Subscribed Members Thread

Hey!
This idea came to me when Henley mentioned charging people for the features that ModDB hosts for us. No im not about to saw we should all be charged but..

A system where a person could pay a small amount $10? And in return get some 'special' features such as a larger avatar, a special 'Supporting Member' under their name, a link to and mods/games that person is working on listed on the side under their avatar, a link to a website (i.e portfolio, mod webpage) under the forum tags. The person would unlock these features for a year nad would have the option of paying again at the end of the year, (yes most of my ideas came from what Game-Artist uses, but theres does work).

Another very similar option on mod/game profiles which would allow for larger file uploads, a more complex kind of wiki (modiki W00T) which can be setup as a devloper only sections, and generally more control for teams of devlopers to interact with their mod profile (new catogries, developer blogs ect.). Thep person would pay a one-of-fee for their mod profiles.

This system would not 'alienate' people who wouldnt pay but adds perks for the people that are willing too,
Excuse me if this topic has been discussed,

Thanks!

It's been discussed extensively amongst the staff with various suggestions put forwards, but we've always come down to the same problem in that we would end up creating a two-tier system within Mod DB where some users have extra stuff under their name and others are somehow excluded. The best we've come up with is like you suggested having a 'host service' for mods, where the Mod DB profile remains exactly the same but we enable a separate 'detailed profile', integrated with Mod DB and sharing information, but capable of being customised, have custom content added, bigger videos and files, ability to add an external URL and so on.

However, we reckon there isn't the demand to justify the (not inconsiderable) amount of work we need to implement this kind of service, and we keep adding all the features to our regular profiles anyway. Mods are free, we want to keep Mod DB as free as we can and having a two-tier paid service is a slippery slope to ending up like other large gaming websites, asking for you to subscribe to high-speed downloads, the daily newsletter, the in-game chat service and lord knows what else.

The easiest thing I can think of is allowing Indie developers to sell their games over their Profiles. We create a two tier system, FREE games and COMMERCIAL games. ModDB in that situation is just facilitate the sale of these products similar to how Steam works (except this doesn't use a buggy client). There is definately a potential there to allow people to sell their products over ModDB without it presenting any burden on the existing system. The only problem I see is that these games would have to go under STRICT play testing before ModDB agrees to publish them commercially (because we don't want a KOTF where copyrighted material is being sold via the website). Gamers would also be able to manage their purchased games (but also mods) in a similar way they manage their updates from Mod Profiles.

ModDB could either charge yearly fees for the service or charge a small transaction fee during purchases. I think its reasonable but no doubt presents some legality issues. However ModDB could be a pre-requisite to getting your game on Impulse or Steam.

Though I know ModDB hasn't had a good run with using a Digital Distribution system before.

All ModDB can do is encourage gamers to buy more indie games. Also the IP Rights have to remain in the hands of the developer. This is a problem a lot of people have with other DD systems (Because once the Publisher gets their hands on it, the developer is stuck in a contract).

Just putting an idea out there . If Steam or Impulse does it better let me know as I'm interested in Distribution. I think this system really worked for Apple's new AppStore over Itunes so it could be a great opportunity.

Edited by: formerlyknownasMrCP

DD opens a whole new line of problems, including DRM, payments handling, verification, us paying the developers, and all in all we just can't do that kind of thing at the moment when existing services like Steam and Impulse do the job so well. It's outside our goals at the moment to start distributing stuff any further than straight downloads, but it is something we've considered and decided to be too much hassle for too little gain.

We did look at providing some form of automation backend for the nice people who do run Steam and Impulse though, so Mod DB may (big may, depending on how our development roadmap plans out) end up working with those groups to bring content to players.

I'm working on a few "behind-the-scenes" type projects, but the next few things that I do on ModDB will be great features though more commerical in nature. We have reached a point where server + other costs is greater advertising revenue... so for this site to continue growing I will be looking more to ideas like this which help us and our community.

Im still demanding to know your paypal details!
Let the staff chip in