The cost of paid mods

[banggugyangu]

9 hours ago, Pipinghot said:

It's true that premium mods are not "the reason" ASA is failing, but then none of the reasons you listed are "the reason" either.

The reality is that ASA is failing for multiple reasons. You've made a good list, but you have to include premium mods on that list because it's one of the reasons, among multiple reasons, that are causing ASA to fail. If ARK only had one problem, broken promises, premium mods or any of the others on your list, then the game would almost certainly be doing great. It's the sum total of all the reasons, including premium mods, when added together that are causing ASA to fail.

Premium mods may not be on your personal list, maybe you don't care about them at all, and that's perfectly reasonable. You don't have to care about the same things other people care about. But that doesn't mean you can exclude it from the list of reasons, because it does matter to a lot of other people.

While I agree that it's many reasons, thus the point of my response, the problem with blaming premium mods comes down to the fact that you do not have to buy the mod... period...  As I stated before, if a player does not want to buy a mod, there are a number of other servers they can play on without buying the mod.  It would be different if that weren't the case, but it is...  I regularly filter unofficial server list by servers using one of my mods, and I hop on and play on the server while chatting with other people to get a feel of how they like my mods.  Because of this, I see a LOT of unofficial servers.  There are FAR more unofficial servers that don't have any premium mods than those that do.  There are plenty of options for a player that doesn't want to buy a mod.

Now, to clarify something.  I'm not saying there aren't SOME players that have gotten pissed off about having to choose between "play with my friends on this server?" and "I don't want to spend more money!"  But it's not a significant number.  Of the people leaving ASA altogether,  I would estimate that those who use that as a deciding factor are maybe 5% at best.

And I want to make this clear:  Mod devs that put the work in to make a polished mod DESERVE to earn money from their mod.  I'm not saying that players MUST buy them, but they definitely deserve to earn the money from those willing to support them.  If CurseForge would have let mod devs monetize with ad revenue, this would be a much smaller issue, as we would be earning money from downloads on free mods, but we don't have access to any CurseForge ad revenue for ARK mods whatsoever.  This may be a hot take, but if you don't think that a good mod dev deserves to earn money from his/her mod, then you don't deserve to play it.  And again... I'm saying this as a mod dev with 0 premium mods.

Also,  their "fix" is to make premium mods pay2win... which is 100% the wrong idea altogether....  The problem with the pyromane isn't that the pyromane costs money... it's that the pyromane costs money to USE, but it's present regardless, and people can pay to USE it on servers where others don't...  Making premium mods the same will do nothing but present the same negative perspective against those premium mods that the pyromane has received.

[Pipinghot]

17 minutes ago, banggugyangu said:

While I agree that it's many reasons, thus the point of my response, the problem with blaming premium mods comes down to the fact that you do not have to buy the mod... period...

Yes, that's a true statement, but it's meaningless in the context of what players like or dislike.

No one is forced to buy premium mods, but in no way does that fact invalidate the idea that premium mods are one of the things their players dislike in ASA. Why? Because it's still a form of coercion and people don't like being coerced. Being forced and being coerced are two different things, and people generally don't like either of them.

To argue that people are not forced to buy premium mods is to miss the point, even they're not being "forced" people still dislike them, and they are still one of the reasons that ASA is failing.

17 minutes ago, banggugyangu said:

if a player does not want to buy a mod, there are a number of other servers they can play on without buying the mod.  It would be different if that weren't the case, but it is...  I regularly filter unofficial server list by servers using one of my mods, and I hop on and play on the server while chatting with other people to get a feel of how they like my mods.  Because of this, I see a LOT of unofficial servers.  There are FAR more unofficial servers that don't have any premium mods than those that do.  There are plenty of options for a player that doesn't want to buy a mod.

This may explain why you are not bothered by premium mods, but it has nothing to do with how other people feel. Everyone likes or dislikes things for their own reasons, including the many people who dislike premium mods regardless of how you feel about them.

17 minutes ago, banggugyangu said:

Now, to clarify something.  I'm not saying there aren't SOME players that have gotten pissed off about having to choose between "play with my friends on this server?" and "I don't want to spend more money!"  But it's not a significant number.  Of the people leaving ASA altogether,  I would estimate that those who use that as a deciding factor are maybe 5% at best.

You're talking to the wrong people. You're only talking to people who are still playing which is the wrong group to be talking to, they can't give you any meaningful insight into why so many people have stopped playing. The complaints from people who are still playing and the complaints from people who have stopped playing are obviously going to be different, nothing bothers the active players enough to have made them quit. The obvious reality is that you don't know how many people have quit because of premium mods, you're just making an assumption based on conversations with people who are willing to accept them, which is the wrong group of people to give you insights.

