"Opening up Arma 3 to paid user-made content" - How?

[roshnak 41]

Secondly lets think about how much original content there really is, so many folks want to port Arma 2 stuff over to A3 and this may make me sound like an ass but I don't believe that is worthy of a paycheck, because despite you putting your time into moving it you're doing it with someone elses work....same goes for reskins, or models pulled from free websites. (And speaking of others work we then get into the whole code/script ownership debate)

I suppose the argument is that with the prospect of being monetarily rewarded, more people would creating their own stuff instead of porting old work, or it would attract more modders to the game, or it would allow the people who do create their own stuff to release at a faster pace.

I'm not really sure how much I agree with that viewpoint, though, since the series has a long history of porting stuff, even if it's just ports of custom stuff that was made for previous games.

You also mentioned not wanting to give out your work for others to use if you were charging for it, and it made me wonder: If you look through the credits of pretty much any custom unit, you'll probably see the same few names popping up over and over again, being thanked for allowing the use of their models. I wonder if those people would still be likely or able to give out their models for others to edit while simultaneously charging for their original work. And if they couldn't, I wonder if we would still see the variety of units that we do now.

Mods, money, etc.

These are all good points, but I do have a question.

If you were to charge for the terrain you're working on (the assets for which look awesome, by the way), how would you fund the work you're doing right now? Would you do like a Kickstarter style thing and ask for funds before you finish? I only ask because while I'm sure it would be nice to get money for your work, I don't really see many ways you can monetize a product that isn't finished or released yet. And if you aren't going to start making money until you finish the addon, that money won't really help speed up work on the current project. I can see how it would help with the development of future stuff, though.

[BL1P 35]

I am so looking forward to ripping of someones Mod and selling it as my own to make big bucks !

[nuxil 2]

I am so looking forward to ripping of someones Mod and selling it as my own to make big bucks !

So your one of thouse who doesnt care about intellectual property & copyright.

How nice of you telling your intention. although i would not worrie to much, there are ways to deal with people like you. :p

[.kju 3245]

As to be expected, especially most of the harsh critics, many seem to have skipped my post.

It is very long indeed - however you can also skip sections, if you don't care about my personal insights for example. :)

You should really check it and also watch the videos on Valve's approach.

--

@ Bee8190

Fair point with other labor done for free, like server administraiton, group leading/assistance or tournament organization.

I've done all these myself in the last 10+ years and they also take a lot of time.

However I see a few differences:

1) Like hobby modding, it is a hobby for most. But yes, there are also many people investing a huge amount of time for such work.

2) In the most cases you are participating, ie by playing too, and enjoying. For complex modding projects people often sacrifice playing with their friends / actually using their own content to be able to work on the project itself. But this is also true for some cases in these other obligations.

3) In these you are normally you a directly involved on a social level and its often an one-to-few relation. Whereas complex projects, unless a failure, are normally an one-to-(very) many relation in which you have mostly no social interaction with the people using it (one of the reasons why feedback for authors is among the most important elements - to have some meaningful social interaction aside from the "basic" thank you).

So in short: Either the state should support these social activities done for free, like it does for many traditional activities, or the people benefiting should "repay" the person by some means (a donation is just one of many; also for close relations its often about trading favors for free with each other - the difference of the internet is that 99% of the relations are not close (indirectly you also receive something back via the infinite pool of free assistance done in other means in the internet though)).

@ Nikiforos

As said there are many reasons why various modders are unhappy or have left, in general a natural process - the rate and quality is what matters, as well as the reasons.

Not sure if you have missed my requirements parts - if you check it again, you will realize these elements what should be made a focus and get addressed by the means of additional money in the system; not just money for modders and thats it.

@ OnlyRazor

How do you come to the conclusion Valve's approaches are not popular? Or do you mean this this forum here?

@ Tonci87, DegmanCRO

Did you read my post? You really should.

@ EvroMalarkey

BI nor Valve will no way make anything without taking a cut. So direct forward to PayPal won't happen.

Aside from that PayPal should be avoided as much as possible (though I am guilty with only offering that solution myself right now).

Also if you make it too intrusive, or too simple (done by mistake), it would be a huge issue.

Ingame is not feasible as far as I can tell.

@ xyberviri

It seems you missed out the Iron Front debacle.

Fair point with arma being only a temporary platform for talent.

