Steam and Bethesda remove paid modding from Skyrim Workshop

[ShinMorita]

In response to post #24817769.

lukianna wrote: Wow no-one has heard of the expression quality over quantity. plus in my opinion the unofficial patches are the only important mods, is it classed as a mod? Either way everything else is cosmetic. I have played Oblivion and Skyrim on 360 since they both went on the shelves until my 360 broke but luckily the TES anniversary came out, so when it went on sale, my family bought it for me. Hence i now can just use my less than useless computer, Skyrim is playable without mods of any kind even unofficial patches, the patches just helped with annoying glitches and bugs, which means i can now play Clavius Viles Umbra quest and not have the game not move or play at all. My next point if it can be done is YouTube your own mods n get paid for it, see if you open a deviant art and do commissions or just be happy you get a pound/dollar etc from at least one person through donations. Before you comment, no i have made no mods avail to nexus or any site but I have attempted to make a house for myself and change a armor mesh and wow never again, no i have never made comment til now or donated and yes i have endorsed but my endorsement button refuses to work and yes i cant be bothered to report it as i am not dying from not being able to using it. i shall say one thing, i do mention to friends and family about Skyrim community and showcase any pics i take through the game and talk about it to those who ask, so in a way i do contribute to the community whether you think so or not is your prerogative. i do agree with comments by some mod authors that some mod users are rude and ungrateful and to mod users who had mod authors taking it out on them i apologise to you for them both sides need to sit down and look at the others point of view. Not good I wrote enough to write a novel or at least a chapter in one, never typed so much lol. Either way about this PFM(paid for mods) i wouldn't pay you don't need to know why as i said before all elder scroll games are playable without mods even unofficial patches having them is just a luxury but i agree modders should be allowed to have the choice to sell their wares such as fanfics whether its in written form or not with obvious permission from owner i.e. Bethesda just in a more tasteful manner. I mean look at world events where change was forced on people and riots happened, people were divided. Also with that percentage, you better of going to East Asia to end this of, if none above appeal to you make your own game and sell it I am sure if you look at other companies they will happily let you borrow their assets if you can prove your worth it. Now, back to lurking. Oh great work people keep modding whether its privately or for the community and the users keep on praising and showing love. MY current mods on pic The Ningheim race, live another life, ELFX, Mini-dresses, COT and obviously SKUYI, unofficial patch and skse, thanks for those mods to those authors. Now get along, no point talking about things in the past, all you are doing is creating a gap pushing the community even further apart with blaming each other, when we should be doing the opposite not saying you should forget but you should forgive, again look just look at world events then look at this he said she said stuff. If you can't then its best to walk away from the community to cool down and return later.

^
Probably the most sane person here in the community!
I take my hat off to you miss! Very well said!

[jbvertexx]

In response to post #24820724.

Silvist wrote: Its quite late in the realm of modding to randomly toss up a pay wall without really paying attention to the entire community of modding. Especially after the previous TES games, where Bethesda threatened to sue several individuals...

Such as the creator of Unholy Darkness, who was only selling "part" of his mod. (voice package).

Now after all these threats of lawsuits, they turn around and say "Hey you can now sell mods!".

I realize the incentive was capital, but the way they went about it was probably one of the biggest "dropping the ball" I've seen in quite some time.

Probably the most hilarious part about all of this, is the fact that "free mods" is one of the largest selling points of Bethesda's games. Taking "free" anything away from any person used to having something for nothing...will cause them to flip out regardless lol.

Being a modder myself, I don't create mods for money. I typically create them for myself, and if I think other people would perhaps like them; I share them. Even if I sold one of my mods for 99 cents; it would probably take all the fun out of mod making.

Cause at that point, I mine as well make it a part time job. Making mods is not like making 3d products for rendering like Daz and poser. It has a long history behind it, and I'd expect Bethesda being one of the most well known creators of such games to be fully aware of it.

Like everyone has said before; this battle is over. But prepare to see this come in a different package; perhaps at the release of their next game. I wouldn't even be surprised if another company took the same idea and ran with it.

