If I recall well, I offered 5€ to CTDP when they released their F1 2006 mod and I willl probably do the same for WSGT2. I've also made a couple of other minor donations in the past. Let's say that 5€ is to me the right donation for a very good mod. CTDP suggested flattr in one of their past tweets.
There are to many issues with selling mods, 1. Is all the content legal to sell? 2. When it goes bad what member of the mod team will wear the copyright charge? 3. You will need your group set up as a business or non profit organization. (legal side again) 4. Whats a fair charge for mods if it is legal? 5. How do you stop one person in a league from buying it and sharing to the rest, no control? 6. Concern about distroying the community that it is today, and ISI's following. Just enjoy the new sim when released and continue as business as usual, now that sounds like a plan.
I now that modders lay down hours on modding and then mods to rfactor 99% the mods is free it is many great modders that do this for free becuse they like do mods /tracks and happy to get the "Good Great Best mod i have drive" from the community. Why is modders not take up the telephone and call companys that do games EA Simbin it is so many companys to call and let them now what all modders is enable to do. then maybe modders can do what they love and also get paid in the end.
But you forgot that 99% mods have problems with quality. So IMO we should talking about this 1% left. However as stated before there is a problem with possibility of sharing once bought mod. Additionally there is no any possibility to protect mod against reverse engineering and reuse someones work. Until both those issues will be solved. there is no place for charging.
Rfactor1 and Rfactor 2 can be great platform for commercialism. For example i don't know, why modders cant be payed in that way. Modders make a mod, where company can in a very cheap way (compared to a hundert 1000$ or more) advertise own products. And for that modders will be payed or get the view to real data for example. But yes, for that must be interest from both side.
I have paid for Game Stock Car. It is not a mod of rfactor, but not very different. I mean, if you want to get paid; first pay for the license of ISI, the license of the real racing series and do a good work: ffb, tracks, graphics.... and sell your product in the right way: DVD or donwload. For example, if Enduracers want to do something similar like Reiza has done, they have my money. But I won´t pay for just a mod of rfactor2
Personaly i woulnd't mind paying for a mod/track or two if the quality is realy high but since i only race in a league i would not know how to implement that in our community and use it for championships, we can't ask everyone to pay up for it and we dont use illegal stuff either so it simply would not work. But i have no issues with people asking for some cash, its bloody hard work (i emagin) and it's their choise to do so, as much as it is our choise to pay for it or not. Looking at the past and the expectations for the future, 99% will be free anyways, thats just how these things work in modding-country. its an act of love. when you pay for love it becomes....ah never mind
Well, Seems we all value and respect the mod community and the variety of mods out there. Mixed bag and all. We are all hoping for high fidelity mods with good physics and handling to enhance the content in rF2 going forward. So from me, thanks in advance modders!!!!! It'll be awesome to see what you can do. Perhaps, when we racers come across a mod which is worth it ... we can choose to not have that last beer and donate the token to the mod team instead. Everyone wins .....right! On a side note and this has been alluded to .... I would really encourage all mod teams to collectively choose to work more closely together. The new rF2 MM model from ISI seems to go some way towards providing a good justification for working together, sharing common practices and even base code where appropriate or whatever makes sense. I encourage common working as a way forward.
When the day comes , people start paying for mods, it will basically be the end of modding itself. Like i said in another thread. Modding is an illegal tolerated art form. Ones somebody start making an income with it, it will trigger a chain reaction on both the modding team , and copyright lawyers It would not be long before some random team had to pay the price and becomes an example. That would make serious modding towards the future nearly impossible. Let alone if it should trigger the discussion about who is responsible for the copyright breaches. Dont forget that apart from the "Scratch build" mods, when used in any form of commercial format, most modifications are legally theft to start with. It is beyond me how someone who uses common sense can think he could charge for a mod without being regarded as a commercial project. The only way to charge for the work a modding team dose, is turning it into a real company. Look at Simbin, Reiza ... But then ... the essence is that you will have to comply to commercial rules. Lets be realistic people. its good to dream, but dont forget the real world works in a different manner. IMO, modding teams that would start to create revenue for a " Modification " of a commercial product, would eventually sign the dead sentence of modding as we know it. Lets think before you act. My two pennies...
I'd be willing to be for a mod, the amount of respect it deserves. Modders work on their projects because of love. If they really love their modding and stick to it, this is essentially free practice to break into game making. rFactor, the perfect testing ground for amatures looking to make it big!
