Arma 3 - Creator DLC Discussion

[pognivet 151]

14 minutes ago, lexx said:

Just saw this:

 

 

Maybe you are, but the reality is that most players don't. Who knows, maybe in the end you wouldn't either, because you already played it and suddenly the urge to donate has disappeared for whatever reason. Even if some players start donating now, it is still highly unlikely that the "donation revenue" would be able to fund a project of this size.

 

To give some hard numbers on this topic:

I've spend around €3.5k and around two years of development time on Callsign Minotaur. It has a very high positive rating (holding 98% on the workshop since day 1), and it is on the very first page if you filter for all time most popular campaigns. It is the only project I ever made by myself that returned any money... which was exactly 1 donation of $10. I'm very thankful for that, but you don't need a math degree to realize that this doesn't cut it financially. Now I'm not complaining - never did this to earn the money back. Just giving you an example that no matter how much folks like your stuff, donations are very rare.

 

I've worked on other projects that made a bit more money, but that always involved begging and it was always spend on server upkeep, so... eh, not really the same.

 

tl;dr - can't fund such a project with donations unless you crank up the begging wheel.

I was the one who donated the ten dollars.

[lexx 1363]

Heh, nice. But still you see - impossible to fund a project this way. It would require more than 350 people to donate $10 just to break even, and then you still have the amount of time that went into it. It's also "just" a 6 mission campaign with no new high quality visual assets in it (weapons, vehicles, etc).

[B_Fox 132]

Wasn't YuEmod removed because It is prohibited to sell and/or charge for a mod?
Didn't Global Mobilization stated off as a mod they even released a Unimog as like a teaser and now after a little bit of silence they pop back up but now it evolved from a mod to paid dlc (A very fine one at that). So dose this means that Yue can apply for to be a Creator and receive dlc status or is it more complex than that?

[pognivet 151]

8 minutes ago, Laumi said:

 

What about the work after development? Publisher's work, advertisement, financial work (Steam, Tax, ...), legal procedures for copyright infingements, and so on. Is that not something that is worth being paid?

I'll address this more when I re-edit my original post, but there is no publisher's work. It's literally a mod no different from any on the workshop. There is no risk, no downpayment, no investment for Bohemia but they make incredible returns and profits by doing virtually nothing. Indie game devs do such "financial work" in 4 hours with no attorney. There are no legal procedures for copyright infringements. If you've ever heard of litigation involving Arma 3 copyright in your entire life please inform me of the case number. Their contribution is worth a half shekel.

[NikkoJT 58]

1 hour ago, pognivet said:

I'll address this more when I re-edit my original post, but there is no publisher's work. It's literally a mod no different from any on the workshop. There is no risk, no downpayment, no investment for Bohemia but they make incredible returns and profits by doing virtually nothing. Indie game devs do such "financial work" in 4 hours with no attorney. There are no legal procedures for copyright infringements. If you've ever heard of litigation involving Arma 3 copyright in your entire life please inform me of the case number. Their contribution is worth a half shekel.

BI is providing technical assistance and QA on this project in order to keep it up to DLC standards. They are also allowing the mod to be monetised as a DLC, which is the only way to pay for the time spent (the DLC devs themselves have said the mod would have been lower quality or never released without this). It's quite possible that BI provided up-front payment to support this as well, although this hasn't been confirmed.

 

So they're doing the following things that are usually considered to deserve payment:

- Technical support

- QA time and resources

- Possibly providing actual money

- Promoting the mod as official DLC

- Allowing someone else to profit from their game

- Oh yeah, and developing the game it's modifying

- [edit] one of the GM devs has mentioned that legal protection against asset ripping is a major reason they wanted to use the CDLC program

 

BI's support is required for CDLCs to reach vanilla standards. BI is unlikely to provide the level of support needed without getting paid for it, and the CDLC devs need to be paid for the time spent as well (which requires BI's approval). So, yeah, it's pretty reasonable for BI to take a cut of CDLC money.

 

Other cost drivers:

- Someone has to pay the VAs for the new audio

- The devs deserve to get paid for essentially working a second job on this (again, it wouldn't have happened without them being paid for it)

 

For sheer amount and quality of content it's fair to charge for this DLC. BI gets a share because they helped and it's their game.

