Steam and Bethesda remove paid modding from Skyrim Workshop

[Terramaris]

In response to post #24801964. #24802149, #24802519 are all replies on the same post.

Axeface wrote:

freedom613 wrote: Well done story but it forgets to factor in:
-Licencing (Most free modeling software do not let you sell work made on it, you need to fork out a grand for the full version).
-Lack of quality assurance (someone on imgur reviewed all the paid mods, needless to say, most of their quality was lacking and there were bugs galore)
-Risk of modder who stops supporting his/her mod incase an update breaks it.
-Incompatibility between mods

I could go on, but I believe I made my point. The issue goes far beyond "I want to make money off my work" and "I do not want to pay a dime for a mod". Best not to use a strawman when making a point.

Axeface wrote: "Licensing" - irrelevant. It isn't your job, bethesdas or valves to police modders.
"Quality" - Agreed yet subjective, this is why they should have made it curated. But this was an experiment with that exact aim, to see what it's like if it isn't, imho. But we didnt even get to see what would happen, and were unfortunately inundated by troll mods in the 'review' section.
"Risk/Incompatibility" - As above, and irrelevant. It isn't up to you to tell people where to spend their money. There is risk in everything.

Yes the issue goes beyond, will have problems, and the implimentation had major issues. But to deny modders the chance... well.

-How is licencing irrelevant? It is a violation of the TOS the modder agreed too. Ignoring that is opening a door to law suits.

-I would link the imgur article so I could show you the lack of quality of the mods (and I am talking in a "early access" lack of quality, not the textures could have been done a bit better lack of quality) but it credit's a skyrim mod piracy site. For the sake of the rules, I cannot link the photos on imgur, so I will summarise the findings:
-badly ported dota swords with grips so big that your hands clip through them + no proper shading at all.
-Most items had no inventory models, or only had a model for a single gender.
That is just a handful of the findings.

-This goes beyond a risk. If I paid for something, I want it to work. If it doesn't work, I want a refund. The fact that a modder could make a mod, have it break in an update, and I would be out of luck is absurd. How you not see this problem, and especially the licencing, as a problem boggles the mind.

[Nightasy]

In response to post #24798859. #24798999, #24799109, #24799114, #24799789, #24800024, #24800839, #24802019, #24802639 are all replies on the same post.

Nightasy wrote:

Axeface wrote: Well said Nightasy, and thankyou for your tutorials. Sad to see your mods go, but I agree with everything you said.
Like someone else here said. Youtubers can make money from everyones mods. Twitch streamers can. The nexus can. Valve and Beth can, yet the 'community' actively refuses modders that chance, and it's only a chance, because only quality would actually sell.
Self determination is important, and that has been refused.

In hindsight they should have actively curated the system, just like they do in other games. And allowed a donate button, instead of the 'pay-what-you-want-but-PAY' system.

UberSmaug wrote: Sums up everything I've been saying for the past few days. Well said.

greggorypeccary wrote: I don't see how any thinking person could fault you.

vimebox wrote: Playing music for a family event is DIFFERENT from playing concert! go join as bethesda employee if u want a "REAL CONCERT!" and play here if u want to entertain a POOR PATHETIC FAMILY! who can only gives u a constructive critics!

did u know that somehow your mod makes RICH people buy vanilla skyrim? and bethesda not giving u anything not even a simple thanks of endorsement from that uprising selling! instead we gave u endorsement as a portfolio for your good credibility. in conclusion bethesda SHOULD make u as their employee/DLC project instead of taking money from your FAMILY!

arxerisdam wrote: i think all modders who feel that way should actually go and download their stuff.

Someone else will take the place and life will go on.

greggorypeccary wrote: I think they will. So what's your point. In the end you can download free mods from wealthy people and people that think it is their hobby and very new modders who just want experience. They will be free though so I guess you win. Some will even be good.

CNR4806 wrote: Well, goodbye then?

What makes you think you're the first? What makes you think Skyrim is the first place I've seen modders with attitude like yours?

From what I see over the years (including games with a free/paid mod split like The Sims), every time someone rage-quits, the community on a whole remains unchanged, the status quo is maintained and nobody even remembers that modder after a few months at best.

One piece of advice: Don't get fooled by those who say "Awwww thank you for all these years of modding, I will miss you" when you announce your retirement. They'll happily move on before the end of the week and forget about you altogether.

necroslord wrote: Just a remark to Axeface...

I don't think it's right to compare streamers or the nexus' earnings to "paid mods" as they are somewhat different. Most of those earnings come from third parties and not the consumers themsleves (ads and such).

