#hypocritesbelike

What do I mean? I mean those of you who say that they are early access but don’t remotely let their content out from behind paywalls, much less on time. They say on their patreon “Oh, I’m early access! This will be released in 3 weeks!” 3 weeks come, 3 weeks go, nothing’s released. People are still waiting and waiting, and waiting for content to come out from behind the paywall. 

Let’s also not forget all of the people who release 70% of their content under early access, but instead of making patreon exclusives things such as how-to videos, polls, or other methods of interacting with the creator, they make “exclusive” CC for their patreons that you only get if you pay the paywall fee. (Which STILL violates EA’s rule. ALL CC you make has to go into early access and THEN be released, OR just be released for free.) Here’s the deal, I am not against early access at all. I think it is a wonderful way to show CC creators we care. But part of the problem is when you SAY you are giving people early access, and then keep stuff locked behind paywalls, not only are you legally breaking rules, but you are EHTICALLY ruining your reputation. How are your patreons going to expect you to keep your word to them when you cannot even keep your word to the community?  Look, if you’re gonna be a tool and hide content behind paywalls, at least have the guts to admit it versus trying to claim you’re in line with EA’s TOU. I’d almost think that some people are doing this to try to deter pirates from stealing their stuff, but to be honest, it’s really **not hard to do the math** and check your tumblrs/patreons/sites to see if you have kept your end of the bargain. Most pirates don’t like to share content from donation/early access creators, but if you’re not following their part of the ethical bargain with EA, well, I highly doubt the pirates are going to give you a pass and not distribute your content.  Now, if there’s a legit reason (ex: computer died, family emergency) that your content isn’t uploaded/shared on time, that’s fine as long as it’s communicated about to your patreons/followers. But some people it’s been over a month or two since stuff was posted, and that’s getting a little bit too long.  Really great example right here: 

Looks like a normal early access blog right? Not too bad....until we reach this...

Now here we have a custom skin that this patreon still has LOCKED behind a paywall. Notice when it was posted? NOV 25th of LAST YEAR. It is now the 19th of January, well past the time for the skin to be released to the public. And there have been OTHER skins made since then, all still locked behind paywalls.  Now, giving this creator the benefit of the doubt, I then checked their tumblr to see if perhaps they posted the skin for free on their tumblr: 

But frankly, I love how they really give a big middle finger to those who think they can violate EA’s TOU and the community’s trust and giving spirit towards them. 

Here’s the deal, if you are going to say that “artists” deserve to be paid as an excuse to justify paywalls, then you have a ton of people to pay royalties for all the CC you put behind paywalls. Let’s go through them shall we:  - EA’s team of creatives:  We know by how well EA’s f***’d the public over that they have to be doing it partly to their creative employees. If you say you want artists to be paid, why are you using their content, meshes, code, heck, the whole GAME they designed and worked hard on as a “cash cow” for you to hold CC hostage?  - The creators of TSR creator and the Sims 4 Studio.  These tools are both offered to the community for free. TSR at least allows you to support them by doing a membership on their site, but I was very hard pressed to find ANY sort of patreon, ko-fi, or other sort of donation tool for the S4S folks. Considering MOST if not all sims modders use their tools for batch fixes, package edits, and other things, they deserve some cash too.  - Any company/creator whose 3D model you used, ripped, or borrowed parts of.  Because this is a common problem for many “exclusive” CC creators. So if you bought part or all of your mesh somewhere else, that person deserves a cut of your profits as well.  - Any company whose brand you used to advertise your makeup, clothing, or furnishings for the sims. Because if you are selling copies of their brand, even for a video game, you’re not using it with their consent. Artists, designers, and other creatives made those products, not intending for you to rip it off, put it in a video game, and then charge people for it.  (This is much more understandable if you are someone who is releasing this content for free and just charging for early access as a donation to the creator. But to literally hold your version of a certain makeup brand, or an IKEA stool HOSTAGE behind a paywall to charge more is nuts and is obviously trying to “profit” off of that trademarked brand.)  - Any person whose free guides, advice, or help taught you how to edit, create, or manipulate meshes, textures, or to create CC.  After all, these people helped you get started, teaching you (for free) how to make content for the community. Surely they deserve something for the fact that they gave up a very precious commodity (time) to teach you.  ---------------------- You see the insanity of this? This community has long had the custom of being a sharing and caring community, as evidenced by people like the creators of S4S who literally create a program the entire community and release daily updates for FREE. 

You really wanna stop the “share and share alike” policy that so many creators have used to help make this community awesome, really?  And before y’all go off onto the “I treat this like a job” bull, let’s get one thing straight.  THIS. IS. NOT. A. JOB.  Nor, frankly, should it be. In the words of @precious-sims​:  All im gonna say is, the sims 4 and all the things surrounding it is a hobby, not a job. Your life should not surround itself around making content for the sims 4. Why would you rely on a market so shaky and short lived to make most of your profits when in a flash the rug could be swept right under you. Its financially irresponsible. 

