There needs to be rules about patreon

[Drinkwithrandall]

I love supporting people who makes mods on patreon that isn't the issue. Most of them charge like 1-5 bucks a month and I can live with that. But there are some who are charging 20+ for mods? Now in my opinion that is being greedy and there is no reason to charge that much. I mean if they charged a one time fee of $20 that would be fine with me to. But to charge that much a month for mods? I really think you need to put some rules in place. Not only is this greedy but it's a shady practice. Make a rule saying you can't charge more than a set amount per month. It's really disrespectful to the community. I know People will say hey you don't have to. Not when its a decent mod and its locked behind a paywall. I get it and modders deserve to make money from their work. There is a fine line between asking for support and just being greedy. I support the ones who really understand the community. Like some modders have it so its only patreon for a few months and then release it to the public. I support them because they understand the community. You are pretty much paying for early access and supporting them and again they usually only ask for 1-5 dollars a month. The outrageous pricing needs to stop. 

[Drinkwithrandall]

Oh and the ones who ask for $10-$15 for mod requests are fine too. You are paying to get things you want and I don't see that as an issue. As the main mods aren't behind a huge paywall. Asking for custom mods should be more and I have no issues with that at all. But if you just want the mods they only charge $1-$5 and again I support that.

[Guest]

Can you point to any mod asking for such amount of money that is hosted on this site?

[casma164]

You *ALWAYS* have the option of NOT paying $20+ for their mod(s).
If no one is buying their patreon thing, you can hope that they'll drop the price.

[Saraniamic]

Well it's their mods so they can charge whatever they want. You don't have to support them, if you don't agree with them.

[Halstrom]

Yep no way I'm locking my credit card into even $5 a month Paytron, I'll pay $20 for a good mod, but not $120 a year for it

But somebody obviously is whether they know it or not

[Syndicrat]

There is a rule against donation-walling. But it's not being enforced at all as far as I can tell.

Quote

We are a free and open community; members requiring payment for mods, support, or putting anything behind a paywall will be removed without warning. Donation buttons/links to support an author is fine, so long as nothing is promised, given, or rewarded other than a sense of satisfaction for supporting an author or owner of content.

There is simply no way to interpret this rule to allow mod authors (mostly animators) to artificially restrict access to "donators" for weeks or months on end. Eventually releasing them to the public doesn't excuse this thinly-veiled greed.

Shame that some people keep defending this practice, and that very few people are willing to call it out (probably out of fear of backlash or even bans for daring to criticize our glorious and holy mod authors). I mean really, some of the posts in this thread are just pathetic. I don't understand what makes some people such blind loyalists to mod authors.

 

What I really want to know is why the staff refuses to enforce this rule. Are you afraid modders will throw a fit and leave? Some probably will, but the site will be better off without them normalizing the idea of paid mods with the "starving artist" card. Or have you guys fallen for that trick yourselves?

[R-Lo]

Personally I think the patreon situation is a bit out of hand too,

 

To be fair there is a line drawn about "exclusive" content and these should be made public same as any other works but some us who have very limited time at the computer may struggle to upload a satisfactory sized update in this time frame eg myself, a lone parent coming to the end of a busy school holidays! 

Agreed some hoard for too long on purpose but some of us without the abundance of uninterrupted time the patience is appreciated!

 

As someone who uses patreon I feel that a huge part of the problem is that creators, especially animators operate on multiple tiers

Many authors have complety lost the concept of supporting a mod,

 

It's not about "buying" content, it's about supporting an ongoing project or tipping a creator or subscription to a link for early access,

All this gold, platinum packs are really just more of the same content and boast no extra impact in comparison to the other works and in some cases are just as rushed or forced,

 

It should be about supporting and encouraging the artist and his/her project not spending on multiple levels which is essentially the same as a creator having multiple accounts in my view.

 

 

 

 

 

[dagobaking]

52 minutes ago, Syndicrat said:

Eventually releasing them to the public doesn't excuse this thinly-veiled greed.

 

Would you prefer to have no Patreon but also some of those mods not ever being created? Loverslab itself might not stay on-line if not for support to cover time and expenses.

 

To be honest, I view the anti-Patreon perspective, at least in regard to the early-release model, as the greedy one. They want to benefit from other peoples time and work but begrudge that they get some financial support for it, even when they still get the work for free?

