Server monetization program

[PuFu 4591]

 

 

The former page was listing the following information:

Quote

We will monitor and evaluate its effect on the community

 

Since i can only assume that this evaluation on the effect on the community was positive from BIS perspective - there is no additional information given about the criteria used. 

I would like to see what is the view of the community on the subject.

 

Please fill the poll and post bellow your thought on the matter.

 

 

My personal feeling on the subject:
i feel that you either allow monetization at large, server, addons, mods, scripts whatever, or none at all.
I cannot find any arguments why servers owners are allowed to do it and other parts of the community aren't.

More so, the conclusion is that there should be no monetization whatsoever, for servers or addons. But if there needs to be one, there should be the same for everyone

 

 

 

 

[HeroesandvillainsOS 1504]

I can't really say I'm informed enough at the moment to cast a proper vote.

 

I'm inclined to feel like servers are allowed to monetize due to the actual physical cost of server renting. Would that be incorrect?

 

I don't dislike the idea of addon monetization, but if it was mandatory and not optional I literally don't think I could afford to use mods. I must have dozens of GB's currently installed. Even if they were $2-3 a piece, that would impact me a lot. 

 

I don't rent a server as much as I'd love one because I can't afford that either.

 

Can someone shed some light on the costs of addon making for me if they have a sec? I mean, aside from time (and I'm not saying time doesn't equal money or anything, just talking about literal out of pocket financial burdens).

 

I realize addons such as RHS have had to pay due to download volume, and ALiVE has to pay for their server database, but would these be fringe cases or do all addon makers have to pay money to make their content?

[dscha 147]

If you can not afford it, you can not have it.

As simple as that. And pls, don't start with those lame and pathetic excuses like "But i have to administrate the Server/"Community" ". cmon, rly? That's a burden that YOU have chosen for yourself! You wanted a Hobby that cost money and time. If you lack any of those two, you simply just can't do it.

 

Oh and:
Why taking "time" out of the count? That is the most important factor. What do you think: How long did it take, to learn all that stuff, that you need for creating Addons/Scripts? +There are several other Costs, that are running. I had - constantly (>2 Years) - one DediServer running, to test MP-Stuff properly (~60€/Month). The next Step was buying a Server for my home (~1000€), so i don't need that rented machine anymore. And keep in mind: I was just a "filthy scripter/coder". Now ask yourself, how much Licenses for other Programs cost.

 

Your turn.

[semiconductor 309]

Frankly, I wouldn't mind paying reasonable amount of money ($10 tops) for a mod of RHS's magnitude but the problem is that there is very few people among those with whom I play who would do the same (just because they aren't as addicted to Arma as I am) so monetized addons would be the end of Arma's multiplayer, at least for me.

 

That being said I agree with PuFu's sentiment regarding server monetization. Somehow the people who have put the least amount of effort (it isn't that hard to set up a server, it's like 30 minutes of reading and playing around with configs) are the only ones allowed to reap the benefits of work made by huge amount of other people. Do you believe that? We need to study that dumb deal! POTUS jokes aside, that's some really unfair stuff.

[HeroesandvillainsOS 1504]

1 hour ago, dscha said:

If you can not afford it, you can not have it.

As simple as that. And pls, don't start with those lame and pathetic excuses like "But i have to administrate the Server/"Community" ". cmon, rly? That's a burden that YOU have chosen for yourself! You wanted a Hobby that cost money and time. If you lack any of those two, you simply just can't do it.

 

Oh and:
Why taking "time" out of the count? That is the most important factor. What do you think: How long did it take, to learn all that stuff, that you need for creating Addons/Scripts? +There are several other Costs, that are running. I had - constantly (>2 Years) - one DediServer running, to test MP-Stuff properly (~60€/Month). The next Step was buying a Server for my home (~1000€), so i don't need that rented machine anymore. And keep in mind: I was just a "filthy scripter/coder". Now ask yourself, how much Licenses for other Programs cost.

