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

[fo3nexus]

Apologies for the dupes. The posts were not showing up. Cookie failure on my part? Edited April 25, 2015 by fo3nexus

[f1am3d]

If this trend will grow and occupy more and more games, I will buy the game itself, then download this game from the torrent and play with mods. - Only like this will be fairly. Edited April 25, 2015 by FlamesoFF

[f1am3d]

In response to post #24632364.

fo3nexus wrote:

No, it's not paranoid. It's harsh truth. Scheme is simple and all big companies use it.
Sad but truth. But I hope that Nexus will not sell itself.

[f1am3d]

Just count up: 8,954,485 (users of nexus) x 4.8 (USD per month) = 42,981,528 dollars... And this is only by one month!

Of course this counting is ideal, but this is theoretically possible. Even Valve will not able to do such expensive offer.

Edited April 25, 2015 by FlamesoFF

[fo3nexus]

Edited April 25, 2015 by fo3nexus

[fo3nexus]

["Sure, I've had offers. Lots of offers. And I don't discount anything at all"]

 

Don't get me wrong, I love Nexus, and depend upon their kindness. But we all know what is going to happen. Suits smell money in modding and WILL tender a generous and irresistible offer of purchase for Nexus. The new ownership will be hidden behind offshore shell corporations. The Nexus site will (briefly) be improved, but shortly after will suddenly be shuttered, with all users being referred to Steam Workshop. A reporter will dig through the purchase paper trail and discover an investor pool of Steam, VALVe, Bethesda, and other developers behind the purchase and closing of Nexus in order to increase market domination for exclusive mod sales for their games.

 

Sound paranoid? To a naive teenager, perhaps. To any elder who pays attention to American business, not only is this expected behaviour, it _MUST_ happen in order to maximize shareholder returns for that investor pool.

 

Your small premium membership contribution holds no weight against a $50 million dollar buyout tender. Nexus will feel no shame in accepting a respectful cash-out offer, particularly with the community-supporting (but empty) promises the new owners will make. Promises that terminate once Nexus closes. Moddb, LoversLab and others will not be ready for the huge and sudden wave of new members and will crash under the weight.

 

Not that it matters much. Big developers, already cowed into exclusive DRM ties with Steam will make GECK/Creation Kit mods "Steam Workshop" only, and once market domination is assured, a subscription model for Workshop access is inevitable. Mod authors will NOT receive a cut of those subscription fees.

 

If you are a wealthy, business-minded gamer, the smartest thing you could possibly do is begin researching how to duplicate the success of Nexus, drive users to your site(s) once Nexus closes, then wait for your buyout offer from monopolist investor groups.

 

Nexus: Please don't ban me for stating the obvious. I love you all, and will not hate you for accepting a huge buyout. Just know we're already saddened at the inevitability of our loss of you.

 

 

 

The future of our amateur mod scene is dark. Creative pride and soul will be driven out. Vapid Horse Armour DLCmods are the future. Only a very few modders will make any real money, and only after an insane amount of non-development afterwork, like marketing. Not to mention all the hatred from entitled gamers who paid for your mod that no longer works/works the way they want. Even the heartiest modder may decide it just isn't worth the tech support heartburn eating your time. And another modder is lost …

[DaVincix]

Above, Dark0ne asks why Valve etc. needed that long time to see the revenue in a realisation of UGC (user generated content, as it is called now).

 

I'm fairly old, knowing something about RL, economy etc., and my guess is, that in the first place, it needed that long, because a bit of ethics play rather played a role in this gaming business. Where? Within the management platforms, namely the chiefs of the companies.

As generations change in these platforms of business decisions, so changes the mentality of a company, its corperate identy and all that.

 

Let's face it, to me it seems so, that the London and Wall Street City Boy mentality wins now finally over everything, in every part of the industries. To what this leads us as societies? ... .

 

As already expressed below, i was a highly active modder within another game genre - i started public modding in 2005, the time i invested into this activity is countless, x-thousands of hours, and it is certain that i invested a lot, really a lot of money into this modding activity, with my time which i else could have spent with earning money, that's a fact - still, i enjoyed the invested time, of course, because it was my free decision, nobosy forced me other than a kind of modding-bug aka addiction (i'm out of this public modding activity, modding is now limited to my personal time and usage).