A viewer can watch 10,000 videos in youtube and generate some revenue to the poster without too much trouble. But a player can't afford 100 mods at $1 a pop without affecting him to a greater or lesser degree.

Not taking sides on the matter, as it's a very complicated matter I still ahven't wrapped my head around even when it's already dead. But think that saying:

"Youtubers can make money from everyones mods. Twitch streamers can. The nexus can. Valve and Beth can, yet the 'community' actively refuses modders that chance"

is not valid.

@CNR4806 - Oh, I'm not the first and I won't be the last. Artists have rights and no one should be allowed to take them away from us. The anti-paid mod community took away the right to sell mods from us. We need to fight for that freedom of choice. You have the right to choose whether or not do download mods, you have the right to choose whether or not to pay for mods. Artists should have the right to give away their work for free or charge a fee to purchase it.

Lastly, thanks for more of your hateful and ungrateful sentiments. They are unwelcome but they continue to prove my points. I have no response towards them, I am done listening to the hate.

[blackasm]

In response to post #24800994. #24801184 is also a reply to the same post.

Harbringe wrote:

greggorypeccary wrote: I understand what you are saying but...
It's an excuse. Talk to modders, we know that a donation is rare indeed. Most people don't see why they should even want to. Just read what is said here below. A lot of people figure that they paid to be a member and that entitles them free mods so that is that. I didn't expect them and was not disappointed. I made my mod for free and knew it but ....not again. I don't mind being generous, I don't like being used. I'm not talking about just the community here. There is big money involved even without your donations.

That is my exact sentiment gerggorypeccary, I didn't mind doing it for free, because frankly I didn't put much effort into modding what with actually trying to make a living off of my skills. It is a shame all of the talented authors who basically built the hobby we have come to enjoy are now relegated to nothing more than street performers now and forever, their time being labeled worthless by their so called fans. Literally money is value, its a lesson every artist has to go through, it is literally the difference between starving artist and professional. Some people might say that is greedy and talk about the illuminati, but even without a federal reserve or whatever people still gotta eat and trade their skills to do so. Artists sadly devalue themselves constantly, and so I try not to support anywhere that I feel takes advantage of those foolish and unknowing artists. Nexus I don't feel in any way took advantage of artists although it of course profits solely from the hard work of those artists free efforts, but I do feel that the community has by essentially saying they should not have the right to sell.

Of course it is up to Bethesda to decide not to have paid mods, but not the consumers. I made a promise to myself along time ago that I would not do work where it is not valued be it a lack of appreciation from someone or money from a client. This lack of appreciation in all of my years as an artist I have never felt so greatly as have in these last few days. literally the marketplace for digital creatives is awfully narrow with few jobs and thousands of artists, this could have set a new precedence. Remember those companies you love to demonize are pretty much the companies that made your mods possible, in a world full of EA's valve and Bethesda are champions. Those authors that were greedy by coming back and making new perfected updates to their mods for a price built the hobby you are so entitled to a lot of them foolishly doing it for some fool dream of exposure. I am thankful now more than ever that I did not waste any more time on this hobby as I got better s#*! to do.

[greggorypeccary]

In response to post #24801759. #24802244, #24802379, #24802609, #24802804 are all replies on the same post.

DaddyDirection wrote:

greggorypeccary wrote: Read my post, I used the nexus and it was very nice. It is a little blind to the fact that it does very well on the labors of un paid modders. It does not share the wealth with the ones that earn it for them. since you get free mods it seems fine to you. If you read my post I think you'll find that what I find is shameful really is that the nexus expects you to pay the modders. I think most of that onus is on them.

Vesuvius1745 wrote: The dirty secret here is Greggory gets free mods too. He's been enjoying the work of other people in the community for years. He's used the free utilities and resources provided to the community for free as well. But instead of paying-it-forward like all of the mod authors whose work he has enjoyed, he now wants to profit off of what others have allowed him to do.

greggorypeccary wrote: Its no dirty secret. I have been a contributing member of this community for some time. I'm proud of my contributions and any one can see them.

Vesuvius1745 wrote: Gregory, I see exactly zero contributions from you. Are you one of those modders who threw a temper tantrum and hid all your mods?

You could hope but you'd be wrong.

[beewyka819]

In response to post #24791749. #24793384, #24802574, #24802674 are all replies on the same post.

RemusAluthr wrote:

GoldenDragonRider wrote: To me, the fact that the community is so divided by this, sort of showed what a delicate system this truly is. It's as if the community was built as 2D graphite sheets rather than the 3D diamond lattice we thought. No one could have expected a turn out as messy as this...

CNR4806 wrote: Well, this paid-mod experiment is like the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil to some modders.

