The Problem With Paid Mods
For the longest time, video game mods have been considered passion projects and non-commercial in nature. However, in recent years those things have started to change, which raises important questions about the morality and legality of it all, and has created separation inside the different modding communities.
📄Sources, Credits & Citations
gist.github.com/justGesha/5d3...
📱Socials
Discord: / discord
🎵Music
1. Skylines - Anno Domini Beats
2. Rewind - Ofshane
3. Stars and Constellations - Sarah, The Illstrumentalist
4. Sweet Tides - LATASHÁ
5. World War Outerspace - Audio Hertz
6. City By Night - ELPHNT
7. Disco Knights - Quincas Moreira
8. Hold On a Minute - Silent Partner
9 Turtle Time - Verified Picasso
10. Alone Time - Slynk
⏳Timestamps
0:00 Intro
1:19 Brief History
3:09 Free or Paid?
5:23 Controversies
6:39 What's next?
7:34 Closing remarks
8:07 Outro
Till next time!
#Mod #Mods #Modding
A little disclaimer: The information about Quant V being cancelled due to Take 2's involvement is per Quant's own statement in his Discord server (here: i.imgur.com/ic5TuAc.png ) and his Patreon post. I actually never questioned the legitimacy of those statements, cause for me it was important that the mod is going away (which I believed was the right course of action after what happened). With that being said, I don't want to spread misinformation, so if someone has more knowledge on the matter, I'd love to hear it. P.S. Thanks to @Jet for the heads up!
I can't believe quantV was a virus 😭😭
@@SafariiYT Exactly and I was one of the people who used it without paying too 💀💀
@@phrog.4809 All versions before August 2022 are reportedly safe. Quant is an idiot. I plan on suing.
@@phrog.4809 NVE on top.
These mods will be early access until we stop paying them hoards of cash
The trend didn't start with Valve, The Sims community has been infested with paid mod sites since as early as 2002-ish. It was such a problem back in the day that it prompted one of the more prominent/controversial modders to create a site dedicated solely to sharing paid mods for free, called Pay Sites Must Be Destroyed. We need something like that now.
Just looked it up and I gotta say, I actually had no idea it went this far back in time. This is really surprising to hear, cause from my POV this only started becoming a trend in recent years. I guess The Sims has always been this way then 😅 Anyway, thanks for the info.
@@justGesha Also simulator games always had -aholes- nice people making mods, with DRM even.
Such a thing already exist, it's called cracked files and people pay for such a mods, then leak it to the public.
@@gabrielmartines3510 Yeah, but most pirates ain't gonna bother to crack a graphical mod for a mid 2000's game with always online DRM. Pirated mods only exists for the most popular stuff, the rest you're probably never gonna get (unless there's some site I don't know about).
@@cannedbeverage7687 True, didn't think about it that way.
In my opinion all mods should be free, with the option to donate to the creator. Many bigger projects deserve money, but not all of us can afford them.
Indeed! Sooner or later even the most malicious F2P users will pay to authors for their great work.
I agree, unless its a project big enough to be its own game. For example, Black Mesa, was an entire game, with the models made from scratch, which took around 15 years to complete. Something like that could justify a 10-30$ paywall.
@@ThisHandleIsRare True. If its something big enough to be its own game, that is worthy of a 10 or 30$ price tag. What should be free is the mods like, playermodel reskins, weapon packs, a new car pack.
should be the choice of the author.
So the creator would get nothing, because noone would donate. The majority of people wants obv. everything for free, just like you.
As the founder of the Pepega Mod project for the Need for Speed series - paywalling Mods does nothing but show someone's greedy intentions or pure obliviousness. Games cost money because the cost money to produce. Employees, offices, equipment, so much stuff which needs to be financed on a regular basis. No matter how much time you invest into a mod, at no point did (or should) it cost you any more than your free time. That is the key difference between Mods and Games. That being said, an optional donation page is perfectly fine. Everyone can still play the mod for free as it should be, but the people who enjoyed it can still leave a little 'thank you' if desired. Even in our case where we put up a custom website that hosts a variety of download links, all of which costs money to maintain - we would never paywall any of our work. Thankfully the amount of donations we receive can cover the website fees for several years. A good mod will get financial support regardless if you paywall it or not.
Damn, even Dustin is here.
Exactly. Put the mods for free and make a donation system if you want, no need to get extra greedy!
Well said i fully agree Dustin.
This. You have lots of alternatives to paywalls. Paid early/beta access ain't bad, as the mod wil l be free anyway. Bonuses such as crediting, referencing and such can also be offered. And to not mention commissions. Paying a modder to do something you want isn't bad and would absolutely push some modders to publish these commissions and add up to the community, even if these were made for a one-time profit.
But what about paid mod commissions?
I've donated to many mod creators,but I would never use a mod that is hidden behind a pay wall. If a mod really changes how the game plays I don't have a problem throwing them a few bucks.
so whats the difference between buying it and donating them some money?
@@MrSpeck321 donating comes from yourself, because you feel he deserves your money. on the other end, the modder has an ego the size of a bank account and forces you to pay for mods. one is scummy, one is respectful. one could argue paying for a product is nothing scummy, but we are talking about game mods. most of these things are abandoned day 1 after release. mods should absolutely be free with option to donate. paid mods will only revert to piracy in one way or another.
