If you redistribute these files, no. If your mod's installer imports them from a local copy of the corresponding game, yes.
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It's a funny thing really, but #8 and #9, when combined with Paradox's laissez faire policy on Let's Play video monetization (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ntaining-paradox-interactive-material.671169/) mean that while a modder can't make any money from his work, a Youtuber can make money by playing it.
I'm guessing #1 is mostly about the various Bad Experiences of the past, because otherwise I don't really see the point in barring external forums. However, combined with the above, and the barring of hosting the mod anywhere but a public ftp, it basically amounts to a total ban on any practical form of mod monetization altogether by the author - so while freedownloadhosting.com and Barry's Let's Play Youtube channel can both get advertising income from our work on this forum, we can't unless we accept banishment. While I've never attempted to monetize my projects, it just strikes me as a little inconsistent.
On a side note from that, and just to check on the impractical forms of mod monetization, would we be allowed to accept payment for inserting in-game advertizing into the mod? I have an idea for an awesome Coca Cola event chain for EU: Rome that's only very slightly immersion-breaking.
Oh, and how are we supposed to enforce #10? Despite the fact that I have only ever published mod download details on official Paradox mod forums that cannot be accessed without registering the base game, there's dozens of unauthorized copies of my various mods on mirrors and external forums. Most of the big mods for CK2, HOI or EU4 are regularly uploaded and advertised by players all over the net within minutes of publication, and even mods for small or poor-selling games like Sengoku and MotE eventually escape into the wild. Since I can't assert any copyright claims, it's not like I can send a cease and desist letter; and since rule #2 forces me to upload it onto a public-facing ftp site, exclusivity is impossible to guarantee. Is this rule mostly here so that you had a full 10?
I'm guessing #1 is mostly about the various Bad Experiences of the past, because otherwise I don't really see the point in barring external forums. However, combined with the above, and the barring of hosting the mod anywhere but a public ftp, it basically amounts to a total ban on any practical form of mod monetization altogether by the author - so while freedownloadhosting.com and Barry's Let's Play Youtube channel can both get advertising income from our work on this forum, we can't unless we accept banishment. While I've never attempted to monetize my projects, it just strikes me as a little inconsistent.
On a side note from that, and just to check on the impractical forms of mod monetization, would we be allowed to accept payment for inserting in-game advertizing into the mod? I have an idea for an awesome Coca Cola event chain for EU: Rome that's only very slightly immersion-breaking.
Oh, and how are we supposed to enforce #10? Despite the fact that I have only ever published mod download details on official Paradox mod forums that cannot be accessed without registering the base game, there's dozens of unauthorized copies of my various mods on mirrors and external forums. Most of the big mods for CK2, HOI or EU4 are regularly uploaded and advertised by players all over the net within minutes of publication, and even mods for small or poor-selling games like Sengoku and MotE eventually escape into the wild. Since I can't assert any copyright claims, it's not like I can send a cease and desist letter; and since rule #2 forces me to upload it onto a public-facing ftp site, exclusivity is impossible to guarantee. Is this rule mostly here so that you had a full 10?
I have read the whole thread and would like to ask a question regarding rule 7.
I would like to use some (user interface) assets of CK2 in a mod for Cities: Skylines. This would mean packing those assets and distributing them via Steam Workshop.
It was mentioned several times that if I can reasonably ensure that a user has the required game (CK2), they can use the mod. In this specific case, I can ask via the Steam API if the user owns the game on Steam. However, it would be somewhat easy for a user to subscribe to the mod, open it and extract the assets (or even disable the checks). I could maybe try to obfuscate the code, but then users might suspect foul play (as modding C:S is not sandboxed). Additionally, I could make it clear in the mod description that you need to have CK2 to be allowed to use the mod.
At what point have I done my due diligence to satisfy rule 7?
Additionally: CK2 has a lot of DLC, most of which I own. However, I have some of the assets of DLC I do not own (I guess to allow multiplayer with those who have?). I therefore do not know exactly which product / DLC a specific asset is from, making the above mentioned check difficult. The only way I can think of to ensure rule 7 is to actually check if the user owns every single DLC for CK2, which would exclude myself from using the mod.
Would checking for CK2 (and not DLC) be enough? Should I check if the user has, for example, 50%+ of the DLC, which makes it more likely the user has the required DLC for the assets?
