<sigh> If you think “VG doing well does nothing for them” there isn’t really any point to continuing the discussion.
You really ought to read the first article I linked.
1 Like
PSA: This discussion is about to get moved to a separate topic …
EDIT: Done!
Yes.
Have you not seen schools decorate local parks as a project? As long as everyone has equal access to the park, the “host” is not profiting off of the park, and he is upfront about the engagement and does not pretend to pay in exposure or anything. This is a fairly common occurrence. In general I’m all for local art studios hosting community art for free, music competitions having the winners composition performed for free, etc. I would hate for those things that benefit artists to be condemned. A lot of important art foundations would no longer be able to operate.
So him not paying that group is fine despite having given the same ask before to a single person and paying them, ok then.
It’s clear your not gonna change how you think on this art competition and I really didn’t want to get in an argument over it cuz honestly to me it’s you pay for work, simple as that. But that’s not how you see it and don’t see it wrong for doing free work for what used to be paid to others, then so be it
I posted this accidentally elsewhere and to the wrong person, let me post here aaaaaa, now I’m just making mistakes accidentally deleting this post too, I’m sorry lol
I appreciate you taking the time to reply. I agree this kind of thing is a huge issue for independent artists (As an independent artist). When you have people willing to work for free it hurts every other artist trying to earn a living in the same field. Asking a large group of people and framing it as a competition can further dilute a individuals bargaining power.
However, I also care about being logically consistency. There are so many situations where pay isn’t appropriate. I’m not going to walk down to my local library and tell them to take down all the high schoolers art they are displaying, or go to my local cafe and shut down an open mic night (This is arguably way worse because the cafe is profiting). With your black and white framing both of these things are immoral. The payed in exposure thing is obviously a huge problem, but that doesn’t mean we reject all collaboration. We have look at context and examine each case to determine if it’s moral or not. I’d argue the value a amateur guitar player gets jamming out at a local cafe is the venue to practice performing for a group, and the fun they probably have. Don’t expect another reply, but I am curious what you think of these situations? Seems like under your code they would be equally bad?
The library if partnered with the school or just their local library is fine, that’s not said to be a competition, if it were it’s usually either charity which no prize money to winner or if it’s a compulsory comp which no too since your forced into it. If an optional school comp like bands the winner would get money or prize like new equipment for said winner, not just exposure.
The open mic isn’t said to be a comp either, it’s an open stage allowing people to voice themselves but if it was a comp than yes prize money. Charity comps are fine as it’s to help a cause like homeless or fire relief but when that’s not the case, prize money when it’s a comp asking for work of any kind and not tied to underage people participating
sorry, but are you serious? And who will code that hero, animate that hero, code his abilities and so on? The expectations towards VG CE from some people are insanely optimistic to the point of unrealistic.
Why don’t you look from the other side: I spend 1000 dollars and more (yes, literally) in this game, now they shutdown ONLY EUROPE where I am located and rest of the world, but will NOT shutdown China - it’s not full shutdown of a game, it’s partial and I assure you it’s not ok. It’s literally that the product you paid for is denied to you (as they even refuse to transfer accounts!!!) while continues to work just fine for a lot of people in region.
So cut it off with that BS how good they are, what charity they do and some off hours to transfer tasks to other people without paying them. They got plenty of content and ofc employees that can do the job. They could also find a way to keep VG going scaled down - few servers in Frankfurt are enough for Europe, few key locations in US are enough too to cover it. I am tired of people defending them when a lot of people got burned with a lot of money in a game that they played only for two years actively to say how they got their money returned. This is not LOL where if you spend thousands you can still play and you will play years in the future. VG got a really bright feature and SEMC made it look like it got even brighter with all e-sports and events, we invested a lot of money and time, and now they will deny the game from me, but not from the China players. The whole rogue fiasco - I was against it from the start, I am sure I got negative posts here about it, I knew what will happen and that it will be soon, it was obvious even then.
1 Like
It’s totally possible in IOS, needs work on the app ofc and server side, but that’s the point of community edition in my honest opinion - to do the hard work so the game can be live forever via community and only heavy modding/adding content will ensure that.
1 Like
I find this topic very interesting, so let me contribute my own two cents.
i’ll break my post into two sections, because i feel like both sides have sensible arguments, even though i don’t agree with all of them.
