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

[ProfTournesol 956]

There are some people in the community, such as RobaloAS, the guys at JSRS, ThombsonB (who did the flashpoint game mode) - and many others.

All of these people deserve a way to make a bit of money off their efforts, or at least accept donations to further their projects, whichever they deem appropriate.

All three of the ones mentioned have made tremendous contributions to A2 and should be encouraged and those like them - to make more content in the future. They made things worth paying for.

So donate to them through paypal, as i do from time to time. No need for an official market.

[bad benson 1733]

So donate to them through paypal, as i do from time to time. No need for an official market.

exactly. maybe we need a more unified way of "offering" people to donate.

the whole attitude of stuffing money into anything to make it better is so weird. it's kind of obvious that mostly people who see a opportunity to actually make money or those consumer types who have enough of it to waste it on lots of toys are the once that speak out for something that is not even thought through to the slightest degree.

"no ideas? no motivation? here take some money!", "is it broken? here put some money on it!". great attitude. mo money mo problems.

[Smurf 12]

If anything BI should be paying modders.

Mods get added to the Workshop Library => Each unique subscribe = some cents to the modder + Donate button.

[vilas 477]

so far happens different situation, people steal or use addons and get donations on not-their-made addons (vide DayZ mods problems, some DayZ mods take addons of different people and earn money on NOT their own content, this is shit that makes some addonmakers stop making addons)

Arma community , previously OFP community, was community very loving hobbysts who made stuff for fun, problem is that that when someone has idea to pay for something, there will be more people who would steal models, textures to sell them (stealing for just "pride" of having addon is not such "motivating" like stealing for money)

money spoils and breaks hobby - always, for example if i can say for myself (as being moder for 9 years) i can say that nothing such broke me like money, cause now some DayZ modders take hundreds or maybe thousands dollars using my addons (and i seriously consider stop making addons)

till all was free of charge - we were doing it for fun, fun=hobby=love , for 8 years i was not even thinking about donations, Paypals etc.

when i needed help, community helped me a lot,

i would still be doing addons even if i would not get one cent, but believe me (as a moder) that nothing stops you so much than fact that others monetize what you made , if you love hobby , you do it for fun and love, you not need money, y

but idea of paying always brings a risk that someone will steal content to earn money,

i do not know if you know, but there are people who pay for "win" content (spawning in multiplayer with scoped rifle instead of pistol), free slots in busy servers, cheats in multiplayer in DayZ mods (when i say DayZ i do not mean Rocket's mod, but DayZ mods, find how many DayZ mods are NOT using my addons to this, cause at least ten use my addons and ... collect money and i didn't get cent and they get hundreds if not thousands dollars, so now i think how to stop it or even stop addonmaking with regreat ),

other issue is if BIS would deal with addonmakers to made DLCs , it is other stuff,

but generally ideas of monetizing modding brings risk of pathology (which now is DayZ mod scene which uses Arma addons and which says "Armaholic is open-source and we can use everything there the way we want" and monetize it)

untill it is hobby , only motivation of addonmaker should be fun, when it becomes work, you loose fun (for example you want to make rifle X and APC X1 not rifle Y and APC X2 and someone will say "return money, i want refund, this APC has wrong turret than i wanted")

of course this is individual decision of addonmaker and EVERYTHING is okay AS LONG AS it is your model, your config, your texture

believe me, if you would say "i want AK, SVD, RPK pack to Arma3 group of people offer 200 dollars" than among few people who would say "we gonna do it" there would be : one who stole my models and offer them (lawsuit in other part of the globe is problem, lawsuit in some countries are very problematic cause in some countries noone would even take case like "he stole my model for game i want 1000 dollars refund" cause lawyer would want 10000 for such case), others who would competee instead of being friendly, it would spoil atmosphere cause one addonmaker would be competing with other "pay me, pay me i do it better than him", it would spoil our friendly relations here (competition for money, than noone will be helping and than ... what with know-how , if i taught someone making addons and now he take money, should i get refound ? what if i say "okay i can do that APC , give me 100 usd" and next man says "i will do it for 50 usd" and ... i taugh him year ago how to make addon and he is gonna use parts of my MLODs ? it is hipotetical situation, but explaing why not good to mix money and hobby, because than we should not share know-how and all "editing" forum must be deleted and all tutorials must be deleted, it will kill modding )

donations okay, but pay-order ... not good idea, can break hobby , can spoil relations between us, can spoil everything which we achieved since Operation Flashpoint first addons (it actually happens, it is for example pay-to-win on some DayZ mods when people pay to shoot from my rifles or drive my cars)

