GO FUND ME SORT OF CAMPAIGN FOR BATTLEGOAT STUDIO!

[Nerei]

There are actually a few ways for modders to make money off mods.
The most famous example of modders (trying) to make money from modding is probably that hugely successful debacle when bethesda and Valve completely messed up trying to monetise Skyrim mods while at the same time offering just about no security for the people that bought the mods. It did probably not help that Bethesda and Valve where now charging for and taking the majority (70% total) of the proceeds for what could be said to be fixes to Bethesdas "modders fix our broken games post-release" games.

There are however examples of it working out better. Colossal Order (the people behind Cities: Skylines) got together with modder Matt Crux to make a building pack where the proceeds are split in some fashion (how I do not know but I suspect Valve still takes their 30% so he probably gets around 30-40%).
There are also a few cases of people being hired by studios based on their modding of a game but those are fairly rare and I have personally only heard about it from larger games with a larger modding community.

As for Modders making money modding besides working directly with the devs there are some that create say Patreon accounts for that purpose.
However the highest profit I can remember to have seen is like $150 (a month) and that was for games with far larger user base than the entire SR franchise. Some of the largest Skyrim mods also brought up how much they had received from onetime donations when the Skyrim paid mods debacle played out and if we extrapolate that to the SRU user base we get that it might make a few dollars top.
Basically if I remember correctly their numbers gave less than one in a thousand that downloaded would donate and with steamspy listing a total of around 3000 active users last I checked it will probably not be much.

This is a tricky thing to deal with as we are potentially talking about suddenly charging for what people usually get for free and the internet really does not like that. It also does not help when idiots like Bethesda and Valve completely messes things up.
The more donation style of supporting modders of Patreon is a bit different but still when there is money involved things have the potential to explode spectacularly.

Yes it is something that can potentially help modders put more time into modding. As someone that is currently juggling work, family etc. with modding that is something I can relate to. I do kinda feel bad for not putting more time into it but at the same time I do prioritise my family higher and I also kinda like eating once in a while.

However to me at least if you create a patreon account and start receiving money there is now an obligation of sorts to put out material (and potentially patch it in a timely manner if needed). It to some extends stops being a spare-time project and starts being a paid job (Mind you one with a really crappy hourly wage). It becomes a lot harder to take a time off and you can be sure part of the user base will let you that they do not consider it to be acceptable.

Knowing the internet there is going to be quite a few people out there with an "I give you 2 dollars a month so I expect you to put in 30+ hours a week on your mod" attitude. Heck just go to many game forums with a modding subsection and watch how people act when an update breaks their favourite mod. While for the most part a vocal minority some basically expect modders to work more or less 24 hours a day to update the mod to the new version and that is "before" money got involved.
Some people really get nasty if it turns out the mod author might not be able to update the first few days or less.

So if you could not tell I am personally really conflicted about the idea of charging for mods or even just accepting donations and there are quite a few things to consider before jumping into it.


Finally just a quick note: For this game it does not matter as all modding can be done without tools created by the devs but if you use tools like the creation kits created by Bethesda you can be darn sure that you cannot just charge for them without violating the EULA.

[YoMomma]

If good mods come out game will profit. You are right about the fan base, i just feel like alot of money should go to anyone able to respresent MW as good as possible. I know what the effort is, like almost nothing changed from SR2020 and everything needs updating. That's hundreds if not thousands of hours. Let the money go to the right people. Modders take a little profit, devs can copy some of their work, game will profit.

[Nerei]

I do not disagree with you. I personally consider mods important to the point where I got quite a few games I just will not play without mods.

I just find it hard to find a way to effectively do it with a niche game like this.
Donations do not work Skyrim mods proved that.
Putting down a paywall does not work Bethesda and Valve proved that quite effectively and probably ruined any further chances of such a scheme. Their execution was almost handled as well as Early Access and Greenlight...

The best I can find with Patreon is a Minecraft modder and video creator that gets around $650 and a Kerbal Space Program modder at $250. Keep in mind though that Minecraft for PC alone has sold nearly 25M copies and KSP is at around 1.6M copies on steam alone (I think the devs around a year ago said over 4M total). For comparison Steamspy says SRU is at 20-28K with around 1.5-4.5K active players.

The only possible way I can see a niche game like this earning anything for a modder is (like you said) through some form of cooperation with the devs but considering we have this topic that is kinda not relevant either.

[nick-bang]

Perhaps restart this now .... ?

[Fistalis]

There are actually a few ways for modders to make money off mods.
---SNIP---.

Just to throw out my 2 cents on the whole monetezation of mods and my experience. When I started modding for SR i was unemployed so it wasn't unusual for me to put well over a 40 hour work week into modding. In an attempt to create some income from it i threw up a quick website for people to go for my mods and put some google adsense ads on them figuring a few hits here and there would eventually pay a little.(This was the PRIMARY reason I was and AM against sharing my mods on 3rd party sites and one of the reasons i was against SR mods on steamworks... considering they are then monetizing my work without me seeing any part of it) Long story short the site has been up for a few years now..and I have yet to hit the 100$ threshold for google to pay out. Not entirely the methods fault as I haven't updated or released anything new in a LONG time, which means I haven't provided any reason for repeat visits. I never expected it to amount to much and again part of the problem was me finding and justifying spending the free time i have on it once i was once again gainfully employed.

