Microtransaction Idea: Community Store

[Edymnion]

Okay, the thread about microtransactions for skin slots got me thinking. Stuff like that I feel are very bad ideas, mostly because traditional microtransactions have poisoned the well with really shady stuff to the point they all look like bait and switch tactics.

So I thought, what kind of stuff would I be willing to pay for in Starmade that don't feel like I'm getting screwed for not having it be a default part of the game I purchased? Then it hit me. Blueprints.

We currently have Community Content where people upload their designs for everyone who wants it to download and use for free. What if we made a Community Store where people could put up their designs for sale? Keep the option for free downloads, but have an option to charge for designs as well.

I know that personally I don't put my best stuff on the CC because I don't want just anybody being able to have copies of the stuff I worked the hardest on, I'm a bit selfish that way. But if I could SELL my designs? Oh heck yeah, I'd do that. I'll spend weeks building the most awesome stuff I can to put up to SELL.

And if Schine did it like eBay where they skim a set percentage off each sale to put in their own pockets, that would be a steady source of supplemental income for them that they don't have to put any extra work into themselves.

Heck, people like Bench could have their own Community Stores with their own ship designs in there.

Just find a way to "lock" a Community Store blueprint so that it can't be shared on the server (no making a CS design available to faction/base/other, its only for you), and make it so that you still have to supply the blocks for it yourself, and I could see that as being a balanced, non-instantly-money-grubbing-greedy way of having microtransaction income for Schine that doesn't break anything. We'd basically just be paying to have someone else design something for us that we could have built ourselves had we the time/energy/skill to do so.

A quarter for a really good drone design? Sold. 99 cents for a fighter? Works for me. $2.99 for a cruiser? $9.99 for a titan? And Schine pocketing a 10% cut off of every transaction? That would be acceptable to me.

 

[Criss]

There are two major issues I see with this.
- What happens when every blueprint on the dock is now for sale?
- Why should a player pay for any skin when someone could just as easily give them the bp off-site.

I think part of the problem is that we want to encourage creativity and sharing your work, not ask the player to pay to participate in that. This is a far fetched idea to be honest. If something like this were done it would have to be perfect otherwise it would fall apart and backfire.

 

[spunkiethefirst]

Would this lockout other players from creating the same configuration of blocks on their own? That might be hard to enforce.

 

[Edymnion]

- Why should a player pay for any skin when someone could just as easily give them the bp off-site.

Find a way to lock the blueprint to the person who bought it. Say by login username.

I think part of the problem is that we want to encourage creativity and sharing your work, not ask the player to pay to participate in that.

I have one design on the CC right now, and I did that more for the badge than out of any burning desire to share my work with others. Right now I have no incentive to share anything but my least impressive stuff, simply because I don't care about accolades of my virtual peers. If I spend a week building the perfect ship, I might take pictures of it to show off, but I'm not giving it away to anyone that wants it. Now if I were to get some kind of reimbursement or something in return, I would be much more likely to put time and energy into creating content.

If something like this were done it would have to be perfect otherwise it would fall apart and backfire.

In this climate, this is true of ANY microtransactions. Absolutely anything you do that looks even remotely like it should have been included in the base game is going to backfire horribly on you.

The only form of acceptable paid content left that isn't instantly toxic, IMO, is stuff like this. New content that wasn't available when the game was made, and that isn't reasonably expected to be part of normal updates. DLC for a new character in an established game 6 months later because fans were mad that it didn't make the cut are great. DLC for characters included in the base game but artificially locked out aren't. If it looks at all like you intentionally held something back just to make people pay extra for it, you're going to get backlash.

 

[Sha3es]

With a game like this there is almost an unlimited potential for infringement of content and ideas. I am not entirely sure that charging for blueprints would be the way to go.

Even if you would take steps to ensure that blueprints and the like are not infringed upon, it would cause serious loss of freedom for this game as a whole.

 

[Megacrafter127]

Find a way to lock the blueprint to the person who bought it. Say by login username.

There are just 2 viable ways to do that, that I can think of:

1. Have the blueprint not contain the data but instead refer to the registry. This will automatically fail if the player for some reason has no internet connection. Once spawned the necessary data can also be extracted from the spawned entity rather easily[unless the same applies there too, in which case the universe will break if the internet connection cuts out]
2. Have each download be encrypted by a 2 key encryption method. Apart from being a waste of resources, this can also be bypassed once the blueprint has been spawned.

 

[Edymnion]

There are just 2 viable ways to do that, that I can think of:

1. Have the blueprint not contain the data but instead refer to the registry. This will automatically fail if the player for some reason has no internet connection. Once spawned the necessary data can also be extracted from the spawned entity rather easily[unless the same applies there too, in which case the universe will break if the internet connection cuts out]
2. Have each download be encrypted by a 2 key encryption method. Apart from being a waste of resources, this can also be bypassed once the blueprint has been spawned.

