Free scripting dead?

General
143

I understand wanting to trade scripts, but it is so inefficient. It is literally the reason we have money. It is fungible and exchangeable for needs we have, either now or in the future.

In economics it is referred to as a “double coincidence of wants” in a barter system. You mentioned have these scripts to trade for someone else’s scripts. Both parties will need each other’s goods at the same time (You want my script now but, sorry, I need a new GPU now), work out a value system (Is your one 40 minute VR script equivalent to three our four 8 minute PMVs?), and have the time to spend haggling and coordinating all the other details.

Money is a a universal medium of exchange. If you create a script that people want and value, they will give you money. Then you can use that money in the market to purchase what you find valuable.

Personally, I would prefer Eroscripts to host a marketplace, and will move all my content here when it does.

BTW @VladTheImplier Love the new emotes. I just wish the data for number of impressions per emote would be parsed out. Imagine after a few years of feedback there will be a string of emotes with a sum total. I would be clearer to see that 90% of the emotes where a :five:, 8% were others like :sweat_droplets: or :heart: and only 2% were numbers :four: :three: and :two:. A histogram or something could help clarify the reactions. Keep up the good work!

2 Likes
144

You did get that there is a third party in there, which is ES itself and you will get your GPU eventually?
The system I propose is zero disadvantage to the paid scripter. I want your script but you will not sell it to me. You will sell it to ES and ES will give it to me in return for making the community super happy with a free script.

145

Oh I see. So your wanting to get paid for your “free” scripts, but with EroscriptBucks instead of typical currency.

Sounds like the same thing as a paid script, just with more steps.

You can only spend your EroscriptsBucks here. Also, the “price” you get reimbursed by Eroscripts for your free script is totally at the site’s discretion. The site will also need to generate revenue produced by your free script (ads on clicks, ect, to get the money you don’t want to sell your script for), just to turn around and buy the paid scripts for the free script exchange.

I wouldn’t want that hassle. A simple marketplace, site hosted/payhip/patreon, with real currency already solves all those barter issues.

Totally respect your work BTW. You are a god-tier funscriptor. Not attacking you, just discussing the idea. I am not my ideas and neither are you yours. Here to chat~

146

I’m actually interested in a virtual marketplace. Real money wouldn’t be able to exchange hands, I’ve more or less given up on trying to find a payment processor that’s willing to work with the forum.

But the prospect of a virtual marketplace with some kind of ES currency could be useful. The question would then become implementation, and what the currency could be used for.

I would also make it so only accounts with a certain trust level/age would be allowed to participate in the market.

One problem I’ve noticed that a couple people have complained about that I didn’t really know how to resolve is the frequency of new users that immediately jump into paid scripts only without contributing to the community or the forum. I could implement a ES Currency that it becomes a requirement to “buy” posting access to paid scripts.

If someone built a marketplace plugin that enables that we could implement something that might solve the free scripts issues and the paid scripts issues.

3 Likes
147

I’d say 80% of the time, the free scripts cover “better” or more “popular” content than paid scripts.

148

The free script would not produce revenue. It would only boost ES as free scripts is for all, not just the few buyers. I think free scripts are more important for the site than recognised.
Any platform takes a percentage of the payments. So should ES and solve its money problems paying the servers by donation at the moment.

Thanks and sure, the whole thread is peaceful thankfully. I think this is also because free scripting is highly respected.

Thats good news. There would be alot of advantages with an ES currency that could also be quality scripting time which is quite valuable around here. Anonymity being a major one which is almost impossible when buying scripts. Boosting free scripting by repaying its community work that by far the most time consuming.

They could jump in if they would be good scripters, but you cant be without scripting at least 10 long movies over 10 minute scripting time and really learn the rules of scripting from feedback. The dos and donts. I listened to feeback and changed my scripting and changed the script several times. Later you start to learn to script transitions and multiple movement problems. So to be able to sell quality scripts you need alot of time on Free. Selling paid without the Free school you just sell crap.

ES will not get around the crew and enabled users checking quality, which basically is synchronized scripting to the frame and the movie fully scripted. A script that is 100% in sync can easily be fixed quickly. Out of sync is a rescript or delete. Out of sync is also replacing movement by jitter. Secondary quality would be a good exaggeration and advanced scripting which is mostly scripting speed changes and transitions.
Until a basic script quality is met the scripter could be sent back to OFS to fix it. Short tutorials can be generated from this. Your script is out of sync check this tutorial how to fix it. All scripts should be quality checked paid only allowed if basic quality is met or labeled as for example out of sync. Only possible if the site earns money as it is time consuming. I could check about 30 scripts an hour after the files are on the drive.

