Mods and Money!?

[Pfiffy]

5 hours ago, 27X said:

 

Pfiffy has doesn't a fucking thing. He's literally slapped some script and apps together he didn't even make, and is some cases has shit on his drive he didn't even ask permission for until after he converted them.

I'm not using anything that has not been offered for free and I always make sure that the involved ppl get the credits they deserve.

AND: All the mods I have posted for SE have been ported privatly before. Not only by me but also by a lot of other pll. I always point out that I'm 'famus' not for porting, but for uploading ports with the permission of the authors.  

 

Porting is patchwork in some cases, especially if the original authors don't have SE running. Without the comunity CF for SE wouldn't be up by now...I was just the one who had the courage to make it availible for those who can't do ports themself. 

 

[KoolHndLuke]

10 minutes ago, Pfiffy said:

I'm not using anything that has not been offered for free and I always make sure that the involved ppl get the credits they deserve.

AND: All the mods I have posted for SE have been ported privatly before. Not only by me but also by a lot of other pll. I always point out that I'm 'famus' not for porting, but for uploading ports with the permission of the authors.  

 

Porting is patchwork in some cases, especially if the original authors don't have SE running. Without the comunity CF for SE wouldn't be up by now...I was just the one who had the courage to make it availible for those who can't do ports themself. 

I'm really not sure why the attitude from some people towards other's that do this kind of thing- porting mods I mean. It's work, even if it's not creating original assets. Fucking elitists think that if your not scripting, making your own models and textures, animations etc that it's not deserving of much or any credit. The fact is that it can be a real time consuming pain in the ass to go and try to fix a bunch of shit from the "original" creator some times.

[Pfiffy]

2 minutes ago, KoolHndLuke said:

I'm really not sure why the attitude from some people towards other's that do this kind of thing- porting mods I mean. It's work, even if it's not creating original assets. Fucking elitists think that if your not scripting, making your own models and textures, animations etc that it's not deserving of much or any credit. The fact is that it can be a real time consuming pain in the ass to go and try to fix a bunch of shit from the "original" creator some times.

It'S more time consumoing to tell ppl to get it running in SE with  basic not ready to go... (Nio/RM)

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Pfiffy said:

I'm not using anything that has not been offered for free and I always make sure that the involved ppl get the credits they deserve.

AND: All the mods I have posted for SE have been ported privatly before. Not only by me but also by a lot of other pll. I always point out that I'm 'famus' not for porting, but for uploading ports with the permission of the authors.  

 

Porting is patchwork in some cases, especially if the original authors don't have SE running. Without the comunity CF for SE wouldn't be up by now...I was just the one who had the courage to make it availible for those who can't do ports themself. 

 

You work in greatly appreciated Pfiffy, that tool just feels like a big man on the internet, trying hard to make people think he is intelligent with a couple fan boys nipping at his heels liking everything he says and does ? I swear it has to be a CNN reporter in disguise taking everything everyone says and does and turning it into something it was not even close too..I am actually surprised its not Trumps fault that people except donations for their mods 

[Guest]

6 hours ago, KoolHndLuke said:

I'm really not sure why the attitude from some people towards other's that do this kind of thing- porting mods I mean. It's work, even if it's not creating original assets. Fucking elitists think that if your not scripting, making your own models and textures, animations etc that it's not deserving of much or any credit. The fact is that it can be a real time consuming pain in the ass to go and try to fix a bunch of shit from the "original" creator some times.

Some people just "grandstand" to make themselves look more important or smarter than they are, I see him on forums and mods now and them, ALWAYS negative, or explaining how everyone else has it wrong except him..it boils down to the fact that if someone puts time into something, it could be considered work, I mean really if someone is working at Mcdonalds make burgers why do they get paid? They are not making an original burger are they? That's the type of thinking this guy has.

