woodrobin

In response to post #24852949. #24853204, #24853924, #24853949, #24854139 are all replies on the same post. There was anger at Valve and Bethesda for taking 75% of the money for mods were, other than releasing the Creation Kit, they did 0% of the work. The only fault that could be laid at the feet of modders there was in choosing to participate in such an obviously imbalanced system. But far worse than the 75%/25% split was the NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) There was a lot of general anger at modders for participating, but I think it was spilled over from legitimate problems Valve and Bethesda created. Here were the main problems: 1. Lack of communication between modders and players. This was 100% caused by Bethesda's and Valve's requirement of a NDA, which prevented modders from sharing information. The modders know their communities of users, have trust relationships with them, and shouldn't be cut off from the communication that created those bonds. Fault: Valve and Bethesda. 2. Lack of preparation, explanation and communication from Bethesda/Valve. This compounded the first problem. If they weren't going to let the modders handle public relations, they needed to step up and do it properly themselves. They didn't. Fault: Valve and Bethesda. 3. Lack of curation, policy and policing. Lack of curation allowed buggy, ugly one or two item mods to debut alongside works of art like Purity. Lack of policy allowed modders to upload mods that included works they didn't have clear rights to (as with the fishing mod and FNIS, for example) because they were given bad advice, and were prevented by the NDA from contacting other modders to ask for permission, as it normally works in this open community. Lack of policing allowed people to upload mods they in fact had no hand in writing at all, and the process of catching and correcting such action was nearly non-existent. Fault: Valve. 4. Modder misbehavior. This was rare, but given the already poisoned atmosphere around the launch, the backlash spilled over to modders who didn't, for instance, taint or withdraw free previous versions. The NDA and shoddy PR don't excuse putting game-interrupting, immersion-breaking pop-up ads in the older free version of a mod, for instance. That's just going to rub some people the wrong way. Fault: A very small subset of modders, for which all modders unfairly took flack by association far too often. Fault for that: 25% Valve, since the NDA was so corrosive to trust and communication, 75% us, for triathlon of pitching fits, casting aspersions and jumping to conclusions.