hey i looked at your directory and dont see a topic about builders who lock cc behind a paywall. ive ran into a few of them (hmb, hauzz, etc.,) where they lock cc and never release it. id love to hear your opinion on this matter since you did ever so amazingly with most topic about paywalls. cheers xo
Okay, so in the words of Rhett and Link...
First, I want to clarify something that I think should be said before we get into the meat of this topic.
My personal opinion (which the public is free to disagree with) is that builders in the sims 4 are awesome, but do not have to put in the same amount of monetary stakes, time commitments to learning programs, and testing as those who create CC clothing/furnishings. Because of this, charging for builds (I believe) is a really strange practice,.
All a builder has to do to get started building is to have the sims 4 base game. That’s it. There’s not a process of learning how to mesh, figuring out new programs, buying programs, buying textures/resources, etc. Is it somewhat time-intensive? Yes. But it is not as INTENSE or hard to learn as it is to make CC as you are not required to buy an expensive program to build in the sims 4 and share it.
If a builder wants to share a build and people want to donate, awesome. But I (personally) don’t see the point of opening up a Patreon JUST for the purpose of sharing builds in the sims 4. I find it odd in practice. Particularly when there are many builders sharing their work 100% for free on the gallery, even with CC in them. I just don’t see the need for it, and don’t really understand the “demand” for builds, but that’s just me and my playstyle.
It’s okay if you disagree with my take on that, but I feel that it does color some of what I’m about to say, so you need to know that going in.
As for your question, I honestly feel really disgusted with the practice of locking builds, and the included CC for it, behind paid paywalls. You can see a post (HERE) that shows how one particular creator had her FREE CC locked behind the PAID paywall of another creator.
Why do I not like it? Because most of the time NOTHING in the build is owned or created by the builder themselves. It’s just items from the sims 4 + expansion packs, and custom content they got from others (often for free!), arranged in a house.
You are literally paying people to collect a bunch of CC + items from the sims 4, and arrange it for you. And the crux of the matter is, that for SOME builders, they use so many creators, they do not have the time, nor the decency to message those creators. Those creators never get a message saying “Hey, I used some of your content in this build that’s going up on my patreon. Is it okay if I make money off of it?” They find out that their CC is locked behind someone’s paywall because someone ELSE alerts them. They don’t even do something half-way decent and just leave that creator’s CC out of the folder and LINK to the blog of the creator to download. They just throw it in with the rest of the content on their patreon.
So, let’s start with one really great example. A creator known as “Her Majesty Builds”. Which you already mentioned in your ask.
First, she uses a TOOOOON of CC in her builds that is from other creators and locks it in her paywall folders. HERE is a post about that, with a giant list of creators. Among them are both PAYWALL creators, and NON-PAYWALL/EARLY ACCESS creators that she stole content from and locked behind her paywall.
There’s a really great archive blog HERE that details the utter craziness of this “creator”.
One of the absolutely nuts things that she does can be found in her info on her patreon.
So basically, if she SUSPECTS at all, that you could REMOTELY be sharing her builds, you’ll be blocked with no chance of a refund. Regardless of your ACTUAL innocence or not.
The link being sent directly to you is a bit sus, particularly as her post seems to imply that you have to DIRECTLY MESSAGE her each time for the link. That’s a lot of effort for the price you pay for her builds.
Anyway, that’s one example I’m sure you know well. But basically, it’s a gross paywall and should be avoided. There are plenty of great free builds that can be found on the gallery, and on early access simmer’s sites if you are into that sort of thing. Because paywall builds often have tons and tons of copyright violations, and not to mention that they often don’t update the CC in those builds when new patches/etc come out that can break them.
