Are Payware mods worth the money? Will you buy them?

[Shaun Cole 10]

We recently started a show called Opinion Nation.  Its sole purpose is to bring about discussion on a variety of topics that surround sim racing.

 

With Rfactor 2 on the way we have to ask.  Would you pay for a mod for rfactor if it came at a cost?

 

The flight sim world has been doing this for a very long time.  Some of the modern sims also do this but are clever in the naming.  But one could argue that we already pay for a mod in iracing.  What about DLC for Forza, Gran Turismo or any others?  Is that also paying for a mod?

[Christopher Hall-Nelson 3]

For me, it depends on the quality, and then only if i can get to try a sample.

There is the new "DTM" mod, which i know has been causing quite a stir, but, after trying out the demo car, i went and bought the full pack, and i have to admit, it is a great pack.

 

Would i do it every time with a mod? Of course not, but if some modders feel they need to make a living out of this, why is it so different from the game makers themselves?

Doesnt everyone need  bread on the table?

[kemo 2]

If I'm paying for a mod, I would hope that it would be as close to the real thing as it can get.  Case and point: I wouldn't pay for a track/car that doesn't correctly represent the real thing.

[Don Solo 2]

Everything is going this way not just racing sims. Free to play then pay for all the extras even steam has the steam workshop which I think is a good way to do things. That way people can make the mods sale them and make a little bit on the side. I would image that its a great way to get your foot in the door for a career in video games.

[pdodd 8]

• ^{If you pay for a mod in iracing you are sure that it will be a great standard, I wouldn't be happy to pay for a mod, hoping it will be good, its bad enough spending the time to download and install a free mod and find out it bad and have to remove it. Call me cheap but if you buy the game, you buy the whole game, not just the starter pack.}

[Mergano 0]

Only if it was mods with the quality of HistorX, DRM, Enduracers. In other words multi-car mods that are made by a group who are obsessed with attention to detail and accuracy. Enduracers has shown itself to be very close to the real cars - this is when it start to get worth buying, and for me, only then.

 

The one mod we've had so far that sparked all this, I'm sorry to say, is a toy mod with questionable physics, and i hear the F1 2013 mod will be payware, too, and that one looks nothing short of horrendous.

 

Currently it seems, the payware spark has been motivated by money, not by passion. They are clearly not mods made from love, and THEN money followed this. It's money first, churn out crap.

[PapyAndy62 2]

Pay Mod or Downlaod content for game, yes and no.

 

What I hate and insult me.....A brand new game, you pay 40 or 50 dollars for it to find two days later that "New DLC" available, Realy ?!?!?!

I' m ready to pay for quality content, like Mergano mention HistorX, DRM, Enduracers were great mod and are still a benchmark.

What happend if the mod have bugs?

Is there a way to try before etc.

[Paradox 92]

I dont mind paying a reasonable price for decent content, but they really did release this DTM payware too soon. They should have waited until rFactor2 is at least out of beta. We assume the game is mostly done but truth is we dont really know. 

[M.Vindis 0]

I wouldn't pay for a mod pack. Why? Because I think if you do something for money you will never get the same results as if you would have done it for fun with passion. We have all seen it too many times.

[Armanini 1]

Well.. it's kinda clumsy to have payware mods without licensing i think.. 

when i think about let's say almighty HGTC mod with which i had so many enjoyable miles, i would be happy to chip in for such mod.. but that maybe have something what M.Vindis said:

 

 

 

 

Because I think if you do something for money you will never get the same results as if you would have done it for fun with passion. We have all seen it too many times.

 

this is nice point indeed.. ofc that don't mean anything really, but there is some merit to it..

 

i hope rf2 don't go all that way, and i think it wouldn't because there will still be huge community (let's hope so) and moders will maybe have even more motivation to make better mods than payware ones.. 

it sure be interesting to see what direction will community take..

[lbray2 2]

It depends on the cost, the content and the quality. Take a FM4 monthly DLC for example. The price is reasonable ($7) and you get 10 cars and the quality is the same of all the cars in FM4 because turn 10 are developing the DLC. Now look at R3E. While the add-on cars are of a very high stranded you are paying for only one car and the skins for that car are extra. (about $3 for a car). Iracing is even more expensive ($15-16) however you are paying for laser scanning as well as extremely high quality cars. Also that is how iracing has always been and will always be and i am fine with that. BTW all the cars (except R3E which has some fictional cars) from these games are fully licensed by the car manufacturers and that will raise the cost.