Finally someone talks about how stupid they have come to want to monopolize the mods of a 2013 game. Just take a look at those who make "EUP" mods, they put ridiculous prices for vests imported from another game and they take your IP if you use a leak from them
As someone ***very*** prominent in the Leaking community, I whole-heartedly agree. People charge 200 dollars for vehicle models that take 3 weeks at most to make. I can justify Mega-Packs that have 20 cars, full eup, scripts, etc for ~15 dollars, but the other people who put a $160 price tag on 4 vehicles, is just fucking absurd. Not even mentioning MLO's that any asshat off the street can make, and people put them at 350 dollars for a 200sqf building..
@@operatortranquil8113 You will not let me lie that there are currently certain modders who want to monopolize the "market" of EUP mods, they make others look bad who are just starting out just because they want all the money, not to mention that if you leak something they will take your IP, a bunch of losers and crybabys
its something that got me off LSPDFR for a while.. "wow that youtuber has a cool mod pack!" boom 25 dollars for some mods??? like common you didnt even make those vests
@@aziirax3400 Ikr, those vests are imported from other games or 3D modeling pages and they cry just because someone took a picture of themselves in those clothes. It is very satisfying to see how they leak warstock EUP
Gta 5 modder on their way to charge me with 20 dollar for a single virtual police item.
Mods like RoSA Project Evolved shouldn't be paid, but really DESERVE to be paid. It will be a waste in my opinion to lock such an awesome modification behind a paywall, but a mod like that definitely deserves every kind of support.
"this can't be good for me but i feel great"
I see your point. However (and now I'm just speaking for myself), if I had the skills and time to mod, I would completely overhaul the 3D era games, and give everything away for free. We're having incomplete stuff for now and we have to recompile multiple mods to have a decent experience. I'm talking about a complete rework. In the past may have been different, and things may change again in the future, but as of now, I would do it and refuse any payment. I'm sure I'm not the only one with this stance. And that's because, in my opinion, this awesome community deserves to be treated with respect. It's the case of "with great power comes great responsibility".
It will never be, but when she said that will open a Patreon to support the progress of the mod, many people attacked her with comments like "open an Only Fans and we'll talk" etc. She left GTA Forums due that, they are so toxic. It's really sad how people attack those who try to find funding for creating mods, even if you just ask for donation, people attack you, I don't understand it. I created a crowdfunding to create Tuning Mod, it was less than 100 dollars but I was very happy and worked for months.
@@JuniorDjjrMixMods Really sad to hear this. Modders definitely don't get the respect they deserve these days...
@@JuniorDjjrMixMods you and everyone in the mixmods modding community desserve all the respect in the world, keep up with the good work!
tbh I always thought the mod creators that made total conversions like : Liberty City 4.0, LCS 5.0, Vice City Stories PC Edition, Frosted Winter, Shine O'Vice & Forelli Redemption deserved some kind of compensation or certain perks on Modding platforms but then now to see people selling for $5 - $20 something i could do on a whim breaks my heart.
but if thats the case alot of times somebody will do it on a whim and then release it for free , effectively killing the paid version of the mod but if nobody can easily do it or nobody has the time to do it why not charge for it ? nobody is forcing you to buy the mod you just want it ..
@@jusaguywatchingvidyas1827 Are you one of the guys who sell mods and defending them?
@@zuyuno_zd i wish i had the talent of those guys , iim sure you do too ;)
@@jusaguywatchingvidyas1827 copying a mod is more or less frowned upon
Paying for mods always seemed so cringe imo. I can definitely understand commission based mod authors, cause you are basically paying them to make an ENTIRE mod for you, but paying for a mod that is already done and completed? No thanks lol😅
I think it's only cringe if the mod falls under one of the "undeserving" categories. Otherwise, if it's a big mod that included personal investments, even if the development is finished, I see no reason why the community shouldn't help out a little to cover some of those costs. I believe it's a fair trade since the community also gets something in return. A good example of that would be the Resident Evil 4 HD Project. According to their site, they spent more than $15k on the project, but got above $16k in donations.
Guess I gotta pirate mods too.
@@justGesha Respectable
@@justGesha I think it’s just cringe and shows what they are really doing it for “the money”
And not the community
I think the main reason why modding communities are so strong and passionate is *because* mods are free, there's no incentive to make money, so only the most passionate people actually commit to making mods, because the only thing they're getting from it is the joy of contributing to something they love, no matter how small. When money is involved in an accessible creative process, people will try to exploit it with the least effort possible, like Reshade presets for example, being put out just for the *prospect* of making money off it, being so low effort and easy to pump out. I wish mod sites had some kind of money sharing option, like maybe revenue from ads shown specifically on the mod page being partially given to the creator.
Perfectly sums up my opinion on the whole topic.
Regarding support mod creators financially, what I think should be done is to do it how Colossus Order did it with Cities:Skylines where they reached out to mod creators to ask if they want to create a content pack that will be sold as official DLCs with their name being center and forefront like “This community created content pack is created by: *insert name*”
i would love this - and it would be great for everyone but not all devs will get on board for the same reason some people want great mods for free , and some people want to sell their mods ... GREED. this is a very nuanced topics with a lot of sides to it but one thing we agree on PASSION should be REWARDED.
