Also Known As: banshee_revora (Steam) Joined: 15 Aug 2002 Location: Brazil
Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2011 7:16 am Post subject:
What if we sold digital download here?
Subject description: This topic will not be sold by $1.30 US dollars, so you can read it, because it's free!
Guten tag! Err, I mean, hello everyone! As you must be aware, the PPM Market Zone announced in the previous news post was an April's fools prank. PPM has the tradition of doing pranks that may fire up several creatures of this forum, although we haven't done anything last year (it was really an exception). For those who thought that I've pranked too early, it was 2:09 am of the first day of April in New Zealand (land of our friend Sonic, from CNCNZ.com) when I posted. And yes, this is internet... and a day may last up to 49 hours if we want, due to the differences of timezone that can be viewed HERE.
So, the last prank was about giving the ability, through a forum BBCODE, that would allow users to sell any kind of forum attachment, if they desired. Each transaction would have a fee of $0.30 to keep up the server and there would be no refund. And paypal would also charge for its participation in the transaction.
Most people who approved the idea were quiet, since the topic was invaded by a horde of trolls where some even defended piracy of the commercialized content. I had to play the devil's advocate there to defend the idea and try to slowly convince people that this idea wouldn't blow up their forum experience. Some people misunderstood the whole idea and thought that every download would be paid. While I agree that one or other person would add the sell bbcode to their resource, I think that the vast majority would remain being free, because they were made as hobby and people would not post comments to paid resources. Other people simply trolled for the sake of trolling or that some kind of resources shouldn't be sold at all. There were few constructive comments questioning limited file size, lack of refund and moderation of the submitted content.
Sites like e-Bay do allow users to sell absolutely everything. They can sell their objects or things that are more abstract, such as women's virginity, which is weird, since there is no guarantees whatsoever that the product would be delivered at all and even ghost cities and stuff that doesn't exists. The surprise is that there are people who actually buy these things and no, don't ask me why. Most serious services that allows users to sell their work (Steam, iTunes, Android Market, etc), specially software, do have instruments to verify the safety of the product that is being sold, through the analysis of humans or software and, once the product is validated, it will be displayed for the users. Some of them also have means to reduce piracy.
The worse problem from the PPM Market Zone idea was its implementation, which would use some mass payment script from one of the APIs from paypal. When you implement it as a BBCODE, it would be impossible to validate the submission before seeing it posted. We also do not have the man power to validate every submission and there is a risk of virus, specially with software. When you have a system where a user pays another directly, there is no way to force a refund if something goes wrong. So, I really had no conditions to allow refunds if the submission violated copyrights or it were harmful for the end user. And, of course, the community wouldn't have enough trust to simply buy products that would be offered to them.
Another problem is copyrights. What can and what can't be comercialized? If you consider that any work derived from a comercial product shouldn't be comercialized, then mods, tutorial sample codes and maps couldn't be comercialized at all. Graphics and voxels should be analysed individually. If it has traces of Westwood work, then it shouldn't be sold at all. But even that is polemic. I.e., there are musicians that remixes or performs songs from other artists, not necessarily having their authorization or paying royalties for them, and they do comercialize their derived work (without royalties). Is that correct? I'm wondering... for example, do Black Eyed Peas pay royalties to Sergio Mendez or for the artist who made the theme song from Pulp Fiction? Perhaps they do and I'm not aware of it, but I wouldn't be surprised if they doesn't do it (in my humble opinion, they should be sued for destroying the pulp fiction theme). On the other hand, there is an artist suing Cold Play because Viva La Vida had some similarities with his music. I think that, in this case, Nintendo could sue both. So, how would we know what kind of derived work could be sold or not? We do not have any experts in this subject here in PPM, as far as I know and no way to defend ourselves in a court when it comes to copyrights.
Talking about legal actions, how would we force each author to take responsibility for posting their work when we do not collect personal data for each user here? I mean, I don't know your name if you don't post it in the forums.