[Guest]

9 hours ago, Kamen Rider Kuuga said:

I would only ever give money to somebody if they were making something wholly unique, not fan content or using characters/games/assets/whatever they do not own outright, much less have a license to.

 

Mods fall under fan content.

And that is your opinion and respected, I do agree that most mods is fan content, doesn't take away from the hours people put into it, and people wanting to donate for their work thou

Then you have mods like USLEEP and other mods that "fix" the games, those are not fan content, nor is it original work..

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, ThisTimeIBeAGoodGirlSir said:

Good luck with paid mods, sooner or later you will find your mod on reddit/modpiracy, xxx.piracy.blogspot or other shitty site, besides, people will always choose a free alternative than a paid one, who will buy your armor (except friends, and some random people) there are thousands of free armor on the net

Your right people will always pirate things and want them for free, It is funny to me thou how people frown on pirating the Skyrim game itself, which Bethesda made millions/billions  on a broken game, yet are all for pirating peoples mods.

 In the end this post was really supposed to be about people "donating" to modders or lovers lab, but the whole thing has been taken way out of context, sadly people read one line and run with it without reading the whole thing..

[Guest]

So let me get this straight......If you play a particular game, and there is no mod for it, in this case SSE, and someone decides to take a mod that works for a different game such as SLE,  and take that mod and alter it and make adjustments so that it now properly functions in SSE so players can enjoy it there too, that modder didn't do any work for the community who enjoys it?

 

Sorry if I seem confused about that above concept.......I'm just struggling to understand how that works.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, bishlapped said:

So let me get this straight......If you play a particular game, and there is no mod for it, in this case SSE, and someone decides to take a mod that works for a different game such as SLE,  and take that mod and alter it and make adjustments so that it now properly functions in SSE so players can enjoy it there too, that modder didn't do any work for the community who enjoys it?

 

Sorry if I seem confused about that above concept.......I'm just struggling to understand how that works.

Yea ..its a head scratcher huh? ?

[Halstrom]

1 hour ago, ThisTimeIBeAGoodGirlSir said:

Good luck with paid mods, sooner or later you will find your mod on reddit/modpiracy, xxx.piracy.blogspot or other shitty site, besides, people will always choose a free alternative than a paid one, who will buy your armor (except friends, and some random people) there are thousands of free armor on the net

Oh well crap happens, if only half the people buy it or donate, that's still better than none. And a lot of users don't use those sites anyway, some of us like less Malware than others.

Leonardo Da Vinci probably didn't realise how many people would copy his pictures and redistribute them either.
The only safe way is to not make mods or not share them.

[winny257]

I find it reprehensible to sell mods, for the simple reason because all rights are with the game developer.
Without the game and the tools, there would be no mods!
and there would still be the question, do modders pay for the resources they use from other modders?
I do not think, it's for they naturally to use everything freely.
and what about income taxes, In my country you have to for extra money (earnings) pay taxes!  

 

edit: and one on the edge, I paid a lot for Game + DLCs.
then I will not be stupid enough, to pay for additional content (mods), what I do not have, thereon I can do without! 

Furthermore, there is no mod left for me, who brings me back to Skyrim, for me since December 2014 dead. 

[Reginald_001]

I have been developing mods since 1997 and have regularly released mods. I was particularly active in the Doom 3 modding community and I have released some major mods and total conversions for the D3 engine (e.g. a completely new game with all assets replaced by custom assets, new coding work etc..etc..).

 

In that 25 years of modding I have worked with many modders and modding teams.

And each and every one of those modding teams fell apart upon the possibility of two things:

 

- Great success (One of my teams fell apart in a giant orgy of discussion after the Raven Software team (e.g. Brian Raffel, creator of Hexen) sent us a personal email complimenting us on our work, granting us carte blance to re-make Hexen and even wanting to publish it should it be good enough... which is where everything fell apart)

 

- Financial gain (Most modders become very agitated if they feel they are not making enough money)

 

Please do not misunderstand what I am about to say:

Modding is NOT professional game development. And because it's not professional, it's amateur work.

