Am I the only one thinking payware could be rFactor2's death knell?

People need to understand that payware does not necessarily mean, ripped or trademarked content. If you look at UnitedRacingDesign's. They made their own car concepts, released them under payware, there you go. You could call the cars whatever you like, you could say they look similar to whatever car you want. Manufacturer's lose cases every single day in courts fighting each other because one manufacturer's car looks similar to another's. Its been an age old issue that see's manufacturer's waste so much money in legal fee's only to lose time after time.

If someone is stupid enough to make a payware mod of a real car or series without having first acquired the licenses to do so, then they are the biggest idiots in development history. Of course payware means the sale of content you have right to sell, why people think otherwise is beyond me. Sure we have the rippers and non permission content users in the community but I doubt any of them are stupid enough to try to sell those ripped mods. At least I hope they're not stupid enough to do so.

Some above said why is it turning to payware when it has existed for free for years. Well look at mod groups now, how many from years ago do you still see here? Only a couple of the great quality producing ones are still around and a few of them struggle to find new people. Modding takes time and effort and with games asking more and more from modders in terms of skills and content abilities, modders are weighing up the options. rF1 had a large modder base but look at rF2? the modder base is barely one quarter of what it was for rf1. Why is that? because rF2 has made it harder and more time consuming for the average modder to make mods if they're not in a big team with experienced people or people willing to work together. You do get the odd ones out who are a jack of all trade, but lets face it, not everyone can be a jack of all trades and know it all.

Another person said they will never pay for anything they can try first. I guess you never buy any console or PC game or any other item in a shop first? 90% of things in life you can't try before you buy, so why do you expect this to be different? I couldn't try all the women I liked before I chose one to marry.

Not to mention to go back to the beginning. Payware will for a fair while be self designed content. It will be a while before people begin acquiring licenses and bringing real cars into payware, and those who have the chance of doing that are bigger groups turned companies and have the legal ability to go through the paperwork and requirements manufacturer's expect you to go through. Lets say in 3 years time rF2 doesn't have a decent DTM mod, but someone comes out and releases a number of self designed cars that follow the car style of DTM. If the quality is great, why not support it?

Of course what will also need to happen is that these payware authors will need to provide a lot of good support and to listen to their buyers. Reputation will be based on that and those who don't do that will quickly die out and become known as the ones to not buy from. Those who do provide great support and listen to their audience, will be known as the ones who are a must buy from content developer.

You pay for DLC on consoles all the time, you buy expansions to games on PC all the time. So paying for add ons to your favourite game that "COULD" provide you with a car style that you cannot get otherwise, what's the harm in that? If you don't like paying for content, then wait till someone releases a free version. Payware doesn't mean the destruction of freeware.

People have asked me if MAK-Corp will go payware. We have thought about it, and it may be something we delve into in the future, but right now we have no intention to go payware in the sense of self designed or licensed content mods. Our F1 2008 Mod, our Classic Cars mod, our other un-announced mods which are having physics and sounds done in game currently will all be free and enjoyable to all.

We will with the new site however be instigating a fee for racing leagues. Free to play leagues that sign up (for free) as a certified league will be able to use our mods for free, as has existed all the years. Pay to play leagues and lan centers/commercial usage of our mods will require a fee to be paid. We won't allow those making money off our work to do it for free. But that doesn't affect the players nor the free to play leagues. It still gives them what they have gotten all the years modding has existed. This is going to come into effect with our new site.

I love free things too, but I think rF2 will see less mods for quite a while until people (like us) begin sharing info with the community. MAK-Corp plans to open a wiki on our new site where we will share the methods used to develop a mod and help train those who have the basic knowledge and wish to be trained. As a group in the community, we feel it is our responsibility to share knowledge and help the community grow. But lets face it, not everyone is like that, payware will make its way in one form or another. Simraceway started it with their edited rf1 game, it was only a matter of time before mod groups thought about taking a slice of the pie too.

 

I wish I had continued with modelling. I was teaching myself back in 1994'ish on an Amiga 3000. My plan was to immediately continue when I sold the Amiga and got a Mac. That plan died the minute I sent the Amiga off. lol. 4 Macs and almost 20 years later I still haven't gone back. I remember that so clear. It was a ship sort of like a rounded X-wing fighter that I had face the camera, bank left and shoot away. About 4 seconds of video. Took HOURS to render. I would start it before I went to bed and hoped it was ready when I got up to go to college. I wish I could find that video. I kept it for a while transferring from machine to machine.

