Do donations work for arma modders?

[fabio_chavez 103]

nice darkhorse, you made that post in multiple threads now, the problem is, it consists of completely false accusations, he didnt ask for "thousands upon thousands" lol wtf... he stated clearly that his primary goal was to make the donations help covering his social security to make sure he can go to a doctor if he get ill while modding, and so that he doesnt starve... aka minimum of sustainability to pursue his modding goals and all of that while scraping a career as a industry professional as whom he would have earned litterally "thousands upon thousands", maybe get you facts straight...

[BadHabitz 235]

Expecting the people in here to pay him thousands upon thousands of dollars to mod for ArmA, then leaving, or quitting, or whatever you want to call it, when they don't... I suspect Kju is/was in the wrong community.

Right, if people plan to make a mod then they should do so because they enjoy the process and the result. Sucks that we lose out on some cool future project, but making money shouldn't be high on the list of priorities for mod makers. Not to say there's no place for it, but if money is more important than enjoying the game, then it's best that you do move on.

nice darkhorse, you made that post in multiple threads now, the problem is, it consists of completely false accusations, he didnt ask for "thousands upon thousands" lol wtf... he stated clearly that his primary goal was to make the donations help covering his social security to make sure he can go to a doctor if he get ill while modding, and so that he doesnt starve... aka minimum of sustainability to pursue his modding goals and all of that while scraping a career as a industry professional as whom he would have earned litterally "thousands upon thousands", maybe get you facts straight...

That sounds like a situation where a guy should step back from Arma stuff and get his life in order first. I don't want anyone sacrificing any element of their personal life to deliver game mods to the community.

Edited January 15, 2015 by BadHabitz

[Drongo69 117]

Most users can't even be bothered to say thank you, let alone donate. There is an increasing amount of users with poor manners and a big sense of entitlement these days.

kju has done phenomenal amounts for the community since back in the OFP days. I don't know why BIS hasn't hired him.

[roshnak 41]

nice darkhorse, you made that post in multiple threads now, the problem is, it consists of completely false accusations, he didnt ask for "thousands upon thousands" lol wtf... he stated clearly that his primary goal was to make the donations help covering his social security to make sure he can go to a doctor if he get ill while modding, and so that he doesnt starve... aka minimum of sustainability to pursue his modding goals and all of that while scraping a career as a industry professional as whom he would have earned litterally "thousands upon thousands", maybe get you facts straight...

Assuming that .kju's goal was actually to make a living wage from modding Arma, saying that he was hoping to make thousands of dollars is an accurate statement, depending on the time frame that we are talking about here. He would certainly have needed to make thousands of dollars over the course of a year, and probably more than $1000 over the course of a couple of months. I don't know what country .kju lives in, but I doubt that he would have needed much less than $1000 a month to live on. A quick check of Wikipedia suggests that one would need to make more than $600 a month just to be living above the poverty line (60% of median income according to the EU) in just about every country in Europe. I could be totally wrong about this, of course, since I don't live in Europe and for all I know it could cost a ridiculously small amount of money to live on in whatever country .kju lives in.

Either way, expecting to make enough money to live on through donations for Arma mods (or donations for just about anything, really) is unrealistic at best.

And I have to ask again, is this thread supposed to be about whether donations can help modders make some extra money on the side, or whether modding Arma can be an actual career?

[Rydygier 1304]

Right, if people plan to make a mod then they should do so because they enjoy the process and the result.

I would rather say, it's their business, why they're modding and when to stop. Which approach is wise or not, that another matter though.

Really, .kju was one of the few who had enough patience to teach even the most clueless from the beginning to the top. It's amazing.

Yes, indeed. Helped also me few times, when I was learning basic stuff.

Edited January 15, 2015 by Rydygier

[BadHabitz 235]

I would rather say, it's their business, why they're modding and when to stop. Which approach is wise or not, that another matter though.

That's fine. It's just my opinion. I wouldn't let my want for a mod override my concern for another person's stability. Even if they were in it for the money, I would certainly hope they did not suffer in their personal life and fortune in order to make mods in a video game, because in the end I don't think you can make anything close a living off of donations from the community of a niche game.

[Rydygier 1304]

because in the end I don't think you can make anything close a living off of donations from the community of a niche game.