149

i think of it like this. if we had a marketplace, for paid scripts, what can it offer that is equal to the reasons people make paid scripts to begin with. If i was a scripter and went paid what are my reasons? I have seen some who use paid for compensation of time, i have seen some use paid to gate their more niche content like loli, and then people who go paid just for the money.

If we were to have a marketplace, it either would involve money some way (acting as an alternative to patreon), or it would have to find some other means of filling those roles. If i script high effort scripts, no amount of funny money or activity points is gonna get me to switch over. If i used paid for the extreme content, then congratulations you just locked a not insignificant portion of the userbase behind a paywall, and then if real money is involved you have no opened yourself up to liability.

As it currently stands, this forum works like well, a forum of old. Trying to market everything is part of how all those forums died off when they couldn’t compete with social media, which at the time wasn’t trying to market anything. The moment we turn this place into a soft marketplace is when it likely dies off and people either make another one or we are all restricted to what the few industry videos allow us to watch.

I do like the idea of having you earn the ability to post paid scripts by posting free ones, and to help filter out low quality you can refer to my ranking proposal in This Thread and just have a cumulative rating score where you need a threshold to reach. As for making a no money “marketplace” viable though, you would need either a lot of gifts to “reward” people with like points redeemable for free toys, sleeves, parts, premium site accounts, etc. or as mentioned before, being able to use those points to get other pointlocked content (which im not in favor of.)

That being all said, this site is the really only place i know of to find scripting related content, outside of very niche places in other sites, most scripters are from here. One option would be to have all content be free if you post here, and your patreon is just for Early Access or paid polls, but if you ended up enforcing that, then a lot of people would probably just leave and stop scripting outright. Which is why i think that the best option is to not directly change the system we have, but to help encrouage good faith behavior with paid content (like the ranking system) and maybe if you can negotiate it, like a special % off referral code with device makers and such you can give to paid makers to keep making free content

150

Howdy y’all

@roa recommended I check this thread out and I can see why.

I know you and I chatted about this briefly previously, but good news, I’ve succeeded in bringing it to life. The VFS Store launched yesterday!

VFSStudio.com/store

Fuck is this true. The amount of hoops to jump through is insane and its why VFS uses a token system with an intermediary parent company for processing - royal PITA.

It is, but its the only way to do it.

I dedicated myself to making a 90/10 split work with creators when creating the VFS Store. That said, payment processors are BRUTAL and only 0.5% - 2% actually goes to the VFS Store (varies depending on payment processor and payout processor used as well as token pack size purchased) which will just barely cover operating costs.

Ease of use comes to mind along with the assurance you’re not going to be unceremoniously kicked off the platform, but its also why VFS added a Bounty system that lets users put tokens in escrow against their requests for scripts (and lets other users stack on the bounty) - basically it acts as a way for Creators to see what people are interested in across the board while also letting Users, to use a turn of phrase, “put their money where their mouth is”.

Same thought, it’s why VFS has and XP and Level system which is a direct homage to what’s been implemented here.

Don’t toy with my heart @VladTheImplier 'cause if you’re serious, I’ll do it…

Edit:
Anybody interested in checking it out, here’s a multi-use invite code: VFS-63DE-F691

151

If you made such a plugin I would like to pay you some of the proceeds.

I’m dead serious. If you’re serious we should talk.

3 Likes
152

Same.

VFS is young and has the traditional cold-start hurdle of jumpstarting both sides of a marketplace. In my opinion, this would benefit both ES and VFS.

DM incoming…

1 Like
153

Nice, you two talking, this could get something. Dont forget quality check. Not a small problem to solve. It will involve work. I doubt AI can replace a manual check.

154

Sorry for the double post but I think this is a great idea. Script quality is crucial. In VFS trusted scripters, judges of events, could do the qualitycheck. If I get the script I would do the quality check. This could happen once for each script and then could be labeled as quality checked with a rating system.

155

I just finished reading everything from this post. Glad to see that lot of users are suggesting interesting ideas to fix this problem.

I also started as a free scripter +4 years ago. Started everything as a hobby because the scripts that were available was not intense enough for me :joy:

I started getting a lot of likes after being super active. Some even gave me commissions. And I found out that I was somewhat good at this thing. I am still busy everyday reading all the post from the other community (Arcalive) and replying to questions and stuffs, Managing my Patreon and Discord, private commissions etc.

