modders get rich?

[meems]

many modders here busting guts, sweating 100s of hours away, ruining their hp, to create the ultimate mod.

so what happens if some modder creates the god tier mod, that every players has to dl and play, that every reviewer says ' get factorio and immediately dl and play THIS mod ', that potentially boosts Factorio to 50 million sales?

Does the modder get $0.00 ? Or does wube software reward him $10,000,000 in cash?
Do top modders get to converse with Wube to discuss the future of Factorio?

I recall that the DOTA modders had to splinter off from DOTA to create LoL b4 they could get cash.

Like everyone else here I think I've got the god tier mod that'll sell 50M copies, or turn Factorio into a free-to-play micro transaction mega online community. But I don't want to blow years of my life just to explode the bank balances of a few faceless 20 somethings that I'll never meet.

What do?
Factorio and its mod community are at the level DOTA was in 2005.
Should I do a 'Factory Engineer' and just start from scratch by myself? Or are Wube willing to incorporate the talent that will rise from the mod community? Are the best talent modders destined to do what Riot Software did and splinter off to make the Factorio analogy of League of Legends?

[Supercheese]

Modding is just a hobby for me, I don't want to accept any payments or donations for it. However:

Do top modders get to converse with Wube to discuss the future of Factorio?

Wube is extraordinarily attentive and responsive to bug reports & feature requests, vastly more so than any other company I have encountered. A logical mod-interface request can be suggested and at times you will find the request implemented in the very next game update; it's quite astonishing really!

[DaveMcW]

Wube does not have a modder legal agreement. Just a promise not to sue modders for redistributing Factorio assets inside a non-commercial Factorio mod.

I don't recommend putting $10,000,000 of work into a mod, and expecting to get $10,000,000 cash out of it.

Or are Wube willing to incorporate the talent that will rise from the mod community?

They hired two modders already, Rseding91 (Factorio) and HanziQ (OpenTTD). And they are still hiring.

[meems]

>And they are still hiring.

Hmm, I don't match their job description.

Its the usual thing that happens in all mod communities : Everyone starts out as game designers, but they can't get anyone to design their mods, so they become implementers. Even though there are zero game designer working, there is zero demand for pro game designers. Demand is only for implementers.

I'm split between starting from scratch, whereby i own my work, or doing mod, whereby I might not get anything for my work.
Probably do both. I need to hang around the community to make friends.

[Xtrafresh]

... Did you mean to post this on some Ubisoft forum somewhere?
Seriously, it looks like you came in the door angry, without first having a good look around to see if there was anything to be angry about.

This kind of negative attitude and instant lawyerification of something that's supposed to be done for fun is a big reason many game companies do not allow modding. You are ruining it for the rest of us.
With this entitled and defensive attitude, i doubt ANYONE is clamoring to hire you. If you are good enough to warrant that attitude, build that god-tier mod of yours and use it to get a job anywhere in the industry. But you have to prove your worth first and get the cash after, this is true for any industry and any job, ever. Ok, maybe except for politics.
If you want to get rich, go into politics, not games.

a few faceless 20 somethings that I'll never meet.

That's VERY rich, coming just one week after the Meet & Greet event they threw for 1M copies sold.
Seriously, this game has modding done right. People with passion are allowed to go wild with it, there's an ingame API and active support from the developer. Support and encouragement do not equate exploitation.

[meems]

so, I've started my mod as an independent game, like riot software did when they splintered off from the DOTA community.

The grid u see is the map where objects will go. Its in early stages atm

As u can see it's in python. Anyone want to join my company? Astroidia Inc. Can offer percentage in companies profits, which are expected to be >$1 billion by 2022

[meems]

That's VERY rich, coming just one week after the Meet & Greet event they threw for 1M copies sold.

That's good. I'll try and get to the next one. But I was skint, so couldn't make the 1st one.

Its great what Wube are doing for modders. Perhaps they are aware of our plight. Do you think the API etc will allow the best game designers to rise? Because atm we have to become 2nd rate coders.

> build that god-tier mod of yours and use it to get a job anywhere in the industry. But you have to prove your worth first and get the cash after, this is true for any industry and any job, ever.

Well, there ya go. Ain't that the problem facing us all.. In our hearts and minds we know that we have the god tier mod. We could make the community billions if only they'd listen to us and implement our ideas. But they don't. Cos they are in exactly the same position.