However this state is not good for BI, for the players and working for other game companies is often something people regret quickly.

@ NodUnit

You are not allowed to sell other people's work/work you don't have the copyright or the full agreement by all its authors.

Any system with money involved has to make sure of that, like it is already done.

@ meshcarver

Thank you very much for your insights!

Edited July 3, 2014 by .kju [PvPscene]

[BL1P 35]

So your one of thouse who doesnt care about intellectual property & copyright.

Or I do and was pointing out a problem that already exits. albeit in a very sarcastic manner :p

[nomisum 129]

;2721303']

fucking huge wall of text

Thank you for this long and insightful posting. Very interesting and appreciated.

I am no modder (mission making doesnt count imho). I've been again and again impressed by the skills and dedication from arma modders. So much awesome high quality content and a healthy community indeed!

Yes, a part of me cringes when I imagine every mod costing few cents or euros. It would put a decision between me and trying out what I may only need for one mission, plus I have to persuade all my mates to get the same stuff. Nevertheless I am willing to pay for quality content in this game — despite in CS:GO I never understood how people sink money into weapon skins and stickers. Not my kind of deal.

To prevent keeping guys out of the game as not everyone will be willing to pay I'd suggest BIs way of blurry textures - unlocked to sharpness after buy.

Generally, there are mods I would pay >10,- for (essentials like ACSE) and those I would just leave out, probably most one-vehicle-more ones, regardless how beautiful.

All in all I presume hq-content-maker could really profit from a pay-solution but beginners will probably be deterred.

Sent from mobile

[Rydygier 1317]

Indeed, intersting insights.

Perhaps I could add something to the picture from the quite another point of view: I'm not a programmist nor any other kind of IT specialist. No such education etc. No any experience with professional game industry. My only modding-like and programming-like activity is scripting since Arma 2 and that's it. That's the position, from which I'm expressing my below strictly personal point.

What makes me creating stuff for Arma (I need all of these to make new things for Arma. If one of above is no more - I'm out), short version:

1. Opportunity (some role of money here - amount needed to buy the game, keep hardware up to date and some to maintain net connection);

2. Motivation (money as additional motivator in one form or another could work (eg MANW), but are not sufficient alone and will not prevent "burning out" effect. It's auxilliary. Regular working for salary however tastes quite different (stress, obligation, haste) than free creation as independent hobby, and that affect results);

3. Skill (no direct role for the money here. 2 and 4 needed with some talent);

4. Time (as said before - no time, no mods. No money - no time. The more time/efforts needed for earning the money, the less of these for modding. So if modding becomes more and more time-consuming with each new Arma iteration (not scripting case IMO) then we can't just say "old ways was always good, so will be as good forever"... And, indeed, modding by itself is very time/effort-consuming occupation).

So, how to keep people modding? As long, as above four can be optimised in any way, there is field for the maneuver. Sooner or later however modder may and probably will burn out partially/temporary or completely anyway. The more intense he is working, the faster it may occur. Assumption, so modders in certain, friendly enough "environment" will last active forever, if anyone thinks that way, sounds naive to me. The more important is, to attract new modders then. Fresh blood.

Role of money in that I see possibly for 2 and especially in 4. Still, 4 can be optimized, as was said before, also by making modding less time consuming process in learning and doing. But someone must spent time and money for that purpose. Second way, providing money for modders, so they can spent all time needed to learn and do instead of earning money, is obviously controversial and difficult in wise implemetation, without nasty side effects.

Here I can only second voices about very, very limited efficiency of donation system - tried that, and despite it was on user's requests, still results was as described - marginal. It's at best like crate of beer per each year of regular, hard work, if we want to sum work hours spent on modding and gain from donation. Personally I highly doubt, if making donations more visible/user-friendly will change that seriously, enough to allow any modder to save any noticeable amount of additional time for modding or to make him motivated (who would be motivated for whole next year of work by couple of proverbial beers?). So for me donations are just another, open way, to allow willing users to thank the modder in $. Salute to all of them, I'm grateful also for those, who gifted me OA, IF, A3, so I could continue my work, and those, who wanted to help me with the hardware. Not a solution here though, too few of such extraordinary persons, because, exactly, this is extraordinary, and should be ordinary to make it working that way.

