Rant - The ways in which the sims community is completely insane.

[liegenschonheit]

Not too long ago, I was talking to a friend of mine who works at Gamespot. The subject of The Sims 2 came up, and he got a funny look on his face and asked me if everyone in The Sims community was insane. It seems that Gamespot posted a couple mods on one of their pages relating to The Sims 2, which is pretty par for the course on that site. Like they do for every other game, they gave full credit to the creators, included linkbacks and all that jazz. Then, nearly a year after the files went up, my friend recieved not one, but two irate emails from the creators of these files demanding to know why they were not asked explicit permission to have their files reposted and/or linked to. This, he told me, is not normal modder behaviour, most of the time modders are thrilled to even get a mention on Gamespot.

I thought about it for a moment, and had to admit that this is a pretty common reaction in this community. People are insanely posessive of their stuff. In most modding communities, as long as a file includes a readme with the original creator's name and contact info, everything is kosher. Not so for the sims. Instead, every tiny mesh or recolour that is created comes with all kinds of disclaimers. I can deal with the standard "Don't upload my mesh or I'll kill you, link back to me" stuff. But then you get the "Don't recolour my mesh unless you have explicit permission, and then you can only post your recolours on site xyz, if I don't like it I'll ask you to remove it, and OMGZ NO EXCHANGE OR I'LL THROW A TEMPER TANTRUM!"

Lets get real for a moment, shall we? Okay, yes, you just spent a very long time creating your very special mesh. Horray! Lets upload it. Now, as far as I am concerned, you have set it free in the vast ocean of public domain. People are going to use it, modify it, recolour it, turn it inside out, and spit it back out. You will most likely see it floating around with someone else's name attached, and yes, no matter how you scream and pout, it will end up in the garbage dump of the exchange at sometime or other. It's no better for people who recolour or retexture, you put it out there and people will use your alphas, frankenstein bits of your texture into other things, recolour, invert, and turn it upside down, often with no credit back to you whatsoever. That's what happens.

So what can you do about it? Nothing, really. Making people ask your permission to recolour it or insisting that no one else can touch it EVER, EVER! is not going to fix the problem. People will ignore it entirely and still do it. At least when you ask nicely that people link back for your mesh, most of the time you'll still get credit, if that is what you're after. Mostly, I see this kind of behaviour in novice modders, but every once in awhile I come across an experienced modder who still has some weird complex about his/her work. "This is purple! I don't like purple! Take it down!" or "I didn't give you explicit permission to recolour my mesh, so take it down right away!" Okay, but this is my texture. I made it. I'm not offering the mesh for download, so why are you demanding that I remove my creation from where I choose to post it?

In closing, let me just say that I am not speaking as someone who doesn't know what she is talking about. I've had things I've made stolen and posted on the exchange as someone else's work. I've seen my textures and alphas used by other people without credit back to me. I've seen some of my stuff mutated into something I think is horribly ugly. People use my stuff on custom sims and forget to credit me. None of this is the end of the world.

Write up a nice readme file, stick it in your rar, and hope for the best. And stop whining.

*Disclaimer: This rant may not be reposted without explicit written permission by me in triplicate, and can't be posted on sites that I don't like. It can't be reposted on days starting with the letters T or W because I don't like those letters. It can only be posted on blue, purple or green backgrounds because those are colours that I like. AND OMGZ NO EXCHANGE!

This rant isn't directed at MATY or anyone at MATY specifically. I just chose to post it here because I didn't want to have to deal with people who can't post an intelligent response.

[BlueSoup]

** I'm going to leave this in the Podium, on the grounds that I agree about RL, I think the Podium is much better.  But I make no guarantees about anyone else not moving it.

With that being said, I happen to totally agree with you about the way in which a lot (not all) creators view their work.  There's a lot of egomaniacal tripping, and I tend to ignore it anyway (not that I do much with other people's work).  I have only ever altered one person's mesh and I posted in his thread a link to here where I offered it for download.  I never heard one word about it, even though this person was sort of known for that type of behaviour. *shrug*

Anyway, good rant. 

[neriana]

Yep, I agree. Maybe it's because the Sims 2 has such a large modding community, and many of them make money from their creations. Their copyright stuff bleeds over into free creations. I guess. Could just be insanity, though.

[liegenschonheit]

I didn't mention anything about pay sites, because that kind of thing is becomming more and more common with popular games. MMORPG players pay for gold and items on Ebay, and it's a pretty lucrative industry, or so I'm told. Microsoft started up that Xbox marketplace, where you can pay real money for game items too. I guess that's just the way the industry is headed.

But can you say that any of this stuff is really "copyright"? Maybe they made the mesh and/or the textures, but EA/Maxis owns the game and the engine and everything else. EA could concievably add a clause in their EU agreement saying that charging for custom content is not allowed, and then sue everyone who didn't take their pay sites down. (Not that they would, they'll just follow the trend )

[BlueSoup]

When you set up a fansite, you are supposed to read and agree to their End User License agreement, which states pretty clear that EA owns the license for it all in the end.