So, i skimmed through the thread ( because i had a zoom meeting while i was reading this ), excuse and correct me if i missed some key info.
First, i’d like to side with @coltonJW on the whole artists shouldn’t be discouraged to contribute their own work to community projects without compensation , even though the said community is owned by a corporation, SEMC for example.
Now, i think you guys severely overreacted to what this man was trying to convey. Why is this notion so shocking? It happens literally every day. ( But i don’t entirely disagree with you, you’ll see that in the second half of my post ).
i’d like to present two arbitrary examples.
-
Youtube. i’m 100% sure we’ve all seen popular individual creators using fanmade thumbnails, intros, music, etc. The thing is these people willingly gave away their creation for it to be featured in the community they are part of. key word, WILLINGLY. Why did they do this? Probably because they wanted to be seen, they deemed it fun, or they were passionate about it.
-
Now let’s hit close to home and talk about a certain game i absolutely love and adore. Terraria. Quick rundown -It is a 2D action-adventure, open-world sandbox / platformer game which was released in 2011 by the company Re-Logic, one of my most respected gaming companies next to Team Cherry and CD projekt Red.
Developers have been ultra transparent for years and listen, interact with the community on another level. Should i say the community is very, very friendly and one of the most passionate i’ve seen in a long time, due to abundance of mods and etc. ( solidifying @cha0z’s arguement, but that’s another topic )
Why i brought this up is to commemorate Terraria’s 9th birthday and its final update, They are hosting a Vanity contest. In short, you have an opportunity to design a costume set that might be implemented in the game.
Here’s the thread:
I want you to read a part of the announcement:
- By participating in the contest, you agree to relinquish all rights to your vanity design to Re-Logic for inclusion into the game. Winners will be required to sign a document to that effect.
and what happened is that they got over 6 THOUSAND(!!!) submissions by profssional and non-professional artists and designers alike.
the message i’m trying to convey is that these people, including me, love the game with passion and they are willing to etch their names in the game history without any compensation whatsoever.
Do these people deserve to be paid for their work? Sure, but in a different setting. Developers clearly stated that participants had to be willing to relinquish their rights.
If an artist refused these conditions, they simply wouldn’t participate and that’s that.
Now, i’d like to flip the coin over.
Artists have always been …“bullied?” in our society, dunno if that’s the correct word to describe it, but i’ll roll w it for now. This is quite personal actually. I come from a second world country some of you never even heard of and 20 years prior to ours life was an absolute struggle, people barely got by for survival. My mother studied art and was literally called a prodigy of her generation. She even got a chance to exhibit her works in Washington DC when head of The U.S. Department of Arts of the time noticed her while visiting our country back then, and she did. Back then this was close to impossible and was regarded as a huge success…but for naught. Due to the nature of living here, artists are basically nonexistent in the job market. You literally can not survive by art as your profession. Thus, she had to change careers and got into cultural management and PR. I am writing this in the room decorated by many of her paintings. Even though life got much better, the stigma remains. Artists aren’t taken seriously and that’s terrible imo. Thousands of talented individuals are forced to do or be something or someone they are not. It’s just sad, but that’s our reality for now
Regarding SEMC now. Seeing how shady this whole fiasco is, it’s understandable that the aforementioned statement about the new logo would cause distrust, more so when they clearly didn’t communicate enough, unlike terraria’s mods who outlined that there would be no material benefit, in advance. Honestly? If i were an artist and had an opportunity to, i’d not make them a logo, even though it’s a community game now ( questionably ), because there’s zero motivation and seeing all these disastrous imbalances and events in Vainglory right now make me think that the game is done for. But i’m sure there are still people left who are willing to contribute. After all, i wouldn’t be visiting vgforums, if i weren’t a lifelong fan of the game and the community.
To wrap this up, couple of key points:
-
SEMC should’ve or should clearly explain the legal aspect of the process and the reasoning.
-
Contributing to the community for free is nothing new, but i think the current situation of our game made people view this act from SEMC as a very negative one, which i can understand why, because i also harbor the same stance somewhat.
-
" Why would i make something for them free, when they did almost nothing for us free "
Sorry if this stretched more than it should’ve.
2 Likes