262 replies to this topic

[Baronius]

Even if it were more profitable than what I do or plan to do, I wouldn't choose that either. Business kills the hobby. Competition kills the fun. (I'm talking of a enterprise which primary activity is making and selling mods. Assuming the legal background /license etc./ is given.)

[jcompton]

RPG Dungeon runs ads (as did the old FW)

...wow, I'd totally forgotten about the old Studios ads. In that case and I'm fairly sure in the RPGD case as well, the money is going directly to the free hosting service, not to the operators, but I guess that does mean _somebody_'s making money off the ads, just not the direct site administrator.

PPG has a Cafepress store; the old TeamBG tried to sell CDs of mods. Not that I think any of these actually turn(ed) an actual profit, mind.

I think the official tally was something like 3 months of service and Kish got enough money to buy a pizza. It was mostly just about getting people to voluntarily walk around in "pirates or pancakes?" shirts anyway.

The TBG CDs may well have been wildly profitable, however, since it seemed like most people who paid never got one.

Indulge me for a moment while I embarass myself by revealing my hippie side.

You wanna come over to my place? We're playing Tales From Topographic Oceans tonight. All four sides, man.

[SConrad]

[...]

No, I wouldn't dream of trying to turn a profit off of that.

Good post, Cam. I fully agree with you.

[Azkyroth]

Please, be gratefull to guys who made all this modding available and absolutely free for you.

I am, to an extent, but as far as I'm concerned thats on the level of "so basic it doesn't automatically inspire praise." It'd feel kinda like thanking a gas station attendant for not charging me for directions back to the freeway; I wouldn't dream of doing that if I were a gas station attendant, and I while I endorse people who at least aspire to the same standards I hold myself to, I don't consider that "remarkable," so to speak. [EDIT]Perhaps I should clarify: I would thank the attendant for the directions, and I do thank modders for making their mods. Even the ones (like the Jerry Zinger show, from what I've read of it, or most of the "make it more like PnP" mod options) that really aren't to my taste. And I appreciate being thanked for my efforts. I don't, however, consider additional thanks for not charging for it to be in order, as a modder or as a player.[/EDIT]

(However, even if it's profitable, why not? No one would be so stupid not trying to make money from a site when it's possible.

Um, I would. *checks to see if dictionary.com has an entry for "personal conviction."

[EDIT]

Indulge me for a moment while I embarass myself by revealing my hippie side.

You mean you have other sides? :/ Bah. Square.

It always makes me smile a bit when a well-meaning poster starts a 'thank you modders' thread. They just don't understand--it should be the modders thanking the players. The players make the community come alive: that, in turn, fosters passion, imagination, creativity, and innovation, and allows modders to explore and push their technical and artistic skills to new achievements.

I wouldn't spend my time and effort doing modding if I didn't love it. Sure, I could recoup some costs from splashing some ads on the pages, or adding a Cafepress store, or a Paypal account for donations--but the community already gives us so much. G3 belongs to the community that visits, that interacts on the site. I started G3 so that I could give back to the players before me, to the modders whose mods I've enjoyed. It's grown well beyond my most optimistic hopes.

No, I wouldn't dream of trying to turn a profit off of that.

That's more or less my position; beyond that, I tend to think of creative effort the same way I think about sex. Economic necessity is an understandable excuse for selling it, but I still think it cheapens it (to be fair, I'm considerably more comfortable with the sale of physical packages of information, like books and CDs, that individually cost something significant to produce, than with the sale of information itself, which has an initial production cost and can be duplicated indefinitely essentially for free).

Edited by Azkyroth, 27 June 2006 - 04:06 PM.

[Baronius]

(However, even if it's profitable, why not? No one would be so stupid not trying to make money from a site when it's possible.

Um, I would. *checks to see if dictionary.com has an entry for "personal conviction."

Okay "no one" was a too general term. I admit. As you could see in my earlier post. Let me quote it:

Even if it were more profitable than what I do or plan to do, I wouldn't choose that either. Business kills the hobby. Competition kills the fun. (I'm talking of a enterprise which primary activity is making and selling mods. Assuming the legal background /license etc./ is given.)

[Azkyroth]

Okay "no one" was a too general term. I admit. As you could see in my earlier post. Let me quote it:

Which I couldn't see when I started typing.

As an aside, to be honest, I seem to recall the bit about "adding some originality" to the community rubbing me the wrong way as well. I might be mistaken, because EVERYTHING this last tenday seems to have been determined to rub me the wrong way (do a search for "Tucson" in posts with my name x.x I think that situation made it into some public posts...).

[jastey]

(...)
No, I wouldn't dream of trying to turn a profit off of that.

Thank you for this post, I feel deeply impressed. I wished more people of the IE modding community would be lead by this spirit. These whole blah blah "politics" discussions perpetuated by some people are beginning to drive me away from IE modding.

[Andyr]

My argument's not with donations to sites, but rather the means by which sites solicit donations.

[Azkyroth]

My argument's not with donations to sites, but rather the means by which sites solicit donations.

Or the grounds. Igi, is TBG-2 considering something like this? (I suppose I should actually look at the site sooner or later...)

[Seifer]

My argument's not with donations to sites, but rather the means by which sites solicit donations.

Or the grounds. Igi, is TBG-2 considering something like this? (I suppose I should actually look at the site sooner or later...)

This hasn't entered our thoughts at all.

[grogerson]

I looked over the TGB2 site last night. Looks good.

I've a couple of requests on the legacy tools warnings.

1. You might consider a statement "X tool/utility is newer and provides the same functions and we recommend the use of it over this tool/utility." Or some such phrasing.

2. Those tools with known problems should have it clearly stated just what those known problems are, such as "This tool is known to corrupt .XXX files."

So much for the criticisms/requests.

I also looked over the forum posts. It's good to see you're working on new tools, as well as still reviewing the legacy tools for functionality/problems.

So far, so good B) . Keep it up.

[Avenger_teambg]

My argument's not with donations to sites, but rather the means by which sites solicit donations.

Or the grounds. Igi, is TBG-2 considering something like this? (I suppose I should actually look at the site sooner or later...)

This hasn't entered our thoughts at all.

Hehe, maybe not your thoughts, but i think we could get rich by offering weidu romance mods on CDs
Uh, maybe not. I guess we have to look for other sources of income.

[MorningGlory]

My argument's not with donations to sites, but rather the means by which sites solicit donations.

Or the grounds. Igi, is TBG-2 considering something like this? (I suppose I should actually look at the site sooner or later...)

This hasn't entered our thoughts at all.

Hehe, maybe not your thoughts, but i think we could get rich by offering weidu romance mods on CDs
Uh, maybe not. I guess we have to look for other sources of income.

*snicker* I hear there's a huge black market for fem/slash.

[jester]

Btw has anybody ever thought to ask whether Irenicus raped Imoen?

[KIrving]

It always makes me smile a bit when a well-meaning poster starts a 'thank you modders' thread. They just don't understand--it should be the modders thanking the players. The players make the community come alive: that, in turn, fosters passion, imagination, creativity, and innovation, and allows modders to explore and push their technical and artistic skills to new achievements.

Reading this post made my day. Thanks Cam.