[vaughje]

I do think sometimes the same thing.  I love XMSims meshes, but the texture colors on the reds and the blonds sometimes aren't quite right.  And usually someone has a more realistic recolor on MTS2 really quickly that I snatch up.  Best of both worlds I think.

I am particularly confused about the few people that make recolors of Maxis meshes and refuse to have them listed at other sites, or downloaded to the exchange *cough* as an example.  I understand that there are some very complicated textures out there, but these are solid colors covering over other solid colors.  I don't know, I shouldn't even say because I don't make anything myself (too lazy, Pescado ) but really.

Anyways, before I get blacklisted from creaters  yes I think that if you want to make something and share it, than share it already.

[neriana]

Those end-user agreements may or may not stand up in court in the U.S. I'm pretty sure there's contradictory case law on the subject.

In any case, I really don't get why people hate the idea of their stuff showing up on the Exchange so much. Is it because the identifying filenames get garbled? Is it maybe an attempt to stop people from downloading files they might not want? People can do what they want with what little stuff I've made. I assume people will be nice and give credit if it's warranted, and I don't think that people who would steal credit will be put off from stealing credit by being told not to. What really cracks me up is when people warn against doing anything to their creations even on your own computer for your own use.

[vaughje]

What really cracks me up is when people warn against doing anything to their creations even on your own computer for your own use.

   That's not one I've seen in a while, but I have seen that!

[Roux]

Yeah, way too many creators in the Sims community have taken their "artistic rights" to the extreme.  And the main problem is that it's infectious.  Every time a creator has insanely possessive guidelines, it continues to set the precedent that this is normal behavior.

Maybe I'm siding with "the man", but I'd find it amusing if EA started shutting pay sites down... some of them are ridiculous with their subscription fees.  Then again, if they can get idiots customers to pay, maybe it's not so ridiculous after all.  Except MATY, of course!  That $39.95/month is worth every penny!   

[ElfPuddle]

he got a funny look on his face and asked me if everyone in The Sims community was insane

In brief, yes, we are. Some of us disguise it well, and some of us are less paranoid...but we aren't all there up there.

[Pegasys]

What really cracks me up is when people warn against doing anything to their creations even on your own computer for your own use.

That cracks me up too.  How stupid can one get?

liegenschonheit, I totally agree with your rant.

I have taken things from various sites, and completely bastardized it to my own liking, and even included it in a movie for public consumption. I've wondered if I should even include a credit if it's been so modified from the original modification that it isn't recognizable any more?

Let's face it, none of us likes to start from scratch if there's a template out there that will cut down on hours of work. And honestly, that's what I view a lot of custom content out there as - potential templates.

People who are into modding and custom content creation will probably be happiest if they do it because they enjoy it, not because they want to gain ego strokes from it.

[JadeEliott]

Write up a nice readme file, stick it in your rar, and hope for the best. And stop whining.

I read this as: Write up a nice readme file, stick it in your rear, and hope for the best. And stop whining.

I completely agree.

Seriously, awesome rant. One rule. One simple rule. If you put something up on the net, it will get stolen. If it is really good, it will get stolen and someone will say it is theirs. If it is the sims community, this will happen in a matter of hours. Count on it, then get over it.

[ElfPuddle]

Write up a nice readme file, stick it in your rear, and hope for the best. And stop whining.

I completely agree.

 

[starrling]

I agree - and I think it all boils down to one thing:  selfishness.  It's all mememememememememe.  And I'm not singing

I remember when I used to make "bases" for cartoon dolls and started seeing them pop up all over the place under another name.  I just chalked it up to flattery.  *shrugs*

[J. M. Pescado]

Not too long ago, I was talking to a friend of mine who works at Gamespot. The subject of The Sims 2 came up, and he got a funny look on his face and asked me if everyone in The Sims community was insane.

That seems to be a reasonable assessment.

I thought about it for a moment, and had to admit that this is a pretty common reaction in this community. People are insanely posessive of their stuff. In most modding communities, as long as a file includes a readme with the original creator's name and contact info, everything is kosher. Not so for the sims. Instead, every tiny mesh or recolour that is created comes with all kinds of disclaimers. I can deal with the standard "Don't upload my mesh or I'll kill you, link back to me" stuff. But then you get the "Don't recolour my mesh unless you have explicit permission, and then you can only post your recolours on site xyz, if I don't like it I'll ask you to remove it, and OMGZ NO EXCHANGE OR I'LL THROW A TEMPER TANTRUM!"

Blah, blah, blah. Notice which site doesn't have any such policy. It's not cost effective for me to try to stop you, so there's no point in encouraging it by forbidding it. Besides, I don't give a shit. You wanna take my stuff and use it as a template, great. Hopefully you'll retain my anal-retentive standards of quality for your finish product, too. There's enough shitty stuff out there.