Edited October 3, 2013 by vilas

[iceman77 18]

Here are my opinions and views. I'll quote myself from a different, but similar thread;

I'd like to mention that just the thought of payed content and because this thread even exists about payed content, has made me very reluctant to to release any work. I've made a few very handy dialogs (UIs) for example, but I certainly wont share them now and I wont even go as far as to share their functionality / what they do (As I don't want an opportunist to make money off of my ideas). So you see, this payed addon concept is already affecting the community... And I'm sure I'm not the only one bogarting content atm because of this. I was even thinking about taking down my freely submitted A2 content. IE; The dialog tutorial For Noobs. While it isn't mind blowing, it does get new users on their way to make dialogs / UIs. Mikie Boy was even thinking about taking his Arma3 scripting tutorials down! He just may!

We need some more clarification soon from higher ups if this is under consideration for the near future. Else, myself along with many others will just hold everything we've made. That we would have otherwise already contributed.

Also, all of what Vilas has said.

[GDent 10]

I don't know if this has been mentioned, so forgive me if it has.

I believe the point of paid addons isn't to make normal mods such as re-textures and weapon packs for-pay, but rather for third-party companies to create products for what is now the Arma platform. This is the same as the DCS World platform; DCS Huey was created by a third-party company. It's not exactly a mod, but you purchase and download it for DCS World. If some third-party company decided to create highly realistic tanks and treated Arma 3 as their platform, you'd buy it and download it in the same way.

Paid addons isn't for ACE and ACRE, it's for separate products that would make sense for some companies to create for Arma 3. You would be buying a high-fidelity product.

Edited October 4, 2013 by GDent
Grammar

[vilas 477]

third companies ? wtf ? how can company earn money on BIS product using BIS tools to make it ? it is first

second , you want to kill addonmaking , cause none hobbyst will be competiting (and for what "thanx") with company and graphic studio

this what you want is totally against addonmaking and all what OFp and Arma was before , as you registered month ago, you do not know what we were doing here for 10 years

[txalin 2]

Totally agree with vilas, pay-for-addon model will be a community killer, i prefer the smurf solution, modders should be paid by BIS via steam workshop + donations.

[dmarkwick 261]

I think it's possible that a lot of people are allowing their imaginations to run away with them. :) It seems that a lot of people are just here to comment on the worst-case scenario, when there is very little actual information to go on.

Personally, my own imagination is thinking about the Iron Front development, and how that sort of went a little sour. I think BIS must understand this too, and would wish for it to be different. So I imagine that the "user made paid content" would refer to total mods like for example a whole WW2 suite. This is rather different to just regular modders asking for money for their addons :) my imagination imagines some sort of deal between modding groups and BIS.

[txalin 2]

So I imagine that the "user made paid content" would refer to total mods like for example a whole WW2 suite. This is rather different to just regular modders asking for money for their addons :) my imagination imagines some sort of deal between modding groups and BIS.

but, where do we/BIS put the line of what is a collection of addons and what is a total mod? DayZ or wasteland are mods or missions? If inv44 (just an example) don't have SP campaign, is a collection of selfmades addons or a total mod? Also, if you pay for a mod, you must have a minimum level of quality and support, so mod developers will need dedicated people for support/testing, it's not going to be acceptable to launch a mod with bugs, poor content, etc... so probably addon developers will need to spent maybe too much time (i'm thinking on big mods like ace, acre, inv44, csla, etc..) on developing his mods, the logical conclussion of this will be the financial expectations, is the effort of the development of this mod enough to spent so many time? Are we going to be capable of earn enough money to dedicate full time to delevop and support? is this "small" community the market where i want to be? aren't going to be easy earn money with my addons in a bigger community?

Too many questions from the developer point of view. If i was one of them i would be very concerned about this change.

