Custom content:Pay sites: Difference between revisions
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The overwhelming popularity of some fan sites caused them problems. Popular fan sites were overcome with traffic, so many servers could not handle them, and most sites on free servers spent part of the day down. In order to handle the traffic, webmasters had to pay for more bandwidth. Some of the most popular sites were paying thousands of dollars a month from their own pocket to keep the site alive.
To solve the problem of webmasters paying large amounts of money for downloading, some sites, such as [[The Sims Resource]], sold CDs of their content, and/or went pay. Subscriptions pay for the bandwidth and have allowed some sites to have their sites put on more reliable servers.
Instead of becoming a pay site, some fan sites have elected to take donations, some even offer a gift in return. [[Around the Sims]] is one of these sites that has traditionally offered donation gifts. [[Patreon]] is a common means that sites have used to take donations or offer early access content.
== Paysite Models ==
===Physical content distribution===
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[[Ad-fly]] and [[Short-est]] were ad-based models designed to force the player to view five seconds of an advertisement before continuing to the download. A shortened link brought the player to an ad link which the player needed to watch for 5 seconds before continuing to the download. Unfortunately, unlike Google Ads, neither Ad-fly nor Short-est screened their advertisers, but relied on the honor system and the ability for people to report ads that violated their terms. Unfortunately, Ad-fly and Short-est quickly became sources of [[malware]], once hackers realized that if the page displayed actually froze the browser and/or the system within the 5 seconds, they could add a scam warning message advertising a "cure" for the "virus". This is now commonly known as a Trojan horse/ransomware exploit - in downloading the "cure", they actually were infecting computers, then charging users to fix the computers they just infected. When security updates to modern computers became available to automatically report this kind of malware during or after the fact, sites like ad-fly and short-est were quickly marked as known malware hosts and blocked as dangerous sites by updated browser security features.
===Subscription Models ===
Subscription models typically locked most or all of the site content behind a pay wall. The player was required to sign in to the custom content web site to access the content. Often both a free membership and a paid membership were offered. The free membership would have metered downloads requiring a wait, and/or a limited custom content selection. The paid membership would offer things like unmetered downloads, the ability to download larger archives or complete sets instead of individual files, banner ad removal, access to forums, access to exclusive email lists, groups, and so on.
The most well-known subscription model sites currently are [[The Sims Resource]] and [[Patreon]]. '''Patreon''' is a third party subscription hosting site that became available during the development of [[The Sims 3]]. Due to the way Patreon works, most Patreon content is linked to from the content creator's separate blog or public posts. Creators typically set up subscription levels on Patreon for their fans, including a free/public level. Posts and privileges are restricted by tier level. For instance, a public post might show a picture of an upcoming set, but the download link is in another linked post that is pay tier restricted. Other Patreon privileges frequently given to subscribers are Discord invite links, Discord roles, fan polls, feedback comment channels, exclusive cloud drive folder links, and exclusive YouTube videos. After EA Games addressed this issue directly and made a statement prohibiting permanently locking content behind paywalls, early access (which was not prohibited) became another benefit - subscribers would get the creator content from one to three months early before it was released publicly. Other pay sites began categorizing their custom content and meshes as 3-D models. Those who subscribed would get a working model for the Sims.
Historically, Mall of the Sims, SimsSlice, the Well-Dressed Sim, Pandora Sims, and the Eighth Deadly Sim, and Sexy Sims were all subscription sites. Some pay sites began as subscription sites due to mature content. Others started with a free model, then went pay when they attracted enough players to put a strain on server bandwidth from all the downloads. TS1 sites often attracted lots of players when object mods were available on the site, so new object mods were typically locked behind the pay wall.
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===Curseforge===
Curseforge added Sims 4 to its library of mods upon EA approval. on December 6, 2022. Curseforge also hosts mods for other games, such as Minecraft, Stardew Valley, and more.
Curseforge is sponsored by ad banner content but all custom content and mods are free for all to download. Creators get paid from a percentage of ad revenue collected. Downloading Sims 4 mods on Curseforge now requires the player to install the free Curseforge app. A premium Overwolf subscription can be purchased to remove the ads. '''Current advantages of Curseforge (as of Dec 2023'''): Curseforge can tell you which creators have uploaded updates to their mods hosted on Curseforge if you let the app manage all your Curseforge content for your game. You can search broadly by mod type to find mods and custom content you want. '''Disadvantages of Curseforge (as of Dec 2023)''': Curseforge only hosts mods for the Sims 4. When Curseforge "organizes" your mods, it puts ALL of them directly in the Mods folder, never in a subfolder. Plus if you manually move them to a subfolder, it will not recognize the mod or custom content as Curseforge content and will no longer notify you about updates. Curseforge does not take into account for script mods that have different versions, such as translated versions, or versions adapted to certain other mods. Curseforge also does not let you finetune the categories for search as much as other large sites, notably [[Mod the Sims]] and The Sims Resource.
== Controversy ==
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===Now defunct pay sites (Internet Archive)===
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20040612084707/http://www.welldressedsim.com/ The Well Dressed Sim (archived August 2000)]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20040611141321/https://www.mallofthesims.com/ Mall of the Sims (archived June 2004)]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070624044221/http://www.simshost.com/ SimsHost (archived June 2007)]
[[Category:Websites]]
[[Category:Custom Content]]
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