17 minutes ago, banggugyangu said:

I would estimate that those who use that as a deciding factor are maybe 5% at best.

No, it's definitely 75%.  See, I can make up numbers too. That's all you're doing, making up a number based on the fact that premium mods don't bother you.

And frankly debating the percentage is beside the point. The point is that it's included in the list of reasons why people have walked away from ASA. Whether it's 5% 40% or 75% it's still one of the reasons, it's still on the list of reasons even if you think otherwise.

17 minutes ago, banggugyangu said:

And I want to make this clear:  Mod devs that put the work in to make a polished mod DESERVE to earn money from their mod.  I'm not saying that players MUST buy them, but they definitely deserve to earn the money from those willing to support them.  If CurseForge would have let mod devs monetize with ad revenue, this would be a much smaller issue, as we would be earning money from downloads on free mods, but we don't have access to any CurseForge ad revenue for ARK mods whatsoever.  This may be a hot take, but if you don't think that a good mod dev deserves to earn money from his/her mod, then you don't deserve to play it.  And again... I'm saying this as a mod dev with 0 premium mods.

This is This is a separate different topic. I could agree or disagree with every word you've said in this paragraph and it still would have absolutely no bearing on whether people dislike them, nor would it have any bearing on whether enough people dislike premium mods enough to include it on the list of reasons why ASA is failing. This isn't a debate on the morals and ethics of using mods, it's a discussion of whether premium mods are included in the list of reasons people are not playing.

17 minutes ago, banggugyangu said:

Also,  their "fix" is to make premium mods pay2win... which is 100% the wrong idea altogether....  The problem with the pyromane isn't that the pyromane costs money... it's that the pyromane costs money to USE, but it's present regardless, and people can pay to USE it on servers where others don't...  Making premium mods the same will do nothing but present the same negative perspective against those premium mods that the pyromane has received.

True, agreed. Making premium mods P2W will make even more people include them on their list of reasons to abandon ASA. But even without the P2W element, premium mods are still included in the list of reasons contributing to ASA's problems.

[TonyTempah]

15 hours ago, Tiberius3223 said:

@StudioWildcard @Dollie I'm probably going to get in trouble for tagging this, but here goes. It would be great to have some communication on these issues. I don’t see anyone actually responding, but it would be nice.

I'd be delighted to be proved wrong but, 1) I don't think Devs read the forums 2) They won't engage directly on this subject and 3) There feels like there is a them/us relationship between WC and the ACTUAL player base. This being the ones that love the game still and are actively playing the game now. The game is missing a good comms rep. There needs to be consistency, clarity and transparency.

 

16 hours ago, Pipinghot said:

That's just playing into their company deceptions. The difference between WildCard and Snail only exists on paper, it's a legal fiction for business purposes that isn't meaningful in any real sense. The people who own/lead/manage Snail are the same people who own/lead/manage WildCard. It's not "WildCard vs. Snail", it's really "WildCardSnail".

I guess this is something we'll have to continue to disagree on until the truth comes out. If it ever does...

[Tiberius3223]

@TonyTempah Dollie is now the lead community manager. If she's not engaging with these forums, it speaks volumes about Wildcard. You know what I mean?

[Tiberius3223]

@banggugyangu  I agree that mod developers should be compensated for their work, as long as it’s a polished, finished product with an agreement to maintain the mod for a set period of time. However, I strongly disagree with forcing server owners and players to buy what should be optional content just to play together. Arguing otherwise is shortsighted and frankly ignorant. But sure, let’s punish the majority of the player base. We see how that one is working out already, just look at the games reviews across the board, and the actual player count.

ASA is already heavily pay-to-win. Players with DLCs have a significant advantage over those without, and that's a whole other discussion. You need to step out of your bubble and take a closer look at the real issues at hand.

Edited September 25 by Tiberius3223

[Joebl0w13]

17 minutes ago, Tiberius3223 said:

@TonyTempah Dollie is now the lead community manager. If she's not engaging with these forums, it speaks volumes about Wildcard. You know what I mean?

She abandoned these forums for Discord. 

[TonyTempah]

28 minutes ago, Joebl0w13 said:

She abandoned these forums for Discord. 

and Discord engagement is feast or famine... She can be spamming stuff all day then nothing for weeks...

[Tiberius3223]

Well, she for sure not looking at the Discord either. I know others whose tried to contact her on these issues.

Edited September 25 by Tiberius3223

[Pipinghot]

12 hours ago, TonyTempah said:

I guess this is something we'll have to continue to disagree on until the truth comes out. If it ever does...

