BLOG PIECE: Modding as a hobby versus modding as a career, and the position of the Nexus

[Thaiauxn]

 

In response to post #23860899.

I think it would harm "epic" mods. The problem is that over time any game is going to have a dwindling player base as people gradually move on to the next game. If you are a modder and you know you are going to be paid do you focus on mods that you can complete in a shorter period of time when the player base is higher or one a huge mod that takes years to make and by the time you release it the player base will be much smaller. Even if you can charge more for the epic mod the number of people wanting to purchase it would be significantly less than before.

 

There is also the problem of competition. If a bunch of groups work on large scale mods after a year or couple of years there will be more and more of those mods released further diluting the market. If I was a modder and monetary compensation was an incentive I would focus on mods that could be completed in a couple of months not years.

 

 

Hi. Epic mod maker here. We're essentially 5 years in if we're being honest. This is my third massive DLC / Expansion pack mod like this, but the first that I've run the project as the lead. All have ended up being older games by the time we launched.

 

I think it's worth it. Even if only a few play it, it'll be the right ones.

 

 

1. Sturgeons Law: 90% of everything is crap. Combine that with people wanting money and the large modding community, you will have a grand amount of mods for sale that are just shoddy quality. If you throw in abadonware to the mix, the modding community will get a negative reputation. It is one thing for Sturgeons Law to be applied to free things, all you loose is the bandwidth, when it comes to paying for something, especially when you cannot get a refund + a lack of quality control the stakes are far higher. When you throw money in the mix, you need a higher set of standards because the face of the modding community like it or not, will be those selling their goods on the workshop.

 

 

 

That's why 95% of mods should, and will, remain free. I'd lay bets that after a few complaints that the mod would be taken down by the admins.

 

Say **** on the Nexus chat and watch how fast you get banned. The same is true of mods, even the ones that generate lots of traffic. Like EWI...

Edited March 30, 2015 by Thaiauxn

[fgambler]

I don't think it will work so nice for Bethesda. FIrst of all, they could make their own content/modifications and get 100% of the money, not interfering in the modding community. Second, there are a hella lot of adult mods for their games that would be forbidden on Steam and those mods usually are the most downloaded. People would search for them on another sites and then lose interest on Steam content. Third, it would be hell having to verify and certify every mod that gets lots of votes on the workshop, and besides that mods always need to be updated, by the author's will or when new official patches are released. Even for Dota cosmetics, Valve takes a lot of time to release new sets of them. TES/Fallout mods can be thousands of times more complex. Fourth, mods need testing and evaluation. People can't make a legit vote if they can't download them!

 

And finally, the mother of all problems: incompatibility between mods. Will they refund if anything breaks our game? It's their responsability if they start to get money for it.

Edited March 30, 2015 by fgambler

[bootrocket]

In response to post #23904944. #23907724, #23908709 are all replies on the same post.

Good point, but we can not stop copyright violations in a great many countries that enjoy our products and do not respect international law. I'm not saying it would be easy. Actually, I'm not saying that we do it at all really. I only mention it as one alternative to loosing everything and DRMifying PC gaming creativity.

[JinixElder]

In response to post #23836199. #23839154, #23845829, #23853369, #23858174, #23858619, #23868714, #23869794, #23870749, #23874494, #23889664, #23897239, #23907889 are all replies on the same post.

It's not so much the getting paid bit - it's the legal crappola that goes along with it.... and the direction that takes. The copyright infringements etc... for instance each 'model' would now be owned and no modifications made without a lawsuit.
No simple retexturing without signing legal forms and getting permission for changes etc...
Eventually the big games will have to deal with modders forming into companies trying to reign in modders for profit.

From love of modding to greed for money.

[IndolentDan]

In response to post #23809904. #23873289 is also a reply to the same post.

But then I would go on to buy other games that were newer. Thus making me no longer want to play their older game and shortening the shelf life.
Say if Skyrim started charging for mods, I would probably, only buy mods from people I liked/mods I liked and wanted to support. Like donations. I donate frequently.

However if each little mod was 1$ and they didn't allow free mod sites I would honestly just pirate them or move onto another game that included everything already.

I like Dragon Age 3 but don't really feel I need any mods for it as it is fun already. If someone made a mod (kinda like an expansion pack for 5$ and it had good reviews I would probably buy it). However little swords or hammers or costumes I will ignore them completely.

Modders do deserve some compensation but if too excessive I would just stop buying Bethedsa games entirely since they rely too much on the works of others. An example is Paradox games, they sell all these micro DLC for units and such. I only buy them when they are pretty much 90% off (literally cents). It annoys me that they do this but since I spend hundreds of hours playing their games I really don't mind. I don't think I have played vanilla Skyrim for years and would not ever play it again if my free mods stopped working,

Still it is too hard to guess what will happen. My 2 cents.

[IndolentDan]

In response to post #23809904. #23873289, #23920869 are all replies on the same post.

