Curse and FTB partner

[freakachu]

Finally and I know again this may be me misreading somehow but there is no mention of Kakermix turning them down, if anything it reads like the opposite is true. The post says

'The best part was I responded to the offer (after talking with Duncan a few times over the phone) with 'dramatic increase in what is being offered'. The response was 'we cant afford that' and thats where the talking stopped. From how I read that, it feels like Curse ended the negotiations and not Kakermix. Again if I have either misread this then I apologise but I can only go off the information in the post.

you, sir, have no idea how business negotiations work. an offer is made, and then counter offers are made until a deal is reached or one of the parties walks out. how you can interpret that post as "lol I just want $$$$$" is beyond me. you have ZERO legs to stand on when it comes to pointing fingers about taking money or not turning it down. you have taken that money, and accepted this same company's deal while kaker has not done either of these. I suggest you shut your gob on the matter of money, the taking thereof, and the morality or ethics of it for the rest of your life. your hypocrisy is astounding.

edit: in case you think I'm talking out my ass, this comes as someone who has owned a business for a number of years now. far longer than since last october.

[Blacktooth]

np, I came here to answer questions originally, done that as best as I can.

ill leave you to your conspiracy theory stuff again.

Well, dang. My questions didn't get answered, though I can hazard a guess at what the answer might be.

"We literally havent even started on this yet and most certainly do not have all the answers to all the questions at this time, just a broad outline of an idea."

[Portablejim]

I think I know who/what is censoring the guy's comment: The bot. See http://www.reddit.com/r/feedthebeast/comments/1uybqk/newly_registered_reddit_accounts_readme/

If you notice the account with deleted posts is new.

[SXScarecrow]

Well, I think we all learned something today about our FTB cousins. I originally applauded slowpoke for coming here because he knew he would face hostility from a lot of us; that takes balls. However, on the other hand quite a lot of us have changed opinions of slow for the worse. Hmmm, whatever the outcome Technic can stand up proudly and claim the moral high ground!

[Munaus]

Aww, don't go, we'll miss you, I was just throwing your moderator's bullshit back at you! I love you, Kevin!

Is it bullshit when all you ever did was spam "Curse gives ads with malware!" on the FTB-Curse thread?

Is it bullshit when your obvious trolling with "launcher updates are too slow! FTBs volunteering people should work harder cuz Slow promised so!"

And then theres you taking a dump on Bride because ________ reasons.

I do hope you get banned from FTB, this dickbaggery you been doing is not ok.

And Slow coming in here to apologize was certainly not asked for, but I applaud him for it.

[bwillb]

Is it bullshit when all you ever did was spam "Curse gives ads with malware!" on the FTB-Curse thread?

Is it bullshit when your obvious trolling with "launcher updates are too slow! FTBs volunteering people should work harder cuz Slow promised so!"

And then theres you taking a dump on Bride because ________ reasons.

I do hope you get banned from FTB, this dickbaggery you been doing is not ok.

And Slow coming in here to apologize was certainly not asked for, but I applaud him for it.

I'm not sure who or what "Bride" is, but you have a very strange recollection of events. Seven or so posts (in a thread with well over 100 posts), most of them responses to people who responded to me, is apparently spamming now! By that reasoning, slowpoke is spamming here. Right? Is that how it works in your mind?

[Munaus]

Apologies in advance to the moderators, I do realize I'm derailing here.

Curse? Prepare For Malware!

Why would Curse's "pay us to stop giving you malware" scheme be any different?

The big problem there is that Curse is notorious for serving up infected ads, time and time again. Infecting your userbase with malware is not something

Three times posting the same message is not spamming to you? ok...

No, Slow doesn't spam. I'm curious, however, why you never troubled to answer him on that thread?

Bride is the one who started Kitty Jail thread.

[KakerMix]

Hi.

Curse approached us in October about having a "partnership" between Curse and Technic. We talked for a few days, both via email and over phone, and the first initial offer was this:

1. Curse would purchase Technic and its assets for a set amount. This means the things that Curse sees value in, the domains. Domain traffic = ad hits, which is Curse's entire business model.

2. A lead position at Curse to "fix" CurseForge for a substantial yearly salary ("fix" means make popular so Curse gets more ad revenue), with maybe going on to other under-performing aspects of Curse's properties to "fix" them as well. That quote of "I have a guy there now, but they fucking suck" was said to me over the phone, directly, about how CurseForge was currently performing.

