Announcing the FG Forge

[Zygmunt Molotch]

since we're all counting I also disapprove of Microtransactions, that is the definitive anti-consumer practice

however I am aware that this is the FG forum

free and patronage is great though! :-)

guess it makes sense on the transferring side with the rates, only alternative is delayed settling at certain thresholds

[SilentRuin]

Do not despair SW,

I think you'll find many users see gold (coins) in a negative context because many games use this to sell advantages in game and special flair simply make extra money. These are usually called microtransactions when they do this kind of stuff and has a very negative view from gamers in general.

Unfortunately, when gamers see shops with gold or other types of non cash transactions - they immediately feel a negative feeling because of the microtransactions selling advantages and special flair just to milk the customer. I know this is not the case here - and suggest you'll have to weather this negative opinion until the gamers realize what your actually selling is not "special advantages" or "empty flair" simply to make money. But instead are selling actual tools and data to make the player and DM's life simpler.

So don't worry so much over the negative feedback of gold - while I prefer cash systems myself because of the negative feelings I have toward non cash transactions in other games - I try to shake that feeling off and understand that this is simply a small company doing the best it can for the sellers and buyers, keeping costs and overhead down.

Others will come to understand this with time. It just may take a while

[LordEntrails]

I added a developer ticket to add this language to the Treasury screen:


Why Gold?

Gold allows SmiteWorks to offer low cost Forge items from crafters without experiencing excessive transaction fees that would otherwise make it prohibitive to offer items under $5. This allows crafters to create and price the products at whatever price they want, allows users to transfer gold from one another without incurring additional fees, and allows for future functionality around donations and patronage.

The bold part, is that confusing to anyone else? It implies to me that we can transfer/send/share gold between forum accounts other than through 'purchases' of Forge products. Is that the case or am I just reading the wrong things into this?

[Trenloe]

since we're all counting I also disapprove of Microtransactions, that is the definitive anti-consumer practice

There are a bunch of things I don't think are great around all of this, but hate it or not, micro-transactions is a pretty standard practice for small in-app purchases. In the case of the Fantasy Grounds Forge, the reasons have been provided - it's not financially viable for SmiteWorks to process any payments less than $5, nothing else.

The main two alternatives, in this case, are:
1) Anything that is sold on the forge (i.e. not free) has a minimum cost of $5. This would include "tips" to crafters.
2) There's no forge at all and products that violate the WotC/DMsGuild agreement are removed from DMsGuild and no one has access to them.

Either of those would be a more definitive anti-consumer practice than having microtransactions.

As has been stated already in this thread - you'll never have more than 499 ($4.99) in gold in your account - usually much less. If all of this is an issue to you, then either miss out on buying things from the forge (which may not be an issue to you), or carefully manage your purchases so that you only buy products that amount to what you have in gold. SmiteWorks might make the options to add custom amounts above $5 in future (that's just my opinion) and if they do, this should make it much easier to keep a close to 0 gold balance in your account.

To step back from all this - a few months ago WotC and DMsGuild were going to pull a bunch of FG extensions/modules from their website (even $0/PWYW products). SmiteWorks has spent a lot of resources to get a solution in place that means that those products won't disappear and will have a home moving forwards. As part of this, they also added functionality that a lot of users have been asking for - auto update of community extensions/modules. All of this has come at a big up-front cost to SmiteWorks (in terms of their development, testing and hosting costs) and has a continuing cost (hosting, moderation, updates and support). To expect them to adopt a payment scheme that either makes them lose money (taking individual payments that are less than $5); pushes out some developers or artificially inflates the value of some content (due to a minimum non-gold payment) is a little short sighted IMO...

As @SilentRuin says above - please try to look passed your opinions of microtransactions in general and see where SmiteWorks are coming from, the situation they found themselves in a few months ago, and the amazing new Forge functionality that will only improve over time...

In the end, you're not being forced to purchase anything from the Forge - you can get all of the free products without buying any gold, and all of the official Fantasy Grounds products will be available from the Store as usual.

[Naurthoron]

There are more than 2 alternatives
e.g.:
3/ Everything becomes free/pay what you want/tip the author and there is no need for a specific transaction platform :-)

[Trenloe]

There are more than 2 alternatives
e.g.:
3/ Everything becomes free/pay what you want/tip the author and there is no need for a specific transaction platform :-)

Pay what you want/tip the author still requires a payment platform. As mentioned previously, making a low payment means that SmiteWorks lose money. So this isn't really an option either - unless you're suggesting SmiteWorks run the Forge at a loss?

