Commissioning mods?

Is this an idea anyone had before? I mean, those who would like to have a personal mod but they don't know how to do, yet they have money to spend, can they commission a particular mod from an actual modder (it can be  textures, weapons, entire new levels, TCs etc.)? If no one did this before, I think it's time think about it; I'msure that thanks to patreon or paypal, modders can make lots of money with this 🙂

Hard to say. I've seen this on DeviantArt (I'm also assuming that's where the thought came from). I can think of a few possible problems with this, but I can't be concrete on any of them, as they're unlikely to be a problem. Probably the best person to toss this question to, figuratively speaking, is @Linguica or @Gez. I figure if anyone would know, it'd be them.

Yes, people have paid money for Doom mod related stuff before. I paid an artist to make a graphic for my Selfie Doom mod way back when.

http://jamespaddockmusic.com/midi-commissions/

Expecting money for one's work is a slippery slope and it could mean the end of the modding community so we must discourage it at all times

I offered something like 50 bucks on the zdoom forums for a custom status bar last year. No one took me up on it. Eventually I just did my homework and made my own in about a half hour. It would have been easy money for someone...

1 minute ago, NaturalTvventy said:

I offered something like 50 bucks on the zdoom forums for a custom status bar last year. No one took me up on it. Eventually I just did my homework and made my own in about a half hour. It would have been easy money for someone...

ive offered money for art, music, and voice acting... even posted jobs on moddb. no one likes making money apparently.

10 hours ago, Vorpal said:

Expecting money for one's work is a slippery slope and it could mean the end of the modding community so we must discourage it at all times

Commissioning is like any other marketplace. If there is a high-enough demand for a commodity or service, and it is sufficiently unique, then money could enter the equation. For an almost 25-year old game, I suspect that the demand will not rise to a level where money needs to exchange hands. Moreover, given the stable of modding talent, there will always be people who want to mod for the sheer joy of it.

And, finally, when money exchanges hands there are certain expectations, one of the primary ones being delivery of a promised service within a reasonable period of time. Because, for most, DooM modding is simply a hobby, the requirements imposed by the delivery schedules under the terms of a commission would probably serve as a deterrent to most hobbyists.

TL;DR - the sky is unlikely to fall on the modding community's head as a result of commissioning.

I was mocking the doom community's irrational fear of cash, I think Jimmy and everyone else who puts a professional polish on their works deserve some coin.

7 hours ago, Memfis said:

I will make vanilla maps for money, gimme gimme.

can i commission "btsx the way memfis would've"

It's true tha modding's a hobby, but so is drawing on da or other sites, and even there some artists draws for money, even making it their main job.

I'm just talking in the point of view of people like me, who loves modding but don't have the talent for it, nor the right time to learn. They can do some sort of collaboration with the modder they pay, so that they can like design what maps they want, what kind of weapons, textures etc.

In theory, that should work no problem, but going by the other guys' posts, I'd say that it doesn't work that way in practice. If someone paid me a hundred dollars (example) to map out 32 UDMF levels that they provided the design for, I'd do it, but even so it seems sometimes people won't take someone up on the offer. There are probably good reasons for that which we're just overlooking a little.

Sometimes doesn't mean all the time. I think people who would do that are more then we think,  we should just ask around ^^

8 hours ago, Vorpal said:

I was mocking the doom community's irrational fear of cash, I think Jimmy and everyone else who puts a professional polish on their works deserve some coin.

Ah, my apologies, then, for rambling on.

[There was a part of me that suspected you were being tongue-in-cheek with your original comment.]

16 hours ago, Ponqo said:

can i commission "btsx the way memfis would've"

better idea: commission btsx 3

I would commission a mod based on ponies xD.

On 5/14/2018 at 11:18 AM, Vorpal said:

Expecting money for one's work is a slippery slope and it could mean the end of the modding community so we must discourage it at all times

Let's get something straight here: If people put their patreon or a link to their bandcamp in their readmes or whatever, that's perfectly fine. People can decide for themselves if they wanna pay some money to those who did that work in such a case, and frankly, I'd encourage giving people the option to pay or not.

