Its always the point at which level it is done. If its ok for a person to do a job 8 hours a day and another 6 hours doing the mod, sleeping and the next day the same. Every day the same procedure. Do this for months and you ask yourself, why i'm doing this? I mean its nice if the people say thank you and it makes you proud, but it kills your life. So the model to pay for a good content is also the way to support the creator, to give them the time to do the mod and pay the bills.
Not gonna extend much on that (or Rmi will burn the cake out of rage) but I have to say, I do agree with you on that point. Personally I don't really question the idea of something being free or not, financially supportive or not, like it is (almost always) the case when we talk about mods around here. We don't even want to start on that hot hot hot topic of Ilja's money (or I'm gonna get a burned cake in the face).
My point was more about the legal and moral relation modders have with their respective base games. AC and the team behind it seems very, very open on the subject, that is why we are here, copying, converting and creating content for it without any real form of consideration for the "integrity" of the original game, nor licensing of the content. And to the extend, money starts getting involved because people stop thinking about that moral, first with simple donations, then with whole studios dedicated to it (VRC, RSS, etc...), then with patreons asking more money than the game itself for a badly converted GT car, and bursting out all around town if it leaks (which is, ignorance yes, but greed essentially).
I personally do not care for the legal part. The law is what it is, it's made to adapt to society, and guiding it in the same time. It's a theory of a win-win situation : I provide you security and integrity, you respect me to provide it to others, and it is always questionable on any subject. It's not the place for that. From the exemples I gave : "Lost Alpha" was (and still is) free because it would have been taken down otherwise. Same goes for any major mod of any games. "Black Mesa", the re-creation of Half Life, was full-free in his 8-10 beta years, and became a 20$ game on Steam on release. Why ? Because Valve saw the opportunity and bought it, to be able to sell it themselves. If not, they would have taken it down, probably. Not because they don't like it, but because it challenge the legal value of their original licence. The list could go on and on and on, but the real reason why mods are free, in the beginning, IS because they are not (exactly) legal. It's up to everyone to evaluate if they think it is fair, or not. And that's the main difference I saw with the sim racing world, compared to more "traditionnal" games. And that is why, in the beginning of this subject, RD choose the "old school path" of defending content creation and licensing, like any classic mod-sharing/legal-defending platforms (looking at you, Nexus), whereas here lays a more "alternative" way of thinking.
Anyway, back to business !
@RMi_wood have you already converted something from a Unity source ?
If yes, I would love to know how you did... (mp if so?)