The action of selling something you created is not a crime. In fact, it is a right that you have. Creating means to allow you to sell your own created content from scratch is not evil here. Of course we prefer to grab things for free and spend our money to something else, but if the person wanna sell their work, you have to respect it. Those who support or suggested piracy should be ashamed of themselves. I'd like to know if you would be happy if people decided to not pay for the services that you are doing for your own survival.
And, that's it. We don't implement a commerce here with BBCODE because it is impossible to moderate and it would certainly cause us legal problems. And we would also need to reduce the privacy from our users in a brutal way which wouldn't work at all in a community like PPM. If you wanna commercialize your products here, you can post a topic and get in touch with potential buyers to explain how the payment should be done, etc.
So, what do you guys think of selling content here? Post your opinions and discuss it, in a civilized way, please.
And, since it is still April 1st in Honolulu (Hawai, USA), I'm selling a ghost city in a terrain in the coordinates (-84.826305, -41.396484). There are several spirits, fishes and, perhaps, polar bears living there. It is a vast terrain that you can build anything you want there and the good news is that the day is very long during this time of the year there. The initial bid is 4 million US dollars and if you are interested on buying it, contact me using PM. I'd love to sell it. Last edited by Banshee on Sat Apr 02, 2011 6:04 pm; edited 1 time in total QUICK_EDIT
The simple point is that the games here have been out for over a decade now. If this was a general modding site for all PC games which goes up to date with other newer games, then it wouldn't be such a bad idea IF there was some strict governing force to validate the content being uploaded. After all everyone could view it as cheaper fan-made DLC. And some official DLC these days can be shit, Bioware asks for money just for an extra (cosmetic) armor set for your companions in Mass Effect 2.
Not that I would pay anyway or support it but it can be OK within the right situation and under the right circumstances. QUICK_EDIT
Also Known As: banshee_revora (Steam) Joined: 15 Aug 2002 Location: Brazil
Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2011 1:33 pm Post subject:
Quote:
f this was a general modding site for all PC games which goes up to date with other newer games
Who said it isn't? We are slowly moving to the direction of covering non C&C games as well. If you have any doubts, visit THIS.
We don't simply cover newer C&C games such as TW, RA3 and C&C4, but we also cover indie games (understandably giving more attention to derivations of C&C games created by fans) and we've being promoting the discussion of modding other games and we may cover them more often in the news if they get some interest. Unfortunately, none of the non-C&C games reached this stage so far.
PPM has not been made to stop in Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2. QUICK_EDIT
To be fair, it would be an overstatement saying this site covers non-C&C games. And to achieve a state of covering a broader range of newer games, we'd first have to attract more people to come here first, and we can't do that with being a site primarily dedicated to TS and RA2.
If you want to make this a modding that goes with the flow of other games, you'd have to abandon being a C&C site which I doubt would be very pleasant for the people already here.
A lot of games have the potential for small mods, Mass Effect could do with newer fan made armor (and fans even made a save editor!), Call of Duty could use some new maps, Crysis is shouting "mod me!", Dawn of War 2 could become more faithful to the Tabletop and fluff, Starcraft2 I haven't played but by the looks of the game engine and kit available it should even exceed WC3's capabilities.
The point is, there is a lot of potential but gaining new users without shifting out the old C&C stuff here seems very difficult. QUICK_EDIT
Also Known As: banshee_revora (Steam) Joined: 15 Aug 2002 Location: Brazil
Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2011 4:37 pm Post subject:
It's not an overstatement to say that the site covers non C&C games. It really does cover non C&C games, but it certainly doesn't do it well, in the same way that C&C4 is not covered well either.
In order to have a good coverage of other games here we need people who are interested in these games and, considering the current community here, the best way to get it is through C&C fans that do enjoy modding other games. Abandoning the fact of being a C&C site would be a terrible mistake, to be very honest, because C&C is what we cover well here and it is our main attraction.
