[Query] Paid vs. Gratis Development/Scripts...

I'm just curious as to how many people on here in general would actually be willing to pay for freelance development support &/or freelance scripts/scripting support?

Sometimes I feel that I over-share too much of my knowledge, tips, ideas & scripts for free. A lot of people would be asking for money for the majority of scripts I have provided. Take Daedalic for example, they keep most of their scripts/knowledge close to their vests - well Ede sometimes comes on here & provides the occasional insight or tip, but that's about as much as you get.

I'm a big believer in helping others & sharing - like this guy - but it seems that a vast majority of people are not like us in that regard - oh well.

Some of the scripts I've written & shared - or have yet to finish & share - have been quite complicated & time consuming to work & I sometimes feel like I should be asking for money for them instead of providing them for free.

Finally without naming any names: a little while ago I got a bit irked off by one of the members on here (well just a tad) as they kept sending me emails for help on this & that & this & that... & the thing that irritated me was that they were getting money for sorting the development side of the game, but were asking me for the solutions to problems/obstacles that they kept coming up against. I don't mind providing a bit of help here & there, but I can't be expected to provide 100% solutions to everything - hell if I'm doing that, then I might as well be sorting out the development side of whatever game it is myself!

Also (apparently not finally), I don't get paid by Visionaire Studio for providing support & scripts on here, or the wiki. It's all pro-bono & I provide it all in my spare time.

< /rant >

P.S: Christmas time always turns me into a cantankerous grumpy old git!

Well, as regards me, i had planned to send you money as a thanks, when the game is finished. I really admire your help, and not just yours, i really enjoy this community.

It's nice that you want to help people, but you shouldn't do something what bothers you and say it.
If you like, i don't mind sending you some money now, but i probably won't have any until the game will be released anyway.

And don't stress and enjoy christmas

Christmas ranting mate. I like providing help. Just sometimes I believe that I should be offering my services for a fee instead of being an idiot & providing everything for free, but I'm a sucker for helping people - no idea why.

Don't know what christmas ranting means..
So you can put donate button on your profile or something.

If I needed a particular script, I would be willing to pay. It's a lot of work and there's nothing wrong with paying for it, really! I'm a freelancer myself and I can understand that soooo many projects are interesting and that you have the urge to help, plus it is fun. Of course the price should stand in relation to how much it is worth to me personally, but in general, as said before, I would pay for it. I think one could also sell a script several times for some bucks, just like other people sell - for example - digital brushes for Photoshop.

Bah, humbug!
Obviously people should be paid for providing (complex) scripts.
Or better yet: everybody should pay me instead.

Sincerely,
Ebenezer Scrooge

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Finally without naming any names: a little while ago I got a bit irked off by one of the members on here (well just a tad) as they kept sending me emails for help on this & that & this & that... & the thing that irritated me was that they were getting money for sorting the development side of the game, but were asking me for the solutions to problems/obstacles that they kept coming up against.

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Yeah, of course you should be charging money for that!!

I think VS devs should increase a licence prices a little bit so there would be cut for support and wiki department = AFRLme. I believe he deserves that. And after Pike will publish his game you can expect a lot of licence sells. Also, if you write some complex time consuming scripts for someone = no question here, you should charge money for that.

hehe nice rant Lee!

I actually can remember when you came onto this forum, and started (almost) flooding it with topics and answers... as the months went by, you kinda became the primary support guy for VIS kudos for your efforts!

about your example with custom scripts for a commercial game: Of course you should charge for them! (unless you get a percentage or other deal), whats wrong with you?

some ideas for Monetization:

- you could bundle all your lua scripts with a solid documentation/examples, and sell them as an VIS addon package (maybe here in the shop?)

- create YouTube tutorials with enabled Ads....

- donation buttons

thats all i can think of right now.... keep it up! and merry christmas!
best,
--s

It's not the current price of the licenses. I don't think enough licenses get sold to provide funds to the vs devs, let alone support. For me vs needs a boost in marketing for profits to increase, such as: steam, optional monthly/yearly subscription service for indie single/multi licenses, cheaper (limited, per title) mobile license) youtube video blogs & tutorials, game expo/conventions (engine showcase) etc, etc...

I was mostly referring to scripts, templates & development support.

Quick example: someone wants to know how to create moving clouds. I will probably open up photoshop or search online for some resources, then I'll export them & open up Visionaire Studio & create a new project, then I'll add all the resources & will then develop & script whatever needs to be done & then I'll compile it all up into a compressed file format & send to the used who requested it via dropbox, sendspace or email - or I will end up uploading it the the wiki & creating a tutorial page for it.

All in all it requires time, planning & whatever else. Might take me 30 minutes, might take me a few hours, or even a day or 2. But I'll get it done at some point & then I go: "here you are barry!"

For me, that is time I could have spent working on something else, or relaxing.

@ derOesi: some valid ideas/points there.

I think that after publishing first wave of VS games (not including Daedalic ones) all the community around Visionaire will be much wiser. I simply believe that games like Stasis will eventually attract a lot of new developers. However I would double the licence prices - like 100 euros for a single indie licence is I think reasonable enough. Also I hope that every user of VS will be generous if he/she will make some money with his or her game:

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Well, as regards me, i had planned to send you money as a thanks, when the game is finished. I really admire your help, and not just yours, i really enjoy this community.

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