[rubixcube]

After just reading that ASW has just been discontinued, I am starting to become a little concerned with the health of the FS modding community. This was after a number of other projects had been dropped as well (MT, AG, etc), so I was thinking that we should maybe provide more of an incentive for modders to finish projects. This could be done by starting a policy of "pay by donation" for new mods that come out, meaning every user that releases a campaign could (if they wanted to) provide a means to allow users to donate say 5-10$ via credit card or something when they download it.

Anyone think this would be a good idea? Would it even be legal?

[headdie]

Its the nature of fan modding communities that there is a high casualty rate amongst projects and the FS community is no different with a huge number of projects failing at some point or another over it's life time. 

As for donations it would be it would be a pig to set up, you fly pretty close to some legal issues, is open wide for abuse and ultimately projects fail usually because the team looses interest and while some members might carry on for the monetary gain, with the loss of that creative spark that comes from a belief in a project I would be worried about the quality of the end results under those conditions.

[wistler]

Its the nature of fan modding communities that there is a high casualty rate amongst projects and the FS community is no different with a huge number of projects failing at some point or another over it's life time. 

As for donations it would be it would be a pig to set up, you fly pretty close to some legal issues, is open wide for abuse and ultimately projects fail usually because the team looses interest and while some members might carry on for the monetary gain, with the loss of that creative spark that comes from a belief in a project I would be worried about the quality of the end results under those conditions.

This is a much better argument against the idea then I could word. I would also add that, without knowing anything about the internal struggles of the mentioned projects, the problem may lie in there size and scope.

[rubixcube]

I was thinking it might give modders the ability to take more time of work. Mind you I'm not sure if donations would compare to the pay people get at work.

[niffiwan]

I think the donations would fall faaaaaaaar short of what you get in paid work.  20k @ $10 would need 2000 people to donate, and that's shared between how many team members over probably 6-12 months at the very least?

i.e. you wouldn't be able to put food on the table and keep a roof over your head with it (let alone pay for your internet!)

[Nyctaeus]

We just need new creative people with new projects. Small teams for medium-sized projects, and free modders with their pet projects. Most of the projects which died last time are old mods with a very little chance of being completed. We're just humans. I know how many problems I've encountered since I started Shadow Genesis. Now with almost complete project sometimes I just can't believe how much I've did with co-leader of the mod. How many problems we've encountered, and won... Working in large team is hard. Strong, motivated leader and belief of the all members are essential. Eh... Earth Defence... Anyway, we need fresh brains here, not money.

[Nuke]

crowd sourcing is kinda new in the world of modding. you never used to see donate banners on mod site back in the mid to late 90s. where multitudes of doom and quake maps, descent levels, and mods were quite readily available. when i started seeing donate banners it left a sour taste in my mouth. we went from a modding culture where everyone did it for fun, for experience, or for a cheap hobby (ive had many hobbies over the years and by far modding is the only one that hasn't cost me a dime)to one where everyone is an entitled prick.

i can understand there are situations where you need money, like if the game you are modding doesn't have a large modding community (and freespace has a pretty big community) and you need web hosting and the like, and this is becoming less of a problem as you can usually find some service to host the mod content and information about the mod for free (for example moddb).

this might work for some younger modders, like ones in high school or college, but not really effective with working adults. and younger modders dont really need funding because they usually have everything they need already (computers, internet, which are a hell of a lot cheaper than they were in the mid to late 90s) and an abundance of free time. there is no point feeling entitledjust because you made some mod content.

obligatory get off my lawn.

[Droid803]

HOLY ****, **** no.

Okay that might be overreacting, but do you know what monetizing mod releases would do?

Encourage mods that don't get paid to not do anything unless they do get paid.
Which means you get less.

It will poison the community more than it will do any good.

If you want to see things completed, invent something that motivates people to have ideas, and something that lets someone split into multiple copies of themselves to do different things. Short of that, pretty much nothing is going to improve the success rate of mods. Throwing money at the problem definitely won't help.

[karajorma]

The arguments over who gets what split of the cash would be pretty legendary too.

[Rampage]

Being someone heavily involved in a high-profile project here, I vouch for what everyone has said so far.  Personally I don't need more money - - - I need TIME to work on my project, which is in short supply and no money can buy.

R

[Black Wolf]

The only way I would support donations for mods would be donations towards the sites that provide the hosting for them (HLP, Sectorgame and FSMods) i.e. actually incur costs. Donating to individuals is way too can of wormsy. Besides, even if by some miracle, a massive amount was raised for one mod or another, that's not the only factor regarding time to mod. In my case, for example, even if someone sent me fifty grand or whatever ridiculous figure, I still wouldn't want to put my non-computer-related career on hold while I spent six months working on a mod. I know a lot of other prominent modders in the community have similar issues - a lot of people are at university, or have families, or run their own businesses - all these things take time, and money wont necessarily make any difference in those cases.

Ultimately, by far the best thing you could possibly do to help get mods out faster is learn to FRED and help out an existing team. No question about it.

[rubixcube]

Fair enough, I figured this idea was a bit of a stab in the dark, i was just interested to hear everyone's thoughts.

[General Battuta]

All the psychology I know suggests this would hurt rather than help.

[Bob-san]

I think it'd be great incentive but ultimately not feasible, because of the numerous legal issues that could pop up. We'd literally need our own unique engine or one that allows for-profit use (without upfront licensing fees). Otherwise, one option might be to direct those funds to charity--which I don't think will be that much incentive.

[General Battuta]

It would be a dreadful incentive that would, judging by past empirical outcomes, decrease both the quality and quantity of released work.