[dmarkwick 261]

but, where do we/BIS put the line of what is a collection of addons and what is a total mod? DayZ or wasteland are mods or missions? If inv44 (just an example) don't have SP campaign, is a collection of selfmades addons or a total mod? Also, if you pay for a mod, you must have a minimum level of quality and support, so mod developers will need dedicated people for support/testing, it's not going to be acceptable to launch a mod with bugs, poor content, etc... so probably addon developers will need to spent maybe too much time (i'm thinking on big mods like ace, acre, inv44, csla, etc..) on developing his mods, the logical conclussion of this will be the financial expectations, is the effort of the development of this mod enough to spent so many time? Are we going to be capable of earn enough money to dedicate full time to delevop and support? is this "small" community the market where i want to be? aren't going to be easy earn money with my addons in a bigger community?

Too many questions from the developer point of view. If i was one of them i would be very concerned about this change.

Well this is what I mean when I say that imaginations are running free :) we have, what, one single sentence that someone said about paid user content, and from that all this conjecture is being created. What makes a total mod? Or any content worthy of being a paid DLC? I suggest that would be an agreement between groups and BIS. If that's even what is being considered. I don't really wish to make problems where we have no information :)

[[aps]gnat 28]

so far happens different situation, people steal or use addons and get donations on not-their-made addons

Yep, another example where it'll fall off the rails, because of money again.

[ProfTournesol 956]

I think it's possible that a lot of people are allowing their imaginations to run away with them. :) It seems that a lot of people are just here to comment on the worst-case scenario, when there is very little actual information to go on.

Wise words. Wait and see.

[aoshi 1]

I think we should let this topic die, and pray to ppl at bohemia forget this ideia

[Ezcoo 47]

I think it's possible that a lot of people are allowing their imaginations to run away with them. :) It seems that a lot of people are just here to comment on the worst-case scenario, when there is very little actual information to go on.

Personally, my own imagination is thinking about the Iron Front development, and how that sort of went a little sour. I think BIS must understand this too, and would wish for it to be different. So I imagine that the "user made paid content" would refer to total mods like for example a whole WW2 suite. This is rather different to just regular modders asking for money for their addons my imagination imagines some sort of deal between modding groups and BIS.

Indeed, I'm thinking something similar as well. Another solution (haven't thought about this much, just an idea) could be also leaving the commercial scene only for professionals (eg. having a firm or sole trader, training related to gaming industry or in general reliable evidence of professionalism would be a requirement). I think that it could solve a lot of issues related to eg. breaking the community, stolen content and quality... But haven't really thought about this much, so I can be really wrong with this as well :p

One issue bothers me particularly though; what about the patches that tend to break the content regularly? Arma is being patched quite frequently (for a reason!), so the need of "maintenance" of content is absolutely necessary. No-one would want to purchase content that would stop working within 1 month.

[John Spartan 89]

Hello everyone, reading this discussion first of all I am a bit disappointed that discussion as such exist, where does this idea came from. I don't think it will end with anything good if a green light is given to it.

I can understand donations as a possibility to say thanks to content creators for their work, but definitely not "paid addons". Also idea like I noticed with fe new content creators where they state - donate to kick start a project and then I'll make addon "x" .... is totally off.

I personally do it for fun, and all my work will be released for free to enjoy to the community, but if such idea is implemented then probably it's time to move on to another game platform for my hobby. I am with Vilas, Gnat, Iceman, NodUnit and others on this - don't break whats working and I agree that this will break all that what has been archived in last decade within this modding community.

People please consider this carefully - greed never leads to anything good.

For all those who wish to earn big $ - how about dropping your resumes at some game development companies and do it professionally?

[Ezcoo 47]

For all those who wish to earn big $ - how about dropping your resumes at some game development companies and do it professionally?

Well, isn't creating paid mods (=DLCs) exactly that? (without the "big $" though, lol)

I believe that it would be good way for the talented people to get their foot in the door of the game industry. Based on what I know (which is based on just some research, no personal experience of the real situation), the competition in the game industry today is so hard that you need quite thick portfolio to get a proper job in the industry. It would kind of be a very welcome step for the talented newcomers in my opinion, because with this "semi-professional system" they could unleash their innovativity and hiding potential right away and gather very, very valuable experience in order to become full-time professionals and get higher (and more remarkable) positions quicker in future. I believe that also the end consumer would benefit from this, because I see big potential in modders, because they do have a passion for contributing to create an enjoyable experience for people. Combine it with the know-how of the commercial side that they gathered when they were working on their first commercial projects like these and powerful positions in the gaming industry and baam, you'd have much better games in future. That's something that at least I'd like to support.

