most modders have an eye to pursuing a career or at least a job in the gaming industry

How long have you been part of the modding scene? You speak for the majority of modders, or are you just projecting your own wishes? Quite a few of us who have been at this for well, decades, know that a "job in the biz" (including the modest wages for 80-hour work weeks) sucks, and really are here -- believe it or not! -- as a hobby. With real careers, we're not so much concerned about being the next levellord.

then why are you modding games that are coming from "big money corporates"?

An assumption made on your part; I never indicated anything of the sort.

Your kumbayah philosophy is cute, but not realistic. If you want to start your own open, free community - then do it. Nobody is stopping you.

Whew, thanks, I'll let the others know that the last four years wasn't wasted effort!

I've been wanting to get my game Democracy 2 or maybe Kudos:Rock legend on sale through stardock for a while, I already have them with sites like gamersgate.
I like the way stardock make and sell games, so I'm keen to get my games selling alongside great games like GalCiv 2.

Borderline outrageous that Stardock hasn't nabbed your games if you've offered them. I remember I was suprised how much I enjoyed Starship Tycoon. I'll have to check Rock Legends out, looks interesting. I used to love this game called A Rockstar Ate My Hamster when I was a kid.

That's cool, just keen here

Mittens, its awesome that you want impulse to be super open, but how do we get games on there? Is there an approval process?

At this point, we just released the software and are more in the process of getting it to people and ensuring that it works for everyone. I'm not sure when we're going to start handling user-created content.

We're not all in it for the money, and in fact for many, the entire point of modding (besides added gameplay) is to have a separate, free and open community, apart from the big money corporates.

thats your opinion and you are a minority.. most modders have an eye to pursuing a career or at least a job in the gaming industry

if you really want a "seperate, free and open community, apart from the big money corporates" then why are you modding games that are coming from "big money corporates"? Thats not seperate, free, or open at all. Its entirely limited by what the corps provide to you. Your kumbayah philosophy is cute, but not realistic. If you want to start your own open, free community - then do it. Nobody is stopping you. Of course, if you REALLY want to be apart from the "corporates" you will have to start completely from scratch. And I assume you have some other means of providing income and/or ensuring your survival as you labor to create these free games from scratch.

good luck to you

aren't we jumping the gun a bit? FTFA:
we’ve no idea what type of content the EULA refers to

Personally I think the market they have their eye on is somewhere between XBLA and web games. This is hardly new ground, check MS Casual Games ( http://www.microsoftcasualgames.msn.com/ ) or Kongregate ( http://www.kongregate.com/pages/help#revenue ), a web flash game site I found through the "play" links here on Blues.

User mods are free. Stop trying to squeeze profit out of every single little thing.

Edit:

you see, im willing to bet the people who dont like this idea never worked on any mods before

And you would very much lose that bet. We're not all in it for the money, and in fact for many, the entire point of modding (besides added gameplay) is to have a separate, free and open community, apart from the big money corporates.


This comment was edited on Jun 22, 11:08.

It's in its infancy. I for one can be patient. It might have growing pains, but who can forget how much Valve's Steam completely SUCKED ASS when it was first released?

Impulse is already 100 times better than Steam was when it was released, just by virtue of actually working.

Mittens, its awesome that you want impulse to be super open, but how do we get games on there? Is there an approval process? I've been wanting to get my game Democracy 2 or maybe Kudos:Rock legend on sale through stardock for a while, I already have them with sites like gamersgate.
I like the way stardock make and sell games, so I'm keen to get my games selling alongside great games like GalCiv 2.

Stupid people will always release stupid things.

No no, my point was that there will always be people who by 'stupid things'. Thus even stupid ideas can survive just by being lucky.

Sponge, you seem to think this is somehow bad for the general gaming public. Why would it be?

There are a couple of reasons why I think this is a good thing. First of all, free mods won't go anywhere. As I understand it, many, if not most games and editors have EULAs that prohibit profiting and/or charging money for user created content. This is unlikely to change.