Considering that most of this information is a matter of public record, you're disagreeing with reality, not with me.

[TonyTempah]

On 9/25/2024 at 3:18 PM, Tiberius3223 said:

Well, she for sure not looking at the Discord either. I know others whose tried to contact her on these issues.

Presume you haven't been inundated by WC devs looking to address your concerns? 

[WCpromoteslaziness]

The game barely works as it is its a huge mess the fact we had to pay for ark 1.5 is beyond a joke already then you guys added paid DLC lmao THEN you have the balls to charge up £15 for a mofo player made mod.

But also lets be real the mod Creators choose to make it pay to play they can quite easily say no here you go guys have it for free F WC but they won't so they are literally just as bad as WC

 

[banggugyangu]

On 9/25/2024 at 8:16 AM, Tiberius3223 said:

@banggugyangu  I agree that mod developers should be compensated for their work, as long as it’s a polished, finished product with an agreement to maintain the mod for a set period of time. However, I strongly disagree with forcing server owners and players to buy what should be optional content just to play together. Arguing otherwise is shortsighted and frankly ignorant. But sure, let’s punish the majority of the player base. We see how that one is working out already, just look at the games reviews across the board, and the actual player count.

ASA is already heavily pay-to-win. Players with DLCs have a significant advantage over those without, and that's a whole other discussion. You need to step out of your bubble and take a closer look at the real issues at hand.

That's the whole point.... it IS optional content.... and regardless of your opinions of pay2play, pay2win is worse in every aspect... What you're suggesting is to allow players who pay for the features to be in competition with players who don't (and thereby cannot use those features.) in the same server.  This...is....BAD....  it serves no purpose but to spoil the overall feelings the playerbase has about the mod in a manner that's simply not fair to the mod developer unless that mod developer intentionally designs it that way.  No matter what anyone's feelings about paid mods may be, the overall opinion of pay2win is definitively worse in every way.  And again... you keep saying the content "should be optional".... but it IS optional....  You're not EVER forced to purchase premium mods...

[Pipinghot]

15 hours ago, banggugyangu said:

That's the whole point.... it IS optional content.... and regardless of your opinions of pay2play, pay2win is worse in every aspect...

Well no, that's your point, which is really only half of the discussion. The whole point is that being optional doesn't change people's feelings about it.

P2W is worse (and I think most people would agree with you on that) but it doesn't change the fact that for tons of people (who are not you) P2Play is still bad. You can't argue that one is bad and one is good when they're both bad, and pointing out that one is worse than the other doesn't magically exonerate P2Play from also being bad.

15 hours ago, banggugyangu said:

And again... you keep saying the content "should be optional".... but it IS optional....  You're not EVER forced to purchase premium mods...

And again, you're trying to argue that people should be happy with being coerced, but people dislike both of those things. Coercion is not as bad as being forced, but it's still bad. The fact that they're not "forced" to buy premium mods means nothing in terms of people disliking them, it's a true fact that has absolutely no bearing on how people feel about them. You can't change how many people dislike premium mods, and you can't change how much they dislike premium mods, by pointing out that they're not "forced" to buy them, that argument is dead on arrival.

Yes, P2W is worse, but P2Play is still bad, they're both bad.

Edited October 3 by Pipinghot

[KingOfAshes]

Just to chime in with a different perspective on the modding part of the convo.

Granted I used to mod many years ago for a PC game called Company of Heroes and DOW, but back then and my team won 3 years in a row best mod awards in ModDB  with millions of downloads (that's how far back I'm talking lol), so many things have changed in the gaming space.

Back then, there was neither a way to make any money off it (barely the odd donation to run the web page and forum), but at the same time these were passion projects and hobbies and needed no monetary incentives. The creation itself WAS the reward and the time spent on them was fun hobby time for us enthusiasts. We always did it simply because it is rewarding to create something and implement it in a game you love and play. I think and hope that it still holds true today for most modders.

As such, I personally cringe with statements along the lines of ''Modders should be paid for their time''. No, there is no such entitlement. it's not a job, its a hobby done for reasons of self-satisfaction and sharing it with others and seeing them enjoy it is part of that enjoyment you get from it. 

However, if you want to turn your Hobby time into a job or make money off it on the side (Premium mods), then you have to follow a whole different set of rules which include obligations towards the people who are no longer just fans, but paying customers. And yes, that includes criticism, expectations and timely deliverables. Commissioned mods are a similar category. 

Now, the argument around ''liking/disliking'' free over paid optional, addon content is a pretty moot one because of course everyone prefers freebees. Also, coerced and enticed are two very different things and Premium Mods are trying to be enticing. Coerced implies you are manipulated into buying something against your will, which is untrue for Premium mods but is certainly true for Fantastic Beasts (which should not be confuse and bundled up with mods) so far. 