In total, I'd sell them Technic and it's domains, hand over control of all our in-house made software for a fixed amount, and then I'd become a Curse employee, but only me. Nobody else on my team. When I brought up how the team was vital, I was told "We have 40 developers!" and they sent their offer anyway, after talking about how important it was that my team was included.

My reply to their offer was

"there needs to be some dramatic upward movement in what is being offered for us to consider this"

That is for-real literally what I said. Guess what I was met back with?

"I'm worried we can't afford it"

Afford what? I never said an amount, I never requested a specific sum of money, the only numbers where from Curse's end. The only requirement was that it was my team and I. They ran away the moment they realized I wasn't willing to throw my team under the bus, that I knew how much value Syndicate (the company Technic operates under) actually carried. Curse doesn't make money by being fair, they get their wealth from low-balling people and profiting off their work. There was an initial offer, but no negotiation because they simply stopped talking when I refused their offer.

But hey, if not selling out somehow makes me a sell out then I guess I'm the biggest sellout ever!

[bwillb]

No, Slow doesn't spam.

Really? REALLY. Like, ever? Well that's some goddamned mind-blowing news to me! I take it you weren't around here when slow was trolling technic hard.

I'm curious, however, why you never troubled to answer him on that thread?

Because his little pet banned me for calling out his bullshit before I saw slow's response. Imagine that, banning the people who repeat an inconvenient message but leaving alone the people who repeat something in favor of your ideas.

Bride is the one who started Kitty Jail thread.

I'm still not seeing anyone called "Bride", but I'm assuming you mean the "tech support" person who told users to do something completely unnecessary and potentially detrimental and then when someone cautioned users to not go doing stupid shit willy nilly and offered something that actually worked this "tech support" person told users to ignore the low post count peasant and listen to the supreme high overlord of "tech support"'s shitty advice? Yeah that's probably the one you mean. Huh.

Anyway, I do hope that you download the Curse launcher and enjoy it, don't get any malware, and don't get left in the dust holding a "i<3slowpoke" sign when another chance for a cash grab comes along. I doubt that will be the case, but I do hope for it, for everyone's sake.

[Lothos]

How does curse go from "I have a guy there now, but they fucking suck" to "We have 40 developers!" ? This almost sounds as bad as Slow's usual logic.

[bwillb]

How does curse go from "I have a guy there now, but they fucking suck" to "We have 40 developers!" ? This almost sounds as bad as Slow's usual logic.

40 developers who have a combined ability equaling one sucky guy?

[KakerMix]

40 developers who have a combined ability equaling one sucky guy?

I think he meant "Curse" has 40 developers, but the guy who was heading Curse Forge was the sucky one. Those lines where in separate conversations.

[Pokemane]

And you probably will never work on it. I sincerely doubt that anyone at Curse (read: the business people, not the people you see at conventions) really cares about anything but making some revenue off the pageviews that FTB and Forge will get them. If there's an honest-to-goodness "thing" in the works, then hooray. Options are great. But personally I don't think that we're ever going to see anything more than a token of anything "cool" from Curse out of all of this.

I stand by my earlier statement. Curse has the page views, now, and that's all they want. They may or may not roll out a token "launcher" service that might download and install mods from their site automatically, but I won't count on it. I also won't ever, ever use it (and it looks like most users on that Reddit thread won't either) because it'll be infested with ads and will be "supported" by Curse's... questionable... backend.

[bwillb]

I think he meant "Curse" has 40 developers, but the guy who was heading Curse Forge was the sucky one. Those lines where in separate conversations.

That makes sense. I wonder how they feel about the rest of the 40? And I wonder if the guy heading CurseForge knows how his masters feel about him?

[holymage!]

Reading this and looking at how the MC fourms currently are.

i going to go with "this is a bad idea and a horrible life choice"

[bwillb]

From the FTB forum thread:

The big thing with a partnership with Curse, even if you ignore their business practices, is that every mod author with a mod in a FTB pack would have their mod uploaded to Curse in order to work with the Curse launcher. If Curse was a desired host in the first place, people wouldn't be distributing mods through their own upload service. Did I miss the part where everyone agreed to this? Would hate to think that FTB would suddenly have to exclude a mod from their packs simply because the author didn't want to deal through Curse.

Thoughts?

[Cheap Shot]

Slowpoke I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish. I wish you'd give it a rest. Why do you think people should be mad at us exactly? People are mad at you for the things you're doing. Pointing at things we didn't do and going "ugh! look at them! so bad and greedy!" is such a hypocritical mess, and makes you look like you're just trying to shift the heat onto Technic. Why is it that every few months we find out you're slinging mud at us again? Why do we have to be the adults here?

