Would you pay for Themes?

A few well-known themers and I have been kicking around the idea of custom-made themes by request. We're interested in knowing what you, the community, thinks about this prospect.

What would you think of paying for well-made general themes that anyone can buy? Are there any prices you feel would make something like this worth purchasing? What kind of features are you looking for and would you pay more if a theme included more features? We'd also like to know if you're disinterested in this idea and why.

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No.

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Hells Fucking No

Why? What is your reasoning behind this decision?

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If I wanted to pay cold hard cash on something people do for fun, then I'd want a kick-ass theme with 450 awesome songs with awesome charts to go with it. In other words, it'd be like buying a game, but in this case...just a theme, which would probably get boring after a while (to me, anyway).

I honestly cannot see anyone investing on people who make themes.
Themes are things people do for fun (or because they are masochists) and share them to the community.

Considering the game is free, and you can get all the songs you want for free, it feels a bit silly to have to shell out to make the game look a bit prettier.

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Aaaaaaaand no.

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agree'd and i say no for this

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NO.

Reason : yeah, the game itself is free.

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I seconded that NO. Also its ILLEGAL.

I wouldn't pay for a theme for a free game. Like Aegis said, it might get boring quick. It's one of the reasons why I don't shell out 240MSP (3 USD) for a theme or as much as 400MSP (5 USD) for an avatar prop on Xbox Live.

Since when is charging something for an accessory for a free game illegal? Last I checked, Maple Story and other MMOs charge real money for some things on a FREE game.

This. There's very little opportunity for monetization in Stepmania, not only because of the gratis content already out there, but also because it's not that hard to DIY if you're prepared to spend some time on it.


Last I checked, you could still buy CD's with certain Stepmania bundles. Not that any large number of people do buy it.
Also, this free-accessory idea is how Zynga makes all their money with FB games

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I find it a little strange to charge for a theme requested by people as you will most likely get paid only once or twice from the person that requested it. You also need to find a way to give them for free to those that bought it and lost a copy.

So rather than go through that hassle, it would be better to release the theme and if people like it enough to donate how much they think the theme is worth.

Personally, I do not buy into paying for themes as I only use the default theme, with my own adjustments.

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No because one person would buy it and pass it around. Just like an album torrent.

This.

I DO have a premium theme and avatar prop, but I got those when I couldn't buy anything else I wanted and thought I'd waste it on that.

I was thinking the same thing. I bet the people who work on the CyberiaStyle themes do this too. I second this idea.

Paying for themes doesn't sound good to me. Most of the time when a new cool theme comes out, I switch to it use it for a couple of days then switch back to my previous one.
The game is free, the songs are free. To pay for something that only affects the way the game looks doesn't sound worth paying. Heck I know there are a lot of people that only like using the default theme.

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@ OP:
Top the Open_ITG theme and I might donate my 2 cents to the theme you are creating.

How 'bout this, if we were to make custom themes, what would you want in them? What would be required to get to the point where you would just have to purchase the theme? Include possible prices, content, simplicity, system requirements, whichever version of SM you'd prefer, game mode (ddr, pump, para, beat, guitar, lights, etc), and then I'll start to take in everything else.

My eventual goal is to build a game out of this. More specifically, a game that will cost money *gasp* or else no one will work on it. I've already tried two ventures of making free games and neither went through. Suddenly I told people there's money to be made and everyone's on the bandwagon.

For now we on the team feel that the theming community is dead and for us to provide to it, we would require some incentive -> money for our time and effort. Someone wants a service, that person doesn't do it him or herself and instead pays someone else with the knowledge to do the same. I am not getting the impression that people do not want themes, I'm getting the impression people want someone to work day and night for months and just hand that around for free hoping someone else will fit the bill:
Frankly, I don't necessarily make themes for fun as I find the entire process tedious and painstaking. I do put my heart into the ones I've made, but I've spent a lot of time doing them specifically because there's money waiting for me after an event. Many people make themes for money, but they cost in upwards of $5000 to make because they're for a specific game probably going into an arcade cabinet.