Moral of the story is I spent 1000s of hours on a labor of love and it would have been nice to have some compensation for it but I never expected as much. maybe I should have put a donation button or something but I wouldn't be honest if I didn't say if i could have figured out someway to bring in some added income for the hours spent I likely would have likely continued modding more and been willing to spend more time than I did on my modding. Unfortunately the harsh reality is being able to feed my family and pay my bills etc will always take priority and anyway to mix a labor of love with SOME compensation would certainly make me more active in modding. I don't expect a developer or anyone else to figure out a way for me to monetize the time i spend on something I do primarily for my enjoyment and to add to the community but if a method could be developed that didn't require a paywall for my work I would certainly use it. I'm not sure I would ever take part in any monetization scheme that forced people to pay for my mods.. part of the reason i did so was to share with the community.

To be clear I would never mod anything purely for monetary gain it has to be a labor of love in some aspect.. but it certainly would be easier to justify to myself (not to mention my old lady )the time it takes/time I spend on modding if I had a way to earn a bit of side money doing so.

[nick-bang]

Hey Fistalis

First off, then let me just say that you are counted among the giants of SR - and if no one has taken the time to thank you, then let me do that now !

Secondly I think maybe there are 2 challenges in what you tried to do:

1) A unique game with a limited fanbase
2) A poor venue you chose for making money.

BG should be clever instead and hire a handful of modders like you and Nereid PART TIME and for a flat fee... Very cheap investment for BG given the output ... a No brainer really ...

AND we should do a Patreon drive or something like that - a more modern venue...

[nick-bang]

Also ... I forgot: BG did a crowdfunding for SR 1936 .... So just do another one for this ?

[Balthagor]

It's worth mentioning that the '36 fundraiser was cancelled before it was completed.

One issue with attempting some crowd funding is that it could turn this project into something bigger than is currently intended and could conflict with other development pipelines that are important for the studio in the long term.

I'm a strong believer in not over committing.

[Nerei]

Patreon is not a kickstarter style 30 or 60 day drive to collect X amount to be successful. Patreon can run for years no problem. The entire point of patreon actually is for it to run over a long period of time. Most people only give a few US$ but they give it several times.

Basically patreon is a cross between a subscription service and a tip jar. A subscription tip jar if you will.
You can put your virtual tip jar up there for people to fill either each month or whenever you release something. Patreon basically automates the process of remembering to give something to a someone where you like their work but as with many humans you either forget or have a hard time finding their paypal details etc. It is as much a tool of convenience as anything.

You can put down stretch goals sure but I have seen some successful patreons that either only offered very basic things or nothing at all. The reward can simply be that whatever someone is doing is happening.

Patreon is fairly popular amongst video creators, artists, modders and the like. For most people it is just a bit of cash on the side but some actually make a living from it.


It is not really an environment that rewards braggarts that oversell themselves Keiji Inafune style. Deliver what people want and they will come, stop delivering and they will leave.

[nick-bang]

Agreed:

Patreon is a new concept that works well with what we are discussing here.

A good example would be "The Great War" channel on Youtube.

Short version: Just do it...

[Balthagor]

hmm, I had not considered Patreon. That's worth some thought...

[Fistalis]

Hey Fistalis

First off, then let me just say that you are counted among the giants of SR - and if no one has taken the time to thank you, then let me do that now !

Secondly I think maybe there are 2 challenges in what you tried to do:

1) A unique game with a limited fanbase
2) A poor venue you chose for making money.

BG should be clever instead and hire a handful of modders like you and Nereid PART TIME and for a flat fee... Very cheap investment for BG given the output ... a No brainer really ...

AND we should do a Patreon drive or something like that - a more modern venue...

I was well aware of both of those particular issues.. and had I been more concerned with monetizing it I would have expanded my site to include mods I have done for other games. SR was not my first modding rodeo. More games = more clicks= more money. In all honesty i would say 75% of the ad income came with in the first few months of me putting the site up.. meaning if I had continued to update and produce content I actually could have made a few hundred a year on it. But.. the truth is monetizing my work was an after thought.. It was primarily a labor of love and done to share with the BG community. Hence why the crappy little website was dedicated purely to my SR mods. It's worth mentioning that had i been more interested in monetizing it the fact that it still remains a top search result for SR mods would have meant more.. I put a decent amount of thought into SEO for it to make sure people could find it.. i could have done the same for my mods of other games.. but it really was all about the SR community.

hmm, I had not considered Patreon. That's worth some thought...

I'm not familiar with patreon but id b willing to check it out if BG decides to use it.

[George Geczy]

Thank you Fistalis, Nerei and others for some interesting thoughts in this thread.

