Life By You director says modders are welcome to monetize creations however they want: 'Go for it—you don't need our permission'
If you think your folder of Sims 4 custom content is stuffed, its upcoming competition Life By You wants to attract even more mods to clog your downloads folder. Life By You envisions itself as a highly customizable modder's paradise, and unlike the tension that can exist between The Sims 4 and Patreon-funded modders, Life By You says «monetize all you want—you don't owe us a dime.»
In a recent interview with PC Gamer, Life by You creative director Rod Humble, who was previously head of The Sims and Second Life, took a totally permissive view of modding in general. «Player creativity is good for us,» Humble said. «It's good for us [even if] we don't make a dime because it was made using our game.
»If you make a YouTube series made using Life By You, I want you to know: You monetize all you want. You don't owe us a dime—go for it. Likewise, if you make a mod and it's downloaded by millions of people and you're like, 'actually I'm going to take my mod to my website and I'm going to start monetizing it,' perhaps on Patreon like a whole bunch of modders do, I want creators to know: Go for it. You don't need our permission."
Though he doesn't mention it by name, this is a much more lax attitude than the current Sims modding policy set by EA, which does allow ad-supported download sites and using Patreon to offer «an early access incentive for a reasonable amount of time,» though never to permanently paywall mods. Clarifying that policy has been a source of tension within the Sims modding community in years past. Paying for mods has always been a somewhat contentious topic, made more so when developers or storefronts get involved.
Life By You's approach is just to remove itself from the equation as much as possible, it sounds. Modders can sell their work however they like and it's between them and the rest of the player community whether or not it's worth paying for.
Humble says that's been a benefit of working with strategy and simulation publisher Paradox Interactive,
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