Valve/Bethesda announce paid modding for Skyrim, more games to follow

[antigravitycat]

Strange how most of the people seem to be blaming Valve, but I am a little disappointed in Bethesda, being the developer of some of my favorite games, not only "let the modders finish the job" but now also couldn't resist the temptation of making money off of the modder's work.

Bethesda's games would all be considered dead, as they say, if not for the modding community.

Now this fantastic resourceful and creative scene is being transformed into the usual competitive meat grinder.

It is to be expected that many modders will jump on the capitalist train, grasping for the tiny sugar lumps they are promised. As is typical for these kind of systems not the people who do the actual work profit the most.

 

I'm curious though to know what implications this might have in the future for nexusmods, and us "free mod users".

Since there are very likely, just from quick reflection on the topic, also going to be lots of legal problems arising. With people unofficially uploading the work of others etc. If Valve/Bethesda could then take legal actions, that in turn could lead to a shutdown of certain sites offering mods for free. Of course this most certainly would be a nightmare scenario, but it is just so ominous.

Valve/Bethesda could very well be the ones that put the first nail into the coffin of what we knew as modding.

[darkroses]

In response to post #24562404. #24562524, #24562599, #24562684, #24562874, #24563024, #24563444 are all replies on the same post.

ramccoid wrote:

AmraHobbes wrote: Thank you. Your mods are some of the best.

HrvojeRaznjevic wrote: ramccoid, I use almost all of your mods. Keep up the good work mate

Elianora wrote: Same here.

FiendishGhoul wrote: Kudos to both of you, Elianora & Ramccoid!

NoDebate wrote: Thank you (to you both - and anyone else who continues modding for the sake of modding).

EWM333 wrote: Thanks ramccoid and Elianora for all the hard work you have both done with your mods it does go very appreciated

thanks you 3 :) Edited April 23, 2015 by darkroses

[Jblade]

I admire your commitment to this site to quit a planned holiday like that...it takes a lot of consideration and care for the community. I'm not a big player of Skyrim anymore, but kudos for valuing your community enough to make that kind of sacrifice.

[llpenha]

I only see a thing: hacked mods on the internet and a lot of people using it to spread virus instead of sharing quality as they do here.

 

[Robok]

Am I the only one who thinks the 25% author cut is too low? You're slaving away working yourself to release a $1 mod and Valve/Bethesda walk away with 0.75c and you only get 0.25c? That's some bullshit, it should be at least 50% for the author.

 

Also honestly I really hate this change, donations and such would have been a much better alternative and wouldn't alienate so many people. Some of the paid mods are already being flooded with inconsequential (admittedly high quality) items that are akin to pre-order DLCs, I don't like the direction this is headed into at all.

[AvengerJikir]

I might be on the edge about this if creators were actually getting a reasonable cut.

 

25%?! That's disgusting. 35% would be reasonable. More than 50% might be a bit much of course because most mods use a lot of Bethesda's resources but I think 25% is just far too low. Even if you use all vanilla resources, large mods, such as town expansions, take a lot of effort to build.

 

Either way, I don't like this idea. I have no doubt that a lot of modders are going to make 'mediocre'* mods and charge a few quid for them. Which for most mods is a lot of money.

 

And with creators getting such a low cut, my reluctance to accept this idea becomes hate and while, of course, those who were posting abusive comments on Steam Workshop should have worded their complaints more politely, their disdain for this concept is not unprovoked. It will lure many amateur modders who just want to make a quick buck; and they won't even be getting most of each buck they sell their mod for.

 

* - Obviously subject to opinion but I think logical estimations of quality can be made

[aceventura45]

When the Witcher 3 is released, and modding becomes relatively for it. Most people will forget Skyrim, and it's mods.

[zzjay]

In response to post #24563424.

Rosveen wrote:

Thats the point...no mods, no success.remember that 90% of mods use assets from other autors and they cant be sold.forget about witcher 2 mods and sims hairs (as ea and cdprojekt stated they cannot be sold)..tera armors...

Forget about armor mashups (cause autors wont be inclined to let u make money with what theyre trying to sell) same goes for questmods as they share lots of resources from other modders.

With this u still get a few custom armors by jmenaru and newermind...but i dont think thyre up to selling i think yheyd rather kerp mods private at least jm.

Oh and there are the "bad" mods too...called HD but same as vanilla with just some saturation tweak...will u b happy to pay for tjat?

[lordburnch]

In response to post #24562194. #24562354, #24562709, #24563084, #24563309, #24563459, #24563644, #24563674, #24563819, #24563864, #24563879 are all replies on the same post.

trainwiz wrote:

BlueFenix wrote: PRAISE BASED TRAINWIZ

Dark0ne wrote: Like.

NoDebate wrote: Thank you trainwiz. You my n'wah.

raupao wrote: You give me hope.

enrikiller wrote: But goy, don't you know there's mad shekels to be made?

yourenotsupposedtobeinhere wrote: As will mine.

EWM333 wrote: Much appreciated

peppefarina wrote: THANKS trainwiz... sadly i think there surely will be some good/big modders that won't be as enlightened as you are... and they will be lured in this marketing campain that's taking place "on the other side" pretty fast pretty badly...

Bellasimo wrote: good boy :) Thanks

forellenfischer wrote: awesome!

Never thought I would see the day were Dark0ne agreed with Trainwiz. Good sport Trainwiz.

[sammygm]

In response to post #24563144. #24563824 is also a reply to the same post.

thatduder99 wrote:

HeavyDude wrote: Why would you apply that logic on the Nexus but not apply it on the Workshop? Valve profits from the Workshop too, they profit even more now.

How much money does it cost to create ingame content? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! Whilst Dark0ne has to actually pay for servers and bandwidth.