Monetizing mods

I think these are some good concerns that the community should have, the response to these in part is curation of paid content to some extent. I.E. free content within some limited bounds (not offensive, illegal, etc.) can be posted, but paid content has to be looked at by someone and approved with regard to some standard (be it quality, novelty (is it actually new) or something). Look at the app stores, I see this to a limited extent to be similar problems they're going to have.

Another problem to be considered that app stores have is good content not getting lost amongst the fluff. Uber picks, Fan Picks, Popular, featured modders (modders with reputations), New Releases, and so on can help with this

The other thing that is a concern is licensing issues, and my response is simple, be explicit about it. Have some semi-standard licenses you can use, either existing ones, or some set up by uber. Along the lines of public, public with acknowledgement, public with permission, not for reuse, etc. Then have a way for people to report violations.

Though I would never use it (too much of an ego), my favorite license is beerware.

A more accurate example would be if Hospitals payed for donations of blood types that are in demand either because they're rare or out of stock.

Uber isn't trying to Monetize all mods, just a portion, probably a very small portion.

Mike

Rereading my posts I may have been a bit harsh, I will admit it is possible for Uber to support premium content while being careful not to discourage normal content mods.

Is the average team of guys working on a mod going to look at what is required of premium content and think "wow let's do that instead"? Keeping with the greenlight example their community has a say in what gets support.

Lol yes and then those individuals would never donate blood for free x)

Same logic error as above. Just about anyone can give blood (even if they get paid less than others). Not everyone can just show up on the PA mod store and make money selling mods. Those that can't will do it for fun, and some that can will still do it free, for fun.

Depends on the team, I think a lot of people would like to monetize for any variety of reasons, but wanting is not he same as getting it done. How Mods get to be monetized is an important step in this process for sure, and depending how it's done will effect motivations to some degree.

For example, if the Shop is Invite only from Uber things will be quite different than a greenlight style environment, of course, as long as Uber remains in control of the system it'll always technically be 'invite only' but still.

Lol yes and then those individuals would never donate blood for free x)[/quote]
Depends on the person, people might continue to donate on a regular schedule regardless of being payed or not, some might wait until they're getting payed sure, but at least it's done to the benefit of the Hospital so long as the amount payed is properly selected.

Actually I just thought of something, I doubt many of you are really involved in the LEGO community, but over the last couple of years LEGO has been working on CUUSOO, which aims to allow fans to submit creations that, with support from fans, will be Submitted to LEGO with the end goal of it being made into an official Set and receiving a small cut of the profits. It is currently in Beta. LEGO has had several bumps long the way(such as dealing with licensed themes, target audience and more), if you want to know more you can check out the Official Blog, they have been surprisingly open in regards to why they have rejected projects and what changes they have made along the way and why.

In many ways it's extremely similar to what Uber plans on a core level, we know next to nothing about the actual system Uber plans to put in place yet so it's impossible to say how valuable of a comparison CUUSOO is yet.

Frankly, we have to remember that if we think there's an issue, chances are Uber is already well aware and either considers it to not be an issue, or they have a plan to deal with it. I will admit that no plan or proposal is fool proof, and Uber tends to wait until they are confident enough to share details, so once they do we can really dive into the nitty gritty details.

Mike

Right, but the question should be: will there be more desirable content as a result or less?

You first have to define what kind of content you want and then how your approach will maximize it. I'm only posing a problem here and not a solution and that isn't lost on me. If I knew what Uber should do I would say so.

Whoops, I missed some posts before my last one. Arguably it would result in more high-end content for PA. Theoretically this will pull talented modders away from other games where they don't get paid, and give them extra incentive to mod PA instead. Will it work? Impossible to predict, but on paper it should.

The other question is, if I'm not a top-tier modder, am I going to spend less time making mods because I'm working only for fun while I see others getting paid? I fully expect this to be the case for me, and nope, I won't spend any less time on it. Maybe others feel differently?

Ideally, the result is better content. But honestly it can vary person to person. I look back at my work in BlackOps and frankly, I don't think I'd have done anything really different, the core idea being BlackOps was to improve Factional Diversity and help fill in the gaps in terms of unit selection. It's at the point where it;s essentially the size of an Expansion Pack, and that's not counting things like Special Weapons and Advanced Command Unit Add-on Mods either.

I just don't think you can "create content with the Intent to Monetize" like you see it, or rather that with a robust selection/application process you already filter out a lot of the chaff, and with proper feedback tools for users within the store system you have fallback as well. So long as Uber stays on top of the goings on they can keep the system up to date as well, just like LEGO did with CUUSOO.

I will agree there will be people whose aim is to take advantage of the system, but if the core requirement is good quality content, how do you see them being able to take advantage of the system?

Mike

Yes again though, this isn't exactly analogous. It is giving enthusiasts a means to produce content based on what the community likes. If the community is involved and actively says "yes support these guys, Uber," "I like this Uber, help them make more of it" I'm really not in a position to disagree. The manner is which the StarCraft II marketplace was bandied around though is really unhealthy for a community.

