Why always ask money?

Jello everyone.
I have a simple question for ALL the people reading,
Why, in gods name do we, the normal members and serveradmins have to pay for the development of a plugin?
I asked today for a worldgenerationplugin and he asked 20$ the other one asked 40$ and usually when you ask for any plugin that has to be created they want to be paid... Wich is ridiculous (this is my opinion, i ask your on what i say, no troll) why cant some people sacrify a little bit of their time to make a plugin that everyone can use and enjoy without asking money for it...
Smp is made to have fun, if you make everything paid then how the fck do you want people to give money because they like your work using donations... Or use an ad link... Anyways, it is a shame this community is turning in the wrong way...

 

Hey - I appreciate your voice.
As you can see, I have a donation link in my signature. However, I've never asked any money for making a plugin.
Still, remember that developing plugins is NOT an easy job.
It may seem like it's just "fun and games", but programming IS a real job.

Also - remember that the communities average age is about 13-15 years. Some of the plugin devs overestimate their skills, which gives us the asking for money posts.

My opinion on this is:
- If you're a plugin developer only to make money, you probably won't like the project, because you don't make much money out of it.
- I make plugins to make other people happy - that's my main goal, donations are just a way to appreciate my work - and I'm really thankful for it. I can safely say that I am happier in my life than before becoming Plugin Dev because of helping people - but maybe it's just me.
- I am providing the source code for people to learn from it or base their work on. Information wants to be free, and we ALL should work on developing an intelligent, educated society.

Well, it's late now and I got to go, but have a nice day now or tomorrow

 

I use your chest plugin!
I can understand programming is a real job, i am currently setting up a coding team (never programmed but!!! Motivated)
You have to start somewhere i guess...
I really appreciate your opinion, thanks.
Your last point was a very good word i thinj

 

If you want a world generation your best bet is to join my IRC and see if your idea strikes a chord with me or one of the #bananacode team, and we generally do these things for free (and if you're feeling generous we like paypal cos we can buy pizza with it)

 

imo saying its ridiculous to pay someone for hours and hours of work is ridiculous. would you come to my house and mow/rake/trim my two acre yard for nothing? probably not, even though it would be less work/time than it would be for me to make you a plugin. im not trying to be a dick here, just giving you some perspective. by making a plugin and releasing it you have to:
1-code the thing
2-test it to make sure it works
3-document its features/usage
4-release it to the forum/bukkitdev
5-manage the above pages daily
6-deal with end users asking for help and ignoring the docs you spent hours writing in step 3
7-update it when bukkit/minecraft update
8-add new features

some people are fine with all that for nothing. maybe they are younger, live at mom/dads, unemployed or they just loooove this community so much they cant say no. for the rest of us, our free time is limited and precious and the idea of someone saying its ridiculous to ask for something in return for that time is rather insulting.

 

This.

Making plugins is very time consuming and not easy. If you were developing plugins I am sure you would want to be paid too. In fact I think Bukkit should be pay to use.

All in all, just stop being cheap.

 

Offer 2 version. One thing humans like is choice.

 

Ofc, i can understand that but if bukkit is pay to use, how many people will go away you think?
That idea is just ridiculous.

If people are that good at making plugins then why dont they go in a more professional environment??? Where they will get paid. I know loads of people who search programmers...
And its not because you live at your moms place that you dont need money...
Thats just ugly for 30$ id rather learn to make plugins myself

 

java developers in the usa get paid almost 100k a year. you are complaining about paying $20 for a hand made custom plugin. $20 an hour would be a good deal at the normal wage those guys earn, let alone a one time flat rate of $20.

i used moms house as one example of someone who might have more free time to sacrifice for nothing. i wasnt trying to say they dont need money. i was saying they are more likely to have more spare time than someone with a mortgage/wife/rent/bills etc.

and i totally agree. paying $30 bucks for a plugin i could learn to make for myself is stupid. i learned java in my spare time instead. point is, you could too if paying someone else to do it is 'ridiculous' to you. again, im not trying to be a dick about it i just think its a little ignorant to get mad because you asked for someone to spend hours of their time on a project for you/your server and they wanted something in return.

when you say "it is a shame this community is turning in the wrong way..." i think you are right. i think it sucks that the community is heading towards the direction of thanklessly wanting handouts and being mad about not getting them. i would guess that ~90% of this community is end-users and server owners...that leaves~10% of the community as developers, doing all the work, while the other 90% plays minecraft. i havnt sat down with my friends to play minecraft since i started developing plugins and helping around the forum a few months ago.

you asked "Why, in gods name do we, the normal members and serveradmins have to pay for the development of a plugin?". ill ask you this in return: why should you get it for free at someone elses expense? its fine if someone wants to do it for nothing. its just as fine if someone wants to get paid, and there is a person willing to pay the price they set. its not ridiculous, its reality.

