I feel it is important to point out once again that MMO companies (not just ZOS) making literally billions have still not found a way in 2020 to give anything back to addon authors.
I personally know a guy who was solely responsible for updating and fixing over 2 dozen addons, for no pay, requiring hundreds of hours of work, having to be redone (sometimes dramatically) every single patch. Imagine working a full time job for no reward but the experience of doing it and the ubiquitous inbox spam of complaints and requests to do more free things faster.
That doesn't sound sustainable to me.
There is really no reason for an industry (again there are many capable leaders in the gaming industry who could do this not just ZOS) that has benefited greatly by the contributions of specifically mod and addon authors, to still to have no better idea of how to facilitate that relationship as Twitch and other revenue generating markets have done than to flat monetize mods which is obviously not the right solution.
Since Twitch IS a thing we have seen companies investing in streamers and that spectrum of content creation, perhaps because the existence of these 3rd party platforms makes the investment feel more safe. Team leaders from the relevant areas of streaming type content creation have regularly been invited to participate in social media revenue generating public interaction campaigns by pretty much all major industry leaders at this point.
I feel it is the elephant in the room that an entire other spectrum of content creation has thus far been completely marginalized and largely ignored by this same very profitable industry, simply for want of an equivalent platform.
EDITED FOR BREVITY
Key takeaway thus far:
Replies, for convenience:
Forgive me, I didn't realize it was a personal challenge. I took it as more of a general philosophy to "pay it forward."![;)]( ";)")
Without wanting to go into specifics, suffice it to say I contribute substantially to the modding community. But one should probably avoid looking at it in that sort of way, just as the addon authors themselves avoid seeing it as something they expect a reward for. "Put up or shut up" is an overly simplistic and inherently adversarial approach which I do not assume was your intent.
The issue I feel transcends such lesser debates over moral character of individuals, and it is impossible to marginalize all addon authors or all business leaders or all general members of the community without knowing each of their stance personally.
The one called Buddha is reputed to have said that those who help others in need should never expect a reward beyond the helping. I do not feel major industry leaders really fit the role of "those in need" in this scenario. Another wise person once said that to refuse a gift would be to deprive someone of the joy of giving, but again it is neither here nor there.
This is mostly about the failure by 2020 of major profitable industry leaders of the hundreds-of-billions annual gaming industry to invest in an equivalent content creation and sponsorship platform for addon authors and modders.
That said I do personally maintain it is more of an issue of misplaced paranoia about "modders being out to get them" than it is an issue of mere financial greed.
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I personally know a guy who was solely responsible for updating and fixing over 2 dozen addons, for no pay, requiring hundreds of hours of work, having to be redone (sometimes dramatically) every single patch. Imagine working a full time job for no reward but the experience of doing it and the ubiquitous inbox spam of complaints and requests to do more free things faster.
That doesn't sound sustainable to me.
There is really no reason for an industry (again there are many capable leaders in the gaming industry who could do this not just ZOS) that has benefited greatly by the contributions of specifically mod and addon authors, to still to have no better idea of how to facilitate that relationship as Twitch and other revenue generating markets have done than to flat monetize mods which is obviously not the right solution.
Since Twitch IS a thing we have seen companies investing in streamers and that spectrum of content creation, perhaps because the existence of these 3rd party platforms makes the investment feel more safe. Team leaders from the relevant areas of streaming type content creation have regularly been invited to participate in social media revenue generating public interaction campaigns by pretty much all major industry leaders at this point.
I feel it is the elephant in the room that an entire other spectrum of content creation has thus far been completely marginalized and largely ignored by this same very profitable industry, simply for want of an equivalent platform.
EDITED FOR BREVITY
Key takeaway thus far:
- The best solution with the least risk would be a platform, like Twitch, for this slightly different spectrum of the content creation market.
- It is important to diversify incentives beyond strictly monetary (game time, cash shop tokens, etc.) based on how an individual chooses to interact with that hypothetical platform.
Replies, for convenience:
@taylorwilenskiub17_ESO - To answer your question of what benefit to ZOS, try to think of it as incentivizing rather than than compensation.