Agree roughly. Not in the current reality. Experiment, kju performed, seems to confirm that conclusion. From the other hand, it's not that far from such result, as one could think. Kickstarter-like formula proved to be effective towards such goal, although temporary, because it's project-centric, not person-centric (like Patreon's option to pay in regular basis). So question is, it's infeasible by nature, or just because not optimal execution. Of course, that's apart from second question, if finding such optimum, if possible, is desired. I would say - yes, it is.

One may miss the old, good "golden times" of more passion and less $-talk, when community was too young for self-reflections like in this thread. But from my experience - there is no return to our past memories. Panta rhei. Passion burns out eventually - inevitable. This community, as IMO every successful one and vital is self-shaping and fluid thing. Has to be. I'm not a prophet, but my guess is, such mature community will slowly decay, if we would in the name of past times try to enforce its shape against natural, spontaneous trends, and lately one of them seems to be for some reason shifting focus towards $. Mentality changes, I think. And IMO no wonder, why more and more people start to think - why actually not? It's a hobby, yes, but it's hard work too. And not need to be necessarily only a hobby, if I'm experienced enough to provide content of high quality. So why not to open possibilities to turn somehow time and effort into money, if possible, and if there may be people willing to donate?

What causes such mentality drift? Greed? Don't think so. Not mainly at least. What I said - to mod, you need motivation. At first it may be a pure passion (probably must be in fact). But that will not last forever. So then you can stop, or motivate yourself by something else. What's better or wiser - depends on individual situation. But sentences "modding is only a hobby" or "modding has to be for enjoyment or has no sense" aren't carved in stone. That's only some assumptions. Who notes that, may start to think, why actually modding can't be a freelancing job.

So that's the choice in front of the community - keep reshaping or decay due to lack of experienced modders. Sadly, with experience growth, passion decreases, as time passes. Ones, who could replace bored veterans, as newcomers, for shure will have passion, but not experience. And would have less possibilities to learn without "guru" around. Experienced veterans tend to be less passionate after all these years, and need other motivation possibility or eventually will go away "wasting" gathered experience in oblivion. While, when able to living off modding, they would have more time to forge more of their knowledge into top-notch content. True, not for all money are right motivation. As said, with money come expectations, that means rush and stress. This in the result may be more demotivating, than motivating. And of course, there always are greedy people. But - if they would come as newbies looking for "easy money", they'll fail and lose that motivation fast, as at first no one would donate newbie poor work. He need to grow in experience first to provide high quality things, and that needs time and motivation other, than greed - genuine passion.

Edited January 15, 2015 by Rydygier

[bumgie 49]

Following your train of thought is always fun. Based on what you said, I think it would help if BIS and this community would focus more on making modding easier to do and get started on so that the initial enthusiasm lasts for as long as possible and during that time, people are able to easily create more complex creations.

When the enthusiasm has passed, the old timers that need monetary support to justify their work, should have a channel where to gather that monetary support. What channel this is, I do not know.

What I wish is that BIS would have invested the half a million price money for MANW to even better modding tools and even better documentation and perhaps provide patronage towards projects like CUP and AIA.

Also I wish that receiving or requesting money for creating mods would not carry any kind of a stigma in this community.

PS. What is the current official stance on project oriented funding platforms within the context of arma 3 modding? (Kickstarter,indiegogo)

Edited January 15, 2015 by Bumgie

[fabio_chavez 103]

Following your train of thought is always fun. Based on what you said, I think it would help if BIS and this community would focus more on making modding easier to do and get started on so that the initial enthusiasm lasts for as long as possible and during that time, people are able to easily create more complex creations.

When the enthusiasm has passed, the old timers that need monetary support to justify their work, should have a channel where to gather that monetary support. What channel this is, I do not know.

What I wish is that BIS would have invested the half a million price money for MANW to even better modding tools and even better documentation and perhaps provide patronage towards projects like CUP and AIA.

Also I wish that receiving or requesting money for creating mods would not carry any kind of a stigma in this community.

PS. What is the current official stance on project oriented funding platforms within the context of arma 3 modding? (Kickstarter,indiegogo)

i think you make very good points, some might disagree but i guess thats due to a lack of openmindedness that keeps them from understanding that the dogmatic bubble that frames their thinking is only driving them to come to threads like this and make narrowminded moral judgements that dont help anybody. Its only about blameing and shameing people that according to them deserve to receive a public stigma because they violate THEIR perceived moral code... a bit smallminded if you ask me.