Really, I'm very impressed with the work I see done in the mods. They are all better than me in terms of coding skills. But how come if they're so good, why haven't created the god tier mod yet? Maybe next year?
Or maybe god tier mod skills doesn't equate to god tier mod _idea_

[buggy123]

I'm going to say what everyone is thinking: meems, get out.
[Koub] Moderated because too much of a personal attack

[Koub]

All right now. Every one has the right to express an opinion here.
However there will be no personal attacks.
@buggy123 : I moderated your post, not because I did not agree, but because this forum will not degenerate into a verbal arena.
@meems : don't take this act of moderation as a proof you're right with all what you said : I (as a person, not a moderator) am deeply convinced you're a troll. If the trolling continues, I'll do whetever necessary to make this forum clean and peaceful again.

[buggy123]

Dang, I was pretty proud of that rant.

[ibeatbabybiters]

Hahahaha, thanks a lot for the good laugh, Mr. "I have a $10.000.000 Mod Idea" I mean, you bring up an interesting and quite valid point, because the modding API is indeed powerful enough to create, with enough dedication and effort, a mod that could be almost comparable in quality to a paid extension.

So yeah, it's an interesting problem, not only for this modding community, but in general. Personally I don't think any company will make any promises or give an official statement, because from a business perspective this makes no sense and is not worth the potential trouble/liabilities. It's easier to hire enough developers to create such extension (or whatever), and just sell it yourself. Why would anyone make promises to the community a la "if your mod reaches X downloads, you will earn $Y"? Or wait, isn't this actually a business opportunity, similar to content providers, like YouTube, Twitch & Co? Create content for Factorio and get paid for it! haha

Anyway, besides that, you totally come over like a troll. But I don't think you are a troll. I think you are a disappointed person who emailed Wube about your great idea, but never received a response, and so you got angry and came here to vent off your frustration, because those ignorant 20-year somethings simply won't listen to you, and you don't know how to proceed with your 10 million dollar idea. Let me tell you: you are doing it wrong so far.

The funny thing is, I had a drunk and impulsive moment, and so I applied for a job in the most embarrassing way at Wube, even though I also didn't match their profile (I'm not a hardcore low level C++ programmer), but I was somehow convinced I could help improve a few aspects of the game and things around it. I really didn't expect much, I was sober and realistic the next day, but it would have been nice to at least hear a word back.

So if my theory is right about you and your silly behavior here, then I can understand your frustration, but you are totally overreacting. These guys are very busy with the game, pumping out updates at record speeds, and so I can imagine they don't have the time to reply to every silly email. Don't take it personally, and just move on and do what you think is best. That's what I usually do, anyway.

Edit: after skimming through your post history, I now don't think you emailed Wube, but instead you were looking for modders here on the forum to help you implement your asteroidis mod vision, and since nobody gave you enough attention for your idea, you became angry and made this post? I saw you mentioned you are older, so please don't be offended by this, but "grumpy old man" would explain a lot

[meems]

Nah, I didn't email them. I spent days writing out a game design plan, detailing everything from marketing strategies to player networking issues to how to deal with offline periods for players in a full time 24/7 game. I was just populating my game design with diagrams when reality popped, and i realised no-one was going to give the slightest ---- about this plan except me.
So yes that reality pop embittered me. So I came here to vent, and its shows in my posts. But I also came to explore, seeing if there were any way to make progress.
I've realised nearly everyone here is in exactly the same position as me. Great overall idea, no one else wants to know, but minor parts of ideas do get exchanged a bit. If you want your own overall plan to happen, you just have mod it yourself. Nice, except i'm a crap modder, and even with practice I won't be more than 2nd rate.
To be part of the core modder crowd it seems I got here a year too late.

wrt to my OP question, I don't see how it makes 'no sense' to reward a modder $millions if their mod makes the product a $billion industry. The potential for a Factorio derivative to break into the $billion MMO market is real, and should be a goal for the ambitious game industry pros here. I don't think Factorio 1 can do it though, there are some essential features of MMO games that it lacks and can't be fixed without overhauling large parts of the game.

More generally, its a good exercise for today's game designer students to design the 'conversion' of a game to its MMO micro-transaction $billion equivalent. If they weren't so busy with F1, I'd ask Wube their ideas how they'd convert Factorio to its MMO $billion form. It's the logical next goal after they finish F1.

[buggy123]

The potential for a Factorio derivative to break into the $billion MMO market is real, and should be a goal for the ambitious game industry pros here.

No, no it isn't real. When working outside of large publishers, like EA or such, a successful game is 10% quality and 90% luck. When dealing with MMOs, its 5% quality and 95% luck. Factorio is great. A Factorio MMO isn't impossible by any means, it could work. But there will never. Ever. EVER. Be a Factorio MMO. I'm so certain of it I would swear on my mother's grave, I would bet everything i'm worth, every possession i have, anything. There will never be a billion-dollar Factorio MMO, its less likely than winning the lottery.