Edited July 3, 2014 by Rydygier

[Varanon 892]

Modding community is here to make free, enjoyable addons that will be avaible for everyone and I strongly disagree with bringing money in.

Not saying yay or nay to the payment idea, but are you serious ? "Modding community is there to make free stuff for me" is what you are basically implying.

These "ridiculous ideas" stem from the fact that for some mods, the amount of work that has to be put into them rivals that of a normal day job (which, usually, IS paid). So, the alternative is that these mods are delayed or scrapped.

Payment wouldn't be needed if people would donate, but I can tall from my own experience hosting a Neverwinter Nights server hosting one of the largest persistent worlds, that only a tiny handful of people will ever donate. The server was rented, and in it's six year existence I paid in excess of 2000 Euro to keep it running, and I got a total of about 50 Euro in donations in six years.

No, people will not donate. They won't even give you feedback. Not even that. I have several missions on the workshop with between 300 and 800 subscribers (not that much, I know), but hardly anyone ever gives feedback. People WANT free stuff, like you, but very few are willing to give, not money, not even feedback. If something doesn't work in terms of mod or mission, they discard it and load the next. That's the ugly truth.

[smokedog3para 365]

I have to agree varanon donations don't work, its not so much for me about profit its about breaking even on expenses as the hours I put into sangin as an example over 2800 hours at a normal hourly rate for me £17 =£54,600 I would never profit as I can't see any one ever making that type of cash so i'm at a loss straight off and then there is the tools that make it better for the terrains and addons that a lot of us purchase, some of which are not cheap it adds up even the electric costs.

some do trial versions but to get the best export resolution its better to buy them if you can heres a few i can think of

wilbur

l3dt $34.00

google earth pro £264.00

crazy bump $99.00

cs6

global mapper

GIS

To me terrains are the hardest work to do even more so the bigger you go some guys have spent years developing big terrains you just can't put a price on that, if we only had the original islands it would be boring, a terrain creates and sets the whole atmosphere for a mission\game session. most big games have map packs that cost money silly money and they make huge profits I don't think that's what a lot of us are saying or trying to do.

If islands had been for sale say upto a £1 each I would of still bought the ones I have now, I think it needs to be a small reasonable price if things could be sold then if you have something good numbers will make a little bit of cash on top

or if bis would pay for hitting targets for downloads say 10,000 and you get £100, 50,000 =£500, 100,000 =£1000

My side of it is I am disabled after a car crash, for the last 7 years I have not been able to go back to work 4 of which I have dedicated all my time to building terrains and now models, it is my hobby but being on an income of £50 a week any money it costs me is a worry as I need all I can for my household and 4 kids, so when it costs money for a hobby it would be nice to break even once in a while or even have a extra couple of quid to buy new software and fix pc components to create more content.

Edited July 3, 2014 by SmokeDog3PARA

[chrisb 196]

I’ve said on these forums and elsewhere that I would quite happily pay, on a scale type rate, the better the mod, the better the price.

I use mods from anywhere they’re good, here included. I’ve donated, but donating is lacklustre, very easy to think, yes I may donate, but then don’t and forget.:rolleyes:

If something is worth having and it adds to the games longevity, which if we’re all honest, good quality mod/addons/missions do, then why not pay.

This rubbish about pulling apart a community, the game developers/makers are capable of that, when shifting direction etc. BF! here maybe! ;)

For what reason would it destroy a community, how ? give me a rundown of exactly how that would happen.

What, a modder walks away saying, I can’t mod for the community anymore because it involves money, its against my principles.. I have news for all of you, there would be plenty to step in.

A community is not built around single players, although here, you sometimes get the impression it does, well it doesn't, no one's anymore important than the next person, whether you make anything for the game or not, we're all players of the series.

I think it would be great to see someone talented, make a living, or at least help with making a living, doing what they enjoy, mod/addon/mission making.

Get over it and pay for what you like to use, wouldn't stop mod/addon/mission makers putting on for free, up to them, but I would have nothing against buying content.

Would possibly lead onto better quality..

Where else can you play a game that lasts for years and years, its because of the mod/addons we are still here playing, that and the mission makers, just as important, imo.

BIS should let mod/addon makers charge, even if it ment BIS take a %'age. BIS have a game with longevity because of mod/addon/mission makers everywhere.

Well up to the 'community' here..