 

If you want a plugin for free just post the idea in the plugin request section of the forum. If a dev likes the idea and has enough skills he will take it up and release it to the public. If you write directly to a dev and he don't like the idea he will ask you for money. Why should he do something for free that doesn't make fun to do?

I for myself try to develop for free most of the time. An exception is when somebody wants a plugin exclusively developed for his server. Why should I create something for free if I can't do what I want with it? For the payment the person get's the plugin incl. sources and all rights, so I even give away the right to use it in binary or source form from myself. With that in mind I had to write large source sections from scratch for freely available plugins which I otherwise could have copied out of a private plugin. Also I had to check that I didn't copy sources in my thoughts. Also I must check that I don't copy ideas and accidently create a free plugin which does (almost) the same as a private one.
You see: Private plugins make my life harder, so I want money for them.
BTW: When I get payed for private plugins the payment almost ever includes free updates for 6 to 12 months.

 

The other day I went to the grocery store and I grabbed a carton of milk and started to walk out the door and they told me that I had to pay for it! Why don't they just give it to me for free? I like milk and they have lots of milk so it should be free because I want it and don't want to pay for it, this is ridiculous.

 

These debates pop up quite a bit. Long story short, Bukkit will never cost money. No one on this team does it for money, they do it for the love of the project.

As for plugin, that choice is entirely up to the devs. In my opinion, it should always be up to the devs.

 

You are totally right about that, about the community, that is why im going to start developing plugins myself, i said before i am going to setup a coding team, at least try to, i am a serveradmin but i know nothing about programming, time to learn i guess

I am trying to make a topic so it is "clear" for everyone i mean so that everybody knows why it is, i dont know it myself thats why iosted the topic.
I understand most of those answers..


To make things clear, i wasnt mad about the one dev that didnt want to make my idea but i asked around and i think this is an opportunity to ask about to the devs and staff.

 

good luck learning java and setting up a team its a very cool and rewarding thing to do imo. i wish you all the best.

 

Thanks, ill need the luck, alot but i think itl work out

 

One problem:

minecraft: 15 dollars in alpha
plugin: 30 dollars

The plugins does not equal twice the amount of work that's put into minecraft, does not contain twice the amount of fun you can have with it as minecraft.

So honestly, if devs want to be paid, they should go with an appstore like approach where each plugin costs only about 80 cents to $1.50

 

Yeah, we developers should make an PluginStore <3

 

@Isocadia:
minecraft: 15 dollars in alpha x 4000000 sells = $60000000
plugin: 30 dollars x 1 sell = $30

 

i think the difference is that we didnt request notch to make us minecraft...unlike asking a dev to specifically make you a plugin for your server. appstore is kind of a neat idea tho...might be a cool option (specially if there was a 'free' option so you could still give it away if you wanted). on the other hand that kind of model doesnt really work for opensource community like this...

 

True, but paying twice the money for a plugin that extends the original game's gameplay seems a bit much. And I didn't mean a real appstore, I meant that if plugin devs want to ask money for a plugin, it should be more towards the 1 dollar mark, not 30.

 

i agree that the price disparity is a bit much when you look at it like that, but from what i gathered, the point of this thread was that the op asked for a worldgen plugin to be made for him and was answered with 'ill do it for x dollars'...i dont think anyone is saying that they want to be able to release their own plugin and sell it on the forum/bukkitdev with a 30 dollar price tag attached to it.

another point is that some servers generate a lot of money. if they are running a popular custom plugin thats only available on their server (generating traffic and popularity), how is it wrong to ask to be paid to make it for them? i read a thread here a while ago where a guy (cant remember who) said his donators paid him enough to buy one of those $1000+ 6 core intel cpus for their server box. if he was getting that off the back of some poor plugin dev who only got 20 bucks for his effort thats not really fair is it?

