What if Valve (or other companies) charged for SDK's?

I was browsing around the VERC, and came across a topic where a user was wondering where he could buy the SDK so he could create maps. He was, of course, shown that the SDK was free, but something hit me: What if SDK's (regardless of game) were only available if you purchased them. What state would the mod community be in? Would we still have all these crappy "de_dust_glass_surf_hdr_rats" maps floating around? Or would it be tons of high-quality work with the occasional beginner map? Would people spend more time working since they had to invest money into their dream?

Don't answer with "but someone would just crack the SDK" - yes, they would. But, for a minute, pretend the Internet is a place where people respect other peoples work.

I think it would put a fair few people off - level design (or other areas of development requiring the SDK) aren't necessarily things that people KNOW they will like, and if they don't have the opportunity to try it out for free, whats to say they will try it out at all? Whether or not scaring off those people is a good thing or a bad thing is down to personal opinion of course :wink:

All in all I think it would be a smaller community by far, which is probably not a good thing. People might be a bit more dedicated to the cause, due to the investment they had made, but I imagine the SDKs would be cheap anyway. Reall though, it just doesn't really make much sense for companies to charge for SDKs. Releasing their tools and helping a modding community extend their product's life significantly (well, if the tools and engine are good), so it makes perfect sense to release them free.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

I know it doesn't make sense to charge for SDK's, and - given a choice - I would never vote to change this. They should always be free, but it's one of those parallel universe scenarios. You know, "What if I had done this?", "What if I had turned left instead of right?", "What if I hadn't ever killed Leperous and wore his skin?"

It puts the lotion in the basket -

I think the mod community wouldn't be as strong as it is if you had to pay for the SDK.

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Posting And You

It'd raise the question of if you bought the SDK, whether or not that would qualify as a license to sell whatever stuff you come up with as well.

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One day you'll know what you're talking about, I can hardly imagine

Maps! - Audio blog!

The only thing that keeps games of this type popular is its user level of interaction. If it were not available, more people would avoid it. Simply speaking, Deathmatch and its ilk wouldn't be so fun if we had to depend on the makers to release maps. Theirs tend to be over simplistic to cope with all the baseline machines.

Games like Half-life would die shortly after the single player adventure was completed. Thats sad, but I feel close to the truth.

Sadly, games got boring when they took cooperative mode out of the mix. I loved completing a game with a partner. I played Doom II and all the coop games over and over again. I have never finished anything since except Unreal II.. Nothing else. and.. I own practically every FPS game there is.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

The Warriors is the greatest coop experience to come out in years. Pick that s**t up.

You mean the game they made about the movie?

[edit] there is no PC version... and I don't play consoles...

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Yeah, it is a really, really great adaption of the movie (which I am a fan of) and also essintially revives the beat 'em up genre. Buy a console and enjoy it. Sometimes you need to venture outside of your computer realm.

Just wait a litle longer, Rockstar always releases a PC version sooner or later. However, I'm sure you'll still need a controller to play it properly. Use one of your son's consoles, you old goon.

Computer realism ... but consoles are ... f**k it.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

I think it'd be totally wack to charge for SDKs. It'd be just like the games themselves: nobody really WANTS to pay for them, you know? I know I wouldn't, and lately I've been trying not to get cracked or illegal stuff, so I probably would stop mapping. This would be a big loss forthe mapping comunity because of... well, it really wouldn't be...

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I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com

With out a free SDK, HL1 probably wouldn't have lasted as long as it has. Fewer mods would have been created, and fewer custom maps.

On the good side, only the dedicated would pay, so less killboxes created, and more quality work created would be a likely cause.

Even though it might decrease the amount of aim_fy_icworld_remde_dusttt_2K6_101_1337_colt_ak47_mix_aztec maps, it will prevent people from being to be creative in this form of game design, and thus more brainless shooting and less creative fun, and it would damage these communities badly. Also I find that SDK's add to a game's value, thus I want to buy it more.

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Hahaha! Im using the INTERNET!

The only problem with crap, quick maps is not so much that people make
them, its that they get more playtime on servers than good maps. And of
course when people play a good map on a custom map server and they all
do a vote map for some other rubbish because its "fun" and only takes
10 seconds to download, as opposed to a couple of minutes. Thats the
only gripe I have. I wouldn't mind people making crap maps if they
didn't get any playtime on servers, and for a change mine did :smile: .

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Ham and Jam Contributor
http://www.hamandjam.org

'Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!'

probably? i'm definetly sure it wouldn't have. we would not have CS... that alone just stomps the growth of HL. seriously, without CS, HL would have fallen to the wayside like many of the countless FPS games before and after it.

but what about people just trying it? I tried to pick it up once back in nineth or tenth grade, but didn't spend more than 15 minutes on it. then tried again a year later, got into it a little, but never took it anywhere. then a year after that I found out about NS (before it was released) and then bam... i was hooked on mapping. that was it. Senior year, I did not do homework. I mapped.

so there you have it. I pretty much know I'd never have gotten into mapping if it were priced.

