Your opinion about soliciting ENB presets for donations

[abc75179778300]

Er......
How come it matters even if the users give us nothing in return?
Nowadays, you can't expect people return what you contributing, at least that's what I think.
If you depend on making presets for living, then charge it; if it's only a hobby or an interest that pushes you to update the presets, I see no point in charging money.

Cheers, Bigeyescarl

[Oyama]

Okay.

Those are really tough questions.
I'd say, as humbly as possible, that all depends on personal life matters.
I think you can indeed feel that users owe you something when you did invest a lot of time and effort in what you've done, and when you took that particular time upon other personal matters that would have deserved it.
It's pretty difficult. When you have a passion, a wife, children (not in that particular order ), the way you're seeing the time you put into things is totally different.

Don't expect users to know or feel what you're going through, they won't, they can't. To each his own life.
If you think you deserve money for what you're doing, ask for it, simply.

It's all I can say, because the subject is more than difficult to deal with. One person, one opinion.

Best
K

[Grubbermeister]

If you think you deserve money for what you're doing, ask for it, simply

Agreed. As someone who is total shite at coding and is thus only a mod user, it doesn't bother me if a modder asks for a bit o' dosh to obtain their mod. Stating the obvious (because I can, dagnabbit!), as long as the product being sold solely consists of one's own work (shaders, settings, etc.), which far327 has stated his ENB is, then I don't see a problem with simply asking for monetary compensation.

[far327]

Hey there old virtual friend you and I go way back, more than most aye?

It's pretty difficult. When you have a passion, a wife, children (not in that particular order ), the way you're seeing the time you put into things is totally different.

You are wise, seriously wiser than most that I encounter. What you say resonates with me. I'm not struggling, but I get what you mean about being direct in communicating my needs to my fan base. This part ^ made me laugh!

If you think you deserve money for what you're doing, ask for it, simply.

I will consider this approach. Maybe it's best to just state my reasons of need... Thank you!

There is always someone who will buy your product and someone who will hate you, so make a profit from it as you live once.

This is a glorious quote!^ Thank you Boris!!

[Aiyen]

As long as you are sure you wont come into any legal issues, then by all means go ahead and try out alternatives.
There is always going to be a lot of angry people when something that was free gets a price tag.
However again make sure you got all your shaders down legally... remember that the default DoF file does not really do anything at all, and no 3rd party SweetFX shaders or SMAA or anything of the kind.

Where all this gets slippery is when we start to try to sell presets... if one is popular someone will just alter a few values slightly... and charge less, and eventually we are back where everything is eventually free anyways. Also some will take your preset.. alter something insignificant and release it as the "free version" of your mod... And you wont be able to do anything about it, since there are not any rules for how different one preset have to be from the next to be called a new piece of art... you can be sure that it will happen.

[roxahris]

A few things, here...

When you say "only donating users can download my presets"... you are, in effect, selling them the presets. There's no real way around that. It's a product exchanged for cash.
And your comment earlier about how "OUR voices have been hijacked" was entitled to the max. It wasn't just the users drowning out your voices, but the larger portion of modders as well. When it comes down to it, most people do these things for their own enjoyment - as a hobby, not a job. When a person's work becomes a product for sale, their users become customers, and suddenly the goal of their efforts isn't to enjoy themselves, but to provide support.
Now, two things. Considering your average mod for any game is generally incompatible with any and everything that touches the same things it does, or even the things near the things it does, do you really think people not wanting to take that chance are all stoppered up misers rather than merely being, I dunno, risk averse?
Next up; do you really want to provide support for everyone who offers a half-assed donation? I mean, in your mod's comments section it's your choice to help people, but what if your paying donator/customer has unfixable issues, or PEBKAC problems? What if someone wants a refund? You certainly won't be able to tell them "well, dude, you gave me a donation and the mod link was a benefit but I don't feel it was me selling you a product to support", unless you want to see them get their money's worth of smearing you across the Nexus to Reddit.

Also: One of the main issues that arose from the paid mods thing was that it ruined the concept of being able to build upon the work of others. SkyUI going paywall would've ruined MCM mods, and so on... If you sell a mod based off free stuff, you're in a very grey place, and if you're making any mod based on paid stuff, you're probably violating someone's rights.
I daresay the world of presets would be a lot worse off if all the major ones had been behind a paywall, and unalterable. Wouldn't you agree? Which raises another point - you'd sell your presets, but would you then deny people the right to modify them? Share their modifications? Will you also try to take presets that seem too similar to yours down because you feel they might've stolen your settings? What happens when some cheeky bastard grabs a copy and then posts the link on 4chan? What if one of your users makes their own preset and wants to use some of your code?