Shout out to that updates our scripthook for GTA V from Ukraine despite the war he still keeps it updated sometimes they deserve more than a clap
I would totally donate a thousand grand for his good ass work
for me it's 5 things 1- Quality 2- Size 3- How long will I use it 4- Long term support 5- Fairly priced I play a lot of American Truck Simulator, I really like the Peterbilt 389, I had two options: go with a mod which is rarely updated because the mod author shows lack of interest in keeping it up to date, or fork over $25 and have a mod that's of much higher quality, has long term support and has more customization options. I chose the paid mod, because I see myself driving that truck for well over 25h, currently I have 100k miles so for me it was well worth the price. Tthere's another guy selling the same truck (not the same mod) for $99, it has more customizations but the quality is a lot lower, there are graphical glitches, clipping etc. This kind of mod I have a problem with. How are you charging 100 burger credits for a half baked mod you didn't even bother to fix clipping issues. Even worse this author gets away with it because there are people out there who buy his mods. Another mod I bought was a CAT 3406E engine sound mod, For this mod I had planty of free alternatives I even tried some, but they didn't quite scratch the itch. Then I found this creator, he has professional equipment and rents trucks specifically to record the engine sounds. It's not just some sounds he found on youtube, therefore the quality is vastly superior to anything the free options offer. All this for $4,99. To conclude, in my opinion if the mods meet the 5 requirements mentioned above, I think it's fine for them to be paid.
I hate the idea of paying for mods, but I can understand why modders would want to get something back gorilla their time and hard work
Gorila
Gorilla
Gorilla
Gorilla🦍😂😂😂
Gorilla
Enjoyed this a lot, you should do more videos in this format
Gesha these videos getting are better and better 🔥🔥🔥
I know these kind of videos take more effort and time to make, but man I'll definitely subscribe because of this video and your previous ones about remastering/ lore friendly mods. Keep it up! 🤩👍
Woah a mod like Anderius is free that is unbelievable.
San Anderius was awesome, it really is like a whole new game, I used to play it back in the day, I modded my gta games a lot, the idea of paying for a mod never even crossed my mind. I was very confused and kinda disappointed when I found out that I had to pay for graphics mods nowadays, not only for gta, even minecraft has paywalled Pathtracing graphic mods haha
@@adan7949 tf
I agree with this, first of all you got youtubers like INTER who pretty much asks for money for his reshade preset of GTA V. And I understand that he wasted big money into his PC, but that's his problem. Plus he started a dry trend with GTA V graphics, stuff like "GTA V - My RTX 3090 Ti Began to HEAT UP // 8K GRAPHICS GAMEPLAY 60FPS" It's hard to make a perfect preset, but don't ask for money, because someone took their time to code a mod that supports presets and let you modify it however you like.
Personally, I just hate how a lot of his videos will start with the name "GTA VI" in the title. Like, bro, stop baiting people with the fucking title. Heavy reshades and graphics mods are NOT going to make your GTA V mod like GTA VI, and is going to look stupid when GTA VI does finally get released. Also, his habit of taking old GTA 3D era games and throwing them into the GTA V RAGE engine. No, that does NOT make them a "remake" or better than how they looked in their own engine. It just looks like a cheap RAGE engine job.
@@igorpolyakov4113 You're more than 100% right. It does look good indeed, but don't bait people. Plus the 3D ERA GTAs thrown into GTA V Rage, yeah that too. Rockstar can do remakes, but they would change a lot of things. A remake isn't simply about adding better graphics, no. It's about remaking the entire game, new textures, new lightning, new models and everything you can think of completely remade from the start. Of course, you have the choice to simply use some old assets, like the map, or you can remake it but still feel like the older version.
When INTER makes those graphics videos and says “my 3090 is overheating” hes full of crap because its literally naturalvision evolved or some reshade preset which hes used a billion times and those previous times his stupid 3090 was fine so now its overheating to the same mod hes used?… I also noticed that INTER sports his 3090 all the time telling you “hey guys look i have a 3090 and you dont” hey dumbass maybe if you didnt invest your life into a fucking machine that plays gta 5 with the same recycled graphics mod then maybe you wouldnt have to ask for money for another same coat of paint but different name preset for reshade. @Igor Polyakov youre right about how annoying it is when he puts “gta vi” in the title. Its like “i installed 1000 gta 5 mods and its better than gta 6” well how do you know if its better when the game hasnt even been released yet? And youre also right how he takes a vice city map mod, recycled graphics mod and a tommy vercetti player model for gta 5 and says its “gta vc remake” when you can clearly tell its gta 5. So next time he shoves his 3090 in your face remember that he may have a 3090 but at least you have money and dont ask for it
“I understand he wasted big money on his pc but that’s his problem” it’s also your problem that you are broke and can’t make your own mods keep crying we don’t live in a socialist world where everything is free hard work deserves pay that’s capitalism
I swear, he's scamming viewers over a goddamn reshade preset so he can buff up his battlestation PC
As a Modder of GTA games and more recently Paradox games (mainly Victoria II which appears 1:29 lol) I would like some monetary benefit for my effort. However, I am also a consumer of mods, and paying for minor mods can be quite a pain, especially when it is a more obscure game with a smaller community that doesn't have many alternatives. So I do feel like the best solution to the extent of having mods remain free but have a donation page. Which prevents stuff like skins or more minor mods from being locked off since they have a paywall, but also allows bigger mods to have money to continue smooth development. Even for minor mods, some sites provide ad revenue for modders who want it. 1000 people giving you 5 cents from ads probably be more ($50) than 5 people paying 5 dollars for your mod ($25).