I feel too many corporate attorneys (and to an extent modern business people in general) get hung up in this concept of fervently defending ownership, to the point it almost seems instinctual.
One does get the impression given even a cursory examination of modern socioeconomics around the world that powerful people tend to see other people increasingly as a threat, something which will necessarily attempt to claim your property and tie you up in legal obligations and generally cost you money.
It is all worst case scenario fearmongering to me. I see only opportunity.
Perhaps the relevant industry leaders have made some bad investments in the past that burned them and they're just shy.
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I feel too many corporate attorneys (and to an extent modern business people in general) get hung up in this concept of fervently defending ownership, to the point it almost seems instinctual.
One does get the impression given even a cursory examination of modern socioeconomics around the world that powerful people tend to see other people increasingly as a threat, something which will necessarily attempt to claim your property and tie you up in legal obligations and generally cost you money.
It is all worst case scenario fearmongering to me. I see only opportunity.
Perhaps the relevant industry leaders have made some bad investments in the past that burned them and they're just shy.
link
As someone pointed out (edited?) the best solution with the least risk would be a platform, like Twitch, for this slightly different spectrum of the content creation market.
However unlike was mentioned, I feel it is important to diversify incentives beyond strictly monetary (game time, cash shop tokens, etc.) based on how an individual chooses to interact with that hypothetical platform.
It is easily manageable and not terribly complicated to code, and the behavioral psychology is well established, which it occurs to me to mention it is also well known that while pride and recognition will motivate some of the people for some time, it is a small-slice investment strategy with diminishing returns.
But like I said if you are shy and don't care about playing the market, you might just ignore such opportunities.
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However unlike was mentioned, I feel it is important to diversify incentives beyond strictly monetary (game time, cash shop tokens, etc.) based on how an individual chooses to interact with that hypothetical platform.
It is easily manageable and not terribly complicated to code, and the behavioral psychology is well established, which it occurs to me to mention it is also well known that while pride and recognition will motivate some of the people for some time, it is a small-slice investment strategy with diminishing returns.
But like I said if you are shy and don't care about playing the market, you might just ignore such opportunities.
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@thadjarvis your analogy to other industries where 'modding' in some form exists is good in that it illustrates how in all these scenarios you mention 1) the provider of the services is compensated for their labor and 2) the original company is in no way liable for nor legally bound to the work.
There is very little risk in establishing a content creation sponsorship platform for specifically addon and mod authors, nor would it in any way legally or financially harm large industry leaders or even individuals to contribute in a meaningful way to the 'budget' for that platform.
The return: More quality work by more talented authors creating greater satisfaction with the products they are associated with. Having these individuals choose to remain associated with your industry over the long terms is also an undervalued benefit.
This concept of consumer satisfaction is a relevant one. For one thing, it makes the violent mood swings of industries a little less extreme. It pads the public outrage numbers and helps avoid flash mob style devaluation of assets in the short term.
There is a whole field of behavioral psychology devoted to this concept of incentives and their many benefits.
@idk this expresses what appears to be a common attitude of business in general I touched on before which I feel totally misses the point. It is about opportunity to invest for greater net benefit, not about someone trying to work some legal angle to take something from you.
There is no reason to avoid investment in a content creation platform simply based on the assumption that content creators are all out to get us. It is an adversarial attitude for which there is no motivating offense. It focuses almost exclusively on a worst-case scenario to the exclusion of the possibility for a mutual beneficial relationship.
To me that comes across as paranoid more than simply greedy, which is why I mentioned the possibility of a "once bitten twice shy" investment posture on the part of the relevant industry leaders we happen to have to work with at the moment.
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There is very little risk in establishing a content creation sponsorship platform for specifically addon and mod authors, nor would it in any way legally or financially harm large industry leaders or even individuals to contribute in a meaningful way to the 'budget' for that platform.
The return: More quality work by more talented authors creating greater satisfaction with the products they are associated with. Having these individuals choose to remain associated with your industry over the long terms is also an undervalued benefit.
