Twitch / Paypal donation event mod...

[lazy8244]

So... I have 5 or 6 different streamers looking at a mod that will react to bit/paypal donations to trigger events, good or bad to interact with players.
Now, I've not looked at this completely ( I looked briefly once for a15, but got a job that killed my free time), and I've got maybe no idea where to start yet.  Would this be something possible to take on? Should this be something to take on? What do you people, who are Modders think about this?  Am I just stupid, and should start with this already?

I know, I'm an idiot, but I would like a few opinions instead of just Twitch streamers who say this would be awesome to have...

Lazy =)

[dburgdorf]

I'll freely admit that I may be missing something, as "Twitch streaming" is something I don't pay much of any attention to, beyond being vaguely aware that it exists, but my first thought when I read your post was, "That sounds like someone's trying to figure out a way to profit off of Tynan's work."

So I suppose my question is, who'd profit from this system you have in mind, and have you checked to make sure that you wouldn't be violating the game's distribution or copyright terms by creating and using it?

[lazy8244]

Well, the way you are looking at it, Any twitch broadcaster/ Youtube broadcaster would be doing this already...

[Canute]

When these streamer geting donations, they can pay some modder for these feature instead to ask for a free mod.

[dburgdorf]

Well, the way you are looking at it, Any twitch broadcaster/ Youtube broadcaster would be doing this already...

As I said, this is not an area in which I have any specific knowledge.

(Frankly, the entire Internet subculture that's grown around the idea of sitting and watching videos of other people playing games makes absolutely no sense to me. If I'm interested in a game, I want to play it, not watch someone else play it.)

My only point was that you should probably check the relevant license/copyright info before you pursue your idea.  If Tynan distributes RimWorld with conditions that say "no one else can make money off of my work" (and I don't know if he does or not), then what your proposing could be problematic.

When these streamer geting donations, they can pay some modder for these feature instead to ask for a free mod.

Again, my only point was "check the relevant legal info."  If RimWorld (like some other games) specifically disallows modders from making money from their work, then the fact that a modder would be getting paid instead of doing it for free could be a problem.

I'm not saying the proposal is a bad idea. I'm not saying that creating this mod would violate any terms or conditions. I'm just saying, "Look before you leap." 

EDIT: Of course, it occurs to me now that more than a few RimWorld modders have "donation" buttons of some sort on their profiles or mod pages, so it's probably not an issue. Still, it's always good to be sure.

[FauxGrim]

Well, the way you are looking at it, Any twitch broadcaster/ Youtube broadcaster would be doing this already...

As I said, this is not an area in which I have any specific knowledge.

(Frankly, the entire Internet subculture that's grown around the idea of sitting and watching videos of other people playing games makes absolutely no sense to me. If I'm interested in a game, I want to play it, not watch someone else play it.)

It's pretty much the same mentality as the hundreds of thousands of people sitting in their living room watching a game of football / soccer / ice hockey / basketball / baseball +++. They are not participating in the match so why would they watch someone else play instead of playing themselves?

• It's low-effort entertainment. Perhaps you are interested in playing a game but you don't have the energy to do so, you can watch someone else play and by extension you are experiencing the game. Where some people would kick back with a movie or a series, increasingly many are now opening a stream to watch instead. Additionally as we know with Rimworld, the difficult games tend to make the best stories, but not every player have the energy or willpower to play the really difficult games. In that case watching a streamer (with this energy and mentality) play through difficult games, you can experience the interesting stories and their enthusiasm will affect you.


• It's a sense of community. Just like in any sports with a fan-group the streamer will attract a group of viewers that are slowly gaining a sense of identity. You identify as a "fan of streamer XYZ", you will have a greater sense of commonality with other fans.


• It's a dialogue, not a monologue. Good streamers are interacting with their viewers and fans. As opposed to the soccer match where any amount of screaming into your TV in your living room will not have any impact on the match or players, in the case of streamer-viewer interaction you have the ability to speak with the streamer, affect the streamer, and thus the gameplay, and there is a sense of acknowledgment in being heard.
  

There is of course a lot of bad sides with this culture and some are particularly cringe-worthy but there are a market / demand for a mod increasing the interactivity the viewers have with the game of the streamer.

When it comes to donation, people are donating to the streamer for their content creation, pretty much regardless of what game they play. This is also not against any legal rules when it comes to Tynan and Rimworld (as far as I know. EA, Ubisoft, Activision ++ are all encouraging streaming of their games since for them it is free publicity and very good publicity at that.).
The more people playing Rimworld on streams + people watching such streams will drastically increase the sales and interest in Rimworld. Just look at how successful PLAYERUNKNOWN Battlegrounds is from a marketing point of view. They didn't pay for TV commercials and internet-banners. They gave the game for free to famous streamers, collectively having thousands of viewers across all of them and all the viewers wanted to also be like their favourite streamer and really good at that game, buying the game in the process. They have now sold over 8 million copies in 4-5 months and the game is still in early access.

When it comes to legal stuff I would rather focus my attention on who gets the money. The streamer or the modder? The viewers wanting to donate will be faced with their streamer's donate-button funneling money through either PayPal or directly through Twitch in the case of donating 'bits' (Twitch's internal currency) and into the streamers personal account.

I think making such a mod for free, not taking any cuts from the streamer's donations would be legally simple and pretty straightforward. Being a mod wanting to have a cut or sell the mod for a one-time fee would be more challenging and may be against Rimworld EULA and such.

Have we seen any other mod on the forum / workshop that you have to pay for to access?

In the end I think it's this interaction between streamer-modder donation money that would require more research before diving into such a project.

[RawCode]

https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=31553.msg323404#msg323404

replace web command with IPC or hook into twitch api, or what api you are using for streaming.

everything is already done, all you need to dedicate time and effort, this is not any hard, just try a bit.