[.kju 3244]

Gonna revive this very controversial discussion due to the steam workshop support for mods just around the corner.

In addition I want to share also some personal insights as long time, very experienced modder and professional software engineer.

First I want to elaborate what is most important for modders, followed by how the situation really looks like from my insights.

After that my personal story as an example to give people a better idea and close with some thoughts on important elements for such system.

Time (effort/hours)

---

Most players probably don't realize how much effort goes into developing quality custom content. Even the general hobby modder, doing

some things here and there, is likely not aware how much time goes in big projects and high quality content.

Most of these require a team effort, lots of communication and organization from very skilled and dedicated people.

Let me give you some very rough estimates for experienced modders to make high quality content to get a basic idea:

• Some new object/weapon/unit/vehicle: 1-3 man months (140 to 420 hours)
  
• Full sound replacement: 2-4 man months (280 to 560 hours)
  
• Complex SP mission: 1-2 man months (140 to 280 hours)
  
• Campaign: 2-4 man months (280 to 560 hours)
  
• Complex MP game mode: 3-6 man months (420 to 840 hours)
  
• Small terrain: 1-2 man months (140 to 280 hours)
  
• Large terrain: 3-6 man months (420 to 840 hours)
  

I don't have first hand experience with all of these myself, yet some of these are guesses from other people's work and professional

working people at game development studios. Of course these can be less at times or even way more depending on the skill, if a team is available and scope of the project.

Even just preparing a new release with testing, documentation, promotion and delivery can easily take 5-10 hours or a multiple when more

people have to be involved.

Why bring this up? While it also matters what you can do (the possibilities - Arma modding has a huge scope already though),

and enjoyment of the workflow/process (lots to be improved here), in the end the time to get something done is by far most important.

Less time means a quicker release, means potentially more releases/content, means more people do it, means more time to do something else (family, friends, playing).

Arma modding still has a huge way to go here to reduce the effort. To the contrary with every new iteration it takes

considerable more time - more features to support, higher quality to meet, more complex systems needed to satisfy players.

The workflow, process, tools and documentation are the key elements here.

If these were improved considerably, by BI spending significantly more resources on these, by community tool developers could justify and

get motivated to spend more time on these, the benefit would be massive for modding.

These are the very reasons why Unreal and Unity engine are the most favored; they have put lots of time into improving these

(as far as I can tell - don't have first hand experience; maybe others can give more detail).

Why change a working system?

---

Some players and hobby modders say there is no need for a change as the situation is fine as is and it has worked well in the past - with OFP

mostly being the good old times of cooperation, sharing and a vivid modding community.

However the situation has changed in many ways and is different to what the average player or hobby modder may perceive.

• Modding Arma has become more and more complex with each release, and with rising expectations these two lead to considerable higher effort.
  
• There will be several bad news happen eventually of long time mod teams/modders/projects not moving over to A3 or just with basic ports/small releases or have (silently) stopped already.
  
• There are many reasons to this, but time/effort and motivation are among of the key ones here.
  
• Look at the number of campaigns done for OFP and how they have gone down with each Arma release. Or think of non standard military mods (WW1/WW2/cold war/current) and how their numbers have evolved. Or of bigger mods/missions/game mods if you remove those from the equation that have converted from game to game or are built on BI sources.
  
• Many of the complex projects have been done in the past by either young people/students or very dedicated hobbyists, but most do this only for a limited time of months or a year or two and then move on/stop modding (the particular game). Most big projects have a history of several years by now. People are just no longer willing or able to dedicate such high amount of their free time.
  
• Especially after OFP not as many new modders have filled up the ranks - with even less having the persistence or simply the time to become experts. When you see new talent with high skill in the last few years, it has mostly been people with a (higher) degree or professional background in programming, modeling or similar.
  