[seba1976 98]

What "quality content" are we talking here exactly? Maybe we're not seeing the white elephant in the room? It was BIS who made the AiA content, not .kju. It was BIS the ones who invested their time and resources making Takistan, Chernarus, and Sahrani. Alduric had already made it possible to play those maps in A3, and it was all fine. Then came .kju with AiA, and Alduric felt bad and leave. I'm not saying .kju and his group didn't do a lot better, and I very appreciated their improvements, but at the end of the day, "it's just some config work", whether .kju followers like it or not. Again, I'm not saying it's no important config work, on the contrary, it's very important config work, but credit where credit is due.

Let's not underestimate the rest of the people here. A healthy community will be driven by people who love what they do, and who don't quit because they are not paid to keep going forward. If .kju wants to go, he must go, I'd even say we must make him go, to let new, equally talented people, fill the ranks. This is a free content community.

[dimitri_harkov 10]

Interesting. Well, personally I can't wait for the competiton to be over so the real community can come back together and make some awesome projects - not for money or fame but for fun and good karma ;)

Amen to that!

Cheers,

D.

[ProfTournesol 956]

Amen to that!

Cheers,

D.

Indeed, +1.

[fabio_chavez 103]

lol seba, you are so clueless and you would eat your own words if you had any clue what was really going on between kju and alduric and bi...

[Jackal326 1158]

Personally, I'm against modders asking for donations. Now before anyone jumps on my case "That's because you don't make mods/addons", this is coming from someone who IS an addon maker. Granted, my stuff rarely sees the light of day because I either make it for my own personal amusement, or for the group of guys I play with. That said, I've never considered asking those people to give me money for it (I much prefer compensation in the form of Jennifer Lawrence .gifs).

I frankly find it offensive that people make a big deal about how they've put loads of time into making something and then moan they're not being compensated for it. Surely you take enjoyment from seeing the end result, and the satisfaction of releasing it to the public? - I know that was my motivation. If its such a drain on you financially to spend your free time working on something, then don't do it and don't expect the community to pay you. If someone feels that they want to donate something off of their own back, fair enough, but don't expect it of them. I understand servers/websites need to be maintained, but there are many ArmA related websites that are generous enough to offer hosting for free.

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.

Edited January 15, 2015 by Jackal326

[alduric 10]

What "quality content" are we talking here exactly? Maybe we're not seeing the white elephant in the room? It was BIS who made the AiA content, not .kju. It was BIS the ones who invested their time and resources making Takistan, Chernarus, and Sahrani. Alduric had already made it possible to play those maps in A3, and it was all fine. Then came .kju with AiA, and Alduric felt bad and leave. I'm not saying .kju and his group didn't do a lot better, and I very appreciated their improvements, but at the end of the day, "it's just some config work", whether .kju followers like it or not. Again, I'm not saying it's no important config work, on the contrary, it's very important config work, but credit where credit is due.

Let's not underestimate the rest of the people here. A healthy community will be driven by people who love what they do, and who don't quit because they are not paid to keep going forward. If .kju wants to go, he must go, I'd even say we must make him go, to let new, equally talented people, fill the ranks. This is a free content community.

Well, like my old A3MP threads says, kju he had some of his time and data in this project, i thanks him lot of time in threads and credits. You cant say i felt bad, i was alone, i tried my best, many things from me was neve released in A3MP cuz CUP do it lot faster.

lol seba, you are so clueless and you would eat your own words if you had any clue what was really going on between kju and alduric and bi...

I dont know, as far as i know i have no problem in contact with Kju or in contribute some of things i do / fix i make and give for CUP. I have no idea if those was used or not. But im open to know what u have on mind, feel free to send me msg about it.

About that donation flame, i used to get donations when it was needed to host big a3mp files, but i get somthing better tha money - Great mirrors partners. About donations vol#2 - Its great to ask for donations when u release anything - " Look i made great mod, u can support my beer or coke donating here ". Not " Look i will made great mod, but i want to get regular money cuz it will take lot of time ". Many of us making somthing for Arma platform, we do it for fun not cuz we have to.

