#ea does not care about this communitys culture bc it doesnt care about its own. it works people to breakdowns constantly

[krogans-give-the-best-cuddles]

Lot of interesting discussions being had in the sims community today about whether people should be able to sell their work or not...

As far as people blaming paywalls (including early access) for ruining the community and changing it from what it was, i don't think that's accurate. Tbh the 2017 era of "no paywalls, simply click thru shady adfly links to get mods" was worse than people using patreon. And also. Lets be real here.

The game is old. They're putting out new content for it, but its fucking old. I was around for skyrim mods from the beginning, and it is probably the most modded game ever. They're out here releasing new content 10 yrs after launch (much like the sims), but is the mod community what it used to be there? In breadth of content absolutely not. The quality of content has only risen, but the amount?? On special edition I cannot find half of the clothes I used to use in legendary. But those new animation variance mods are sick as hell. Its the tradeoff of just... Time.

Creators get bored of the game eventually. This is absolutely happening to the sims. Not to mention that it costs near $1000 to buy the whole game in its entirety now. Thats gonna drive away creators.

As far as the culture of mod creation (not just the kind/amounts of mods made) I agree that the tone used to be v different like back in 2016. But I think there are multiple factors for that, and singling out the use of patreon is not doing us good in the long run, if we wanna focus on making the community better again. First of all, people were treating creators like real shit back then.

Like I know we all wanna think about like how cool it was to interact regularly with our fave creators, but like... That parasociality can and does take a toll on people. I've seen people complain that lots of creators nowadays don't even build a rapport w the community before trying to make money off mods. I can understand that argument, but like. Sometimes that rapport wasn't a rapport. Sometimes it was people regularly harassing and assuming a close relationship w a virtual stranger bc they saw their posts about video game stuff.

To go into this further, i remember simtober 2019 (i think that was the specific year) fucking sucked for people. MULTIPLE creators i followed had to explain that the wait for cc wasn't against the rules, it was simply a little game. And then they got death threats from people who said they shouldn't have to wait a week for cc if they didn't want to play said game. Cowconuts also had that happen when they did a whole "solve a riddle get a cc" event. Like, the old days were not often nice for the creators on the other end of managing the social media prescence here.

If someone said "hm id rather not go talk to everyone and constantly be exposed to that kind of bullshit, im just gonna run my patreon" tbh I think that's kind of reasonable.

Secondly, the world fucking sucks right now. A lot of these people are using patreon money to have gas to go to work. A lot of these people are feeding their dogs this way. Does it suck that this once free community is being coopted into a side hustle? Yes, but lets be real. Its not being coopted by these individuals. Its being coopted by capitalism. If someone lives in a world where baby formula costs money, and drinking water costs money, and having shelter costs money, and being in a cool place costs money (more important as climate change worsens), they're going to find that money however the hell they can. If that means they have a hobby they can monetize, they will do it. This isn't a moral failing, in this situation its simply survival. What's a moral failing is what's allowing societies to exist in such a way to begin with.

I saw some arguments against this by saying that people who have these skills can take to the job market that hires for them, but i feel like that shows little understanding of that very market. Game design, including modelling, does not pay much better when paid by a giant corp than it does by getting patrons. It also is a notoriously competitive field, and a notoriously discriminatory one. If you look it up you will see that the numbers of women and all people of color at most game companies are not at all similar to the demographics in the areas those companies are run from. More directly, these companies are racist and sexist and will not hire enough of the people who might make these games. This is not even touching on the regular reports of wide spread rape and harassment cultures at these companies that drive the few people who make it in, out. And also not getting into the insane crunch times these companies go into which often ruin lives.

Of course if you have the skills to mod in any way it would seem more appealing to be your own boss and make money off a loyal fanbase of your own instead of be subjected to current industry standards.

Finally, when EA itself is one of these companies who is doing all of the above to its devs, and also selling what is often complete garbage for up to $1000... It frankly seems absurd to complain about Dude Down The Block who makes you wait two extra weeks for free shit or you can pay him $3 now. It seems like a classic case of punching where you can reach, instead of focusing on the guy who's really fucking you over.

This isn't to say there's nothing wrong with the current system we have, however. There are many things. Patreon itself is often gouging these creators, making them far less "their own boss" than they originally might have thought. These people often have access to tons of people's private information, including full names and emails, with almost no oversight. Lots of creators HAVE used this to doxx people, which is absolutely disgusting. Also, the general idea of turning every hobby into a side hustle is deeply entrenched in these spaces, which is super harmful to people's mental health tbh. Not to mention that having a patreon may spare you the creator a bit of parasociality directed at you, but it gives you just enough to be able to wield your followers against others (which is not a patreon only problem either).

All these problems line up so that like a patreon owner can absolutely wield their power in ways that can harm people. But they aren't like... A cop or a social worker or a nurse or even really a celebrity. So they have about as much power to do that as your avg tumblr user making no money who happens to have followers.

To be clear here, I'm not saying there's no real harm coming from monetizing mods. I'm simply saying that the monetization of mods in general is only a symptom of the real disease here. Until more is done to make life liveable without money, or more is done to really address parasociality in our society, or if you wanna start even smaller until more is done to address the harm EA as a singular company does and will continue to do, there will always be a new way to paywall. We will always be fighting over these scraps, unless we do something to make them more than scraps.

You don't cure the flu by taking ibuprofen. You just get rid of the bodyaches for a while. They come back as long as the virus stays there. And banning people from early accessing their content won't make simblr better, bc people will come up w a new way to make money, as long as they have a need to do so to survive.