Plus, this has a number of issues:
1) There are some products in the Forge now that are now over 500 gold to purchase - It's highly unlikely that these products would be produced and available in the Forge if "everything becomes free/pay what you want/tip the author". Whether you like these or not, the sales for some of these products when they were on DMsGuild were high - so that indicates that some people want these products and are willing to pay for them.
2) As I mentioned previously - the driver for getting the Forge developed was because some products for sale on DMsGuild were going to be removed, and the Forge was needed to provide a continued marketplace for those, and other such products. Making everything free/PWYW/tips does not provide a similar avenue for those products, even without taking into account the cost of any small PWYW/tips (as mentioned above).
3) As I also mentioned previously, setting up and maintaining the Forge has a cost associated with it. Are you suggesting that this cost is completely absorbed by SmiteWorks with further costs if someone tips $0.50 (for example)?

So, no, I don't see this as another alternative at all. Certainly not a realistic alternative based off all of the points made in this thread so far.

Don't lose sight that the Forge is a great place for creators to share their work with Fantasy Grounds users, backed by the FG update process to make sure you have the latest product version on your system. It's up to the creator if they charge anything for their work. The use of gold (pre-bought at a minimum of $5) means that the creator can charge what they want, without being restricted to any minimum or hoping for a small minority to be generous with PWIW/tips; and also means that SmiteWorks don't lost any money through transaction fees on small payments.

[Naurthoron]

No forge, no cost to absorb, and it is still possible to provide extensions outside of DMsG/SW.
There is probably no alternative as long as there is commercial intent, on that I agree.

[Neovirtus]

While I don't particularly care to make this thread solely focused on the gold currency issue, in the interest of preventing this from becoming an echo chamber where only negative voices are heard I will say that I don't have a problem with the current system. I think that Smiteworks has to do it this way to make the business side of the Forge make sense, and I don't mind having a couple bucks hanging around waiting for the next time I want to make a purchase. In fact, I think that if the alternative might be passing the processing costs on to the customer, I much prefer this system. I would much rather pay into a system where none of my money is lost to fees, than have every purchase be accompanied by a $1+ transaction fee.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I think that there might be ways for Smiteworks to make it even more palatable, like allowing Forge gold to be spent on Store purchases like modules and art packs. Those kinds of things might help, but in the meantime I don't have an issue with the way it's set up.

[LordEntrails]

No forge, no cost to absorb, and it is still possible to provide extensions outside of DMsG/SW.

Not legally it isn't. If you read the license agreement you agreed to when you installed the software, it is illegal for you to distribute extensions outside of a license agreement with SmiteWorks. SmiteWorks allows extensions to be distributed for free on the forums here, with certain caveats. Extensions have also been distributed on the DMsGuild through a loophole or oversight, but are actually not supposed to be there. OBS has worked with SW to allow them to remain until the Forge is/was available.

And regardless of personal feelings, since community developers have been able to sell their extensions on the DMsGuild, their has been a huge increase in the number of extensions available to the community. So, the community developers themselves want a way to monetize their work, even if its small amounts just to feel appreciated. Any user who does not want to pay for an extension or use the Forge can simply not use it. That's how a free market works.

[Trenloe]

No forge, no cost to absorb, and it is still possible to provide extensions outside of DMsG/SW.

Nope. It's not possible to legally provide FG extensions/modules for cost outside of DMsGuild/SmiteWorks without permission from SmiteWorks.

Without the Forge we'd lost a bunch of extensions from DMsGuild that weren't in line with the WotC/DMsGuild agreement. There are some developers who wouldn't create their products, or make them available publicly, if they couldn't get some remuneration for them.

Stating this again, because I added it to my previous post at the same time you replied:

Don't lose sight that the Forge is a great place for creators to share their work with Fantasy Grounds users, backed by the FG update process to make sure you have the latest product version on your system. It's up to the creator if they charge anything for their work. The use of gold (pre-bought at a minimum of $5) means that the creator can charge what they want, without being restricted to any minimum or hoping for a small minority to be generous with PWIW/tips; and also means that SmiteWorks don't lost any money through transaction fees on small payments.

The Forge is the way forward for legally distributing content creator products - whether they choose to provide those for no cost or at a cost. Having the "gold" currency, with a minimum top up of $5, means that SmiteWorks don't lost any money on transactions and can hopefully recoup some of the large resource outlay they've had to get where we are, and will continue to have running into the future.

As said before - the Forge is not for mainline FG products. It's for community creators to make their products available to the FG community. And it's up to them if they charge for it. No one will force you to pay anything. And these creations aren't required for you to use Fantasy Grounds and the official product available through the store.