Thanks for ur time if you read this, and sorry for any gramma-mistakes i do. I hope you understand.

[spookygnu 563]

Personally, I'm against modders asking for donations. Now before anyone jumps on my case "That's because you don't make mods/addons", this is coming from someone who IS an addon maker. Granted, my stuff rarely sees the light of day because I either make it for my own personal amusement, or for the group of guys I play with. That said, I've never considered asking those people to give me money for it (I much prefer compensation in the form of Jennifer Lawrence .gifs).

I frankly find it offensive that people make a big deal about how they've put loads of time into making something and then moan they're not being compensated for it. Surely you take enjoyment from seeing the end result, and the satisfaction of releasing it to the public? - I know that was my motivation. If its such a drain on you financially to spend your free time working on something, then don't do it and don't expect the community to pay you. If someone feels that they want to donate something off of their own back, fair enough, but don't expect it of them. I understand servers/websites need to be maintained, but there are many ArmA related websites that are generous enough to offer hosting for free.

From my own observation and from chatting to various mod makers, one thing that gets peoples backs up is the persistant greediness of the community at times, I'm more going along the lines of "I want this now!", "Gimme all your addons!", "When is it out??"(not reading the forum rules!) etc.

I agree with Jackal on his points, but like I said the community can be very demanding of what they want and expect too much from the modders. Rather than take a leap (like I did for maps) and make it themselves, they'd rather others to make it for them, without thinking that modders and addon makers ARE human beings that possibly have families, jobs, lives to live etc.

It does take hours and hours, even years for some things for some people to create some pretty amazing things. I do think the community in many ways need to lay of the modders and addon makers with the demanding attitude. You could say that making a pre-release thread of a project can in some ways feed these reactions, because some pieces of work looks pretty amazing, take x-cam for instance.

With asking for donations, if a particular project were to need various tools that cost money for the modder to help create it then I don't think its such a bad thing to ask for it. But if its just to ask for money because of the time it takes and the cost of living expenses around it then I do think its a "liiiiittle" bit cheeky. In my opinion aren't we playing a game we can regard as a hobby?

I'd like to think that the only thing I had to fork out of my pocket for the game and to create maps was the cost of the game and the cost of L3DT pro. Which, won't even come to £50, (uk pounds). If I decided to ask for donations and I was successful with a map and ended up profiting from that, I don't think it would be right and I'd consider it a bit cheeky considering the cost I paid for it.

Generic question here:

have you ever done a hobby that you reeeally enjoyed doing then thought, "I'd love to get paid for doing this shit?" only to find out that 3-6 months down the line doing the hobby you love as a job, ruins the very reason why you started the hobby in the first place.

Edited January 15, 2015 by SpookyGnu

[eymerich 11]

What "quality content" are we talking here exactly? Maybe we're not seeing the white elephant in the room? It was BIS who made the AiA content, not .kju. It was BIS the ones who invested their time and resources making Takistan, Chernarus, and Sahrani. Alduric had already made it possible to play those maps in A3, and it was all fine. Then came .kju with AiA, and Alduric felt bad and leave. I'm not saying .kju and his group didn't do a lot better, and I very appreciated their improvements, but at the end of the day, "it's just some config work", whether .kju followers like it or not. Again, I'm not saying it's no important config work, on the contrary, it's very important config work, but credit where credit is due.

Let's not underestimate the rest of the people here. A healthy community will be driven by people who love what they do, and who don't quit because they are not paid to keep going forward. If .kju wants to go, he must go, I'd even say we must make him go, to let new, equally talented people, fill the ranks. This is a free content community.

Loosing a resource is always a terrible loss, no matter what a people can say.

It's a fact.

Just a short consideration.

I disagree with your opinion: without Kyu you would never played on the old arma3 map. Before Altis was released, i have read a dev saying: "why do you need the old map when you'll have altis?" (something similar of course) meaning that Bis wasnt interested in the old project (as always they have beenn since every time modder had a hard life porting old project to the new game).

Of course, bis gives a great support and under this point of view credit must be given to them.

But the things I found funny is: Kyu should'nt ask money because modding is for free. I like this idea a lot but... what does Bis did: € 500.000 of price for a mod.

How can you blame Kyu for the hard work he did?