Now if you look at the T5 payware mod, you get 3 cars with the skins included but the developers are not that well known, the game it is for is in beta and the cars are not officially licensed by BMW, Audi & Mercedes Benz. While some might find the price (5 euro a car) reasonable i personally am on a tight budget when it comes to sim racing and i cannot justify paying for the T5 mod until the mod have being recommended, the developers become better known and i can see a worth will reason for getting it.

However having said all that if the sim racing community is heading this way towards payware mods for rfactor2 and Assetto corsa, I am ether have to stop sim racing or change my mind set about having what ever mod i want.

[alless 0]

@Vindis ill say so. If youre doing a hobby that you love it but youre lacking of time to do it and you get an idea or chance that you could be rewarded with that wouldnt you do it so rather than leave it?

Beeing rewarded by going this way we UnitedRacingDesign are doing it now and with this paying our bills its the right way and this only pushes us to do better. Im modding for years now and i did plenty of mods and there were mods i could never release just becase the passion wasnt enough becase my life or work interfeared and i couldnt continue on that. So for example my previus work was audi R15, nissan GTR500, honda NSX updates, Lexus SC430 and more updates to other superGT car for GTR2. Ive helped Aleksss on his Porsche GT1 and Mercedes CLK-LM on his GTR2 mods. Ive helped alot of teams on there start from MMG, FSONE in the past but my real modding as part of a teamm started with GSMF where i did back in f1c few cars but they never came out becase the 24h nordschleife mod was abandoned, still ive finished some DTM cars from GSMF cars that came later as an addon for there DTM 2002 mod.

For last few years i was at game developer to where i did alot of cars to from ingame and scratch made work by myself or my team.

As you see i did alot from passion but those old times are long gone in modding, its to time consuming and few people are still modding and sorry it is so. Its time consuming but as soon some people think they are good, they are gone to game dev to.

If I can provide cars or maybe even tracks with right quality, constant releases and full support than ill do that. Im not the best one but im doing my best to my knowledge and im improving myself all the time and i will not stop on this.

 

Few people have allready sayed to if we dont support our mods for the customers, doing updates if needed or helping them out on what ever problems than the market will close us so or so down allready and we do all of that. Im reply and supporting, updating and making our mod better. Im adding 3rd car and still im doing updates on both other cars for customers allready and I will do that as long it will be needed.

Our cars provide exactly what is needed, they are right quality for full grids and online playing and full of fun.

There are people that tested our beta/demo and were not happy with the physics, fine. Howeverr it is, not all can be pleased but from customers itself now we have, we only got good fedback and this can be read on rf2 ISI forums where we have thread open for that. 

For the licensing part, we are working to get manufacturers onboard and we allready have some but this will come in right time when i think its ready. Besides this cars we offer now, we had to start somewhere and this was my desicion but overall there are few games doing this same way, fictional cars/tracks that resemble real ones and its nothing new there.

 

Cheers,

Ales Ogrinc

[Speedracer_GTL 1]

I support the idea behind pay mods, if they meet a need that is being ignored by free mod teams then that on it's own is a reason to support. The new games coming onto the market also demand much higher standards in modelling, sound engineering as well as painting skins, so it stands to reason that the guys making mods will either be completing them at a much slower rate compared to the old games, or they won't even get to the release stage before bowing out to family commitments. URD have stated their desire to meet the need for mods with timely releases, something that can only be done if it is treated like a job. Apparently the URD team members have worked commercially in the field so have the necessary experience to deliver quality mods in a reasonable time frame at a reasonable cost.

 

Ultimately it will be the community that decides if their going to be successful, sales is sales after all. 

 

There is room for free mods alongside pay mods, the interesting point will be what happens when a free mod directly competes with a pay mod. Assuming the free mod is scratch made then one would hope the pay team will not bring litigation into the equation. URD's T5 no doubt is representative of the DTM series, but being a unlicenced "shadow" mod means that any scratch made DTM free mod would not be in direct competition and the free mods only concern would be the commercial rights holders of the actual DTM series. Commercial rights is always going to be a factor in the future of modding, the bigger more successful mod teams may well attract attention as has been seen already with Enduracers and their Carrera Cup mod last year. Licencing costs money in most cases, so it only stands to reason that any mod that hopes to be legally cleared needs to be licenced, and pay mods is the avenue for this to occur. 

​I have purchased the T5 mod, and am of the opinion that the cars are representative of the high downforce silhouette touring cars such as the real world DTM. And if ever anyone offers for sale a licenced Nuerburgring (including Nordschleife) then I will be amongst the first in line for that.

[bwiemers 15]

For me it all comes down to quality vs price.