I completely fell in love with this video, it's so well researched and put together, I'm not going to lie my only disappointment is the length, eight minutes is a crime, I was SO invested, I wish it was a little longer but I had a lot of fun, thank you for this. It's a simple subject and yet surprisingly interesting, can't wait to see more from ya!
I like how one of the biggest graphics mods for GTA 5 [NVE] is making you pay for the early access, but gives it out eventually for free later on if the mod is fully released. This is how the big mods should be like.
freemium is my favorite mod model as it allows people tight on money and kids to also enjoy mods
Its good until it doesnt come out of early access
@@georgegeorge25812g huh.. a certain zombie survival game written in java that pegs my machine comes to mind......
This reminds me of Assetto Corsa's modding community. There's literally a war between people selling cars and pirates trying to rip them. Some payware mods are very good and might even be worth the price, but others are just lazy Forza ports that don't represent their real life counterparts at all.
Hey man. Thanks for that simplistic setup idea
lmao i love your intro description in the first few seconds.
U always bring videos that are very useful
I've noticed this a lot recently. I'm usually fine with donating a bit to creators who put in a lot of work into their projects, but selling re-shades and clothing a lot of which are stolen from other FREE projects is ridiculous. I'm glad you made a video about this.
My opinion is pretty straight forward here. Some products are covered by EULAs and some are not and we have to respect that. For GTA 3D era mods, people are in the right to create whatever they please, because at the time the game was released, there was no EULA in place. They were as you said, passion projects, and the vast majority remain classified as that to this day. Also they don't cause any harm. However, Rockstar/T2 remain in the right to deny these being used for commercial purposes, because it involves their work as well. For products that are NOT covered by such agreements, I don't think it's our place to decide if they deserve to be monetized or not. If the mpd has a price tag, the right question is whether the price is worth it or not. Everyone decides that for themselves. If you want it you buy it, and that's it. If the mod doesn't have a price tag, yet you feel morally obligated to give something in return, I don't see that being an issue with the opposite side. So yeah, the phrase "it depends" is here to stay.
This is all fine if it existed in a vacuum. It doesn't though. This whole "I don't think it's our place to decide if they deserve to be monetized or not. If you want it you buy it, and that's it." has a proven track record of being disastrous for the end user/consumer in the video game industry alone, let alone markets in general. It is our place to decide whether or not they deserve to be monetized because it is us that will pay for a bad outcome.
@@mechanomics2649 our place to decide for each and every product. You can't make a decision for all mods, and be done with it.
omg the mention of anderius took me back T_T childhood was fun, also, you were involved in myriad islands?? wtf i had no clue
The modders that do stuff for free are doing it out of passion, but in doing so they are also devaluing a craft and contributing to a deep sense of entitlement on part of consumers. As an artist I've lost count over the number of times I've spent days creating elaborate artwork at the request of various people to zero compensation. Even if you're my closest friend you buying me dinner once just doesn't pay for 96 hours of my time. Nobody walks up to a friend who works in any other field and request their work to be carried out for free but artists are frequently treated this way. If you're an artist giving away work for free you're contributing towards people feeling entitled to your effort, personally I've stopped handing out any more freebies as it became increasingly clear to me how doing so constitutes harm as to how people view and value our entire craft. Sad thing about human psychology is how even the people close to me respect me a whole lot more since I told them to go F themselves and hire an artist than they did when I would care for them and put in the effort to please them with my work.
based
Nice video man!💯
i’m glad somebody is finally saying about the reshade presets
I love to see notifications from this channel
I've been modding since 1998 and I've always been under the impression that it's supposed to be a hobby, or at most, a passion project that accepts donations as a thanks from those who can afford to support the mod. As a poor kid that was lucky enough to get a cousin's old computer, I downloaded tons of doom wads, and as I got older and started downloading more mods, I learned how to make them as a way to give back to the community in the only way that I could. Because thats what it was about - the game and the community. These people that are locking the mod behind a link that only becomes available after giving a "donation" as quite simply selling the mod, not simply taking donations - which is making that word "donation" do some heavy lifting to keep the law from clamping down lol. The fact that mods have been free has been the defense we take up every time a company cries foul over our mods as if we are taking their money. I understand having some type of incentive for people to send to your patreon account, but putting your premiere mod(s) behind a paywall actually does more harm for a modding community than good. Modding communities work best when working together. When we give people credit where credit is deserved and allow our mods to be expanded or modified to fit with other mods when possible. Stalker is the best case for a modding community that has been expanding on the mods they've made for years now, evolving the trilogy into something that I consider my favorite FPS of all time - and none of it is paywalled content. Something like Stalker: Anomaly's G.A.M.M.A. mod is the result so many years of modders improving the work f those who made mods before, untill all three Stalker games maps and mechanics were combined into one game, given a new story that acts as a fan made sequel of sorts, and has so many mods, tweaks, and improvements that have been made by countless community members. Most of those people have Patreon accounts and the get compensation without paywalls, and that has allowed the community and its mods to grow in such an amazing way. I could go on and on why we shouldn't charge for our mods, but instead should simply be grateful and happy that people want to give us money simply for doing something we enjoy doing in our free time. If you want programming and making a game to be your job - then you can always make a game or apply for positions lol. But if it's not your game, dont charge for the content. Not to mention, with how widespread gaming is, there are countless poor kids that rely on mods to pad out the very few games they own - I know I did as a kid.
