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cabaletta / baritone

google maps for block game
GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0
7.29k stars 1.46k forks source link

Baritone Monetization Strategy #436

Open c0nn3r opened 5 years ago

c0nn3r commented 5 years ago

Per a conversation with @leijurv and @nacgarg on Telegram. This is meant to summarize our general ideas and provide a few action items for next steps for our goals.

Sparking this issue were two events: Baritone has been trailing FAR behind Future (@0-x-2-2 🙄) in recurring revenue (Baritone has only received a few one time donations) and @leijurv has disappointingly taken a internship instead of working on Baritone full-time during the summer. This is despite Baritone being a far more powerful tool than Impact or Future. @ZeroMemes has also opted not to share Impact donations with @leijurv. The goal of this issue is to lay the groundwork for a sustainable revenue model for Baritone - allowing full-time development for at least one developer. Potential ideas discussed are laid out below:

🌟 Baritone Premium ™

We could gate a few Baritone features behind a recurrent membership fee and introduce a so called "Baritone Premium". A few ideas for what features could be moved to the premium version are below:

🏃 Charging per a Block Traversed

Users would have a limited number of blocks they could traverse using the path finding functionality per a month before they would be asked to pay a few cents for each 100 blocks walked. @leijurv seemed very supportive per our Telegram conversation.

⚡️ Surge Pricing

Building off of the idea to charge per a path, we also discussed dynamically pricing different paths (2B2T is almost exclusively our target market here). If you wanted to move along the nether highway for instance - that would cost more based on how popular that destination was among the player base. Pricing would also be more expensive based on the time of day that path was popular during.

💰 Market-based Builder

Baritone's builder functionality is about to receive a few much needed upgrades (being able to use chests as a source of items, in-game previews to name a few), one option is just gating these behind premium - another is having players pay per a build. Each block placed would be priced based on its blocks popularity within Baritone built structures. This would cause items such as wool blocks to have a higher price than say cactus. Besides promoting diversity within player creations, this would also provide a marketplace where players could select from a library of previous structures that they could then pay to build in game.

🥇 Next steps

@nacgarg has offered to write the backend and @c0nn3r offered to do both the web frontend and surge pricing strategy.

@leijurv mentioned needing to focus on DRM to prevent illegitimate usage of premium features and pathing.

We look forward to improving Baritone's sustainable development. 👍

@c0nn3r, @nacgarg and @leijurv

babbaj commented 5 years ago

sell baritone plugins that do niche things

DaMatrix commented 5 years ago

I would say that having premium features that people have to pay to get access to is a far better strategy than applying limits to currently unlimited features, as that's more likely to simply annoy current users than make them want to pay to get more.

leijurv commented 5 years ago

I wonder if additional monetization strategies could be unlocked by also implementing #152

leijurv commented 5 years ago

Think CryptoLocker

0-x-2-2 commented 5 years ago

🚀

SpicyBigGithub commented 5 years ago

🚀

jvyden commented 5 years ago

^^^^^ if you want to make any revenue, do this

Kavelach commented 5 years ago

Yup, make some premium features that are locked behind a paywall, do not restrict current capabilities or monetize them, because that would only alienate the user base. The basic feature set of Baritone (for example without bucket fall, parkour, following players or farming) are enough for an Utility Mod™ like this one. Add a few configuation options, monetize them and feel free to go.

jvyden commented 5 years ago

Another idea is to make it obvious that you can donate. Personally, I haven't noticed that you can donate at all. Hell, there isn't even anything related to donating on the readme.

0-x-2-2 commented 5 years ago

Another idea is to make it obvious that you can donate. Personally, I haven't noticed that you can donate at all. Hell, there isn't even anything related to donating on the readme.

you are bad at reading then.

0-x-2-2 commented 5 years ago

image this is clearly a bitcoin address....

jvyden commented 5 years ago

image

jvyden commented 5 years ago

wowzers!11 now its lookin like an obvious way to donate

leijurv commented 5 years ago

@emeraldsnorlax imagine taking seriously an issue where I suggest turning baritone into cryptolocker ransomware

you shouldn't

SpicyBigGithub commented 5 years ago

Do it

c0nn3r commented 5 years ago

@EmeraldSnorlax I feel like surge pricing presents a way to efficiently price the utility of Baritone? Can you explain more about why you don't like it?

