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

[savagesouls]

First I was shocked but now that i think of it. It wont hurt much the modding community and i can even imagine valve stepping back from the massive anger they are receiving.

Pay for mod ? Maybe some will and it's their right, but i won't. But the donation system included seems a reasonable idea to help the talented and professional modders we see here.

 

But let's think of it, if you do a pay-to-play mod. You will have to make sure it works for everyone, and provide technical assistance to everyone who paid for it. No more "i'm doing this for free, stop harassing me with your bug/issues". That's going to be a hell of a work for the most technical mods lol

 

Somes people also made clever comment on how much it is going to cost for people who own over 100 mods and how many time you get into a broken mod (which wasn't a problem when it was free).

 

And another thing I think of, mods are not always created by one person. How will they share the profit ? Sometime even spread all over the world and with different level of participation ?

 

Anyway, we've seen worse. Gaming and moding communities are not dead. I think that for most of us, we are here to find other people who share the same passion for a particular game. And nobody can take that away from us !

[NoDebate]

In response to post #24563404.

Yngol1Storm1Blade wrote:

http://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/55494110.jpg

[aron3100]

What Will most likely happen is this Modders that are driven by greed will post on steam wile others who do this just out of love post here I like nexus anyway. ALso I can see why someone would wanna make money for there work, but the bottom line is the bare code that skyrim runs on is not owned by modders meaning when you add to the game the code you use as well as using a script extender is not yours and if Bethesda didn't mind and didn't support the modding community this would fall under copy right clams However Bethesda allows people to mod the game so there's no problem there the problem is when you make mods that need another persons mod to work I see alot of modder wars coming if this isn't stopped.

[KingFeraligatr]

I already ranted about this on the other thread, so I'll just repost it here:

 

It's happened. It's really f*cking happened. The Dark Ages continue to get worse.

 

I mean WTF?! Who with a brain thinks this is any good in the long term? Then again, lots of gaming companies nowadays are greedy. short sighted idiots. I mean Bugthesda is really bad and stupid and low, but this is a new low. Say goodbye to the awesome TES and Fallout 3/NV modding communities of the past. Welcome even more DLC in a world already saturated with that BS. This will only corrupt modding more (it was rather pure before this though). I see a years down the line more and more adding this BS system. And to those who think this is a good system, you are very short sighted. Look at, let's say, games nowadays. A lot more games where made with passion and care around 2005 and before. Some of those games are legends that are still played and talked about today. Look at a lot of games nowadays. DLC ridden, bug ridden, uncared for trash that panders to COD kids and the like. None of them will be remembered years from now (barring maybe a few good things that stand away form the s*it pile like Skyrim and New Vegas, etc.). Gaming has degraded a lot since around 2005 and before. Modding will do the same. It's supposed to be a hobby that you do for the fun of it, for practice in game making and programming, and/or (unfortunately) ego. I suspect years from now, many things will change for the worse, like a lot of society has. Quick cash grabs have proven to be failures in long term customer loyalty, and it will prove like this again. This is all tying to the greed and stupidity that marks these years. Say goodbye to your awesome free modding and maybe modding in general for TES and Fallout and maybe even more. Because while maybe TE 3-5 and FO3/FNV won't lose their current modding communities, do not expect FO4 and TES 6 tobe the same as previous games with their modding. I hope this idead ends blowing up in Bugthesda's, Valve's, and the greedy modders' faces and ends up costing them money and customer loyalty. We don't need yet another thing tainted by corporate greed. But modding has yet again been corrupted

 

While maybe you can persuade me that donations to modders is an okay thing, you cannot conince me that this idea will be any good in the long run. Practically nothing greedy has. Bug will use this to be even more lazy in their game making and maybe will even shutdown modding for their games altogether, using a select few "modders" to make s*itty, overpriced DLCs for them. Anyways, bad modders like me don't deserve any compensation for our work. Modding is a fun hobby, and I'd like it to remain that way. Bringing in greed only hurts it.

 

Yeah, this is a rant. It's what I do. But people never get it. They keep making the same mistakes and bringing others around them down. I'm good at foreseeing when things will get even worse, and this is a sure sign of things to come. I don't expect free mods to ever get phased out, but I expect them to be rarer if this thing takes off even more and gains traction with others. No one benefits in the long run with this.

[lydiacat]

I would much prefer the mods on here then anywhere else. After learning how to create my very first follower, and learning how to mod different things on Skyrim. I have come to take a deep appreciation for the modders on here for the hard work that they do, and to let others enjoy what they have created. It's awesome to feel that accomplishment when you create a mod all on your own. I'm happy I got those feels, haha.

