What if: Professional Studios Created Content for PA

Can't see it being much of an issue. After all, source, unity and unreal engine gets licensed all the time.

This thread is not about licensing the engine rather it is about growing a professional modding scene around PA. Uber does not have the resources to do such as stated in a different Post in another thread by dev.

What mods exactly would a professional studio bother to make, though? They'd all be total conversions, and basically Uber'd be better off licensing the engine, as stated previously.

pretty simple in order to get a proffesional moddingscene the engine needs to be as accessible as neccesary
and its awareness to be raised ...


@theseeker2
everything possible with it ...
imagine freelancer coupled with battlezone 2 with planetside 2 for instance ... if possible ...

LOL, I am lord sparckle bottoms and I twist people into mod lovers/supporters!!! hahaha!!

Monetizing a hobby typically doesn't turn out well.

The minecraft modding community is pretty much half monetized already because of ad links to download. It causes a lot of friction between both the users and the modders. There's a sense of entitlement where the modders think they are owed for their time, and the community thinks they own the modders because they paid for the content.

I don't recommend it at all.

Licensing the engine to studios though. Completely fine.
But otherwise my opinion is that Uber needs to come and basically take ownership of anything that's done with their engine, and completely squash users attempting to make money off it. (Granted I don't have a problem with LPs and ads, however hypocritical that may be...)

I think what you are really wanting is to just bring in talent. You can't force that. It happens naturally by having both a good game and easy to access assets.

Paid for mods was a thing we've been pretty hopeful for.

Free mods, donation ware, full paid mods...

When someone spends months at a time to work on entire overhauls it's worth money in my honest opinion.

Situation here would be completely different from minecraft's one. For one thing the paid for mods would be completely at the discretion of Uber. Professional modders would be a minority of modders and a super majority would be hobbyists.

If a modder wants to do it as a full-time affair and it is no longer a hobby. If you want to see Planetary Annihilation developed and support continued for the next 40 years or more Uber needs additional revenue stream to do it. It is up to the modders to decide if they want to do it professionally and Uber to support that endeavor. I support it because I want to see PA be supported and developed for the next 40 years plus.

Edit: @keshirechaotic, think Apple's App Store not the mess of minecraft's modding saeen.

Uber cannot allow donation ware it would make a poor user experience. Which is why blizzard disallowed this in WoW and as a consequence full-time modders either stopped supporting their content or only worked on for a few hours a week. So yeah. Here is an article talking about what occurred.

Why would it make a poor user experience? Ad-fly is used to host mods for Minecraft all the time.

Imagine your Joe player and somebody directs you to PAMM. Then you download a mod; you launch the game and a advertisement pops up or a message soliciting donations. You do not understand why somebody would do this. You do not understand the amount of time and effort that goes into creating a mod. So you are upset; you believe its cripple–ware, nag–ware, and spam–ware. All you wanted was a quality gaming experience. So you leave disappointed and discouraged potential customers form purchasing the game. As a business Uber as a responsibility to insure this scenario does not occur. Uber Entertainment has stated that this is not acceptable behaviour. Some relevant quotes from the previously mentioned article:

I understand how much time and effort that goes into creating or maintaining a mod. Which is why I'm advocating the mod marketplace. It is the only appropriate place for this kind of activity in game. Again the average player cannot empathize with modders because they do not understand. Uber's responsibility is to insurer a positive gaming experience.

Bad experiences (e.g. minecraft) makes it really difficult to advocate the concept of modding as a profession. So please do not place ads or asked for donations in a mod. Otherwise you have to deal with visceral and anger because of previous negative experiences when the concept of monetizing mods come up. For example this thread.

Who said the adverts would be in game? You're misunderstanding donationware

It means you donate what you want to get the mod or program or whatever. Sometimes it starts at free, other times there is a lower limit.

Edit: Even onto the topic of having adverts. People being angry about modders wanting money for their hard work are just over entitled.

I highly suggest you read this interesting article. It explains why there is this disconnect between players and modders. You're not helping anybody by saying there over entitled. The issue here is players purchase the game and as a consequence believe that they have a right to the content. The modders do have a right to ask for donations outside the game. This is a conflict of values.

Which I do not understand, players who purchase a game aren't entitled to the game's expansion packs of a game despite buying the base game? Players who feel as you describe are only behind in a changing world, a changing industry I should say. There is no real differentiation between an expansion created by the developers and one created by dedicated fans, other than the fact one is created by well... the original devs. Players aren't- or at least shouldn't be entitled to mods because of one sole reason- this content being sold was made completely by the mod developers and has no correlation to the game other than utilizing it's base. The way it feels is like someone feeling entitled to every game created with say... The Unreal engine because they own the Unreal engine.

Copyright issues would be managed through 'a mod marketplace agreement' were the copyright holder maintains all right to it. But they could never remove the mod from somebody after they purchased it.

TL;DR: a contract aka an agreement.

But I took that into account and Uber already stated that they don't want to because software patent concerns. Basically Uber would require a group to specifically look for and then notify the other group to do with a problem. So as far as I know they already took that off the table. I just do not remember which thread the post it is. Also cited other reasons. The studio could want to do a crossover without licensing the engine. Also a professional studio in this case can be one guy. Darwinia anyone. Maybe 2 to 5 years depending on the development of Prison Architect. (Awesome game PA is.)

You never know if you do not try. Also above and throughout this thread.

True, the only way I can see this mindset changing is by having some kind of major catalysts to counter peoples beliefs. Companies like Valve coming into play and many other smaller studios that have a similar mindset. You know the once our community and user generated content focused. Stay in the box they say but progress can only occur when you challenge the status quo.

The modus operandi of many major publishers when it comes to user generated content. It is not the creator's; it is the publisher's content. This is why you read the end-user license agreement.

I figure if Uber can't be assed to put out some decent documentation on the API that they are exposing to us on the dedi server and such then I can't be assed to do any sort of conversion mod.

Simple as that ~_~.

On the issue of ownership Uber says the creators have the full rights in the mod. Each sale Uber would receive a percentage of the sale and Uber would have the final say on what mod are being sold.
Uber would like to have a mod marketplace for reasons. Some are:

For more information go here and here.

This would be beneficial to all parties involved.

Not my idea but something I love to see.

Its entirely self explanatory, you shouldn't even need any documentation? It's so simple to understand?

First time I've ever done any sort of work without using a program to do it for me (actually using javascript) and it was so simple.

Yes needed for a professional seen to grow.