Edited October 3 by KingOfAshes

[TonyTempah]

On 10/3/2024 at 10:01 AM, KingOfAshes said:

a PC game called Company of Heroes

I bloody loved CoH!!!!

[Pipinghot]

On 10/3/2024 at 5:01 AM, KingOfAshes said:

Now, the argument around ''liking/disliking'' free over paid optional, addon content is a pretty moot one because of course everyone prefers freebees.

Note: I'm going to reply to your points in a different order, with my goal being to (hopefully) make the context of my comments more logical and sensible.

With that said, I'll begin by saying it's definitely not "pretty moot", for reasons that follow.

On 10/3/2024 at 5:01 AM, KingOfAshes said:

However, if you want to turn your Hobby time into a job or make money off it on the side (Premium mods), then you have to follow a whole different set of rules which include obligations towards the people who are no longer just fans, but paying customers. And yes, that includes criticism, expectations and timely deliverables. Commissioned mods are a similar category.

This is the key. There is a world of difference between making mods a hobby/passion project, and making them as a profession endeavor. Each approach has different perks and responsibilities.

Hobby = almost all perks (fun, satisfaction), no responsibilities (you have no further obligations unless you decide that you want to keep it going). If people donate, that's great, it's a bonus on top of the hobby that you already enjoy. More donations are even better, but as long as it's a hobby the modder knows that they may or may not make any money and they also have no obligation to maintain support of the mod.

Professional/job = reverse the above. If someone charges for a mod, as a cost/fee in exchange for using the mod, they now have an obligation to provide a product that works like a product, and they have an obligation to support it to the best of their abilities. Nothing in life is perfect so it's still true that we, as rational adults, we still need to be aware that if a mod doesn't make enough money to support its creators they might stop supporting it. But if they're honest people then they also stop charging when they stop support, only scumbags unethical developers charge for software that isn't supported anymore and might stop working at any time. Even professional software loses support eventually, and with game mods a player should understand the risk that it might be sooner rather than later. But even so, there is an onus on the mod creator to meet their professional obligations if they're going to charge for their mod.

This takes us back to the "like/dislike" question. What people dislike about being coerced into buying premium mods is that there is no accountability in the system, no recourse for them as consumers if the premium mod is bad, buggy, or even just fails to live up to its own description. It's already bad enough that WC sells their own DLC's that are buggy & P2W, but it's doubly insulting if someone pays for a premium mod from a third party that is buggy and/or P2W, or even simply fails to make the game better.

Why do people use mods? To make the game better. Now "better" can mean a lot of things, one person might find it better to have more dinos, another might find it better to have more automation in the game, another might find it better to have different flight models, etc., but whatever expectations the players have for how a mod might improve their game what they all have in common is that they to know they're going to get something better than vanilla ARK if they're paying for an add-on. And being "better", in all of those cases, means it needs to be less buggy than the base game, what nobody wants is for a mod to increase the bugginess and unplayability of their game.

 

The real issue with premium mods is not related to 'preferring freebies', it's whether or not the premium mods will actually improve the base game. So no, liking/disliking premium mods is not "pretty moot", because the reasons that people dislike premium mods are not merely rooted in just wanting something for free.

On 10/3/2024 at 5:01 AM, KingOfAshes said:

Granted I used to mod many years ago for a PC game called Company of Heroes and DOW, but back then and my team won 3 years in a row best mod awards in ModDB  with millions of downloads (that's how far back I'm talking lol), so many things have changed in the gaming space.

Back then, there was neither a way to make any money off it (barely the odd donation to run the web page and forum), but at the same time these were passion projects and hobbies and needed no monetary incentives. The creation itself WAS the reward and the time spent on them was fun hobby time for us enthusiasts. We always did it simply because it is rewarding to create something and implement it in a game you love and play. I think and hope that it still holds true today for most modders.

It's a shame that modders in the past didn't have better tools available to accept donations, and just as importantly it's a shame that the general culture of game players wasn't more focuses on donating money to modders as a way to encourage their continued passion. You and your cohorts didn't run your community for money, but of course it would have been more rewarding (emotionally, as well as financially) if more people had donated.

I agree with you that it's cringey to say, "Modders should be paid for their time", I would go even further and say that this statement is just plain wrong for the majority of modders, in large part because most of them not professional software developers and don't know how to professionally support a product, but of course it's still nice to see people support them. As a player who appreciates modders I've made it a habit to "buy a cup of coffee for" (translation: donate to) modders who make good content that I enjoy.

if I donate to a mod, then as a player I have no expectations and no rights.  Whether I donate $5 or $100, they could drop support for that mod the next day and they would be within their rights. But if a mod is a premium mod with mandatory payment, then that mod had darn well receive professional support.