And one person buying a video on itunes can strip the DRM on it and upload it to a torrent site for everyone else to get for free. Doesn't mean itunes shut down.

It would only need token protection. Just like when Starmade goes full production mode, it'll be on pirate sites within hours with any and all protections stripped out for free.

Its a losing battle to try and make it bullet proof, you just need to make it so that its faster and easier to pay a small amount and get it done than it is to circumnavigate things for free.

 

[Megacrafter127]

you just need to make it so that its faster and easier to pay a small amount and get it done than it is to circumnavigate things for free.

Which I think will be the problem in this case.

 

[Sha3es]

I could see this working if in fact the transactions for these ship blueprints did not exceed something like 2 usd ?

 

[spunkiethefirst]

If Shine needs alternative revenue streams I'd suggest selling advertisement in the form of default factions.
Just imagine, you're flying through space when all of a sudden....

THE DORITOS™ DOMINION ATTACKS!!! Launching chip fighters out of their bag carriers backed up by salsa destroyers. Thinking quickly, you set a course for the planet, MOUNTAIN DEW™n, sure there are subterranean CHEETO™ worms, but, for the sake of princess Little Debbie™, the Old Spice™ must flow.

 

[Edymnion]

I could see this working if in fact the transactions for these ship blueprints did not exceed something like 2 usd ?

Flat 99 cents for a file would be fine by me. Actual details for things like that would be something best left to someone with a professional understanding of the market to figure out.
[DOUBLEPOST=1443111469,1443111434][/DOUBLEPOST]

If Shine needs alternative revenue streams I'd suggest selling advertisement in the form of default factions.
Just imagine, you're flying through space when all of a sudden....

THE DORITOS™ DOMINION ATTACKS!!! Launching chip fighters out of their bag carriers backed up by salsa destroyers. Thinking quickly, you set a course for the planet, MOUNTAIN DEW™n, sure there are subterranean CHEETO™ worms, but, for the sake of princess Little Debbie™, the Old Spice™ must flow.

"Why don't we just call it the Tostidodon?"

 

[SchnellBier]

Totally against it. Someone remembers the Diablo 3 ingame auction house? This feels even worse and is flawed from the start.

Someone will simply rebuild a good ship and set it in for less money or even for free.
--> Schine has to look for copyright if they even want it remotely to work as intended.
--> More work for them. (Even if they do a good work people will just use other websites to share the ships.)
--> No profit.

Also remember the payed mods attempt of Skyrim? Even if each ship will be cheap it can and will backfire. Don´t expect people to just download a single ship and be happy. Someone who customizes his starmade will download 50+ extra blueprints. Even if every blueprint just costs 1$ it will summarize up and everyone will hate it to the core.

 

[hzzzln]

THE DORITOS™ DOMINION ATTACKS!!! Launching chip fighters out of their bag carriers backed up by salsa destroyers. Thinking quickly, you set a course for the planet, MOUNTAIN DEW™n, sure there are subterranean CHEETO™ worms, but, for the sake of princess Little Debbie™, the Old Spice™ must flow.

You had me google for a dank starmade MLG_360_NOSCOPE video. Sadly, there currently is none...

EDIT: Something like this.

 

[Sha3es]

Totally against it. Someone remembers the Diablo 3 ingame auction house? This feels even worse and is flawed from the start.

Someone will simply rebuild a good ship and set it in for less money or even for free.
--> Schine has to look for copyright if they even want it remotely to work as intended.
--> More work for them. (Even if they do a good work people will just use other websites to share the ships.)
--> No profit.

Also remember the payed mods attempt of Skyrim? Even if each ship will be cheap it can and will backfire. Don´t expect people to just download a single ship and be happy. Someone who customizes his starmade will download 50+ extra blueprints. Even if every blueprint just costs 1$ it will summarize up and everyone will hate it to the core.

Agreed completely, but it is still interesting to imagine a perfect market system.

 

[FatCobra]

I think this is a bad idea. Anything like this will "taint" a game. It would be a slippery slope to a pay to win methodology that is diametrically opposed to a sandbox game.

 

[Captain_Boroski]

This is the worst idea possible that will lead to so much misfortune than you can imagine.
Greed and short-sightedness is the worst imaginable combination and I hope nobody will takes this idea seriously and forget about it ASAP.

 

[spunkiethefirst]

Nothing should stop you from working on commission though.

 

[Sha3es]

Nothing should stop you from working on commission though.

this would be an entirely different beast to tackle

 

[jstenholt]

I can't recall an idea on these forums worse than this. Absolutely not. The reasons other people have already pointed out why this is wrong don't even begin to cover how bad of an idea this is.

 

[therimmer96]

No.

Use adf.ly if you want to make money from a BP if needed.