I think that community is slowing dying. Maybe I am wrong - and I hope - but un my opinion Arma4 will be the last project of bis.

Edited January 15, 2015 by Eymerich

[Ezcoo 47]

First, who knows how much they would have offered him pay-wise. Second, considering what seba1976 said on the previous page and what kju said in his threads, I'm not sure that BI's priorities would have changed, especially when even existing devs aren't heeded (see kju's posts about ending support for AiA)... if you thought he was a "lonely voice for backwards compatibility on the outside", imagine him being a "lonely voice for backwards compatibility on the inside". :/

I was rather referring to his irreplaceable knowledge in the content creation in general, not his opinions on the state of things. Disagreeing on things isn't (or shouldn't be, at least) reason to not get employed. I'm finding it hard to see BIKI/community / scripting/modding newbie manager position as anything else than excellent investment especially in case of someone as skilled and experienced as kju, considering that Arma is built and meant to be throughoutly moddable game.

[ceeeb 147]

It's sad to see you leave kju, good luck with whatever takes your interest next. Your efforts will be missed by the community.

My thoughts are donations are unlikely to ever provide an equivalent first world income unless you create something as popular as DayZ. There are only so many users who are willing to donate (maybe 1~2%) and so many mods to support. Donations aren't a great way to fund mod development, as most users and donations would come in once the project is complete. Maybe a kickstarter style model would work better?

My preference is for BI to employ the best modders to create coherent, quality content - and not have BIS steal them away :P

Edited January 15, 2015 by ceeeb
typos

[.kju 3241]

The trick of using a provocative question (and ambiguous) always works to bring

out peoples' personality and true intentions. :)

Do donations work for arma modders?

What does "does it work" actually mean?

This means you have to think about what the various intentions, goals,

expectations and situation is, as well things like promotion, presentation,

feedback, communication with the fan base and much more. And no it doesn't mean

"can you get rich with arma modding"..

Some people seem to miss here that money is obviously just one way to "donate".

Personally I like the idea of Beerware, however there is virtually no limit on

ways to show your appreciation - don't be so narrow, open up your mind. :)

If we meet some day, and you think this stuff is worth it, you can buy me a beer in return.

Personally as outlined I am interested to demystify the topic and to learn more

how it works for others, as well as why people don't donate or decided to do it.

That aside it seemed useful to me to share some light on how monetary donations

play out in practice on the receiving end, aka modders in this case, as well as

how using the platform patreon contrary to paypal worked out.

And of course give insights to people who have donated to get a better sense of

the outcome in terms what the person actually receives.

The conclusion and take away is only relevant to my individual and specific attempt.

These are not universal. The goal here is to learn the view of others on these

in regards to donation in general - NOT on my situation or case.

I find it rather boring that some people question my intentions or the sharing

of these insights on how my attempt worked out. However I will address these

briefly at the end.

Personally to me the main topic in regards to modding is the effort involved

(as I have argued numerous times before). I am totally fine with it being just

a hobby - money does not have to play a role at all in my view (voluntary

donations of any kind can be done always of course).

However to me the premise of "all is fine, lets just continue as before" is

very naive, narrow minded and far from the actual situation.

The fact is that complex or large mods, game modes, terrains, campaigns or

comprehensive sound mods take often many hundreds to thousands of hours - often

by multiple people. On top of that sadly BI didn't consider nor care much about

backwards compatibility obviously. As such almost all content from prior arma

games is lost and porting takes a lot of time - in addition being a very

frustrating process due to lack or poor docu, as well as workflow and tools.

While there are very respectable exceptions like AGM for example (and most

terrains made for A3 - which take also insane amount of time to build..), most

content available in A3 is either ported community work from previous arma

titles or based on BI sources. With is the another side to the topic - creating

assets from scratch, bring them into the VR engine and up to A3 standards takes

also a (way too) big and strenuous effort.

To keep this "short" the bottom line for me is the huge effort involved and the

fact that many people give up at some point, or try to find ways to cross-finance

their modding by working for BI, BISim or other gaming related companies.

While for these companies it is a beneficial outcome, it is not a good one in

regards to the arma modding scene as far as I can tell, nor the modder taking

that route.

