When I first opened my site, I had
no idea about the freesite/paysite battles going on. I think I
had my nose too enclosed in textbooks, and my attention devoted more
to the actual gameplay of the Sims 2 rather than on battles that
will become pretty much obsolete once Sims 3 is released. The
first day I released Simphany, I got a threatening letter (which I
swore up and down was from a kid, because I still can't--to this
day, believe that an actual adult would go around bullying other
adults about a video game...) which told me to make my site free, or
else! There were no questions as to why the site wasn't all
free, and no alternatives offered (donation buttons are a good
idea...I guess I wanted the site to gain momentum before I let it
run on donation, and Google Adwords costs), and...defiant chick that
I am, I refused to give in to bullying, especially in the face of
pretending to have good intentions. There are definitely some
paysites that are outrageous in pricing, but some that I really support and don't
mind giving a few bucks to a few times a year, just to encourage
them to keep their sites open--they make my game more enjoyable,
after all. Free download sites do as well...but they update so
few and far between (most of the time, it seems like only once or
twice a year) that I just find myself not going back to check on
what's new there. I can respect a good fight when there's
reason to partake in one, but I also respect respectful approaches,
and not playground-bully tactics. Thanks to the friends who
alerted me to my files being stolen, and thank you for all the great
ideas and support you have been giving me.
That being said, the
payfile-share-friendly sites are one aspect of a simming community
that I had never heard of before, and I have been introduced to yet
another group of simmers doing things their own way, but not made
known to the general simming community. I have wondered where
all those creators that I used to look forward to downloading from
disappeared to, and most of them have disappeared here (and I can't
blame them, who needs the drama?) Two years ago, a few college
professors from 4 Universities located in 3 different states (I'm
considering attendance at one of said Universities next year) created a
site that would host creations for their film, computer animation,
and graphic art/design classes that would be taken over by students
in these classes. The files there would, of course, need to be
owned by the site in order to be featured on models used in their
presentations/videos, or in lots/homes created for the classes, so
the site owners slowly started recruiting creators to devote meshes
and recolors to their site. I begged them to tell me whether
or not they were related to EA Games in their classes, but my
question was ignored for the most part, and I won't push the matter
any further. I have no problem devoting some files to them,
and them alone, so long as they allow me a free section of the site
(which they have) to continue making creations for the general
public.
As far as I've been told, they do
not hold open memberships--memberships are given to students of the
current year, and the same agreement I'm now bound to exists for the
other site creators as well.
