I see both sides here...which does present a solution: We want to maintain the top quality of R3E, as there's nothing worse than a mod that doesn't work and drags down the game's experience. But, Sector3 is always saying how they want to do many things but have limited resources. Okay, so what if a modder builds a car within certain parameters that Sector3 provides. Once finished, the mod is sent to Sector3 for review - if it passes, then its in the game for free (or for a fee that gets split with the modder). This channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYHpqEWMNqAl2pi3fGFlk-Q/videos) shows a lot of modded content that looks fantastic. If someone is willing to do the work, why not submit that work to S3 for approval/use. At the very least it gives the devs a head start.
Unfortunately licensing is a big issue. I don't think content is exactly a big problem for the game. Custom liveries makes a lot sense for esports etc.
I suppose a cost vs revenue analysis needs to be done first. If there isn't time, maybe start with the bigger racing clubs as a test bed to determine these issues. Let the larger clubs submit skins for review and/or approval/rejection. These racing clubs have their reputations at stake and are more likely to supply high quality skins. Then to smaller clubs, Multi-car teams, and finally the rest of the R3E community. Have the custom skin cost slightly extra to add the skin into the game. Would I pay extra for MY CUSTOM SKIN? - heyell ya! This could be an additional revenue stream for S3, devoid of paying another organization to use their liveries. Yes, someone would have to review and approve them, but would it cost more to create a specially licensed skin or review/analyze a user created skin and then incorporate it into the R3E. That would leave manpower as an issue. That I wouldn't want to comment on. I don't know the inner workings, the projects, staff devoted to what aspects of R3E. Sounds like an opportunity for multiple part time "internship" positions to open - via remote office? Gives - up and coming game coders/modders an opportunity to have something on their resume, from a reputable game/game developer. Another win/win. I think this could be a win/win situation for R3E and it's community. Moving in small steps helps S3 with manpower issues, helps with cost vs revenue determination, and in the end - lots of happy R3E people.
Modding will never happen with R3E pricing model. Every car or track that comes out for free is money they will never earn. But I think we all should start whining about livery editor. Not everyone will be able to create good quality/compatibility skin in independent programs. But everyone will want to. S3 might end up with a lot of frustrated users and/or a lot of bad looking/ bug creating liveries. I don't mind pretending and driving some real world livery car with some real world driver name on it when in single player. But when it comes to online and esport, I'm a real sim racer, a part of a real sim racing team and I want my livery with my name on it to race with.
As someone who has done more than 100 quality FSX/P3D repaints and has just started with the first half dozen car skins, I am against such editors. They will never produce the results that the "independant" programs will. There are such editors available for flightsims and the results look horrible. From my personal experience, if people can't use Photoshop or Gimp, they will also fail with such an editor. There are excellent tutorials on how to skin a car, so the resources to create and administrate such an editor can be spared. As to the "livery policing" that was often mentioned. So far I know of no case where this has ever been neccessary in the flightsim community and also browsing through AC and pCars custom skins, I have not seen anything annoying. Some said to upload these skins to R3E to make them available through the shop system. This will not and cannot happen due to licencing issues. As soon as R3E publishes a skin, they need to make sure they have a licence to use every single sponsor sticker on a car. Something we as private folks do not need to worry about. Though even for privately created skins there have been cases where liveries had to be removed from the internet due to copyright issues.
Ik would be cool if one of the staf-members give an reaction on this topic before we give ourself a lot of (false) hope.