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

[Calzien]

In response to post #24584199. #24584419, #24584599, #24584629 are all replies on the same post.

SamusKnight2K wrote:

mkess wrote: You know, that you break saves, if you remove or add a mod in the elder scrolls/ Fallout games, right?

There is no such thing as a clean save. Every time you add or remove a mod, you have to start a new game. Otherwise it WILL lead to corrupt savegames eventually, many hours after the change.

I do not know how Steam and Bethesda will handle THAT problem with the paid mods. Now that these mods cost money, and the players are customers.

marthgun wrote: first, i don't think this levee is going to hold. People are rightfully outraged at this. GamerGate has already established an infrastructure for outrage and we are on top of this. Letters will be sent by the thousands.

second, you are absolutely correct about the compatibility issues. And where will everyone go to get their patches and community support? The nexus ofc, and for that reason alone its a massive slap in the face. I know alot of mod authors want to take 100% of the credit, and they deserve far more than that could ever entail. but mods are a community project as well, not just in the utilitites that were created so Mod Y could get made, but also the support and suggestions from the user base. It's like they'll rake in the dough over at the steam gold factory and send all the complaints over here.

No thanks. That's why i suggested banning anyone who signs onto this from the nexus. ok maybe that's too extreme. but instead of coming to the community saying we want shekels, they ran into the arms of the arch demon of shekels himself. I think we can solve this issue as a community, no need to invoke Gabe Newell.

EnaiSiaion wrote: The Workshop discourages making mods that need compatibility patches. When two mods need the same records, the most influential mod wins. Simple as that.

If Apocalypse were a paid mod, I wouldn't bother with the whole Litem script to dynamically add spellbooks at runtime. Easier to saddle everyone else with the problem instead. If they can't solve it, that's one competitor down. GG.

Enai all I can say is you've got my respect if you keep Apocalypse free, it's one of my favorite spell mod overhauls. Regarding what I mentioned about mods, this is one of the staple mods that has entered my load order since I first discovered it and has never left.

[marthgun]

In response to post #24585079.

gelf2 wrote:

that wasn't a problem with the "games industry" that is an ongoing problem with corrupt media trying to cover up their own misdeeds by labeling a group of people uncovering their deeds as misogynistic. That narrative was started by Anita Sarkeesian and Brianna Wu, neither of which had anything to do with games journalism or GamerGate.

and both have seen record profits, so its pretty obvious that claiming to be harrassed is actually great for business.

[mlee3141]

Well, this change has certainly been quite shocking. Many modders (including myself) view modding as a hobby, and create new content because we want to improve upon a game we like, and share that content with others so everyone can benefit. When modders use assets that are freely given, or work together in teams, we do so with full mutual understanding/ expectation that our finished project will be available for anyone and everyone to enjoy.

 

This free spirit of cooperation is the cornerstone of the modding community, and to introduce monetization to modding is to corrupt the very motivation behind our passion and desire to create our vision of a perfect game, and reduce it to seeking simple exploits that maximize gains.

 

I for one see today as a herald of the end of free modding, where users like myself share and share alike, to something that is controlled and driven by companies for profit, by profit. While I would never charge money for something I see as a hobby, a passion, I fear there are others who will be seduced by this new order.

 

Today is a dark day for modding, indeed, and communities like the Skyrim Nexus may soon become a relic of the past.

[methoz84]

What about payed mods at Nexus? I think it's bad idea

 

Petition = https://www.change.org/p/valve-remove-the-paid-content-of-the-steam-workshop#petition-letter

Edited April 24, 2015 by aero64

[popcorn71]

In response to post #24581894. #24582039, #24582049, #24582084, #24582119, #24584879 are all replies on the same post.

