Official Paid Mods Support: A Request for the Developers

In my experience this has already happened. My mods (as in the ones I have made) used to break every update, for the past 2 or so years updates haven't really caused any issues. I usually fire up the new game update to check its working and it usually does.

 

yes

 

Trying to get back into modding BeamNG myself, I honestly would never expect anyone to pay me for things I've made in my free time - the way I see it, it was my time to waste, no one owes me anything for it.

Firstly, you can make a perfectly good mod entirely with free software - the fact that you use paid software is entirely on you and should be considered an investment, not something your followers should cover.

Secondly, I'm not against paid mods - I myself rarely use the free ones either - but I disagree with the idea that it is "about time that we moved from free to paid mods", keeping a heavy emphasis on free community content should be a priority.
(To add to the initial thread post) I think having an official paid mods repository along side the regular one is a good idea, where a small cut goes to BeamNG themselves, this paid repo should be much more heavily moderated however to keep the content standards fairly high. However, as a little 'consumer protection'; if the author of a paid mod decides to call it quits or to drop development of a mod, it becomes available for free (or perhaps the ownership could be transferred to someone willing to maintain it?)

Other than that I think the best option would be through donations - People that want to support, can. Those that don't, don't have to. The mod still reaches its audience, and the creator still gets comp for his/her efforts. Like others have said, those that pirate weren't planning on paying in the first place.

 

Okeh, fair enough.
--- Post updated ---

People also make games with free software, that's a horrible argument. People make many quality products with free software.. time invested into skills, the work and the time is why people are paying for those works.. nobody should use the argument that someone has used free software and therefore their product is null and void, worthless. Or somehow suggest the product is inflated because someone used premium software.




This post is kinda dumb, please take this as an argument against anyone making this argument.. and not me actually saying this against the post I referenced. I screwed up.

 

There is a middle ground between tools that help and tools that are preference regardless of price.

 

Keep in mind that LucasBE does NOT represent the BeamNG Modding Community despite claimed otherwise. There are many modders who oppose the use of encryption or DRM on BeamNG mods

 

Please keep in mind that this thread was not only written by me but also had contributions from a few other modders listed at the bottom of the first post. I do not singlehandedly represent the modding community, and I never said I did. 15-ish well-known modders have contributed to the first post.

Most of the modders that have agreed to be a part of this list are okay with DRM and believe it would help their mods to not get pirated as easily. That or any other kind of encryption that would prevent reuploads. We're not against any kind of modification by the end user should they have a legit copy of the mod.

Again, I'll ask people to make sure they proofread what they're saying before trying to pull a pseudo-journalism move that makes little to no sense.

 

He does with this post since he asked almost the entirety of the active modding community. We support zhid idea of an offical paid content platform fully

Altough this is not a right assumption to make. I am very much against encryption of any mod. This community thrives from creating new content but also improving old content. Locking it behind Encryption makes making addons or mods for those pieces of content really hard. In my opinion everyone has their right to modify their own copy and release addons that dont include base content of the mod to prevent piracy. Permission shouldnt be required for this or having to beg for some sort of encryption key.

 

I think some of the concepts of this thread are right, and for sure a integrated paid mod support will help both modders and users.

But drm no, I consider that not acceptable in such a game. BeamNG for me, a not so young anymore user, is the awesome evolution of RoR, and the basic idea behind RoR and BeamNG is that every user can see how things work and modify them if wanted. Even modders should thank the easy access and the fact that they can copy and adapt the original code for their mods.

I, personally, like to make small personal modifications to every vehicle I have, original or mod, and some of the terrains, and this is one of the things that made me buy BeamNG the second I discovered it existed and play it over a thousand hours.
So please try not to ruin this game changing his core.

my two cents
david

 

I've thought about it a bit:

Fine, but put a refund policy in place. If you can agree on that, then I might consider this not a complete and greedy cash grab.

Or you can just, like, set up a donation service and if your content is good enough, people will donate to your cause. I've donated before and I legitimately fail to see the problem with that, but hey ho.

 

I think we can all agree that some sort of refund policy would be required. Sounds fair, will add that to the main post.

 

The ability for refunds to exist would be amazing. I hate having to have an "official" no refunds policy for my mod. The only reason I state I don't allow refunds is because once I have given someone the files, I can't take them back off them. With official paid mod support it could totally happen and would make me much happier.

I do want to clarify I do strive to take a "make it right" stance in practice. But obviously I don't want people taking the piss, so I have to state no refunds. But if I fail to deliver, I do strive to make things right. That's part of why I like having a free version of my mods also, so people can try them first.

 

There are so many mods I have gotten my hour of fun out of and simply lose interest in, I am unsure that's a great option to have when in 15 minutes I could literally decide I've had enough even if it's high quality. I expect insane quality from mods personally and if I feel I'd have to improve them by my own hand because they don't meet standards in the steering rack or suspension I get pretty disappointed.

Seems even higher quality mods fail to meet this standard at times. There are a number of mods I wanna go in and improve because they have that potential but it's not fully realized by the original creator.


Edit:

That's why I don't even wanna touch paid mods.. I wouldn't wanna have to pay and refund so many transactions either. I know my argument here is kinda lousy btw.

 

If someone uses one of my mods for 15mins and comes away feeling disappointed, I would like a system where they can get a refund.

 

Fair enough I suppose.

 

At no point did I say the mod author should not be compensated for their time and effort - The cost of software should not be used as the sole reason to charge for mods. My point was that Lucas implying that modding requires paid software is simply untrue and rather misleading - regardless of how overpriced but nonetheless useful said software may be.

I purchased Substance Painter not too long ago, I do not expect users to pay me for that - that was an investment I made solely for myself.
If I ever did charge for mods it would be based on time spent/effort put in and the amount of content in the mod.

 

Yeah I kinda realized that which is why I edited my post to say "Nobody should make x, y, z argument" Because I realized I was an idiot and went off on a tangent based on something you didn't exactly say.

 

I did not say it was a requirement, I said it often involved the use of paid software (such as Substance Painter, yes. But also stuff like Blender addons that either improve the workflow or makes it faster.)

I also think this is the main reason why people are starting to want compensation for their work. IMO it's more so based on effort and time spent rather than money.

This is also why I believe free mods will also always exist. Some people are still totally willing to make their mods free, even if it took them years to complete.