 

Thank you! :D Woah!

[fitfulpixelZ]

In response to post #24563744.

Aedred wrote:

Wow, I didn't even think about that being a risk. Ugh. We are going to see soooo much junk up on the Steam Workshop.

[Madrias]

I'll keep it cool and calm (well, calm by my standards, anyway).

 

Any mods I make for any game I play will be free, forever and always. I find the idea of paying for mods disgusting. I can tolerate Official DLC to some extent, like when it adds a lot of content (Dawnguard and Dragonborn, for example.) or when it adds content other modders can make great use of (like Hearthfire, where everyone who makes awesome and epic house mods has taken advantage of making gardens).

 

Here's the catch: Mods aren't official DLC. Mods are community created. Sure, there are days I wish I'd get kick-backs from things I do, but modding is something you should do because you enjoy doing it. After all, Nexus has had that little "Donate" button for quite some time.

 

Plus, if people show willingness to buy mods, we'll be back in the dark ages where game companies think people really want the Mobile Market business model to play their games.

 

"Oh, you want to buy a sword for your character? Pay $ for sword training first. Want to ride a horse? Pay $ for horse riding lessons. Need armor? More $. Want to use a custom texture pack so everything's not shades of pink and purple? Pay up. Oh, sorry, you've been playing for 10 minutes. Please pay $30 for the next 10 minutes."

 

I'd like to see the major players here step on this problem right here and now. SKSE needs to go with a "You use my assets, your mod stays free" strategy. Would be nice if SkyUI did it, too. There's a few others, but I won't go deeply into the subject, as I'm probably already stomping on toes while doing my tap-dance around the rules trying to stay on the right side of the line.

 

So my opinion on the subject?

 

Paid modding will spell the end of modding. Game companies will get the bright idea that PC gamers want to be treated like mobile gamers, nickel-and-dimed to death. Console gamers already get the advantages of a reasonably trouble-free experience, while we fight bugs that come up from hardware differences. We don't need games costing $60 on consoles, but $40 on PC with microtransactions for everything, so that by the time you're level 10, you've spent $100 just to be able to play. Games will release in an intentionally buggy state with patches to fix the bugs costing "only" $60 more. Then after PC gamers give up trying, and stop buying games on the PC because of the cash gouging, the companies will pull up the PC gaming market and say "Well, sorry, but games just don't sell well on PC anymore. Piracy is rampant and no one wants our games, so we're giving up on a dead market."

 

This spells the end of PC gaming in general by treading the dark path of paid modding. Not to mention the needless waste of court cases that will inevitably happen because "so-and-so used part of my assets in his mod with permission, but hasn't paid me 90% of the profits." or "so-and-so used part of my free asset pack in his paid mod." or "he used part of my paid asset pack in his free mod" or "He stole my mod and is selling it for less $."

[AvengerJikir]

In response to post #24562404. #24562524, #24562599, #24562684, #24562874, #24563024, #24563444, #24563909 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

darkroses wrote: thanks you 3 :)

Inb4 £29.99 Dust; with extra shininess for only 10p more!

In all seriousness; Thank you. Your mods are amazing; improving the textures some people would consider small but which actually have a massive impact on Skyrim's visuals as they are so frequent in the world.

[jabberwockxeno]

I'd be interested to know how exactly this works legally.

 

Didn't bethesda's ToS or whatever the docucemtn was that covers mods and user created content explcitily say that for profit mods weren't allowed? Also, I wonder if the Nexus would legally be able to host older, free versions of mods that the authors want to monetize on the steam marketplace even if they request it's removal here.

 

I'm unsure legally what mods fall under but if it's a creative commons liscense, then I would wonder if the oldr versions would count as seperate works as far as liscensing works, and if so, then they would possibily legally still be able to be hosted here regardless if the author wants them taken down.

 

This is all speculation on my part, I don't know the specifics of either bethesda's user content rules or the laws regariding liscenses, i'm just throwing my thoughts out there. If somebody DOES know i'd appericate hearing it though.

 

In fact i'd be curious if the admins here would even want to keep older versions of mods up that the author wants taken down even if they are legally allowed to refuse due to the above.

Edited April 23, 2015 by jabberwockxeno

[Faralai]

Looks like steam is trying to kill off the nexus as i'm guessing a lot of modders are going to get greedy and stop posting mods here when they can just use steam and make money instead.This is a disgusting move by Valve.