It gets pretty ridiculous when you realize that many who were willingly working for the community until that point had willingly submitted themselves to the OMGMONEYMONEYMONEY-frenzy and went AGAINST the community.

And then you would horrifyingly realize that these seemingly benevolent people simply didn't know about the possibility of monetization until Beth and Valve opened the floodgate. Worse yet, some of their creations have already grown to the point that they're so essential, these same people can effectively hold the entire community at ransom if they want to.


tl;dr - I agree completely, the damage is already done, those who have literally JUMPED at the chance of monetization aren't going to just come back. While I do foresee the community recovering from this, it may take a little while.

sunshinenbrick wrote: A paltry sum it is not if you multiply the number of mods you have in your load order by 1.99 or more. Plus the game, plus any DLC... Oh and what if ENB and SKSE jump in on the action too?

@CNR4806
I think that the mod makers deserve to make money off of mods if they want to, the better way to do this would be ad revenue as that shows success in many fields. Even still I think the community was being more greedy than the mod developers in this case. In fact, I'll say it, I don't think most of the mod makers were being greedy whatsoever, asking for a simple minimum of $1 isn't a lot at all for someone that can afford a computer to run a game like Skyrim with mods and decent graphics and FPS above 30. Like, for example, if Falskaar suddenly cost money, ok, they deserve at least a dollar for it, after all, it did take a year out of people lives to make that (not exaggerating). And I don't mean donations, because most statistics show around 1 donation for every 100,000 downloads or something that gives you the same idea, donations are rare. Ad revenue would be something everyone can get behind, that and Patreon.

[Terramaris]

In response to post #24798859. #24798999, #24799109, #24799114, #24799789, #24800024, #24800839, #24802019, #24802639, #24802919 are all replies on the same post.

Nightasy wrote:

Axeface wrote: Well said Nightasy, and thankyou for your tutorials. Sad to see your mods go, but I agree with everything you said.
Like someone else here said. Youtubers can make money from everyones mods. Twitch streamers can. The nexus can. Valve and Beth can, yet the 'community' actively refuses modders that chance, and it's only a chance, because only quality would actually sell.
Self determination is important, and that has been refused.

In hindsight they should have actively curated the system, just like they do in other games. And allowed a donate button, instead of the 'pay-what-you-want-but-PAY' system.

UberSmaug wrote: Sums up everything I've been saying for the past few days. Well said.

greggorypeccary wrote: I don't see how any thinking person could fault you.

vimebox wrote: Playing music for a family event is DIFFERENT from playing concert! go join as bethesda employee if u want a "REAL CONCERT!" and play here if u want to entertain a POOR PATHETIC FAMILY! who can only gives u a constructive critics!

did u know that somehow your mod makes RICH people buy vanilla skyrim? and bethesda not giving u anything not even a simple thanks of endorsement from that uprising selling! instead we gave u endorsement as a portfolio for your good credibility. in conclusion bethesda SHOULD make u as their employee/DLC project instead of taking money from your FAMILY!

arxerisdam wrote: i think all modders who feel that way should actually go and download their stuff.

Someone else will take the place and life will go on.

greggorypeccary wrote: I think they will. So what's your point. In the end you can download free mods from wealthy people and people that think it is their hobby and very new modders who just want experience. They will be free though so I guess you win. Some will even be good.

CNR4806 wrote: Well, goodbye then?

What makes you think you're the first? What makes you think Skyrim is the first place I've seen modders with attitude like yours?

From what I see over the years (including games with a free/paid mod split like The Sims), every time someone rage-quits, the community on a whole remains unchanged, the status quo is maintained and nobody even remembers that modder after a few months at best.

One piece of advice: Don't get fooled by those who say "Awwww thank you for all these years of modding, I will miss you" when you announce your retirement. They'll happily move on before the end of the week and forget about you altogether.

necroslord wrote: Just a remark to Axeface...

I don't think it's right to compare streamers or the nexus' earnings to "paid mods" as they are somewhat different. Most of those earnings come from third parties and not the consumers themsleves (ads and such).

A viewer can watch 10,000 videos in youtube and generate some revenue to the poster without too much trouble. But a player can't afford 100 mods at $1 a pop without affecting him to a greater or lesser degree.

Not taking sides on the matter, as it's a very complicated matter I still ahven't wrapped my head around even when it's already dead. But think that saying:

"Youtubers can make money from everyones mods. Twitch streamers can. The nexus can. Valve and Beth can, yet the 'community' actively refuses modders that chance"

is not valid.