On 10/3/2024 at 5:01 AM, KingOfAshes said:

Also, coerced and enticed are two very different things and Premium Mods are trying to be enticing. Coerced implies you are manipulated into buying something against your will, which is untrue for Premium mods but is certainly true for Fantastic Beasts (which should not be confuse and bundled up with mods) so far.

I disagree what WC cares about making premium mods "enticing", that's not really their goal. What they really want is to make prem mods mandatory. Their eventual goal is to make all mods premium and to guarantee that they get a cut of every transaction, and they don't care for one hot minute whether the mods are good or bad. The individual modders might care about this, but WC doesn't. If they thought they could get away with it, WC would make all mods premium in a heartbeat.

Shi Hai (the guy who runs Snail, which are the de facto owners of ARK) has gone on record in various public interviews saying that he wants ARK to be a platform, not just a game. This is why, for example, they published an American West themed mods complete with railroads and cowboy hats, to show players that "anything goes" in ARK. It's "a platform", after all, not just a game, so who cares if anything in the WC add-ons makes sense. It's also why they published that absurd Mickey Mouse mini game. Anything goes, as long as they get a piece of the action. What Shi Hai, Snail & WIldCard want is for anything and everything to be bought and sold through their own company platform and for Snail/WC to get a fee for every transaction that takes place.

Shi Hai went on record (in a publicly available interview, that you can find if you want to) as being in favor of NFT's being part of the ARK platform/ecosystem. Most players (other than the cheaters) see the selling of dinos for RMT's (real money transactions) as a form of cheating, but not Shi Hai. He wants to see people selling dinos to each other for real money, as long as Snail/WC gets a piece of the action. Everything under the sun is fair game, and they don't care about quality even one tiny bit, as long as WC/Snail gets their cut.

 

The real issue here is not players vs. modders, it's not freebies vs. premium, it's not whether modders should be paid for their time, it's Snail/WC trying to "divide and conquer". They're trying to sow division between modders and players by telling the modders "we're on your side", artificially creating two sides that were never opposed to each other in the first place, all in support of their eventual goal to have everything in ARK become a transaction from which they can skim a piece of the action.

Edited Saturday at 09:38 PM by Pipinghot

[KingOfAshes]

I think the (potential) concern with Premium mods is the fact that most of them are being sold as 'early access' but that hasn't been yet established as a genuine issue. As such, my concern has always been around the completion rate of such projects. It's also the reason why I believe they should not be listed as Premium unless they're either completed or at the very least 80% completed as a customer protection measure. 

Now, just to clarify about Premium mods being 'enticing', I was not referring to WC, but rather the Modders putting out these products making them enticing. WC mostly like and benefit from advertising this ''game content'' to gain/retain players without added cost/investment to produce it. I think we've seen this before with Bathesda's creation Club and Premium mods where it hasn't all been doom and gloom as originally predicted.

However, the cornerstone in all this are still the Modders themselves given monetisation is optional and they have complete control over their mods.  As such, I do have certain trust and faith in the Modders themselves regarding the ethos and dedication to see their project through to completion. There will always be some that do and some that don't regardless of monetisation. 

I understand a lot is always being said and theorised about what WC/Snail might do regarding monetisation to increase revenue streams, however I'd rather deal with what's in place now and/or if something is officially proposed/announced instead of 'potential NFTs etc'.

I don't think there is a divide and conquer master plan in place by WC/Snail. They can barely plan and release an expansion pack in a competent manner, let alone do some grand strategizing and playing 4D chess to manipulate. It's just people have many different views, priorities and ways of valuing their time and money which is why you have different reactions to these things.

[TonyTempah]

6 hours ago, KingOfAshes said:

I think the (potential) concern with Premium mods is the fact that most of them are being sold as 'early access' but that hasn't been yet established as a genuine issue. As such, my concern has always been around the completion rate of such projects. It's also the reason why I believe they should not be listed as Premium unless they're either completed or at the very least 80% completed as a customer protection measure. 

Difficult to enforce mods having to be at least 80% complete when the game is 70% done (am being generous).

 

As for divide and conquer, I also subscribe to not attributing to malice what is actually incompetence. 

 

and for "moot point", this last week saw steam concurrent user count tank by about 6k. If no one playin' ASA, ain't no one gonna buy no Premium Mods. 

[Joebl0w13]

6 hours ago, KingOfAshes said:

It's also the reason why I believe they should not be listed as Premium unless they're either completed or at the very least 80% completed as a customer protection measure. 