NamelessTed wrote:

akkalat85 wrote: Valve is promoting the view that large content mods should be sold for a price. Whereas before we would release content because we loved to share, now we must decide whether to be taken advantage of, or sell. No they aren't preventing us from releasing mods for free, but they certainly are promoting the opposite idea for the express purpose of lining their own filthy pockets with 75% of your creation's return.

phantompally76 wrote: And who are you to say that if a mod author has been hyping the newest updates for their existing mods for weeks and weeks without telling their endorsers/subscribers that they must pay to download them isn't a HUGE slap in the face to said endorsers/subscribers who have been eagerly awaiting said content?

THAT is why everybody is freaking out over this.

GenBloodhorn wrote: its the reason that the large mods we love will go to the workshop and sell it instead of sharing it free with the community.

The fact that yes, there are good alternative mods, but they cant be as good as those mods. (no offense to mod authors around). and remember, the first batch of corruption included Chesko and Isoku, wonder how many more authors could get corrupted. btw, Im not really mad at Chesko as long as he makes the mods free (wont really care for early access bs).

WightMage wrote: And it wasn't just one author, either.

NamelessTed wrote: You people are using word like "corrupt" is absurd. These people spend a lot of their time on these projects and now they have a reasonable venue to make money off of their hard work if they choose to do so. If you don't find their work valuable then don't pay for it, it is that simple. You don't have the right to the content, and you don't have the right to get it for free.

I have also thought more about the 25% revenue share and don't find it as bad as most people probably think. Realize that in a traditional publishing scenario a developer usually only gets 10-15% of physical retail sales, the rest goes to distribution, retail, license (MS, Sony, Nintendo), marketing, publisher, tax, etc. Getting 25% doesn't sound like much but it is certainly a bigger share than what is already established.

Also, if a mod is actually good and worthy of a few bucks isn't it a great idea that these mod authors could make a living doing this? Instead of only having spare time to work on these mods what if they could do it full time? Imagine if these people didn't have to work a full time job if they didn't have to and they could make more mods or make their current mods even better wouldn't that be better for all of us?

Its not the moders that are corrupt, its Valve and Bethesda for the way they are handling this whole thing. This whole thing stinks to high heaven. Its a precedent that has some rather sinister undertone for how modable games will be approached in the future. Edited April 24, 2015 by popcorn71

[boulegue]

In response to post #24584934. #24585039, #24585134, #24585229, #24585264 are all replies on the same post.

Aegrus wrote:

boulegue wrote: i think most people are in a "worlds end" mood right now and fear that the whole free modding scene is over

kingarthurivvi wrote: this will lead to overly saturated content, and good luck finding help with mods now. Expect tools to be paid for also. I doubt when you look around in a few years your going to find free mods. capitalism has nearly killed freeware gaming mods are now in the sights i doubt this will end well, hence the rule's existence to begin with.

It is quite easy to see the difference between art that is made to make money and art that is made from passion to share. You can see that real easy right now on steams workshop.

Sucaru67 wrote: I am all for modders making money for their work. It's a part of the whole design that is widely overlooked, and other non-conventional hobbies, such as youtube, have addressed to some extent. But god damn, this is not the way to do it, in my opinion. Obviously this is a mixed bag of emotions, but the huge amounts of issues that can arise from this is overwhelming. The biggest problem is the extremely small cut the modder will be taking compared to the cut Bethesda/Valve take. 25%/75% is just degrading to the amount of work put into these mods and is hardly fair. I feel like we'll also be seeing a lot of rehashed content suddenly being sold for money, when it had been previously free for possibly years. There's also the topic of the intricacies of mod reliances and how teams of mods are paid, but I won't get into them.

Likewise, I think it's important to look at the big picture for the future. What's the next step here? Will steam try to monopolize on the mod scene by trying to shut down places like the Nexus on the sole purpose to push all content through their own channels and therefore make more money? I know there's hardly any evidence for this to be the case, but it's a possibility. Steam already tries to force a monopoly on PC gaming as it is, it wouldn't be out of the realm of plausibility.