[Paperbladder]

If these people cared so much about protecting their content, then why didn't they file for a Creative Commons license rather than just saying "Oh, you can't redistribute this".  Not to mention that these same people probably infringe on copyrights by posting screenshots from games, copyrighted materials in avatars, etc.  They only give a damn if it would prevent them from becoming "famous".

Besides, I'm not sure those Paysites are entirely legal anyway since they're selling copyrighted Maxian work.

[rohina]

Interesting rant, and I agree in principle that if you don't want to share your stuff, you shouldn't upload it. However, I wonder if part of the source of the paranoia is the fact that there are so many sheep in the community who wouldn't recognise plagiarism if it ran up and bit them. Especially on the exchange there are a lot of users who upload stuff which isn't their creation, and not only do they not credit the actual creator, they change the info to say that they created it.

This annoys me, but more as a general principle and from a professional perspective - I'll be dealing with these sheep, or their clones in classes, and they'll cry and accuse me of "ruining their lives" when I fail them for submitting essays that they cut and pasted from some website.

[liegenschonheit]

I agree, plagarism is bad. In fact, it is one of the things that I hate the most, being something of a writer. However, being paranoid to the point of anal retentiveness is not going to stop people from stealing your work and posting it on the exchange as their own. It has happened to me, and it has happened to several talented creators that I know. Honestly, there is no way to prevent that except not to post it at all.

Hence why I refer to the exchange as a garbage dump in my rant.

[nectere]

I take issue with this whole credit mania personally. Get over yourself already, so you made a mesh, or a recolor, a mod - wooo you are special. It saddens me to see some of who I thought were really respectable modders/creators doing this. Without the game you dont have jack so get over it. And if you dont want anyone to play with your toys then dont share them, simple as that.

[J. M. Pescado]

I'd be more amused than anything if someone stole from us here. I mean, wow, our stuff is so cool you'd steal it just to weasel out of paying a mere $39.95 a month? Who would do a thing like that? Chumps.

[nectere]

I have been considering a coup d'etat of sorts, to oppugn this ridiculousness. While the idea of posting anything I make on a site I dont control unnerves me because of all the sheer stupidity out there, I think it would be kinda funny if all of us that make stuff (not that I make a lot) started posting our creations to some of these sims2 warehouses. The caveat however, is that we want our stuff to be distributed, cloned, edited, torn apart, recolored and uploaded everywhere including and especially the exchange.

[virgali]

Nice rant, I totally agree but there's another factor I'd like to comment on. The stealing part. I mean really, what's the big deal about it? Of course it's very unfair and irritating to see somehting you've worked very hard on posted somewhere and someone else taking the credit for it BUT we don't have to forget we are in the TS2 community here.

People download form all kinds of sources and I'm sure sooner or later people will realise which the impostors are and which the true artists. Try not to be insulted (I know it's easy for me to say this) but flattered it was good enough to steal.

And for the morrons that steal creators stuff and put it on the exchange as their own, what could they possibly gain from this? some "fancy" stars ont he official site? A few "OMG! BENES!!!" Those people are losers and tbh if I were an artist I wouldn't even bother to hunt them down.

I would also like to comment that I could care less who made what. As a download freak I would get me things 'cause I like them and i'm not able nor have the time to make them myself. Of course knowing the creators is good for a refference to get quality stuff or a certain style of content you like. Don't get me wrong I'm glad that are ppl out there that make all these things that make my game more entertaining and fun to play... but if Cathy smith doesn't do it then John Doe prolly will and the final product is all that matters to me.

Besides some should stop acting as if they are doing us a favor. I mean most creators get into this because they love creating and enjoy doing it and are happy to share what they make with others. If you are in it for any other reason just find another hobby. I know it's hard work but they wouldn't spend so much of their time unless they enjoy doing it. It's notlike anybody pointed a gun at their heads and demanded TS2 content, so some should stop acting as if it's such a burden and people oughta bow and reward with them and praise. If it's such aburden then quit, find another hobby.

All I wanted to say is that this is about a game and thigns should stay fun both for the creators and the users otherwise what are we spending time and money on?

Greets,
Kyra

[jrd]

The Sims community is indeed insane. Name one other game community where people are expected to pay for user created downloads.

[Jelenedra]

I will agree the Sims community is insane. And frankly, I'm not too concerned over people stealing MY stuff, as most of my uploads are sims themselves (with the exception of a bit of custom content here and there included with them.)

I hate paysites.

I don't mind donation sets.

Popular sites, like peggysims, probably need the support for the extra bandwidth. Best thing about her site is that her free stuff is just as good, if not better than her donation items.

[BlueSoup]

Yes, but in Peggy's particular case, she has more free stuff than pay stuff and she's charging too much per month.

I don't think this is what this thread was intended to be (because we've already had this discussion before about paysites), so that's all I'll say.