MONEY
Its all about;
- Business Model
- Business Strategy
- Feasibility Study
- Risk (Including contingency risk)
- BCR (Benefit to Cost Ratio)
- Demand
- Quality
- Proposed ideas life cycle (How long its alive and popular, what can be done to keep it going for as long as possible)
INTRO
Custom, monetised servers, free mods, DLCs, these are all extra development opportunities for a base game, where the company developer (this case taleworlds), can accrue more money and profits, help boost the life cycle, and most importantly keep the customer (who are the community) base happy, engaged and coming back
De-centralised Community Driven Servers/Mods
Mods
If Taleworlds choose to leave it to the community, they are decentralising the potential, theoretical workload, and dont have to worry so much about this, apart from their own official, direct DLCs (if any, e.g Napoleonic wars). This, inturn would attract a steady influx of new players, and keep current and existing players constantly coming back, therefore overall increasing the player base and life cycle.
This could work by the server owner both take a cut, and there profit and benefit, and the community is happy also, as they have a wider range of Server types to play from, each offering a different experience (loosely).
community driven servers/mods will make more content, and provide more options, something a centralised (Explained later in article) would never be able to compete with.
Servers
As, for, unofficial and official customised servers, these are a big plus, Taleworlds could enter into agreements, where the server owner and taleworlds both take a cut.
Risk
Acceptable Risk, this would just mean having to monitor what mods are being made and making sure there are no existing copyrights and the likes, which can result in taleworlds being sued and having to payout, meaning company losses, and smaller profit margin. A Strong and sound Steam and EULA agreement would cover this, and there are versions already out there that can give unofficial guidance. There are existing models of this already.
Centralised - Taleworlds driven servers/official mods/dlc
If Taleworlds choose to centralise all creative works and leave none to the community, then they will expect a very heavy burden, finding out whats good, whats not, what will sell, what wont sell, and if they make something that is a bad idea, they, effectively, lose money.
Servers
This goes onto Official Servers, if there are only Official servers, this leads to standardisation across the board, and the only difference is location and connectivity, maybe a few skins and objects, no alternate gameplay, as anything else may cause disruption and ruptures, in any capacity.
Risk
Caution, Acceptable Risk, (Servers wouldnt really anything attractive about them, apart from being MP), this would just mean that they must only develop what is 100% wanted and in demand, and is more or less what the community wants, or it will just not sell, and may impact the games overall reviews, as it becomes an official part of the full game. If they develop a failed feature (What we are all very aware of) all the money invested in the project, will be gone, and into negative, and playerbase takes a drop, and the video game reviews take a hit.
To cover this, this would mean extensive market research, business development, strategy, this furthers the burden of workload on Taleworlds as the centralised developing platform.
(Here taleworlds will be reliant on full game sales and the release of DLCs, (durations between each will play a big factor in sales)
Collective - Community (Third Party) and Taleworlds driven DLCs (Official Mods/Platforms)
(E.g Napoleonic wars)
This is something taleworlds should strongly consider, regardless of custom servers and mods.
The Community want more mods, and if the community can have professional level mods (no modteam will bring a mod to professional level, high quality, polished mod, without there being somekind of arguable financial return, examples are out there), which increase playing hours, playability, then its a win, for both the community, third party and community, the community pay for quality.
What is important to not forget to mention here is free community mods although will be used very much so and be very popular, widely available for free, will be nowhere near as good in quality, as there is no viable feasible reason to spend another year on a nearly complete mod, to polish and add more playtime (E.g missions), if theres no return, just get it out there for the community to enjoy)
(A Financially justified DLC should cover not just skins (microtransaction exploitation), but animations, new playable scenarios, missions, twists on current settings, videography, cutscenes, and much more))
Third Party and Direct Official DLCs have room in both Community driven and/or Taleworlds driven mods and servers, which, will, again, give more reason for players to come back to the game time and time again, even after small stints of not playing, load napoleonic wars to play siege, or vanilla bannerlord for siege, it all works, and all has financial incentive. this would have contracts.
What is also worth mentioning is taleworlds are exploring now, while the game is in its very early stages of its life, giving room for more maneouver, and with a plefora of examples from other areas of gaming for different bodies, which other bodies were not so fortunate to have, which is a big positive for taleworlds and community.
RISK
Manageable Risk
FURBZEYYY
Have the desire to to develop a custom, monetised server and a Third Party DLC, if all goes well.
PLENUM
Even Creativity and the Arts is a Business, but the Creativity and the Arts itself comes FIRST, then morality/legality, then the money and the return.
dont bite the hand that feeds you, the hand being the community.
MY CONCLUSION
- Yes to de-centralised Official Custom, monetised Servers
- Yes to de-centralised Unofficial community 'Steam Workshop' Mods
- Yes to collective Purchaseable Third Party and Official DLC/Platforms
- Yes to de-centralised more linked relationship between Taleworlds and Community (e.g Discord?)
- No to centralised, microtransaction based business model (will tell you now, ive played around 4 games, and havent bought one single skin)
Inevitably, whats available, and what actually gets developed to a final state and is playable on a popular scale, will filter itself down naturally overtime
Plus the video games life cycle will increase exponentially, tenfold, so long the Creative and the Arts aspect is not (within relevant, moral reason), restricted.
(Im not writing out full consultation documents on model, strategy, and feasibility as im not even being paid for this post, nevermind documents)