 

In iracing I am more than happy to pay for the extra cars and tracks because I know they are of the highest standard and a lot of work has gone in to make them as realistic as possible (tracks are laser scanned).

 

Outside of iracing it would depend on the quality of the mod, how much it costs and what similar free mods are available.

[CaTaPulT 658]

So many good points brought up here.

Many are the one's I wanted to bring up.

The one thing, if all the Modders jump on the Pay to play bandwagon, then I can see certain Sim titles dying a slow death before they even get out of the gate. I can see people going back to rFactor, Race07, GTR2 and so on, why, because of all the FREE mods that are available for them. It's too bad things have to get this way, rFactor is the perfect example since it's probably the most modded sim out there, as mentioned by many above, the modders passion and love for the mod is what created it, not a monetary gain so it was done right. I can see a bunch of Microsoft modders coming out to make a quick buck, put it out fast and patch it later if at all.

Also, how would you copy protect a mod? what's to say a mod pirating ring won't start up? If you have to ask money, keep it cheap or it will be hacked and you'll most likely get very little due to it being spread around.

Personally, I don't know if I will support PayWare mods, more than likely not, it's one of the reasons I'm not a huge fan of iRacing, for me personally, their cars and tracks are too expensive thus my staying with base content, when I'm bored of that, then it'll be bye bye iRacing.

Just my 2 cents on the subject.

Take care

 

Regards:  >>>> Jack <<<<

[Jasmes 24]

Depends on the price and the quality.

 

If the value ratio lines up right, then sure, I'm happy to purchase payware.

[Tin Can 2]

Hi Everyone:

 

Paying for mods is going to be reality....nothing stays free.  It should help make better products and develope competition for further growth in the sim development world.

 

I'm disappointed about all products being released to earlier.  I do'nt regret buying rFactor 2 beta at all but I'm concerned about time lines.  Releasing beta products and asking the community to be in beta over a year is not healthy and potenially developes fustration.  For software companies to have a open timeline can't be good for business.

 

I have to say I'm new to sim racing with only 18 months of time invested so what do I know; however, when titles start selling beta products the yellow flag comes up now.

 

Take Care,

 

Tin Can & Scooter

[RickWyatt 2]

I don't think we should pay for mods at all. Especially with games that require extra purchases to realistically advance through a game.

 

For example "Real Racing 3" on IOS which is free, great, but then you find out that you have to make many purchases to make any kind of progress. With all together adding up to $500 worth of add-ons in the whole game. 

DLC is becoming the phrase that salivates the publishers mouths like a slab of greasy steak to a dog. To the point that they are intentionally holding back game content to palm off to us a later date for more cash. 

Just take a look at this years "Dead Space 3" and "SimCity" which make you feel inferior if you don't shell out even more in micro transactions to get extra content in a game that you have already paid £40-£50 for.

 

When it comes to third-party modders. Why should we have to pay when there are games out there that have massive modding communities that don't ask for a penny.

[Birddogg66 11]

Bottom line is I don't mind trying to help these modders out by kicking them down a few dollars but only if all the required legalities have been met of being able to sell such content. How much would I kick them down? Depends on the team and past reputaton as modders.

[Gunstar 615]

Payware will kill the modding community. As soon as you introduce money into it, the publishers, the owners of the trademarks and everyone who contributes a line of code will want a piece, and soon no one will make any money but the lawyers.

[coops 18]

word of mouth is wat makes you get and play a mod. paying for 1 i think they jumped the gun as RF2 is not at a released state yet so why would u pay? and will they charge you for every update to the mod they have to do? i would think so as there time is money thats wat there saying by charging you in the 1st place.

[superspeeder2013 11]

Well you already pay a yearly fee for rfactor central so they aren't free. But as in paying to download them, probably not too open to that. With rfactor mods you take your chances if its going to work and even if it does their are a lot of mods that aren't done very well with a lot of bugs. The only way I would pay for them is if they are fine tuned and as close to perfect as humanly possible. That also takes the joy of rfactor away, part of the whole point is to make it very modable to let people go crazy, I have over 22 car mods for rfactor 1 and well over 200+ tracks. If the car mods cost 15 a download and the tracks I would have spend more on tracks and cars then on my entire cockpit rig computer inculded. I already feel ripped off from iracing, Making me pay a fortune for their cars and tracks and then it never changes, the cars get a little faster and longer but other then that its still the same sandbox style game. I wish they'd focus more on gameplay. Iracing gets old really fast for me. I am really looking forward to rfactor 2 one day having as many mods as the first and if I have to pay for the mods like iracing that would really bother me.