Most sites that expanded from a single game franchise to a general gaming coverage usually have a much stronger foundation in the game that originated it, unless their admins stopped administrating it in a proper way. There are two sites that emerged from the C&C community to a general gaming community: GameReplays and Filefront. GameReplays still have a very strong foundation in Generals: Zero Hour. C&C: Filefront lacked interest from its own members in these last few years and its activity dropped. QUICK_EDIT
In order to have a good coverage of other games here we need people who are interested in these games and, considering the current community here, the best way to get it is through C&C fans that do enjoy modding other games. Abandoning the fact of being a C&C site would be a terrible mistake, to be very honest, because C&C is what we cover well here and it is our main attraction.
Most sites that expanded from a single game franchise to a general gaming coverage usually have a much stronger foundation in the game that originated it, unless their admins stopped administrating it in a proper way. There are two sites that emerged from the C&C community to a general gaming community: GameReplays and Filefront. GameReplays still have a very strong foundation in Generals: Zero Hour. C&C: Filefront lacked interest from its own members in these last few years and its activity dropped.
The hard part is getting a common ground between the groups of interest though. Although it wouldn't be a far stretch to say a lot of people here seem to enjoy the same type of games but it's going to be even harder to find people who will mod these games.
The problem is that this community is simply too small for it to turn into a general modding site and cover non-C&C games. Not only that but it's not getting bigger by any rate either, and since the site's record with newer games is pretty small you can't expect it to grow or speed up the way it is. QUICK_EDIT
Selling anything would be a disaster in my eyes. It'd divide the assets available. Public assets that suck and are free or good assets that cost money. Maps for money? Not a chance in hell. You'd end up with a split community.
And quite frankly I'd be helping pirate said assets that are being sold. :3 _________________ Victory! QUICK_EDIT
In all seriousness, if someone wanted to make money off of making voxels, the better way would be offering them as a service via Fundry or something like it; just put up a bunch of suggestions of what you're willing/able to do, let people chip in, and if a threshold is reached, deliver the voxel.
If people approve of it, you get paid.
Only issue is the availability of nice-quality beta voxels, but it's not like there'd be a perfect system in any case.
Overall point being, offering asset creation as a service, either to individual mod makers or to the community as a whole, is a more viable business model than selling assets as goods, imo. _________________ #renproj:renegadeprojects.com via Matrix - direct link QUICK_EDIT
PPM's track record with newer games is a bunch of bitter oldfags complaining about how BACK IN MY DAY it was better. If PPM stopped being so trollface, I could argue that it'd draw in new fans and new modders.
Thus more people
Thus reinvigorating PPM with life
Thus a potential for contracting people to make assets and or sell assets on the forum _________________ Victory! QUICK_EDIT
It has taken me a while to work out exactly my problem with this idea, but here it is:
1) People willing to use public assets
2) People willing to make their own
3) People belonging to a team, where assets are made to order
These are the three basic groups I see around here. People in the second two categories will probably waive the fee for the good of the projects survival. However, the first group is the one which could possibly suffer.
PPM, and TS/RA2 modding is such a small community on the modding scene that there's really no reason to bother selling assets, imo. Most people with just flick a PM, or talk on MSN, to their favourite voxelist and get their services for free.
If there really was to be some sort of money element, I'd rather it be a one-off, small payment, a subscription. And even then, I don't think it'd make this place any more of a community. I think it'd much more likely increase greed and cut off the trickle of decent public assets. QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 18 Jun 2005 Location: Dordrecht, the Netherlands
Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2011 10:30 am Post subject:
Volgin wrote:
PPM's track record with newer games is a bunch of bitter oldfags complaining about how BACK IN MY DAY it was better. If PPM stopped being so trollface, I could argue that it'd draw in new fans and new modders.
Thus more people
Thus reinvigorating PPM with life
Thus a potential for contracting people to make assets and or sell assets on the forum
While you may say it in words I won't use, I do agree with the point. While PPM is a good place, it stays too much to TS/RA2. Hell, even Generals has a hard time getting attention here. As for TW: it's good we have Tiberium Essence, or the TW section would be as dead as a Dodo. QUICK_EDIT
RA2? Yeah, right. The place is TS and there is no arguing it. PPM's in the bronze age while other gaming sites are in the nuclear age.