Nightasy wrote: @CNR4806 - Oh, I'm not the first and I won't be the last. Artists have rights and no one should be allowed to take them away from us. The anti-paid mod community took away the right to sell mods from us. We need to fight for that freedom of choice. You have the right to choose whether or not do download mods, you have the right to choose whether or not to pay for mods. Artists should have the right to give away their work for free or charge a fee to purchase it.

Lastly, thanks for more of your hateful and ungrateful sentiments. They are unwelcome but they continue to prove my points. I have no response towards them, I am done listening to the hate.

If I have the right to boycott buying mods, you have the right to boycott giving them away. I do not agree with what you are doing, but I will respect it.

[Axeface]

In response to post #24801964. #24802149, #24802519, #24802894 are all replies on the same post.

Axeface wrote:

freedom613 wrote: Well done story but it forgets to factor in:
-Licencing (Most free modeling software do not let you sell work made on it, you need to fork out a grand for the full version).
-Lack of quality assurance (someone on imgur reviewed all the paid mods, needless to say, most of their quality was lacking and there were bugs galore)
-Risk of modder who stops supporting his/her mod incase an update breaks it.
-Incompatibility between mods

I could go on, but I believe I made my point. The issue goes far beyond "I want to make money off my work" and "I do not want to pay a dime for a mod". Best not to use a strawman when making a point.

Axeface wrote: "Licensing" - irrelevant. It isn't your job, bethesdas or valves to police modders.
"Quality" - Agreed yet subjective, this is why they should have made it curated. But this was an experiment with that exact aim, to see what it's like if it isn't, imho. But we didnt even get to see what would happen, and were unfortunately inundated by troll mods in the 'review' section.
"Risk/Incompatibility" - As above, and irrelevant. It isn't up to you to tell people where to spend their money. There is risk in everything.

Yes the issue goes beyond, will have problems, and the implimentation had major issues. But to deny modders the chance... well.

freedom613 wrote: -How is licencing irrelevant? It is a violation of the TOS the modder agreed too. Ignoring that is opening a door to law suits.

-I would link the imgur article so I could show you the lack of quality of the mods (and I am talking in a "early access" lack of quality, not the textures could have been done a bit better lack of quality) but it credit's a skyrim mod piracy site. For the sake of the rules, I cannot link the photos on imgur, so I will summarise the findings:
-badly ported dota swords with grips so big that your hands clip through them + no proper shading at all.
-Most items had no inventory models, or only had a model for a single gender.
That is just a handful of the findings.

-This goes beyond a risk. If I paid for something, I want it to work. If it doesn't work, I want a refund. The fact that a modder could make a mod, have it break in an update, and I would be out of luck is absurd. How you not see this problem, and especially the licencing, as a problem boggles the mind.

"-How is licencing irrelevant? It is a violation of the TOS the modder agreed too. Ignoring that is opening a door to law suits."
It is irrelevant to you, the buyer, completely.

And you could get a refund, for 24 hours. Yes, it should NOT have been in steam wallet money, if that rumour is true. Yet another issue, but not a reason to refuse the system altogether.

[Terramaris]

In response to post #24791749. #24793384, #24802574, #24802674, #24802989 are all replies on the same post.

RemusAluthr wrote:

GoldenDragonRider wrote: To me, the fact that the community is so divided by this, sort of showed what a delicate system this truly is. It's as if the community was built as 2D graphite sheets rather than the 3D diamond lattice we thought. No one could have expected a turn out as messy as this...

CNR4806 wrote: Well, this paid-mod experiment is like the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil to some modders.

It gets pretty ridiculous when you realize that many who were willingly working for the community until that point had willingly submitted themselves to the OMGMONEYMONEYMONEY-frenzy and went AGAINST the community.

And then you would horrifyingly realize that these seemingly benevolent people simply didn't know about the possibility of monetization until Beth and Valve opened the floodgate. Worse yet, some of their creations have already grown to the point that they're so essential, these same people can effectively hold the entire community at ransom if they want to.


tl;dr - I agree completely, the damage is already done, those who have literally JUMPED at the chance of monetization aren't going to just come back. While I do foresee the community recovering from this, it may take a little while.

sunshinenbrick wrote: A paltry sum it is not if you multiply the number of mods you have in your load order by 1.99 or more. Plus the game, plus any DLC... Oh and what if ENB and SKSE jump in on the action too?

beewyka819 wrote: @CNR4806
I think that the mod makers deserve to make money off of mods if they want to, the better way to do this would be ad revenue as that shows success in many fields. Even still I think the community was being more greedy than the mod developers in this case. In fact, I'll say it, I don't think most of the mod makers were being greedy whatsoever, asking for a simple minimum of $1 isn't a lot at all for someone that can afford a computer to run a game like Skyrim with mods and decent graphics and FPS above 30. Like, for example, if Falskaar suddenly cost money, ok, they deserve at least a dollar for it, after all, it did take a year out of people lives to make that (not exaggerating). And I don't mean donations, because most statistics show around 1 donation for every 100,000 downloads or something that gives you the same idea, donations are rare. Ad revenue would be something everyone can get behind, that and Patreon.

