I think it's still possible for beam to have their own paid mods repo. In terms of payment processing, the paid repo page of a certain mod could just contain a link redirecting to the mod creator's Patrone, Kofi, or whatever other sales platform, where payment is then accepted and the mod is downloaded from. There would be no payment processing on the part of BeamNG, it would all be external. Of course, the beam moderators should set standards as to only allow the mod authors to use trustworthy sales platforms if they want their mod to be "advertised" (have a page) on the Beam paid mods repo, as well as some minimum standards for the mods themselves, such as no automation mods, must have proper permissions for any models/ files they not made themselves, no inappropriate content, must be one time payment only (cannot require a subscription), etc.
really though how would that be any different then someone posting their donations link to a free mod on the repo.... --- Post updated --- Why does everyone get caught up on this concept that people will post garbage and ask $10 000 dollars for it?
Hot take: We don't need official framework for payed mods, modders can manage it on their own as they do now. The developers don't have to advertise your mod for you on the repository through official support.
The standards we have now are perfectly fine for the paid repo. That is, no real-life brands and Automation projects in a separate tab. If someone charges thousands of dollars for a automation mod, then let it be. It's not like anyone is forced to buy them. This would also expel those low quality meshslaps with models taken from other games – if you make your own models, it's far easier to make lore-friendly variants for the repo. Low quality bait. At best, I'd say that it's a way colder take from what you were talking about before, but those posts are now removed, lmao.
Sure, the current system functions, but the theory behind directly selling paid mods on the repo, is that it gives the higher quality stuff (that passes certain quality criteria) more visibility and apparent credibility than the $20/month truck meshslaps on patreon. thus, ideally, the gullible kids paying subscriptions for these polished turds, see other stuff prominently getting sold for way cheaper, then get suspicious as to why the stuff they have is so expensive, thus reducing the market for mshslappers, or forcing meshslappers to lower their prices.
and, the system of downloading mods from the forums as .zips and copy/pasting them to the mod folder works fine (I still use it myself), but the devs implemented the in-game repository to minimise the amount of people going to russian websites. and to some extent, that did help, so who's to say they're not considering something like this?
It "works" but allows both for leaking paid mods easily and for scamming people with extremely overpriced mods with quality so low they would never get accepted on the repo
you're never going to solve leaking paid mods or $20 meshslaps; they will always exist on their respective third party sites all that'll happen is more creators will be encouraged to charge for their mod given the framework - hurting consumers in the end and encouraging piracy. payed mods will literally encourage users to not use the repo, again empowering third party sites with a demand for cracks only they can satiate.
As long as we have quality control, the creators won’t be allowed to charge for their mods unless they are of quite high quality, something that only a select few can achieve. Anything below that quality level won’t be allowed on the paid repo. I doubt the devs will let you charge exorbitant prices and, with the larger reach the paid mods will have on a built in paid repo, the creators could get away with charging 1 or 2 dollars instead of 3 or 4 because they may very well make more money that way anyways. How is that bad for the consumer? It appears to me that it’ll be a pretty good deal for the consumer (much more content for the same money) and an even better deal for the devs (more people buying the mod at an even lower price (which brings more people) leads to more overall income).
And who is to judge quality? for it is subjective. Everyone will disagree upon what deserves to be or not to be monetised. I see someone craves their dramas As for consumers, read my previous post (the one you quoted and replied to but didn't read).
Tbh I haven't seen anyone disagreeing about paid mod quality standards so far (aside from obvious trolls). The Civetta Mondello mod serves as a good example for the minimum required quality. It is not perfect and has issues, but it is still agreed to be worthy of being paid. We can use it as a quality treshold, if a mod is better than it then it can be paid, if worse then not. It's more objective that way. Of course as the system develops we will find a better treshold but for now this should be good enough.
This feels like Patreon with extra steps. Modders of this caliber should already have their own methodology of support without having to put the burden on the developers.
You could argue everything is another thing with extra steps, that doesn't necessarily make it a bad thing IMHO. In the entire post I detail how this benefits not only modders but also the developers and the end user. I also don't think you should be left alone to find your own solutions if you're "a certain caliber". Makes very little sense overall but I politely disagree
I'm not talking about pricing here. In the original post (again) I explain why mods should in fact be reasonably priced. Please check it out
Anyone who understands basic economics would understand the balance that a low price means more purchases vs a high price and less buyers can equal out. However a cheaper price with more buyers will get the word out further and faster so here you'd probably get much further with a low price, logically speaking... So anyone releasing something for $10-20 is insane, nobody will wanna buy it and with no buyers nobody will even talk about it. Which means word won't spread far and it'll be a real slow process... That would simply be very dumb if you rely on word of mouth to sell it in the first place. So these people saying like $500 for 15 mods are just insane and clearly don't think about it from the sellers prospective... Why would someone want to charge $20-40 for a mod... When you'd make money quicker at a lower price and get recognized in the community faster growing an audience that would be willing to purchese more content... You can't rely on magical whale unicorns to pay $50 for your mod.. ..people seem to think modders don't understand any of that somehow and we're all insane and want $98.76 for each sale.
