The views present herein represent only my opinion, and not necessarily that of the other authors at NSUI.
Yesterday Curse.com announced that they are moving forward with their previously announced plans for a Premium service. Details include:
- Premium Curse Client: Update all your addons with a single click!
- Faster Addon Downloads:Â Get in the game faster with lightning fast downloads from Curse.com and through the Curse Client!
- Support Addon Authors: A portion of your subscription goes to addon authors via Curse’s Author Rewards Program – helping them develop and maintain the addons you love.
- Ad-Free Curse.com Experience: No more ads on Curse.com!
- Premium-Only Beta Key Giveaways:Get access to beta key giveaways available only to premium subscribers, and priority access on all Curse beta key giveaways.
- Support Curse: Help us keep the new features coming and provide safe, secure addons.
- And much more!
Prices appear to range from $2.45 to about $5 a month (USD), depending on how far in advance you pay. Are the features above worth the money to you? It’s not difficult, and probably common, for Curse.com visitors to use other solutions to block ads from being displayed. Let’s focus on the Premium Curse Client changes for a bit, shall we?
Premium Curse Client
Current users of the Curse Client may have noticed a difference when they ran it yesterday. Like all early adopters, I had been allowed to use the Premium feature set for free, up until now. Previously, the client allowed me to update one or more addons, or all that were outdated, with just a click or two. Downloads were speedy, and the process of keeping my UI up to date took no more than a minute or two.
I imagine this is probably close to what devout WowMatrix users experienced in the not-too-distant past.
Now that they have activated the lockout for Premium features, the Curse Client is relatively crippled until the user decides to cough up for a subscription. You are limited to updating a single addon at a time, and downloads are throttled. It’s subjective, but even the process of “extracting the addon” and “completing the installation” seemed to take a good deal longer than before. What took me just a minute or two on Monday took me something like ten minutes yesterday, because the process of updating a single addon at a time, at reduced download speeds, was so ponderously slow that I had to check each of the addons’ changelogs to evaluate if the available updates were worth the hassle. I skipped at least a handful to save time.
Just a few weeks ago, Curse along with WowInterface took measures to block the use of WowMatrix with content that they host. The measures were at least partially successful, making WowMatrix quite a bit less useful or convenient. Now that they have somewhat disabled the competition, Curse.com is offering a client with a comparable feature set. The only difference is the CC is limited to Curse.com content only. However, in order to match the features and convenience of WowMatrix, you now have to pay a monthly subscription of a not-entirely-insignificant sum.
One could draw a comparison between this situation and the hotly debated topic of “net neutrality“. Some content is favored over others, and depending on how much you’re willing to pay, you may be getting your downloads at a significantly reduced speed.
This leads us to the question: Does this really seem like the best way to serve the WoW community? Best for whom? After the public outcry that stemmed from the blocking of WowMatrix, this seems disingenuous, a bait-and-switch tactic. At best, it’s just smart business. Is anyone holding a gun to my head to use an updater tool? No. To use addons? No. But I happen to enjoy using addons, and keeping them updated and functional is fairly important to me. Now that I’d need to pay for the convenience, I might just start updating them by hand.
Disclaimer: Once again, this has potential to be a very inflammatory topic. Comments will be heavily moderated. Please watch your language and think before you type.
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Blizzard should just open up their own “app store” like what Apple has for iPhones. Would save us all a lot of hassle, and then they could regulate all the add-ons out there.
Ben’s last blog post..Made Level 80!
This is horrible. The whole pay for convenience factor is horrible. I’m going to be uninstalling the curse client. I only used it because it made my life as a player easier. I don’t want to pay a subscription fee for a program I run once a week.
What wowmatrix did was make people’s life easier by providing a feature that made the act of updating addons a simple and easy process. The curse client did this but the fact that they now want to charge you to get the same ease of use is crossing the line in my opinion.
I think this is just a move mostly based upon greed. They already have adds on their website. This is just 1 step further to get more money out of the individual.
The only redeeming thing I see is the fact they will reward authors who continue to develop and maintain their addons. The only downside is we don’t know how much they are going to get from the subscription fees so this could be just a excuse to make the premium client sound like a good thing.
Bruennor
I haven’t been able to check this change out yet, but if this is true I will miss being able to update easily, but I will just use the client to know what has been updated and then do it manually.
I’ve been wanting to support several addon authors for a while, but felt it was too much of a hassle to do it with paypal. This might be a good way to do it, but it – of course – depends on how much actually goes to the authors, and whether the updating tool is great or not.
