Paywall Problem - Tumblr Posts

I know I'm screaming into the void here but

CC CREATORS: DO NOT PAYWALL DISABILITY AIDS AND DISABILITY CC.

I'm going to go ahead and operate under the assumption that you maybe didn't know that is a shitty thing to do... but I'm telling you now, it is an absolutely shitty thing to do. So now you know! 👍 (This includes early access btw.)

I get what you’re trying to say here, but I completely agree with the reblog by @/neverheresims, and in the kindest way, that comparison doesn’t really work at all.

The thing is, when you create content for or from an intellectual property you do not own, it straight up does not belong to you. CC creators are incredibly, and I mean incredibly lucky they’re able to monetize their work. That won’t fly elsewhere, either because of the company, or the community. Unless you’re making fandom scarves, you entirely own whatever you make, and the paywall issue is largely the fact that you don’t own what you make.

Per EA’s terms, everything you make from game assets belongs to them, and anything made from your own assets belongs to them the moment it’s converted into files to be used in the game, and EA has said that anything made for the game is for all the community to use. You do not own what you make.

Now, for my own analogy. I make dice. I make dice largely for those who play D&D, and market them as D&D dice, because this is my job and that gets me seen by the people who would be interested in them.

Recently, Wizard’s of the Coast, the company that owns D&D, decided that they didn’t like how everyone was profiting off their game except for them and was going to implement new terms that made it so you could no longer profit off of D&D without reporting your earnings and giving them a percentage, or just straight up at all. There was a whole lot more to it and I’m not explaining it the best, but had they gone through with that, I would not have been able to market my dice as D&D dice anymore and would have had to remove any previous connections. Because dice and their shapes don’t solely belong to D&D, and the dice I make are not from molds of official D&D dice, I could keep selling my dice, but I’d lose out on a significant demographic.

This is comparable to CC creators who make their own meshes entirely from scratch. If they wanted to have them under a permanent paywall, they could sell them as 3D meshes independent from the game and allow for conversions to the games by the individual who buys the mesh, with or without a tutorial on how the average person can do that. They still entirely own their work that way. But if they want to sell it as Sims 4 CC, they have to play by EA’s rules, and that means it’s not theirs anymore and they can only charge for a reasonable early access.

Now, for the creations made from existing meshes, let’s say someone sold custom character sheets that use all of the official D&D character sheet information, but display it differently. Or someone just took the direct sheet, printed it out, and customized it from there. If WotC went through with their leaked TOS changes, those people could no longer sell their character sheets, because the core of them belonged to WotC. If they wanted to sell them, they would have to change up anything that belonged to the D&D character sheet.

In other games, when you make a mod, you generally know that it’s going to be a labor of love and you’re likely not going to get anything out of it. It’s done because you love what you’re doing, or wanted something for yourself and are okay with sharing it. Charging for it is extremely out of the norm, and you have to play by the company’s rules.

I am entirely okay with a reasonable early access period. To me, that’s 2-3 weeks. I’m not sure where 30 days is coming from, because last I knew EA just vaguely said “reasonable”, so unless they have specifically said that that reasonable is going to be different for everyone.

I am also all for people getting paid for their work. CC making isn’t easy and it takes a long time. I spent three hours removing the stripes from that one fitness kit top because the quality crunch of items makes it near impossible to fix things like that sometimes, and Photoshop also just sucks. Marvelous Designer, which is used by a lot of alpha creators, is also really expensive. But I think there’s other ways to get paid, like accepting commissions for custom items/swatches and then releasing those for everyone. You could also make patterns or your own textures and sell those. There’s ways to earn what you deserve for your hard work while still being kind to the community and not breaking TOS.

Also, EA sucks, WotC also sucks, and this is not defending or supporting either. This is just sometimes you don’t want to be sued.

This is gonna be unpopular... but I'm gonna say it anyway. I don't think people getting paid for cc is a bad thing and here's why: (adding a cut cause I ramble)

Some people knit. Judy gives all the scarves they knit away as gifts because they just enjoy knitting. Phyllis knits scarves to sell them at the farmer's market or on Etsy. Maybe she relies on the money. Maybe she's trying to supplement her income. Maybe her kid has special needs and this allows her to avoid having to go to a job and instead be able to stay home to take care of them... we don't know. Because we don't know Phyllis or her situation. We just see her at the farmer's market selling scarves.

It's important to note that neither of them made the yarn they used. Or the needles they worked the yarn with. However, they did spend their free time making something. The most valuable thing we as people have is time (imho).

Just because you want a scarf made by Phyllis doesn't mean that she has to give you one. She has decided to put her work up for sale and make money for her time and effort.

Going to her booth and telling her that she should be giving the scarves away because she doesn't make the yarn or the needles is the equivalent of telling her that the time she put into making the scarves and the practice she put into gaining the skills to do so is worthless.

It's disrespectful af and just downright unkind.

If you want a free scarf you can make a friend like Judy who will give you one because she wants to. Maybe she's well off and doesn't need the money? Maybe she's a minor and doesn't have expenses? Maybe she's knitting for charity and sees it as her social responsibility? Plenty of reasons why she might knit for free.

The difference with Sims cc is that even if Phyllis needs that extra money for whatever reason. Even if she relies on it for food or medical treatment or to buy her insulin... After 30 days she will be forced to give her scarves away for free, so instead of being able to build up a stock of scarves... she has to keep making new kinds of scarves to maintain her income and anything 30 days or older has to be given away for free.

It's not a perfect metaphor, but my point is that people's time is valuable. People's skills are valuable. If everyone had the time or skills to do what they do then we wouldn't rely on cc creators at all. If it were super easy to learn and not time-consuming to do then everyone would do it. Don't assume you know why people are choosing to ask for money in exchange for their time and skills. Everyone is going through something and the odds are that you will never know about it. Be kind, not entitled.

Much as I appreciate any movement in the anti-perma paywall debate, I’d like y’all to know that EA does not give a damn, and legally does not have to… although, there are ways to get their attention, or the attention of others that could definitely do more about it, not a lot… but something, bc from what I’ve seen a lot of these same accounts are also the same accounts that have been caught bullying, stalking, and doxing ppl, including some who were likely minors… over some pixels. I feel like if we were able to shake the table enough, and hammer this home, and make it very poignant that EA is basically “letting it happen”, by turning a blind eye to it, esp with that boo boo ass set of rules that gives these ppl the loophole to behave this way, that they are in some way encouraging this inappropriate behavior.

You gotta hammer it home though, you gotta annoy them about it, post about it ( respectfully ) below updates on their Twitter or whatever it’s called, get the attention of others, including writers or influencers who are interested in any kinda drama related to AAA companies. This mess has to be heard outside of our small circle, if there’s any hope of anything positive ever being done.

‘Til then, public perception is your friend, esp on the internet. The only reason they get away with the things they do is bc ppl are desperate to find content for a game that greatly lacks content. Remind people they don’t have to enable these creators by paying them to access their stuff ( though maybe keep the details onto how on the dl ). Do not be afraid to treat these creators the same way they treat you, and that Turbosquid creator they bought that mesh off of, yet “worked so hard on”, even though they couldn’t be arsed to click a few buttons to make it gameplay friendly. 😊