 

I agree with Petros and we should all pull together modders drivers and do what (RFC) SRW did and still do they started with modder mods i remember the mmg mclaren in srw and now they are making mega buks.

 

I agree with Boxer, I get the feeling that you want modders , free and payware, to communicate so that the free mods being released don,t overwrite the quality of the payware mods thereby decreasing sales.
I mean, who,s going to pay for a mod when a free one is better.

As others have said, I won,t pay for a mod if I can't test the quality first where as a free mod, you can download it and if its no good, you can give it the flick. A payware mod, if you buy it and its crap, you can give it the flick but its still cost you. I know this happens in all facets of life, but people rapidly learn from their mistakes. If you don't like the taste of something, you won,t buy it again. same goes for payware mods and this will rapidly send the payware modders down the drain.
So I feel you want communication between modding teams to make sure your product isnt forgotten about by a better quality freeware mod.

 

Im already paying yearly for rF2 once it has gone gold. I for one wont pay for any mod once someone else comes back with the same mod for free.

 

+1

 

hey great mod this 1 where can i dwnload it??????????????????????????????????????????????????

 

I just find it funny how Petros says he is not sure if Mak Corp is going payware. He and his other Mak members are the first to always defend pay ware options and also made an announcement about going pay ware and opening a stroke on their site. Yet today he still says they arent sure about it lol.

http://www.mak-corp.net/index.php?o...-online-store-opening-soon&catid=39:frontpage

Why not just be open about the issue as its not too hard to understand the main agenda of petros, calling your group a corporation would be pointless if money wasn't involved too.

I dont care if modders try to make some money of it but if one persons greed ends up shutting down hobbiest modders that do things for fun not profit this is another story. A hobby is just that and if you want to get paid for your hobby it becomes a profession. When selling things you must have full rights to every part of that content and this will also include any ISI code or textures within your mods, unless you have a licence from ISI.

I think if ISI thought it would be a good option to have payware addons they would build a store and add functionality to this within the game.

They dont as they would know the high risk of legal action once mods go from hobby to profit. I doubt many pay ware mods will make as much money as they hope, in the end going pay ware wouldnt be worth the hassle in most cases i think. Petros has already said they will help sell your mods for a minimum 25% charge and this is why he is such a defender of payware.

He wants more then just profit from the mods made by him, or not really him but talented people making mods he will get a cut from. He also want to make money off all mods yet quite regularly they are not very open about many of these things.

I personally wouldnt trust anyone like that or such a site that looks to be one persons dreams of making money from other's creative work. The actual artists will get a very small cut from the many hours they put into their work but one guy will do well, until the lawyers come around. Then any money made selling mods wouldn't come close to covering legal bills incurred. In the end with such a model everyone is quite likely to lose badly form Petros to other hobby modders finding it harder to create public mods after the attention pay ware brings towards the licence holders.

 

Payware sux big time and will bring rfactor2 down a bit.

But i have no problem with a league site's or modding site asking for donations.Much work goes into this stuff and that people should show appreciacion for it. Any donations generally only just covers server costs which is generally atleast $1200 a year for a good connection plus the cost of a good server box and legit windows platform about the same and also website cost's.Lets not even mention the many hours spent by admin to organise races and create mods and tracks. Please feel free to donate to any league or modder that you use frequently or even not so much and show some appreciation.'NOTE" The cost's of a good league can be sygnificant.

Payed league race's are a good option but only if you got a prize at the end and dont offer the mod as the prize lol

The point being as long as people respect the leagues and modders with donations there will be no need for payware.

Tim has pointed out ISI doesnt have a problem with people trying to make money or just cover cost's but how the leagues and modders do it ,well the risk is in there hands

 

Sorry... just to add ,the only reason payware exists is because costs have to be met and to expect an individual or group of to cover these cost for too long just isnt right(Even 5 Bucks helps the cause).The future for mods and tracks in rf2 isnt payware but "DONATIONS"

 

I dont think payware can kill rF2, but i feel payware can kill payware.

I mean, when we have quality free addons, payware needs two plus:

1) reproducing a racing series loved by many people and possibly without good quality free mods

2) EXCELLENT overall quality and rational contents (for instance a mod with a racing series and all the related tracks).

If point 1), 2), or both are missing, i think incomplete payware can have the effect to ruin good payware, especially when

1) the modding team has not a big name (ie some very good free mods as curricola)

2) payware has not a demo (and the best Demo might be with complete contents, but usable for a restricted time).

All in all, IMO payware can have the effect to split the comunity, but i dont see it as a big issue because i am sure many good modders never will take the payware route.