I personally only update a selected few once a week and don’t bother with the rest until they break.
I think this shortly after the demise of WM, this is a terrible move. People already don’t like the old client, hence don’t like Curse, and this is doing nothing to change that opinion. I am all for supporting the authors, but they maybe should have waited a couple more weeks until people got used to not having WM.
Me, I shall continue to be WoWI’s biggest fan and can’t wait to see how MMO Minion will turn out.
I lament the loss of the awesome WowMatrix to update my addons. It is a great — AND FREE — service for the WoW community. I’m not sure I appreciate being charged to download addons that are free to begin with. Yes, Curse and those like it have bandwidth costs, but honestly, they’re acting a little proprietary, in my opinion. How much of the funds that Curse receives will go to the developers whose addons are hosted or distributed through Curse? How many developers actually approve of Curse and their business practices to begin with or are kind of trapped into using them because they’re the most prominent site?
I feel like addon users are trapped over a barrel with this whole mess. Addons, as stated by Blizzard, should be free and available to anyone who wants them. I know people who don’t use a single addon, and they get through the game just fine, but I’m not really willing to go that far, either. I love my custom UI too much to give it up, but am I really willing to pay some third party just keep them all up to date? I don’t think so at all. Besides, it was tedious and cumbersome to download these addons and their updates manually, but I survived. The Curse client is grotesque in its UI, and its functionality is suspect. I’m with the other users here who will use the client to find out when an update is available, and then I’ll do it manually. Whatever, Curse. Good luck with that.
I’ve been using Curse’s tool for most of my addons and WoWInterface UI Manager for the ones that aren’t on Curse. But now I’m switching to WoWInterface for as many of my addons as possible. Hopefully more authors put their addons there so I can ditch Curse completely.
The addons are free, so I’m not planning to pay for a tool to update them. I have no problem with ads in the updater, but crippling free users like that just seems offensive to me. And just for the record, I’m not being hostile towards Curse. They chose to change their software, and I just chose not to use it. I just really don’t think the whole pay for use thing will catch along. Especially since WOWI is coming up with the new free fully functional updater very soon.
Greed is a powerful thing. I avoided WM when I discovered how it worked, that it skimmed off others work. Curse was fine … but I won’t pay unless I know a SIZEABLE chunk goes tot he add on authors. As someone else stated I’ll just use Curse as an update scanner and dl manually … not like it is difficult … til they turn that off, which they will.
I like the current Curse Client, because even if I do have to download them one at a time, it’s easier and faster than navigating their image-heavy website to do the same. I’m not paying for Curse’s premium version until (or unless) they add the one feature that I mainly used WM for in the first place: The ability to search for addons by DESCRIPTION.
Hello, I am searching for a mod that will allow me to add my own personal notes to item tooltips. How shall I search for such a thing? Both the Curse Client and Curse’s website will only allow me to search for addons by name or author. Of little to no usefulness once authors start coming up with more “creative” names for their addons.
In this situation, I am forced to navigate the maze that is WowInterface to find their Advanced Search option (seriously, I bookmarked it because it takes me 10 minutes to find it every time I try) and discover that there is a mod that will let me do just that, and its name does not include the word “notes” anywhere. Then I can take that mod name and plug it into the Curse Client to add it to my list.
There really should be an easier way to do this. Especially since the addon descriptions are already there in the Curse Client if I click on the addon in question. I just don’t have the option to search by these fields, and it’s frustrating beyond belief.
I got rid of the Curse Client with this new change. I don’t think it’s useful enough for me now to justify using it, and I’ve never liked Curse much anyway. $5 a month, or even $2.50 a month, is not worth it to me either. I guess Curse thinks they can get away with it because they’ve got the only updater in town after killing WoWMatrix. I guess I’ll be a little more out-of-date now, at least until the Wowinterface updater comes out.
Isn’t this what got Carbonite’s balls slammed in the door?
I guess we will see how it plays out, and if a competing service develops.
1) Add-ons must be free of charge.
All add-ons must be distributed free of charge. Developers may not create “premium” versions of add-ons with additional for-pay features, charge money to download an add-on, charge for services related to the add-on, or otherwise require some form of monetary compensation to download or access an add-on.
“Developers may not…charge for services related to the add-on,”
is curse exempt?
I get the feeling that Curse rushed through fixing up their original add on downloader so that they could try to make some money with this premium downloader. They don’t have an incentive to provide a free good alternative to WM, and they never have, really. I’d wonder if this was another factor in Curse’s decision to support blocking WM, because having a company offer a product that does for free what you’re trying to charge for is pretty bad for business.