The price is very reasonable. It's less than Apex, IIRC, for a similar amount of content of the same or better quality. It's silly to be upset about it just because it was done by (essentially) a contractor instead of BI's internal employees.

 

Locking the content in the way that's been done is not something most people are happy about. Even the DLC devs wanted to use the Apex model instead. But that's really not related to the price. A cheaper DLC would have exactly the same problems, only it would probably be lower quality. A free DLC with the same model wouldn't have had the community division problems - but it also wouldn't have been able to happen at the quality level that GM is happening.

[Dedmen 2705]

16 minutes ago, NikkoJT said:

Someone has to pay the VAs for the new audio

Some if not all of the audio has been made by the devs themselves.

[NikkoJT 58]

18 minutes ago, Dedmen said:

Some if not all of the audio has been made by the devs themselves.

Fair enough. I'm impressed if they managed to do enough different voices between the two of them for the mission VA, plus a new set of radio protocol.

I don't think that detracts from my overall point about the price being justified, though.

[EO 11277]

Just to elaborate on what Dedmen said, Mondkalb has stated he directed voice actors during recording sessions for the GM project.   https://arma3.com/news/report-in-vertexmacht-global-mobilization#.XMCc6ehKguU 

[Dedmen 2705]

3 hours ago, B_Fox said:

So dose this means that Yue can apply for to be a Creator and receive dlc status or is it more complex than that?

If he makes something completely by himself which was never available for free before, then yes. He can try.

[Homesick 290]

4 hours ago, EO said:

@Homesick, may i suggest updating the OP with a link to the Creator DLC FAQ's page, it might help some forum members posting ill-informed comment. 

 

Sorted!

[Defunkt 431]

8 hours ago, pognivet said:

There is no risk, no downpayment, no investment for Bohemia but they make incredible returns and profits by doing virtually nothing.

 

You are seriously naive when it comes to how the world works. Why do you imagine all those Internet giants that lose money year after year are valued so highly? Because they've captured a market, established a recognised brand and accumulated a userbase, same as BIS, and that was a very risky proposition when they started out. That's now capital and this is how it yields a return.

[the_one_and_only_Venator 163]

14 hours ago, pognivet said:

There is no risk, no downpayment, no investment for Bohemia but they make incredible returns and profits by doing virtually nothing.

 

They are providing continuous free updates and new features more than five years after release. 

In case you haven't noticed. 

[mondkalb 1087]

15 hours ago, Dedmen said:

Some if not all of the audio has been made by the devs themselves.

Citation needed.

Our VA sheet has eight listed and paid voice actors. Granted, two of those are GalComT and me.

Edit: Before everyone gets their panic modes activated about this. I've spent two years in theatre before moving to Prague, so this matter is not fully amateur-work, either. 😉 

[pognivet 151]

1 hour ago, the_one_and_only_Venator said:

 

They are providing continuous free updates and new features more than five years after release. 

In case you haven't noticed. 

Updates that add things that should have been there when the game was released... half a decade ago.

[domokun 515]

On 4/25/2019 at 9:35 AM, pognivet said:

Updates that add things that should have been there when the game was released... half a decade ago.

The 1990s just called they want WaterFall development cycle back.

Seriously, every game released in the last 15 years ago was delivered using an incremental updates.

What is surprising is how long BI have continued to support A3, compared to most other developers.

Maybe you've got an example of a similar game that was released with all the features at launch with no bugs?

 

[pognivet 151]

3 minutes ago, domokun said:

The 1990s just called they want WaterFall development cycle back.

Seriously, every game released in the last 15 years ago has be delivered using an incremental deliveries.

What is surprising is how long BI have continued to support A3, compared to most other developers.

Maybe you've got an example of a similar game that was released with all the features at launch with no bugs?

 

Fixing bugs isn't a feature, it's expected.

[domokun 515]

1 minute ago, pognivet said:

Fixing bugs isn't a feature, it's expected.

So learn one thing, that to expect is bad and that the world is not here to fulfill your expectations.