WiX has pretty much hit it on the head. I used to work for Reiza, (in fact I coined the name, it's still weird to see it spashed around) on the understanding we'd make <project name> but getting the rights was an exercise in futility. We started on a project I had no investment in and with final university exams coming up and other issues to consider I called it day. We all wanted to make <project name> but it was such a long shot despite its age being measured in decades. There is no way modders will go unchallenged for selling other people's intellectual property and brand logos. One of the other issues with paying for mods is that, frankly, buying untested on recommendation from websites, even those with community ratings isn't a great way to go about things. I'm most interested in the accuracy of the cars/tracks and I find most users don't really go by that. The term 'feels/looks right' has come up so often and it's... rather silly really. In two particular incidences I saw people giving rave reviews to mods on their realism that were... well. The first such incident was way back on RSC when someone decided they didn't like the 'feel' of tyre slip curves for the FISI in rFactor and uploaded a new set. People were delighted with how it changed the driving experience only for, about two forum pages later, the original poster to sheepishly admit they'd uploaded the original tyre file and not the modded one. Any differences had been totally imagined. The second was with a <naming no names> past F1 mod, where the approach lauded as looking/feeling right was essentially to take the ISI BMW F1 almost wholesale, drop the revs and literally just halve the downforce the car generated. Nothing close to the truth but again, people proclaimed it was realistic because it 'looked/felt right'. This isn't a criticism of the community at large as such, honestly most players really don't know what to expect with certain eras/cars but at least for me even if there were a mod so utterly amazing I felt the need to pay for it, (astronomically unlikely) I wouldn't spend money based on such recommendations.
I can't see anything wrong on paying for a good mod/add-on, "only" problems are copyrights and price range, nothing else. I've heard C.a.r.s. will have a sort of licenced content add-on, for instance: you want the Rally cars? You buy the rally pack, You want GT cars? you buy the GT pack... and so on. Maybe ISI can consider it for the future: if it's going to be profitable why not? Outsource the work to the modders, pay them to do the job (on requested standards), pay the royalties and get the incomes from the customers that will have a chance to buy flawless high quality mods for about let's say 10 euros. All in all, iRacing model of business is not plain wrong, it's just their price range the average rFactor user doesn't like. 11euro for a damn single car. Ok, Lidar tracks, online servers, and so on ..but we are still talking about 11 bloody euros for a single damn car (or track) + monthly subscription. If ISI can make a more affordable model of business offering add-ons mods on a better price range i.e. 10 high quality cars for 10 / 15 euros. Sure not everyone will want to pay, somebody just want to stick to free (donationware) mods no matter what. But you know, different users different needs, if this thing is going to be profitable why not? For instance I talk about me, I like GT cars and my options on the market are: - console games, with not so great features regarding realism. (I have GT5 but I'm looking for a better simulation) - stock rFactor 2 GT cars. (Cool, but if I'm looking for more?) - have luck with mods, hoping modders will do a great job on the cars I'm interested to. - iRacing (only 2 overpriced GT cars: corvette, ford gt, and maybe mclaren gt3, one day. No Ferrari, No Koenigsegg, No Lambo) - rFactor1, GTR2, GTR EVo. Still good games, but let's not next gen at all. If you tell me someone will deliver 10 cars like Ferrari FXX, Koenigsegg Agera, CCX, Ferrari 458 GT3, Mercedes SLS GT3, 599xx, Pagani Zonda R, Lambo Aventador, Gallardo GT3, TVR Speed 12 on a next gen simulator like rFactor 2, with great graphic, sound, handling and everything... well that's an istant buy. What do you want for a mod like that? 20? 25? 30euro? rF2 43euro + 30 euro for the mod + 13 euro next year for the online, considering all the quality involved it's still by far the best deal on the market for me. What you need now is a market research and a business plan. Is there a demand? Can it be profitable? What the price range should be? Can the free/donationware modding live toghether with add-on commercial content? If this thig seem to be possible, then why not?
All these people who would allegedy pay, i bet they havent used the donate button that most of these modders have on there sites......
Maybe you're willing to pay that for a handful of cars but you're in the minority but again, try and get the license for all those cars. You can't. I guarantee you you won't even get permission for a third of those and that's me being optimistic. More, I've seen other communities where mods have been sold (due to fewer licensing issues etc.) and there are entire communities set up to subvert and bypass this. Put simply it doesn't work. It's even more pronounced with most people's main focus, Formula 1 - having worked on and been a researcher for past F1 projects you'd be amazed how many licensing issues still surrounds cars in excess of 25 years old. As for these people working for or on behalf of ISI, that seems like it can only end in disaster.
exactly my sentiments, i'd love to give the best mods a bit of cash if I had cash to spare, I barely have enough to give to my leagues servers running costs but do occasionally as those guys deserve it. The way I look at MODs being made its because for the love of the modder doing them, they dont need money for that just like I did'nt need money for all the Unreal/Quake 2 levels I made back in the day! If they want a bit of cash then have a PayPal donate, start charging? no offence but you can go away very politely
I could be a minority in rFactor users, but you are not considering all the other potential customers from other platforms, I'm talking about all the GT / Forza people potentially interested in something more simulative without renounce on big brands names. So, I'm not sure I'm a minority and even if I am, I'm not sure about the "it wont work because you are in a minority". It's all a matter if it's going to be profitable or not, not because of the minority. Simulators are a niche market after all, you all know that. And for the copyright issue is the same, Forza and GT have bought them spending (x amount of money) but in the end they are making a very GOOD profit from it. I don't know what C.a.r.s. will offer next year, but I saw an Audi R18 with no audi logo yet, seems like SMS agents are working on licences as we speak.. And now that's is another interesting piece of a car if you ask me. so no, it's not impossible. It's all a metter if it can be profitable for a company like ISI and IF they want to make business like that or not. They can also say no because simply they don't want to. Not because it's impossible or unprofitable.