This is a definition thing, facts.

I'm not saying mod work is 'bad/amateur' work. I'm saying that by definition mod work is not professionally created.

 

So what happens in reality.. and I speak from painful personal experiences here!

 

- Mod consumers demand higher quality, support and feel ownership of a mod they paid for, often even DEMANDING personal support in the form of PM's, emails and whatnot. It's like they feel because they paid for a mod, and because the mod is not some large invisible company, they can place far greater demands.

 

- Mod developing teams fall apart over payment. Who was more important? Who's idea was this.. who's idea was that?

But posterX said he liked this feature best, and I made it! And he paid most money so I should get the most money!

 

I've only ever seen this go wrong.

Not ever have I seen this go right.

 

Personally, I'd love to get money for the 4 months of writing work I put into Companion Ivy. I'd love to get money for the daily and continued support I offer to anyone asking it in the support thread, even though in 90% of the cases the bugs did not arise from my mod, but from other mods doing things (...in a not so nice way...).

 

But since all my experiences I have two rules which I repeat to myself:

 

- Reginald, if you want to make money from making game content, become a professional and work for a company, or START your own company... but stop complaining.. you're just being greedy and want to have it both ways. (Not be a pro but still get money).

 

- Reginald, always work alone.

(This means that working with Chic on Ivy really was a very special experience because I usually NEVER work with other modders)

 

And since I started using those two rules in 2004 I never had any more bad experiences with modding games. It is one of my most fulfilling hobbies and things to do. But that's what modding is.. A HOBBY. If you want to make money, get a job... in gaming development.

 

 

[Pfiffy]

3 hours ago, bishlapped said:

So let me get this straight......If you play a particular game, and there is no mod for it, in this case SSE, and someone decides to take a mod that works for a different game such as SLE,  and take that mod and alter it and make adjustments so that it now properly functions in SSE so players can enjoy it there too, that modder didn't do any work for the community who enjoys it?

 

Sorry if I seem confused about that above concept.......I'm just struggling to understand how that works.

 

3 hours ago, -Caden- said:

Yea ..its a head scratcher huh? ?

Well, it is quite easy: If you are playing SE and you miss the mods from oldrim, you have two choicees: Wait until they get ported(the easy way), or do it yourself (the hard way). 

I have chosen option b. In some cases I could do it on my own, in some cases I had to pick up stuff from other ppl that also chosed option b....

So the work for me is already done. And it has been done quite egoistic, because I have done it for just for me, myself and I.

 

Now that more or less all my favorites are running, I have again 2 options: I can keep my ports to myself(again easy), or offer them to others that didn't manage to get the same mods running again hard).

I have chosen option b again. (You can see, there is a pattern... chosing option b seems to be one of my bad habits, sharing things that other ppl shared with me is another one and I'm a masochist)

 

27x is a bit rude, but he is right. I have much more shit on my computer that is converted. And it will stay there as long as I don't have the permission to release it. I have always been a bad guy and I guess that I broke some rules again by having done ports for myself without asking if I'm allowed to do so.....

 

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Paid mods were an inevitability, unfortunately. No art form remains free forever. It's Bugthesda's hypocritical attitude that really did the harm: they demand no one pays for mods created using something they made, unless they're the ones getting paid. I have no issues with paying a little bit for early access for mods so long as those mods in their full form are released for free in the near future. Modders who put out deprecated versions of their mods for free and keep the full versions behind paywalls, much less who keep their mods behind paywalls permanently, are the real parasites.

[Reginald_001]

7 minutes ago, Pfiffy said:

 

Well, it is quite easy: If you are playing SE and you miss the mods from oldrim, you have two choicees: Wait until they get ported(the easy way), or do it yourself (the hard way). 

I have chosen option b. In some cases I could do it on my own, in some cases I had to pick up stuff from other ppl that also chosed option b....