Similarly, no mod is going to turn Factorio into a billion dollar game. Its not a case of "can't", its a case of "will not". We don't need to debate over what would happen in that scenario because its so astoundingly unlikely that it makes much more sense to come up with a plan on how we should keep the mod portal servers running during a alien zombie apocalypse.

Finally, no, making a Factorio MMO is not the next logical step after F1. First of all ENOUGH with fucking "F1". For comparison, look at Minecraft. LOOK. AT. MINECRAFT. Yknow what people asked about Minecraft a few years ago? "Oh what is notch gonna do for Minecraft 2?" Lo and behold, 8 years after development began, 5 years after the official release, there are not even the slightest indications that M2 is in development.

"But Factorio isn't Miencraft!!!!1!11!1one"
Okay, fine. Would you like me to drudge up any of a number of other indie games in similar situations? Or maybe make a laundry list of similarities that indicate that Factorio is going down a similar road?

Secondly, "F2" won't exist any time soon at best, but lets pretend it will. HOW. IS. A. MMO. AT. ALL. LOGICAL. Okay, lemme rephrase that. How is making a FACTORIO MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE GAME not a UTTERLY IDIOTIC idea? Trick question, it is! Have you ever looked at a MMO, ever played one and considered for a second how MMOs actually work? How all of the game mechanics have to be built in a certain way for it? Clearly not, so lets review how a MMO works.

MMOs and You, a guide by a irritated forum-goer

So, you want to make a MMO? First, you gotta address the big question? How are you gonna pay for it? Sure, if you're a billionaire you could pay out-of-pocket, but otherwise you're gonna need to get your players to fork over cold, hard cash. Generally, there's three main ways to do this: upfront payment, subscription payment, or a microtransaction system.

Upfront payment: Players pay upfront for initial access to the game and then can play indefinitely. This payment method is tricky, if players play for long enough you start to lose money. Requires a constant influx of players to remain stable, or constant release of DLC/expansion packs which cost more money, mandating extensive advertisements or significant developer manpower. If you opt for the expansions route (which most people do), you have to keep players playing so that they will buy the next expansion, effectively making it a ghetto subscription system.

Subscription payment: Player pay a periodic fee to keep playing. Extremely sustainable, you just have to make sure enough players want to keep playing the game and you're golden.

Microtransation system: Players can play for free, but can indirectly buy items, currency, or cosmetics with real money. Similar to, but trickier than subscription payment. It can work just as well if done right, but will drive players away if done badly.

For all of these systems, you usually need to keep players playing for a long time. This has resulted in a sort of 'convergent game design', wherein almost all MMOs use similar game mechanics to encourage players to stay. These will be elaborated on in chapter 2.

Chapter 2: time-consuming game design and you!

As discussed earlier, MMOs need to keep players playing. This has lead MMOs to employ gratification-delaying game mechanics of all varieties, in order to create a engaging game experience that nonetheless lasts as long as possible. Almost all game mechanics revolve around encouraging a player to keep playing, usually by employing incentives locked behind repetitive, easy-to-develop gameplay.

Levels, equipment, skills, quests, and more. All of these are designed to keep players engaged while undergoing repetitive tasks. By rewarding players only at the end of the task, players are kept working for the 'next thing', always engaging in some repetitive gameplay (often referred to as 'grinding') that they may only moderately like, or even dislike, for the sake of the end reward. With a careful balance of reward v.s. grinding, and a sufficient variety of adequately disguised methods of grinding, players can be kept occupied for hundreds or even thousands of hours before they become bored and stop playing, all the while requiring a minimum investment of development time.

In order to be successful, a MMO has to apply this strategy to more-or-less every facet of gameplay. Any less, and players don't stay hooked long enough to keep the game afloat. Every mechanic, every tiny feature, every detail, all of has to be focused on keeping players playing.

Chapter 3: examples

Lets take a brief look at some MMOs, and use what we've learned to come to a greater understanding of them.

Example 1: EVE Online

Payment system: EVE Online can be played for free, however, most equipment, skills, and missions are locked unless you pay a monthly subscription. Additionally, cosmetic items are available through a microtransaction system, and ingame currency can be indirectly bought using microtransaction currency. Therefore, it uses a hybrid subscription-microtransaction system to make money.

