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

[sanul17]

In response to post #24637759.

MacKom wrote:

i wouldnt say its "death"

but a step back, the mods community will be restraint by this "paywall"

because not only user, but the modders also paid another modder for the mod because their assets in it, the alternative is make it by themselves Edited April 27, 2015 by sanul17

[sanul17]

In response to post #24622474.

badiyee85 wrote:

my thoughts exactly

[cloud6378]

I never thought this would spring to mind but how long will it be before mods start being pirated?

[Harbringe]

Read the article someone posted about Dean Hall and his Arma 2 DayZ mod , considered the most successful (monetarily) mod of all time. Then decided to peruse some Arma 2 forums , wow has this ever re-ignited some old wounds . Yes it was the most successful mod but it certainly wasn't good for its modding community , in fact it devastated it . People would no longer cooperate with one another once money entered into the equation , even users were refusing to be modders testers and guinea pigs , they seemed to recover somewhat but it took a long time and things were never as good. There is alot of hate out there for that Dean Hall fellow.

[Rovole]

I never thought this would spring to mind but how long will it be before mods start being pirated?

They already are, but we don't discuss those things here. Suffice it to say that if there is a will, there is a way.

 

Valve has made it easy to pay for mods using Steam which you probably already have, and thats available right now.

Edited April 27, 2015 by Rovole

[Deleted3897072User]

Without wishing to take sides, I think there is a legalistic issue that doesn't seem to have been addressed yet, and perhaps needs to be.

 

Some mods contains assets (meshes, textures, animations, sound files and so on) that may have been created using software that the modder had only a non-commercial licence to use. For example, a free student licence for 3dsMax. Plainly, those assets cannot be included in mods that are offered for sale. But a mod that references them (without actually embedding them) by using that mod as a prerequisite, also cannot be offered for sale because that would constitute commercial exploitation of the original assets. It doesn't matter whether the wrapper mod is offered for sale by the same author or a different one, it's still commercial use.

 

The problem is, how is the author of the second mod (on Steam) going to know which free mods (on Nexus) are safe to reference? If the author of the original mod (with the assets in it) explicitly posts saying "commercial use allowed" or "commercial use forbidden", then the position is clear. But many mods on Nexus have been abandoned by their authors and there is no way to ask them.

 

What is to be the default assumption? You can't say "all mods on Nexus are free to exploit commercially unless the author says not so" because the question has never arisen before and no such statements have ever been necessary. Authors have never been asked. But if you say "nothing on Nexus can be used as a pre-requisite for a mod offered for sale unless the author explicitly says so" then you are effectively distancing Nexus from Steam because almost none of the mods on Nexus have that kind of statement attached to them (yet).

 

There needs to be a flag in the Nexus permissions saying "can be referenced by commercial mods", defaulting to "no".

 

I should add that I have no particular axe to grind on this - the few mods on Nexus that I manage now have explicit "no commercial use" statements and, since they are adult mods, there is little likelihood of their being referred to on Steam. But it's something everyone needs to think about.

 

 

Edited April 27, 2015 by OldMansBeard

[WanderingMania]

In response to post #24637759. #24704994 is also a reply to the same post.

MacKom wrote:

sanul17 wrote: i wouldnt say its "death"

but a step back, the mods community will be restraint by this "paywall"

because not only user, but the modders also paid another modder for the mod because their assets in it, the alternative is make it by themselves

Well I did say "grim and worst case scenario" but that of course is my own "far sight predictions ", but it sure isn't helping us band together more.

[MrDave]

In response to post #24637759. #24704994, #24713564 are all replies on the same post.

MacKom wrote:

sanul17 wrote: i wouldnt say its "death"

but a step back, the mods community will be restraint by this "paywall"

because not only user, but the modders also paid another modder for the mod because their assets in it, the alternative is make it by themselves

WanderingMania wrote: Well I did say "grim and worst case scenario" but that of course is my own "far sight predictions ", but it sure isn't helping us band together more.

Something that needs to be addressed here. So far I've had to report (flag) several of the "Paid Items - Under Review" for illegally attempting to sell assets not created by the author. This includes models purchased from marketplaces such as Turbosquid, sections of textures which were gleaned from the internet, or created by another modder. And then there re the non existent mods that were being spammed. Valve has removed the non existent mods fairly quickly. Actually amazingly quick for Valve. They removed several in less than 24 hours for being non existent mods. But the illegal mods are all still up. ;)

[sunshinenbrick]

Looks like the Bethesda moderators could do with reading the S.T.E.P. guide.

 

It almost funny to watch them scramble around... if only it were not for unknowing new comers who are being shafted.

 

Disgusting.

Edited April 27, 2015 by sunshinenbrick

[EnigManic]

In response to post #24622474. #24707964 is also a reply to the same post.

badiyee85 wrote:

sanul17 wrote: my thoughts exactly

I agree with you completely, but I must point out the irony..

"..only want the products I paid for comes in with ZERO PROBLEM, and WORKS RIGHT OFF THE BAT, no BETAs, no ALPHAs, nothing of the sort of "i'm going to beta test for you"."

Sounds like an issue with every FO and TES game.