4 ms·

In your view, how do digital content creators such as artists make a living? I am honestly curious. Are you saying that the entire gaming industry should be ope

In your view, how do digital content creators such as artists make a living? I am honestly curious. Are you saying that the entire gaming industry should be open source and sustain itself purely on peoples' charity?

deleted 6y ago
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matheusmoreira 6y ago
I don't claim to have an alternative, just that the copyright model is broken. Perhaps crowdfunding and patronage will be the answer. Services like Kickstarter and Patreon.
- GekkePrutser 6y ago
  Those aren't perfect either. Kickstarter makes it too easy to fail without consequence. Even big names like Neil Stephenson did so (with his swordfighting game, turned out the money ran out and the game wasn't much fun so they just gave up). I don't doubt his sincerity but this model is not ready for the masses. The masses want to buy products, not promises. Patreon on the other hand, makes it too easy to stay forever in alpha, the money will keep coming in while there's interest and eventually it wanes and the author moves on to something else. But the product never actually gets finished. In the mean time over the many months more money will get spent on it by each 'customer' than on an actual finished product. Another big name that's currently in this situation is Star Citizen (which was a bit of combo of both models, with continual crowdfunding). Who knows when that'll ever be finished. They certainly have more than enough money but what's lacking is the role of the publisher in the traditional model, who keeps the project on track because they want to see RoI eventually. The crowdfunding models are great sometimes but they're seriously lacking on this point.
viraptor 6y ago
Is a "digital content artist" and "gaming industry" even in the same category? This is an extremely large scope where I would be happy to see (for example) EA crash and burn, but do want creators to succeed. So generic an answers may be hard.
sjy 6y ago
Since you mentioned the gaming industry: most popular games make money without relying on charity or selling copyrighted files. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-played_video_games_by_player_count https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-played_video_game...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

matheusmoreira 6y ago

I don't claim to have an alternative, just that the copyright model is broken. Perhaps crowdfunding and patronage will be the answer. Services like Kickstarter and Patreon.

GekkePrutser 6y ago
Those aren't perfect either. Kickstarter makes it too easy to fail without consequence. Even big names like Neil Stephenson did so (with his swordfighting game, turned out the money ran out and the game wasn't much fun so they just gave up). I don't doubt his sincerity but this model is not ready for the masses. The masses want to buy products, not promises. Patreon on the other hand, makes it too easy to stay forever in alpha, the money will keep coming in while there's interest and eventually it wanes and the author moves on to something else. But the product never actually gets finished. In the mean time over the many months more money will get spent on it by each 'customer' than on an actual finished product. Another big name that's currently in this situation is Star Citizen (which was a bit of combo of both models, with continual crowdfunding). Who knows when that'll ever be finished. They certainly have more than enough money but what's lacking is the role of the publisher in the traditional model, who keeps the project on track because they want to see RoI eventually. The crowdfunding models are great sometimes but they're seriously lacking on this point.

viraptor 6y ago

Is a "digital content artist" and "gaming industry" even in the same category? This is an extremely large scope where I would be happy to see (for example) EA crash and burn, but do want creators to succeed. So generic an answers may be hard.

sjy 6y ago

Since you mentioned the gaming industry: most popular games make money without relying on charity or selling copyrighted files. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-played_video_games_by_player_count https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-played_video_game...