What's not okay for me personally is gating content behind a paywall straight away, as was the case SGT_MARKIV a good while back.

12 minutes ago, MattGuy1990 said:

I would commission a mod based on ponies xD.

That's... pretty dark. It doesn't exactly fit the tone of Doom (that must be one of the greatest understatements of all time).

Now, my disapproval made clear, I will reluctantly reference a couple of said mods.

There is a mod called RariDoom I haven't played.

Also, there's a graphics mod on /idgames called rdhud here: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/combos/rdhud.

There are a couple more, but I'd rather not look at them.

Quote

That's... pretty dark. It doesn't exactly fit the tone of Doom (that must be one of the greatest understatements of all time).

Well, same can be said with the like of the Simpsons and Spongebob, yet they have their personal Doom mods xp.

But, if you wanna be more in tone, I was thinking of a mod where you play as one of the villains in the show, this way the carnage would be more justified...

Or, you know, a complete TC similar in tone to The Adventures of Square.

Quote

What's not okay for me personally is gating content behind a paywall straight away, as was the case SGT_MARKIV a good while back.

Another SGT. MARK hater, uh? I can't undestand why does he get so much hate (counting the mistakes he made...)

10 hours ago, Aquila Chrysaetos said:

If someone paid me a hundred dollars (example) to map out 32 UDMF levels that they provided the design for, I'd do it

No one should be mapping out 32 levels for $100. 1 level? Maybe, if it was fairly simple.

3 minutes ago, MattGuy1990 said:

Another SGT. MARK hater, uh? I can't undestand why does he get so much hate (counting the mistakes he made...)

It's not the number of mistakes (not that I would think you are aware of all of it), it's the magnitude of the fuckups. And just because I point out something I don't like it doesn't make me a hater.

But since you're obviously oblivious: Putting lines akin to "Turns a Zombie into a N****r" into the resources for the fun of it does not make him seem particularly mature as far as I'm concerned. Also not giving credits to people doing work that he used is a pretty shitty move, doubly so when he rakes in the money but doesn't share any. What else was there? Oh, right remember when he put a script in his resources that would cause his mod to create a loop in a script that would cycle indefinitely when BD was used with PB? Oh, hey, do you remember when he claimed he was doing more work in terms of modding than the entire ZDoom community combined?

Dude, I could go on here quite a bit. Next time you think you're supposed to point your finger at anybody and call them hater or whatever, do your homework first, mmmkay?

2 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

It's not the number of mistakes (not that I would think you are aware of all of it), it's the magnitude of the fuckups. And just because I point out something I don't like it doesn't make me a hater.

 

But since you're obviously oblivious: Putting lines akin to "Turns a Zombie into a N****r" into the resources for the fun of it does not make him seem particularly mature as far as I'm concerned. Also not giving credits to people doing work that he used is a pretty shitty move, doubly so when he rakes in the money but doesn't share any. What else was there? Oh, right remember when he put a script in his resources that would cause his mod to create a loop in a script that would cycle indefinitely when BD was used with PB? Oh, hey, do you remember when he claimed he was doing more work in terms of modding than the entire ZDoom community combined?

 

Dude, I could go on here quite a bit. Next time you think you're supposed to point your finger at anybody and call them hater or whatever, do your homework first, mmmkay?

Never said you were an hater ^^'. Just wanted to say that there are  many people who hates him, and I didn't understand why until now.

I just love his work on BD is all.

2 hours ago, Linguica said:

No one should be mapping out 32 levels for $100. 1 level? Maybe, if it was fairly simple.

On further thought, that would be a steal. Real question now: how much would that actually be worth?

Anyone who wants some specific variety of dwango-tier maps made just hit me up, $5 a pop! Sure beats $0 a pop after all

9 hours ago, Aquila Chrysaetos said:

On further thought, that would be a steal. Real question now: how much would that actually be worth?

Depends.

As soon as money is involved it's a job, so you'd want to charge a fair amount to justify the use of your time working vs doing what you would want to do in your own time.

