Selling mods
Poll started by feillyne with 2,990 votes and 70 comments. Browse the poll archive.
(1186 votes)A very bad idea
(674 votes)Quality mod developers deserve money for what they do
(763 votes)No mods for money, developers should go game dev & commercial instead
(251 votes)If mod quality is to be improved because of it...
(116 votes)Doesn't matter if they are free or paid, would play them anyway
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I chose the third one, if modders are really that skillful, i think they should then make a game :)
(buried)
But not everyone has the funds needed to licence a game engine.
Not mentioning the need to find a publisher & the need to make MANY DVD's if selling the game by retail.
With the license agreements of Cryengine and UDK that argument is near void; the costs are so slight and the benefits so great anyone, with enough talent, could make a commercially viable game using those tools.
Not to mention very few indie games get put into retail stores; the great thing about digital distribution is that you don't require a publisher, you can sell through a middle-man [Steam], or directly to the consumer via your own website.
Agreed. I chose the third one. Mods should always be free, whereas indie games you have an option.
As well as I voted.
There are a lot of open source and freeware engines on the net, so this can't be a problem ever. The problem is to find the most suitable for the project.
A mod should be free. Indie games is another story.
I reckon that if they're really good at what they're doing and its a really good mod... they've done the work, they should be able to get something for it
I agree with this No.2 for me, if a developer puts a hell of a lot of time and effort and the turn out if awsome they deserve something more than just thanks and a pat on the back... real high quality mods take many months/years to make
Very bad judging fom past experience. When a mod gets a price sticker, it's thrown in to the same basket as all the standalone and big-company titles. Just look at Dino D-Day, had it been a free download that anyone could play, people would call it great, but since it must be bought, it's gained an immediate reputation as a below average quality game. Just look at the metacritic rating.
I played dino d day when it was free to play for a day. IT FAILED.
It is a very controversial question this one, good topic feillyne!
I kinda felt like agreeing to virtually all of the options. it's bad but if it helps then its good, but should they just make an indie game?
Mods however have always been free (with a few exceptions) and that is how I believe they should remain.
Yeah I grew up knowing mods were free and creating free mods. That's what it was about and the freedom behind it was great. Going indie you can take a lot of what you learned from both the industry and modding and have yourself a happy medium but in the end mods should stay free imho.
Why is it even controversial? If you dont like it, there are plenty of free ****** mods to download instead, which is what the normies do in the first place.
The checklist goes like this:
The game looks ugly
Google mods
First result
Download
Install
It works
Carry on
99% of people are just going to use the slapped together option and be totally unaware or disinterested in anything actually functioning as a technology demonstrator. Literally no one cares about what a famous cutting edge retro engine can do pushed to the limit. You are basically aiming at a niche of people who are a ultra minority in the first place.
And im pretty sure most people arent interested in downloading a 60 to literally 100GB texture mod for technology thats 20 years old just because its actually attempting (Successfully) to make it pass for a game more modern than it really deserves. After a certain point hosting something this insane should net the parties involved more than literally, good job. I mean ive made many free mods that will remain free even after I update them to final state mostly because I know no one will pay 1 cent for them, or they are a joint effort with another modder. But this shouldnt be a taboo if its actually good. The harm in trying to sell poorly made mods is, no one is ever going to do it again from that individual. So it has no legs and is doomed from the start if thats the scam.
Personally I think the culture should be more open to the concept but have curation standards that go a step above, is this content illegal on our platform or in such poor taste its best removed. But its not mine. The alternative left to humanities baser instincts is the neverending island of cats personality constellations where collaboration is often refused, mediocrity is elevated mostly by the checklist above pinging the search result, and people who actually pathologically care about quality are sort of sidelined to the point we develop an attitude where we will happily put our work on the market because we absolutely know the probability anyone else replicating it is effectively zero. And im at the point now I symbolically gave my last token of humanity trying to help another struggling modder aim for a loftier goal than free mods that kind of suck. After this point, im not seeking more instances of this. Deciding to be more selfish than I ordinarily would non strategically be by default, as a function of experience with other humans interacting with them in this domain over and over. With pretty much the same result repeatedly. Its because we have strong urges to compete with one another, but not everyone is interested in rising to the occasion and setting a new standard for themselves. And ideally for the rest of the community with the time, since anyone can learn how to do what we are doing.
The 40% result as of right now, is because most people voting are going to be normies who arent really interested in what quality looks like because it requires them to care about the technology itself which only a minority ever will without genetically engineering the species. Modders arent a economic niche allowed to succeed. What we deserve is nothing but praise. Which its distributed in a way that doesnt really make sense in the first place. So I decided to check out.
"I kinda felt like agreeing to virtually all of the options"
The offends no one approach I see. I dont have the psychological wiring to default toward this one. Being brutally honest, but fair is who I am to a pathological core. I think a lot of it too, is most modders know they cant sell their work because they are unwilling to take it to the level it cant be improved without Ghidra, source code, or SDK adventures. Lots of work. So its jealousy. All they can get for it is praise from the checklistee types. So of course they are going to vote for, giving the hard working people a happy meal is bad.
I have mixed feelings about this. If the mod is really that good i think yah sure they deserve to sell it, but if they are that good they will be able to make it into a indie game most of the time.
