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[10ebbor10]

Am I really the only person to see the donation thing as spin? I feel like I'm on an alien planet, I seriously do not see the difference between a 'donation' and just buying something, except maybe the marketingsocial engineering is a little more twisted and guilt-driven.

That's almost entirely just cynicism. I have donations set up, hell, in a way that I consider somewhat cynical (my mod downloads take you to a webpage with a very prominent donation link on it) but I would never think of that as selling a mod for the pretty goddamn obvious reason that you don't actually pay to play the damn thing.

On tye other hand, pirating the paid steam mods wasn't exactly hard, or so I heard.

Download the mod on trial, copy the files, refund your money, paste files.

[Putnam]

And have to have the money lying around in the first place and get barred from making transactions on the market for 7 days (which is standard practice for refunds on steam).

[wierd]

It's also a direct avocation of fraud.
Eagelon-- If it ISNT about being butthurt, what IS it about? The only real advantage to direct marketing vs donations, is that you get to set a minimum price.  If that isn't simple pride stroking, what is it? 

Remember, in genuine free market economies, what sets the price of anything is the combined action of the buyer and the seller. Demanding a price and expecting it to be honored is NOT how that works.  The buyer has to AGREE.  The donation system lets the buyer choose his price. All you would be gaining is making people not use your mod. How does that profit you with exposure, or with financial gain?

[UXLZ]

Putnam, you might want to mention that the 'donations' angle has like 95% if not more of the money go to the Mod developer whereas this 'steam donations' spin has only 25% of it go to the mod developer, and only after they've managed to have at least $400 'donated' to them (at least in the case of direct Paypal ones, I don't know about other methods too much.)

[Putnam]

Oh, yeah, that's kind of the obvious thing to mention, ain't it? Paypal donations, so 97.7% - 30 cents, which is quite a bit more than 25%.

[UXLZ]

But it's something that everyone calling the paid mods things a different way of handling donations seems to miss.

[wierd]

Like I asked above-- If this isn't about the ego stroking element (I INSIST that my mod is worth MORE than 0$ damnit! Donation-only models force me to have to SHAME people into paying what I think it is actually worth!), what is it about?

Clearly, it is not about increased profits, since the Valve store version would generate far lower actual income, due to all the cream-scooping by valve and bethesda.

So seriously-- what's the value?

[Leyic]

Can anyone here show at least one person who's said they were satisfied with the donations they receive through Nexus? Heck, Nexus itself, for that matter, still has to have ads as it doesn't receive enough supporters and subscriptions as it is. Maybe forcing people to pay at least a penny for a mod is ego (not that that matters), but it works, and it's hard to argue with results.

[wierd]

Leyic-- You are discounting the long-tail effect that the 0$ mod users have.

While they themselves may not be paying, they have friends. If they really like the mod, but still insist on paying the 0$ price, the friends they tell have a greater than 0% chance of choosing to donate a value greater than 0$.

Choosing to force a price greater than 0$ removes this long-tail from the table.  Again-- all that forcing a price does is force people to NOT use the mod.

This is also discounting the rules about bad press--  Bad press hurts actual sales by creating bad public sentiment. Forcing a price causes bad public sentiment, which can turn away people who WOULD have otherwise donated. (that's the REAL weapon that was used against Valve and Bethesda in this issue- Bad press, hurting public image, and damaging actual sales figures from that loss of public confidence.)

As for satisfaction-- I was satisfied with the mods that other users basically donated to the community chest, made using the information I made available. So, there's one right here.

[Leyic]

Wut? I asked a question, you deflected. I didn't discount anything, the donate button's been up on Nexus for a long time. Not that having a price negates the long-tail, plenty of people still buy old stuff (i.e. most anything on GoG).

Mods donated to the "community chest" do not constitute a supplementary income. You couldn't even buy a beer or latte with just mods. Money made through mods, sure, but the mods themselves?

Show me one modder who is satisfied with the finances they've received via donations on Nexus or elsewhere. If donations are as great as you claim, it shouldn't be hard.

[wierd]

Who's deflecting?

I am saying, I am happy with the 0$ I received.  Putnam seems to be of the same persuasion.  How many do you need? How many times will you move the goal post? (or am I not Scottish enough for you?)

(Also, your argument is self-negating. You in one breath state that the value of other people's mods is not sufficient to buy a latte. Yet, you expect people to pay money for those mods. This is self-contradictory. Either the mods have value that is not being captured, or you are stating that the modders demanding money deserve money for something you state has no value. In the first case, I reaped a healthy profit from my investment, as I produced one bit of modder's work, and gained the value of many other modder's work. In the latter case, you are being disingenuous.)

[penguinofhonor]

.

[wierd]

Once again, every single mod author who put a paid non-joke mod up on steam must have been dissatisfied with donations and thought that, even with a 75% tax and the inability to see any of their money until they make $100, they would make more off this system. I'll admit I don't have a link to this, but I've heard of a mod with over a hundred thousand downloads getting $17 total in donations, which was a single donation from one guy.

No. That is not what it means. You do not know the demographic split for reasons for using the store. As Putnam mentioned previously, one perfectly valid justification is simple enforcement of distribution control by the author, in the face of mod piracy by false sellers.

Making this assumption is just as bad as the RIAA claiming that every pirate download is a lost sale. It is logically unjustified.


Also, a mod with over 100,000 downloads? You mean like my modified XBOX morrowind start save? it's been replicated and posted over gods knows how many places, and was little more than a tech demo to show that you can do some crazy stuff with ESS files for the xbox without having to resort to using a mod chip.  As such, it was TOTALLY game breaking.  You can find it by looking for "Modified Monksta start save".  I used a previous save from codejunkies that was uploaded by a user named Monksta, and credited him for his baseline contribution.  I incorporated several new items into the ESS file, several new enchantments and spells, a few game settings tweaks, and reset the game variables controlling race, class, and story progression, so that the character generation system would kick in, allowing the player using that horrible thing to pick all their respective preferences.  It was quickly circulated around the game cheat boards, since all you needed was a hacked game controller and the action replay software to load it onto your xbox, and go to town.  If something horrible and game breaking can beat your 100,000 download mark, like my horrible start save does, what does that say about your argument?

[Leyic]

I said a $0 donation is insufficient to buy a latte. That does not make the mod worthless. By your logic, should someone steal or pirate something while simultaneously making a $0 donation (whatever the heck that is), they'd be stealing something worthless. Yet stealing implies wanting and want implies worth. That's a contradiction. Ergo, price paid or donated is not the same as value.

No. That is not what it means. You do not know the demographic split for reasons for using the store. As Putnam mentioned previously, one perfectly valid justification is simple enforcement of distribution control by the author, in the face of mod piracy by false sellers.

Anyone putting their mod up on Workshop for that reason alone would not then go and monetize their mod!

[UXLZ]

Once again, every single mod author who put a paid non-joke mod up on steam must have been dissatisfied with donations and thought that, even with a 75% tax and the inability to see any of their money until they make $100, they would make more off this system. I'll admit I don't have a link to this, but I've heard of a mod with over a hundred thousand downloads getting $17 total in donations, which was a single donation from one guy.

Hmm, that's a situation that definitely needs context. For instance, if the mod that guy made was something small and simple then it's understandable that no one chose to donate. If it was something large like SkyRe or medium like the Better Vampires/Dragons mods then I'd understand the feeling. However, very context dependent, if you can't find a link then it's gonna have to be a null argument.

Jim Sterling probably captures my feelings about it the best.