[Gunter Severloh 4056]

3 hours ago, domokun said:

What is surprising is how long BI have continued to support A3, compared to most other developers.

Yup, goes to show how dedicated and loyal they are to the community, and how much they love their game, i mean after all who builds an engine puts a game they created

on it and keeps making it better year after year especially after 5yrs!

The best update imo for the game was when they released the Eden editor, i spend 90% of my time there, ha im in it as i type this 😄

4 hours ago, pognivet said:

Updates that add things that should have been there when the game was released... half a decade ago.

Not necessarily, evolution of a game calls for research, testing, feedback, ideas, and most of all discoveries, and thats what most of the updates were.

New content added are ideas that the devs didn't have at the time of release or prior i should say, for example in the past i had built several WarMods (Massive gameplay compilation mods)

and new content to those were discoveries, and ideas i had, new things that grabbed my interest, hence i did the necessary work to get permissions and added the content, through a patch

aka an update, Bis obviously does this on a larger scale but none the less.

 

     Imo i would rather get things progressively over time then get it all at once, makes you appreciate what you do get even OFP back in the day had minimal content, i mean if you think Arma3 was lacking, pfft

Arma3 was 10x the game worth of content then OFP was when it first released, getting a car in a patch was exciting because we all were used to little, then the modding took off, and the game exploded,

omg those were some days every day i checked OFP.info and everyday there was some new mod, some new gun, car, unit, ect,. it was exciting!

 

[PuFu 4600]

On 4/24/2019 at 6:04 PM, lexx said:

I've spend around €3.5k and around two years of development time on Callsign Minotaur[...] which was exactly 1 donation of $10. [...] Just giving you an example that no matter how much folks like your stuff, donations are very rare.r projects that made a bit more money, but that always involved begging and it was always spend on server upkeep, so... eh, not really the same.

 

tl;dr - can't fund such a project with donations unless you crank up the begging wheel.

 

On 4/24/2019 at 6:21 PM, lexx said:

Heh, nice. But still you see - impossible to fund a project this way. It would require more than 350 people to donate $10 just to break even, and then you still have the amount of time that went into it. It's also "just" a 6 mission campaign with no new high quality visual assets in it (weapons, vehicles, etc).

 

And that stands true for every other mod/mission out there (monetized servers excluded).

Sure some people go ahead and say that they are willing to donate, but that hardly ever happens from my personal experience, considering these products are free to begin with, and with prohibited commercial gains (opposed to servers running A3).

Even large team based projects with even larger exposure, 6+ years and tens of thousands of accumulated work hours, with monthly pipeline server costs, tool subscriptions costs etc are not receiving these sort of donations.

 

I think in 6 years dev time, RHS has received 2 donations - one of 5$ and one of 100$ (KOTH monetized servers related). Considering just the monthly servers costs is 150EU, not pitching in individual artists software subscriptions (substance, adobe, modo/zbrush/max etc), and without counting any of the hours invested in this, you can understand this is not a viable option to cover fixed costs, much less so to make a profit. 

What still surprises me, is the fact that a lot of users cannot understand what the real world monetary value of some of the "free content" they are provided with. To put this into perspective, although i don't have a current data on hand atm, but last time i did an estimated a year ago was around 600k IRC (using average freelance industry fees) just for the RHS custom content (excluding BI ported and improved content). Do the math and see the number of sales that would be needed (with the 30 / 35 / 35 formula in mind) to cover that investment - and btw, this is for a mod where total free user downloads are in excess of 1 million. 

Surely modding is a hobby, but considering increasing skills needed to produce and deliver that content, subscription fees for the tools required to create content on at least the same level as the base game, i not sure how some are surprised by the prices of C-DLCs, and the fact that some modders are using this opportunity as they are

 

 

[haleks 8212]

13 hours ago, PuFu said:

I think in 6 years dev time, RHS has received 2 donations - one of 5$ and one of 100$ (KOTH monetized servers related).

 

This is disturbing... and highlights a big issue with the arma 3 license and server monetization.

Monetizing servers (wich is de facto commercial use) clearly provides a more or less steady revenue or at least a way to make some benefits. We end up in a situation where anyone can make commercial use of addons created by people who are denied such leniency.