It has occasionally come to mind about how we can help modders to monetize or receive some return for their efforts, and SR has had some incredible mods and new content from the likes of Fistalis, Ruges, Zuikaku, Nerei and many others. But this is a tough question without easy answers - games with much bigger installed bases (Europa Universalis, Civ, etc) don't manage to pull this off either, and so the smaller audience of an SR game doesn't give a lot of options.

A Patreon is an interesting idea but it also relies on a large quantity of people - usually a small amount from a lot of people.

I know Fistalis has indicated dissatisfaction with Steam Workshop, but I'm wondering if there might still be a way we could leverage that to achieve both goals - keeping mods free to players but still sharing some revenue with modders. The idea would be to set aside a portion of new game sales into a pool that would be shared with modders. It's a very rough idea, but one I would like to look at further to see if it could be made to work. It still wouldn't be a lot of money though.

With regard for the earlier points in this thread about providing funding for our core team to continue work on SR, that too is a complex issue. Our friends at Paradox have taken an approach that sells regular DLC releases to keep their development funded. This approach has benefits and drawbacks for both players and the developer. At BattleGoat we've taken the approach to keep our game updates (and even DLC) free. This has resulted in a much slower update cycle than Paradox is able to do. We are lucky in that SRU does continue to sell and so we are able to use that revenue stream to keep working at occasional updates, but that is a not a lot of money, and we also know that a lot of players are looking at other ways to help support our efforts.

The decision to develop Supreme Ruler The Great War in part stemmed from this, releasing a title that would allow interested players to "give us money". We think the WWI era is interesting in its own right, but this is also a way that we can continue to put resources into development of SR content and the SR game engine. (So, even if you're not a WWI fan, but you've been wanting to find a way to support our work - buy SRGW!)

-- George.

[Nerei]

Another essay from yours truly ＼^_^／
I swear I do not plan to do so.

Really think of Patreon as a way for people to tip you without having to give a certain amount (e.g. by buying a game) or give 30% of that amount to Valve (probably my main objection to doing any such thing).
For some people it might also be easier to find that $2-6 that people tend to give on average on Patreon rather than buying a game.
I personally would not expect such a Patreon to be the next Chap Trap House (no idea who it is but apparently it makes around $46K from around 10K people) but it might still add up to something. It could say be what gives the possibility of an extra few months of support to the game.
It could also be part of a modder sharing pool if you intend to do such a thing.
It would be part of a financing solution not the whole thing and even if it does not give much it might still be free coffee at the office ^_^.


Like Fistalis I must admit I am not that fond of workshop or Steam in general. I currently have no plans of supporting that service. In part this is out of my distaste of Valve but it is also down to me not wanting to maintain another repository. I'd rather use my time making content than doing tech-support.

What I make might have compatibility issues with other mods and will not automatically work with all mods. I really do not want to deal with issues of people complaining about say downloading a scenario and it (naturally) not using the graphics I have made or it being a graphics mod that is not compatible and everything breaking.

Yes I can write a disclaimer but this is the internet. You will find people surprised that they need both parts of a file when they have "part 1 of 2" in their name.
Throw in people acting like I have personally insulted them and murdered half their family and I just have no patience for it. Yes I know not all are like that but it is the ones you remember. It is certainly the people I remember from my previous modding experience.

I know I have been complaining a bit on the Steam forums about Workshop and honestly I could not care less if it is added or not. I personally do not like it but if other people want to use it I have no objections. It is their choice.
Where I do object though is that Valve allows anyone to upload mods and anything I make might very well end up there without my consent because "it deserves to be there" or whatever arguments I might get if I ask why they did it.


As for Paradox well Paradox is Paradox really.
Anything related to them tend to be extreme cases. "Here we made an update to how cardinals work! $15 (or your regional equivalent) please!" That sort of cases.
To some extend it makes sense though. Paradox development studios (the guys making the games not the publisher that would be Paradox interactive) according to wikipedia has 80 employees.
They need a good cash flow to keep that staff. It is also why I do not blame them for making more mainstream games. They very much need those 500K sales of Hearts of Iron IV to keep that staff. It is their right to do so just as it is my right to ignore them as they are not making something I want to play anymore.

I really am not objecting to buying additional content. The prevalence of DLC in the gaming industry is an indicator that many people think that way.

When people complain it is usually for the thing paradox does which is release a very underdeveloped game and then start dumping tonnes of DLC down on the customers or when day one DLC includes content most people think is a core part of the game.
There can be other example yes but usually it is not just a case of "people does not want to pay money". Yes they are also out there but they are not all there is.

I would not object to paying for an expansion if it has a decent amount of quality content and for that matter I do not mind paying a premium for niche games that cater to my taste. As I mentioned in another thread that if my memory is correct I probably paid around the equivalent of $150 for Distant worlds and its expansions and I have yet to regret that purchase.

[Zuikaku]

I really do not have much to say, but is there any chance that Nerei's mod will become stock part of the game??