Do donations work for arma modders?

[Darkhorse 1-6 16]

Extortion ? Are you serious ? kju wasn't putting a gun to anyone's head saying "Give me money, or else...".... calling that "Extortion" is ridiculous

(And, let it be said again: I don't take money for my stuff, and never will.)

I apologize, I have difficulty communicating what I mean at times. I didn't mean to imply that what Kju is doing is extortion (because it isn't), I was saying that what you described sounded like it. "if (like in this case), the community doesn't give, then the consequence is that they won't get their mod anymore either." sounds like extortion to me. If a person starts a mod as a hobby, shows it around, gets some interest, and then says the only way it's getting finished or released is if they get X amount of donations, it's extortion, it's wrong, and that person is an asshole who will get little to no money. While I haven't seen it happen yet, that's what you were describing. If we eventually get payware addons (which I'm against, but I feel as if I'm fighting the tide, so meh.) it's a completely different story, but in the here and now what you described goes against what BI has stated on monetary gain, and it's a situation that is just plain wrong.

[giallustio 770]

I think he was really frankly and honest. He didn't have a job, the amount of work behind his project was really huge and practically it was a job, even if not paid.

He tried to keep it alive asking the help of the comunity, it didn't work out and he left.

It hurts losing someone like kju, that's the real point

[inlesco 233]

The bullet points with clear points + .kju's thoughts aren't a sign of entitlement, as some might've misunderstood.

Those are simple statement to share his experience and reasoning behind the discussed "issue" at hand. .kju offered his insights to the situation + conclusions and overall observations. That's basically it. This was an experiment that, in the end, didn't have enough potential to turn into something bigger. People shouldn't assume other things than that.

There's no universal concept of modding, to everyone's information. You get what you make of it. A hobby? Fine. Something else? OK, just keep in mind you'll have to go the extra-mile.

[toadie2k 799]

Donations?

I'll will agree with NodUnit and few others - this whole "modding" thing is a great hobby of ours. We will create stuff regardless of donations, till we will have free time, inspiration and motivation.

If you want to make money then apply for a PRO level work and use this as part of your portfolio with some developer or studio. Or even start your own studio - kickstarter funding for great ideas worked quite all right for few passionate people with right approach and dedication to deliver "finished product" [you wont get away with a buggy concepts thou].

So it's simple if you don't have time or motivation then that's it. Real life comes first.

Don't try to force community to pay you to mod - that's not the right approach kyu, again if someone wants to say thanks that's different. Also as noted by some, how do you separate your work from work of others when asking for these donations, it might end up as a very selfish approach especially since your projects are based on others donating their work to you for free...

Yes, modding is, and always should be, treated as a hobby. If anyone comes in to modding expecting anything more, they're going to wind up disappointed, and I think this is at the core of why Kju's pateron failed. He wanted his mod work to give him a full-time income, and that isn't feasible. Heck, most tradtional artists who have Patrons (the source inspiration for Patreon's model) don't get enough off their benefactors to live, they usually work other jobs as well.

That being said, a LOT of people make money out of hobbies. As example, there are people who, as part of their hobby, create resin kits and moulds for railway modellers in their home sheds. Now, it's not their primary income, and certainly they do it at at least partial financial loss to themselves, they are subsidising the raw goods and time spent creating that otherwise could be spent on other things. It's not mercantilism, it's giving back for their hobby,letting other people share in what they do without running themselves broke doing it.

This feeds into my disagreement with your second paragraph, I think it's a bit disingenuous to say "Full studio or nothing". I say this with about as many years as kju doing modding with various communities. Let's say you do 3D animation, which is something I can talk about.

3D Animation from home at the professional level is monsterously expensive. Starting out, you need at LEAST one of a dozen or some pieces of 3D software, usually two if you want to get into motion capture(excluding blender, all the major suites are upwards of US$800). If you're not content with sticking to hand key-framing (and you shouldn't be, no game studio will hire you without experience in Mo Cap, and you're suggsting PROFESSIONAL here) - you need motion capture equipment. Two Kinects minimum CAN do it if you're no concerned about accuracy (US$150 per), but if you're looking for any sort of frame-to-frame precision, you're looking $4k minimum and a space to set up the IR Trackers.