Paradox seems very lenient and modern with this topic, but I want to make sure that I don't put the work into the mod only to realize I broke some rule afterwards.
I would like to use some (user interface) assets of CK2 in a mod for Cities: Skylines. This would mean packing those assets and distributing them via Steam Workshop.
It was mentioned several times that if I can reasonably ensure that a user has the required game (CK2), they can use the mod. In this specific case, I can ask via the Steam API if the user owns the game on Steam. However, it would be somewhat easy for a user to subscribe to the mod, open it and extract the assets (or even disable the checks). I could maybe try to obfuscate the code, but then users might suspect foul play (as modding C:S is not sandboxed). Additionally, I could make it clear in the mod description that you need to have CK2 to be allowed to use the mod.
At what point have I done my due diligence to satisfy rule 7?
Additionally: CK2 has a lot of DLC, most of which I own. However, I have some of the assets of DLC I do not own (I guess to allow multiplayer with those who have?). I therefore do not know exactly which product / DLC a specific asset is from, making the above mentioned check difficult. The only way I can think of to ensure rule 7 is to actually check if the user owns every single DLC for CK2, which would exclude myself from using the mod.
Would checking for CK2 (and not DLC) be enough? Should I check if the user has, for example, 50%+ of the DLC, which makes it more likely the user has the required DLC for the assets?
Paradox seems very lenient and modern with this topic, but I want to make sure that I don't put the work into the mod only to realize I broke some rule afterwards.
Quite a complex question there, the assets involved being from different studios even. You are presumably a reasonable person so can judge what is reasonable, it is not reasonable for instance to be able to prohibit someone from taking code from your mod and altering it to work in a way not intended to by you. If in doubt about which DLC an asset comes from you can always ask in the CK2 modding forum and someone should be able to help.
We should have the ability to host all Mods here now, some of the bigger ones may have to wait a bit until I have time to set it up properly. Mod hosting was a huge reason we switched to a CDN solution for attachments on this new forum.
I'd dearly love to know the reasoning behind rule 9.
I'm a massive fan of the HOI series - not because of HOI itself but because of the Kaiserreich mod since I only play the vanilla game 1 time out of 10 on average. Obviously mods shouldn't be for profit but I really don't see what's wrong with the people behind a mod putting a link to a tip jar somewhere so that people like me who appreciate a mod can make a donation to them.
After all, I'm writing a fairly successful AAR based of a game played in the Kaiserreich mod for Darkest Hour and there's nothing in theory preventing me from asking people who appreciate the AAR to make a donation to a tip jar if they feel like it. I'm not planning on doing that mind you but there's nothing stopping me from doing so.
And has already been pointed out, a youtuber can make a Let's Play video based on a mod and make money from that through youtube's advertising mechanism.
So rule number 9 is basically saying that creators of mods can't even ask for tips yet people who play the mods aren't restricted from making money commercially from the mod in the case of youtubers or through donations in the case of an AAR writer.
That seems rather unfair and irrational to me so I'd love to know the reasoning behind it please.
I'm a massive fan of the HOI series - not because of HOI itself but because of the Kaiserreich mod since I only play the vanilla game 1 time out of 10 on average. Obviously mods shouldn't be for profit but I really don't see what's wrong with the people behind a mod putting a link to a tip jar somewhere so that people like me who appreciate a mod can make a donation to them.
After all, I'm writing a fairly successful AAR based of a game played in the Kaiserreich mod for Darkest Hour and there's nothing in theory preventing me from asking people who appreciate the AAR to make a donation to a tip jar if they feel like it. I'm not planning on doing that mind you but there's nothing stopping me from doing so.
And has already been pointed out, a youtuber can make a Let's Play video based on a mod and make money from that through youtube's advertising mechanism.
So rule number 9 is basically saying that creators of mods can't even ask for tips yet people who play the mods aren't restricted from making money commercially from the mod in the case of youtubers or through donations in the case of an AAR writer.
That seems rather unfair and irrational to me so I'd love to know the reasoning behind it please.