the Assetto Corsa (simracing game with a huge modding community) community is full of people like the ones that profit off of selling reshade presets in the GTA V community, but instead of reshade presets, its car model rips from other games such as Forza, GT and etc with shitty physics added ontop to save time while the guy selling them claims them as their own and sells them for 25 bucks each or more. Its frustrating as hell. Examples of them could be RTM, Simdream, Jaskier and many more, but sadly there isn't much we can do about it. there's also a lot of gatekeepers with private mods, such as Trawa and his Ascend Service Garage circlejerk full of people with egos the size of a bus. but at the same time.. there's also groups like Race Sim Studio or Virtual Racing Cars that can be compared to the group of guys who made Alien City back in 2009... and those deserve the support they get. fooling around with VRC's Formula '22 is one of the best experiences i've had with a racing game in a long while. I think modding should be free though, and i wish the scummier paid mods can start to dissappear sometime in the near future, while the big well made ones can stay afloat through donations. rant over, good video as always Gesha.
TravaPL legit went from "follow kunos' pipeline for making mods!" To "kunos cars physics are bad! Just get my private JDM shiet boi". I love AC and modding it, but the modding scene is pure cringe.
the most ironic thing is that the physics in his cars are always just meh as hell nothing against Archibald Milton and the physics he does, but imo i just prefer kunos physics lmao the NSX in RaceDepartment is a pain to drive which.. i guess it's realistic? but come on, i wanna have fun.
and then when the publishers/developers of the games that have such mods do something about it people get mad
Paid mods should be burned to the ground. A donation option if you want to support the creator is okay, but a paywall is unacceptable.
It should be the modders option
It's not up to the consumers to decide what a modders does with their blood sweat and tears. If they want to charge for their work they should have the right to do so. And you have the right not to use them. I personally never buy any mods but that doesn't mean modders shouldn't be able to make money off their work.
bro, I think your videos had to have subtitles in Portuguese because it's very difficult for me to understand your videos but I still watch them
I'm glad someone is talking about this kind of stuff. I'm tired of so many mod authors expecting people to pay 5+ dollars a month just for their basic cosmetic mods, and to have to maintain that subscription for future updates. I can't do that for every single mod I have an interest in. It makes modding the game feel more restrictive, when modding should be open ended and free. I understand a lot of work goes into modding, and there's a level of skill that goes into making something worthwhile, but most mods are model swaps, texture swaps, stolen assets, or stuff that already has better free alternatives. Just because you put time into something, doesn't automatically mean the result is worth paying for. If you want your time and effort to be compensated, put that effort into making something like a game, or making original assets to sell individually; people will spend decent money for high quality assets. Not to mention how petty some of these paid mods are with their anti-piracy methods. Leaking IPs or wiping hard drives is extreme, and is unacceptable behavior from anyone who expects to sell a product.
One of the mods that you showed (Black Messa) not only is a paid mod but is still a community developed project.
But at least Black Mesa is through Steam
@@ReinKayomi It being sold through seam changes nothing, what matters is its high quality
EA had already made an amzing way of making money from mods with the C&C ip, as all mods can have a donation button as long as it dose not lock anything behind the paywall from early betas to ingame stuff.
I don't mind paying for mods, as long as the authors act in a professional manner, delivering quality and stability with their work. When I'm paying for something, I'm paying for convenience most of the time, especially considering how time-consuming it can be to mod a game, so I'm okay paying for a "plug and play" all-in-one solution that adds good content quickly and cleanly.
same, but the big issue is lazy modders releasing paid content and abandoning it afterwards. if you are a reputable modder who can make dev quality like content with frequent updates, it is more acceptable to have it paid, but its still paid mods. mods that if that company wants to, could ruin both your day and the mods author's day if they wanted to change something. and this is personally my biggest point against paid mods. THEY ARE GAME MODIFICATIONS.... as soon as your game gets an update, you gotta wait for that modder to update their crap, thats IF they update their mods.... but not all updates are disruptive like that also.... didnt come here to bitch between comments. honestly just want to say my 2 cents, this is a very touchy subject and i see that everyone has a different feeling about paid mods. my biggest complaint will forever be the ez way to milk the communities with low effort crap that never gets updated. this crap plagues every community i think.... it really is a complicated matter...
I feel like mods that have a lot of effort put into them, is up to the creator for how they want to release their modification, active support and spending loads of time on something is fun, but being able to be paid from doing the hard work with all the hours you've put into projects will motivate some people even more. On the other hand, I don't think asking for 30 dollars for packs of clothes, etc with designs that aren't owned by the OP is rightful, it's a mix of eh, I feel that there shouldn't be much talk about them anyway... No one is forcing anyone to buy them, it's a mod at the end of the day that you may want, if you "want" it, pay for it, if you don't want to pay for it, find an alternative, there are loads.
"No one is forcing anyone to buy them" is the mindset that got us to a microtransaction infested video game industry. Everyone knows that no one is being forced to buy them. You aren't saying anything by saying that and that isn't the point.
@@mechanomics2649 facts
If they want to get something monetary back for their voluntary time modding a video game they did not even develop themselves, then they probably should not "waste" their time and should instead probably find a job in game design or an actual job alltogether
@@thejunktownsheriffkilliand4800 so why do you deserve the mod - just ignore it and pretend like it doesn't exist. its not as simple as get a job in game design - if you don't support it cool but they deserve to be rewarded for their hard work.