 

Your turn.

Was this directed at me?

[das attorney 857]

Few points off the top of my head:

 

1)  I think if we're going to allow server owners to monetise, then addon monetisation must be allowed.  Situation at the moment is unfair to people creating the addons.  Either none, or all, but not a weird halfway house.

 

2)  Also consider script monetisation.  This guy does it already https://infistar.de/  legally I believe as he uses no Bohemia tools (just notepad ++)  Why should server owners make money off other peoples code?

 

3) Bohemia pls sort out your server browser.  I don't want to filter out monetised servers and then join something like "Hostile Takeover" to be booted and told I need to pay money to reserve a place.

 

Just to clarify, I think none of it has a place in Arma and it's certainly lowered my enjoyment and enthusiasm for the game.

[PuFu 4591]

25 minutes ago, semiconductor said:

Frankly, I wouldn't mind paying reasonable amount of money ($10 tops) for a mod of RHS's magnitude

Please forget for a second about my forums signature and the fact that i am part of RHS...there is no relation whatsoever, also, i have voted NO on all 3 above questions if that makes any difference...

[Uro 220]

53 minutes ago, das attorney said:

Few points off the top of my head:

 

1)  I think if we're going to allow server owners to monetise, then addon monetisation must be allowed.  Situation at the moment is unfair to people creating the addons.  Either none, or all, but not a weird halfway house.

 

This is my opinion also. 

 

You cannot expect content authors to keep producing content year after year for free when parts of the community are profiting off of their work.  You either monetise everything or nothing.

[Richie 330]

8 minutes ago, Uro said:

You cannot expect content authors to keep producing content year after year for free when parts of the community are profiting off of their work.  You either monetise everything or nothing.

 

This 100%, it's all or nothing.

[fn_Quiksilver 1633]

Lots of generalizations and zero specifics or examples in here.

 

How about post some specific cases or examples of this grievance?

 

Without examples and specifics, I don't agree that there's some big problem with the server monetization system which is already in place.

 

As for addon monetization, I don't think the ArmA 3 framework is equipped to equitably handle addon monetization. Also, why only addon monetization? Addons are not the only type of modding. For instance I try to avoid addons wherever possible, to facilitate vanilla-friendly modifications.

[PuFu 4591]

to be more specific: i consider an addon every piece of community created content, be it mission, script, mod etc

 

why isn't arma framework equiped to handle addon monetization?

[fn_Quiksilver 1633]

im just not sure what is wrong with the current monetization program?

[dscha 147]

That Topic was explained to you, for more then one time. So stop trying to troll around in here, too!

[fn_Quiksilver 1633]

1 hour ago, dscha said:

That Topic was explained to you, for more then one time. So stop trying to troll around in here, too!

 

Requesting the problem (and specific real-world examples of it) to be explained for people is trolling?

 

The original post is devoid of explanation and assumes that people know about BI monetization program, and also its inequities and short-comings.

 

My own opinion is that removing monetization completely would hurt BI sales. The fact is, BI put close to zero resources into making Multiplayer playable content for ArmA 3, relying instead on community designers working in tandem with community servers to give players something to do when they bought ArmA 3.

 

If server monetization was dis-allowed, there would be far fewer big servers hosting community MP modes. 

 

re Donations

 

For whatever reason, many (dare I say most) people expect something in return for 'donating'. Genuine donations rarely are sufficient to cover basic month-to-month server expenses. I would guess that there are only about ~50 public servers that could survive on strictly donations (nothing in return for the donation). Meanwhile if you add simple monetization, that is, giving person some token thing in exchange (whitelisted slot, cosmetic tweaks, etc), servers bring in far more in 'donations' and are able to cover the expenses and also finance communities and other services that make the arma experience more enjoyable for people.

 

In short I don't see a problem with server monetization as long as they have permission from content creators to host their content. 