Now, one could argue that that should all be part of the deal, if you can't afford to animate at home, you shouldn't. You should go to a school and get your experience that way. Here's the thing, colleges are ten times more expensive, and saddle you with other imperatives regarding the end-result, and that, obviously is not for everyone, especially if you are doing it for a hobby. But then, honestly, you wouldn't have the likes of me. admittedly, my sunk costs have been amortised over a LOOOONG timespan, but my point remains. If what you're doing is expensive(both time and moneywise) and you can't make it at least SOMEWHAT more accesible for people with less to spend (lessening the blow for people with donations, allowing them to spend more time on improving or equipment), you aren't going to attract people into that field either as a hobbyist OR as a professional.

Setting up a studio too is a very extreme jump to make, especially when you are perhaps one person with one skill. The sink for starting even an indie studio is not something that you could do for fun, and you need more than one person to make a game, as well as at least one good deliverable game concept(most modders do not have a whole one of those).

So in my book, donations are fine, provided there's transparency.

I think that was kju's real failing with his Patreon-lack of transparency. Patreon is modelled after the old school patronage of the arts schemes. Basically, people could support artists or creators that they liked at a consistent rate without having to put down the large one-time payments that a commission or pruchasing a work involvles, lowering the bar of access to artists to a much lower level. In return though, artists who were patronised (source of that word) generally had to keep an open house policy, allowing his patrons to observe progress on whatever was being created whenever they felt like it to make sure that the money wasn't just being wasted.

Kju's Patreon plan was very top-heavy- low-tier donators got nothing, high-tier donators got something, and all through throughout the band, there was no reasonable ways to observe transpency on the projects he was working on as part of the scheme. So of course, his low-end donators were relatively small, and his high-end donators were all existing supporters of his work, there was nothing to entice borderline interested parties to become backers, just a nebulous promise that mods would be made from the money given, no quantifyables or deliverables. Certainly no mention of the works of others that may or may not also be part of his mods development. Of course, this scheme failed, and kju has since stepped out of modding for good, leaving whatever the secret mod project he was working on entirely in the waste basket and everything else in limbo. He can say that donations don't work for modding, I say he set himself up for that fall. (I say this as someone who as immense respect for everything kju's done over the years. There are plenty of modders around that would not be doing what they do if not for him)

Donations are fine and work when done right, just don't expect a living off them. They're a nicety that enables you to work more above your baseline, not the baseline itself, not a neccesity.

Edited January 21, 2015 by toadie2k

[fabio_chavez 103]

I think he was really frankly and honest. He didn't have a job, the amount of work behind his project was really huge and practically it was a job, even if not paid.

He tried to keep it alive asking the help of the comunity, it didn't work out and he left.

It hurts losing someone like kju, that's the real point

or maybe he wanted us to believe that to cover up his scheme to destroy modding because hes actually a high EA executive who wants us to install origin.

[R0adki11 3945]

or maybe he wanted us to believe that to cover up his scheme to destroy modding because hes actually a high EA executive who wants us to install origin.

Try to stay on topic now.

[Bouben 3]

I personally don't ask for donations because I personally don't feel that it's right for me to do so. This is my hobby, I do it for fun. I don't expect to get paid, I don't want to get paid. I put in hard work because I enjoy it and because I enjoy seeing people use and enjoy themselves with my mods. That's my reward, really.

Nicely put.

---------- Post added at 19:06 ---------- Previous post was at 19:01 ----------

bohemia needs to subsidize and sponsor the leading content creators of our community instead of pocketing revenue earned off their work. the recent a3life fiasco demonstrated the extent of their concern about modders

What fiasco? Could you (somebody) elaborate on that, please?

[Bouben 3]

Bunch of wankers nicked a load of mods, stuck it on their Altis Life server and charged people twenty quid to get in.

That's embarrassing.

Thanks for the info.

[Guest]

Considering the numbers here, i believe i was lucky in my ask for donations developing for Arma 2 DayZ Epoch. My greater one was 30 USD. Don't have the full number, but it was less than 100 USD.

 

My scripts was a little confusing but they was nice, in true i was learning, full of desire to understand Arma code in full. Now with my mod i'm believe to be in another stage.

 

I try to identify the donator, but this escapes from my mind fast and it's normal for me to meet then on the forums and not reconize then. This is good and make me want to be kind with persons all the way.

 

The most important thing i have to talk is that a dedicated modder need to take care of his healthy, because for then its a double jorney and this can lead to many days of half sleep. Equilibriun is necessary or everything goes out of control.