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___My Site___ | www.leveldesign.nl

No one starts as an expert, and a noob sure as hell isnt going to pay for a SDK.

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http://maze5.net

What if SDK's (regardless of game) were only available if you purchased them. What state would the mod community be in?

That would be the stupidest thing Valve could do. It's like saying "Yes, you may keep our community alive by countless hours of producing free content for others but you have to pay for it!"

I think reaching the most people possible is great, and charging for
the SDK would inhibit this greatly. The number of casual mappers
who grew into great mappers would definitely decrease.

I wouldn't have been here if the HL SDK wasn't free. I've been mapping for some games before HL, but that was peanuts compared to what I've learned in the past 6 years of HL mapping. I'm not the kind of guy who buys something over the internet that easily either, so even if I would've heard about it, I wonder if I would have gotten it.

Yes, it would certainly keep down the amount of 'dumb' maps, but also hinder, or even block, some great would-be designers, and keep the community in general down because resources would be much more limited (aren't coders hard to find? Well, just imagine how hard they would be to find in such case).

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

Well, there certainly wouldn't be as many mods out there: moving along Vash's parallel lines theory, you could almost think of it as a time-theory. Simply by making people buy the SDK could have, for all we know, destroyed Sven-Coop, or The Specialists, or even Counter-Strike :razz:

Also, like Reno said, I wouldn't go near a SDK or development tool that wouldn't at least let me try it out. I'm not paying another 40$ just to wind up with another crap Genisis3D 11, like how I did when I started mapping.

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Breaking the laws of mapping since 2003 and doing a damn fine job at it

Lots of source level designers wouldn't make maps. Like me!(although I don't make source maps) I wouldn't pay a dime for level design.

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Elon Yariv

I have actually paid for additional programs (well, only one so far - Milkshape 3D), so I would pay for stuff I actually would use a lot, but within limits.
I can't say buying Milkshape was a bad choice bytheway. Though not a high-poly modeller, it certainly allowed (and allows) me to do funny things I wouldn't have been capable of without. And on top of that, I learned how to model, which is an important thing when programming 3D stuff. :smile:

So, I would pay, if it would pay off. But you don't buy what you don't know, so trials are always a good thing methinks. :smile:

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

I suspect, Vash, that if whoever made apostrophes charged for them there wouldnt be so many superfluous ones such as in the title of this thread...

I'm not serious enough about mapping to pay for it. If I had to pay, I'd switch to a different engine.

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"If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?"

• My yr11 Economics teacher

Yes, ignore all my correct spelling and point out the one grammatical error.

You want somebody to bitch at for grammatical errors, take a look at Brasso and his love affair of the ellipsis :biggrin: I don't think he's ever used a full stop before without immediately following it with two others :razz: Sorry Brasso, love you really!

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

I knew this guy...Who...Really loved...His ellipsis...But...To make it even....Worse...He use to....End all...Sentences with....The word lol...lol...

ellipsis are great.
In forums you can use them like a smilies. It's the equivalent of looking meaningful for a split second.

hmm...

I like using it for an unknown amount of arguments.

I'll be quiet now.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Why would a game developer charge for the very thing that has the power to make the game popular ? That would be plain boycotting of your own publicity.

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:: Forceflow.be :: Nuclear Dawn developer

I like the occasional ellipsis... but I rarely use more than one or two ellipses in a post.

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"If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?"

• My yr11 Economics teacher

I like using it for an unknown amount of arguments.

I'll be quiet now.

Don't you worry Crono, you got a laugh out of me

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

I'm more of a fan of the --

I almost always insert a -- into a post, where a comma would do fine.

And this was a mapping-related thread... once... :razz:

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

It was... once. -- now it isn't anymore.

I just read at the Steam Review that Garry's Mod will be sold for $10 over Steam with the next update. I don't know if it's a hoax but it sounds rather serious (also it's too late for Arpil fools...).

This reminds me a bit of charging for the SDK, I must say. I don't know what to think about it. Maybe it's just because I don't like Garry very much. I once saw him behave like a dick in his forums. He reminds me of that frustrated GM in the other thread :biggrin:

What do you think about this?

If it is true, it won't work. If he had done this from the very
beginning, it would have worked, but it's too late now. I don't think
people will be motivated enough into buying a mod unless the change is HUGE.

If it is true, it won't work. If he had done this from the very
beginning, it would have worked, but it's too late now. I don't think
people will be motivated enough into buying a mod unless the change is HUGE.

Well, it worked quite well with CS... (also DoD and TFC in a way...). What I do like about the idea is that it's a really unique game concept. An FPS mod neither about war nor terrorism.

Big debates about this all over the place. Tons of people screaming SELLOUT.

Whatever, as long as I have my previous free version I'm okay.

You could probably download the SDK's from illegal sites, so I don't think it would have a huge impact.

You could probably download the SDK's from illegal sites, so I don't think it would have a huge impact.

It would be Steam secured.

Not necessarily, there are plenty of versions of CS: S that you do not
need steam for, then again I would say they wouldn't be able to use
online. But Hammer doesn't need to connect to servers.