I think I'm missing the benefit here. I don't know about starmade, but minecraft skins are a few kB. Let's be generous and throw out 30kB per skin. A 28k modem can transfer than in a couple seconds. Why do we need to cache these skins across the server landscape? The bandwidth needed to transfer 3 skins is less than the bandwidth needed to load this web page once. I could wait an extra 10 seconds the first time I join a new server for my client to load my skins to the server and cache them right there, on the server, where I play. That way, the bandwidth is covered by me and the server host, no need for Schine to upkeep.
If you really want to store them and serve them on your CDN for me, but need to keep bandwidth costs low, check if you need to send the data. Most people will probably only play on a handful of servers. Convert uploaded images to a consistent format, tar the skins + compress if your format warrants it, and md5 the tar blob. Store the md5, and check it against a server checksum when a player connects. Only send the skin data if the checksums don't match. Voila, you only use bandwidth on skins when a visited server clears its skin cache, a player visits a new server, or a player changes their uploaded skins. I bet that's not a lot of times.
If you want to provide some space in the registry for me to backup my skins along with my player data, that is awesome. But $150 buys you a reasonable 2TB hard drive. That's ~66.7 million skins. Consumer cloud storage is more, but still very affordable. Commercial cloud storage/bandwidth services like a CDN are a long term fixed cost, but you're probably paying it anyways with the web site and registry. Additional bandwidth used for skins is ridiculously cheap. Let's be generous and say you're paying the high sum of $0.20 per GB bandwidth. That's $0.000006 per 30kB skin transferred uncompressed. You could transfer 10 skins 100,000 times and still pay less than a dime.
If you're wanting to use microtransactions to monetize StarMade, that's your decision. I respect that from a business perspective you need to monetize your IP somehow, and if people are willing to pay for you to shovel some bytes along the intertubes that's good for your business. However, I'm failing to see the technical argument for paying for skin storage or data transfers besides another couple of dimes you could add on to the purchase price of the game.
I would, however, be VERY interested in spending some dollars on high-quality skin packs released by you guys as an addition to some default skin variety present in the base game. Players like to dress up their characters - providing that dress-up content at a price might be a better money-maker than charging people to serve up content they already own. You could look at Valve's Team Fortress 2 and its hats for some pros and cons to that business model.
If you really want to store them and serve them on your CDN for me, but need to keep bandwidth costs low, check if you need to send the data. Most people will probably only play on a handful of servers. Convert uploaded images to a consistent format, tar the skins + compress if your format warrants it, and md5 the tar blob. Store the md5, and check it against a server checksum when a player connects. Only send the skin data if the checksums don't match. Voila, you only use bandwidth on skins when a visited server clears its skin cache, a player visits a new server, or a player changes their uploaded skins. I bet that's not a lot of times.
If you want to provide some space in the registry for me to backup my skins along with my player data, that is awesome. But $150 buys you a reasonable 2TB hard drive. That's ~66.7 million skins. Consumer cloud storage is more, but still very affordable. Commercial cloud storage/bandwidth services like a CDN are a long term fixed cost, but you're probably paying it anyways with the web site and registry. Additional bandwidth used for skins is ridiculously cheap. Let's be generous and say you're paying the high sum of $0.20 per GB bandwidth. That's $0.000006 per 30kB skin transferred uncompressed. You could transfer 10 skins 100,000 times and still pay less than a dime.
If you're wanting to use microtransactions to monetize StarMade, that's your decision. I respect that from a business perspective you need to monetize your IP somehow, and if people are willing to pay for you to shovel some bytes along the intertubes that's good for your business. However, I'm failing to see the technical argument for paying for skin storage or data transfers besides another couple of dimes you could add on to the purchase price of the game.
I would, however, be VERY interested in spending some dollars on high-quality skin packs released by you guys as an addition to some default skin variety present in the base game. Players like to dress up their characters - providing that dress-up content at a price might be a better money-maker than charging people to serve up content they already own. You could look at Valve's Team Fortress 2 and its hats for some pros and cons to that business model.