 

We are still seeing people comparing rF2 to iRacing.
iRacing business plan is "all" content is made in house, Scanned, Built, Tested by the same people every time to a standard that fits their engine and present content.
No one outside iRacing can add their content to (for a better word) pollute their content with a inferior product. So when new content is release everyone knows exactly what to expect.

rFactor is "not" like iRacing in any way what so ever! The comparison is not there at all. You pay for iRacing because that's how it works so you have the choice, Buy to play, or Don't buy, Don't play.

rFactor mods, Tracks, Cars and let's not under value the great add-on's that go to make rF interface changes. UI menu, Track maps, so on. These are invaluable products that many are currently using in rF1. Some wouldn't remember what rF default looks like any more.

I don't understand why people can't see that iRacing and rFactor are so far apart they continue to compare the two!


Payware; This said it all.

Unlike iRacing these mods are being produced by so many different groups. Aless has hit on the fact that rF1 has so many duplicates of one car, series, or track. You don't really need a degree to work out why, surely?

Each and every rFactor content to date has it's reason for being, seen through the eyes of the person or group who have produced it. I'm sure I don't need to explain what I mean by this. I'm sure you all know in your own mind why people find the need to build content that is already out.

There is always going to be those who love a curtain car or track but dislike the way it was made and decide to built it how they think it should be. Physics of the car. Bumps on the track. Textures use. Old content that needed a update. Duplicates are going to be a part of rF2. It's human nature, so it's inevitable. Free or not.

 

Don't have time to read whole topic (sorry about that), but i can say this:
I think, payware mods will not kill rFactor2 but it can hurt it really much because some people (including me) bought rFactor2 to use all those awesome mods for free and ready to race.

 

Supporting modders who do payware mods through our shop and actually making payware mods ourselves are two different things, you clearly didn't understand the entire article so you should get your facts straight first.

We had a number of payware content creators (some of which haven't announced their future payware mods) ask if we would like to be the intermediate to sell their payware mods on our shop. And it was something we had considered since we had the abilities to support in such a way. Taking 25% fee for offering a service is no different to any other service like turbosquid or ebay or paypal or any other service which takes a cut from the money you make.

I couldn't care less how the community goes, it was something we offered. UnitedRacingDesigns was one of the first groups to ask us to sell their mods and they're selling their own mods on their own site. You see me or MAK-Corp throwing a fit about it? We don't care what medium anyone chooses. It is just an optional service people who want to can choose.

I do support payware mods, I also support free mods which is why so far all the mods we're making are free mods, not payware mods. You claim I'm trying to take money away from modders. Every single site takes money from modders. Their hosting providers, their file host providers, any other medium I mentioned above you can sell from. So why should I offer a free sales service?

You clearly need to get your facts straight before blabbering such stupid remarks about me and my integrity as a supporter. I am more then happy to support payware, but not for free, I'm not going to let someone make money off my hard work to provide them the medium to sell from.

 

Especially in this thread I miss a "like" or maybe a "Dislike" Button!!!

 

I don't have anything against payware, as I am pretty much a product of "Steam-generation". That meaning, you buy a loads of **** for low price. I only lose so much money I can afford to lose. I really don't get the opinions that everything has to be free. When it comes to these mods, I probably never won't buy any of the payware mods unless something very special comes across. And I doubt that, as nothing sells as well as the most boring racing series and cars. Couldn't be interested less. That is the other issue. People will build mods that most likely will sell well, and more obscure things won't be made at all.

Then again as a modder, I can make my own stuff when no one else does it. But I see it highly unlike that I ever try to sell anything, only because the legal issues. If I am going to do it anyway, why not put it forward for free. There is also other issue which is that anything for gMotor games requires 3D Studio Max, which commercial license costs way too much. There is much better and of course free alternative, Blender. It looks like Assetto Corsa supports general 3D formats, so I could use Blender with that game. It might be that I leave rF2 modding and go to AC because of this. Then, payware is not out of question any more.

 

Payware is awesome. Without it I could not relive those epic battles in motorracing. Aura and Bayro, can it get any better NOT?

 

Of course, oh wait! i found in my pocket a BMW and Audi licenses!! anyone wants it? i gift it!

I think nobody kills no one, Max Angelo says pretty clear, always gonna be free mods, i think the pay ones and free can live toghether, now, the question is: is a difference if pay mod cost 2 euros or 20 euros?

 

There is a user called 'Durge Driven', he is very shy though and does never say what he thinks about this topic.

 

As I said it in another forum:
Would be great if a mod is crowdfunding financed!
With this course, lovers and haters of payware mod's will live side by side,
but on another server. hehhe