Nothing with an 'early access' tag should ever be sold. Period. Product isn't finished, money isn't earned.

You can give an early access product away for free all you like. 

[TonyTempah]

On 10/7/2024 at 5:19 PM, Joebl0w13 said:

Nothing with an 'early access' tag should ever be sold. Period. Product isn't finished, money isn't earned.

You can give an early access product away for free all you like. 

Woah there my king. You need to walk back from the sea's edge a bit as the tide is definitely coming in!

Early Access Titles (steampowered.com)

May I also add the stables are devoid of horses and all ships are headed to their destinations. The Market has accepted that charging for Early Access is standard business practice. Doesn't mean I like it or disagree with you but, it is a thing now. It's down to "Buyer Beware" which means sometimes you don't get what you thought you were paying for (Star Citizen for me). 

[Joebl0w13]

39 minutes ago, TonyTempah said:

The Market has accepted that charging for Early Access is standard business practice.

Ya, idiots pre-order games too. 

Can't fix all the stupid in the world. 

[Pipinghot]

15 hours ago, KingOfAshes said:

I think the (potential) concern with Premium mods is the fact that most of them are being sold as 'early access' but that hasn't been yet established as a genuine issue.

Sure it has been, it's been a genuine issue for years now, across the entire game industry. The original concept of EA was nice, on paper it allowed indie developers (people who did not have deep pockets funding their work) a way to get enough funding to see their project through to completion. But the reality is that it is almost exclusively used to "allow" people to pay for the privilege of being beta and alpha testers for game makers who are only too happy to "test in production". EA has led to a hailstorm of problems, ranging from barely-ideated game concepts making money, to projects that died on the vine because they weren't really indie developers but instead were established companies using the EA label as a way to get away with using EA to test their potential revenue stream before canceling game, to outright rug-pulls that were never intended to be real games but which allowed their devs to rake in a bunch of cash before saying how "sorry" they were that it didn't work out.

Something that should have been a boon to hardworking and upcoming devs was almost immediately turned into a constant stream of low-integrity publishing and many outright scams. EA is used as a "get out of jail free" card by developers to publish material that shouldn't even qualify for alpha or beta testing, but they're charging people to essentially debug their code for them, otherwise known as "testing in production".

When we're discussing the problems with premium mods in ARK, none of this is new, it's all well established. These are well known problems in the industry so of course they're also problems within the specific subset of premium mods. The very idea of selling premium content as part of EA is intrinsically a genuine issue, there will inevitably be the same set of problems for premium mods as there are for the world of Early Access games as a whole.

Anyone who is arguing that this is a new situation or something we don't know enough about, anyone who suggests that we don't have enough information to make reasonable judgements about the problems with premium mods in ARK is being myopic, whether intentionally or not, all they have to do is look at how EA has affected the industry as a whole.

15 hours ago, KingOfAshes said:

As such, my concern has always been around the completion rate of such projects. It's also the reason why I believe they should not be listed as Premium unless they're either completed or at the very least 80% completed as a customer protection measure.

Agreed. Which ties into the primary cause for all of the problems with EA products - there are no rules and no one to enforce them (and there never will be).

The only industry participants who could create and enforce rules are the platforms (Steam, Epic, etc.) but the problem is they have just as much of a financial interest in failed dishonest EA products as they have in the successful ones. Even if an EA product is a scam of some sort (a rug-pull, an asset flip, a game that's charging people to beta test their 30% finished product) it still makes money for everyone involved, including the platforms, so they have zero incentive to enforce any form of ethical restrictions that might cost themselves money.

If we drill down to the premium mods for ARK we see the same problem. When ARK is the mini-platform for their mods, WildCard has zero incentive to enforce any rules, restrictions or restraints on the mod creators, because WildCard makes money no matter what. They make more money from successful mods, but they still make money from mods that are either failures or scams. The only time WC would ever have any incentive to step in would be if a mod was a huge scandal, something that rocked the world like "The Day After" rocked the gaming industry. And, if we're being honest, the chances of a single, specific mod having that much affect on the ARK platform are practically nil, in order for a mod to have that much impact on the ARK ecosystem it would have needed to be a huge success to begin with.

So you're right that this is a concern, and its a concern that will never be adequately addressed, which is one of the driving forces behind so many people complaining about premium mods. WC can't enforce reasonable rules (or rather they won't, even if they hypothetically could), which means players are left hanging in the wind if they buy a premium mod that is more trouble than it's worth, or even if it merely fails to live up to expectations. When there is a problem, a well known problem, that people know won't ever be fixed, it leads them to complain - hence the number of people who dislike premium mods as a fundamental concept.