Doesn't bother me too much, I'm off into space for a while :D.

But think about it, properly, do you use mod/addon/missions made by someone other than yourself, yes, then why not pay for it, no, against your principles, what message does that send out.:rolleyes:

[Tonci87 163]

Because people make content for different reasons (IE for ourselves in our spare time, usually for our own reasons and then we decide to share it with others)

and when you bring money into it so too do you bring standards and schemes to cheat people out of their money.

I see it all the time, folks asking if they can donate to a project still in WIP phase, it would be akin to throwing money at kickstarter..you don't know for sure wether or not the project will see the light of day.

Secondly lets think about how much original content there really is, so many folks want to port Arma 2 stuff over to A3 and this may make me sound like an ass but I don't believe that is worthy of a paycheck, because despite you putting your time into moving it you're doing it with someone elses work....same goes for reskins, or models pulled from free websites. (And speaking of others work we then get into the whole code/script ownership debate)

When things are free there is not much need to harass or judge harshly..when you bring money into it suddenly everyone is either your business partner or they are a potential threat to your profit.

As an example I would happily donate my apache model to any mod that wants to use it if it is legit, but if money were to come into it I'd slam that door faster than a witness on someones doorstep.

I'd want to stay ahead of the curb, so if someone asked "How did you do that?" I'd ignore them, because they could make something that I could have made money from.

Harsh and it sounds selfish sure, but thats how it goes when you involve a material such as money...and I'm going to sound even worse when I say that the average consumer is an idiot, people will buy things just to have it regardless of wether it is stolen even if facts are placed in front of them...and then why bother putting in all the time and effort to make your own stuff when you can just rip something from another game and sell that? Oh who cares if its stolen, its supply and demand..people want it badly enough, they'll buy it.

^this

@kju

I have read your post but I stand by my concerns. If Mods are paid for your fans suddenly become your rightfully demanding customers. Bis changes something and Mods have to be fixed to work with that. Can you imagine the shitstorm if a mod author simply doesn´t have the time or motivation to work on that for a week or two? That will happen!

Will there be People who make a Mod to get some quick cash and then abandon it? There will be!

Will there be people who steal assets from other mods, or even other games, to make a quick buck? There will be!

What if Addonmakers decide to split up their mods to sell them separatelly so that they can make more money? That will happen!

Will Addon makers still share their stuff with each other? No they won´t!

Those are more than enough reasons to condemn this idea.

[redarmy 422]

^this

@kju

I have read your post but I stand by my concerns. If Mods are paid for your fans suddenly become your rightfully demanding customers. Bis changes something and Mods have to be fixed to work with that. Can you imagine the shitstorm if a mod author simply doesn´t have the time or motivation to work on that for a week or two? That will happen!

Will there be People who make a Mod to get some quick cash and then abandon it? There will be!

Will there be people who steal assets from other mods, or even other games, to make a quick buck? There will be!

What if Addonmakers decide to split up their mods to sell them separatelly so that they can make more money? That will happen!

Will Addon makers still share their stuff with each other? No they won´t!

Those are more than enough reasons to condemn this idea.

Thats spot on. The morality is not mentioned here so much. But otherwise spot on.

Most people really dont grasp how financial aspects can turn something on its head.

If this transpiers in arma,it will happen in every other franchise aswell.

The modding/gaming community will look very different.

IF it aint broke,dont fix it!

The way it is now is the way it has always been,and should remain.

Passion for gaming-Not money.

[franze 196]

There's not much I can add that hasn't already been touched on in this long thread. I believe a number of people are incredibly naïve about what some mod/addon makers goals are and their motivations, especially when there's really not a whole lot of people out there in this community capable of making content equal to or superior to base content. Most of this has already been addressed so I won't bother placing my 2 cents in on that.

What I see being hurt the most by any kind of paid content is one of innovation. As the saying goes, any idiot can make things more complex but it takes a stroke of genius to move in the opposite direction. In our context, this means that we can come up with some incredibly complex stuff that breaks the mold of what we think is possible or impossible with the game, but there will be caveats to doing that. Namely you will have a lot of restrictions and limitations with innovative features. 'Wait, how can that be a bad thing? That is great!' you might say. Well, not exactly.

