Originally Posted by Bucket
Originally Posted by Horrorscope
I know why you think that, but you would get better quality if they could sell them.

That is not true. In fact, the opposite is more likely.
People will see an easy way to make money and use the least amount of effort possible. Hey presto, mods that cost, but don't add a lot!
Now let's look at how modding communities are for games that are still open to modding, these days:
Modder enjoys game, enjoys modding.
Modder puts in time and effort to create something, shares it with the rest of the world.
Modder feels happy his work is enjoyed by others and continues to provide support through fixes or expansion.

Now, someone who made some easy cash will never put in more effort than they feel is 'justified' by their earnings.
You can see this happening on developer level these days. Just look at EA/Battlefield or the high amount of unfinished early access or beta games, even if the latter somehow got gold status. (Released as full game but is obviously lacking a lot.)


My counters:

1. Fear of unknown territory.

2. Products for money have a fair tendency being better than free products.

3. Modders are people with bills to. Plenty of people enjoy things and make money doing it. Modders still have option of doing any of it free. I offer choice, others offer restrictions, in general the restrictions go against the norm of every day life. Expecting others to do something for your entertainment for free, however they themselves do nothing of great time for free.

4. I think we are in general wrong with thinking modders "have" to live in some type of free product environment. We don't know know what we could be missing if this wasn't the assumption. I also believe most mods would still be free as Price/Performance would have to be worth it for people to shell out dollars.

5. I look at the D:OS engine as a restricted rapid development tool. Like Unity, but less open, but faster. One world can make money and the other is expected to do it pro bono. To me it is the results of the product that should deem if something is worth selling.

Like anything unknown, there is assumption. I still fall back on things like Kickstarter, before it existed the thought of it working would in general be poo poo'd. Sort of like Uber or any other out of box start-up. That is why some people are entrepreneurs and others are hirees. It's like you have to first make the questionable step for others to see it and go "Ah ha!". Whatever you've seen with mods, imo would be more and better if there was a reasonable avenue to make some extra money from them on, again only very few great mods would ever be worthy of buying.

I'm not asking nor expecting Larian to pioneer this. But I do predict it will come, it will be a sub-set of the Indy surgence and when we look back at it, we will see it as generally a win for both sides, people deservingly so making some cash and gamers enjoying their offerings.

Last edited by Horrorscope; 19/07/14 06:03 PM.