So the work for me is already done. And it has been done quite egoistic, because I have done it for just for me, myself and I.

 

Now that more or less all my favorites are running, I have again 2 options: I can keep my ports to myself(again easy), or offer them to others that didn't manage to get the same mods running again hard).

I have chosen option b again. (You can see, there is a pattern... chosing option b seems to be one of my bad habits, sharing things that other ppl shared with me is another one and I'm a masochist)

 

27x is a bit rude, but he is right. I have much more shit on my computer that is converted. And it will stay there as long as I don't have the permission to release it. I have always been a bad guy and I guess that I broke some rules again by having done ports for myself without asking if I'm allowed to do so.....

 

I just know that if I find anyone using or porting Ivy to another engine (say Skyrim) without permission or even contacting me. They'd be facing a hard time in their foreseeable future. I'm not too low to hire lawyers and let them do dirty work if someone steals my assets... And in fact I still google my old mods to see if people aren't stealing my work. ?

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, Pfiffy said:

 

Well, it is quite easy: If you are playing SE and you miss the mods from oldrim, you have two choicees: Wait until they get ported(the easy way), or do it yourself (the hard way). 

I have chosen option b. In some cases I could do it on my own, in some cases I had to pick up stuff from other ppl that also chosed option b....

So the work for me is already done. And it has been done quite egoistic, because I have done it for just for me, myself and I.

 

Now that more or less all my favorites are running, I have again 2 options: I can keep my ports to myself(again easy), or offer them to others that didn't manage to get the same mods running again hard).

I have chosen option b again. (You can see, there is a pattern... chosing option b seems to be one of my bad habits, sharing things that other ppl shared with me is another one and I'm a masochist)

 

27x is a bit rude, but he is right. I have much more shit on my computer that is converted. And it will stay there as long as I don't have the permission to release it. I have always been a bad guy and I guess that I broke some rules again by having done ports for myself without asking if I'm allowed to do so.....

 

There is nothing wrong having stuff for yourself converted, I use mods all the time and change some of the content to fit my game, you didn't upload the stuff without permissions so 27x and his fanboy club can fuck off, you have done nothing wrong

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, Reginald_001 said:

I just know that if I find anyone using or porting Ivy to another engine (say Skyrim) without permission or even contacting me. They'd be facing a hard time in their foreseeable future. I'm not too low to hire lawyers and let them do dirty work if someone steals my assets... And in fact I still google my old mods to see if people aren't stealing my work. ?

And you are right in doing so, but if someone ported it just for there own game without uploading it anywhere else, I find nothing wrong with that, if they start uploading the port without your permissions then yes they stole it at that point

[Kimy]

7 hours ago, Reginald_001 said:

Please do not misunderstand what I am about to say:

Modding is NOT professional game development. And because it's not professional, it's amateur work.

Any activity becomes professional as soon as you perform it for financial gain. That's the actual definition of "professional." Even if you absolutely suck at what you do. The word nowhere includes a quality component.

7 hours ago, Reginald_001 said:

- Mod consumers demand higher quality, support and feel ownership of a mod they paid for, often even DEMANDING personal support in the form of PM's, emails and whatnot. It's like they feel because they paid for a mod, and because the mod is not some large invisible company, they can place far greater demands.

From experience I can tell you that not few users -demand- that kind of service even when you don't get paid for it.

 

Btw. the "If you take money, your mods can't have bugs!" argument doesn't hold up long, if you consider that there are 1,000s of bugs in Windows and MS is still asking money for it. Yes, if you take money you have a greater obligation to fix your stuff when it's broken, but no professional software publisher EVER guarantees its customers that the stuff even works let alone is bug-free, so I am not sure why the same shouldn't be true for modding.

7 hours ago, Reginald_001 said:

- Reginald, if you want to make money from making game content, become a professional and work for a company, or START your own company... but stop complaining.. you're just being greedy and want to have it both ways. (Not be a pro but still get money).