Consider that the base ArmA3 game came out with a lot of bugs and problems; this is typical of software releases. Most buyers expect that the product they paid for will eventually be patched or made to work well enough to suit their standards. Everyone wants to get their moneys worth out of a product and software is no different. Now, consider your typical addon/mod: Even the most basic often has some galling issues or bugs in a released state. We typically accept those because we get the product for free. If it doesn't satisfy us then no big deal, didn't cost a dime. Once you start throwing money into the equation, it starts to look and feel like a ripoff when you have a 'game breaking' issue that the creator is unable to fix either for technical reasons or time reasons. 'No big deal! They can just get a refund then!', you might say. For a typical product and creator, yeah probably not a big deal; if you make a Mi-28 that looks like ass and isn't worth a damn in the game, then it might give you motivation to go back and try again with the experience you've gained.

The trouble starts when the content starts to get so far out there that it can't really be fixed in a way to satisfy your typical consumer. Let's say you've got an innovative artillery support addon that works really well in the single player game, but has significant issues in the multiplayer game. Not that it doesn't work; just that it has certain issues that you as an addon maker do not have the capability to fix due to either engine limitations or some other issue outside of your control. It won't matter how much you try and explain these issues to people - it's broken and you will fix it, from their perspective. Doesn't matter how innovative the content is or how well it works despite the limitations; those small limitations will matter to people and they will matter a great deal since they will have already paid for a product and expect to get their moneys worth out of it.

End result is that you will have content creators who will fear thinking outside of the box because it will be too risky and too much trouble to try innovative new features. That means the content we'll be seeing will end up being very conservative and amount to not much more than base content with a different skin, for all intents and purposes.

Take a quick look around and you'll see this same scenario is already happening - with free content.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

Couldn't have been said better.

With that, may this thread rest in Quiet Slumber.

[Tonci87 163]

We all know the desire for money making and greed that is present in the gaming industry. We all know how Developers and Publishers like to screw people over.

If there is one place in gaming that I don´t want to see ruined by greed it is this community.

[cifordayzserver 119]

Because people make content for different reasons (IE for ourselves in our spare time, usually for our own reasons and then we decide to share it with others)

and when you bring money into it so too do you bring standards and schemes to cheat people out of their money.

I see it all the time, folks asking if they can donate to a project still in WIP phase, it would be akin to throwing money at kickstarter..you don't know for sure wether or not the project will see the light of day.

Secondly lets think about how much original content there really is, so many folks want to port Arma 2 stuff over to A3 and this may make me sound like an ass but I don't believe that is worthy of a paycheck, because despite you putting your time into moving it you're doing it with someone elses work....same goes for reskins, or models pulled from free websites. (And speaking of others work we then get into the whole code/script ownership debate)

When things are free there is not much need to harass or judge harshly..when you bring money into it suddenly everyone is either your business partner or they are a potential threat to your profit.

As an example I would happily donate my apache model to any mod that wants to use it if it is legit, but if money were to come into it I'd slam that door faster than a witness on someones doorstep.

I'd want to stay ahead of the curb, so if someone asked "How did you do that?" I'd ignore them, because they could make something that I could have made money from.

Harsh and it sounds selfish sure, but thats how it goes when you involve a material such as money...and I'm going to sound even worse when I say that the average consumer is an idiot, people will buy things just to have it regardless of wether it is stolen even if facts are placed in front of them...and then why bother putting in all the time and effort to make your own stuff when you can just rip something from another game and sell that? Oh who cares if its stolen, its supply and demand..people want it badly enough, they'll buy it.

I love how people throw around the "port a2 stuff" like that's a matter of repacking it or something. SMD_Sahrani_A2 is a "port" of A1 content... does that mean it didn't take 100's-1000's of man hours?

Does it not add 20+ newly opened buildings meticulously placed down? Hell forget us... I guess CWR2 is just a "port" job huh?? lol. WTF.

You and others talk about judging harshly when money comes into it??? What are you doing RIGHT NOW, and on top of it, we get to sit here having spent 100's if not 1000's of dollars AND hours on these projects, and get crapped on by indignant fossils that are stuck in the 90's.

You talk about it being like kickstarter, which is totally insane, it's not like people are going to post pictures of their ideas and get funded.... this is paying for content that already exists in the store. If you sell crap, or TRY to sell crap, ALL veteran Arma players will see it a mile away (and if it goes like I think it will they'll be able to try it or even use/dl it for free from the forums/AH/PWS)... and new people will learn fast that they have to be careful about what they buy in the store...

