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

[Meisenbach]

In response to post #23595219. #23595369, #23595554, #23725649, #23781804, #23812314, #23813704, #23819184, #23825634, #23826809, #23833544 are all replies on the same post.

Thank you, EnaiSiaion. And when I download a mod, I just want to enjoy it, not browse through hundreds of comments just to find a simple solution to a problem of mine.

[UhuruNUru]

In response to post #23602849. #23748509, #23749129, #23750109 are all replies on the same post.

Problem is when you pay for something, youy are entitled, you have consumer rights and expectations, just look at the issues arising from bad early access games on Steam, it will be much worse with paid for mods.
The Valve examples are not a valid comparison, thay are all free to play Multiplayer games. Online games in a strictly controlled enviroment, The so called paid for mods are not really mods at all. The creators are/will be largely professional teams and Valve allows them to make content to sell to the captive audience, while having strict control of the game and the mods are expensive cosmetic fluff. Though some of the professional Skinners will start as modders, over time larger and larger teams will prevail and eventually they will no mod makers left at all, just 3rd party content makers.

A single player, offline enviroment cannot be controlled in such a way, those sort of mods won't sell, because no power exists to force it and never will. It will just go underground and most mod users will never buy any mods ever. Not because some are not worth it, they most definately are. Who deserves paying though
No mod is ever made by the author alone, all the good mods are made by the community as a whole.
Even when a single author writes a mod.
The comunity taught him/her how to mod.
The tool makers provided the means to create at all.
The Bug Fixers corrected Bethesdas failures.
The resource makers provided the clutter.
The Animators added new actions to use.
The Beta Testers found the bugs.
The experieenced help the noobs and a new mod starts the cycle anew.
Even with "Cosmetic Mods" this happens.
The good mods can invvolve thousands of people. Not just here, but across many sites.
They are the hidden army behind that single authors name, they all deserve a share of the spoils, not just the name on the top spot, Dark one mentioned many worked directly on Falskaar, it's listed as a single author.

All Mods stand on the communities shoulders, built up since Morrowind and even before that in the early days of TES: Arena.
Throw money into the mix and all that support network will die. TES modding will be a footnote in history. Other games are now and will in future embrace the open modding ethos, we will follow those games instead.
If Zenimax try this I'll never even buy another Bethesda Game Studios game, at all. I got my PC to Mod Skyrim, graphics are great, but it''s modding that gave me the ENB graphics, not Bethesda.
I'll Mod other games like Star Citizen, Long War (I mean Enemy Within) and Skyrim of course. Always be Skyrim to Mod.

[MrPandaCommando]

I think that this quote from John Green suits this situation perfectly.

 

"Don't make stuff because you want to make money, it will never make you enough money. Don't make stuff because you want to get famous, because you will never feel famous enough. Make gifts for people and work hard on making those gifts in the hopes that those people will notice. Maybe they will notice how hard you worked, and maybe they won't. And if they don't notice, I know it's frustrating. But ultimately, that doesn't change anything because your responsibility is not to the people the gift is for, but to the gift itself."

 

I honestly do feel that modders should be rewarded for their work. However, that reward should not be to satisfy monetary greed. Modders make mods because they want to make mods, and that passion and energy is what makes mods (and the modding community) amazing. The introduction of monetary reward for any kind of hobby is a double edged sword, or rather a flail mace wielded by an untrained 12 year old with ADHD. It's going to have major repercussions. True, modders would be able to make money from what they're good at, but at what cost? Mods for games like Dragon Age Inquisition won't likely have many mods (if any) because it's hard to mod the game and even harder to make mods for it, and people will be scrawling for an easy paycheck. The only reason DAI has mods is because some 'Gods of Modding' decided that they wanted mods and knew others wanted them too. There always will be modders that won't sell their mods, Gopher, being one of the most well known of them, because they are making the mod for the mod, not money.

 

Could these potential changes kill modding? No. Will it hurt modding? Yes. By monetizing something you limit your audience. An example of this is that people don't go to the movie theatre as often as they would have 10 years ago, because now they can just wait for it to pop up on Netflix and pay next to nothing. Another is that piracy is so prevalent in the PC gaming community, because games are so damned expensive and people don't want to hash out $80 on a game and season pass.