 

I do support Addon monetization, but only tentatively as I can't yet see a realistic way forward with it. If some plan or idea was outlined to bring Addon monetization into reality, I would think on it and comment further.

 

 

[xxgetbuck123 945]

inb4 Arma 4 turns in Flight Sim where you have to pay for majority of high quality mods. 

[Dragonkeeper 5]

As a member of a perspective russian modmaker group i want to say a few words about our CIS (Russia, Belorussia, Ukraine...) segment:

1) No one wants to to make something interesting because he as author can't monetize it or just prevent other servers to use his work. This is very demoralising when you spend a lot of time, creating something, but other noname server keepers just take you work and have profit on it.

2) There is no control of addon usage. If you want to keep current monetization rules, we need to feel safe. Now only RHS addons are really forbidden to use and maximum penalties for it - removing from steam workshop. But there is A3Launcher, Arma3 sync or servers can just use torrent or create custom launcher... So servers with copyright problems just use it and don't lose so much online -> so much money

3) Servers or mods without monetization always lose. If you have a lot of original content, but you competitor have monetization without something original, after a few month there is a 90% chance that you will close your project, cause you need to pay for server, buy anti DDOS protection, spend time on developing of something new, bug-fixing... But you competitor could afford to use this money to improve server machines, pay for advertising, and in the most of the cases he just buy first server, with original content or buy DDOS attacks to destroy server with original content.

Conclusion: people who produce nothing have absolute advantage. 

4) In our CIS community donation system (without receiving something for donation) don't work at all. Our "great" russian community even if realy like server or project could donate only crumbs. But if they can buy something they will pay and pay a lot.

 

A few years before we worked on a modification (A2 Dayz Phoenix Mod) without any monetization and with custom scripts, models, and other content. There was a lot of problems:

1) Competitor servers perform DDOS attacks cause they can afford it, but we had no resources to pay for better hosting or protection 

2) Origins Mod steal our clothing system (like in Dayz SA) and other stuff, because we had no resources to pay to streamers and youtubers for highlighting our innovations and now 3\4 of A2 community thinks that Ori mod was first.

3) Our "great" community members supports us only with words, but spends they money on other servers to buy for e.g. few tanks, have some fun, and cam back to our, when they lose it.

 

Now we are working on A3 huge modification with only original content, but we wait for changes to release it, cause we don't want to stepping on the same rake

[kiory 404]

My thoughts are pretty much the same, either all, or nothing. 

Personally, It'd be awesome if I could monetize my (future) addons and could potentially do this as a full time job, but I'm a money grabbing sellout and I don't need to keep a roof over my head at all.

 

I don't think it could work as a free for all however, there would have to be strict limitations, how much you could sell it for, what assets are part of your addons, for example: RHS is a huge addon which includes a ton of new, high quality assets, weapons, vehicles, uniforms, what have you. You could realistically expect to pay $8 plus for something like that. But if you look at something like my L85 addons, there's not a whole ton of content there, only a few "different" weapons and skins, and a couple of peripherals, so something around $0.50 - $1 would probably be adequate.

I think there would have to be some sort of QA on BI's part to have their "stamp of approval", to make sure assets have correct lods in place etc, which takes time and resources, might not be worth it  for BI.

 

[semiconductor 309]

13 minutes ago, xxgetbuck123 said:

inb4 Arma 4 turns in Flight Sim where you have to pay for majority of high quality mods. 

Ha, good comparison. But nevertheless my money is still on Arma's death because FSX has an unique MP community consisting mostly from top-tier military-grade fully-automatic assault SOCOM Block II autists who enjoy very complex gameplay so no wonder paying for mods isn't a problem for them (especially since their pals aren't required to own the same modification to play together - something that isn't possible in Arma). But even then most of the FSX modifications were cracked and you can pirate them.

 

I would also like to use this opportunity to say "Fuck Microsoft" for crashing FS franchise with no survivors.

