Patreon, Paid mods & BeamNG.drive

i dont think the vivace is based on anything, it looks like a focus, but basically also like any other hot hatch around the current time lmao

 

*718

 

Train sim though is kind of the same thing I was talking about with the payware mods for flight sims and assetto corsa, the only difference is how they're distributed.

For FSX, if you want a study level payware plane, you find the mod studio that makes the plane you want and buy it from them.

For train sim, the "DLC" are made by different studios, but all distributed by Dovetail through steam, with both Dovetail and steam taking a cut. It's not really comparable to let say, Skyrim or Fallout DLC, and more comparable to something like iRacing, FSX payware or DCS, in that you usually just buy the bits you want, and ignore most of the rest.

There might be a debate to be had about the very variable quality of said "DLC", and how taking a fairly large cut like Bethesda or Dovetail do with "paid mods" probably isn't really fair, but I don't think that's on topic for this thread.

 

You paid $20 for the game, a bunch of cars and maps. What makes you think that 1) this isn't enough for $20, and 2) this entitles you to free third-party content?

 

I mean, no one has to make a mod and make it free, I guess it's up to personal preference. Besides, beam gets a little boring after a while when you have no mods.


P.s. Your PFP is gonna give me nightmares.

 

This thread is one of the more interesting and engaging subjects posted in a while. Nice.

Regardless, I must say I agree with Eruption's idea of like a Kickstarter/Indiegogo type program on beam, it's unique and would provide best of both worlds: Larger mods get paid as compensation for their quality, and those who cannot afford/do not like the idea of spending money can still utilize smaller mods to make the game more enjoyable.

Though, the main issue that I see is the determination of whether a mod is good enough to be paid.
TrackpadUser stated it well here,

How do you judge whether a mod is quality/good enough to be paid? There's no rubric to base quality off of, and as Trackpad said which I can attest to, the opinions and judgments of forum members here are quite varied and generally finding someone who can spend their time looking through all the contents of a mod to make sure is no easy task. This forum can get.... wild at times.

Furthermore, what if a mod is just a rip-off model from another game, edited to look more higher quality but with no proper time or effort put into it and gets accepted, just so the creator can get a quick buck. This is stretching it quite a bit, but the point is that the standards and assurance for quality/worthiness isn't there. The process of ensuring a mod is worth being included in the program would presumably be time-consuming and quite a large deal as real currency is involved now.

If money is involved, quality should be too. You don't go to a restaurant, pay for food, receive some half eaten food slapped together in 5 minutes and call it a day. You generally expect a nice meal, not half eaten and not slapped together in 5 minutes.

Criticisms and different views would greatly be appreciated, I'm always open to seeing other points of view on this matter.

 

I would just like to clarify that under my system, these larger "paid" mods would only grant the donors early access for a period of time, then the mod would become free for everyone. I would like to avoid a divide in the mod repository between "free" and "paid" as much as possible.

 

Ahh, I must've missed that when originally reading it, my apologies. Regardless, the idea still remains great and I would love to see it added upon to the game/forums, though I wouldn't doubt it would take some time.

 

Well said. I for example love using blender, but not because it's free. Someone else might disagree and like 3ds and pay for it. All up to personal preference. I guess its up to the mod creator to decide if the worth of the mod.

 

IMHO if paid mods do become a thing on here, there should be some approval system so you don't pay 10 dollars for a low quality mod.

 

yeah, perhaps a bare minimum of information on the repo page, so people can tell if it actually is good or not.

 

yeah, imagine paying 15$ for a russian website-queality mod!

 

Russian mods are spreading like wildfire, leading me to believe that a vast chunk of players don't care about quality. If quality modding becomes something the average user has to pay for, it could ensure that Russian mods become the standard- if people don't care about quality, they're not going to pay for it.
Besides, with all the talk I hear about folks getting their mods from BeamMP or Discord, I doubt a paid mod would stay paid for long.
Just my 2c.

 

How to get your credit card info stolen 101

 

Personally I'd be inclined to make a mod and release it for free. I'm adding content to the game that I want to see, it benefits me for this reason, and the prospect of it benefitting others is a bonus as far as I'm concerned. The problem with publicly accessible passion projects, certainly when they're not open source, is that you can end up with the burden of maintaining the project, which takes a load of time that a one-person operation can't deal with if it's not their full-time job or supplying them with any income at all.

If I was in a position to make mods for this game and wanted to monetise it somehow, I'd probably do it like this:

Create the mod and release it for free on the BeamNG repo. The free version would include the base car and maybe some other basic configurations, body styles, etc. This acts as a playable demo for would be buyers, and gives the player confidence that the quality of the mod is up to scratch. The base vehicle takes up the majority of the time, so knowing that this has been done properly would give the buyer enough confidence that any additional content is going to be worth the money. It means they can choose to retrospectively support the mod creator for the base config they already have, whilst getting a bunch of additional content as a bonus.

After a decent amount of time has passed, maybe after I'd released another vehicle or something, I'd release the whole pack for free. The rationale behind this is that the mod has already made the money it's going to make, and a fresh revenue stream would be coming in via whichever mod succeeds it.

Low-poly PS1 Micra isn't real, it can't hurt you.

 

doubt.
most likely they would just get reuploaded.

 

I say go for it, I wish I had been able to deliver more upon it when I did it, but health issues have been a real issue for me. I still intend to make up for it when I am able to.

A small vocal group of people will be upset, you may get targeted phishing attacks (by people forging details for your local governments services), and one or two people wishing death upon you. But ultimately the people like that don't care about you, they just intend to use you as a free dispenser of "stuff". So while criticism can be extremely useful, and I have a history of acting upon it when it comes to fixing things when updating my mods, I don't tend to worry about criticism from people who couldn't give a hoot about me beyond the free things I provide for them.

I suspect you will fare a lot better if you use Patreon than I did publicity wise. While Patreon asks a lot more of people financially than a cheap one off payment, YouTubers have already normalised it, so I suspect people will be more accepting of it. As much as I hate it, it turns out many people prefer paid subscription services that their favourite influencers have told them is super duper awesome and just the best thing ever (not that I have anything against Patreon, its a perfectly good service)

I also suspect YouTubers won't criticise you (as they did to me) in their videos if you use Patreon, because they also use it, and therefore would look rather hypocritical if they did. Just to be clear though, I still appreciate their time and effort spent making the videos, and I will still gladly continue to provide free keys to those YouTubers who have been critical in the past. It is what it is, and I still value the useful feedback and commentary, plus seeing people use my stuff puts a massive smile on my face regardless.


Oof that was far too much typing
--- Post updated ---

The truth is, there has been no need to. To my knowledge it hasn't been publicly leaked yet.
Its 100% DRM free, I don't want to treat the people who support me like criminals just because a small number of people are. Obviously I don't want it to be leaked, but I was planning on getting updates out frequently enough that leaked versions wouldn't be up to date for too long.

 

If a good modder (like you) makes paid content, I will be ready to pay (up to $ 25, because in Russia this is already quite a large amount). Also, the seller should check the buyer, because if the buyer puts the mods on a bad site (you know what I'm talking about), other buyers will be upset. Russians should not be treated badly because of one person, and forum users should reconsider their attitude to Russians. (Yes, I used Google Translator because I'm too lazy)