I probably won’t be using this service because after reading the ToS for using the Curse Client to download addons, I don’t like having to create an account and have information about my system and possibly more submitted to Curse. This coupled with examples of shoddy customer service regarding issues with their existing client makes me await a day when Blizz might indeed offer up its own addon downloading service.
I personally think that if Blizzard sees this, will change the policy involving addons (in which they say that you cant earn money through them), to something like: “You cannot earn money with addons and / or with any other service you provide that involves addons”.
I, for one, do not care about the addition of “Premium” service for a fee. I still use the client to update, I am fine with one at a time, and I have not noticed any significant slowdown on downloads or installation. I do, however, agree with Kiryn, I hate having to get crafty to figure out what does what, and which I need. I might even start paying if they added descriptions to everything, and either made a good, quality search feature, or outsourced searching to Google. Google does it right, just give up trying to beat em.
I don’t understand why people are upset that they are charging for a premium service. You don’t have to pay for it. They are providing a service, and want to be compensated for it. They also provide a free service, and will continue to do so. They are already doing this to a certain extent with website advertisements.
I’m assuming that the folks a curse have consulted an attorney or two and believe that they would not be infringing on Bliz’s intellectual property with this. If they aren’t Bliz couldn’t win a lawsuit, and since they can’t feasibly ban all the addons that are listed on curse, they would have no way of enforcing a policy even if they changed it.
squiggly has it right. there is no reason for curse not to be compensated for their work and in turn compensate the addon writers (which I am sure they will do). if anything this means that addons will get better as this provides a monetary incentive to people writing addons.
to accuse curse of being greedy is ludicrous. since when is it wrong for someone to charge you for providing a special service. be glad they have an option to still run updates even if you aren’t paying.
The thing is, apok, is that it looks suspicious. Curse participates in blocking WM, which basically provided the same thing that the Premium client is doing now but without any charges. They then basically downgrade their free download client once the premium version comes out so that you may as well manually install the addons. Seeing the direction that Curse is taking when it comes to serving those who look for addons just makes one wonder if the real reason why Curse especially wanted to get rid of WM was to put out the Premium Client, since I doubt they’ll open up their numbers for us to see exactly how much they pay for things like bandwidth and how much was really being taken by WM.
It’s not through their own good will that they’re still allowing options for downloading addons for free, it’s because Blizzard really would crack down on Curse were it to charge for obtaining those addons. If Curse wants to focus on the Premium client and leave their free versions in the dust, it’s hard to say how successful that will be long term (or what Blizzard will do as a result). But isn’t it awfully suspicious that it comes out after the main reason people probably wouldn’t have turned to it is basically blocked?
*sigh* in memory of the old wowace client.
I agree that it’s bad timing on their part, but I disagree that you “may as well manually install the addons.”
You have to admit that having the client search for updates for you and let you update them with a simple click (even if it is one click per addon using the free client) is FAR more convenient than clicking through multiple website pages just to see whether or not the mod has an update, comparing that version to the one you have, downloading it, and then having to move it to the proper directory yourself.
Using Curse’s free client saves them bandwidth too, because you’re just downloading the addon itself, not the webpages you needed to navigate to get there. And if you don’t want to support their website, by no means are you forced to.
Back when I started playing, we didn’t have these fancy-schmancy auto-update programs! We had to install everything by hand! Kids these days… =P
I have never used the client, so the change does not affect me in the least. I guess I don’t know what “I was missing”.
Sometimes it is just more preferable to just do it yourself, so you don’t have to worry/bitch when the time comes that they actually want some money for all their efforts.
I think they are totally in their rights to charge for it and if you don’t like it, then you will just have to be a little more “involved” in the install process. It is sort of funny as to what topics upset/stress some of us now-a-days…. Swine flu anyone? Nope, I’d rather be mad that I have to manually unzip my addons in to a folder.
I have been monitoring the addons I use from WowInterface via their RSS feed for months. I don’t have to browse their site to look for updates, I just check Google Reader any time I feel like updating anything that needs it. Unfortunately, Curse.com proper doesn’t seem to offer an RSS feed of updated addons anywhere that I can track down. WowAce, which is a source for a large portion of Curse.com’s hosted addons, does however.
Is it wrong for curse to do what they did? well, not *technically* I suppose, but it does seem kinda underhanded. They change their site so as to cripple wowmatrix and then unveil their own subscription service to do the same thing? And they seemingly crippled the ‘free’ version of it. Doesn’t pass the smell test if you ask me.