People like to be able to donate to mod makers, at their own discretion, but lots and lots of people actively dislike the idea of payment for mods being mandatory.

15 hours ago, KingOfAshes said:

Now, just to clarify about Premium mods being 'enticing', I was not referring to WC, but rather the Modders putting out these products making them enticing.

Fair enough, thanks for helping me put that into a better context than the way I interpreted it. With your better context in mind I'll revisit your previous comment, "Also, coerced and enticed are two very different things and Premium Mods are trying to be enticing."

The makers of mods are hoping their mods will be enticing, but that's out of their control. In order for a mod maker to overcome the negative feelings that lots of ARK players have towards premium mods, that mod maker will need to already have their own reputation that is independent of Snail/WC, and that means they have to get their mods in front of large numbers of player before their mod becomes premium. No mod maker has the ability to entice people to purchase their premium mod, especially not on Snail/WC's platform, unless the players are already favorably inclined towards that individual mod maker. Any mod maker who has not established their own reputation will only be able to entice players who are already happy with ASA/Snail/WC, and the player charts for ASA have demonstrated how rapidly that number of players is diminishing.

Which is to say, no matter how much a mod maker wants to make their premium mod enticing, they're putting it up on a platform that people don't trust.

15 hours ago, KingOfAshes said:

WC mostly like and benefit from advertising this ''game content'' to gain/retain players without added cost/investment to produce it. I think we've seen this before with Bathesda's creation Club and Premium mods where it hasn't all been doom and gloom as originally predicted.

Do you mean the same Creation Club that lead to a class action lawsuit? Umm, sure, so much better than originally predicted. How many class action lawsuits have you ever heard of coming from gaming consumers? People are constantly complaining about games and going blah-blah-blah about lawyers and lawsuits, but it's 99.999% hot air, gaming related lawsuits from consumers are practically non-existent... and yet Creation Club had one. The fact that Creation Club was a giant enough fiasco that a class action lawsuit actually happened shows exactly how much that "gloom and doom" was spot-on correct.

Even if we want to pretend that a major lawsuit against the platform provider doesn't factor into this conversation (it does, obviously, but for the sake of discussion we can pretend that it doesn't) there's still the general issue that most mods are underwhelming and there's no way to try a mod to see if it's worth the money nor to compare it during game play to other mods of the same ilk.

One of the joys of mods is being able to try them out and play with them for a while, then decide which one you like and (hopefully) donate to the mod that you decide to keep on your server. If you look at ASE, there are at least 18 different spyglass mods by 12+ different mod makers, that's a lot of potential experimenting before you even decide which mod you want just for your spyglass, which barely scratches the surface on all of the mods that are possible with ASE. And basically none of that is going to be possible with ASA unless you want to buy a whole bunch of spyglass mods before you even have the chance to find out which one has just the right mix of features that you like. A major mod takes even more time to fully understand and evaluate.

This now takes us into the realm of multi-mod servers. A player hears of a server that sounds like it has a good community, but that server runs 6 mods. Now the player has to buy 6 mods, in advance, mods that they don't even know they like, in order to join a server they don't know if they'll like, just to find out if the community on that server lives up to its rep. It doesn't take much common sense to see that that's a pretty unpleasant prospect for any player who likes to experiment or who likes to look around for a server that they'll enjoy.

So even if we're not talking about "gloom and doom", even if we're not concerned that a bunch of mods will be sold for more than they're worth, or that they'll never be finished, or that they're rug pulls, the basic system of mandatory advance payment for mods makes the entire ARK ecosystem less friendly for players. And, as noted before, this is stacked on top of the fact that WildCard themselves are already selling P2W DLC that's painfully buggy, which is pretty much adding insult to injury.

15 hours ago, KingOfAshes said:

However, the cornerstone in all this are still the Modders themselves given monetisation is optional and they have complete control over their mods.  As such, I do have certain trust and faith in the Modders themselves regarding the ethos and dedication to see their project through to completion. There will always be some that do and some that don't regardless of monetisation.

True, and it's the "some that don't" that are a big reason for the distrust of paid mods. Another big reason is that Snail/WC don't stand behind the mods in the same way that Bethesda does for Creation Club.

Even Creation Club, with its dubious history, is better than what Snail/WC is doing with premium mods. What we're seeing in ARK is exactly what happened with paid mods under Bethesda's watch before they moved to Creation Club. Bethesda announced a system for paid mods in 2015 and almost immediately cancelled it when there was massive pushback, pushback based on all of the same criticisms being directed at ARK's paid mods system. It's worth remembering that Creation Club, even with its problems, is better than their original plans for paid mods, and yet what Snail/WC is doing in 2024 is the same thing that Bethesda cancelled in 2015. It was a bad idea 9 years ago and it's a bad idea today.

