HiiragiTsukasa

This will be my last post on this subject as I would like to relax and at least think something is right in the world at the moment for once, because last night I was heavily thinking about this subject and I came to a troubling conclusion. (see attached image) I have several of these ranging from the late 90s to early 2000s, many gaming magazines would offer up FREE mod cds of the best mods, because back then most people didn't have the internet, or had bad connections. This obviously had some cost to the magazine, they didn't charge any extra for it - mods were free, the very concept of charging for them was inconceivable, games like UT and Quake thrived on mods and extended the life of those games dramatically. It was an honor to get your mod listed as a top rated mod back then, and to get your mod or player skins listed on the various free CDs - thats when you knew you work had paid off. The problem and conclusion I came to last night is that the newer generation of modders, it seems many have entitlement issues and that damages the modding community severely- quite a few modders these days was probably in diapers, or in Elementary school when this CD was released back in April 2000, exactly 15 years ago. 15 years is a long time - times do change, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worst. Back in 2011 we first saw DLC appear and the backlash that created, even today I don't buy into a lot of DLC if its carved from the original game like a piece of meat, and paid modding is like taking a chain saw and cutting that piece of meat in half, its going to be brutal and bloody. This goes out to the current and new generation of modders, please take this into consideration that modding has a rich history, whether the developer of the games liked it or not, modders strive to make content for themselves, to make the games either better or more interesting - never once has the original modders thought about profit, many developers out there like Valve and Bethesda see modding as an opportunity for -them- to make money, not you! Please remember this in the future when almost certainly this will become an issue again.

Entitlement is a nasty thing, it unfortunately goes both ways - I've seen more than enough modders feel like they are entitled to compensation, and more than enough people who download mods and feel like they are entitled to a 100% bug free/crash free mod. When a large company like Valve steps in and stirs up the hornets nest, it was obvious that things would end badly. This paid mod disaster really just proves the point that entitlement is a major issue these days. I hate to say it here, but -- If your a modder, who is creating mods with the sole purpose of making profit then your not a modder at all, your making DLC. And I think we all know now that the vast majority of people don't want more DLC for games like Skyrim which are locked behind paywalls which in the end, don't even really benefit the modder at all - it just outwardly appeared to benefit them, far too many people just saw $$$ potential without actually thinking about the future ramifications. I've seen more than enough posts from obvious entitled modders who we're quite happy to cash-in for self profit and let everything else burn as long as they benefited they couldn't care less and these are the types of people I worry about the most, whilst some created obvious quality mods in which I'm not naming names or pointing fingers but they was still very quick to jump on the profit bandwagon.

I'm just glad this is over. Agreed, the modders are not to blame, and so much hate was thrown their way and I don't think that was deserved. For me, this was never about paying modders for modding, it was about what it could lead to in the near future if it had been successful. I'm talking about Bethesda only allowing paid mods to protect a revenue stream. Blame human nature and greed, modders are people and getting something back for hard work isn't necessarily a bad thing. Valve and Bethesda just choose the wrong way to do it, and obviously the majority of people agreed that paywalls isn't the answer. I saw plenty of hate go both ways, some towards modders and some towards the people fighting against this - in the end, its all become a moot point now. Lets all just hug, kiss and all become friends again - and lets get back to creating mods. Although, since this obviously has hurt the community, it'll most likely take some time for these wounds to heal so I suggest for the time being, extend an olive branch to all the modders, if you can afford it - donate something, if you can't then endorse! Promote your favorite modders, post comments - anything that makes all the work and effort thats goes into modding seem worthwhile and that someone appreciates it, sometimes a little positive message on a crappy day can go a long way.

One of the best posts I've read about this issue

That was a good article, I'm sharing that to my facebook page.

WTH? Thats even worse than expected, so basically what if they 'never' reach the $100 bar? So basically steam gets all the profits and the modder gets nothing period? And if you suspect the -after- 75% is real then...the modders are getting completely shafted, this can't really be legal can it? O.o

Well, thats what I ment. I know about people pirating mods on steam and claiming ownership. But before today, the issue wasn't nearly as bad. Now that money is involved, the entire situation is going to turn ugly and nasty. The other problem is that, we all know paid mods are not going to stop at Skyrim - we all know that this is valve testing the waters, Its not going to be long before we see the flood gates open to paid mods for Fallout series or CounterStrike series, and future ES titles.

Yeah, after all - with official DLC you expect it to be fully compatible with everything. Mods on the other hand, are finicky at best. How many times have people lost everything because of incompatible mods? Once you start charging for mods, then the level of quality and compatibility has to become on par with official DLC, and how many mod creators can meet that level of expertise? Regardless, it becomes a moot point anyway because I don't see many people buying into mods on steam. Worse case scenario here, I see a new avenue for piracy to appear and I don't know what is more scary, the fact that we now live in a era of paid mods, or the fact we could start seeing people pirating mods.

Steam shocked me with this poor decision, obviously corporate greed at its finest. I think everyone has fine points, should modders be rewarded? Should mods be free? My two-cents is that the current system we had was perfect, all mods was FREE yet the mods that really stood out people could at least donate, which in turn inspired people to create more elaborate mods and total conversions and to keep the current ones as bug free as possible, the system worked - and valve comes along and destroys all that in one day. The current system which steam is offering really is completely in the opposite direction to what the spirit of modding is all about. After all, modding is a hobby - nobody here can say that they create mods purely for self profit or as a job ~ Does that mean people who have spent hundreds of hours working on some of the more famous ES mods over the years shouldn't be rewarded for their dedication to modding? Donating was the perfect solution, but it seems that valve disagrees since obviously they don't profit from it - you could argue that it costs them to host the mods if you really wanted too, but that's beside the point. The other huge point is that the system right now actively encourages mod theft, people can upload anything they want and charge money for something they haven't created, or make some extremely minor changes and then upload! Right now, I'm willing to bet I could download a random mod here, change the name of the mod and upload it to steam and monetize it! And this is most likely happening right now ~ how many weazels right now are downloading massive amounts of mods, altering them slightly in the creation toolkit for the sole purpose of uploading to steam as a paid mod? The point is that since mods came into existence they have been free, they have been created by enthusiasts in their spare time to make the game better, or more fun. At the end of the day, a paid mod is just DLC nothing more.