I never used WoWMatrix, personally. I tried it, and it seemed to be good at breaking my addons.. maybe just bad luck on my part. Some of my guildmates swore by it, though. I definitely won’t be using curse’s client, and I will be making sure that I block ads on their website.
I am still struggling to understand why people are in an uproar that a company would dare ask to be compensated for its product. What terrible capitalist pigs!
and *gasp* to give some of the proceeds to the add on authors?
As for getting in to trouble with Blizz, they aren’t charging for and actual add on. They are charging for a vehicle to deliver those add ons to users. They are two totally different things and there isn’t much Blizz can say about it at this point.
According to ckknight over at wowace.com:
Click the link to read more about it.
I am an AddOn author and believe that the compensation that us AddOn authors are getting is quite good.
The way the system works, is that we get points every day according to how many downloads our AddOns have had, and those points can be turned in to receive items online.
Right now the only thing we can get are Amazon gift cards, but the service is brand new and they are working on adding more stuff.
However, even if I wasn’t an AddOn author, I wouldn’t mind the change, I believe that an enterprise like Curse has to do things like this to make money, it’s how the world works. People that just expect to be hand fed everything are just crazy.
As for the WoWMatrix debate, the way that it distributed AddOns was quite illegal, and they were breaking copyrights of many AddOns by changing code and releasing them without permission from the authors, among other things.
I myself have a VERY expansive addon collection.
I have absolutely no problem with the ads, but updating addons one at a time?
Needless to say, wither its right or not, I redownloaded WoWmatrix after finding out
from a friend over vent it works still.
To my credit, I looked and found no client on WoWinterface within the minute or two I
spent searching.
I completely understand the idea of wanting to help the authors but…
they’d made their product undesirable.
Azryu’s last blog post..Fireball Guide Updated (3.1)
Ya, my 2 cents is that it’s not worth it, plain and simple. Programs to help update addons are nice and all, but they aren’t necessary and they don’t save enough time to really merit the cost.
I consider myself an addon junkie and have a ui that is completely customized, but I’d still rather download and install new updates manually every once in a while than pay out the butt to have something else do it for me.
Does anyone know if the release of the Premium version in relation to the timing of Curse blocking WoWMatrix has anything to do with all the money Curse lost by WoWMatrix’s nasty nasty leeching? And how are add-on authors viewing the premium client? Stuff I have found thus far is kind of spotty. I mean, I know many authors are happy since WoWMatrix had such an under-handed policy of copyright infringement. Aside from the potential guaranteed donation they will get from the premium service, is the premium service an impetus for updating that add-on they dropped 6 months ago because they couldn’t afford to spend the time trying to tweek it since most of the WoW community doesn’t donate to add-ons or a position of defiance by continuing not to update the add-on?
[...] The Curse Premium Client: Blogenstein, No Stock UI [...]
I’ve published a small addon on Curse so I was one of the people who received a free premium membership, allowing me to continue using the curse client as I was previously.
If it weren’t for that, I would have pulled my addon, as would the other authors I know.
There are two reasons for this:
1. An unannounced change in business strategy (I certainly wasn’t notified in advance)
2. The curse client sucks shit.
I put my mod up on Curse because it was the most available free solution for me and people who want to use that mod. I’m not interested in a sudden retraction of services.
As for the curse client sucking, learn to thread. I hate the fact that a 200k zipped file will lock up my cutting edge workstation for up to 40 seconds while it extracts, then repeats the same lockup while it ‘installs’ it. Although the client may have had steady development in the past, they seem to have stalled and don’t intend to improve it.
My recommendation for fixing this would be to return to a streamlined method to make donations for a particular mod, such as paypal, rather than making you pay for everyone else’s downloads. I certainly wouldn’t see any of that donation money, but no doubt the authors that do would appreciate the more focused funding response to their work. As it stands there are many middlemen: curse, paypal, etc. Get rid of all of them except the necessary ones and stop pretending that curse.com needs to charge to stay afloat. I’m not even going to get into the fact that the claim of paying mod authors is probably a convenient PR lie.
nih’s last blog post..Water shader update
Being an addon author I may have a different perspective (and better information) on this subject. First of all according to CKKnight 20% of the premium service revenue go toward the Author Reward Program.
I created and maintain 4 different addons which are marginally successful (between 1k and 10k downloads on curse). At the moment I estimate that I will get a little more than 10$ (in amazon vouchers) out of this per month (this may actually diminish as more and more authors become aware of the ARP).