My conclusion and fight from the start was to find ways how to reduce the

effort - in the big picture I can only see BI to shift their business model to

benefit very directly from (more) modding and as such have a big interest to

reinvest into improving the platform for modding (more open source, tools, docu,

programmers assigned full-time to assist modding topics, support staff for the

community, etc, etc), or get a few community individuals to get payed one way or

another by the community to both improve the workflow, tools, docu and complex/

large projects (imo with having to share their source in return).

Without people like mikero, T_D, Sy, Silola, Bushlurker and various others to

decode the engine, build tools and create docu - where would this game be?

At the end of the day the fact remains modding the engine since ofp has become

more and more complex, effort and dedication necessary.

Did you ask yourself what that means in practice and what the results of this trend are?

---

Now just a brief summary on my past work, AiA and CUP

• I have worked for BI on site already during A2 dev. The initial agreement was
  to work on traditional PvP modes and to coordinate various community people.
  Ended up working almost only on the training missions as the guy working on it
  dropped out before I had arrived and I had to take over.. only for two months as
  I did a somewhat poor job for multiple reasons, but many things went wrong in that
  situation..
  
• Worked as external for BI from time to time on various things (ie UI, A2CCP, TKOH Rearmed).
  
• Worked as external on A3 Rearmed and some config stuff for about 7 months.
  
• Worked as external on DayZ SA for 6 months mostly full-time and helped the
  project get off the ground.
  
• So I have worked professionally on arma - initially in the hope to strengthen
  the PvP aspect (it was a very strong part of the OFP community/in MP the majority
  of players and vastly in servers), later to earn money to survive and as I saw
  the backwards compatibility as a key element since A1 (ref OAC/CAA1), as well as
  to allow me to build that game mode (and BI didnt want to) by cross-financing it.
  
• As such I know quite well first-hand what it means to work in and for a game
  company, what it means for your hobby modding (aka almost always going to zero),
  the considerable challenges and hardships working in that industry.
  
• From Germany/other high wage countries its just simply not sustainable to work
  for CZ wages; as moving to CZ republic was never an option for me for several
  reasons, we had to part eventually. Working for BISim was also never an option
  for me for various reasons - mainly you do military contract work and nothing
  that interests me personally.
  
• Finally what would be the purpose for me to work for BI again - it would
  mean to work on what they see as important, which is neither backwards
  compatibility nor MP or PvP play or a complex game mode. Aside from getting
  paid what would be the reason?
  

Now in regards to AiA

• Continued to work on it after BI decided to stop it (which was a comprehensible
  decision given the overall situation of A3 at that time). Mainly as I hoped it
  would get picked up again by BI at some point (and had given DnA a "promise" to
  complete it), the importance I saw (especially the limited content A3 initially
  provided) and finally Marek giving the OK to ask people for donations to support
  its development
  
• Unfortunately not being able to modify models and not allow to redistribute
  data, and especially the few engine issues remaining not getting addressed
  (cars and tank sounds, tanks physics broken, some crashes and incompatible
  infantry) made the initial AiA merge version very limited in use and complex
  to use (people had problem with the batch build process, correct modline, etc)
  
• Aside from config replacements there was not much I could do with my expertise
  (configs, scripting in regards to arma coding) and I was very frank about that
  
• AiA TP was mainly a data management, build process and later integration of
  submissions or 3rd party work (as well as testing, release mgmt, etc)
  
• CAA1/Rearmed/AiA was never something I enjoyed working on (config work is very
  dull, frustrating and a slow process), but it had to be done in my view due to its
  importance (or at times it was a job I was paid for doing it)
  

As for CUP

• Initially I just wanted to get the idea out, get things going and hand it over
  
• As there were just some people joining the initiative and even fewer sticking
  to it or remain active/do actual work, as well as at some point to not disappoint
  the handful hard working people (mainly Alwarren, Varanon, Reyhard, Aoi, Kllrt,
  alias) and to help them to get their hard work out to the people
  
• Long before I started the patreon campaign CUP was set up by me (like 7-8 months),
  and it was actually the core team who recommended to me to go try patreon when
  I had explained them my situation - as far as I can tell I was always very open
  and transparent about it both to CUP members and the public at large. So to
  accuse me of foul play to me just reflects on the personality of the accuser.
  