 

Admin donations is completely different, you have 2 types of admins in mc, the active greedy ones that ask moneyfor everything, they have a server for the money and the passive ones, they work for the server without necessarely Ask money for it.
20$ is a reference for a plugin, devs usually ask 20-30$ out of it.
A pluginstore is a cool idea but takes work AND youll always have an ass to put everything in common.

im not taking my case as the problem.
A greedy server admin can make loads of money being an ass

 

Sure am glad you're not a lawyer, anyone could tell you phyiscal property isn't the same as ip. A more analogous analogy would be "The other day I went to the nearest computer store and ask where I could get a word processing and spreadsheet software. The employee quickly proceeded to point me towards a $200 copy of Microsoft Office and proceeded to slap his sticker on it. I stared at him for a moment, and then broke out in laughter. Another employee that happened to be nearby also broke out in laughter, then proceeded to inform me about Open Office. After a few minutes hearing about the pros and cons, I left the store better informed and had a new word processing software without the $200 tag."
Point being accepting donations is fine, if you're only making plugins to expect donations, you should really find a better paying job.

 

well yeah the server is going to cost money to operate and its fair to ask for donations from the people using it. i didnt mean to imply that the guy who got enough money to buy a 1000+ dollar cpu is greedy either...just trying to point out that there are a lot of circumstances where the plugin dev deserves to get paid for their work. there are also a lot of circumstances where paying 20 bucks for a plugin is a rip-off and is asking too much...a lot of the requests in the request forum could be made in an hour or two (or less) and not require a ton of maintenance/updating/docs

there is no right answer here i guess i what i am getting at. its not ridiculous to pay someone for doing a ton of work that could possibly generate a profit on a popular server, and it is ridiculous to pay someone 20 bucks or more to spend a few minutes writing out a /fart command or something.

and this ^

 

Same goes with admin, if you are admin for the money then dont be it. At least thats what i think.
We, as the admins and normal members dont know what it takes to make a plugin so whenever i ask for it i dont know what it will take... And he could ask 500$ for a command like /ikillyouwiththisinsteadofkill , i could pay it cuz i dont know what it takes to do that

 

I'm getting quite a chuckle out of the word 'greedy' being thrown around.

The majority of the developers make their plugins available free of charge.
Some developers offer their services to make custom plugins in exchange of money.
Users are lucky to get free plugins to begin with. You're not entitled to anything.

Plenty of server admins make their server available for free to their users.
Some server admins charge for access to the server, often in exchange for a higher quality and better maintained server.
Or in many cases just to control the flood of new users. Requiring payment for entry to the server removes some anonymity and generally causes users to behave better.
Many of the donation-run servers still operate at a loss. A loss server admins are willing to accept for the sake of their users.
The rare few servers that run profitably still don't make enough to justify the hours put into it.

Now what surprises is that anyone in his right might has an issue with this.
Try looking around you. The world doesn't run on charity. You don't get your groceries for free.
By the logic used in this thread, anyone who works for their money is greedy.

Server admins and developers should be insulted by the simple minded and selfish logic displayed in this thread.
Anyone who feels they are entitled to free plugins or services just because they bought (or just downloaded a cracked version of) Minecraft needs a reality check.

Actually, 20 bucks is a really normal rate for an hour of work.
It's on the cheap side for hiring a programmer.

EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.

 

another good point that i didnt consider. there are tons of plugins that block enderman, tnt etc. they are easy (thats why there are tons of them). making the command for /gamemode undeadmach1ne 1 shorter is another one that seems to be getting made a million times over and over. its probably possible in under 50 lines of code, with little or no testing at all and no documentation or user support. not worth paying for.

wgen is hard. it seems that only high level devs are making wgen plugins, and if you go up to 'get plugins' and look in the wgen category youll see there are only a handful of plugins. something like mcmmo is hard. nosser said at one point its taken hundreds of hours to make it. his thread is 230 pages of people asking for help. thats probably another 100 or more hours of work on top of developing his plugin (and most of the questions he gets asked are already answered in the docs/wiki which probably took many more hours to make and no one seems to read them when they need help).

