FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

Currently non of the people working on Minetest, mods and texture packs is asking for donations. So I wondered, is it for some reason or is it just that no one did it until now? What effect do you think will it have on the community when people start asking for donations?

it won't be as bad as everybody using ad.fly. (that is one thing I dislike about downloading minecraft mods.) I think that asking for donations won't cause an uproar.

CWz wrote:it won't be as bad as everybody using ad.fly. (that is one thing I dislike about downloading minecraft mods.) I think that asking for donations won't cause an uproar.

I agree with this. Donations are not bad, but forcing users to go through ads is.

As a side note, I don't mind if a mod provides an adfly link, in addition to a direct download link. In this case, I take the adfly link as a sort of "donation" link.

You can donate at the main website to cover the hosting costs for minetest.net.

Casimir wrote:What effect do you think will it have on the community when people start asking for donations?

Nothing will change. Also no one will donate.

xyz wrote:

Casimir wrote:What effect do you think will it have on the community when people start asking for donations?

Nothing will change. Also no one will donate.

That's wrong. On a few mods at least, there may be people doing it, especially if you're offering some kind of premium feature when donating (that's possible).

See Minecraft mods, there are people who donate to their creators.

Calinou wrote:if you're offering some kind of premium feature when donating (that's possible)

I wouldn't call this "donating".

In the simplest case where you don't benefit from giving money to the mod creator I'm sure nobody will donate.

Free software attracts a lot of anti-establishment types who neither want to pay or be subjected to ads, devs (should) know this coming in. Still, i'd go with adfly first, freemium second, and donations last.

I have a donation link for my server. I think I've received maybe $40 in donations over 6-8 months. I give them a special non-craftable item when they donate. I think most of them donated just because they wanted to support the server, not for the item.

Users motives aside, if you give perks for money that's more aptly called freemium/F2P.

xyz wrote:Also no one will donate.

Let's try it out.

BTC:
1C9D2kApMdCBX133C8gvXfpGUAoScvGcz6

The reason I asked is the following. I would like to spend more time on working on nodetest and mods. But I don't want to invest more of my free time. The idea was that I set myself an hourly wage and for the amount of donations I receive I will spend the corresponding amount of extra time working.

Edit:
Freicoin: 15wCi32ScnESBTEt3aNyBpCcZWHPJNNSrX
IMHO Freicoin is cool.

i dont kow how to use bitcoin, and i am a programmer heh

aldobr wrote:i dont kow how to use bitcoin, and i am a programmer heh

Nothing doing. That currency is damn liquid and I won't bet my five-pence on it.

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Anyway, I don't like freemiums or F2P style of doing things in a place like Minetest. Since Minetest is developed by a bunch of lunatics and said lunatics have never received money for the stuff they did, I find it absurd that mod developers could be asking money for their work. When core developers who code and break and debug and tell you that x feature can't fit in because y don't receive money for schist, how can mod developers receive money for just writing an extension to the core dev's code?

Dev funding has been discussed, though there never was much agreement on the best method. There's also the question of fairness, what if some devs gets paid for flashy features and others work for free on the less fun stuff, what then?

Mod devs are free to ask for money, though i still think adfly is the least painful route for everyone. Though if a modder says they can only work on their stuff if they have x amount, then i wouldn't chance being one of the ones who donates knowing he/she probably won't get enough to finish the project.

They aren't expected to receive money for this. Though if they do want money, adfly is THE worst possible route. I think that asking for donations are much better and much dignified. In any case, modders shouldn't expect to earn something huge from just mod devving.

I don't see begging as being more dignified than advertising.

Ads are bad because they work. The companies pay you for there adds, because there are people - manipulated by the ads - paying the company. The one who profits is the advertiser. So why not take the direct route, from person to person.

Advertisers pay the people providing the space for ads, and they're paid by the people making the ads. Ads, like donations, do not force anyone to buy. Though, donations won't pay you according to clicks/views, you have to make the sale.

Now, if you're easily manipulated by ads, that's not something any individual dev or webmaster can influence by their choice of funding, nor is it their responsability. I'd suggest getting a good education.

mauvebic wrote:Advertisers pay the people providing the space for ads, and they're paid by the people making the ads. Ads, like donations, do not force anyone to buy. Though, donations won't pay you according to clicks/views, you have to make the sale.

Now, if you're easily manipulated by ads, that's not something any individual dev or webmaster can influence by their choice of funding, nor is it their responsability. I'd suggest getting a good education.

Speaking of a good education, I know of a few individuals that much knowledge can be acquired from. Start by looking up Bill William Cooper... Gotta know how the ball rolls... Gotta know how the balrogs...

The best things I tend to give to an open source project are advice and telling others about it.

@mauvebic

Casimir wrote:Ads are bad because they work.

They work despite of your education. Aiming at basic human behavior your would have to shut down your instincts to be immune. E.g. curiosity, your brain always willing to learn, your hunger and sexuality. The best way to avoid being manipulated by propaganda/advertisement is to avoid itself in the first place. We should not pollute each other with things like this.
One of the beautiful aspects of free software is that we need no ads, no DRM, no central server to register your account, not to enforce limitations onto each other.
Take a look at art that deals with utopian and dystropian worlds. In the beautiful world there are no commercials and no borders (e.g. Iblard Jikan), in the distropian world there are ads everywhere and policemen are killing cyborgs (e.g. Bladerunner).
Also I think you overestimate the revenue you would get from ads. Maybe you also value the money more than the fun you would have. When using adfly it would be stupid to use github at the same time,

Casimir wrote:They work despite of your education. Aiming at basic human behavior your would have to shut down your instincts to be immune. E.g. curiosity, your brain always willing to learn, your hunger and sexuality. The best way to avoid being manipulated by propaganda/advertisement is to avoid itself in the first place. We should not pollute each other with things like this.
One of the beautiful aspects of free software is that we need no ads, no DRM, no central server to register your account, not to enforce limitations onto each other.