Let's say a mapper charged $10 an hour. Now obviously it depends how quick said mapper works etc, but since it's commissioned they will want to give you quality work. In this example lets say the first few levels are small and only take ~ 10 - 20 hours to make each, you'll be looking at 100-200 / map, and thats for the smaller work.

Now let's take the idea of the final episode - you wanted the last 5 maps to be huge and very detailed etc, you're probably looking at 50-200 hours of work per map, maybe more. You can see how this would be expensive.

This is why its best left as a hobby for the most part..

34 minutes ago, Dragonfly said:

 

Depends.

 

As soon as money is involved it's a job, so you'd want to charge a fair amount to justify the use of your time working vs doing what you would want to do in your own time.

 

Let's say a mapper charged $10 an hour. Now obviously it depends how quick said mapper works etc, but since it's commissioned they will want to give you quality work. In this example lets say the first few levels are small and only take ~ 10 - 20 hours to make each, you'll be looking at 100-200 / map, and thats for the smaller work.

 

Now let's take the idea of the final episode - you wanted the last 5 maps to be huge and very detailed etc, you're probably looking at 50-200 hours of work per map, maybe more. You can see how this would be expensive.

 

This is why its best left as a hobby for the most part..

It can aslo depends on what the modder's capable of/feels like doing. If he prefers doing large maps or smaller ones, that's the standard where he's most capable in, so the price shouldn't be expensive deèpending on that. When maps however starts to be out of his usual works, that's where the price should rise, swince he would most definitely spend more time to make the map as good as possible (of course, the commissioner can and should also help about the shape of the map, what's inside it etc.)

12 minutes ago, MattGuy1990 said:

since he would most definitely spend more time to make the map as good as possible

This part here assumes the mapper is as passionate about the map they're being asked to make. When it's a work for one's own project, you are your own dictator and as such will put in 'passion hours'. Lets put it back into this context:

53 minutes ago, Dragonfly said:

As soon as money is involved it's a job

It's a job. People will treat it as such. I'm passionate about my day job (web design), but just because I love making websites doesn't mean I stay behind and do hours of unpaid overtime. You can't always pump out the best work you've ever done regardless of the budget.

I'm currently wondering, for something like Elementalism, if the team were paid a salary (say $10 an hour, which is super low for professional services) how much it would have cost so far.

I have probably put somewhere in the region of 150-200 hours into it so far. Between the near dozen people on the team we're probably looking at raw hourly costs of around $8,000-$10,000. And the mod is still a long way from completion. 

I think it can be quite easy to underestimate just how much time can go into a fullsized wad.

I'd love to see some folks who regularly do commissioned work weigh in on this thread and post some estimates on how much they'd (hypothetically) charge for making a map, because I suspect many people are severely underestimating the numbers and could use some enlightenment. :P

I've sometimes wondered how much a modder's efforts are worth.

1. Clearly, a professional mapper is being paid at a far higher rate than the minimum wage (around US$ 10, depending on where you live in the US). But we're not talking about a professional mapper being commissioned on these forums. So the rate for a commissioned job should probably be lower than the professional rate.

2. Many hobbyist mappers have steady jobs with labor rates far higher than the minimum wage (and, quite possibly, higher than that of professional mappers). So should the commissioned job be paid at the modder's wage rate? Probably not, given that the task involves a hobby, not a "job".

3. DooM mods are not the only game (pun entirely intended) in town. Many professionally-made games can be had for US$ 40; why would one pay for a commissioned job at the modder's labor rate, and possibly pay hundreds of dollars, when one can get (arguably) equally enjoyable games for a fraction of the price? [But see Item 4, below.]

4. It's possible that someone is willing to pay for a mod that can be considered a "collector's item". Imagine if someone paid Dario Casali for a one-of-a-kind map he created before he went on to become a fixture at Valve. That would probably be worth more than the US$ 40 for a commercial game.

5. Using the Patreon system, many people can pay small amounts that, cumulatively, make it worthwhile for a modder.

6. Finally, I circle back to what I said in my earlier post - the market will dictate what one would be willing to pay. If people continue to produce high-quality mods and release them for free, modders that want to charge for their work will be hard-pressed to compete and make money.