I suspect rule #9 is a means to avoid having to police donations. After all, there's nothing to stop you promising a whole mess of impossible things for your 'forthcoming' mod, sticking a tip jar paypal account up on the OP, and never actually doing any work on it. Even if a mod is made with good intentions, if it implodes having taken donations things can get pretty nasty. Better to keep that kind of thing away from the forums altogether. If it's in the wilderness, it's Somebody Else's Problem.
It does introduce a bizarre inconsistency with the Let's Play monetization system, but it's really comparing apples and oranges since there's few ways that a mod could realistically make money from advertising revenues. There's presently no appropriate business model for making money from modding Paradox games - we can't protect against piracy at all, we're never going to produce a high enough repeat audience for hosting adverts, and there's pretty much no way to tell if a mod is going to make it to completion. Paradox themselves have gone so far as to publish games by modders previously, so it's not like they're adverse to us making some cash on the back of a good mod - even if the hit rate on mod-team game completion is pretty bad.
It's very irritating to know that some dude is making money for playing the mod for 15 minutes, while you slaved away on it for 1000 man-hours and get nothing, but it's understandable.
It does introduce a bizarre inconsistency with the Let's Play monetization system, but it's really comparing apples and oranges since there's few ways that a mod could realistically make money from advertising revenues. There's presently no appropriate business model for making money from modding Paradox games - we can't protect against piracy at all, we're never going to produce a high enough repeat audience for hosting adverts, and there's pretty much no way to tell if a mod is going to make it to completion. Paradox themselves have gone so far as to publish games by modders previously, so it's not like they're adverse to us making some cash on the back of a good mod - even if the hit rate on mod-team game completion is pretty bad.
It's very irritating to know that some dude is making money for playing the mod for 15 minutes, while you slaved away on it for 1000 man-hours and get nothing, but it's understandable.
Well if someone were to ask for donations in exchange for features, etc. or said that they were needed to implement certain things then that would be a direct link and so wouldn't really be a donation any more but effectively a commercial payment or close enough to it that it would be against the rules so the moderators could ban the user responsible, or whatever, if it was reported to their attention (and don't forget that enforcement of all these rules is going to be largely down to things being reported or being blatantly obvious anyway).
On top of which anyone silly enough to make donations to someone just asking for money in exchange for lots of promises is being pretty damn naive anyway. Something like allowing a link to a tip jar next to the links to download the mod doesn't seem that unreasonable however.
Besides, if things are going to happen in the wilderness anyway then what's to stop someone creating an external site advertising their mod and with a changelog, list of features, development diary, etc. and sticking a tip jar on there then linking to it in their signature or something? If that kind of thing is going to happen in the wilderness anyway then why not set up some rules (such as tip jars only and only after a working version of the mod has been released or with moderator permission) and allow them in threads for mods here so that community fragmentation is minimised and so that it happens where there's watchful forum members instead of elsewhere?
After all, it wouldn't hurt anyone and would certainly be a nice touch until someone finds a better idea for allowing mod creators to get some form of reward for 1000s of hours of work (which would probably only be practical in the form of either building adverts into mods or adopting mods as official DLC which rather defeats the point of them).
On top of which anyone silly enough to make donations to someone just asking for money in exchange for lots of promises is being pretty damn naive anyway. Something like allowing a link to a tip jar next to the links to download the mod doesn't seem that unreasonable however.
Besides, if things are going to happen in the wilderness anyway then what's to stop someone creating an external site advertising their mod and with a changelog, list of features, development diary, etc. and sticking a tip jar on there then linking to it in their signature or something? If that kind of thing is going to happen in the wilderness anyway then why not set up some rules (such as tip jars only and only after a working version of the mod has been released or with moderator permission) and allow them in threads for mods here so that community fragmentation is minimised and so that it happens where there's watchful forum members instead of elsewhere?
After all, it wouldn't hurt anyone and would certainly be a nice touch until someone finds a better idea for allowing mod creators to get some form of reward for 1000s of hours of work (which would probably only be practical in the form of either building adverts into mods or adopting mods as official DLC which rather defeats the point of them).
You don't need to directly demand payment for features, tho. You just cobble together a pretty cool-looking front page, stick in a 'shopped map, and then put 'coming soon' in the download area. Then you stick a donate box at the bottom. More than one mod has successfully used this strategy.