Would a theme priced at $10 sound like a good deal for a theme that anyone could use and play with completely unlike anything else out there? Every single theme I've made is a widescreen theme designed with HD graphics. No other themer does this except maybe shakesoda to a degree. Wouldn't you prefer your themes are designed with you in mind instead of 640x480 compatibility mode?

From what everyone's told me at events I've done, they want to get a hold of the themes I've made; in fact, I've had many offer to pay over $100 one right then and there so I'm curious about the market that's against purchasing themes because a free game makes it easier to pay for things.

Isn't it counter-intuitive to pay for a game then have to pay for extras to that game? I'd prefer a free game where I purchase only what I want to add to it. Think of it you get a house for free but only have to buy things to put in it. Would you not purchase furniture because the house was free? Seems like an argument against this notion is if there's already a bunch of free furniture stores.

The intention is to make these DRM-free. You purchase it once and that's all you need. You can download it again and again for life including the free updates. Sure you're buying a complete theme, but what if there's a bug or someone requests a feature we wind up putting in? In those cases, you're free to re-download the latest version of the theme without so much as a second thought.

I wonder if you mean repetitive instead of boring.

This is information that we'll need to consider.

Not unless you do it. We're hoping the fact that you paid for a theme, if you wanted to share it with friends, fine, but pirating it wouldn't really be sticking it to the man. Frankly, we're community members just like you. The price of the themes would pay for our time making them and, in effect, allow us to make more. If we're not making enough, we close down shop; simple as that.

Haha, no. If it's illegal to sell 'em, it's illegal to make them. If people gave our hard drugs for free, that doesn't mean they're legal. Nice try though.

Already done in so so many ways.

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To compare this idea to the only true effort to make an all-encompassing game out of StepMania...

foonmix had three major releases, feature complete theme + fully charted songs + courses, later there were noteskins as well. All of this was free. Others tried to mimic the popularity with luke warm results.

You would have to at least do all of that and the best you could hope for is getting several people to click on a PayPal button and drop some change in. Same goes for this site, Al created, hosts, and runs a completely free music video game news site where you can upload your own content, download official content and talk on the forums and the chatroom and it's all free. Not one single ad, just a donate button, that's it.

tl;dr, You'd have to make something that exceeds the quality of DDR itself and still the best you can hope for is donations. (Or you could follow in ITG's footsteps and risk getting shutdown by Konami for daring to do what they do) Good luck.

I'd buy a theme for $5 if it was really pink.

Really
really
really
really
really
really
really
really
really
really
really
really
really
really
really

pink.

Can you top ITG PC theme?

This is pretty much everything I would have asked for in a theme with workout modes, Survival Mode, Rolls, 3D Arrows, a functional (and fairly accurate) Calorie Counter, it's perfect for my home setup although there are a few bugs.

Can you alter the existing theme I use? Such as remove the Singles %/%% and Doubles %/%% at the title screen? Can you fix a broken Subtitle display, broken LONG / MARATHON markings on the song selection (currently it only appears AFTER I complete the song as long as I don't switch to the next song)? Can you get a functional ONLINE mode, like the default SM4.0 theme that I have to switch to when I want to play online? Can you fix courses where currently it only counts up to Song 5 then it becomes blank, many times I play courses with up to 40 songs and I have no idea what song I'm on past 5. Can you tell me how to fix songs with BG Animations created for SM3.9 to make them work properly on SM4.0 (they display in the top right corner on 4.0 where in 3.9 they are perfectly in the center of the screen).

How much would you charge to make those fixes above? And do you encrypt your work such that I would be unable to adjust the theme in the future? How else would you keep people from re-distributing your work? I may do special events and want to change some of the basic elements (like title pictures) to suit the occasion.

Oh and video proof of some of your work please.

I've been using the same theme for years and would actually pay to have those issues I mentioned fixed, but overall I concur with the majority that content should be free, such as ITG Rebirth was offered FREE and that is a top quality simfile pack, ITG Rebirth 2 will also be FREE as well, however the themer for ITG Rebirth never fulfilled his commitment.

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