Thoughts?

A valid concern, and one that seems to have not been fully explored if the negative and confused reactions by some modders in that reddit thread are any indication. If the modders aren't on board then this whole idea just flops. And I can imagine many would have strong scruples about putting their mods into curses hands to make money off of, even if curse does end up parting with a pittance of it for them. As a modder in the reddit thread said, their payouts for hosted mods in other games is dismal and apparently decreasing as curse expands.

A mod repository would be excellent for the minecraft community, no question. The question is more about who will do a good job of it?

Curse? No. Their reputation is horrible. They are here to try and beat mojang to the punch by promising their own repository in half the time and buying their way into the community. This is just business for them. Which is understandable, but business doesn't always = quality. Certainly it doesn't mean that when curse is involved, who are well known for caring about adclicks and profit before taking quality and customer satisfaction into account. Their reputation is atrocious and by their own admission their current services are terrible. They will rush to beat mojang to the punch and release their repository, and later down the line Mojang will release most likely a better one and their own API and we'll have the community split between a crappy annoying service, and Mojangs version which no one can guess how it will be. If a mod repository is to be attempted that isn't Mojangs, it would be best to be done inside the community with just the communities interests in mind. You can't have that with curse, and curse isn't worth the strings and baggage that come attached, and I think that's a crux of most peoples reaction to this news.

[planetguy]

The ATLauncher people have a community-based mod repository with launcher integration already.

[Bluehorazon]

Slowpoke I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish. I wish you'd give it a rest. Why do you think people should be mad at us exactly? People are mad at you for the things you're doing. Pointing at things we didn't do and going "ugh! look at them! so bad and greedy!" is such a hypocritical mess, and makes you look like you're just trying to shift the heat onto Technic. Why is it that every few months we find out you're slinging mud at us again? Why do we have to be the adults here?

A valid concern, and one that seems to have not been fully explored if the negative and confused reactions by some modders in that reddit thread are any indication. If the modders aren't on board then this whole idea just flops. And I can imagine many would have strong scruples about putting their mods into curses hands to make money off of, even if curse does end up parting with a pittance of it for them. As a modder in the reddit thread said, their payouts for hosted mods in other games is dismal and apparently decreasing as curse expands.

A mod repository would be excellent for the minecraft community, no question. The question is more about who will do a good job of it?

Curse? No. Their reputation is horrible. They are here to try and beat mojang to the punch by promising their own repository in half the time and buying their way into the community. This is just business for them. Which is understandable, but business doesn't always = quality. Certainly it doesn't mean that when curse is involved, who are well known for caring about adclicks and profit before taking quality and customer satisfaction into account. Their reputation is atrocious and by their own admission their current services are terrible. They will rush to beat mojang to the punch and release their repository, and later down the line Mojang will release most likely a better one and their own API and we'll have the community split between a crappy annoying service, and Mojangs version which no one can guess how it will be. If a mod repository is to be attempted that isn't Mojangs, it would be best to be done inside the community with just the communities interests in mind. You can't have that with curse, and curse isn't worth the strings and baggage that come attached, and I think that's a crux of most peoples reaction to this news.

Well Mojang will never release an API like forge. I think it was Lex who chatted Dinnerbone, but not sure. The Minecraft API is for plugins only it is basically bukkit.

The point is if FTB wanted to do such a thing. They had two options. Expand their own services or search a partner who already has the ability to do what they want. They didn't sell FTB or anything so honestly getting a partner is the low-risk move their. Because they would need a lot of money to provide something like this. If curse somehow manages to fuck this up, something obviously a lot of people expect them to do, who would get the blame for it? Most likely it will be curse. And although the deal itself propably alienates a lot of followers, actually cutting the ties with Curse will achieve the opposite. And this is something that is problematic for curse. They haven't bought anything and if their launcher sucks people will not use it. So if FTB wanders off, they have a repo, a launcher but nothing more. Their biggest problem is that modders would most likely follow FTB. Right now the chance is high that some modders will use curse just because... why not. It doesn't do any harm to them and actually curse allows them to make money with their mods to some extent and is propably better than adfly.