 

At the time of 2004/2005 and following years, mod products played practically no role for game developers or the distributing/marketing companies.

Nonetheless, game companies allowed modding, and even created some base-tools for their customers who want to mod their product, as extra-service. How is this called? Customer-binding activity.

 

The situation changed in a way, that more and more and more people began to mod the game they played.

Big mod projects started (i myself led a mod project where in its biggest time we had around 20 or so people active). Those mod products were downloaded in x-thousands, and the fans often expressed that this is just as the game (vanilla) should have been from the get-go etc., you know it all (which in itself is of course a wit, because modders use the vanilla game as platform and its resources, and it's a whole other thing to create a game engine and everything from scratch as game developers do as to work on this basement and providing a mod, even if it is whatever high quality).

 

How can such development of the modding-scene be unobserved or even unconsidered for a business-exploitation.

It can't ... not by the mentality (aka capitalist system) in which we live in our (western, and in the meantime east-asian) societies. Many people are paid for finding ideas to make money, for business concepts.

 

Now, in 2015, the day is finally there, that modding looses its innocence.

Is it a shame, a big loss, a sad day?

Everyone decides this after his heart's content.

 

I personally hope, that such free modding communities as Nexus (and other) survive in the one or other healthy way.

[Lgm1]

In response to post #24634804.

fo3nexus wrote:

Except you can see, repeating in countless posts from Robin, that he's /refused/ such offers time and time again. There are still people in this world who don't see money as the sole metric of happiness, who aren't the "suits" you describe who see other people as walking ATMs. There are still people who create things without the sole intent to cash in. There are people who are perfectly happy to make enough money to live comfortably, who understand that effectively unlimited wealth usually makes your life worse, not better, and love what they make more than they love the numbers in their bank accounts.

Look at the modders, the time and expense they put into mods they get no return on. If they have only interest in money, why would they do that?

People don't sell out things they love unless they feel they have to or if they don't love them any more. Notch sold Minecraft not because "ERMAHGERD MONEY" but because it got too big for him to be comfortable with, George Lucas sold Star Wars not because he wanted the money (he's got more money than he could ever spend already) but because it had just become an abuse magnet by people who decided that /they/ owned his creation.

"To any elder who pays attention to American business, not only is this expected behaviour, it _MUST_ happen in order to maximize shareholder returns for that investor pool."
And guess what Nexus doesn't have? An "investor pool." Not all companies are forced by law to put profit over ethics. There are companies that refuse to go public because they /don't/ want their principles compromised in such a way.

If Robin ever sells out, it'll be because he has to to make ends meet or because the community has abused him to the point where he no longer cares for the sites. But the "money is the only object" brand of sociopathy that seems to drive Corporate America does not rule all of humanity.

[Judassem]

Guys, please sign this petition so that we can make ourselves heard on a wider scale:

 

https://www.change.org/p/valve-remove-the-paid-content-of-the-steam-workshop

[eufl]

In response to post #23595759.

lyravega wrote:

First thank you Dark0ne for this very good blog entry, I agree with the most you said, but I am less optimistic.
Then I quoted lyravega´s comment, cause it describes my very similar feelings. I am not modding for Skyrim but for other games, and often I more like modding than playing a game. I love to play around with tools, but this is my hobby and my self-determined time, not a job. Commercializing every aspect of my life?

I say NO. I am still a human beeing and not only a part of any shareholder value.

And if I share anything, then I will do it for free and without the need, that I earn enough to feed my children. Cause in the end this is only another step into a commercial dictatorisship, where the dictator is the so called "common sense".

And think of this: Modding means to individualize a game to "my" needs. This may match with other´s interests, but it is not done to do so. In a capitalist market only the best selled thing counts, not the best made or the most unexpected or the most personal. The loose is on the player´s side as well as on the modder´s. I simply can´t donate every mod I use in games, but I can endorse work, I can tell people, that I like their work, sometimes I can help them as they can help me. And at least I can find friends with the same hobby like I have.
But damn: you can´t buy friends like you buy a suit.