Yup, and you have to be even more naive to believe that the Crown Prince of Nigeria wants to put $50,000,000 into your bank account, yet people fall for phishing emails all the time. Asking for donations in exchange for lots of promises is basically Kickstarter and IndyGoGo's business model, and it seemed to be going quite well (until suddenly we discovered a lot of the kickstarted games turned out to be vapourware, which led to huge outcries of exactly the kind Paradox would probably like to avoid). People do dumb things sometimes, and then get really pissed off when they realise they've been dumb; by banning such things outright, Paradox is attempting to protect forum-goers from that sort of thing, and themselves from angry forumites who've just realised that the site was being used to rip them off.
Because exiling grifters and con artists from the community is a good thing, so who cares about fragmentation when the fragments are bad?
Besides, if something happens in the wilderness, it's not Paradox's problem. No-one will come back howling and screaming and threatening legal action over it. Well, some probably will, actually, but they'll have even less of a legal position if Paradox have nothing to do with the hosting of dodgy sorts. The list is rules for hosting mods on this site; Paradox cannot and will not try and control behaviour in the wild, but this amounts to them taking responsibility for trying to keep their own forum clean of abuse. While they could potentially set up an internal group to evaluate mods and determine whether they're 'good enough' to ask for donations, this amounts to having to a big increase in workload which they don't really need to do if they just say 'no monetization'.
It would hurt, tho. It'd hurt anyone who donated to a project which goes down the tubes, or which never really existed. It'd increase the load on Paradox employees when those hurt people appeal to the moderators and community managers over it. Given that maybe 1 in 10 mods is finished, and probably only 1 in 5 actually produces anything close to their mission statement, that'd probably add up to a fairly large amount of extra work - and work that mostly involves telling people 'no, we're not going to do anything about it', leading to angry rants in the forum about how Paradox is a shameful, shabby company for letting this sort of thing happen. I doubt Paradox really want to hire an additional Community Manager on £25,000 a year or whatever so that *I* can make £500 from donations.
While I do hope that Paradox figure out some way to reward modder's efforts, until that happens they're probably right to say 'no monetization'. The first principle of security is to assume people are idiots so you can protect them from both the bad guys, and from themselves. Until you have an idiot-proof, automatic method of letting people show monetary appreciation for a mod, better to keep it away from the official forums.
All of which are arguments for not letting the people behind mods collect donations on the forums. But I don't see why that means that, in theory, a mod is not allowed to be posted here if it has a separate website which includes a donate button. Under the way this rule works the people behind the AGOT mod for CK2 could stick a donate button on their website and the whole mod would then have to be pulled from the forums because it breaks the rules - even though there's no way in which paradox could be held liable for something which users of their forums do on another part of the internet.
I won't break the rules as i implicitely accepted them when applying to the forum, obviously, but i've indeed felt it strange and kind of a paradox (pun only partially intended) that players can make money by monetising their videos, but a modder can't accept donations when players are asking how they can do so.
Before monetising has become authorised, i never gave the rule number 9 a second thought. But a sense of unfairness has crept in ever since.
Before monetising has become authorised, i never gave the rule number 9 a second thought. But a sense of unfairness has crept in ever since.
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Agreed.
Only way we can earn money for modding is making Let's Play's of the mods I guess.
Hopefully PDS manages to figure something out.
Let me just say this: I don't need donations for myself (however nice might they be), but it would be nice if we didn't have to pay for hosting with our own money.
Wasn't the point of the new attachment system to be able to host mods on the forum? So why not upload you mods to the forum (though I think they aren't ready for really large mods yet).
Well, we almost break 1GB with all our content, I don't think the forum can handle that just yet.
Though that would be ideal, indeed.
Have you tried uploading it? Alternatively try asking Castellon if it is possible.
Personally, i can't even attach a simple picture...
Plus we have a large Wiki all setup (for a year or so).
IIRC the initial limit I set was 1 gig, let me know what size you need and we will look at making it work, just might take a bit while I am still ironing out issues with less trafficked parts of the forum still.
As for Lets plays, I will point out that Paradox does not make any direct money from these either, what they can provide is greater exposure for your products which can translate to sales for Paradox and greater popularity of a Mod and the mod makers. This may lead to more people wanting to help and improve the mod as well.
ie LPs are a form of marketing rather than direct revenue generation.
ie LPs are a form of marketing rather than direct revenue generation.