@leijurv is literally living homeless in SF for his job and people are talking about how they are too cheap to pay the equivalent of a latte for baritone. SMH.

EvilSourcerer commented 5 years ago

tbh be honest builder and highway digger integration seem much more niche and should be monetized.

also make forge implementation a premium release (hwid support when)

ghost commented 5 years ago

Don't Monetize this.

c0nn3r commented 5 years ago

@milse113 I didn't expect such a backlash. Can you please clarify why you think Baritone shouldn't be monetized?

SeasonalFerret commented 5 years ago

Please keep Baritone free. I absolutely love looking into Baritone every so often to see it's progress, seeing somebody make a new way to have fun with minecraft brings back so much joy that I use to have ~2014.

If the dev needs money, then he should set up a patreon with cosmetic-only changes and such for the community. Maybe, at most, limiting 2B2T-only features for hardcore 2B2T players to use (such as navigating highways). Maybe niche server-specific things like parkour, but there's no way to properly limit that behind a paywall without sacrificing some of the abilities of pathing.

If I can't even download Baritone once every while to check out the new features because they're premium-only, or have to spend money per block just to check stuff out in my own servers, I'll just have to say goodbye to baritone and possibly minecraft as a whole for loosing my interest.

c0nn3r commented 5 years ago

@SylveonBottle We need to take extreme measures as @leijurv will soon be homeless after the school quarter ends and we need funds for him for shelter and food. I thought the 🌟Baritone Premium ™ would raise the most amount of money in the shortest amount of time...

I ask you to consider: why can you pay for coffee / boba, but not donate to keep a man off the streets?

SeasonalFerret commented 5 years ago

@SylveonBottle We need to take extreme measures as @leijurv will soon be homeless after the school quarter ends and we need funds for him to get shelter and good. I thought the 🌟Baritone Premium ™ would raise the most amount of money in the shortest amount of time...

Right now I don't think throwing a paywall on the small community that even knows about baritone is the right way to handle this.

If you're wanting to take the route of Future and such (become a well-known mod used by communities), then I suggest making Baritone a stand-alone mod or client, dedicated to itself as an automation client. Impact itself is already somewhat too big for baritone to get any much-needed private appreciation, especially with impact money not going towards baritone in the first place.

Hell, I even use Impact just so I can use baritone. If I could use baritone without, I would - baritone suits my needs much more than impact does. In all honesty, if baritone was it's own standalone mod/client, I probably would buy and support it. Give it it's own website to let people hand out and share, prop up a logo and a nice main menu, give it a few necessities like freecam, and it'll 100% one of the most unique "clients" out there.

SeasonalFerret commented 5 years ago

I ask you to consider: why can you pay for coffee / boba, but not donate to keep a man off the streets?

Sorry if I forgot to mention this but I'm actually poor. I can't pay for my own coffee. If I could I'd probably buy food instead of digging out of a local little ceaser's trash can to hopefully find some "fresh" pizza to eat for a few days. The last time I managed to go out and eat was when I donated plasma and got $20 out of it, I spent that entire "check" on boxes of ramen and it lasted me a solid two weeks. That was the best damn week I ever eaten all year.

c0nn3r commented 5 years ago

Interesting idea, perhaps we could introduce some type of "💉 Blood for Baritone" drive?

Could you open a issue?

leijurv commented 5 years ago

...............

https://github.com/cabaletta/baritone/issues/436#issuecomment-498332167

babbaj commented 5 years ago

@SylveonBottle lmao poorfag

c0nn3r commented 5 years ago

@SylveonBottle @leijurv is embarrassed to ask for money hence why I was the one to make this issue. 😬

Paralusion commented 5 years ago

i'd totally be up to donate a few bucks for cosmetic items, maybe something different as a cape, just something cool cosmetic. 5-10$ should be a good amount for this

c0nn3r commented 5 years ago

@Paralusion Could you give your thoughts on the monetization ideas I layed out?