• The number of experts in most fields is actually quite small - imagine no armaholic, no Play withSIX, no mikero, Alwarren, Bushlurker, KillzoneKid, ‎Ffur2007slx2 2, RedPhoenix, Reyhard, da12thMonkey, Soul_Assassin, Nou, Snake Man and some others I forgot now.
  

Some say modders should go professional and work for a game company, if they want to earn money with it.

A lot more people in this community do and have done that in the past for BI/BISim/other companies that most people realize - the two reasons this fact is not well known is often a NDA permits to talk about it and there is this big stigma to paid modding/content creation with lots of very aggressive responses to the idea - at least in this forum.

So what's bad about going that route?

1. The game development is a very harsh business, with bad working conditions, low pay, overtime, crunch, often bad management but fueled by many naive passionate people wanting to make games to fill the ranks. You can read these stories about many game companies every other month.
   I've seen couple of people in this community to drop out completely after that experience or go back to limited hobby modding every now and then. In better cases it often still leads to people no longer doing modding in their free time as the day job at the company is exhausting enough and people want to do other things in life (family, friends, political/social activism, other hobbies).
   
2. Ultimately in most cases is also means either less content or no more at all made for you by the modders. Either its off limits to you, or he has to work on things for the project and not what he was good at or he loved to do. In my view this is among the most negative results. This is the very reason why developers turn indie, do modding or work in open source projects - exactly to be able to do what they want and thrive at, and not being forced to work for a company with its rules, limitations and pressure.
   

Donations is the solution, is it not?

---

Let me give you some context to allow you to understand my experience with with trying to fund modding work, donations and the practical situation better.

Please understand that the NDAs limit what I can talk about.

My motivation was to do as last big Arma modding a strong PvP game mode for A3.

So I contacted BI during its development, if they were interested in the AAS/A&D mode I had built for OA/IF and later suggested to build

a new persistent, large scale PvP mode targeted at public play instead. For reasons that don't matter here, it didn't happen.

Instead Marek asked me to work on A3 Rearmed instead, which I did half-time as external for nine months (effectively about 3 man months),

and later DayZ SA for six months (near full time). The hope was to cross finance the development of the new game mode that way instead.

As BI's priorities changed, they allowed me instead to continue A3 Rearmed as a community project, what you know now as All in Arma,

and ask people for donations to finance its development.

Context for Iron Front - I had already helped the project by supplying the Blitzkrieg game mode, by handling its release, parts of the community

promotion, the patching for a while and explaining the modding disaster, but will spare you with the unhappy details of that.

As a side note I had a working version of the Arma version for A2:CO ready 2-3 months after the IF release, as the importance to get it back

into the Arma base was clear to me from the start (it wasn't much work but had to recover for a while from the release disaster).

Sadly the publisher postponed indefinitely/disallowed it fearing a potential negative impact on its DLC sales..

Back to relevant part for A3/recent times:

After the above work for BI I have worked about half a year on Iron Front in Arma 2:CO and Arma 3 (3+ man months and 0,5-1 man month on

AiA compatibility). [leaving out some NDA details]. Unfortunately for me (and AWAR indirectly) the publisher realized they had more pull,

so I ended up with no compensation at all for the work done and only the publisher (and to a small degree X1 and BI) to benefit

from the additional sales generated..

On the positive side I had managed to get all parties to agree to the free conversion process in the end. So that at least the remaining fans

could benefit from it.

Long story short:

1. The donations I have received so far for both AiA and IFA are 75€ (-5€ Paypal fees) by six individuals (my thanks to them!) (for context: the amount equals to 1-3 hours compensation for freelancer work of that kind in Germany).
   While I haven't tried aggressively to receive donations, but the result, despite the projects popularity, should dispel the illusions some people put into the current donations system.
   A few people that tried similar told me that they had made the same experience (with even smaller turnout).
   
2. I wasn't able to start working on the game mode due to an arm injury 2.5 years ago still affecting me today and thus all possible computer time I had to put into the above projects and other jobs to make enough money for a living - also stopped playing games since (except maybe once a month an hour or two for Arma on average).
   

Requirements for a new system

---

To me money seems not the most important factor in the current situation, yet to reduce the effort considerably, to make modding easier,

to allow and make more people to participate.

These elements should be the driving factor and the system designed in ways to achieve that.