I'm not convinced that this deal is as bad as some people see it, but I'm also not convinced that it is as a large step slow sees it as. Also I'm not sure slows comment about the tekkit-teal was based on the right information. It is propably the most logical thing that if a deal isn't working out because of money it is because one side is greedy, which often is a false assumption, because you don't know what the money is used for. I guess FTB would have declined the same deal tekkit got for the same others. And Tekkit might have thought more about a the deal FTB got now. You have to consider that they negotiated for almost 3 months. This is a clear sign that it is propably well thought through and propably even means that there are some kind of fallback patterns already in place if it goes wrong.

If you judge it purely by the goals it isn't a bad idea. And even if it would just mean that other people would start a rivaling service to compete with curse it would be a good thing. Actually curse isn't really good at handling any competition. They basically just go out and buy any competetor. They were propably surprised when someone they approached actually turned them down. And I'm not sure but I guess the initial offer to FTB was propably the same, but now they were in the position were they couldn't just go away and leave, they actually had to negotiate and I don't see that deal as good for curse as they would have wished for. Exspecially if they actually signed any of the parts about 3rd parties being able to use their repo in the contracts.

[bwillb]

Well Mojang will never release an API like forge. I think it was Lex who chatted Dinnerbone, but not sure. The Minecraft API is for plugins only it is basically bukkit.

I find that extremely hard to believe from what I've seen (and not seen) on the subject. Do you have any links that support this?

[Cheap Shot]

They were propably surprised when someone they approached actually turned them down. And I'm not sure but I guess the initial offer to FTB was propably the same, but now they were in the position were they couldn't just go away and leave, they actually had to negotiate and I don't see that deal as good for curse as they would have wished for. Exspecially if they actually signed any of the parts about 3rd parties being able to use their repo in the contracts.

Surprised when we turned them down, yeah totally. They make their money by buying their way into things, and letting them fall to shit while they make money off ad clicks. We wouldn't agree to anything unless our whole team was involved and we were given compete control to work on things and do them properly like we know we can, with curse backing but not mucking things up with poor standards and bad practices. They found some people who cared more about the community and the quality of their product than money and got turned down. Shocking I know!

Also, it isn't a matter of "we couldn't get this from these people so lets ask for less from the next guys." If you think curse wouldn't try to get everything then you don't know curse. Their MO is complete control. It was most likely more a matter of "what can FTB actually sell?"

In the end you just can't blame people for reacting the way they are. We took that into consideration when curse approached us and said "this is how it has to be if you want it done right." And they weren't willing to operate like that. Their track record is incredibly poor and they are fully alright with poor quality services and cash grab operations. There are ample examples of this. Even their bread and butter services for WoW receive lots of flack. They may be good intentions on Slowpokes part. I do think the whole get paid while volunteers keep doing work thing is pretty gross and I don't like that he's been slinging mud at us trying to divert attention in the midst of intense criticism; But the idea of a mod repository that can handle being the communities hub is a good one and no one can fault him for that desire. We all want that. I only say that this isn't likely to be the way to achieve that. Curse wasn't willing to go the way to achieve that with us, because it's not their business model. Simple as that. The curse criticism probably wont stop because it's well earned. Your optimism is admirable but understand the circumstances and those involved. FTB has received criticism for being unable to deliver on promises and curse has received piles of criticism for their shady practices and disregard for the communities they buy into. You can't fault people for expressing their concerns with this development.

[Blacktooth]

The point is if FTB wanted to do such a thing. They had two options. Expand their own services or search a partner who already has the ability to do what they want. They didn't sell FTB or anything so honestly getting a partner is the low-risk move their. Because they would need a lot of money to provide something like this. If curse somehow manages to fuck this up, something obviously a lot of people expect them to do, who would get the blame for it? Most likely it will be curse. And although the deal itself propably alienates a lot of followers, actually cutting the ties with Curse will achieve the opposite.

It just doesn't work like that. Never has, and never will. Pop culture is littered with popular brands making bad mistakes. They may limp along for a while afterwards, but they always carry the stigma of that bad mistake, and never fully recover their status from before.

If Mojang can hold Curse to the ideals that Mojang seem to hold dear as far as modding goes, then there is a chance that it could work. FTB will also have to alter their favorite mantra as well though. Two very big IFs there.

And this is something that is problematic for curse. They haven't bought anything and if their launcher sucks people will not use it. So if FTB wanders off, they have a repo, a launcher but nothing more.

FTB will have lost a large chunk of time. And while we may complain about how slow modding moves at times, any time away can leave you far behind. 6 months from now we are looking at MC version 1.9 or even 2.X. It won't be trivial.