[PuFu 4591]

4 hours ago, fn_Quiksilver said:

Requesting the problem (and specific real-world examples of it) to be explained for people is trolling?

 

The original post is devoid of explanation and assumes that people know about BI monetization program, and also its inequities and short-comings.

It is for a very good reason - i tried not to put down my own issues with it in order not to influence others.

 

Issues i have experienced:

1. no matter how clear the EULA was written and spread about via different social media channels, forums, etc, there are still people who will say "fuck it" i don't care, despite EULA, monetization TOS etc. This means i either need to hunt these down individually or have people report them - a lot of free time wasted on my part - yes, 100% of my many reports towards BI have been dealt with, so no issues there

 

2. The rules section that should be clearly visible as per monetization TOS, is ussually available only after making an account on the associated server forums

 

3. there is NO real control over it from BI's part in terms of what happens if server owner choose to say fuck your TOS and go ahead and set their own server rules - for now, they can only choose to close the BE for that server...not really a way to strong arm people to respect this rule - this is the most important issue out of them all = the lack of being able to spank someone into submission

 

4. there are people that, although do not want their addon to be monetized, they don't have the time and resources to go ahead and hunt the people that are infringing their rules. After a few reports and frustrations they ussually say fuck these and stop modding altogether - this is a hobby, and it should be treated like one.

 

5. there is no real overview of the situation - there should be a filter for the game server browser, and a list containing all the servers that are monetized - not the community that runs these, but their actual servers - with their respective IPs etc -> so while i do agree that for any sort of addon there should be a real framework behind it to make it work, so should be for servers - and in all truthfulness, there isn't one.

 

6. Most of the addons that these monetized servers are running, besides the ones they have no permission for - are ripped, stollen, ported or other half-assed content from different parts of the internet with no regards to a proper way of doing thing properly, or actual respect for other people IP rights. Allowing these sort of people to actually monetize that is anything short of supporting theft

 

7. Remember that it is easier for me to find about a p3d that has been ripped from RHS for instance and added to a different pbo (same shape, UVs, vertices position etc) than it is to find a custom script for instance, that is shared with the community for free as long as some ungrateful prick doesn't make some money out of it.

 

8. The argument that server costs money is bullshit. Everything costs money. My software licences costs money as well btw. So does the server running a website, or a test server...

 

 

Quote

 

My own opinion is that removing monetization completely would hurt BI sales. The fact is, BI put close to zero resources into making Multiplayer playable content for ArmA 3, relying instead on community designers working in tandem with community servers to give players something to do when they bought ArmA 3.

If server monetization was dis-allowed, there would be far fewer big servers hosting community MP modes. 

 

agreed, but if there would be no addons made for this game (again addons = any sort of custom content, not just mods) the lifespawn will surely be a lot shorter

 

one solution would be to simply disallow any mods to be used on monetized servers by default, unless the owner comes forward with a list of addons that are to be used, and that list has permission in writing from their respective owners (and there is a real confirmation beforehand anyways). 

 

What i am trying to say is that in the current situation only one part has something to gain at the expense of everyone else...there is no real framework that allows control over the way these monetized servers are running their "business".

 

PS: i am not saying everyone is a dick about how their run their servers, i am saying that from my own experience 80% are though

[DieselJC 196]

Ive always been a huge fan of the Arma series because of the FREE content that Modders give to the community...they pour their hard work blood sweat and tears into the community to make it better for all of us..they are there to help those of us who can't mod that well to ask questions of and help us when needed. Its a huge commitment they take on but they do it for the love of the game..and the community. In my opinion making people pay for Mods and/or the ability to play on servers will ruin not only the game but the community. It will become all about the money and less about the game itself. I can't tell you the amount of things I have learned from the people in this community...its staggering..for alot of people it doesnt seem that much but I'm old and for the most part an idiot (just ask my ex-wife) but the time that people in the community have given has taught me not just scripting or server hosting..but more importantly that giving of the work you create to the community and to share what you create/know with others. That being said..I do own a server and although the cost isn't huge it is still a cost that I pay for..yes I ask of people for contributions but I dont expect them to pay nor do I or will I ever demand it. Money always seems to ruin what started out as a passion for something you love and enjoy. Just my 2 cents.