I won’t get rich with this but it’s something I never counted on so I guess it’s OK.
The problem I have with this is that before the ARP I maintained my addons both on WoWAce / Curse and WoWInterface (because WoWAce is my birthplace as addon author and I like WoWInterface’s take on things).
Mokhtar, you’re making it sound like in order to take part in the ARP, that you are going to be unable to host your addons on both Curse and WoWInterface to take part in the ARP. Is Curse trying to get rid of WoWInterface as well by having add on authors switch to Curse in hopes of getting some of this money from the ARP?
“First of all according to CKKnight 20% of the premium service revenue go toward the Author Reward Program.”
This is my beef with how this ‘payment system’ works. It’s actually a rewards program. It’s a sure thing that curse aren’t taking $10 of revenue and turning it into a $10 gift certificate, they’ll have a supply agreement with Amazon where they provide some advertising space for them. Secondly, the majority of the product curse offers is your mod, with the client and hosting only being a small part of that product. The lion’s share of any money made should go to the mod authors.
Curse have set themselves up as some kind of record label for mods with many of the same practices and ethics. It’s not needed. It’s an overkill response designed to make the mod authors feel we need to do things this way. We don’t.
The mod community worked well as an open, free (as in speech), honest system. The mod authors who have complained about little thanks or reward for their work are in the minimum and Blizzard have moved to formalize the openness and freeness of the mod community.
In the end curse is going to get their ass sued for offering a paid companion service to WoW. I think they’ll lose. Blizzard have the ethical high ground and have not been afraid to use it in the past.
nih’s last blog post..Water shader update
@Q : Yep, that’s what I would do if I was in it for the money. Personally speaking I won’t act on it. Take in consideration that :
1/ Not everyone maintain their addons on both sites
2/ Generally speaking when we do the traffic generated by WoWInterface is lower than Curse (approx 20%)
@Nih : Curse may have a deal with Amazon on this, granted, however Curse is a very small actor in the Amazon business so I very much doubt that Curse’s margins are that big (we’re probably talking about less than 10% here)
About legality : Curse follows scrupulously the guidelines set by Blizzard *up to now* (no use speculating on a counter move by Blizzard). Anyway the spirit of the Blizzard new guidelines is to prevent advertisements to invade in-game experience (the trigger of it if you remember was the popups generated mostly by Carbonite to advertise *ingame* their Premium service). Blizzard has already stated that donations were okay as long as they were not advertised for in-game in an “in your face” fashion (no periodic popup to remind you to donate). Curse seems to be okay on this.
The current interpretation of Blizzard’s intentions with new mod rules relate to mods only. Curse is closer to running a WoW-centric business than they are to being a mod author, so I suspect Blizzard will feel a different set of rules apply. Blizzard historically chase down anyone offering a service related to Blizzard products with the one notable exception being FigurePrints, who now work closely with Blizzard. Still, it’s all just talk until they actually choose to do something.
Either way, Curse seem to be relying on deceptive interpretation to ethically tint their position in the mod scene. This is everything from ‘payment’ being a useless rewards program to posing as if they’re out for anything other than to cash in. I was more comfortable when they were simply an ad-funded download site.
This is a case of trying to piggyback on the billions WoW generates without providing a unique or innovative service. I could respect them more if they were doing something cool.
nih’s last blog post..Water shader update
@Nih : you are under the impression that Wow-centric (and more generally MMO-centric) businesses is something new but it is not, most of them have been operating for a long long time and have a long history of offering Premium packages. Just as an example the firm that WoWInterface belongs to for example operates a Premium package shared by all its sites (WoWI, Allakhazam, WowHead, Thottbot).
“This is a case of trying to piggyback on the billions WoW generates without providing a unique or innovative service. I could respect them more if they were doing something cool.”
This is a case of businesses making money, as they proved by cutting off WowMatrix from their servers they are offering a unique service (a large database of addons and a client that runs on it). Cutting off wowmatrix (and all clones that would no doubt have arisen on the same model) was a business decision that is perfectly defendable. Let Wowmatrix offer the same kind of framework to work with that Curse/Wowace/WowI do and see what happens (that’s actually what they are trying to do if their website is to be believed).
Innovative ? Maybe not if you consider that previously WAU et al were providing this for free. Unique ? For now it is, insofar as it’s the only client that can access their addon database.
[...] Addons: Peggle Addon for WoW: Project Lore The Curse Premium Client: Blogenstein, No Stock UI [...]