This concept of consumer satisfaction is a relevant one. For one thing, it makes the violent mood swings of industries a little less extreme. It pads the public outrage numbers and helps avoid flash mob style devaluation of assets in the short term.
There is a whole field of behavioral psychology devoted to this concept of incentives and their many benefits.
@idk this expresses what appears to be a common attitude of business in general I touched on before which I feel totally misses the point. It is about opportunity to invest for greater net benefit, not about someone trying to work some legal angle to take something from you.
There is no reason to avoid investment in a content creation platform simply based on the assumption that content creators are all out to get us. It is an adversarial attitude for which there is no motivating offense. It focuses almost exclusively on a worst-case scenario to the exclusion of the possibility for a mutual beneficial relationship.
To me that comes across as paranoid more than simply greedy, which is why I mentioned the possibility of a "once bitten twice shy" investment posture on the part of the relevant industry leaders we happen to have to work with at the moment.
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I see you ignored my Donate to An Addon Author Challenge...
Forgive me, I didn't realize it was a personal challenge. I took it as more of a general philosophy to "pay it forward."
Without wanting to go into specifics, suffice it to say I contribute substantially to the modding community. But one should probably avoid looking at it in that sort of way, just as the addon authors themselves avoid seeing it as something they expect a reward for. "Put up or shut up" is an overly simplistic and inherently adversarial approach which I do not assume was your intent.
The issue I feel transcends such lesser debates over moral character of individuals, and it is impossible to marginalize all addon authors or all business leaders or all general members of the community without knowing each of their stance personally.
The one called Buddha is reputed to have said that those who help others in need should never expect a reward beyond the helping. I do not feel major industry leaders really fit the role of "those in need" in this scenario. Another wise person once said that to refuse a gift would be to deprive someone of the joy of giving, but again it is neither here nor there.
This is mostly about the failure by 2020 of major profitable industry leaders of the hundreds-of-billions annual gaming industry to invest in an equivalent content creation and sponsorship platform for addon authors and modders.
That said I do personally maintain it is more of an issue of misplaced paranoia about "modders being out to get them" than it is an issue of mere financial greed.
link
thadjarvis wrote: »@Dark_Lord_Kuro
...what seems outrageous is that some have noted that ZoS actively prevents creators from collecting revenue themselves.
The policies most companies use for addons including ZOS are pretty unfair to modders. I am headed out or I would link the relevant areas of the TOS but in summary:
- You are not allowed to sell mods in any form.
- You can have a donation link but can not ASK for donations (that part seems really weird).
- You can't make promises to make this mod or add that feature at certain Patreon payout levels, which defeats the whole point of Patreon and what generates revenue there. Patreon is also not useful as its market is too diversified and doesn't generate mod traffic, plus most people don't like the idea of a recurring payment system.
It does seem intentionally designed to take away any legitimate avenue for a mod author to benefit from their hours of labor.
Since they are not allowed to ASK it is completely reliant on people accidentally stumbling on that donate button. No self promotion that is necessary to actually generate revenue is allowed by the TOS, which hearkens to the poster who pointed out other areas where modders generate revenue like car body shops, where he argued it is the modder's responsibility to self promote: they literally are forbidden from doing so by the TOS. I feel almost no one knows this.
What is the consequence? A quick look at the ESOUI page will reveal that many if not most of the largest mod projects by the most talented artists end up abandoned (or in maintenance mode with nothing being added), because there is simply no way for them to generate revenue to cover the cost of their time as professionals.
The donate button is something which generates maybe $5 once in a while (often a great while), sometimes a slightly larger donation here and there, and most often spread out over YEARS where there will be nothing coming in for months at a time.
The incentive is simply not there for the talented people we actually want making mods to continue to donate their time when the world is in such a dire state economically (unless you are a billionaire) with everyone else working the "gig economy" to try and make ends meet, and having family obligations and possibly health issues to contend with, all of which cost money.
When times are good people do more charity work like this. Those times have changed.
Addons aren't created in a vacuum. They are made by real people with valuable skills who have real life obligations, and a platform for crowd-funded revenue distribution would go a long way to ensure what they do continues to be something we get to enjoy.
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