Game mechanics: Virtually everything in the game can be bought using ingame currency. Ingame currency can be made slowly and at a constant rate via numerous sources, such as mining, mission-running, pirating, exploration, and much more. Additionally, microtransaction currency can be traded for ingame currency, roughly 2-10 hours worth of grinding in exchange for 20$. Skills are learned passively, take a very long time to train, and are required for almost all avenues of gameplay, but this process can be accelerated for a significant amount of ingame currency. The cost of improvement in the game increases exponentially, and as such requires greater and greater investment of time (which costs money in the form of a subscription), and ingame currency (obtainable with time or more directly with money). For example, the initial skills for most types of gameplay may require only a few hours, but the best skills in the game take months or hundreds of dollars to learn.


Example 2: Warframe

Payment system: Warframe does not cost money to play. However, there is a extremely large variety of cosmetic items and equipment which can be purchased with microtransaction currency. Therefore, Warframe uses a microtransaction payment system.

Gameplay: Every aspect of gameplay is designed to encourage the usage of microtransactions to avoid time-consuming tasks. Every weapon or character (AKA 'Warframes') can be obtained in 1 of 2 ways. First, a player can invest significant amounts of time to obtain the resources to 'craft' the desired weapon or Warframe, or players can instantly buy them with microtransaction currency. Obtaining resources and blueprints, and completing quests to obtain equipment takes a extremely long time. Many weapons cannot be built without a high "mastery rank", which can only be achieved by playing with many other weapons and characters for a long time (unless you buy them, of course.)


I could go into much more detail on these MMOs, or show more examples, but rest assured that much like a fractal, MMOs are designed to be time consuming at every level, all to encourage players to play longer or to use microtransactions. This results in a very distinct style of gameplay that is extremely different from non-MMOs. So, lets take a look at Factorio, and see how it differs.

Chapter 4: Is Factorio similar to a MMO? (spoiler: no)

In order for a MMO to be successful, It has to follow the strategies we've layed out. And does Factorio use any of these delayed-gratification techniques? Short answer: no. Factorio does exhibit a form of progressive gameplay, wherein players work to achieve goal after goal, however the process is much, much too quick to be a MMO. The entire game can be finished reasonably within 50 hours, and a experienced player can complete the game in a fifth of that. Every advancement and goal in the game, both game-set and player-set, can usually be achieved in a matter of minutes.

If we wanted to turn Factorio into a MMO, we would have to change many, many things:

Gameplay would have to be slowed down massively. In a MMO, with players all playing in the same world, most players would quit as soon as they 'beat' the game, meaning most players would stick around for only a few dozen hours. A MMO cannot be sustained in that scenario. One solution would be to reset the game world periodically. However, resetting a game world is bad for a MMO, as it usually causes players to feel as if they lost all of their hard work, and thus can reduce player counts. It can even reduce the number of new players, since they are less likely to invest time if they know a reset could destroy their investment.

In order to slow down gameplay, we can borrow some strategies from other building-centric MMOs. For example, building structures could take time. Instead of assemblers, belts, etc being built instantly, they could take several minutes to 'construct'. Removing deconstruction would also work, meaning that they are not returned when you remove them, forcing you to craft another. Finally, the speed of everything could be decreased. Instead of ~1 ore per second, mining drills could make 1 per minute. Crafting machines could take several minutes to produce items, belts could transport items at a snail's pace, etc. And finally, we can make everything much more expensive (e.g. 10x or more). Combining these strategies could potentially slow down gameplay enough for either subscription payment or a microtransaction payment to work.


Conclusion

Now that we've established what is necessary for a Factorio MMO to 'work'. let's ask ourselves if any significant portion of the current playerbase would want to play such a game. Short answer: no. No one would want to play a Factorio where changing layouts, moving things around, etc, has massive resource costs and takes 10x as long. No one would want to play a Factorio where building a single assembly machine requires half a hour worth of resource mining, where a rocket takes months to build. No one wants to play a Factorio where mistakes are extremely costly. No one wants to play a Factorio where building new things takes gratuitous amounts of time.

You could make Factorio into a MMO, but to do so would be to BUTCHER it. MMOs have to be very carefully designed so from the ground up so that they can function as a MMO without being a complete piece of crap. Factorio is not. Factorio CANNOT be turned into a MMO without destroying everything that makes it fun. The gameplay of Factorio is INHERENTLY incompatible with a MMO, because it was not built from the ground up to BE a MMO. Any successful 'Factorio' MMO would be in name only, it would be completely changed and bear no resemblance to Factorio aside from reusing the sprites. In all likelyhood, it would take the form of one of those crappy app-store MMOs which blatantly rip off something else while using cookie-cutter gameplay. And I know the devs wouldn't want to make something like that, when they've poured so much time and love into Factorio. And I know they wouldn't let anyone make anything like that, either.

So no, there will never be a Factorio MMO.