I’m interested about your opinion on mods like Asseto Corsas Content Manager. It basically creates a whole new launch menu, massively helps with installing mods, automatically detects outdated mods and offers new versions and adds a huge amount of new settings as well as a graphics overhaul. The thing is, there is a free version and a paid version. The free version gives you access to all the basic tools for modding and a lot of the settings, but doesn’t include the graphics overhaul for example.
I've been developing mods for 15 years, and even being a developer and having created mods that took up to 3 months of work, working 16 hours a day, every day, I believe they should be free. The problem is that there is not a BROAD Good Samaritan culture. In an ideal world, mods would all be free, and people who like what they saw would look for a way to contribute financially, such as a donation via paypal. There are people who cannot afford to contribute financially due to being poor, and I am one of them. I am the perfect example of how important it is for people to be aware and make a donation, because I had to stop developing because my video card died, and I don't have the money to buy another one (I live in Brazil, my currency is worth 5x less than the dollar, video cards around here are really expensive). I'm currently limited to developing things like mods for Fallout 3, which is capable of running on my Intel HD 610. I think we should "teach" people, that mods are like those old ms-dos shareware, or like winrar, it's totally full and free, but if you really like it, you should donate to help the developer keep creating cool stuff .
I fully agree
This video reminds me of some of the things happening within the Indonesian UK Truck Simulator/Euro Truck Simulator/18 Wheels of Steel Haulin community. Basically they turned these truck simulation games into bus simulation games and they even replaced the vehicles, maps, and game mechanics to digitally replicate the Indonesian intercity bus network through mods. Some of these mods are free but because people kept disrespecting the authors by spreading these mods around without giving the authors proper credit, a number of the better mods were locked behind a paywall and you need to pay a certain amount to download them
Hey man I love your work and I've been here since like 500 subs. It's crazy to see how far you made it! Congrats. There has a video I would LOVE seeing on your channel. I'm extremely impatient for gta 6 as we have all been waiting for quite a long time. I was wondering if you could somehow make a video about turning gta 5 into gta 6. You could use information from the leaks and add details that would most likely be in grand theft auto 6 such as more realism, but not too much as that would just be turning it into real life simulator. I hope you see this comment and make something that rockstar probably won't release until 2025. I'm also asking YOU instead of anyone else because I know how good you are at completely transforming grand theft auto 5 into something completely different. Thank you and goodbye!
There is too little information still to turn gta5 into 6 also given the fact no1 has played 6 yet so there should be no desire to turn it into 6 rather just wait and play 6 by itself which will show us features and mechanics we haven't seen yet.
thats like saying someone should use footage from the empire strikes back to make the return of the jedi. its not possible.
I would've liked the approach the bandcamp has for music, where music (most of the time) essentially free with an option to pay some minimum amount for the track/album adding a convenience feature of saving it in your library and allowing to use bandcamp app to play it from cloud. Like imagine nexusmods where you can download mods for free (if you choose so), but if you want the vortex to setup them for you - you need to pay at least a minimum amount for the mod, which adds it to the vortex library, and auto updates it. Yes, vortex works for free right now, but it's just an idea of implementation.
This makes me think of the Assetto Corsa modding scene. Sure, there are some massive mods, but so many of them are stuck behind unreasonable pay walls...
Exactly what I was gonna say. I've paid for a good amount of maps and cars and never touched them once after using them the first time because of how low quality and unfinished they are compared to the many amazing free mods that I have. I also noticed this trend in the beamng community too. Now I'm seeing people grab free 3d car models ripped from forza and throw them onto any of the original cars from the game that fits good enough and make it look good in pictures then pump them out like a factory for like $10 to $20 each. I made a crappy lamborghini urus mod for beamng in 3 days and it looked so good in pics that people thought it was from a real mod creator so its really easy to do if you spend enough time with the game and are willing to do a little practice and learning.
@@roachraider6169 the beamng modding community is also toxic :\
they are not “unreasonable”. You do NOT have a right to somebody else’s work. They have every right to charge for their mods, because a TON of work went into it. If you don’t want to pay, don’t buy it. Please grow up.
@@blindsight_music_ yeah no, making a preset and putting your name on it isn't a TON of work.
@@TheCapitalWanderer that’s crazy. clearly you’ve never been involved in the development of any worthwhile mod.
When a subreddit called /r/modpiracy existed and has been banned, you know shit's fucked...
1:53 You really are the best youtuber. You make all of our days better
People who lock reshade presets behind a paywall have been real quiet since this video dropped.
I think it's best when it's optional or provides ease of access on other platforms. On my case, all my mods are completely free (Super Mario world ROM hack, Minecraft texture pack, etc). You don't have to pay for these. However my Minecraft texture is available on the bedrock store to be purchased but it allows you to play it on consoles (which would be silly to mod just for a texture pack). Even still I asked my publisher to keep the price low for ease of purchase (with seasonal discounts whenever available). I think finding ways for creators to monetize their content is a must. Maybe you don't want to pay directly for a mod but alternative revenue streams are to be used (KZhead adsense money, donations, console publishing, etc).
think it should be a mixed bag. Theres a good mix between the types.