While BIS acknowledged servers do cost money (hence the monetization program), they failed to do the same in regards to time and money invested by modders. Server owners are allowed to make a benefit for just maintenance basically (by using paywall-locked esthetic content, the kind of incentive content creators are expressly forbidden to use), but modders have to rely on donations only.

 

We are walking on the head here.

[Private Evans 498]

So what if BI would invest into a real high tech next gen plattform/engine only instead of making a complete new Arma game themselves and then having mutiple titles released based on that plattform by independent studios in cooperation with them....like Arma - Unsung...Arma - Cold War...Arma - Nassau1715....Arma - Red Hammer Modern Warfare ...Arma - Iron Front or even Arma - Gettysburg...( just examples)

[PuFu 4600]

21 hours ago, haleks said:

Monetizing servers (wich is de facto commercial use) clearly provides a more or less steady revenue or at least a way to make some benefits.

The monetization thing was intended to legally frame something that has been happening since A2 days at least. The intention was to allow server owners to keep their servers up by providing direct ingame benefits towards their users. Yes, that is commercial avenue for all intents and purposes, the scope was to cover renting/co-location expenses rather than allow profits to be made, because, and i quote "donations is not something that users are willing to make without getting something in return"

The main problem here is that the vast majority of monetized communities doesn't function that way. And although this sort of monetization was initially intended as a test run for an year, it has been continued in the same form year after year despite the vocal negative provided feedback.

 

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We end up in a situation where anyone can make commercial use of addons created by people who are denied such leniency.

That is not allowed based on monetization policies (https://www.bohemia.net/monetization). The mod user needs to agree to monetization of its owned addons/mods and provide written permission in such cases.

What happens is that a lot of the communities that apply for monetization, they are approved for using just vanilla, then later add community made addons into the mix.

There is no oversights, and no continuous (or automated monitoring) so reporting such cases comes down to mod owners rather than have BI deal with it, considering it is their own system, and mod creators shouldn't spend their own time enforcing someone's elses rules. I can tell you right now, it's a waste of my free time. I wasn't the one to set the rules, so i shouldn't be the one to enforce those rules to begin with.

 

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While BIS acknowledged servers do cost money (hence the monetization program), they failed to do the same in regards to time and money invested by modders. Server owners are allowed to make a benefit for just maintenance basically (by using paywall-locked esthetic content, the kind of incentive content creators are expressly forbidden to use), but modders have to rely on donations only.

No modder expects or relies on donations to be honest. That would be foolish to begin with, it's not gonna happen. Sure payed mods is in itself a can of worms, that being said, so is server access and content exclusivity based on payment, but BI seems to acknowledge and actually encourage just half of the issue.

 

I will reiterate - the modding today is getting more complicated and more skill based than it used to be. At least for this franchise, the process for producing (from scratch) quality assets for instance is precisely the same (if not more advanced in some cases) as official developers are using to produce official content for the game to begin with.

The result in the long term is gonna be one - there will be less and less bespoke quality content being produced for free, because 
a. why would come from a job and spend his time and earned money on yet another job.
b. why would some produce and release content when just so some random BoB hosting a patato server can make a profit out of that content, despite the set rules in place - the alternative being to self-police and report / C&D/ DMCA , which takes a ton of that free time (i have been doing it for the past 5 years now)

 

20 hours ago, Private Evans said:

So what if BI would invest into a real high tech next gen plattform/engine only instead of making a complete new Arma game themselves and then having mutiple titles released based on that plattform by independent studios in cooperation with them....like Arma - Unsung...Arma - Cold War...Arma - Nassau1715....Arma - Red Hammer Modern Warfare ...Arma - Iron Front or even Arma - Gettysburg...( just examples)

That is how DCS is doing it to some degree.

[mondkalb 1087]

 

Heya @stburr91, perhaps I can provide some background information on this that explains it further.

GM is at heart a project that GalComT and I always wanted to make, just out of pure personal interest. This particular theme and topic always interested us, and the enitre Arma series is the perfect platform for a game in such setting. As you may remember, the first title in the game's series was in fact set in the Cold War ("Arma - Cold War Assault", released in 2001 as "Operation Flashpoint") and is what got us into this game series. The Arma engine in all its iterations is still in its core a game about vehicle vs. vehicle combat with infantry support on a grander scale, the defining scenario of military action during the Cold War in Europe.