Mods are supposed to be free though as they are mods they arn't games written from scratch (most of time) and the majority arn't that high quality.
So far agree with everything... Paying for mods? Thats just down right wrong... On the other hand, total conversion mods with its own custom content, well why not just go commercial then if you put that much effort into it? makes sense, so go for it, with UDK, CE3, IDTECH4 and other SDK coming out geared towards independent devs, there arent really much room for excuses.
But mods, should always remain free, especially since modding support on any games influences the value of the game driving me to buy it. What would be the point to buy a game, and then buy the mod too? greedness is a killer -sigh-
I liked how you made it sound very easy to go indie. *Click click done*
I dont imply at all that it is easy to go indie, just simply put, if you want to charge for your content, go through the right channels which is indie.
Want money for mods, do what others do. Donations. They like, they give. Mods should be Free-to-play.
Mods should be free, indies should/can be payed. I think it's simple as this. Donations for mods are possible of course. :)
a very bad idea
I think if the mod is absolutely f'in amazing, like as big as a game and full of detail and stuff then i think the developers should atleast get some money out of making that...or people could just donate to them if they feel as though they should :)
Mods should not be sold. However, they should have some way for fans to donate money to the dev team.
Mods should only go retail if they are worth it.
Because somehow i think that the Mod Makers arent rewarded for anything.
All they get is a bunch of criticism.
And wheres the return for all the hard time ?
After some weeks nobody will even remember that.
I don't need money for Earth at war (My mod). I make mods for fun and not for profit
I second that I do make mods for fun not for money.
If the mod does it's own advertising, has a website, digital distro, etc, then I don't have a problem with it personally. But modding is a hobby and not a market, if P2P mods start being shelved on the developer forum next to free mods then I would probably stop going there and just play vanilla. I think #1 It is a very bad idea because some people like me will just play the game vanilla and then all mods both free and P2P will suffer, and some people see free mods and tools to be a big reason to buy the game in the first place (Fallout, TES, HL2, DAO, RPG Maker, GameMaker, etc) and it might not be a lot but the developer will lose sales at least a little bit. But if you aren't getting many sales in the first place then even a few sales might seem like a lot. If modders want to make money then they should just make their own game, there are a lot of tools on the net like other people have said. However if modders want to make money from their mod then they can accept donations like firefox addon developers do.
And please don't charge money for a retex job that anyone with photoshop can do and is only worth 10 cents.
Once you pay for it, its not a "Mod" anymore. Or is it? I don't know for a fact. Im not sure, i dont wanna pay for a mod tbh.
if they have license from the game creator,why not?
A very bad idea, but hey, thats just me.
Not many here have thought about the original developer. Mods are just that, modifications of a game already developed by a studio. Start charging for them and you're making money off of the game it is dependent on which i just don't think is right. Theres also the point that the consumer has already purchased the base game so the mod could be classed as (in my opinion) DLC but without full support as it sometimes has to catch-up when the base game gets an update.
Taking donations i believe is perfectly fine but if you want to make a mod pay2play then it should be made a stand-alone title to ensure value and support. That is why i choose option 3.
An excellent mod developer doesn't deserve money, he deserves a job oportunity with a paycheck, a team and people to sell games to...
donations would be a better idea..
I always thought people made mods for fun?
C
I would hope anyone who puts this much effort into something they love could also make some cash from it. The donations may be the way to go. I have donated to DanMan for Sacrifice of Angels and Star Wars Requiem. I will donate to Future Wars Tactical Simulator if they have it available.
When you have to take care of kids and then your "real job" and your "real life" it helps legitimize all the time you spend on it.
What about helping to pay for better graphics cards, etc... It just seems that if you really enjoy playing a mod and you got $10 bucks you can spare then it's the right thing to do.
It's a bad idea because mods are supposed to be free. If it were not free, the lowest buy I could accept from a minor indie game is $5.
I'm just saying but wouldn't Garry's Mod be considered a mod since it relies on Half Life 2? And everyone buys that!
More of a mod that's evolved into its own game?
I wouldn't recommend many other mods try that though, because it's a risk... G'sM did well.
yeah and the next step would be pay-to-bugfix.
Well, if the MOD was of very good quality then sure, I wouldnt mind paying something for it!
totally bad idea; if theres money to be made then there will be a lot of nonserious people involved, and it will all end up in 2 or 3 huge companies buying up and then reselling them, killing off the whole purpose of Open Source and modding; and how do you plan on disabling anyone from messing around with the mod per se? And by doing just that, wouldnt that mean you killed off the whole purpose of modding TWICE ?
I for one do not ever want a world that youll have to visit micro$oft.com or go0gle.com just to check out new game mods,,,
I've never seen an engine that will let you sell a mod without buying an engine license, and if you buy a license you're by definition making a game, not a mod.
So how exactly are #2 and #3 different?
Starcraft 2... eventually.
Well in my honest opinion, i think it's a bad idea, but i still support the developers for what they do by donating, if possible.
It's a bad idea to sell a mod anyway, I think the owner of the original game could come after you for damages depending on your country.
They should go stand alone in my opinion. Mods =! DLC.
If the mod concept can be turned into a game I'm okay with that. Like gmod..
It's bad to sell mods and i would then pirate them + upload them.