Future DLC?

lokiCML · January 4, 2014

MushrooMars said: ↑

The issue there is that once you have to pay for mods, the already fractious nature of a moddable game becomes exacerbated into canyons as opposed to leaps and bounds....
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There are ways you can deal with the fractious nature. I understand it's a contentious issue having paid mods but is neither all in or not. Majority of the mods would be free as in beer or free as in liberty. I'm thinking a super majority of them would be free and a tiny minority would be purchasable. Here's some quotes from neutrino and garat:

neutrino said: ↑

I might as well use this post to get some more thoughts out on how we are going to handle this. Keep in mind we haven't made any official detailed announcements of how this stuff will work.

zoughtbaj said:

While I like the idea, it scares me. Actually, it really scares me, because it might as well be uncharted waters, and that means that there will be unexpected consequences with whatever happens. Murphy's law and all that. I'll post my concerns in numerical format:
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First off this isn't really an uncharted area. We are definitely taking our cues from Valve here.

1. Players unexperienced with the modding community and mods in general (which will be a lot, if you take the generalization that 1% of players go on the forum as relatively true) will see a payed modding market, and not be able to differentiate between the good paid mods, the bad paid mods, and the moneymaker paid mods. This has many ramifications. Mostly speculation of course, but then again, so are the positive benefits of such a system. My speculation is that players might be off-put enough by a bad mod that they paid for that they will lose credibility with Uber, which is something that I don't want to see. It also may simply discourage them from participating from the mod community itself, which doesn't happen as much if mods are simply free.
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This assumes that the Labs and the mods for sale are intermixed.

The way it really works is that any mods which are for "sale" are curated and selected by us. Anyone can apply but there are going to be a lot of restrictions on selling mods and only quality ones will be selected. Everything else will remain free. We will be choosing the pricing of the things in the program.

2. Another scenario is that enough people will make poor or simple mods to take advantage of the chance to make some off hand cash that these mods flood the community, making it that much harder to find good mods, leading to the scenario above, actually. This can be somewhat fixed with a rating system, though. Still, who's to know if anyone pays attention to the rating system if they are inexperienced.
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Again, this is curated. Nobody can sell mods without our approval.

3. People download free mods, take their code, and create another mod based on the free one, monetizing it. Players may take the monetized mod as the better one and buy it to support that person, when really it was the the person who developed the free mod that deserves the money and the credit. And it would be impossible to get that money to the person who created the free mod, unless you do something like sue the monetizer. It's far fetched, but certainly not impossible. It would also be alleviated by a rating system, but at the same time, if these mods are both created at about the same time, who's to say that the free version would get voted up more? This could be much more possible to happen as well if paid and free mods are divided into different categories, as players looking in the paid section wouldn't know to look for the free one.
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The person who created the original mod automatically has copyright to that. If they don't choose to license their code we certainly won't distribute it.

This is all me speculating and coming up with things off the top of my head, but I see potential for abuse and turning away people from the modding community. I'm all for it happening, I simply fear the unkown and what it may bring. You can bet though that people will try to abuse the system and succeed.
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As usual falls into my "everyone imagines the worst possible implementation of a feature".

Instead of trying to come up with negative ideas surrounding the idea how about helping us come up with ideas to solve these perceived issues?
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neutrino said: ↑

Pawz said:

ht be something like BlackOps where Uber picks up the mod, and works with the mod team to make a new custom commander to fit. The free mod gets a professional level of polish, and the mod+acu package could be sold as a DLC in the Uber store, separate from the Uber Labs entirely.
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What you describe here is fairly accurate in terms of what we are envisioning. You are totally correct in that most mods will not make the cut for sale. That's ok, we want lots of diversity. When we select something it basically ends up being DLC in the store as you've said. The labs is the place to grow/experiement/show. Think about how the steam workshop works vs how content gets put into games.
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neutrino said: ↑

sylvesterink said:

Well, my apprehensiveness on the subject comes from the potential monetization of certain essential mods. Mods like the Gaz-UI became a community standard in FA, but suppose the creator had decided to monetize it? There goes a fundamental mod that wouldn't gain the support it should because it isn't free.

Don't get me wrong. There are mods that I don't think I would object to being monetized, but those would tend to be full conversions and the like. Garry's Mod, DayZ, and DotA are examples of mods that I wouldn't object to being monetized, although in DayZ and DotA's cases, I'm not sure they would have caught on so quickly had they not been free. And really, a lot of TA's longevity depended on free total conversions and balance mods, such as Uberhack.

In any case, I can safely say that any mod that I make for PA will be 100% free and as open source as I can make it.
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Just so you realize I don't have any objection to people giving their stuff away. I expect most mods will continue to be free.

On the flip side I think you are ignoring the fact that by charging for these mods some of them will be able to get a lot more love and attention from their creators. I would hope that a popular one would generate enough income to allow some of you to transition to working on this stuff full time.
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neutrino said: ↑

Ultimately this is going to be up to the people making the mods. Do you want your mod added into the core game and sold as extra content? That's up to you. If nobody supports the program then it won't happen.

I for one welcome the idea that we finally have a way to compensate all of the time that people have put into this over the years.

I don't really understand the attitude that commercialization somehow cheapens the mod community. If you want to argue that feel free but we are going to continue executing on our plans.
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garat said: ↑

I haven't been able to read through the whole thread yet, but also: don't conflate having a pay marketplace available with the only way to get mods. Why shouldn't people who make pro level mods have a viable way to sell their mods if the market think's they're worth it? I agree that having a robust modding community support for both is important, but not supporting a viable ecosystem for paid content is short sighted, honestly. Relying on donations and alternative methods of supporting the best modders out there is as good as saying they're not worth paying for. Because the vast vast majority of users will never pay for it. They'll just download, and never think about it again. I don't mean that as insult, it is simply human nature and very well understood behavior patterns. It's just what happens.
....
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and one other quote:

Pawz said: ↑

What we know so far:
1. Professional level quality required
2. Application Process / Uber review for inclusion as paid mod
3. Mod would need to be 'feature complete'
4. All mod content must be correctly licensed and attributed
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I highly recommend you (or anybody) read through the entire thread:
Monetizing mods

All this is still up in the air will have to wait and see.

Edit: I do have some reservations on how it would affect a gift culture.
Edit2: added (or anybody)
Edit3: remove duplicate of a quote
Edit4: made it more understandable

KNight · January 4, 2014

lokiCML said: ↑

I have read the entire thread.
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I apologize, meant to mean that anyone interested in the topic should be sure to read that thread in its entirety, not that you should specifically.

Mike

lokiCML · January 4, 2014

it's all right, misunderstanding but really if people are interested you should really read it because it's an interesting topic for how divisive it is.

DeadStretch · January 4, 2014

MrTBSC said: ↑

the modders mostly show what else is possible and can be fun within the engine
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And that is what spawned a whole new genre. MOBAs

MrTBSC · January 4, 2014

DeadStretch said: ↑

MrTBSC said: ↑

the modders mostly show what else is possible and can be fun within the engine
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And that is what spawned a whole new genre. MOBAs
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Just for clarification if it happens that modders were able to pull of something similar to dota or warships i personaly would have no problems with it if they were to monetise on it when it is a qualitygame

Future DLC?

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