Paralusion commented 5 years ago

i'm not so much of a fan for the travelling, block placing etc. paying aspect. i think that should be and stay free, unless you give specific features to premium users they can use. not fan of the pay-to-go, would rather have just a one time payment for one thing. cosmetics such as wings, deadmau5 ears etc. is more what i would go for and the specific features. the cosmetics should have something that shows that it's unique to baritone, so not something typical. the donations are more towards the support of Baritone than the actual items you're getting, but by giving people knowledge that you can get things for donating would spread quickly through cosmetic items.

ILikeTrains27 commented 5 years ago

Wouldn't it be impossible to have builder a part of only baritone premium or charge per block traversed? Because the current versions of Baritone, 1.2.6 and 1.3.2, are free and already have builder and unlimited traveling with path finder. So someone could just download version 1.2.6 or 1.3.2.

c0nn3r commented 5 years ago

@ILikeTrains27 It's a pretty simple solution. If your computer went online while you used Baritone, we would remotely delete it if it was 1.2.6 or 1.3.2. Thanks for the question! 👍

0xx06 commented 5 years ago

baritone premium cosmetic should be a trail that follows the player (in the spirit of "movement" which baritone provides).

something like this: https://i.imgur.com/8MsVuQT.jpg but like completey different:

I might draw up a sketch when i'm off work and the idea is well recieved.

H3wastooshort commented 5 years ago

PLEASE remove all the random tags on here, and ONLY leave question or sth!!

SpicyBigGithub commented 5 years ago

I have a really painful boner

ondrej008 commented 5 years ago

If you're gonna do monetization, make a different repo or make this one private, otherwise people could just download the code, remove the monetization checks and they have premium without paying for it.

c0nn3r commented 5 years ago

@xXxAaRkEtxXx I don't think any alternatives to Baritone exist? You are always welcome to fork the project (keep in mind you still need to publish it under the same licence).

@ondrej008 We will punish people who attempt to remove DRM appropriately.

It's hard for me to understand why you don't want to support to project, especially after I explained @leijurv's current living conditions. 😕

meele13 commented 5 years ago

Surge pricing and market building seem extremely anti-consumer friendly. I like the idea of cosmetic options but I believe the core of baritone should always be free.

ThebesAndSound commented 5 years ago

put them out of their misery @leijurv

EvilSourcerer commented 5 years ago

No! Put leijurv out of his misery! We need Baritone Monetization NOW to make his living conditions better!

0-x-2-2 commented 5 years ago

extremely anti-consumer friendly

🤡

0-x-2-2 commented 5 years ago

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LotDev commented 5 years ago

Just make baritone a one time pay software (pay once, and get all updates and features like buying minecraft). Best thing to do instead of buying new features, which truly is annoying.

0xx06 commented 5 years ago

Delete baritone forever and sell heroin to underage kids at the playground.

ILikeTrains27 commented 5 years ago

@c0nn3r how would you find out who attempts to remove DRM and how would you punish them?

H3wastooshort commented 5 years ago

THIS IS AN OPEN SOURCE PROJECT! The source is allready out there, and there is no way to monetize allready existing features! Maybe bring some new cosmetic stuff as a premium fature, but leave what allready is!

0-x-2-2 commented 5 years ago

there is no way to monetize allready existing features

lol says who

ILikeTrains27 commented 5 years ago

If there is a way to avoid DRM and get baritone for free it would probably spread really fast because baritone is really useful, so you need to be sure that people won't do that. Also you would need to remotely delete baritone from all the hacked clients that have baritone built in such as Impact and WWE.

ondrej008 commented 5 years ago

@c0nn3r The current license does not allow you to do what you just said. It will be illegal for you to ban people from making modifications and distributing those modifications. The current license applies to the current code, if someone downloads this repo, the source code will be licensed under LGPL v3, and nothing you can do will change the license that was downloaded along with the source code.

0-x-2-2 commented 5 years ago

@c0nn3r The current license does not allow you to do what you just said. It will be illegal for you to ban people from making modifications and distributing those modifications. The current license applies to the current code, if someone downloads this repo, the source code will be licensed under LGPL v3, and nothing you can do will change the license that was downloaded along with the source code.

If I remember correctly one of his friends committed critical code to Baritone from before Baritone was licensed under GPL and has never commited since therefor never agreed to GPL.