 

I agree that the rules as written are in conflict. But, I think the solution is to re-write the rule to be a bit more flexible. Not to start coming down on modders who get support while still releasing free mods.

[Syndicrat]

12 minutes ago, dagobaking said:

 

Would you prefer to have no Patreon but also some of those mods not ever being created? Loverslab itself might not stay on-line if not for support to cover time and expenses.

 

To be honest, I view the anti-Patreon perspective, at least in regard to the early-release model, as the greedy one. They want to benefit from other peoples time and work but begrudge that they get some financial support for it, even when they still get the work for free?

 

I agree that the rules as written are in conflict. But, I think the solution is to re-write the rule to be a bit more flexible. Not to start coming down on modders who get support while still releasing free mods.

I didn't say no mod author should have a Patreon. I said that "early access" is still a paywall and should be unacceptable in any modding community. I just want that rule to be enforced as it is written: no special treatment for donors. I fucking guarantee you that if these modders released their "early access" builds to everyone at the same time, virtually no one would stop pledging to them. I doubt anyone is pledging just for access to the mods. There is no benefit to those modders or anyone else from charging for access to their mods for any period of time.

Hell, you appear to already understand this - there doesn't seem to be any content of interest exclusive to your Patreon; your alpha builds are public. Thus a donation to you theoretically results in a benefit to everyone equally. That's exactly the model I'm okay with!

 

I will try once more to make this clear, since I couldn't get this point across in the last thread: I do not care if modders accept donations for their work. Whether they deserve it or not is not relevant to me; that's up to those who are giving them money. My problem is when they restrict access to their mods in order to bait people into paying them.

 

That's it; it's that simple. It's not a donation when there's a reward that is explicitly denied to those who don't donate. Don't restrict access to non-donators. That's literally all I'm asking.

[dagobaking]

34 minutes ago, Syndicrat said:

I didn't say no mod author should have a Patreon. I said that "early access" is still a paywall and should be unacceptable in any modding community. I just want that rule to be enforced as it is written: no special treatment for donors. I fucking guarantee you that if these modders released their "early access" builds to everyone at the same time, virtually no one would stop pledging to them. I doubt anyone is pledging just for access to the mods. There is no benefit to those modders or anyone else from charging for access to their mods for any period of time.

Hell, you appear to already understand this - there doesn't seem to be any content of interest exclusive to your Patreon; your alpha builds are public. Thus a donation to you theoretically results in a benefit to everyone equally. That's exactly the model I'm okay with!

 

I will try once more to make this clear, since I couldn't get this point across in the last thread: I do not care if modders accept donations for their work. Whether they deserve it or not is not relevant to me; that's up to those who are giving them money. My problem is when they restrict access to their mods in order to bait people into paying them.

 

That's it; it's that simple. It's not a donation when there's a reward that is explicitly denied to those who don't donate. Don't restrict access to non-donators. That's literally all I'm asking.

 

I hear you.

 

But, shouldn't the judgment about whether or not people value early access be up to the person putting the work in? Why shouldn't the mod authors want to provide some kind of a benefit back to donors as a thank you? Why does that need to be a rule when everyone is eventually getting access anyway?

 

True that I'm not using an early release model. But, I think that should be my call either way.

 

I understand what you are asking. I am pointing out that you are getting something in return for the early release model. You are benefitting from the donations of others by getting something for free that would not exist without the donor payments. Delayed release is not the same thing as denied access.

 

[gregathit]

Good grief.  We have a rule against paywalling and we do enforce it (see rule 13).  No, we don't have the moderating staff to hunt down every single instance.  We remove it when we see it.  I myself have removed a dozen such mods.  I know the other moderators have has well.

 

As to folks charging x or y for things, well, if you don't like it, don't buy it.  It isn't complicated.  It's called a free market.  There is no such thing as regulating what you can charge for mods, nor will there ever be.  Folks and corporations will charge what they think the market will pay.  Rage all you want, it isn't going to change.

 

I'm locking this thread as there is never going to be anything productive that will come from it or the dozens of other patreon/paywall threads that have come before this one.  Please take the drama to some other website that likes that sort of thing.