Ubuntu has amazon search results, FSF has propaganda, so obviously free software does seem to find some value in it. Ads exist because people want things, not the other way around :P Just look here and ask them if they would have been content with getting nothing for christmas.

Casimir wrote:Take a look at art that deals with utopian and dystropian worlds. In the beautiful world there are no commercials and no borders (e.g. Iblard Jikan), in the distropian world there are ads everywhere and policemen are killing cyborgs (e.g. Bladerunner).

I wouldn't base a business decision on scifi.

Casimir wrote:Also I think you overestimate the revenue you would get from ads.

adfly would be pocket change for me, you overestimate if you think you can pay yourself a salary with donations.

Casimir wrote:Maybe you also value the money more than the fun you would have.

Says the guy who wants to be paid to mod :p

Aside, if you don't like marketing and consumerism, why would you want money for what is supposed to be fun?

mauvebic wrote:I wouldn't base a business decision on scifi.

It's not about business. For me it is a hobby and I have no intention to become a programmer or game designer.

mauvebic wrote:Aside, if you don't like marketing and consumerism, why would you want money for what is supposed to be fun?

To fulfill the social paradigm that something is useful only if you get money for it ;). I will have semester break in a few weeks, in this free time I wanted to earn a little bit by doing a regular job. It is just an experiment, if there are enough donations, that would mean less sorting shoes (or some other useless work), and more time doing the (also useless) hobby.

Why would you need donations?

Making a mod has no monetary cost; you don't need to employ people, or keep servers running.

Making mods is a hobby, and so you should not ask for money like this, as a wage. You don't work full time on it.

rubenwardy wrote:Making a mod has no monetary cost; you don't need to employ people, or keep servers running.
Making mods is a hobby, and so you should not ask for money like this, as a wage. You don't work full time on it.

Just because it doesn't cost you anything doesn't mean you can't desire making money at it. Isn't your time worth something? Most of our work is all about our time, even if you are an employee in a manufacturing facility your wage is really about your time. For instance I would spend more time developing mods, if I wasn't spending so much time developing software that runs businesses. I could shift some of that time to mod development if there was some money in it. I enjoy writing mods anyway so when my free time and my motivation coincide I write mods. I think that is the same thing Casimir is saying. If he got donations, he could spend less time sorting shoes and more time developing mods. If there were no donations, and he still developed mods instead of sorting shoes he could starve to death, and then he will not be sorting shoes or developing mods.

BrandonReese wrote:

rubenwardy wrote:Making a mod has no monetary cost; you don't need to employ people, or keep servers running.
Making mods is a hobby, and so you should not ask for money like this, as a wage. You don't work full time on it.

Just because it doesn't cost you anything doesn't mean you can't desire making money at it. Isn't your time worth something? Most of our work is all about our time, even if you are an employee in a manufacturing facility your wage is really about your time. For instance I would spend more time developing mods, if I wasn't spending so much time developing software that runs businesses. I could shift some of that time to mod development if there was some money in it. I enjoy writing mods anyway so when my free time and my motivation coincide I write mods. I think that is the same thing Casimir is saying. If he got donations, he could spend less time sorting shoes and more time developing mods. If there were no donations, and he still developed mods instead of sorting shoes he could starve to death, and then he will not be sorting shoes or developing mods.

IF I was being paid to finish the short, it'd be done by now.

Well in any case I wouldn't mix work with leisure. If you can make money modding via whatever financing you think is appropriate, more power to you, but I'd treat it as a bonus, not a substitute to employment. A job is a steady income, donations and ads aren't.

mauvebic wrote:Well in any case I wouldn't mix work with leisure. If you can make money modding via whatever financing you think is appropriate, more power to you, but I'd treat it as a bonus, not a substitute to employment. A job is a steady income, donations and ads aren't.

+1.

But I think that this bonus should be what I call 'clean'. Donations are clean, ads aren't.

BrandonReese wrote:Just because it doesn't cost you anything doesn't mean you can't desire making money at it. Isn't your time worth something? Most of our work is all about our time, even if you are an employee in a manufacturing facility your wage is really about your time. For instance I would spend more time developing mods, if I wasn't spending so much time developing software that runs businesses. I could shift some of that time to mod development if there was some money in it. I enjoy writing mods anyway so when my free time and my motivation coincide I write mods. I think that is the same thing Casimir is saying. If he got donations, he could spend less time sorting shoes and more time developing mods. If there were no donations, and he still developed mods instead of sorting shoes he could starve to death, and then he will not be sorting shoes or developing mods.

I disagree wiith paying people to make mods, mods take reletively less time than making a game.

mods should be made for fun, not money.

Once I had the idea about whether it's possible for a server to be free2play, but also provide some payed premium features, e.g. more than X protected areas, special nodes, etc. And of course this money would be donated to minetest and be used to pay the server. But I'm not sure if this doesn't hurt any licenses or whether people would really spend mony for this...

well, if someone wants to pay me for my dirt little mod, then its not my fault :P