15 hours ago, KingOfAshes said:

I understand a lot is always being said and theorised about what WC/Snail might do regarding monetisation to increase revenue streams, however I'd rather deal with what's in place now and/or if something is officially proposed/announced instead of 'potential NFTs etc'.

You've missed the point about the NFT thing. The point is that Snail/WC have no standards about paid mods, they have no intention of monitoring and managing the quality of the paid mod system. Again, it's not even as good as Creation Club, it's as bad as the paid mod system that Bethesda cancelled in 2015. Snail/WC have long demonstrated that they don't care about cheating, they care about creating the impression that they care. We're talking about a game in which the publisher (Snail) has a clan with company employees that has been publicly documented to be cheating and then banning players who document their cheating on youtube. This is not a company that can be trusted to care about the interests of either the modders or the players. The only thing we can trust Snail/WC to do is to monetize mods every bit as much as they can get away with while being completely unconcerned about whether they've created a platform that's good for both players and modders.

The reason for mentioning the NFT thing is to demonstrate that the only thing Snail/WC cares about it getting their cut, getting their piece of the action.

To ignore things that are going to be proposed or attempted is to be voluntarily short sighted. Failing to push back against Snail/WC now, when even their original system of paid mods is already bad, is only inviting them to do the worse things that they are already considering for the future.

There's no doubt that Snail/WC want to se a future, as soon as possible, in which all mods are paid, and specifically all mods are paid for under their own platform. Forget patreon, forget Paypal, forget donantions/payments under every other system. What Snail/WC want is for force all mods to be premium with the only payment option being their platform so they get a cut of everything. Failure or refusal to see that future is to be deliberately myopic.

15 hours ago, KingOfAshes said:

I don't think there is a divide and conquer master plan in place by WC/Snail. They can barely plan and release an expansion pack in a competent manner, let alone do some grand strategizing and playing 4D chess to manipulate. It's just people have many different views, priorities and ways of valuing their time and money which is why you have different reactions to these things.

It's a false equivalence comparing manipulating people to playing 4D chess. A person doesn't have to be smart to say to another person, "Don't listen to the people complaining, they're not on your side like I am." In no way does that require a sophisticated strategy. Playing a game of "divide and conquer" is one of the oldest and most basic games in the book, young children do it to their parents every day of the week.

[Pipinghot]

9 hours ago, TonyTempah said:

The Market has accepted that charging for Early Access is standard business practice.

Why are you arguing about "The Market" when he was expressing a personal opinion about what should or shouldn't happen?

Lots of things are standard business practices that shouldn't happen. Businesses (like individuals) will usually do whatever they can get away with unless someone has the ability to stop them from doing it, that doesn't make it right. Nearly every business regulation ever written was explicitly designed to stop a 'standard business practice' that was shady or worse (insider trading anyone?). Monopolies area standard business practice, unless someone step in to break them up. Listing EBIDTA on quarterly reporting is a standard business practice, and yet plenty of people (like Warren Buffet, for one example) have described EBIDTA as a scam, and Forbes once published this criticism:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tedgavin/2011/12/28/top-five-reasons-why-ebitda-is-a-great-big-lie/

So, being a "standard business practice" is in no way a valid defense of the ethics of that business practice, all that means is that they can get away with flim-flamming their customers because no one who has the authority to stop is has bothered to do so. If anything, EA is a prime example of how weak our consumer protection law are where the world of gaming is concerned, but in no way is it an example of how things should be done.

A scam is a scam, no matter how 'standard' it is.

[TonyTempah]

11 hours ago, Pipinghot said:

Why are you arguing about "The Market" when he was expressing a personal opinion about what should or shouldn't happen?

1) because I can, that's my opinion and 2) because it illustrates that our opinions, although fun to share, matter little to the outside world. I am not a fiscal legislator and have no intention of being one. The state of media entertainment business methodologies are not my Windmills.

[Pipinghot]

5 hours ago, TonyTempah said:

1) because I can, that's my opinion and 2) because it illustrates that our opinions, although fun to share, matter little to the outside world. I am not a fiscal legislator and have no intention of being one. The state of media entertainment business methodologies are not my Windmills.

You're missing the point. He expressed a point of view on how he believes things should work and you responded with "the market has accepted it" as if that was a valid counter-argument when it's not. You presented it as if the market accepting a scam some how magically transformed it into not-a-scam.

Even when lots of people fall for a scam, it's still a scam.