I will also add that for games like Civilisation 3 or 4 (and Skyrim) I have only recommenced them BECAUSE of the mods. Telling people to buy the game because of the awesome mods.
If Civ 3 started charging for mods then I would be less inclined to ever recommend that game to anyone anymore since there is no need. Mods turn into DLC and honestly DLC is expected these days.

I must have sifted through many Civ mods and loved many of them and if each mod was say 1 or 2 dollars I would probably still buy however if they were 9.99 I probably would never give it a chance. So pricing and scale is important.

[Deleted7440969User]

In response to post #23904579.

I dont believe at the free market - they believe that darwins law gives them the right to dominate others at any cost - they call it competition - the survival of the strongest - misleading - darwin mean the survival of the fittest/smartest - he means diversity not monopolism - they call it growth - i think its cancer (growing at all cost against all others) maybe thats the reason why the free market is an illusion and the fast trading on servers is the truth.

i recommend instead the study of the thoughts of Jaron Lanier.

Creativity needs freedom - but money means dependency. i'm unsure how the answers are Edited March 31, 2015 by Guest

[phellen]

In response to post #23847099.

I think there are a few other good reasons for gaming companies to consider advertising as a way to make money off of mods for games like Skyrim instead of charging users for content directly:

1. They could apply this system retroactively. So games like Skyrim, Oblivion, Fallout, etc, could all be integrated into their system.

2. Less liability issues. Since users are not directly paying to use mods, they still wouldn't have any grounds to feel entitled. Also I don't think that this system would be as prone to discourage modders from wanting to share resources and tutorials with other modders.

3. People could still afford to test out a lot of mods and relay their findings to the mod authors, which I think is a very important part of the modding process. Lots of modders rely upon other users/modders to help them find bugs and weed out any potential issues. Imagine though if users had to buy all those mods and then still test them? At 5 dollars a mod, 200 mods we're already talking about a 1000 dollars. Who is going to pay that much money to play one game let alone still want to help test out a mod for the author after buying it? nobody. Edited March 31, 2015 by phellen

[faky]

I have to say this does makes me worried for multiple reasons.

Quality control with user made content? Sorry but those two words don't go well together and i say that from my experience. Naturally it doesn't apply to every mod out there but tbh there was large amount of mods that you would instal and remove same day, sometimes even same hour.

 

Well we still don't know how it will look or anything but it stinks i'll say that much.

 

I do agree that some mods out there are worth money, some of them just make game 10x times better.

But we do have donation system here to take care of that. If you really enjoyed something you can reward its author and hopefully give him initiative to make more stuff.

How ever what i am worried about is this aspect of sharing, sure even now ppl are competitive but imagine there is list of mods that you want to try out but to do so you have to spend $$ on other mods coz they are depended upon it or have limited function without it.

Or imagine that you have made some mods and you discover that some XYZ mod out there is using most of your hand made assets but is actually making money while you are not. How will they deal with that? How would you deal with that?

I fear that this monetization of mods will just spark greed.

 

But i'm mostly worried for the future of nexus and similar sites. Imagine there is that site giving stuff for free and is standing there as competition to your business but unlike those poor suckers you have whole army of lawyers...

[Thaiauxn]

http://www.pcgamer.com/the-making-of-the-biggest-skyrim-mod-ever/#page-3

 

Nehrim: I can confirm what they're saying is 100% correct. When you can't pay anyone, you hemorrhage both talent and productivity. You can make some amazing mods - more like new games - but if you can't fund it, it puts you in the position to lose key team members at random every few weeks. And when it's finished, going back to support it is much much more difficult.

 

Imagine playing a game, and your critical equipment keeps disappearing out of your inventory mid combat. You can do AMAZING things with volunteers. But don't bet on it. If you get one mate, maybe two, that is willing to spend 1800+ hours with you... thank them daily, because you'll never see the likes of them again. It's a true love.

 

I don't have any illusions that money can buy that kind of trust or devotion. But it doesn't hurt.

 

 

This leads me on to my second question: as a hobbyist outfit working for no pay, how do they manage to work so hard, and yet stay so motivated?

“It actually works pretty well for us,” Lietzau says, “but in general, non-commercial projects are always very hard to realise because people lose their motivation so quickly if they’re not getting paid for it. If people don’t depend on it, some can be really unreliable. We’ve had a lot of bad experiences with people coming into the team and promising to do a lot of stuff and have then just left. We now have very complicated application procedures, so that doesn’t happen too often, but it is very hard to keep people motivated.”

He pauses for thought. “For us it works because first of all, through the years of development, most of the people who are not committed leave anyway, so the rest remain. We’re also very tight and work as a team, and we try to keep everyone—even if it’s someone who has just applied—involved in the process, because it’s important to feel as though you’re contributing something of your own—especially when working non-commercially. This keeps people motivated for a long time.”

Edited March 31, 2015 by Thaiauxn