If you publish software (and mods are just software) with the intent to make money, you ARE a business. Incorporation and/or employment is not a requirement to be a professional.

 

PS: As Caden pointed out earlier, this isn't even about paid modding in the strictest sense, this discussion is more about -donations-, which are a far cry from actual paid modding, and none of your counter arguments even applies to. Beth doesn't allow paid modding outsides of their CC, so it would be pointless discussing it in any other context in the first place.

[Pfiffy]

14 minutes ago, Reginald_001 said:

I just know that if I find anyone using or porting Ivy to another engine (say Skyrim) without permission or even contacting me. They'd be facing a hard time in their foreseeable future. I'm not too low to hire lawyers and let them do dirty work if someone steals my assets... And in fact I still google my old mods to see if people aren't stealing my work. ?

Are we talking about private ports or unallowed distribution?

[KoolHndLuke]

32 minutes ago, Reginald_001 said:

Financial gain (Most modders become very agitated if they feel they are not making enough money)

 

[Reginald_001]

6 minutes ago, Pfiffy said:

Are we talking about private ports or unallowed distribution?

Distri's, of course.

[Reginald_001]

11 minutes ago, Kimy said:

Any activity becomes professional as soon as you perform it for financial gain. That's the actual definition of "professional." Even if you absolutely suck at what you do. The word nowhere includes a quality component.

From experience I can tell you that not few users -demand- that kind of service even when you don't get paid for it.

 

Btw. the "If you take money, your mods can't have bugs!" argument doesn't hold up long, if you consider that there are 1,000s of bugs in Windows and MS is still asking money for it. Yes, if you take money you have a greater obligation to fix your stuff when it's broken, but no professional software publisher EVER guarantees its customers that the stuff even works let alone is bug-free, so I am not sure why the same shouldn't be true for modding.

If you publish software (and mods are just software) with the intent to make money, you ARE a business. Incorporation and/or employment is not a requirement to be a professional.

 

PS: As Caden pointed out earlier, this isn't even about paid modding in the strictest sense, this discussion is more about -donations-, which are a far cry from actual paid modding, and none of your counter arguments even applies to. Beth doesn't allow paid modding outsides of their CC, so it would be pointless discussing it in any other context in the first place.

Each and every single thing posted in my original post is from personal experience. I'm just stating facts that happen(ed to me). My opinion is the only thing which is debatable, which is the two rules I impose upon myself. The rest is all things I've experienced myself in my 25 years of modding.

[Pfiffy]

11 minutes ago, -Caden- said:

And you are right in doing so, but if someone ported it just for there own game without uploading it anywhere else, I find nothing wrong with that, if they start uploading the port without your permissions then yes they stole it at that point

 

2 minutes ago, Reginald_001 said:

Distri's, of course.

What? I didn't break any rules? Unbelievable.... I have to add some more bad habits to my obviously bad habits....

[Kimy]

7 hours ago, Reginald_001 said:

Each and every single thing posted in my original post is from personal experience. I'm just stating facts that happen(ed to me). My opinion is the only thing which is debatable, which is the two rules I impose upon myself. The rest is all things I've experienced myself in my 25 years of modding.

Oh, I agree that adding money to any team effort can be...difficult. It happened to me, too. But this applies to really ANY professional activity, and isn't an argument against financially compensated modding. People get really nasty whenever there is money to be distributed. That's indeed a fact, and I am not arguing it.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Reginald_001 said:

Each and every single thing posted in my original post is from personal experience. I'm just stating facts that happen(ed to me). My opinion is the only thing which is debatable, which is the two rules I impose upon myself. The rest is all things I've experienced myself in my 25 years of modding.

I appreciate you sharing those experiences. a lot of people have not experienced those, (myself included)so that's why some things people say do not make sense at times.

 

In the end of this whole discussion thou, would you have a issue with people wanting to donate for work you have personally done?