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Game modding is profitable and people doing it professionally (which they increasingly do) are quite attuned to the fact that making it too accessible would dec

Game modding is profitable and people doing it professionally (which they increasingly do) are quite attuned to the fact that making it too accessible would decimate their revenue. As a result, you either pay for the mod (early access, extra content, etc.), or you pay to join some Discord, but ideally you pay for something. Discord, which I generally dislike, is not necessarily the cause of it; if there was no Discord, people would probably use some other closed community platform instead. I expect this would become more widespread as more traditional jobs are subsumed by unregulated ML tech (which, incidentally, the encumbent job-holders are helping train) and more people turn to what used to be generally a hobby as their means of making a living (not that that would last for too long either).

squigz 1y ago
> Game modding is profitable It can be. As I understand it, it's sort of like streaming or other content creation - yes, it's possible, but difficult, as it's a saturated market. Most mod authors don't make much money. As a slight aside, I think people would be more inclined to support creators like mod authors if it were simply easier. Patreon and the like make it fairly easy, but I don't think many people want to subscribe to 20+ Patreons for $5 apiece, as much as they might like to support those authors. On the other hand, I think more people would be willing to pledge $X per month to be split among all of their subscriptions. Sure, most creators would only get a few cents per user, but they'd likely get many more people subscribing, and I think it would add up quick. I might be wrong, and I don't take credit for this idea by any means; I read it some time ago, and possibly Patreon even offered this system before?
- Voxany 1y ago
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- strogonoff 1y ago
  > I don't think many people want to subscribe to 20+ Patreons for $5 apiece, as much as they might like to support those authors I don’t think any bundle will take off. People like getting direct support, and people like giving direct support and getting individual messages in return. (Furthermore, creators know that as soon they help this hypothetical platform get enough traction it will immediately turn and arbitrage against them by paying less and less per user and obscuring the metrics.) There is only a limited number of mods you can play with, and a number of creators you really want to support. Many people have no problem with that number. (Sometimes their parents have, but that’s another matter.) One thing I missed is that in addition to gamers paying for mods or community there is the good old “slap an ad on mod page”. You are right in that you are competing against your fellow creators and that it is a saturated market. That is exactly why if you make something millions of people install you really don’t want to make the knowledge too accessible and spend time on any activity that literally takes food off your table.
  - squigz 1y ago
    > There is only a limited number of mods you can play with My Minecraft server has 300+ mods. I've subscribed to nearly that many Rimworld mods. 50 is the lowest number of mods for a game of mine I can quickly find.
    - strogonoff 1y ago
      The number is not unbounded, the more mods you have the more difficulty you will have upgrading, the more they conflict with each other, and consumer hardware cannot handle the load. Also, paid mods usually have a free version. You pay for early access for latest and greatest version, which only makes sense for specific important mods. You wouldn’t do it for all of the mods.
      - squigz 1y ago
        > the more mods you have the more difficulty you will have upgrading, the more they conflict with each other, The point is you don't quickly reach this point these days. > consumer hardware cannot handle the load. My GPU is 10 years old, my CPU is 6 years old, and I only have 16GB of RAM. I'm not even sure I can name a game that is easily moddable that might overload even a middle-of-the-road system. > Also, paid mods usually have a free version. You pay for early access for latest and greatest version, which only makes sense for specific important mods. You wouldn’t do it for all of the mods. Interestingly, the vast, vast majority of mods I know of that offer a Patreon or similar don't offer much in the way of perks - it's mostly just a way of letting users support them if they choose. Sometimes there's early access, but that's actually fairly rare in my experience.
        strogonoff 1y ago
        > My GPU is 10 years old, my CPU is 6 years old, and I only have 16GB of RAM And a Minecraft server with 300+ mods? I doubt it. > I'm not even sure I can name a game that is easily moddable that might overload even a middle-of-the-road system. X-Plane, Cities: Skylines, Minecraft… Most big games will overload a machine of an average person, at least once you add a decent shader, high-poly models and high-res textures, and play on anything other than potato resolution.

squigz 1y ago

> Game modding is profitable It can be. As I understand it, it's sort of like streaming or other content creation - yes, it's possible, but difficult, as it's a saturated market. Most mod authors don't make much money. As a slight aside, I think people would be more inclined to support creators like mod authors if it were simply easier. Patreon and the like make it fairly easy, but I don't think many people want to subscribe to 20+ Patreons for $5 apiece, as much as they might like to support those authors. On the other hand, I think more people would be willing to pledge $X per month to be split among all of their subscriptions. Sure, most creators would only get a few cents per user, but they'd likely get many more people subscribing, and I think it would add up quick. I might be wrong, and I don't take credit for this idea by any means; I read it some time ago, and possibly Patreon even offered this system before?

Voxany 1y ago
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strogonoff 1y ago
> I don't think many people want to subscribe to 20+ Patreons for $5 apiece, as much as they might like to support those authors I don’t think any bundle will take off. People like getting direct support, and people like giving direct support and getting individual messages in return. (Furthermore, creators know that as soon they help this hypothetical platform get enough traction it will immediately turn and arbitrage against them by paying less and less per user and obscuring the metrics.) There is only a limited number of mods you can play with, and a number of creators you really want to support. Many people have no problem with that number. (Sometimes their parents have, but that’s another matter.) One thing I missed is that in addition to gamers paying for mods or community there is the good old “slap an ad on mod page”. You are right in that you are competing against your fellow creators and that it is a saturated market. That is exactly why if you make something millions of people install you really don’t want to make the knowledge too accessible and spend time on any activity that literally takes food off your table.
- squigz 1y ago
  > There is only a limited number of mods you can play with My Minecraft server has 300+ mods. I've subscribed to nearly that many Rimworld mods. 50 is the lowest number of mods for a game of mine I can quickly find.
  - strogonoff 1y ago
    The number is not unbounded, the more mods you have the more difficulty you will have upgrading, the more they conflict with each other, and consumer hardware cannot handle the load. Also, paid mods usually have a free version. You pay for early access for latest and greatest version, which only makes sense for specific important mods. You wouldn’t do it for all of the mods.
    - squigz 1y ago
      > the more mods you have the more difficulty you will have upgrading, the more they conflict with each other, The point is you don't quickly reach this point these days. > consumer hardware cannot handle the load. My GPU is 10 years old, my CPU is 6 years old, and I only have 16GB of RAM. I'm not even sure I can name a game that is easily moddable that might overload even a middle-of-the-road system. > Also, paid mods usually have a free version. You pay for early access for latest and greatest version, which only makes sense for specific important mods. You wouldn’t do it for all of the mods. Interestingly, the vast, vast majority of mods I know of that offer a Patreon or similar don't offer much in the way of perks - it's mostly just a way of letting users support them if they choose. Sometimes there's early access, but that's actually fairly rare in my experience.
      - strogonoff 1y ago
        > My GPU is 10 years old, my CPU is 6 years old, and I only have 16GB of RAM And a Minecraft server with 300+ mods? I doubt it. > I'm not even sure I can name a game that is easily moddable that might overload even a middle-of-the-road system. X-Plane, Cities: Skylines, Minecraft… Most big games will overload a machine of an average person, at least once you add a decent shader, high-poly models and high-res textures, and play on anything other than potato resolution.