[Zeblote]

Suggesting microtransactions in factorio. We've reached new levels of stupid that shouldn't even be possible.

[Xtrafresh]

Has anyone really been far as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

[Koub]

There are two major different mindsets for game developpers :

1) I want to make a game that I have designed because I think I could bring a new - and good- new gaming experience with my ideas. Now I'll have to try to find a way to make a living of it.
2) I want to make a lot of money. How could I design a game so that I can a maximum of it, with minimum efforts ?

Wube developped Factorio with the first mindset. You're approaching the question with the second.

[buggy123]

There are two major different mindsets for game developpers :

1) I want to make a game that I have designed because I think I could bring a new - and good- new gaming experience with my ideas. Now I'll have to try to find a way to make a living of it.
2) I want to make a lot of money. How could I design a game so that I can a maximum of it, with minimum efforts ?

Wube developped Factorio with the first mindset. You're approaching the question with the second.

Honestly I'd just really like a response from the devs at this point.


Something like "No, we aren't planning on making Factorio 2 at the moment, and we don't want to hire you or let you use our ip because you insulted us repeatedly and don't have the right mindset to work with us." Or hell, even agreeing with him would be nice at this point. I'm just tired of seeing his posts everywhere.

Wait, do you mean I'm approaching it with that mindset? I'm just trying to argue on the same level that he is. And also, you kinda have to think that way with MMOs since the market is so insanely over saturated and competitive. I personally do not want Factorio to be a MMO, and I don't like money-grabbing MMOs.

[meems]

There are two major different mindsets for game developpers :

1) I want to make a game that I have designed because I think I could bring a new - and good- new gaming experience with my ideas. Now I'll have to try to find a way to make a living of it.
2) I want to make a lot of money. How could I design a game so that I can a maximum of it, with minimum efforts ?

Wube developped Factorio with the first mindset. You're approaching the question with the second.

It's not that clear cut. How do you judge if a game has a good idea? There are many games that had unique and clever ideas, but they didn't sell well. The benchmark for deciding if a game is good, is sales.
And currently the best sales come from MMOs.
Trying to classify a game designer as a 'money grubber' who only wants to get rich quick, is narrow minded. We're trained to make excellent games, which people can't stop playing. Money and great games are inseparable.

The plan should be to convert successful games into their MMO version. Not many people understand this, but a few do. Luckily, there are a bag of game design concepts that can be used to convert most games to MMOs.
In my game design there's general improvements that work for any real time 4X game, and my own ideas tailored for Factorio.

As far as I can tell, no one has converted the Factorio concept to MMO yet. Factorio, Factory Engineer, Big Pharma, Production Line are similar games, none of them have MMO capability built in. The MMO concepts I'd like to bring to Factorio will work for those games too.
One of the devs at one of these game companies may understand how to convert to MMO, or they may hire a game designer who knows what he's doing and is able to convert the game properly to an MMO, then that company will take the cake. I'd like it to be Wube, because they've got the best game of the bunch, but it could happen for any of them. Of course, the game designer will also have analysed why Factorio is the best of the pre-MMO versions, so a lot of the best bits of Factorio would appear in Big Pharma Online, or which ever game steps across to MMO 1st.

[bobingabout]

many modders here busting guts, sweating 100s of hours away, ruining their hp, to create the ultimate mod.

so what happens if some modder creates the god tier mod, that every players has to dl and play, that every reviewer says ' get factorio and immediately dl and play THIS mod ', that potentially boosts Factorio to 50 million sales?

Does the modder get $0.00 ? Or does wube software reward him $10,000,000 in cash?
Do top modders get to converse with Wube to discuss the future of Factorio?

Sounds like me. Well, I wouldn't say 50 million sales just to play my mod, but there has been people post comments like "I bought the game so I can play Bob's mods."
I don't ask for a penny. A few kind players drop me a donation every now and then, and some of these are no small donations either.

Still, I'm definitely closer to that $0.00 end than the $10M end. (Note, none of it from Wube)

What would be nice though is if they put my name in that credits file, so my name appears on entities in the game

[darkfrei]

Now that we've established what is necessary for a Factorio MMO to 'work'. let's ask ourselves if any significant portion of the current playerbase would want to play such a game. Short answer: no. No one would want to play a Factorio where changing layouts, moving things around, etc, has massive resource costs and takes 10x as long. No one would want to play a Factorio where building a single assembly machine requires half a hour worth of resource mining, where a rocket takes months to build. No one wants to play a Factorio where mistakes are extremely costly. No one wants to play a Factorio where building new things takes gratuitous amounts of time.

10x Harder
https://mods.factorio.com/mods/withers/10xHarder 700 downloads