Refs:

A solution to the A2/BI content in A3 and your thoughts

Community Upgrade Project

In any case both AiA and my patreon campaign were an attempt to see how far you

can go with getting funded by donations within the arma community. I still think

the idea of an indie modding (freedom, flexibility, doing what you are great in,

and being able to dedicate a lot of time to it) has lots to it.

Unfortunately it failed miserably and various actors will likely take their

consequences from that. Time will tell if and what will come of this.

---

Finally I'd appreciate if the discussion could get back

to the actual topic of donations, modders and the arma

modding scene at large.

Edited January 15, 2015 by .kju [PvPscene]

[fn_Quiksilver 1633]

The majority of donations go to the first point of contact for the donators, and there is usually a relationship involved. Hence most donations go to server owners and community owners who host your content. The communities will rarely donate to the content creator whose work they are hosting, as they probably are barely scraping even, or are simply not interested in donating to you the content creator.

I have helped out in several communities hosting Altis Life server(s), pulled in some thousands in donations. I don't recall a penny being donated to Tonic or the other content creators involved.

I believe this to be a factor of the communities themselves putting in quite a lot of work to manage the experience of the players. It does not so much feel like to them that someone else is doing the work and thus deserves the credit, since managing a secure and fun A3 server takes quite a bit of time and stress, for a number of involved people. Often too there are $$$ expenses, so less incentive to donate upstream to where the content originated.

To the end-user, you the content creator are at best just a name on the loading screen, or more likely hidden in a diary tab that only few have clicked on, if that. The end-user--the likely donator--has never spoken to you, does not know you, and thus sadly, likely does not care about you.

"kju? Who is that?" he says, as he uses your content.

He = 95% of the people who will use what you create.

--

Also, I would like to say that the end-user in A3 Multiplayer is spoiled to ****, given the amount of time and effort gone into their experience. Often, as described in this thread, this time and effort is donated TO that end, with a tiny trickle coming back the other way ;)

The amount of time content creators spend on delivering fun, stable and secure content to MP, and the amount of time that server/community staff spend maintaining and building their end ... It is all truly staggering and humbling.

Edited January 16, 2015 by MDCCLXXVI

[Chairborne 2594]

;2858437']...cut

- Modding is a hobby, nobody forces you into it and you can't pretend people should feel any kind of obligation towards donating money or beer.

- We CHOSE arma BECAUSE of its complexity and possibilities. Go around and find another game that is capable of doing the things arma does. It doesn't exist! One second you're playing altis life, the next you're planning the invasion of Normandy.

- Money goes where profits are. BI isn't a charity and it sure isn't going to hand out money to every single modder that comes out with a good idea, even more so when there is no guarantee the final product will be good enough to justify that investment. Also, why should they pay you, me or anyone else when someone else will most likely step up and do it anyway. They even supplied all the source content, so what would they really be paying for? A conversion on a product they made in the first place. How many mods do you know of that made ALL their assets by themselves?

- Money is a constraint. BI can't spend more than what they have, if they have only enough money to do X things they can't do also Y and Z, be it community management and support or backwards compatibility. I complain a lot about BI's lack of response in the feedback tracker sometimes but even i know that. Also see point above, why pay engineers to do work that will be done by the community sooner or later?

- Donations are good but you can't sugarcoat extortion by making it look like "donate money to me or i won't be motivated enough to work on this project".

It's a hobby! It's ok to give up if what you want to do is simply out of your reach. And it's ok if someone wants to give you money as a sign of appreciation, but going around asking for it so openly makes it really feel cheesy.

- For someone that wants to keep it cool you seem to have a lot of resentment towards BI yourself, you almost make it look like the cause of your failure is them.

[BadHabitz 235]

;2858437']

Finally I'd appreciate if the discussion could get back

to the actual topic of donations' date=' modders and the arma

modding scene at large.[/color']

I don't see a problem with people putting up links for donations. I also have no problems with people asking for donations to cover server costs, or other costs that the project needs. I just personally don't see it as acceptable to ask for donations as the only way for mods to be made, or for them to be made faster. There's only so much free time after work, sleep and family, and whether or not donations come in doesn't change that.

Some people say that the community is shrinking, and that good modders are decreasing over time, but I counter that with the fact that new players are joining the community, and they're getting interested in modding. So it's not like 100% of the community/modders were created with OFP and no one joins the fight along the way. I actually think it's a positive that Arma modding isn't much easier, because if it was more open for the larger community, you'd see the community flooded with junk. It would be much harder to find quality mods floating in a sea of half-assed models and redundant reskins.

