WTH is this paywall discussion?

There will be free guides everywhere even if people attempt this. I have no idea what type of person would pay for a build. I think this was just a topic of the day for content creators to make there 15th video in a 2 week span for views.
Poe 2 builds are not complicated at all spend 10% of your nodes on defence the rest on crit or whatever corresponding damage your doing and grab as many jewel sockets as possible. Craft mid/high tier gear yourself you can run all content. Plus build giudes would be the same bait as most free content creator builds where they fail to mention how much they invested into their gear.

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nhull17#5978 wrote:

As Ziz has already pointed out in his vid, absolutely no paid guide will be even worth buying, all the best creators do the crap for free because they're actual content creators that make their money via views, not selling an already free resource.

Yeah... Ziz on his high horse, what an example.

So, when I have a cooking TV show (I make my money with) and publish my recipes for free - other ppl are not allowed to take money for their recipes!?

In ANY other field ppl would not make a drama out of it and let the free market do its thing.

It's funny, the last few seasons I have been using less guides and just work on creating the builds from scratch.

Since I play alone for the most part I have started using my ChatGTP bot to handle any questions or suggestion. I realize it uses guides for some of it's knowledge but then I can try and create the best of all of them.

I don't see paying for a guide in game but who knows. I buy a supporter pack for every season for both POE I and II, so further supporting a creator in what they are giving to the community is not out of the question.

Personally I don't the YouTube videos for guides because I just like to jump in and do it for myself. Since they don't get a view and like from me I am cool for dropping a few bucks for a guide if I go back to them.

ShavedDome

Why this topic become a thing at this exact time ? FastAF / PoEbuild youtube channel had already paywalling pob or guides in PoE 1, and nobody really care that much about it. I can understand abit for PoE 1 since its "more complex" game than PoE 2, but if you paying for a guide for doing a math of how much is 10+10, you'll get more value in hiring a hkker to do your lawn / dishes than paying a paywalled build guide.

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JakkerONAIR#4902 wrote:

In ANY other field ppl would not make a drama out of it and let the free market do its thing.

I think the drama is part of the free market doing it's thing.

The target demographic determined the product is not worth the cost and goes against the established norms of the community.

Should they keep quiet about their opinion or warn new players that the same/better info is available for free?

This is mostly a discussion about how different forms of monetization feel.

There's some truth to the fact that attaching a dollar value to something inherently makes people assume it is more valuable than something without one, so I think encouraging direct monetization of builds themselves would just make finding buids and the overall navigation of poe2 content annoyingly cancerous.

Yeah, you'd be able to find creators and pirated builds for "free", but legions of noobs who don't know better would inevitably end up funding enough SEO'd low-effort crap and re-direction to RMT sources to create a scenario where anyone googling anything poe2 related would have to wade through 3-miles of absolute horseshit before finding something worthwhile.

It would result in an overall degradation of the poe2 ecosystem. The indirect monetization method results in a better experience for people who are interested in free2play games with a constant rotation of new players because the incentive for creators is to keep attention indefinitely - to keep players engaged with them and the game, not just for the length of a single transaction where it doesn't matter if you end up liking the product or not.

That's why it undermines their business model - it degrades the ecosystem which makes it a worse experience, which translates into less eyes on their content. The scum aspect arises from the fact that the indirect model is literally better for creators, players, and almost everyone except people who want to make the quick buck selling builds to noobs, and you'd allegedly be deliberately contributing to the sacrifice of that quality in order to make a potential buck.

I tend to agree.

There could be people selling very high-quality builds bundled with exclusive video hand-holding and customized loot filters or whatever, but ultimately, the people buying builds do not usually have the ability to distinguish good builds from bad builds, so it's moot. It will be a popularity contest of what build-seller has better marketing capability, and bad-faith techniques are the lowest hanging fruit and very effective.

I don't think we will have to worry, because there is already a well-established community built on an indirect monetization model where build-sharing is already normalized. I don't think any "build-seller" is going to overshadow this to the point of crowding out attention and undermining the existing monetization model that creators utilize.

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JakkerONAIR#4902 wrote:

So, when I have a cooking TV show (I make my money with) and publish my recipes for free - other ppl are not allowed to take money for their recipes!?

Cooking is more than just a recipe like million others. It is bad enough that most dishes in videos are just prepared fakes, which isn't possible with the shown recipe.

In a videogame, if you follow the same build, everything is completely identical, there is no skill involved.
So if the guide has no unique selling point (because it is the same) then paywalling is neither economically successfull nor fair toward the "exploited" person, who realizes afterward that he paid it completely for nothing.

i think its fine if someone paywalled a lengthy in depth guide for cheap that took a decent chunk of time to make. paywalling the pob as well tho is crazy and like other ppl have said it will just get posted elsewhere. for creators who make their living gaming specifically, posting a showcase with pob/ .build file/ filter links but no guide is fair game if the guide is good quality and they actually have a discord or whatever to help ppl. patreon has a members only discord channel deal where this is possible. with discord you could also have free open channels where others as well as the creator help with simple questions. if a creator went to all that length and they actually spent a decent amount of time helping ppl with builds but others still demanded it all be free then those ppl would be delusionally entitled

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googley_eyes#2107 wrote:

i think its fine if someone paywalled a lengthy in depth guide for cheap that took a decent chunk of time to make. paywalling the pob as well tho is crazy and like other ppl have said it will just get posted elsewhere. for creators who make their living gaming specifically, posting a showcase with pob/ .build file/ filter links but no guide is fair game if the guide is good quality and they actually have a discord or whatever to help ppl. patreon has a members only discord channel deal where this is possible. with discord you could also have free open channels where others as well as the creator help with simple questions. if a creator went to all that length and they actually spent a decent amount of time helping ppl with builds but others still demanded it all be free then those ppl would be delusionally entitled

That's actually a possibility. Sure, we can all pretend that every single one who wants money for their guides will be a scammer yadda yadda, but I think it could be a thing too where you sell a kind of "servive" with your guide.
Like you said via Discord, Patreon or whatever. Where the buyer gets way more help if needed and can stay in contact with the creator.
Kinda weird to me that the only game (community) where paid services is some kind of evil thing to do is PoE.
Take any competitive game - while you can watch guides about your game to get better; you still can buy "coaching services" or similar stuff if you want.
And nobody cries about it.

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JakkerONAIR#4902 wrote:

That's actually a possibility. Sure, we can all pretend that every single one who wants money for their guides will be a scammer yadda yadda, but I think it could be a thing too where you sell a kind of "servive" with your guide.
Like you said via Discord, Patreon or whatever. Where the buyer gets way more help if needed and can stay in contact with the creator.
Kinda weird to me that the only game (community) where paid services is some kind of evil thing to do is PoE.
Take any competitive game - while you can watch guides about your game to get better; you still can buy "coaching services" or similar stuff if you want.
And nobody cries about it.

yeah cuz then its more about paying for a service like you said and creating a community where ppl help each other out. for everyone else who doesn't wanna pay they can still join the free discord channel or just look at the free pob and be able to read