Curse would have their foot in the door, which would be a big boost for them. They already have more eyes looking at them than Technic and FTB combined I imagine. I can't say for certain, but I imagine the MCF pulls outrageous numbers. They only need something, almost anything really, that looks and behaves like a launcher along with few ads on it, and they have a whole new source of income.

Their biggest problem is that modders would most likely follow FTB.

Curse still has the MCF Modding forum.

Right now the chance is high that some modders will use curse just because... why not. It doesn't do any harm to them and actually curse allows them to make money with their mods to some extent and is propably better than adfly.

There is this potential bugaboo from the recent EULA changes:

"Any tools you write for the Game from scratch belong to you. . Modifications to the Game ("Mods") (including pre-run Mods and in-memory Mods) and plugins for the Game also belong to you and you can do whatever you want with them, as long as you don‘t sell them for money / try to make money from them. We have the final say on what constitutes a tool/mod/plugin and what doesn‘t."

If/when Mojang care enough to enforce this rule, Curse will most definitely capitulate. Based on history, Mojang won't do anything until some drama arises. I am certain there will be drama.

I'm not convinced that this deal is as bad as some people see it, but I'm also not convinced that it is as a large step slow sees it as. Also I'm not sure slows comment about the tekkit-teal was based on the right information. It is propably the most logical thing that if a deal isn't working out because of money it is because one side is greedy, which often is a false assumption, because you don't know what the money is used for. I guess FTB would have declined the same deal tekkit got for the same others. And Tekkit might have thought more about a the deal FTB got now. You have to consider that they negotiated for almost 3 months. This is a clear sign that it is propably well thought through and propably even means that there are some kind of fallback patterns already in place if it goes wrong.

If you judge it purely by the goals it isn't a bad idea. And even if it would just mean that other people would start a rivaling service to compete with curse it would be a good thing. Actually curse isn't really good at handling any competition. They basically just go out and buy any competetor. They were propably surprised when someone they approached actually turned them down. And I'm not sure but I guess the initial offer to FTB was propably the same, but now they were in the position were they couldn't just go away and leave, they actually had to negotiate and I don't see that deal as good for curse as they would have wished for. Exspecially if they actually signed any of the parts about 3rd parties being able to use their repo in the contracts.

Curse has nothing to lose with a lot to gain, while FTB can lose a lot and gain little. That doesn't sound like a good idea to me.

FTB would have been better off partnering with Technic pooling resources to compete with Curse. But, well...lol. I guess you can't dance with the devil you made.

[darzavor]

I am afraid that if all mods are being uploaded at Curse, that I won't be able to download them anymore with Adblock , no script and other tools enabled that I built into my tinfoil hat.

[freakachu]

The point is if FTB wanted to do such a thing. They had two options. Expand their own services or search a partner who already has the ability to do what they want. They didn't sell FTB or anything so honestly getting a partner is the low-risk move their. Because they would need a lot of money to provide something like this. If curse somehow manages to fuck this up, something obviously a lot of people expect them to do, who would get the blame for it? Most likely it will be curse. And although the deal itself propably alienates a lot of followers, actually cutting the ties with Curse will achieve the opposite. And this is something that is problematic for curse. They haven't bought anything and if their launcher sucks people will not use it. So if FTB wanders off, they have a repo, a launcher but nothing more. Their biggest problem is that modders would most likely follow FTB. Right now the chance is high that some modders will use curse just because... why not. It doesn't do any harm to them and actually curse allows them to make money with their mods to some extent and is propably better than adfly.

if they put out a product that sucks, FTB is out a launcher, the trust of their forgecraft buddies, the respect of the community, and a large number of users. modder trust and community respect have been their "selling point", if you will, in terms of "why should I use this pack over technic?" I'm not going to go into the issues surrounding that claim or whether it's actually true, but that is their pitch. they have always been "tekkit without the 'evil'", essentially. if this deal does not produce spectacular results that pitch goes out the window. no one would believe it afterwards, not even 9 year olds on the internet. the question still remains as to whether slow signed over the ftb domains as part of this (that was one of the things curse wanted from technic, and does not constitute "selling the ftb name"). so I disagree that it's low risk for them. I think their entire future as a going concern rests on the success of this partnership. hopefully that motivates them to do it right, but I have serious doubts about that.

[Cheap Shot]

FTB would have been better off partnering with Technic pooling resources to compete with Curse. But, well...lol. I guess you can't dance with the devil you made.

Very interesting way to put it. Very interesting.