Mod Creators are Wonderful,Imaginative,Creative People

[fraquar]

 

 

. as modders could have benefited significantly from that as well. Paid Mods 2.0 is ok, but, modders get zero residual income from that..... Great for beth... Ok for modders, probably invisible to players..... except that version 1.0 wold have had significantly more, and arguably better, content......

Paid mods on Steam Workshop would have been a disaster. Bethesda wanted to be "hands off" and leave it as self-regulating. The result was that five minutes after they announced it people started talking about stealing other people's free mods and releasing them as paid mods. And releasing free mods with "poison pills" in them that would screw up people's save games and then charging for the "fixed" update. And pretty much every other way they could screw over more reputable modders in an unsupervised environment.

 

Which is why Creation Club is controlled by Bethesda directly.

 

Not surprising. Yes, there would have been some issues, but, isn't that the case for any new venture? All of those issues would have been ironed out. Folks trying to game the system would have lost their accounts. But, Steam chickened out.

 

 

Steam chickened out for a very, very good reason.

 

Don't for a second think that any monies Steam would make from a paid modding service wouldn't have a portion of those go to Bethesda (which grants Steam/Valve exclusive distribution rights to the primary title - for no small fee). That would make Bethesda just as culpable as Steam/Valve when mods are stolen, distribution licenses are violated for a profit - and potential litigation looms on the horizon.

 

At risk is losing exclusive distribution rights to any past, present and future Bethesda games.....

Edited December 6, 2022 by fraquar

[HeyYou]

 

 

 

. as modders could have benefited significantly from that as well. Paid Mods 2.0 is ok, but, modders get zero residual income from that..... Great for beth... Ok for modders, probably invisible to players..... except that version 1.0 wold have had significantly more, and arguably better, content......

Paid mods on Steam Workshop would have been a disaster. Bethesda wanted to be "hands off" and leave it as self-regulating. The result was that five minutes after they announced it people started talking about stealing other people's free mods and releasing them as paid mods. And releasing free mods with "poison pills" in them that would screw up people's save games and then charging for the "fixed" update. And pretty much every other way they could screw over more reputable modders in an unsupervised environment.

 

Which is why Creation Club is controlled by Bethesda directly.

 

Not surprising. Yes, there would have been some issues, but, isn't that the case for any new venture? All of those issues would have been ironed out. Folks trying to game the system would have lost their accounts. But, Steam chickened out.

 

 

Steam chickened out for a very, very good reason.

 

Don't for a second think that any monies Steam would make from a paid modding service wouldn't have a portion of those go to Bethesda (which grants Steam/Valve exclusive distribution rights to the primary title - for no small fee). That would make Bethesda just as culpable as Steam/Valve when mods are stolen, distribution licenses are violated for a profit - and potential litigation looms on the horizon.

 

At risk is losing exclusive distribution rights to any past, present and future Bethesda games.....

 

Steam and Beth would have split the lions share of any money generated, and beth didn't have to put out any effort for it at all. Steam would handle the heavy lifting, mod authors would provide the content, beth just holds the legal rights to allow it. Money for nothing, essentially. (but, no chicks for free that I am aware of.)

 

And the way it was set up, a mod had to generate a threshold income, before the author got anything from it. So, if there were ownership disputes, there would be time to resolve those before any money was distributed.... (I am sure steam and beth would get their cut in any event.....) It could have worked, had they stuck with it.

[fraquar]

You can't build a system on "let it happen, then we'll figure out what to do IF people become the wiser".....

There is a reason why they have licenses - exactly the kind of license for example that protects the game developer.....

Lets not worry about the modder licenses, lets just publish everything we can and get the money - then figure it out later?

That isn't a model anyone would invest in - let alone support.

[RoNin1971]

 

lets just publish everything we can and get the money - then figure it out later?

That isn't a model anyone would invest in

 

Maybe not invest, but, isn't that exactly what happens all the time?

Not (just) talking Beth or Steam here, this has been the MO for most humans since 'currency/possession' exists.

 

Again and again laws need to be made to keep people and companies in check.

 

Next to things frequently turning out different as expected, both for the better and worse, or years later we discover some stuff isn't all that good for you.

Heroine as painkiller, cocaine as a soda, paint against infrared that gets you cancer, pesticide killing insects (bees), 'medicine' causing birth defect ... and on and on...

 

So yeah, grab that money and hope nothing really bad happens appears to be 'human nature' :tongue:

 

edit:

To which I should add that we wouldn't be having a lot of progress without ever taking "risks".

Edited December 9, 2022 by RoNin1971

[showler]

Maybe, but it became clear very early that if "modders" stole content from other companies and published them for money with Bethesda and Steam profiting as well, both companies could be liable.

 

It's part of why Bethesda has such strict rules for mods in general.

[StormWolf01]

You can't build a system on "let it happen, then we'll figure out what to do IF people become the wiser".....

There is a reason why they have licenses - exactly the kind of license for example that protects the game developer.....

Lets not worry about the modder licenses, lets just publish everything we can and get the money - then figure it out later?

That isn't a model anyone would invest in - let alone support.

Ok. I'm sorry brother.

But.

I DO gotta point this out.

This is Bethesda we're talking about.

That's been their modus operandi since at Least paid mods in Morrowind Oblivion. Nice Catch. Thanks Showler ;)

And I could go on and on about Fallout 76

[showler]

paid mods in Morrowind.

 

No offense, but...what the heck are you talking about?

 

Oblvion's Horse Armor was the first thing that could possibly be called a "paid mod" and that is stretching it.

[StormWolf01]

 

paid mods in Morrowind.

 

No offense, but...what the heck are you talking about?

 

Oblvion's Horse Armor was the first thing that could possibly be called a "paid mod" and that is stretching it.

 

:laugh :laugh:

Baaaahahahahaha! OMG I really made a slip THAT time didn't I !?

Yes, you're right, I meant from Oblivion. Thank you for the correction ;)

 

Ok, maybe if we call it a character skin then.

 

It was a test of the waters to see how the market would react.

And they got a lot of backlash over it.

[HeyYou]

The backlash was from the 'forever free' folks. But, when beth started selling CC content, they lined up for it, and happily spent their five bucks on horse armor, or its equivalent.

[showler]

Even the original horse armor sold pretty well.