Heroes of Might and Magic III had two community made mods/expansion packs: In The Wake of Gods and Horn of the Abyss. The former I think had a mixed reception to this day but I remember the praise that users could create more RPG-styled custom maps/campaigns, and their own artifacts with special attributes, since it came with its own event editor. The latter-- as far as I know-- has a positive reception because of how much it reworked gameplay balance for those who like to play it competitively, as well as adding a whole new faction, campaign, terrain, everything pretty much. Both of which are released to the public for free, and have the option of donation to help support.* Paywalls for a mod that's just a weapon, clothing, character, or texture reskin just seems really off to me. However, mods that are entirely new content alongside or based off the original (GTA Alien City, the HoMM3 mods I mentioned), or mods that are developed with the intent of optimization and Quality of Life changes (e.g., OpenRCT for RollerCoaster Tycoon 1 and 2) and have a donation option available, I think deserve the support. * = I know Horn of the Abyss has an option for donations as I believe the same devs made the HD mod for the vanilla game, I'm not sure if WoG still does.
Some modder for a wrestling game "WWE here comes the pain" is selling there mod for like 100$ or something crazy like that
bruh ive never even seen a EA game that costs that much
Would be good if you continued Ep.1 Broke and Lost.
There's literally a solution called "opcional donations" right here
Imo there should be developer choice to decide what mods are that good quality to pay for, like valve do in CSGO, when droping community music kits or skins from thounsnds.
I believe smaller mods like car mods skins guns should be free but full on conversion mods like whole city or physics should be paid depending on the hardwork
I always assumed putting mods behind paywalls was against most games tos. I'm surprised companies like EA don't crack down on modding communities like the Sims.
You are right!
I am not a fan of paid mods, I don't agree with hiding mods behind a paywall but I do agree with supporting mod creators because they do work hard and a lot of them work for free. I'm sure many people wouldn't mind giving 3-5$ to support them on Patreon, the community would support mod creators but demanding money is not the way to go, you'll just end up not being liked by the community, great video man🔥
So im back and forth on this , some talented people put way more time into a mod then humanly possible especially if that person were to have a 9-5 , sometimes they are paying to host dedicated servers for that mod. these are cases where i understand even a dollar goes a long way for these creators . It really does depend . my favorite mod payment model is the freemium where the mod is available for free - you just don't get the newest content right away and maybe not access to as many possible multiplayer servers but eventually they do give access. but really its kinda entitled of us to just believe we should access to somebodies hundreds of hours of free work without so much as a shout out
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. modders casually making mods that are 10 times better than games released today for free
I'm paying julionib's patreon to get the superman mod... the reason I'm doing it is because I'm a huge superman fan and believe it or not this is the closest thing to a superman game
I remember the days where mods were purely made just because u had passion and love for the game.
I know mods require a lot of work, but no mod is worth paying for. Not now, not ever. I've seen a guy charge 45 (yes forty five) euros for a SINGLE car (Lan Evo 10) In Skyrim thankfully the mods are always free and you can donate if you want and can
The Skyrim scene usually do pay for early access and honestly I don’t mind it since it will eventually come out
I also agree with some mods that have 90% of content free, and then great features when you buy the mod. For example, in Assetto Corsa, most mods are free. However, if you buy a track, you will get files that you can use to run AI on the server, other traffic cars controlled by your machine. If you join a server with AI and you haven't paid the mod, you can still play, and you will see the traffic cars, but if you wanna create the server yourself then you need to pay. Also, there''s a mod called content manager, it's basically a launcher, 90% of features are there and you don't need anything else to play singleplayer, online, etc. But some features, like a tool for creating a server, are paid features.
If you're modifying a game that already exists, it should be outright illegal to sell those mods. That would be exactly the same as someone remixing a bunch of songs and selling a mixtape, it doesn't matter how much effort you put into it, if it's not your property you can't profit off of it. If they want to be paid for their work, they should begin by doing mods (free modifications to existing games) and then move onto developing an actual game once they've got that experience and exposure. If someone has that shady of a moral compass that they're going to charge me for their mods, that's the same type of person that's going to make a Pay 2 win game, or something with tons of microtransactions. These are the types of people that suck the integrity out of the gaming industry
fr, it's crazy that even my friends are selling GTA V car mods, like $3-5 for each car and wondered why people keep sharing their mods behind their back 💀 and like i understand it took countless time to learn on how to 3d modelling and everything, but you just have to realize that even the prices are too high for some simple mods like ENB/Reshade graphics mods & GTA vehicles. i would donate but not paying for the mod itself, unless it's a really a big projects like FIFA's FIFER Realism Mod, GTA V's NVE, GTA IV Snow Mod (it's free, but i would totally buy it), total conversion etc.
Among sim communities (specially racing and vehicle sims), paid mods are common. But they usually are content made from scratch. There was a paid mod for ETS2 which re-recorded in-game sounds And there's plenty of paid mods for assetto corsa, usually made by entire teams.
When i was looking for player models for GTA V, so many times i saw a character i wanted to add into the game be shown to be hosted by GTA5MODAZ which put them behind a paywall
Minecraft bedrock is doing this. But what is the real kicker is that when you get the mod, it only works for that specific world save file. You can't use it on a regular world save file unless it's a resource pack. You can't even add two mods you paid for together.
muy buena explicacion, los mods no deberian ser de pago mas aun si el programa con el que se hizo es gratis. saludos desde Mexico 🇲🇽
If the mod provides an entirely different experience or a substancial addition, it may deserve a paywall.