you are right though. a person with no programming experience can only guess at the amount of work it would take to make something, and thus the value of the plugin is a total mystery. it might seem fair to ask for a free plugin if you think its a few minutes of work, and it might seem ridiculous when a dev asks for 20 bucks for what might only be 50 lines of code.

that was exactly my point originally. professional java devs make a ton of money (see my link above for their average salary in the states). making bukkit plugins is java development. its worth money.

some plugins could be made in a few minutes though. as spirroouu said above, how is a non-developer supposed to know the difference? i could tell you that it will take me 4 full working days to make it say 'spirroouu farted' in chat when you type /fart spirroouu command. if spirroouu has no idea if i am lying or not, then maybe 4 working days doesnt seem so crazy. on the same note, if spirroouu doesnt know how much work it takes, asking for a free rpg plugin with all the features of something like mcmmo also might not seem like a crazy request either. its not his fault, and he is not being a dick...just a lack of education on the programming side of it.

this is a thankless gig. i get more 'likes' for making a shit joke or saying i unplug my server while its running instead of typing/stop, than i do for resurrecting dead plugins and spending my free time helping people use them. in fact, no one has ever 'liked' one of my posts where i went waaay out of my way to help them out. ever. but i got something like 8 or 9 likes on that server joke i made. its because they dont know how much work it takes. to a non-programmer i guess it looks easy when you see guys like codenameB dropping plugin after plugin like some kind of relentless coding machine. i dunno...from now on im going to try not to get all emotional about it though cant be mad at someone cause they dont understand something...can only try to teach them.

*goes off to meditate on new found wisdom*

EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.

 

I don't entirely see how this matters, nor relevant to OP's initial claims.
A plugin is worth what someone is willing to pay for it.
If a buyer is completely clueless regarding the product he's paying for, can you really blame the seller?
There is a point where one is responsible for themselves and need to look out for their own interest.

I also reject the notion some plugins could be made in mere minutes. This simply isn't true.
Even the most basic of plugins could easily take up to an hour between talking to the buyer for the specific requirements, developing the plugin and finally delivering the plugin.
Considering your earlier example, 20 bucks is cheap for any custom plugin, regardless of its complexity.

But furthermore, the tone of this thread actually seems to be despising developers for asking money at all.
It also makes the notion that all developers ask for money, which also can't be much further from the truth.
And this in my opinion IS his fault. And to put it in your words, that does make him a 'dick'.
OP acts like he's entitled to free plugins and custom services provided by developers. Behavior I can only compare to a spoiled brat.

 

i can totally see where you are coming from. in my first few posts on this topic i felt the same and was actually having a bit of trouble stopping myself from getting mad at him over it. when he said he had no idea what it took to make a plugin though, it made me realize that he isnt being a dick. he simply doesnt know, so why not try to explain it first and see how he reacts before judging him to be a dick? if they are a dick after knowing the difference then so be it. people like that have shitty lives because they are always stressed that they cant get their way and that they dont understand anything thats going on around them. stress kills seems fair to me. if a person is destined to wallow in their own stupidity and hate life there is nothing i can do. if they are willing to learn and grow then im glad to try to help. in this case it seems to me that he understands now so there is no harm done. only growth. this makes me happy.

and regarding the consultation phase of a project, you are totally correct and i dont know how i forgot about that part (aside from the fact thats its almost 7am here, i have been working on a project and posting here all night and my mind is probably similar to a bowl of cereal right now). im a commercial artist and i deal with this daily. my clients always think they know exactly what they want. we have meetings, phonecalls, emails and all manner of time spent making sure they properly express their idea so i can make it for them. then i spend however long it takes to make it to their spec and most of the time they change their mind or scrap the idea entirely. we call these 'revisions' and if you charge a flat rate they will kill you because the client doesnt care if it takes you 400 hours at a flat rate of 100 bucks. i actually think most of them feel like they are getting a better deal if they f around and make you work extra so they do it on purpose. so yeah with that in mind, even a 50 line plugin would probably be a minimum of an hour time spent, and that $20 is a bargain compared to what java devs normally get paid.

 

I dont know what it takes to make a plugin, so i dont know why i should pay for it