It's called a free market economy, and the consumers determine what will succeed or not.

You act as if these ideas are insane, or come out of thin air.... THIS is the global gaming economy/scene... and it's a GOOD and HEALTHY thing, the parent game company gets gained exposure through the work of passionate individuals, who in turn are now allowed to thrive doing what they love.

My friend has 2 10yo kids who run a Minecraft server and they get more donations than kju mentioned... ON A MONTHLY BASIS.... I've been offered donations 2-3 times, and been offered money kickback advertising twice.

And of course this entire thread has entirely ignored the elephant in the room....

Server hosts, who have not developed or worked on ANY of these addons, missions or mods make 100's to 1000's of dollars in "donations" hosting the content of others, never having donated so much as a dime to the authors.

Or that you can make plenty of money if you cater to the lowest common denominator... why make content when I can get paid by eager server hosts who have no clue what they're doing?

As far as information sharing, again I think this is an overly pessimistic view...

1. The tutorials that are already out there show you pretty much how to do everything... it's not easy to find or exactly user friendly, but it's there. Anyone who REALLY wants to do something in Arma can.

2. I certainly wouldn't change our attitude towards sharing info OR assets just because I now had an income stream based on them.

IMO most of this negativity towards profit generally comes from author's who have been traditionally told they are NOT allowed to profit by BI.... and they are bitter that others have profited....

Well, things have changed DRASTICALLY whether you like it or not, people who just play these games are making TONS of money on Youtube or Twitch, so why the hell shouldn't the content producers???

Hell, I mod for Arma, I'd sooner pay someone 3.99 to port Sahrani to A3 than to have to do it myself lol.

And as far as the "it will get done" attitude.... We've been actively working on Sahrani and the MLOD library opening up BI buildings for 2 years... we've had at most 3-4 offers for help.... ALL of which needed to be taught how to use O2.... totally competent modellers who could have modded in Unity or Source, or Cryengine with almost NO learning curve, had to get personal guidance through and endless quagmire of O2 LODs, configs, etc.

It's also hilarious when people talk about introducing "demanding customers" with paid 3rd party content... that seems to be the attitude being conveyed here.... as mentioned by France, people are ALREADY over demanding and unforgiving about engine limits or time constraints... I say make them pay for the right to bitch lol... because it's happening anyway...

As far as IP theft, I don't even get if that's a joke... yeah BI and Steam would have NO CLUE AT ALL if people were using stolen content, and I'm sure it would just get ignored.

Honestly I think the MOST DAMAGING thing for the Arma franchise is THIS super insulated "uber alles" community.... the TINY TINY percentage of their audience who is endlessly critical, demanding, and indignant.... If it was up to the people who are freaking out about paid content... BI would have never picked up DayZ lol.

It's so weird to see so many of Arma's Core audience so against BI or anyone else passionate about it succeeding. The level of bullying by the Arma audience has always been something I was amazed by... so many level headed, nice, open, drama free modders.... and then this insane frothy mouthed contingent of angry dogs who attack anything not in their pack...

[meshcarver 12]

Some people just want to be enabled to create AAA mods solely for ARMA3, myself included.

They are not in ANY WAY concerned with "making a buck" or profiting- they enjoy and love the process for it's own sake but cannot engage fully because of financial limitations.

This is a massive loss... and a full ARMA experience arguably suffers as a direct result.

If there's a possible way to filter out these people then that is a start in a right direction?

There are too many who get into modding and game creation for the wrong reasons it seems- to make money for its own sake; something which I've never understood personally for all sorts of reasons. I just do not understand the desire to "make more money" simply for its own sake... and it's a shame these kind of people expend so much energy and often do succeed in their own eyes and make money off of it.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

Some people just want to be enabled to create AAA mods solely for ARMA3, myself included.

They are not in ANY WAY concerned with "making a buck" or profiting- they enjoy and love the process for it's own sake but cannot engage fully because of financial limitations.

This is a massive loss... and a full ARMA experience arguably suffers as a direct result.

If there's a possible way to filter out these people then that is a start in a right direction?