More specific: workflow, process, tools and documentation as mentioned above.

Any monetary system should support, encourage and help to improve these. I come to more specifics in a moment.

What could be elements of a solution?

---

To anyone who really cares about this topic and potential solutions, I'd recommend you these presentations from Valve about their approaches

and experiences - let alone with the impeding steam workshop integration, there is a possibility that something along these lines is to happen

sooner or later for A3:

In-Game Economies in Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2

Embracing User Generated Content

Gabe Newell: Reflections of a Video Game Maker

I haven't been really following what Valve is doing there with TF2, DotA2, CS:S, other games of their own or 3rd party games.

So it would be interesting to hear some insights by people familiar with it - pros and cons.

The trading system seems like a pretty good approach to suit the various different personalities of players (collectors, vs traders, vs gatherers,

vs efficiency users etc).

gammadust has already made a pretty good overview in the first post - you should read it (again).

Following that let me reiterate some of his points and mention a couple of additional ones:

• BI (and Valve) will take a cut without doubt (and rightly so obviously) - however BI should make a commitment to reinvest that to achieve over time a shift of their focus and manpower to a higher degree on modding like:
  
  • 1-2 additional full time tool developers to improve the tool set available to the public
    
  • 1-2 additional full time programmers to enhance the modding possibilities (like more sqf commands, proper SQF replacement, opening up the engine via APIs, access to physx, etc)
    
  • 1-2 full time people improve the documentation in the BIKI, write guides and tutorials
    
  • Keep modding and backwards compatibility fully in mind
    
  • An alternative could be to channel money to community people for (some of) these tasks one way or another
    

  [*] For 90-95% of the modders it is to remain a hobby - it should be mainly about high quality content in a broad sense with a considerable effort behind it

  [*] The steam workshop (or another/multiple platforms) should be used to establish an easy way to donate to the author(s) - this would require some verification method to ensure only the owner/copyright holder is the uploader.

  [*] Requirements for paid mods:

  • Lite version must be always available
    
  • Source must be made available (mainly p3d but with higher RES LODs removed, scripts - no high quality textures, sounds or voice recordings)
    
  • Ownership of the content must be clear
    
  • Most likely a selection process is needed - like Valve's approach: the community votes of most popular/desired content (for different categories) every month and is followed with a basic QA review before making it available
    
  • Community tool developers and documentation work should also be compensated/rewarded some way (ie a voting on top 3-5 contributors every 3 months)
    
  • Similar might have to be done for content not possible to limit in the Lite or another way (ie MP missions/game modes and gameplay enhancements) (reduced feature-set or usability might be doable along the lines of the new BI DLC approach, but would then make the source release impossible)
    
  • Might necessary to require a 3-6 maintenance commitment by the author(s)
    

Conclusions

---

As far as I can tell there is lots of frustration and demotivated people among long time modders and mod teams.

While there are many different reasons to this, the high time/effort investment and the feeling the needs of the modding community

are not being taken seriously are two of the key issues.

I am not sure of the right approach myself, I can see a few other possible avenues, with various risks and potential problems to be managed

However bringing money into (higher tier) modding with the right framework and BI investing considerably into improving the modding conditions,

there is also a big opportunity to revitalize and strengthening the modding community for this series.

BI has shown some steps into this direction with the A2+OA source model release, a start in better documentation and finally

the very recently released arma3diag.exe with some of their internal debugging tools.

In addition the steam mod workshop integration might be able to make mods accessible also in MP over time and until then there is great community tools

like Play withSIX, ArmA3Sync and others.

Thanks for reading. :o

Edited July 2, 2014 by .kju [PvPscene]