Thus most of the time charging for mods will still require some publisher/developer intervention. That most likely will ensure some level of quality. And there are a lot of people (at the very least me) who are willing to pay for just that. Someone to tell them that these new racing tracks for this racing game or these new adventure modules for these crpgs are worth playing.

Also, I just think it would be fair to compensate some of these people for their hard work. Lazarus (the Dungeon Siege - Ultima V total conversion) springs to mind.

Mind you, there's still no word on whether they will actually offer this option to anyone. Still, considering all the talk about microsubscriptions and -transaction, I do think it's fairly likely Stardock will try.

I'm not really sold on the name though

Well it was either that or "tasteicles". All the other names were already trademarked.

... closed format.

Get your act together and standardise for digital distribution.

I want more regulation on digital distribution so the consumer does not get screwed.

As Wardell has been selling sci-fi games since he started, I thought of it more as the impulse engine from Star Trek. Basically a reaction drive using plasma for interplanetary travel. Not exactly hi-tech in the science fiction world but then this is a new service.

That was how I thought of it too. Without really thinking about it. Didn't spend any time wondering about the name. Just took it as it was. That, and it's better than 'Stardock Central', although anything catch-phrasey is better than SDC. No one ever knew what I was talking about.

I'm a bit puzzled by the anger this is provoking in you sponge

If you sense that this is provoking anger in me, then you're reading into things too much. I think this is a stupid move that benefits greedy modders looking for a quick one-off, and the company itself. The gamer gets screwed.

I'm not really sold on the name though... Naming a service after the mini-isle right by the check out stand filled with candy...

As Wardell has been selling sci-fi games since he started, I thought of it more as the impulse engine from Star Trek. Basically a reaction drive using plasma for interplanetary travel. Not exactly hi-tech in the science fiction world but then this is a new service.

Of course, since Impulse is used to sell things, I can see your point.

If you would like your mod distributed/sold through Impulse this arrangement exists.

Mods outside the service are still free... The same way it works on Steam.

This is my interpretation as well. It seems like a good method for those wishing to distribute their work online for a price without some other company claiming complete ownership and the lions share of the profits. One thing I didn't see or notice if people could use this to distribute material for free. If that's not an option it'd be nice if it were.

I'm not really sold on the name though... Naming a service after the mini-isle right by the check out stand filled with candy, stupid 'news' papers and other useless crap people buy because they have no self control isn't exactly the best idea.

I'm a bit puzzled by the anger this is provoking in you sponge, after all to a certain extent 'mod', 'community release', 'expansion' and so forth are a bunch of terms to describe really quite similar things. The quality vs price for all of the above range all over the place, and I've played mods I'd have paid for and expansions that barely qualified as mods. The strategy Stardock is outlining worked pretty well for the NWN1 community, which had semi-pro teams releasing pay-for expansions along side plenty of free content drops and free mods.

I being a modder and have released numerous mods and full conversions for games has never charged anyone for the work I have done but that being said it would be nice to sometimes get a little return on the hard work we have done and the many hours that we gave up making a mod and not getting to play games as much as those who are using the mods. Understanably there antre many who think that they deserve mods freely, well all I can say to that is try putting a year of your own free time into a mod then tell me how you feel then.

Would you guys chill? These kind of pissing contests solve nothing!

I think of Gary's mod. I tried it out when it was free, and liked it. Was it worth $10 once it became retail. To me - nah, not really. Sometimes "free" is all that something is worth.

But I welcome the "professional" modders trying to make something really worth the cash.

I haven't done any mapping or modding since the quake days but I didn't think you were allowed to sell your mods.

For example a Total Conversion of Aliens is fine (well, not these days of course) but you weren't allowed to sell it as a new game, you'd need an engine license or something similar.

I'm not sure how it works these days as I just installed steam but I didn't know you could sell mods (except for Counterstrike, but that's a different story) without paying or at least having permission from the original game maker. I'm thinking of the Doom/Quake series but maybe different vendors have different rules...