There are too many who get into modding and game creation for the wrong reasons it seems- to make money for its own sake; something which I've never understood personally for all sorts of reasons. I just do not understand the desire to "make more money" simply for its own sake... and it's a shame these kind of people expend so much energy and often do succeed in their own eyes and make money off of it.

This is true. Here are my 2 cents. I myself, with absolutley no knowledge of making models or anything, would go through the trouble of learning how to do so, in order to create one high quality vehicle for Arma 3. I wouldn't do it for pay. Why would i do it? well, simply to show BI how great that one thing would be in the base game, but not only that, but the satisfaction of HAVING it in game, and that everyone else could use it, free. However, i dont have time... so.

[meshcarver 12]

There is a difference here that needs to be addressed.

...and please bear with me as I've had a few this evening..! O_0

The grunt level workers in the gaming industry are from my experience 99% salt of the earth genuinely passionate creative folks- that's how they got there in the first place and they love what they do.

To abuse this is a mistake many publishers routinely make and suffer in the long run because of it- see the burgeoning Indie scene (basically truly creative people giving the finger to the $$$ suits).

These are exactly the kind of people, who, if they tread into this community with the intention of tentatively asking about starting an ambitious mod or show potential for us all we should welcome and encourage them with open arms.

Don't judge everyone in the gaming industry as greedy b}%%^%s because of the actions of large developers and publishing houses.

I have been absolutely disgusted by some of the actions and "artistic" direction we have had to suck up as small games devs because some suit had a "great" idea on a whim... and it is sickening when you see it happening in front of you.

PS, worth mentioning is this is not directed at any individual in particular- it's a general finger poke at a lot of the vibe I've been picking up on..!

So there..! ;)

Edited July 3, 2014 by meshcarver

[friznit2 350]

In the early days of development we discussed the possibility of monetizing elements of our mod, either on RV4 or another platform. The topic resurfaced in light of the Contest and latterly, Steam Workshop integration. Our general consensus is that money would change the dynamic irrevocably and - licensing issues notwithstanding - several important points have discouraged us from exploring further down this route to date.

Primarily, as a volunteer team with jobs and families we would be unable to commit the time to developing a modification for a third party engine in a professional capacity. We believe that if money changed hands we would effectively enter into a contract, informal or otherwise, to deliver an agreed scope of work at an agreed quality to an agreed schedule. While our product remains free, the only currency is our reputation as a modding team and the burden of risk lies on us - if we screw it up, we lose face but nobody else suffers anything other than a mild disappointment that another mod got canned. As soon as we accept payment, the risk is transferred to the customer and we are beholden to deliver to the agreed terms. This is not a position we would be comfortable with as it would restrict our freedom to flex scope and schedule with relative impunity.

There are other factors that have already been explored in this thread. Some key considerations though include: how to share the wealth between team members and third party contributors? How would we license users of our product in their own developments? Would we charge royalties to a mission maker who used our mod to create a very popular game mode for which they charged in their own right? Emotions already run pretty high in our community where mods are free without introducing the very emotive topic of hard cash into the debate.

Personally, while I accept that many addon makers would be delighted to receive compensation for their efforts, I do not believe the TF2 model of commodity purchases will work in a game like ArmA3, not least because it enjoys a smaller player base with an entirely different demographic. However, a service based model might conceivably gain traction and is one for which the Karts DLC has already set a precedent: offer basic functionality for free and enhanced features for additional cost.

I agree that donations don't work. Despite plenty of people asking me personally if they can donate, they rarely seem to find the bloody great button on our website! ;)

[PuFu 4600]

I will chime in here. I do agree with Franze as well as meshcarver, bUT on the other hand i do not get the naivety of some of the things people are posting here:

@Tonci: i see money as possible incentive. You see it as being a "the greed".

My own quick story: i still have the desire to make mods (for free) for Arma. I actually have a lot of skills that would fit in (a lot more know-how then when i started) BUT I simply do not have the time for it anymore (and in the back of my head i hope i will never have that time again : time is money in the end).. I for one will always choose commercial work over unpaid one (in fact i never take work based on promises for some time now). Not because i am greedy as you state tonci, but because this is how things work in real life.

When i started i was a student, hence i had more time to spare overall. As someone who now has his own business, sitting 10-16H/day in front of a computer (yes, the worst boss is your own self) to then come home and start all over is a bit too much (especially since the work i am doing involves textures, modelling, animations etc).

