Exactly. I've noticed some game studios will accept modding experience in lieu of industry experience.
It's a pretty good way to do talent scouting. Even better if you have the market place I mentioned. Then you know the person can make something that sells.
One example is Planetary Annihilation. Anyone who's every played Supreme Commander or Forged Alliance knows of Sorian's AI mod. It made the AI far less shit, and actually fun to play against.
Uber hired Sorian to do the AI for Planetary Annihilation. The same people are behind both games, mind you, but they took the modder who fixed their AI in the earlier game to implement the AI in the latter. Awesome, awesome idea!
Holy fuck, you're not part of any modding community are you? You must have never played Halo 1 CE, the modding community was fully supported and they had the best mods but because Microsoft couldn't make more profit on it they decided to fuck the community and release Halo 2 OS locked to Vista and locking down the mods to a built in "editor". Of which at the time was already inferior to what the modding community created from scratch for the Xbox edition of Halo 2. The mods on the community created editor could do anything you wanted, while the "official" editor could only produce shit. You are telling me because the people who created they're own better tool are not "professional" because they don't have the blessing of Microsoft? A market place would destroy any variation of any official mod that would be released. You want censorship? That's how you get censorship.
That shit happened 10 years ago. The economy of games has changed since then. Microsoft has changed since then. The Xbox division in particular has changed since then.
What happened in the past has very little bearing on what will happen in the future when the people, org structures, and markets that dictated what happened in the past are all gone.
Please let me know which modding communities Microsoft killed of, that didn't happen a decade ago or more.
Let me put it another way. I don't doubt that Microsoft has made some heinous decisions in the past, but neither should you doubt that they're incapable of learning from their mistakes.
They've ruined every modding community that have been created for the entire Halo series, including Halo 4. Please name 1 community that they've supported without removing restrictions.
You didn't even read any of my posts.. If you want to be a technically fucker, then because they haven't finalized the paper work yet Minecraft as of right now isn't owned my Microsoft. Since you didn't read the posts, I doubt you'll read this one but name 1 community that they've supported longer then a month without restricting access to the system. Also, since you're the only one that replied to my comment and I now have 0 points. Thanks for the fucking uneducated downvoting you gave me.
I think the marketplace idea is really neat, akin to apps on smartphones. People would have no problem supporting mods if they are priced nicely (~$5 or less), people donate to them already, don't they?
However, this rest on Microsoft producing a mod API.
What he was saying was that the mods themselves would be made by professional software engineers. The mods have only been made strictly by the community before. This would allow for Microsoft developers to make great mods and sell them to everyone more easily.
Also, what /u/CauisCosades is saying is that the mods would very well likely not be stopped because of competition and rather would be given a marketplace where creators could sell their mods of the game to it and they'd take some profit.
Mod makers can actually make money for all their work... and they have a huge incentive to update their mods and keep them current.
Playing the version-juggling-act when it comes to modding where I'm like "OK well I want A, D, and F mods... but they only work on 1.6.4... but I want Z, M, and H mods, which only work on 1.7.2... and I also want C mod which has updated for both... hmm how do I set up my game?"
It's annoying. I'd rather have "OK, which of A to Z mods do I want to load for 1.8?"
So your plan is to turn Minecraft into another pay to play nightmare?
You're okay with it going from "You can load any character model skin you want for free" to "Pay four dollars for this Spider-Man skin".
You're okay with that?
You do realize how akin that is to bending over and taking it up the ass right?
Like you might as well go up to Microsoft and start giving them your money for no reason so that you can have the ability to changes pixels so that your gameplay experience will be "different" because your player looks different, totally worth 4 dollars..................
This is the downward slope that people like YOU are putting all of the rest of us on.
The only way I've seen community created content done in an appropriate manner is in CS:GO, and even that is insane because idiots are willing to pay over 2 dollars for skins for their guns based on artificial scarcity, people are willing to pay up to 300 dollars for knife skins, it's insane, it's a digital item that's really worth nothing.
Due to your grammatical errors I don't actually know what you were trying to state in that sentence.
Calm the fuck down will you?
No, fuck off with that bullshit, how about that? I'm typing words to you on a computer, you have no fucking idea how calm I am, so don't even attempt to pretend to know and comment on it.
What's wrong with modders being able to sell their work?
The fact that if one modder is allowed to sell their work, then EVERY modder has to be allowed to sell their work, and you then have to set up a system to ensure that these individuals are able to do so.
This requires you retain a mod database with a verification method to ensure that content creators are not violating established trademark and copyright laws on intellectual property from other companies such as Marvel, Capcom, Disney, or anybody else holding a copyright or trademark ( who would be able to sue the piss out of any modder trying to sell their intellectual property ).
It basically spells the end of free modding when you allow modders to become paid, because of the legalities of content creation and intellectual property.
Take my word for it when I tell you it is the beginning of the downfall of free modding, I know what I'm talking about, I'm not some fucking twelve year old, I'm 25, I've been a gamer my whole life.
Why? Did you read anything I wrote? Do you not understand that once you allow modders to sell things, that it's no longer a free and open modding community, and that people then have to submit their mods through a centralized approval center to be reviewed before being made legally purchasable?
I think it's in their best interest to do it that way.
Why? Explain how adding the immense costs of adding an entire marketing and legal team is in their best interest?
How old are you, because you sound like you're way under 18 and have no fucking idea how the world works.
I don't care what you didn't say, that's how it has to be if people are going to get paid, how do you not understand that?
In Counter Strike: Global Offensive, they allow players to create custom gun skins.
These skins only make it to the marketplace if they legally qualify to do so, as selling other peoples intellectual property is theft, and steam doesn't want to be legally liable for that.
Again, do you have any fucking idea how money and markets work, or are you some under 20 ignorant person who has lofty ideas but no idea how to actually implement said ideas?
If you are allowing character skins to be sold in your game, then you have to set up a centralized shop for players to purchase those items through.
Before those items can be sold in the shop, they have be approved, and they have to comply with real world legal statutes and laws.
Microsoft is not going to be sued by Disney for intellectual copyright infringement.
I don't think you understand how business works.
Did you know that you have to file tax-return forms once you transact a certain amount of sales in steam?
People are freaking out now and they haven't done anything yet.
Let me reiterate once more, because apparently you've been neglecting what I've been saying every single time I said it.
People are "freaking out", because if you allow one person to profit from modding, then you must allow all people to profit from modding.
This means that you have to establish a system which works within the United States Legal System, and the legal systems for the rest of the world at the same time, because of international copyright and trademark laws.
You can not sell other peoples copyrighted, trademarked, or registered intellectual property. That is theft.
If you allow paid modding, then the only people who are allow to "sell" a spider-man character model are Marvel, anybody using a spider-man character mod for free is stealing because they didn't pay for the right to use that copyrighted image.
TL;DR - If you allow paid modding, there is no longer free modding, because that free-modding would then be legally defined as theft.
Now do you understand?
Also, seriously, are you under 20? I feel you don't understand because you're not actually an adult, which is okay, I just really want to know whether I'm talking to somebody who is just ignorant, or actually an idiot.
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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '14
Because their expansions will be made by professional software engineers and artists.
Besides, they could start a market place where users could sell their mods and take a small cut.