I think it's important for content creators to make some kind of monetary gain, and I think modding has room for monetary exchanges of some form, possibly even making modding a plausible job in the same way youtube has become plausible in the last few years. I hate leaving this topic without some suggestion as to how that could be achieved, but the best I have is some form of donation system.

Aegrus wrote: I agree that a major problem is how this could lead to people creating fake and/or broken and or/horrible mods, and false advertising for a quick buck. And I fear the steam community is probably incapable of policing as they hope, give how many entire broken games get through greenlight. That's probably the main reason I'd just stay on the nexus and do donations; we have enough broken, dishonest mods as is. We really don't need more.

@Sucaru67 there already is a donation button on most mods sadly its very easy to overlook (i didnt know it existed before yesterday) and since people are choosing to go to the workshop and authors here saying they get very little donations if at all that system wasnt working....
before valve and bethesda took the step they took it wasnt really an issue but now it is... if we want to keep the modders here then make them stay... give them 100% of the money we think they deserve... taking mods to the next step was a very logical choice seeing its popularity

[kingarthurivvi]

what ends up happening is this.

 

the education vanishes because who wants to teach others their trade skills and create competition for themselves

 

the tools no longer are free why should they be you will be making money it only makes sense to charge high amounts for development tools.

 

community help will vanish over night why should i contribute to your work or learning or debugging if you will be the one being paid.

 

this is a rule for a reason and it will end with no more free content no more free mods and it is more than likely valve already knows this and the industry knows this. Free content is a threat to commercial content always has been. What better way to kill it than to let peoples greed do it for them.

[KChan]

In response to post #24585079. #24585344 is also a reply to the same post.

gelf2 wrote:

marthgun wrote: that wasn't a problem with the "games industry" that is an ongoing problem with corrupt media trying to cover up their own misdeeds by labeling a group of people uncovering their deeds as misogynistic. That narrative was started by Anita Sarkeesian and Brianna Wu, neither of which had anything to do with games journalism or GamerGate.

and both have seen record profits, so its pretty obvious that claiming to be harrassed is actually great for business.

I think the issue isn't the fact they're expecting money, I think the issue is the way they're going about doing it. Many people, including myself, are more than happy to donate to mod authors should they simply ask.

The reason why they're not yelling at Valve or Bethesda is simple; they don't care. Yelling at them won't do anything, if a bunch of mod authors throw up paid mods and people buy them. In the end, Valve and Bethesda will rake in cash and won't care what anyone says.

The authors are being attacked because their contribution to the paid content system is what will define this system as good or bad. If mod authors looked at this and refused to be a part of a flawed system that will likely cause incredible exclusivity in the modding community, or a straight dissolving of the mod community, then Valve and Bethesda would receive little to nothing in return.

The only way to truly nip this in the bud is to make sure the entire community is on the same level. The exclusivity that's created by this will keep new authors from sprouting up, and will standardize a system of "trade secrets" among authors competing to profit with their individual products.

People complain all the time about companies out to just make a profit, without any consumer-related mindset. If this system is found to be an effective means of profit, and authors cease making their mods free, we'll end up with modding companies. Companies which might turn out acceptable products, but at the cost of our community.

[pacino23]

I've never gone nuts with mods but I have donated to those that have changed my game. For example, the last person I donated to was Durante. I sent him some money and a note saying "Have a beer on me!". Point is I am not going to pay a mandatory fee to use mods. Valve already holds a monopoly over PC gaming and I won't support them monetising what is supposed to be a community driven scene that exists soley because of enthusiasts and passionate gamers. Instead I will make more of a point in donating to those that offer free content. I honestly think this is the best way to protest such a cynical display of greed.

[kingarthurivvi]

You should see the comments people are loosing trust in mods in general IMO the only way this can be fixed is by showing some stance against it. By outing the people participating in it and by creating some kind of modders oath or vow to give people an understanding and a little faith that there is a group of modders that will not turn their backs on them for a few bucks.