I know of former RHS members, as well as other community members who moved on to making the same thing commercially out of the things they have learned doing free addons since OFP, and that is because, as kju stated it takes more and more time to create quality content, and sometimes, for some it is not worth it anymore.

Most here are worried about the way this community will end up if money is thrown in the mix (greed, creativity, longevity, support etc). Most of this sort of comments seems to be comm\ing from the users, not from the creators.

Very few seem to be bothered by the obvious lack of innovation, and quality bespoke content, and the fact that fewer and fewer will be available anymore simply because of increased difficulty and scattered information. I do agree with Nou about the fact that i for one couldn't care less about the Nth reskin of the same model. But mainly because i feel that if it isn't my own creation, is not amusing enough to be spending time on it, just for the sake of "but the brownish is not brown enough" (or similar mentality).

I don't even want to cover the general mentality of DegmanCRO and similar, which is (in fewer words): Modding community is here to make things for free, which is simply based on the fact that thus far there was no monetisation of it.

In the end, i doubt BIS will go Valve's way. Not anytime soon anyways.

If you look through the credits of pretty much any custom unit, you'll probably see the same few names popping up over and over again, being thanked for allowing the use of their models.

Then those are not really custom units.

[meshcarver 12]

Server hosts, who have not developed or worked on ANY of these addons, missions or mods make 100's to 1000's of dollars in "donations" hosting the content of others, never having donated so much as a dime to the authors.

Well, things have changed DRASTICALLY whether you like it or not, people who just play these games are making TONS of money on Youtube or Twitch, so why the hell shouldn't the content producers???

I must admit... These points give me pause as a mod maker- make of that what you will.

No matter how well intentioned mod making is, most of my friends have repeatedly pointed these facts out to me too...

[Bee8190 10]

Very enlightening, France.

Back to the paid content; I also disagree with the notion that more readily available Donate options / button will significantly increase awareness (and) for better funding on authors web. So are we doomed then?

This might be a long shot but maybe we should have a Monthly Contribution section on these very forums - stickied and well visible something like

This

Every month, one of each randomly selected - MOD, MISSION, ADDON - receive equal cut from said monthly donations

( Theoretically further increasing modders income when modder X is working with cooperation on mod Y, receiving another equal cut from X and Y the next month )

As to avoid re-electing the same mod or a mission over and over again - Once the mission or an addon has received its monthly reward, it cannot be added to the pool for monthly donations sooner than 6 months ( an example )

I appreciate this might not be the most capitalistic idea and might have flaws that I didn't think of but if anyone have any better and more fair idea I am all ears :)

[chops 111]

In my own experience as a hobbyist, trying to create this US destroyer, the sub-par tools and the lack of documentation on BI's part are deadly to a project.

The actual hours spent working on the thing were fun - it's a very rewarding hobby, watching your creation evolve.

The real frustration came from the hours spent trying to figure out what the hell I was doing wrong/why wasn't it working properly/how I was supposed to do X/Y/Z.

Almost all of the assistance that ever moved it along came from other community members. And then this was their own work figuring out how BIS had done things: for example Mankyle deciphering how a ship's PhysX values related to each other, Drongo doing some scripting - very little from BI's existing (and granted expanding) documentation.

Were my project ever to see the light of release, I wouldn't expect money for it, because then I'd be morally oblidged to hand over a portion to other people who'd helped me release it. Would community members then charge for advice?

If creators were to charge for addons, I think it should only be once there's a clear, comprehensive, up-to-date set of tutorials, vidoes, references, samples, etc, etc, etc from BIS. The community-based assistance to addon creators will dry up near instantly. "If you're going to charge for your addon, I'm going to charge for my expertise in getting it released."

BIS are under no pressure at present to explain much in the way of how to make an addon from scratch, as the community is doing that now for them, for free, while they advertise about the wonderful user-made content available to prospective buyers of Arma III.

But, as with my own dormant project, there will be fewer and fewer begginers willing or able to scratch around in forum posts for help as to how to get their hard work in game.

I lost all faith and interest in spending my time on even my small potential addition to BIS's community when the tools broke recently. If they don't give a shit, why should I?

[meshcarver 12]

Goddamn... About to go to sleep but this is getting me down, and setting foot on NOVA ZONA is looking more impossible by the day for many reasons... Not one of which is motivation or ability...

:(