 

Diesel

[Crunch1c 1]

Just my 2 cents. In my opinion players should never have to pay to play on a server, but to build stable servers and a decent community server owners need some money. Donating is not something a lot of players will do, they all want something in return. The game industry created these players with early access, micro-transactions, pay2win and DLC's! I say when a server owner wants to monetize, the rules that BI have set are sufficient. The only thing they need to change is that add-on and mod creators become able to monetize their content. I know most server owners will gladly pay a monthly fee to the add-on creators. In the end players can still choose to support a community by buying product that are within the rules and some money will go to the add-on/mod creators therefor motivating them and improving their content. The whole community benefits this way!

[teabagginpeople 398]

I believe some mods out there are worthy of financial support. 

 

I think this support should come directly from bis. The cost in official dlc given a slight adjustment to cover this. There have been competitions held in the past. but this would cost less spread out. have longer term benefits and reach more.

 

This could be done on a yearly basis. After your mod has been available  1 year on the workshop . Mods makers can request to be entered Into the bis mod support programme . Who gets it. presided over by bis themselves. So if someone has a good mod out and maintained it well they get help. 

 

An outright end to server monetizing. I don't go near any servers doing this. But my experience with the ones that have.it was just plain and utter greed.it may have started off with good intentions.  But the greed and self serving sets in. I believe in the "don't have one if you can't afford". If a community isn't willing to donate freely by choice alone to keep a server going. that has answered your question on should you keep running it.

[Crunch1c 1]

21 minutes ago, teabagginpeople said:

If a community isn't willing to donate freely by choice alone to keep a server going. that has answered your question on should you keep running it.

 

You are missing the point, the older players will still donate but the new generation want something in return. 

[teabagginpeople 398]

32 minutes ago, Crunch1c said:

 

You are missing the point, the older players will still donate but the new generation want something in return. 

what point did I miss? my post had nothing to do with yours ? it was my "2 cents". 

[NeoArmageddon 957]

I mostly agree with PuFu, das attorney, Uro, etc

 

As somebody modding this game (from OFP to A3) for more than 15 years I remember times where monetization wasn't even considered. AddOns were made purely out of fun and more importantly most stuff and the knowledge behind were shared here in the forums or at other places like OFPEC. Most addons were released with statements like "Do what you want, but if you release something, give me some credits". If you asked me, nowadays one thinks twice before releasing something to the public.

 

On the topic of addon monetization: If that will be a thing sometime in the future, I doubt it will be the holy grail for us modders. The bigger mods like Ace, RHS, etc may profit from it but I doubt smaller mods that contains only a few assets will get a lot of money back, even if the work-per-modder is the same as with the bigger mods. Another thing is: Even that CUP is completly free, people are already flipping the finger at the project for "just ripping A2 stuff without doing actual work" on it.The average user just doesn't understand how many hours of work it takes to get a simple addon release ready, be it completly new from the ground up, or an port/derivate of something else. I suspect most addons will not be able to monetize even if they want. I also supect the best selling addons would be stuff like "I bought a Corvette model from TurboSquid and added it to Arma"-type addons (Just an example, I know that it takes some effort to add a plain model to A3).

 

Oh, and one thing I encoutered many times is when talking with server owners: "You need to allow monetization for your addon or I have to close down my community! I pay 5000€ per month for the servers and because of you I go broke!". I find this trend highly questionable and ultimatly as a disadvantage towards the players.

There seems to be a whole ecosystem around people renting servers they can't effort because they think they will make a furtune out of it (I don't doubt there are a few that actually make a hell lot of money with this). I wonder how many "communities" are actually doing tax fraud with their donation and monetization systems.