Edit - reply posted to wrong post. Edited April 30, 2015 by jbvertexx

[Baelfyre]

I'd just like to take a moment to thank all the mod authors for their hard work. It's added enormously to my enjoyment of many games.

[dewguru]

In response to post #24817394. #24817499, #24817884 are all replies on the same post.

acidzebra wrote:

 

In response to post #24817199.

acidzebra wrote:

Skyrim itself was pretty broken at first but I've yet to have an issue with their dlc. So yeah I have seen non-buggy Beth products.

This is kind of a crude way to go about it. I've no idea how to mod and yet I should pay someone to, intentionally or not, break my game? I mean if it breaks and I hadn't paid for it, yeah that's on me. If it breaks after I spent $5 for it? I hardly think it's a consumer issue at that point.

 

 

There are many well-known bugs in all the DLCs. That you haven't encountered them doesn't mean they don't exist. Look over the relevant USKP for the DLCs sometime. You'll be amazed at the stuff that slipped through QA.

 

A mod maker's "responsibility" is to ensure the mod works well with the original product, it is not his job to ensure the mod plays nice with the entire ecosystem of mods. It's an impossibility; like I said there are too many possible combinations. There is such a thing as consumer responsibility.

 

If something you bought doesn't work, ask for a refund. That's not unreasonable. Unreasonable is expecting all mods to work with all other mods, paid for or not.

UberSmaug wrote: Its is similar to if you bought a charger for your phone. You cant be upset that it doesn't also charge your electric razor as well.

tirekyll wrote: Actually it's not similar to that at all. It's close to buying a phone, installing two separate apps, then find out one app causes issues with the other and bricks your entire phone. The person at fault for that isn't the consumer when there were no warnings that the apps couldn't be used on the same phone. Especially bad when the apps are paid for. There needs to be more quality control and assurance that all the apps coincide, largely for the fact that it likely wouldn't be hard to brick a smartphone.

@tirekyll

In your phone example, I would view the responsibility to be on the consumer. People too often run and install things without reading up on things, and if a consumer somehow mixes two programs that sink their phone, then hopefully they'll learn their lesson. Apps, like mods, can't track every single available other app out there to see what may or may not cause issues. That leaves it as the consumer's responsibility to protect themselves, and if they're installing two apps that do similar things or utilize similar components, then they're accepting a level or risk.

[arshan272]

It's true, the dlc is just a master and bsa file combo, you could copy pasta it wherever you want. Not that you would . . .

[Pal2alax]

I just hope this wont shake up whatever bethesda's next release gonna be.

[Fowldragon]

For those who've commented that they accept and encourage modders to pull their work and leave, consider what is happening...In the last 3-4 days, I've seen the SAME mods on the banner page.

 

There doesn't seem to be any new mods/modders coming to replace the ones lost ... good or bad...

 

I gotta ask..is this REALLY the result modders want?...and for the rest of us, are we really going to let Skyrim Nexus DIE? I was convinced the the injustice of Valve's move justified the fight...But this seems to be a result that Valve and Bethesda GAIN from as well...

 

Instead of Nexus being a bastion of support for Modders. It is only committing to NOT CHANGING. As underhanded as Valve and Bethesda may have been, They showed tangibly that they were willing to CHANGE.

 

Dark0ne, You may want to change at least ONE thing....Stop Blogging your honest thoughts every 3-7 days...it is quite obvious people are paying VERY CLOSE attention.

 

 

[Aedred]

I feel that what people say, and what people do, are two very different things in the end. The whole actions speak louder than words, if you will. I still feel that inevitably, with pay-for mods, things will begin to become more centralized. Sure, you'll be able to find a few good mods here and there, but you'll be very hard pressed to find the same number of good mods that exist now a days without a price tag attached to them. I regress to my comment about Video Game Trainers, Cheat Happens and MrAntiFun, in the prediction blog piece, along with Sandhorse's post in that same blog piece.

 

Another thought: In my honest opinion, this was definitely the better outcome of the paid mods situation. For the most part, Nexus got an update on the donation system and more people probably have more appreciation for the creations that many of the great modders bring to the community :)

 

Things must continue to move forward, but who's to say where exactly we're headed in the world of video games?