I really enjoy Arma 3 as a game, and as an excuse to channel some of my creativity. In the beginning I started off by loading people's scripts into missions, and have transitioned into understanding configs, and my journey keeps going. Words cannot properly express my gratitude to the veteran modders and scripters along the way that have spent the time to look over my work, and who have contributed to my projects.

People have said that maybe some good things can get underway now that MANW is over, and I hope I can be a part of that. Cheers!

[Rydygier 1304]

- Modding is a hobby,

Modding is modding. No more, no less. The rest of, what it could be depends. Thing is, coordinated effort of people treating modding like something more, than only a hobby for evenings, allows to achieve something out of reach of indivudal weekend hobbyist.

extortion by making it look like "donate money to me or i won't be motivated enough to work on this project".

Where's actual extortion in that? It may be true statement for some or not true for other, but there is no extortion. No one is forced to donate, no matter, if modder asks for it or users ask for possibility to donate, eitherway it's voluntary. What's actually wrong with such asking for donation? Let's name it instead of cloudy talking about "feeling".

Earlier someone said some truth - from modder point of view community en masse can be "demanding" - "we want, give us. Now". It may be more only about such feeling, but fact is. And in the same time, as also rightly said, most of mod users don't care even a bit about the author. Nor even will reflect on work involved. Assuming, is even able to recognize amount of necessary work (usually isn't). That's not very motivating by itself.

What's have to start as a hobby, out of passion, sooner or later will burn whole that fuel. Just when modder gathered valuable experience allowing to create more amazing stuff he may lose motivation to do so. And motivation to help newcomers, that could replace him. We could just say "it's OK", it always was this way, and newbies will prevail, if passionate enough. Maybe, maybe not. But couldn't it be better, if we could keep veterans a bit longer on the orbit, amongst us? Not this way, then another give them some fuel or make start easier/faster and keep them flying longer. What's wrong in that (if nothing wrong with asking for content)?

I actually think it's a positive that Arma modding isn't much easier, because if it was more open for the larger community, you'd see the community flooded with junk.

Workshop syndrome. But for avoiding flooding good stuff in the sea of shit there may be more ways than only making creating process obscure, unfriendly and hermetic. It may be worthy of efforts to find one.

Edited January 16, 2015 by Rydygier

[Chairborne 2594]

Where's actual extortion in that? It may be true statement for some or not true for other, but there is no extortion. No one is forced to donate, no matter, if modder asks for it or users ask for possibility to donate, eitherway it's voluntary. What's actually wrong with such asking for donation? Let's name it instead of cloudy talking about "feeling".

If you want to see the project you're interested in to be finished (or to progress faster) you have to donate, seems pretty straightforward to me.

Look at AiA, not enough donations came and development stopped.

This isn't to say a project like that is easy to do (by far :D ), but there's no one chasing after you either. Who cares if it takes 2 or 3 years to be finished and fully polished instead of one year or six months?

Look at Arma 2, many good mods started to come out and became stable 3-4 years after the initial release.

Earlier someone said some truth - from modder point of view community en masse can be "demanding" - "we want, give us. Now". And in the same time, as also rightly said, most of mod users don't care even a bit about the author. Nor even will reflect on work involved. Assuming, is even able to recognize amount of necessary work (usually isn't). That's not very motivating by itself.

Can't argue with that, but there's also people that spend some of their time to reach out to you just to say thank you.

I don't know what kind of recognition you'd expect though? There's 7 billion people on this planet, are we worthy more than others because we make mods for a "stupid game"? :D

What's have to start as a hobby, out of passion, sooner or later will burn whole that fuel. Just when modder gathered valuable experience allowing to create more amazing stuff he may lose motivation to do so. And motivation to help newcomers, that could replace him. We could just say "it's OK", it always was this way, and newbies will prevail, if passionate enough. Maybe, maybe not. But couldn't it be better, if we could keep veterans a bit longer on the orbit, amongst us? Not this way, then another give them some fuel or make start easier/faster and keep them flying longer. What's wrong in that?

Can't argue with this either. What would that fuel be besides donations in your opinion?