Preach girl. Preach. Because here’s the thing y’all. Even though right now EA seems to be sitting on its butt when it comes to violations of it’s terms, things could change. For a long time, Nintendo did nothing to stop people from sharing and bootlegging amiibo files, until one day *poof* it wasn’t okay. All it will take is ONE person high enough on EA’s team to say “We wanna go after these people who violate this” to make a ton of people’s day really bad. 

And even if “big bad EA” doesn’t ever step in, you have a right to the community to allow us to CHOOSE to support you.  Because, not all of us can afford to pay month after month of jacked up prices for “exclusive” cc due to job situations, medical issues, the pandemic, or other expenses.  “Then don’t pay for it, you whining babies! You shouldn’t expect us to create stuff for you for free! There’s plenty of other free CC out there!”  But we don’t. We don’t expect you to create stuff for free. But we do expect you to eventually release it for free AFTER an early access period so that those of us who CURRENTLY cannot pay, can get a break. Many people love to support creators, but when you take away the choice of people and lock everything you’ve ever made behind paywalls, it gets a little insane. And to be honest, we don’t expect you to make CC. It’s a hobby. You’re lucky it’s actually one you’re allowed to get paid for and people want to pay for. But when you refuse to play by the rules, and violate copyright to do so, it’s not a very good look on you. It’s not that we don’t want to pay, it’s that some of us cannot right now, and some of us really don’t like that you’re putting the work of OTHER people behind your “exclusive” paywalls. (/cough secondlife and imvu /cough)  And, as I’ve said before:  If you cannot follow EA’s simple (and very REASONABLE) terms, how in the world are we to expect you to follow any other TOU out there? 

That’s why we’re frustrated. We’re done with you guys preaching about how you want creators to be respected when you cannot even respect the terms asked by the darn creators of the game.  We’re sick of you following EA’s business model and locking everything away until we pay the steep toll price, regardless of the quality of what we get, or if we even **like it** or **use it** once we’ve paid for it. (At least with EA we can...you know, have somewhat of a preview beyond pictures on a patreon...)  And yes, there are other creators. But let’s be real, every creator is different, and has a different style, talent, specialty, etc. We may be able to use OTHER content, but it won’t be YOUR special kind of content that you bring to the community.  Let us CHOOSE to support you. Let us support you because you make great content and you follow the rules and go about it the right way.  Because in the end, the more you play unfairly with the community, the more pirates will force your hand. Because ironically, they have a stronger sense of ethics when it comes to the community than y’all do. And no amount of complaints will stop them either, because they really don’t care about your hurt feelings when you’ve been bleeding the community dry. Just saying. /shrug

So I got "recommended" a new CC creators thanks to tumblr's tag system. And this person is hitting the ground running with the paywall red flags.... 🚩 Content is way too HQ/alpha for the sims 🚩 Mentions a "brand" or does something that sounds like they're trying to act like a fashion designer or retailer when they're literally selling pixels. 🚩 Cross promotes or shares content from paywalling creators who are known converters/thieves. 🚩 Content involves "luxury" items or brands to make people feel rich but don't always make the most sense. Case in point....

This is supposed to be a tub. I have many questions about this picture and item: 1. Where is the faucet? Do they fill the tub with buckets of water? 2. How does the tub drain? 3. How the HELL does someone get in this thing? 4. How the HELL did the movers get something so obviously heavy/bulky/massive into a highrise sims apartment? 5. Why is the creator calling this a rose bath when the flower petals look more like a pansy or other flower? 6. What sort of person decides "ya know what, I have tons of money to throw around, you know what I want? A BIG ASS GIANT GOLDEN FLOWER TUB!" 7. Is this thing even comfortable to sit in? It looks like it'd be hell on your backside. ----------------------------------- Now obviously I'm not gonna tell you who made it because I'd prefer to not reward them for something that I suspect is probably not even their work to begin with. {It literally looks like they just took a flower model off the web, textured it and somehow made it work as a tub in the game? What the fuck?} But I just had to share as this makes ZERO damn sense and gave me quite a chuckle. What's even more ironic? That their little bit of "free" content that they hand out to hook people into paying for their exclusives they have a rule that people can't put it behind paywalls. Yet they have exclusive content of their own behind paywalls, that they also request not be behind paywalls.

Nothing ruins my excitement for good custom content more.

The amount of ego I see from some cc creators who try to paywall their content is astounding. 🤣😂

I’m not in this for the free content. I’m in this fight to have a fair and ethical community where the rights of artists are respected, and the community is supportive because they choose to be.

If you think this is okay, you are part of the problem. You do NOT have the right to take FREE content that another creator is offering, and put it behind the paywalls of your “builds” that you lock behind paywalls.