Edited April 30, 2015 by Aedred

[sunshinenbrick]

In response to post #24817394. #24817499, #24817884, #24822954 are all replies on the same post.

acidzebra wrote:

 

In response to post #24817199.

acidzebra wrote:

Skyrim itself was pretty broken at first but I've yet to have an issue with their dlc. So yeah I have seen non-buggy Beth products.

This is kind of a crude way to go about it. I've no idea how to mod and yet I should pay someone to, intentionally or not, break my game? I mean if it breaks and I hadn't paid for it, yeah that's on me. If it breaks after I spent $5 for it? I hardly think it's a consumer issue at that point.

 

 

There are many well-known bugs in all the DLCs. That you haven't encountered them doesn't mean they don't exist. Look over the relevant USKP for the DLCs sometime. You'll be amazed at the stuff that slipped through QA.

 

A mod maker's "responsibility" is to ensure the mod works well with the original product, it is not his job to ensure the mod plays nice with the entire ecosystem of mods. It's an impossibility; like I said there are too many possible combinations. There is such a thing as consumer responsibility.

 

If something you bought doesn't work, ask for a refund. That's not unreasonable. Unreasonable is expecting all mods to work with all other mods, paid for or not.

UberSmaug wrote: Its is similar to if you bought a charger for your phone. You cant be upset that it doesn't also charge your electric razor as well.

tirekyll wrote: Actually it's not similar to that at all. It's close to buying a phone, installing two separate apps, then find out one app causes issues with the other and bricks your entire phone. The person at fault for that isn't the consumer when there were no warnings that the apps couldn't be used on the same phone. Especially bad when the apps are paid for. There needs to be more quality control and assurance that all the apps coincide, largely for the fact that it likely wouldn't be hard to brick a smartphone.

dewguru wrote: @tirekyll

In your phone example, I would view the responsibility to be on the consumer. People too often run and install things without reading up on things, and if a consumer somehow mixes two programs that sink their phone, then hopefully they'll learn their lesson. Apps, like mods, can't track every single available other app out there to see what may or may not cause issues. That leaves it as the consumer's responsibility to protect themselves, and if they're installing two apps that do similar things or utilize similar components, then they're accepting a level or risk.

I think demanding quality control and up to scratch programming IS the customer protecting themselves.

[sunshinenbrick]

In response to post #24774814. #24776789, #24777459, #24811584, #24811694, #24811904, #24811959, #24813484, #24818104, #24818664, #24818959, #24820849, #24826069 are all replies on the same post.

chidosity wrote: My disgust with Valve and Bethesda has been replaced with a broken heart after reading the responses from prominent modders such as FavoredSoul.

I have been modding video games since Quake. I have modded over 100 games. My Skyrim Mods are minor, but still took some time to create.

Never in a million years would I think of charging for these mods, or any mod. I have been a part of total conversion projects that all told accounted for thousands of man-hours of development time.

Some of you are calling end-users entitled brats for wanting something for nothing. I am calling all of you mod authors that wish to be financially compensated for your work entitled brats. When you started your project, large or small, you never envisioned being paid for you work. No matter what your motivation was, money was never one of them.

Once that possibility became a reality, suddenly you're entitled to compensation? Horseshit.

You are a disease on this community. Myself, and thousands of others, have been happily donating our time to provide content for the games we love for over 20 years, needing nothing but a "thanks" once in a while. This community has survived on the fuel of good will for it's entire life-span, and will continue to survive in the face of your misguided sense of entitlement and greed.

Our community is so much better without modders that require financial compensation for their time and talent. When you go, a thousand young bright minds will replace you. Modding is a stepping stone to games development if you choose. If you choose not to go the route of professional games developer, then you do not need to be financially compensated. We mod because it brings us joy. You soil us all with your delusions of grandeur.

Brasscatcher wrote: And if they don't like it, they can hit the bricks. Right on, chido!

FavoredSoul wrote: You totally missed the point of my post.

95% of my discontent had to do with the simple fact that this "issue" has brought to the surface, such a disgusting amount of hate that I never knew existed, or was even possible. And why?