The place is bitter, to be honest. It needs a new look (the frontpage again is from 2008 and we're in 2011). Banshee still has not given the forum a new skin... The biggest topics around here are arguments over EA's new C&Cs -still-. Any topics posted about new C&Cs are extremely bitter and drive new game modders or support for them away. The big Gens mod here just died, too. We're going the way of the dinosaurs. _________________ Victory! QUICK_EDIT
I'd say pointing out the problems are quite easy now, the hard part as I said is finding a solution. And to me, there really isn't one.
Right now the site can't grow in the traditional sense, its only chance is to start from scratch and that can work as a double-edged sword. Instead of attracting new people it could end up sending the few TS/RA2 oldies away. QUICK_EDIT
Assets for free games...Meh. If it were assets for engines, like CryEngine 3, Unreal Engine 3.9, etc., it could work.
The idea isn't necessarily bad, it could allow art creators from the industry to make a few bucks between games. I personally don't disapprove, but with the old C&C games, i wouldn't be as good.
Plus, PPM is small and has always been about us buddies making mods. It just wouldn't work out. QUICK_EDIT
Also Known As: banshee_revora (Steam) Joined: 15 Aug 2002 Location: Brazil
Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 3:09 am Post subject:
Karnatu wrote:
The hard part is getting a common ground between the groups of interest though. Although it wouldn't be a far stretch to say a lot of people here seem to enjoy the same type of games but it's going to be even harder to find people who will mod these games.
The problem is that this community is simply too small for it to turn into a general modding site and cover non-C&C games. Not only that but it's not getting bigger by any rate either, and since the site's record with newer games is pretty small you can't expect it to grow or speed up the way it is.
You guys are too much impatient. This community has growed a lot in the last few years, but, of course, it is not big and newer games will take more time to get a stronger community here for a simple reason: all communities that covered them failed. But don't be surprised if C&C3 and RA3 gets more and more mods. They'll become more popular once the tools used to mod them improve and that takes time.
Modding itself is a restricted subject that attracts restricted interest, because it is complicated. Few sites succeed into expanding it to the public. I guess the only one that really worked is ModDB. Others managed to be successful in small niches, like PPM.
Volgin wrote:
Selling anything would be a disaster in my eyes. It'd divide the assets available. Public assets that suck and are free or good assets that cost money. Maps for money? Not a chance in hell. You'd end up with a split community.
I think things would end up in an entirelly different way. Few people would try to sell stuff and fail and they'd make their content free to get feedback, until they get enough reputation to make others buy their resources and start selling voxels that receives requests from people who doesn't care to spend some cents or even a dollar with this kind of thing. If few sales happens, it would be already be a surprised. But I'm sure that resources wouldn't be splitted at all.
Renegade wrote:
In all seriousness, if someone wanted to make money off of making voxels, the better way would be offering them as a service via Fundry or something like it; just put up a bunch of suggestions of what you're willing/able to do, let people chip in, and if a threshold is reached, deliver the voxel.
If people approve of it, you get paid.
Only issue is the availability of nice-quality beta voxels, but it's not like there'd be a perfect system in any case.
Overall point being, offering asset creation as a service, either to individual mod makers or to the community as a whole, is a more viable business model than selling assets as goods, imo.
Yes, at this moment, that would have a better chance of working indeed. But few people would adhere it.
Chronojam wrote:
Much like how the recent indie game compilation packs have been sold, perhaps a 'donation' system could be reasonable.
"The user has requested donations of X cents"
[donate] [skip]
A voluntary donation system will also help you sidestep legal issues.
That's not much different from what Renegade said.
Volgin wrote:
PPM's track record with newer games is a bunch of bitter oldfags complaining about how BACK IN MY DAY it was better. If PPM stopped being so trollface, I could argue that it'd draw in new fans and new modders.
I stil have problems to understand how someone who acts like a troll, is aware that acts like a troll and admits it with an avatar, and trolls in this topic says something like this. I really can't understand it
Orac wrote:
I think it'd much more likely increase greed and cut off the trickle of decent public assets.