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

I don't know about most people, or who ever came up with the idea of "Paid Addons", but i'm going to break out the Titan AA on this one. Arma from the very beginning has always been about the Community. Though, alot of the times, split here and there, BI do their best to keep the balance. But now for people to want Paid "addons", and not "Content", would be ridicule. If it were to be something like a Community made mod, and you had to buy it, that can be done now, but it would have to be put on it's own disc and sold on say, the makers website. Or, a much less likely solution, giving it to BI to sell for them, which is also, very un-likely. Point, is, unless its content for the base game, it shouldn't be sold otherwise. Something like Karts, maybe that could be done in a sense of Donations, for example, one small addition (mind you it MUST ABSOLUTELY, be 100% crisp detail Arma 3 standard in the model) that can be added to the base game, fits the scheme, but even than, it's not really a good idea, unless BI can take it and run with it, and STILL even then, they have their hands working on DLC's, the Expansion, trying to get it perfect and ready with all its new content, terrain, features, and sandbox elements to be as less buggy, and polished as possible. All in all, it's probably best to leave community made content to the community, free. If your planning on making something for the base game, keep it as a simple addon, or, apply for a job with BIS would be a better approach if it's those who are looking to earn money for their work. Yeah, and some say, well what about the new launcher, would be great to add paid mods to. Well, the whole point of the Launcher is to help the community mod makers, AND the community mods users. It simplifies getting addons and using them, instead of how my squad does it, passing around links, and someone's not on, finding the link, sending it to them when they got on, waiting for it to download, but with the launcher, well, just search the addon, get the same one everyone else has, it comes with Arma 3 so no searching around the web. It's simple. So, "Paid Addons"? No go in my Opinion. If you think the community is spit between the new DLC Solution BI created, imagine how split the community would be if this happened. The Splendid Split wouldn't be s*** compared to.

Regards.

[smokedog3para 365]

The steam launcher will only work if we put our modds on steam for me I won't out of loyalty to foxhound and armaholic.

Good points kju ive always been against paid modds but im coming off the fence to say yes it could be the way forward .

Donations just don't work as i found out when i lost my work i needed to raise £100 to get my hd fixed after a year i had £5 donation (cheers fella you know who you are) and after 100,000 downloads its not good.

Take play with 6, my addons are on there being downloaded but i don't see any profit from it sickboy does so i made an addon but others profit not good

[Tonci87 163]

Simply no, for the reasons Darkside provided and I already posted in this very Thread. My view on that hasn´t changed. Get money into this and the community WILL break apart because of it.

[Bee8190 10]

I feel on fence on this

Afaik most admins / server hosts don't get compensated ( or at least recover their fees as each month goes by - just like armaholic or any other ) and have to pay a hefty monthly fee for their hosting so that others can play with friends on their server but to put into something 300 plus hours is, even for a hobbyist a lot of time and effort for nothing else but respect| admiration| recognition - that comes with it. That is a huge commitment

Money in addons might somehow split the community and deter potential modders even further but isn't this already happening for number of other reasons? I dare to think that good portion of modders are still around just. I'm not even long enough around here yet but can already tell that the majority of mods are the less time consuming - like re textures, than others needing 10 times that time and effort.

The near future might leave us with few hardcore modders left or we might need to look at other options than donations before most of these guys just burn out

[nikiforos 450]

As far as I know money was not the problem for the modders I know. The reason they left was BIS engine, bugs from ancient times or the very if any at all support from BI to help them solve problems.

I could pay 2 or 3 euros for a great user made mod but still I think this might be the wrong way to go.

[redarmy 422]

No no and no!

Jesus. Is this really the way the gaming industry will go now?

ARMA is a community,

people help each other,their always on hand to show newcomers the ropes,discuss arma topics to better improve everyones experience.

Never in my life had i got a "family" feeling from a video game as i have in arma community.

People make mods,either for private use,which they then feel like sharing.

Or to add to theis franchises longevity.They dont have to do this,but we all welcome it,and they are praised and held in high regard in the arma community.

That is there motivation,and some other things.But money??? No!

Something like that will tear apart what arma has become i feel.I say this having not been in the armaverse that long.

But i came from a franchise(battlefield)that i saw DESTROYED by money(EA)

And if this trend does start in arma,it will carry over everywhere else too.The end of modding-as we know it.

Period.

Putting it in simple words,theres alotta love in arma,

theres only greed when moneys involved.

Excuse my language by the way i dont speak capitalist!

[ProfTournesol 956]

Obviously non modders aren't willing to pay (why paying for something they have been granted with for free for 13 years ?), but most of them have (absolutely) no clue of how hard it has become to create a decent mod. I'm staying with modding ArmA:CWA cause i can't involve more time into it and because it suits my needs. But i do agree with all that kju has written, which is perfectly reasonable.