All in all, preset selling, or "voluntary donations for a benefit", seems like far too shady a situation for this particular game, especially when so much has been done with ENB already that anything short of a complete and total lighting and shader overhaul won't really be enough to get people going for it. When so many presets are built on code taken from other presets, based on algorithms found by other people, and don't really offer that much difference going from one to the next (after all, it's still Skyrim underneath), it sounds like a ridiculous venture.

Having said all this; a point in the Workshop debacle you seem to have not noticed people making is that they generally aren't opposed to paying mod authors - just paying for mods. If you feel you're really good at what you do, go start a Patreon and watch the donations pour in. Certainly, people with lesser talent than yours have made big bucks over there. It suits the way modding works, and as a bonus you don't have to tread out the "O ye entitled users" speech whenever someone says they don't feel like paying you. Whether you'll make money or not is for the market to decide - just don't be so entitled to think you deserve it.

In closing, if you wish to sell presets, use Patreon and code everything yourself.

[ENBSeries]

Other mods do not depends from preset(s).
If someone post public download link to the preset, this is nothing horrible, nobody able to avoid such problem with digital content, it's not the end of the world.
On my opinion making preset and shaders is the job. If you can do this better than others, what's the problem, except in your own fears? First of all, every person must compare own work with others to find out that own is not that bad to worry about reaction on to it. Big japanese corporations was great and old times just because they did high quality long living products and the brands were much more idoling for customers than bullshit from Apple. Now these corporations are bankrupt or near to that state, because priorities changed and everything is made in China, very poor quality, doesn't matter if it's same old brand or new chinese, all the same for customer, so the lowest price if what important these days. Look at the software market, pc or mobile, everything is useless crap with agressive monetisation of any kind and malware. But people buy these. Do you feel ashamed, loosing virginity, sponsoring terrorism by providing something for payment? I repeat, selling preset and own shaders is not the same as selling mods. I will not release volumetric clouds in the mod ever, because it's very expensive algorithm and lower quality alternatives have their huge price, so why i must be an idiot to make this freely available? Because it classified as modification and all mods must be for free? Sorry, i can't accept this, if everybody are such smart asses, why they didn't code yet? Every person must be proud of things he/she do and to know the price to him/herself and time. Stupid Bethesda developers where unable to make game look good and non buggy, but everybody keep thinking they are gods. Preset makers did more job and wasted more time than these developers with graphics.

[far327]

Hey roxahris

Thanks for you comment and for participating. You have some valid points. Here some I felt I should respond to.

What if someone wants a refund? You certainly won't be able to tell them "well, dude, you gave me a donation and the mod link was a benefit but I don't feel it was me selling you a product to support", unless you want to see them get their money's worth of smearing you across the Nexus to Reddit.

I've already stated I have no issue giving a refund to someone with installation issues etc...

What happens when some cheeky bastard grabs a copy and then posts the link on 4chan? What if one of your users makes their own preset and wants to use some of your code?

Honestly, that's on them if they decide to do that. They wouldn't of supported me anyway, so there was never any real loss to begin with.

@Boris - I completely agree with you. And thank you for continuing to support my decision.

[rhinohorn]

I realize this is old thread but here's my thoughts on the matter, if you will:

Given the high number of preset DLs on Nexus and sites like thelazy , profit can easily be earned earned in volume. You could set the price so low that almost anyone can afford the download and at same time, asking for refund is prohibited. For example, each download costs a token (=$0.25 USD). Price is very affordable and no one is going to complain they can't get their 25 cents back. A good preset with advertising on tube sites, indie gamer sites might get you 1000 downloads in a week or so.. thats $25 in a week from one preset.

I'm not expert on e-commerce but there are payment solutions that deal w/ micro-transactions and its affordable for an indie website. How about a site membership ? $10 gets you "x" amount of tokens to spend on presets.. or maybe some tokens can go towards Boris ?

Important point is making the cost of entry so low that people feel like an idiot asking for support, and they don't feel ripped off if the preset doesn't work properly, look correct on their monitor etc etc ..

[AgainstAllAutority]

question is not tough at all.
in mordern world anyone can sell any crap (dont take that personally, i rly respect modders around) thats not prohibited by law.

another thing - whats your aim?

Youre looking for money? get prepared to lie and cheat on your customers. Any other modder is your enemy and any kind of agressive PR highly appreciated.
Or are you looking for fame? new relations? just fun? (i dont belive in mordern world there are any left of "fun" type)

once you answer that question, you wont have any doubts regarding monetization


i hope that my english is not as horrible as i expect it to be

-againstallautority

p.s. for example: i believe that Boris answer to upper question is fame.