After reading this last night, we had a bit of a discussion in IRC about it. Paying your staff can vary as can how you pay them. It shouldn't ever be expected that you're paid, however.
Things to consider:
- Workload
- Time spent working
- Contributions to the server
When I worked for a retail MMO as a GM, none of the player staff were contracted by the company in terms of an actual legally binding contract (Chinese company). They did employ a couple of GMs who were paid RL salaries, the player staff were paid in in game currency. The flaw to this was people became aware that player staff had certain perks and advantages, therefore people would try to apply simply because they wanted to get something for nothing. Thing was, as player staff we were responsible for a lot of the events (as well as hiring other player staff). We would brainstorm in staff Skype, plan the whole thing out, then we would submit the finished concept to the admins who 9/10 times would implement exactly what we proposed. I don't know if that was laziness on their part or not; the MMO I GMed on wasn't the only title that the staff oversaw and often some player staff would also moderate on multiple games, although this was discouraged as much as possible. While the MMO I GMed on was relatively hassle free, there was a large number of conflicts between player staff on the other games; when you factored in that a lot of these people were adults, it was pretty depressing. Being a GM is a paid job for the majority of online games; people in this thread seem to forget that. Even if you're running the server as a hobby, there is still the fact that if you're going to pay peanuts, you often get monkeys. If someone's GMing is 2-3 hours a day, then no I don't think that's worthy of payment. If they're putting in 8+ hours, then yes I think it is. If you think they're worth being on your staff, then surely their work is worthy of being paid in some way?
On a more MS related note, I recall on dMS, the staff were paid in NX. Every month we would receive an NX allowance. It actually worked out pretty well as the "pay" was weighted according to position. Back then we had Admins, Devs, Head GM, GMs, Interns, Head Mod, Moderators, IRC Mods and DJs. As obtaining NX was via voting, there was never really much that we were losing out on. The amounts we got weren't super amazing so we had an insane advantage (I still used to donate regularly to the server every month, even as staff), but it was just enough to show appreciation.
As long as the server comes first out of donations, I couldn't care less where the rest of the money goes. There is nothing wrong with rewarding those who positively contribute though and I have more respect for an admin who rewards his staff as well as himself than one who spends it on Doritos and porn for himself only, particularly if the staff are doing most of his work for him.
Let's not forget guys, time is money.
though most of the GM's I've seen act more entitled than Mayor Bloomberg, frightening!