Because the engine is so incredibly versatile - it served as the petri-dish for two major game trends in the past decade (Zombie Survival and Battle Royale) - we took it on as the base for our hobby project and set off to convert it into a setting that we were interested in the most. One thing led to another, in fact it heavily shaped both our professional careers, and we landed today in a position where we could partner with Bohemia. This meant pushing our dream project even farther than otherwise possible.

The decision to make a Cold War Arma 3 project was purely ours out of personal interest. Once presented to BI they agreed with the potential the project and we offered with it, and enabled us to get to where we are now.
 

Edited April 28, 2019 by FallujahMedic -FM-
Quotes deleted per user request

[lexx 1363]

 

Why? It has a new (huge) terrain including new buildings, it has a new set of vehicles of all types, it has new pistols, new rifles, new clothes. Everything is working with each other. There is nothing that stands alone except maybe the anti-air vehicles without air vehicles. Not sure what exactly would be necessary to make it "complete" for you.

Edited April 28, 2019 by FallujahMedic -FM-
Quotes deleted by user request

[FallujahMedic -FM- 867]

@stburr91 Like the others, I too am a bit confused about your post. To me at least, it appears as if you believe that it was BI's decision to create this setting and time frame. This is incorrect. This was wholly the creation of the GM team. I'll not repeat what's already been stated, but here's the link to its "origin story" https://arma3.com/news/report-in-vertexmacht-global-mobilization#.XMSHmuhKiUk
 

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At 22GB, that makes GM larger than any of BI's DLC's, so the "there isn't nearly enough content for it to truly stand on its own" carries no weight. Let's take a look at what it has shall we?

• 42 Vehicles & Vehicle Variants
• 21 Weapons
• Infantry Clothing & Gear
• 10-Mission Singleplayer Campaign
• 17 Multiplayer Scenarios

..and...

• Weferlingen Terrain,  "the largest Arma terrain released so far: 419 square kilometers of usable area." 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1042220/Arma_3_Creator_DLC_Global_Mobilization__Cold_War_Germany/

 

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Again, as described in the "Report In" segment, this was the creator's decision, not BI's. Having grown up during the cold war,  the significance of places such as the Fulda Gap is not lost on me. East and West Germany featured prominently in the works of Tom Clancy (Red Storm Rising), Harold Coyle (Team Yankee) and Ian Slater (WW III: World in Flames). The very survival of Europe depended on these strategic locations, so important in fact that the United States based nuclear missiles in Germany, leading to its own "cold war" with the German people. 

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Again, see above. When compared to a BI DLC, it is massive, and far from incomplete,  but I still think you are missing the point, this is the work of 2 people. 2 people who created this in their spare time. As far as "why BI would choose something like this for their first 3rd party DLC" I think that's down to the fact that it was the first one completed. As described in the CDLC FAQ, it is a long and arduous process to ensure compatibility, quality, etc. 

"it isn't really a DLC, it's a pay for play mod"

Finally, for many years, users have complained that server owners were able to monetise whilst mod makers were prohibited from doing so. The CDLC programme finally gives mod authors a chance to do so. That is part of what differentiates a CDLC from a mod. 

EXCERPTS FROM THE CDLC FAQ  https://arma3.com/dlc/creator

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Who can apply to make Arma 3 Creator DLC?
There are no set rules for who can sign up to become a Creator DLC developer, but we typically select those who have put together a strong pitch and prototype, and are able to demonstrate that they have the necessary expertise to successfully execute their idea within a reasonable amount of time. So far, most Creator DLC developers are people with professional experience in software development as well as a long-standing record of participating in the Arma modding community.

 

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Does Bohemia commission work on particular Creator DLC?
No, it's completely up to the third-party developer to pitch their idea for Creator DLC to us. We do aim to have a varied mix of content, which means it's unlikely for us to publish several Creator DLC packs with the same theme.

 

Edited April 28, 2019 by FallujahMedic -FM-
User had requested his quotes and posts be removed