It would, if they really get a market here. Considering how we endorsed the production of free resources for years and we have a strong repository here, except for the 3D models, I think the initial greed would spoil quickly due to lack of sales.
Volgin wrote:
RA2? Yeah, right. The place is TS and there is no arguing it. PPM's in the bronze age while other gaming sites are in the nuclear age.
Have you visited the RA2 forums here? You'll be surprised that they are getting more posts than TS. What do we have here is more spotlighted TS mods because there are much more TS mods that were released here than the RA2 ones.
Quote:
The place is bitter, to be honest. It needs a new look (the frontpage again is from 2008 and we're in 2011). Banshee still has not given the forum a new skin... The biggest topics around here are arguments over EA's new C&Cs -still-. Any topics posted about new C&Cs are extremely bitter and drive new game modders or support for them away. The big Gens mod here just died, too. We're going the way of the dinosaurs.
There are more prioritive things for PPM than a new look for the frontpage itself. The forum skin is one of the many samples. Another thing is to do a quick reorganization in the site to add a proper support for non C&C games.
But I'm placing my bets in a longer term plan by working out on new ways to get creation of 3D graphics for new games become a simple task. I've advanced a lot in this direction, but there is still a lot to be done. Once it's ready, we'll jump from the iron age (because our RA2 section is active ) straight to the nano age. QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 28 Sep 2005 Location: Mixing psilocybin in your drinks.
Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2011 12:44 am Post subject:
I'd much rather go with something like what Renegade said than just plain selling stuff.
Banshee wrote:
But I'm placing my bets in a longer term plan by working out on new ways to get creation of 3D graphics for new games become a simple task. I've advanced a lot in this direction, but there is still a lot to be done. Once it's ready, we'll jump from the iron age (because our RA2 section is active ) straight to the nano age.
Does that include moving to software that doesn't have a 2005 copyright stamp at the footer? Because we were supposed to get away from this long ago and never did. I can't understand it or why we can't have more admins to handle that kind of thing. If you really want to get cutting edge, update to the VERY newest pHpBB and pair it with Joomla CMS and some decent skins. It seriously shouldn't take a long time. _________________
[quote="DCoder"]There is no sanity left in this thread.[/quote] QUICK_EDIT
Its bin always good for a popular forums to have Market Zone, for example.
You made a Mod else a game made from other Engine that you would like to sell to earn money as a support for your every daily needs(Electrical Bills Included xD) _________________ QUICK_EDIT
Also Known As: banshee_revora (Steam) Joined: 15 Aug 2002 Location: Brazil
Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2011 10:07 am Post subject:
Sir Modsalot wrote:
Does that include moving to software that doesn't have a 2005 copyright stamp at the footer? Because we were supposed to get away from this long ago and never did. I can't understand it or why we can't have more admins to handle that kind of thing. If you really want to get cutting edge, update to the VERY newest pHpBB and pair it with Joomla CMS and some decent skins. It seriously shouldn't take a long time.
I couldn't care less for the 2005 in the copyright stamp at the footer. It is just a number and it doesn't mean much. The forum software has received a lot of modifications and it is quite different from the original phpBB2. In fact, it has a lot of features that doesn't come with the standard phpBB3.
Joomla is completely incompatible with the whole backend of the site and its integration with the mobile site.
So, I prefer to stay with the current software. All it needs is a decent forum skin, which it doesn't have at the moment. QUICK_EDIT
Never. The public skins still show OLD maps as being brand new. PPM getting new skins... lol. Yeah, it doesnt happen. _________________ Victory! QUICK_EDIT
You guys are too much impatient. This community has growed a lot in the last few years, but, of course, it is not big and newer games will take more time to get a stronger community here for a simple reason: all communities that covered them failed. But don't be surprised if C&C3 and RA3 gets more and more mods. They'll become more popular once the tools used to mod them improve and that takes time.
That won't happen as there are too few to even know something about them. Most just don't care and for them the tools are something magical. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
You cannot post new topics in this forum You can reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum You cannot attach files in this forum You can download files in this forum
What if we sold digital download here?
