The Play Fund

What Is The Play Fund

If you make a game or a map and people play it, we'll give you some money. The more people play it, the more money we'll give you.

This is a way of monetising without encouraging each game to add microtransactions. My hope is that this will encourage people to make games that others want to play - rather than trying to make games that are the best at extracting money from you.

How much?

It depends. Right now we're funding s&box's development from GMod's revenue, because to me it's an evolution of Garry's Mod.
In the future I hope that S&box will be self sustained, from sales and cosmetics, and we'll take a chunk of its profits and stick it in the fund.

I also hope that we'll make the actual fund value public, but since this is still in the early development phase, I don't want to do that yet.

The Scammers

What about the scammers? The ones that are gonna make 300 new accounts and idle in a game to make the most money? What are you going to do about that?

Really? What do you fucking think we're going to do?

The Grifters

What about the grifters? The ones that are going to make games that lots of people want to play, and then make them want to play for a long time? What are you going to do about that?

These are called "Game Developers". I'm not going to be mad at people optimizing their games to make people want to play a lot. 

The algorithm is a tool. When games emerge that encourage people to idle in there, we'll tweak the algorithm to encourage other behaviour.

Paying Out

This is very much in development, and we're making it up as we go along. Getting this system in place was the first step.

Our next step is to get a payment system in place, so we can do KYC, tax forms and send money out. I'd expect that to be in place by the end of this month and, failing that, definitely by the end of next month.

We're particularly sensitive to people wanting to be paid out in obscure places, so when looking at a payment provider, the ability to pay out to as many countries as possible is on our mind. Obviously, if a country has sanctions against it, we won't be able to send money to people in that country until the sanctions are lifted.

Getting Started

You just need to publish your map or game, and then enable the Play Fund in the features. There's more information in the docs here.

Comments

Jul, 7 2022
565
Library bros stay losing
Jul, 7 2021
1020
Are the cartoon models placeholders?
Jul, 7 2022
425
Hope Facepunch doesn't go bankrupt with this decision 
Sep, 9 2021
260
First steps in monetisation (not jams). 

I'm waiting for server code for large projects in 500 players, as well as small projects in 50 players. Then monetisation will shine bright colours.

Good news, keep up the good work, FP
Oct, 10 2021
40
Man I really gotta learn how to make games for S&box
Aug, 8 2024
75
they probably aren't going to give much money out in the beginning in order to prevent needing to pay more money than they were expecting
Sep, 9 2022
0
FP W
Aug, 8 2021
155
Exciting stuff, going to be cool for people to be able earn a living off their creations.
Jul, 7 2021
50
it'll be interesting to see where it goes, great news either way 
Apr, 4 2021
1400
I think it's really awesome that developers can just "make a great game" and then get paid for it.
Jan, 1 2023
0
Awesome news! Love Facepunch for what they are doing. I’m not a game dev yet, but I really hope “Obviously, if a country has sanctions against it, we won't be able to send money to people in that country until the sanctions are lifted.” does not mean that people from Russia or China won’t be able to get payouts, considering how many people from these countries (Russia, at least) are interested in s&box and game dev in general.
Jul, 7 2022
425
I wish s&box worked in China or had a Chinese version, it could blow there tbh
Jul, 7 2022
0
As much as I appreciate these self-monetization ideas, they always feel like an all-or-nothing gamble. I don't believe s&box has the same level of audience as Gmod. Since this is still early in development, not many people know about its existence yet. I do hope you can attract more advertisements and interest so that people can create more content in s&box.
May, 5 2021
110
I'm in the empire business
Aug, 8 2021
10
Wow
Sep, 9 2023
1325
I love the mention of countries that are hard to pay out to. goes to show how much you think about the particularities/specifics of every feature you implement. huge W.
Jul, 7 2023
285
Awesome!