SKSE is legal limbo, so I doubt they are interested in changing their status quo by going paid.
Boris should be in the same boat as well I believe.

[pintocat]

In response to post #24801759. #24802244, #24802379, #24802609, #24802804, #24802979 are all replies on the same post.

DaddyDirection wrote:

greggorypeccary wrote: Read my post, I used the nexus and it was very nice. It is a little blind to the fact that it does very well on the labors of un paid modders. It does not share the wealth with the ones that earn it for them. since you get free mods it seems fine to you. If you read my post I think you'll find that what I find is shameful really is that the nexus expects you to pay the modders. I think most of that onus is on them.

Vesuvius1745 wrote: The dirty secret here is Greggory gets free mods too. He's been enjoying the work of other people in the community for years. He's used the free utilities and resources provided to the community for free as well. But instead of paying-it-forward like all of the mod authors whose work he has enjoyed, he now wants to profit off of what others have allowed him to do.

greggorypeccary wrote: Its no dirty secret. I have been a contributing member of this community for some time. I'm proud of my contributions and any one can see them.

Vesuvius1745 wrote: Gregory, I see exactly zero contributions from you. Are you one of those modders who threw a temper tantrum and hid all your mods?

greggorypeccary wrote: You could hope but you'd be wrong.

greggorypeccary has a mod. You, on the other hand, have zero. If you've got no contributions to the community, you have no place talking down to someone who actually has.

[Terramaris]

In response to post #24801964. #24802149, #24802519, #24802894, #24803109 are all replies on the same post.

Axeface wrote:

freedom613 wrote: Well done story but it forgets to factor in:
-Licencing (Most free modeling software do not let you sell work made on it, you need to fork out a grand for the full version).
-Lack of quality assurance (someone on imgur reviewed all the paid mods, needless to say, most of their quality was lacking and there were bugs galore)
-Risk of modder who stops supporting his/her mod incase an update breaks it.
-Incompatibility between mods

I could go on, but I believe I made my point. The issue goes far beyond "I want to make money off my work" and "I do not want to pay a dime for a mod". Best not to use a strawman when making a point.

Axeface wrote: "Licensing" - irrelevant. It isn't your job, bethesdas or valves to police modders.
"Quality" - Agreed yet subjective, this is why they should have made it curated. But this was an experiment with that exact aim, to see what it's like if it isn't, imho. But we didnt even get to see what would happen, and were unfortunately inundated by troll mods in the 'review' section.
"Risk/Incompatibility" - As above, and irrelevant. It isn't up to you to tell people where to spend their money. There is risk in everything.

Yes the issue goes beyond, will have problems, and the implimentation had major issues. But to deny modders the chance... well.

freedom613 wrote: -How is licencing irrelevant? It is a violation of the TOS the modder agreed too. Ignoring that is opening a door to law suits.

-I would link the imgur article so I could show you the lack of quality of the mods (and I am talking in a "early access" lack of quality, not the textures could have been done a bit better lack of quality) but it credit's a skyrim mod piracy site. For the sake of the rules, I cannot link the photos on imgur, so I will summarise the findings:
-badly ported dota swords with grips so big that your hands clip through them + no proper shading at all.
-Most items had no inventory models, or only had a model for a single gender.
That is just a handful of the findings.

-This goes beyond a risk. If I paid for something, I want it to work. If it doesn't work, I want a refund. The fact that a modder could make a mod, have it break in an update, and I would be out of luck is absurd. How you not see this problem, and especially the licencing, as a problem boggles the mind.

Axeface wrote: "-How is licencing irrelevant? It is a violation of the TOS the modder agreed too. Ignoring that is opening a door to law suits."
It is irrelevant to you, the buyer, completely.

And you could get a refund, for 24 hours. Yes, it should NOT have been in steam wallet money, if that rumour is true. Yet another issue, but not a reason to refuse the system altogether.

So because it doesn't directly affect me, I cannot point the problem out? Tad selfish don't you think, especially from someone condemning the other camp as selfish. In any case, I posted some problems with paid mods, not some problems buying paid mods. So my point is relevant and stands. I wont even get into the problems with 24 hour refund (and yes, the rumour is true). Edited April 29, 2015 by freedom613