The Freeware Community - What Happened?

Forgive me if this seems like a rant, but then again, it probably is, but what is wrong with the train simulation community these days? It's worth pointing out from the outset that there are some very genuine members of the community that will go out of their way to help and provide feedback, so this isn't in any way aimed at them, these people know who they are and I salute them.

For years, I was always the first one to reply on a forum if a freeware developer felt a bit down if they received no recognition or feedback for their work. I always maintained that they should do whatever they do for themselves and not expect anything in return, any expectation of recognition would leave them disappointed.

However, I'm starting to see their point more and more now, many developers I am contact with are either very near to, or have already given up. Why? Because the vast majority don't really seem to care any more. It's really apparent now that in order to gain some praise, recognition or feedback, you have to be selling something. The sense I now get is that unless something is payware, then it must be of inferior quality.

Take a forum such as UKTS, apparently such a 'community' focused forum, a 'pillar of freeware' some would call it. Yet all I see these days are thread after thread of payware related discussion. You have someone that will announce an obscure foreign locomotive which will spawn page after page of discussion. You have payware companies actually using the forums as a means of advertising, threads full of 'look at my new company website' or 'vote here for the next thing you want me to sell' or even 'look at my 25% off deal that ends today, but actually will end tomorrow as I am desperate to take your cash', shouldn't these guys be actually paying for their advertising by way of banners or similar?

If you do happen to see a freeware related thread, don't expect to see it for long. It will be get pushed down the front page of a forum so quick by payware threads that it will receive hardly a reply, and most will never even know it existed.

So what actually happened? It's not for the lack of effort by many. Personally, I have tried as much as I can to promote freeware, both from myself and others. I opened a website to try and promote freeware as much as possible, but even that is becoming a struggle to maintain. Although I still receive the odd donation, these are generally repeat donations by some very kind folk who truly do want to see resources such as this remain. If things continue as they are, at the current rate, I cannot really see me being able to continue providing content in the way I do on the website, it will bleed me dry and for what?

This brings me back to recognition. I don't necessarily need everyone who downloads something from me to tell me 'it was great' or even to tell me if it was crap. But let's be honest here, although I create what I want and what I like to see, the end result is that I also want to release something to benefit the community. Take the recently expanded Steam Workshop. I have released two routes on there, making clear a commitment that I want to continue to update them. Now, they may not be to everyones liking, I may even be kidding myself into think they are any good! But I have to look at facts and figures, so far they have received over 1600 subscriptions but how many ratings? 20, and even one of those was negative, for a completely free route! That kind of ratio doesn't exactly fill me with any drive to keep going.

Let's go further, take the recent Class 90 scenario pack I released, it actually reached 1200 downloads yesterday. But I would never have known it unless I looked at my own website statistics, I only know two people that have downloaded it as they were the only two to have bothered saying so! I even had one person contacting me after I did make a post asking people if they had downloaded my recent content, and they said that they weren't going to bother, they were going to wait and pay for a future scenario pack instead!

So what can be done about it? I'm not even sure any more, if payware is taking over the scene completely and freeware takes on a label of inferior quality, I'm not sure what else can actually be done. Far too many people are climbing on board, seeing the opportunity of making a quick buck for some really poor quality stuff and I feel it is detracting from the freeware scene and putting people off.

All I can really suggest is that if you do download freeware, from anywhere, then at least appreciate the time these people take to provide it, at no cost to you. Give them a bit of feedback, if it is from somewhere that provides a ratings system then take a few seconds of your time to provide a rating. If you feel that the product can be improved, then give constructive feedback. Encouragement can be everything.

If the current trend continues, I can honestly see that freeware will dry up completely Of course, as times moves on and if no new blood arrives, then the freeware would naturally dry up anyway, but I can see there being a premature end. What will be ironic if this happens, is that the same people that couldn't be bothered to spare a bit of time originally will then flood forums with posts asking why it is dried up, blaming anyone but the people that caused it, themselves.