But at the end of the day, one of the best thing that can happen to me is receiving a good comment about the script that I made. Of course, big supporters literally feeds me and helps me live my life. But those simple few words makes it much better. That’s why I strongly agree to @umumum 's comment about the good community culture that we all can participate easily compare to other complicated new systems and implications.

I am open to the changes. I hope the moderators could be rewarded for keeping this place running.

15 Likes
156

Just to leave my two cents because well I had a feeling this thread existed…

I have the know how to make my own scripts, I learned back when the software was released and i was litteraly on tailend of the previous site before this one (w/e that forum was I were there for like 2-3 months before it shut down) then this place came

There are alot of tools to learn how to make scripts and I make a ton, I mean I have a massive personal archive… I dont care to share sadly but if I did I wouldnt charge because I dont need financial assistance, create this on my spare time since well… making scripts does take time but when you know what you are doing its rather speedy AND i grew up during the era of a majority of things online on sites like this being free.

If you remember when online sites like NewGrounds/ArmorGames/FlashGames were LITTERED with free games by talented people that took the time to make them, they asked for nothing in return. I do… but going back now its just nothing but ‘demo’, ‘early access’, countless paid indie games and ‘paterons’

Scripting was kinda the same when I 1st found it, tons of free scripts, and not so many paid in comparison. Well… here we are now and as I see what new tools are made to make stuff I also learn from others free scripts and like 2 people’s patreons to see what I can do better but now its just paid, paid, paid, paid majority when sorting by the created tag… about 3-4 paid script for every 1 free.

I know I am not entitled to anything at all but one thing that always seems to be the reasoning is “well time and equipment cost money” and I understand… But the thing that gets VASTLY overlooked is FOMO and Everyone has their hands out in the terms of meaning, “oh this person makes money and their scripts are {bad|ok} I think I can do the same” and then they start charging, and repeat. I will admit I have seen quite a few pirated scripts from some people and not been the least bit impressed making me glad i didnt waste my money… But I personally cant fork over my hard earned money for like 20+ people…sure i can rotate and sub one month, take everything then go to the next person… but it is what it is and we are in the world we are today.

Oh also what really grinds my gears is when i see a free script released and then like forever later a paid version of that same video lol and I just had to check, using the created filter for scripts, i saw from 2020~ it was like 1-2 paid with every like 10~ free, yeah that died :melting_face:

2 Likes
157

I got so many scripts I wanna make but no time aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

And I’ve made some, started selling them for a bit, it’s all kinda time consuming these days :sob:

2 Likes
158

You are completely entitled to not share your scripts if you don’t want to, but if I may ask, why not?

159

Ahhh its a really dumb reason I just need to get over

  • FUD: Fear, uncertainty, and doubt of criticism I just need to grow out of it. Prob soon? Someday to restore the amount of content provided?

I havent really seen many cases of poeple taking and re-using people’s work so I am not worried about theft of people paywalling it like how bad the VAM community is but thats all really

2 Likes
160

Valid reasons tbf, it’s tough to put something out there when you think of someone shitting on your work. If it helps, while this community is pretty bad at providing feedback in general, when they do, it’s usually constructive and helpful/positive overall.

Plus no one expects perfection out of a free release, it’s only when you start releasing paid that a certain standard should be upheld.

6 Likes
161

People don’t really judge free scripts just make it clear that these are your first scripts

3 Likes
162

I think some users are looking at the paid script category and wishing they were available for free (or upset that they are not). I too have found a new star or studio and longed for a particular scene to be scripted. And yet… I don’t have enough lifetimes to create a funscript (to my standard) for every scene I enjoy. Nor are there enough scripters for every scene desired. Time is the limiting reagent.

I get that there is a free rider problem. The table at which we all feast needs to be paid for. Some people, like @bumdude, are communal scripting saints and should be recognized as such. @VladTheImplier is a most hospital host of this hedonistic banquet. As for me, I will man the grill to produce some communal dishes and also serve commissioned delicacies until the kitchen closes. However, despite the presence of saintly chefs, those in the cookhouse making specialty treats, shouldn’t be made out to be sinners.

It is important for everyone to realize, myself included, that the vast majority of paid scripts would not exist, if the creators had no compensation. Money is a huge motivator for action. Personally, I have a vast Steam library that I neglect every time I script. I am also very motivated to have an immersive experience in a VR video game. One example of the countless ways I could spend my time. How am I to choose where to spend my time? For some humans to will how others spend their own personal time, for community service or in a economic self-interest, seems a bit authoritarian.

Don’t banish some creators to another platform. I think it would be best to accommodate us all under one roof. @kplus87 I wont be jumping ship and desperately hope you have vlad will work something out.

3 Likes