This is pointless this thread, opening it with people are charging for mods but not saying what mod they are charging you for.....I think this is the true issue here that you feel that you don't need to pay for 3rd party developer addons such as the hawk and huey. This has nothing to do what so ever with mods such as scenery and what not. I recon this is in relation to 3rd party developers working on and releasing aircraft which you claim are "mods"

 

Prove me wrong and say what mod you are on about.

Edited December 23, 2013 by Winfield_Gold

[john_X]

:music_whistling:That.. John, was hitting the hammer on the nail.

 

Hey, that's my opinion, it may by harsh but fair. This way the modders would get the motivation to create great new mods. It would revive the modders comunity. On the other hand it wouldn't be mandatory to have charged mods. Who wants to share it for free would be able to do it..

[Midnight]

@ Winfield Gold

 

Now that would just be dishonoring someone maybe in a moment of weakness.

 

What MOD it was or were is irrelevant, you clearly did not get it.

Now go look under the tree and spy on your presents....Ranting hey...gmff

Have a Merry Christmas.

Edited December 23, 2013 by Midnight

[karambiatos]

why are these 3rd party developers "evil"? they are creating a whole new plane, not just a external model and then slapping on some other planes internals and flight model. They are making a new flight model and all the internal instruments, a long with the cockpit, anyone has a right to ask money for that amount of work.

[Grimes]

The landscape of modding in the PC community is changing. There are several examples of game companies putting a system in place to reward mod makers in terms of either financial or an added spotlight. Team Fortress 2, Planetside 2, and others have a way for users to submit mods and give the maker a cut of the profit for each item sold. Many of these items are cosmetic but there are a few gameplay items, and there are stories out there of people getting a 6 figure check for TF2 items. Bohemia Interactive regularly put a mission into the spotlight on their blogs and have a modding competition quite similar to the "Make Something Unreal" contests Epic Games did a while back. While there is a lot of mixed feelings over paid community made content, it can have a place.

 

The difference between 3rd parties and modding is that there is a contract and the 3rd parties are doing it more as a company than they are as part of the community. I think there is room for both to co-exist. I don't know ED's stance on payware modding. I'd imagine part of the 3rd party states that ED must take a cut, and paid unofficial addons could potentially be frowned upon. That said there is probably wiggle room for donation-ware or something similar.

 

 

Here's my stance on it, modding is very much a community driven endeavor and traditionally has been free. However it would be cool to be compensated for the time and effort spend on many of these projects. If people feel its warranted, donations or other forms of support should be available if desired. But its kind of a slippery slope because different people have different standards for what could or should be donationware or payware. There are also some areas of modding that, in my opinion, warrant the idea of payware/donations more so than others. Specifically 3D models, textures, and other "artsy" efforts have more of an valid argument for payment than writing lua scripts does. Why? because 3d studio max and photoshop are freaking expensive compared to notepad++ and the DCS mission editor, which are free. Another reason I feel that way is simply the way the game is setup. The mission editor and a mission file are both open source and coded in lua. You don't even need to own the game to be able to look into a miz file to modify it, so why should a mission be behind a paywall? Being able to rip open someones mission file to look at how something was done is a fundamental part of learning how to make missions.

[Headspace]

Bohemia Interactive regularly put a mission into the spotlight on their blogs and have a modding competition quite similar to the "Make Something Unreal" contests Epic Games did a while back. While there is a lot of mixed feelings over paid community made content, it can have a place.

That's true, Grimes.

 

The big controversy going on about that now is that the major community mods for ArmA are primarily composed of ones where at least several people contributed to it, so in some cases it would be extremely difficult to monetize those mods and then charge for them without unfairly appropriating people's work. This is especially true for mods like ACE, where early contributors have mostly left and the mod itself is built off of previous work. There's no way to fairly monetize something like that. Fortunately the modders who now manage that project have announced that they will not attempt to monetize it.