 

People undervalue everything, we have for thousands of years, that won't change. People will always undervalue the work a modder puts into a mod, but modders shouldn't be creating mods for the masses, the money or even the pride of having a popular mod, but rather the modding experience and the end result. The modding community is one of the tightest knit communities I have seen on the Internet, despite it's inherent flaws. When someone decides to make a mod for the sole purpose of selling it, they will have alienated a large portion of their community. This community is built around a hobby, just like a book club, a backyard baseball team or even a crochet club. When that hobby becomes a business, the community will dissipate and be rebuilt around aforementioned business. That community will be vastly different from this current one, and far less enjoyable. The modder's community as a whole would become something that people would despise as people so detest micro-transactions now. I would hate to see that happen to my most beloved Internet community, but it's up to the modders if they so choose to make a business out of this community, or have it remain their hobby.

[Arthmoor]

In response to post #23836199.

One question, not necessarily directed at you, but you're handy :P

Why is it considered greedy for a modder to want to get paid? This is something I don't quite get, because it only seems to apply to TES/Fallout for some reason. Nobody seems to be holding this view for hat makers in TF2 and they've made tons of money at it. Or Sims modders for that matter.

[RGMage2]

In response to post #23836199. #23839154 is also a reply to the same post.

Agree with Arthmoor, that was my question too.

If someone works 60 hours a week at a regular job and they expect to be paid for it, I doubt too many people would say they are being greedy in asking for their money. But if you put 60 hours of work into a mod and want something back for your time you're being greedy?

Most people don't work for greed, they work for need. Your time is the most valuable thing that anyone has (other than friends and family). Throughout our lives we trade our time for other things of value. Food on the table, a roof over our heads. Yet when we spend our time modding we are expected to give it away for free otherwise we are greedy.

I am quite sure there are many great mods that were never made because the potential author figured it would take up too much valuable time with nothing in return for it (time wasted).

Of course everyone loves the modding community, everyone loves you when you give away things for free. Who says you can't buy love?

[Guinefort1]

Both Arthmoor and RGMage2 bring up a good point that there is a colossal double standard about mod makers getting paid for their work. It is not unreasonable for mod makers to want payment for their time and labor, and should not be shunned for it. If I had to guess why this sentiment abounds though, it's because user-made purchasable content for TF2 is largely fluff and mods made for TES/Fallout are a different beast entirely. What people seem to be carrying on about (myself included to an extent) is that mods for purchase may have a negative impact on the community as a whole, even if individuals may benefit from it.

 

After reading through all of these posts, I think I've uncovered the crux of the problem: a lack of information. None of us really know what is going to happen and why, so instead, we fall into speculation. But speculation isn't fact, regardless of how well-grounded our opinions may or may not be. We simply don't know enough to make any dependable forecast of the future. Wait and see, I guess.

[phellen]

Monetizing the "modding industry" doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing for the community, but I think that ultimately it depends on how the gaming industry chooses to approach this, assuming that this is their "end game," so to speak. If they're going to charge users/modders for using their own communities generated content, then companies like Bethesda have to realize that, a decision like that will end up limiting the freedom of their total modding audience and their current level of accessibility to mods. Like Dark0ne said as soon as you start dealing with a finite/limited currency, things change. The open source system enjoyed now by many would suddenly become a closed system based on a supply and demand mentality. People (modders and users) are going to be much more careful about what mods they try, and how many mods they use, what resources they share, how they collaborate, etc..., because all of these thing have now become dependent upon how much money they are able/willing to spend or make, (Not to mention all the legal issues that could arise) which would mean that mods would most likely end up having much less appeal than they do today.

 

However, gaming companies are in the business to make money. It's why they make games, so it's easy to see why monetizing mods makes sense to them in the long run. In their minds they would only stand to gain money from doing so, and with that motivation in hand, it seems all but inevitable that we are headed in that direction. This brings me to my next point: What if, when it comes to mods, gaming companies were to follow a similar path to that of what the television and radio industries have done to support their entertainment? Use advertising as a way to get paid. This would monetize the modding community, but it would still allow for modders/users to be able to enjoy mods at the same level of access that they currently enjoy right now. Modders and gaming companies still would get paid, and the mod user's would still get to enjoy content for free, everybody wins.

Edited March 29, 2015 by phellen

[ferkus]

thanks for ever, for all...

[Deleted82156User]

In response to post #23836199. #23839154, #23845829 are all replies on the same post.

Why is it considered greedy for a modder to want to get paid?

I was wondering about that as well. I think RGMage2 covered it absolutely perfectly. :) Edited March 28, 2015 by Guest

[Pal2alax]

"If a mod author came to you and asked if he could use some of your work in their mod that they were planning to sell for $5, would you feel more or less inclined to give him that permission? Would you, perhaps rightly, ask for a cut of the proceeds" this would really divide the community a part!