Your a great KZheadr and you’ll grow big I promise you this please remember me
I think the "unfair" part is that most content creators are making more money from some mods than the actual moders
As someone who plays insanely moddable games such as Euro Truck Simulator 2 American Truck Simulator and assetto corsa its sad to see a lot of amazing trucks/trailers/cars and graphics mods 1 behind a paywall but 2 being stupidly priced when they are mods such as sound mods that cost under 10 dollars and most are under 5 but then you get a truck for 35 dollars and graphic mods that have a lot of addons that can run over 100 thats insanity in my opinion
mods are a luxury, don't complain abt authors who want payment for their work.
While we can certainly talk about the prices or the quality of items compared to free alternatives, I think Bethesda's Creation Club is actually a pretty decent way to do it. The modders are basically employed like freelancers directly by the publisher/developer for a time to create something, which goes through quality control and is guaranteed to function with everything else on Creation Club and guaranteed to continue to function after a game update. That way you aren't paying for something that might potentially be outdated in two weeks time and never updated, or just straight up doesn't work in the first place. And because the CC content is "official" it's easy/easier for other mod developers to ensure that their mods will work if you have any CC installed. It's not a thousand random mods spread over 5 different sites, it's a clearly catalogued list, so you can avoid using the same spot to place your armor set if an armor set on the Creation Club is already using it or something like that.
Depends on the quality of the mod and the time that went into it For example : Mods like graphic mods (although some are good) they still aren't even comparable to alien city so they should not be locked behind a paywall (and any mod really , you mod because you like the game not because you want to make a profit) Mods like alien city should at least have a donation button but should be free to play still (Thanks for putting me in the vid)
I run a private FiveM freeroam server with my friends and it's incredibly difficult to find decent server plugins that aren't paywalled. I have no interest in learning LUA at this time so I couldn't do much on my own. I find it especially annoying how tons of different copyrighted assets are thrown into these paid mods, including Rockstar things as well. I've found a site with tons of FiveM resource leaks, and it has the tagline: "Making FiveM free since 2020". I only went there to find a working port of Liberty City, since honestly, I'm not paying $300 to run ROCKSTAR'S OWN MAP on my server, which came from a now $20 game from 2008. The founder himself said he paid $100 for this one Liberty City resource, then leaked it to his own site. Now here's the irony: he put that stolen mod of a stolen asset behind ANOTHER paywall, on a site that claims to make FiveM free. Yes, this site which is built around stealing each other's already stolen assets and code, lets you relist anything with your own price if you so pleased. So the tagline doesn't make sense. I swear, the greed in this community has made people braindead and fixated purely on hustle and dollar signs. My resentment has peaked.
Whats then with mods that are Patreon for WIP stage of a project, but after mod/project is ready, it getting released for free? That's something I do.
So I bought a pretty new laptop that didn’t work and only paid 60 dollars for it and after throwing a ssd and a little more ram its pretty decent for getting into pc gaming and mainly use it to play the gta 5 lspdfr mod. It’s Soo fun and might get into modding other games now
my friend found his favourite car mod for assetto corsa but it was in a paid telegram, he decided to click the link to the telegram and it didnt ask him to log in or anything, he just downloaded all the mods and thanked the creators on their VK
I actually enjoy what Origin/EA did for the Sims 4. You can have a 2 week period where your mod is paid only, but after that time is over it MUST be made free, otherwise you'll face consequences ( Account banned, no longer allowed to acess online portions of the game ect ). The Sims 4 modding scene used to be rampant with mods locked behind patreon, and there was a pretty publicised scandal where top paid mod creators where doxxing & threatening people that they accused of stealing & redistributing files from their patreon... revealing home addresses, phone numbers and sensitive information of family members. EA, to their credit, shut that shit down HARD. I still don't like them but it needed to be done.
remember the rdr2 vr mod that was so good it got instantly scouted and taken down
minecraft seems to have a paid mod issue too like some of their shaders are locked behind a paywall on patreon
I think the best way to solve this problem is to give people a cose to donate and support the mod like patreon for example.
Glad somebody brought up Skyrim. They've been releasing more breaking updates lately that contain next to nothing, mostly as a way to force on creation club content (paid mods). While at one point they were all for modding, nowadays they support it as long as you paid for theirs
Funny how they turn it into an actual business inspite it's clearly illegal and goes against the EULA contract that you accept before playing the game. Then people complain that Rockstar remove every mod possible from their games
1 mod that i really didn't want a paywall on is Project Revive for gta Iv that has been planned to properly optimise gta iv
i only pay for one mod and that csp for assetto corsa which i will 100% say it’s worth it, it’s only $1 a month as well it, it makes such a huge impact on assetto
mods conflict with the strict way stuff is defined. or something just like how in law there are gray areas
Like you said it depends. Some mods I wouldn't even consider mods but rather their own game like for example GTA Alien City (which I have never heard of btw) seems like it is it's own game just being built ontop of an existing one. If the original creator of said game (in this case Rockstar) gave them the go ahead to sell it then this is worth buying. This is exactly what happened to Black Mesa. Black Mesa is a modern remake of HL1 and is built on the Source engine. The team behind Black Mesa doesn't own most of what they used (I believe atleast) but Valve gave them the go ahead and supported their work and now you can buy the game.
I guess it depends but I like the way the people making the Pro-mods for Ets2 does it. You pay like 1 euro and then you get everything packed in the right way and just throw them in the mods folder. Or if you don't want to pay you can download it for free but your self will need to fix it and things that takes some time.
nice one
1:43 I think you're spending too much times on gym George, you're getting buff like CJ😎💪
💪💪
can I ask you where does that BR2049 mod comes from?