Knight, you are understandably biased as am I but I am trying to see things from both perspectives. Involving the community in premium content decisions, I think, is integral.

Edit: Oh I think I got a post behind.

at the risk of jumping in at the end... perhaps a change in strategy?

what if you could subscribe to uber labs? -- i.e. paid a fixed subscription of $30 a year to be a part of the community, and based on popularity mod designers got a cut of the subscription?

$10 goes to Uber, remaining $20 gets divided up based on downloads / ratings etc. To reduce admin only pay out when a mod totals $100? (like google ads). Calculated monthly.

figures a arbitrary - but you get the idea.

...If you don't want to join the community its your choice? perhaps a badge / medal on your profile for those that support modders and the community.

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.

First off this isn't really an uncharted area. We are definitely taking our cues from Valve here.

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.

Again, this is curated. Nobody can sell mods without our approval.

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.

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?

Everyone is Biased, even those that keep a super open mind are technicality biased against bias itself! ;p At least I make the point that we can't really make any statements yet because we just don't know enough! xD

I don't think this would work, and the higher upfront cost is more likely to turn people away, especially with an unproven system. Any monetization needs a low barrier to entry, because the first purchase is always the 'hardest'. Also the value derived some thing like is depending on the entirety of the content available instead of focusing on each individual mod.

So say there are 10 'Mods' in the Shop, I like to play Survival Rush type Mods, and lucky me, there are 5 of those available, but you, who only wants to play Tower Defense types are disappointed because there is only 2 such maps, we both have to pay the same, but I get more value out of it.

Mike

After reading neutrino's post it seems like uber has a good grasp on the issues at play here. I'm satisfied leaving things to their discretion.

Youtube and Valve are great examples of user-driven content that is also monetized.

Those are answers I like hearing. I didn't want to come off as worst case, and I apologize for that. That Uber will be ok'ing the mods pretty much puts most of my worries to rest, and I didn't know that copyright would be in place, thanks for fleshing that out.

My experience is limited, but there's a site called nexus mods that hosted skyrim mods that seemed to have a good model. It had a player ranking system called "endorsements" that was basically a 'like' system, as well as displaying total downloads, total unique downloads, and total page views. It seems to work there, as the mods that I've downloaded have been based on that, and were well made.

Unfortunately, this system doesn't really encourage new mods, but that could simply be addressed with a 'new mods' page. Actually, Itunes' model might be nice here, where game devs have 'staff picks' and 'new and noteworthy' mods. This might foster new talent

I wonder what Uber's quality threshold will be when it comes to approving mods for paid status. I think *good* total conversions mods will probably be farther down the line at the time of release, and further I'd think it'd probably take alot of play-testing and community involvement to really push these types of mods to evolve into balanced packages worth paying for. I know skins will probably make for popular mods, I hope Uber can resist the temptation of nickle and diming us for such things (there are many a publisher and dev team that can't).

I'm curious as to how Uber will handle playlists/servers for mods and vanilla PA. Obviously I don't think that any in-game content mods that affect balance should be played online with vanilla users, so mod-users would probably have to be put into games with other people running the same mods. Monetary value then becomes a concern if there are not enough people playing a specific mod, or it doesn't get the support it needs from it's creators. I also hope that content creators are given the same tools and distribution whether or not they are "partners" with Uber. It's entirely possible that a free total conversion mod could come along and simply be better and far more popular than all the paid ones.

For now, I'm wary of the idea (as are most of us here judging from the poll), modding is something that has never needed monetization to flourish, as TA demonstrated.

I imagine that the modders get to set their prices, not Uber.

First, unpopular would make sense to be free.

Second, with a modloader, anyone hosting a game would stream the mod's values to the clients, wouldn't they? Wouldn't most mods work for everyone in the game from the one person who bought and downloaded the mod and made a server with it?

Still, from there, it would get screwy, with nobody being able to protect mods from being passed around anyway, and mods being purchased chunkily. I doubt it would end well, but theoretically, that means it won't matter one way or another. The outcome will be the same

Top of the page.

Sorry to double-post, but these are insightful insights. Also apologize for my redundance.

Anyway, if Uber quality-controlled for those who wish to sell their mods, based on the mod already having made popularity in a free/partial/beta version of the mod, the mod being liscensed by that person to make legality more hardline, and the mod being negotiated in price and usage... Then I forsee this being quite possible.

One thing I just suggested, is that the mod needs to be in a stage of implementation that is considered complete (even if it can be updated and added to, it needs to do it's job upon landing), and has to have modest popularity in the labs prior to being considered for the shop. I mean, if minecraft mods like Buildcraft and Industrialcraft and RedPower were the quality-control set for the mod-shop, then it would be worth making the shop for it. I am just saying, in Planetary Annihilation, the mods would have to be that renown and that complete to be considered good canidates for sale.

Could it really be that simple? I know the devs are alluding to people being able to make a living off of their modding passion, and I kinda doubt that'd be possible if the majority of people playing their mods are simply streaming it for free. I've just been assuming people would have to pay individually to gain access to paid mods.