Did I even have any mods for sale? No. Only about 15 people were even part of the program, let me repeat that, *FIFTEEN*, so for people like you to say that people like me are greedy and entitled, when we DIDN'T EVEN DO ANYTHING, that's the truly heart breaking part.

I was merely upset and disappointed over the fact that, for the briefest moment, the POSSIBILITY of some kind of return system existed, and it was so vilified, and so hated, that you guys decided to make, in large part, the mod-authors the target of that hate, and not bethesda and valve who were the ones that CREATED IT.

So again, when people like you say to people like me, "good riddance we don't need you", it just proves how disposable you think we are. You're happy to use our mods when we're offering, and just as readily are willing to throw us away without a second thought. You take us for granted, and that makes you nothing else but a selfish individual. And you say that I am the one with the disease?

I would say that anybody who posts comments like that, filled with hate, is the one with the disease. I haven't done anything. I didn't pull my mods from the Nexus. I didn't put any mods behind a paywall. Where did all this hate come from?

Musicdude132 wrote: "Some of you are calling end-users entitled brats for wanting something for nothing. I am calling all of you mod authors that wish to be financially compensated for your work entitled brats. When you started your project, large or small, you never envisioned being paid for you work. No matter what your motivation was, money was never one of them.

Once that possibility became a reality, suddenly you're entitled to compensation? Horseshit."

Well said.

I haven't been following this debacle, but I have seen some modders attacking users for "taking away their dream of making money off of mods" and in response will no longer be uploading free mods any more. How childish.

WightMage wrote: Personally, I think modders should be compensated at some point, but I agree that the end goal of modding should not be financial, for reasons stated over the past three news threads.

WightMage wrote: FavoredSoul, I get that the modders who joined the initial program (and were subsequently burned, both by users and Valve/Bethesda) were for the most part wrongly attacked, but I'm honestly confused as to how you can believe that mod-authors were vilified alone.

I've been watching these comments threads for six days too long, and from what I've seen, the hatred has passed from Valve/Bethesda, to SPECIFIC mod authors, back to Valve, back to Bethesda, stayed with Bethesda, back to Valve, and now that the system is dead, focused on mod users, many of whom were in fact DEFENDING the right of mod authors to get paid if they so wished. When people started attacking *you*, it was because you posted a reply that attacked mod users, who in turn thought that *you* were being entitled.

Do you see the problem here? This isn't helping anything. Anytime anyone creates a large post written entirely in the spirit of passion infused hatred, it just brews more hatred and we hear each other even less and less and yell more and more in response to being heard less.

It's only getting worse, and everyone involved with this riot mongering is culpable, even the OP of this thread. But from what I gather, he and several others like him only posted this because he felt he was being attacked, just as you did originally.

TL;DR, we all seriously need to get a drink together and talk about s#*! without throwing glasses at each other's face.

sunshinenbrick wrote: I think the end goal if there is one for me is maybe getting a JOB out of it, not money. Not necessarily as a game designer but I find that what is my hobby actually allows me to learn a lot of skills.

A job (which modding can feel like sometimes) is about more than money, it is about realising your potential as a human being. What was offered was a job contract, and a lousy illegal one at that which had next to no protection for anyone except themselves and a few others.

Now I like to believe that there are some great people at both Beth and Val but with things the way they are in the world they are sometimes thrown into situations and make very bad decisions in the process. The problem with big business. This does not excuse what they did but it should not mean that there cannot be an open dialogue with them so as we can express our fears and concerns so that (as this is probably inevitable) we can find a compromise that we agree on. Authors and users alike. I think we must also argue that ending free modding altogether will be their undoing eventually.

Sorry I do not know you either and I have just mouthed off my opinions on your post but I just feel there are some deep issues here we need to get to grips with.

That's my 2 cents... or what ever the hell people are saying nowadays ;D

svanderwerf wrote: this is pretty much my entire problem with Valve's handing of this clusterfeic

They took an existing and very healthy community and did the one thing absolutely guaranteed to cause an ideological war. The level of mismanagement is staggering, and I'll be amazed if whoever was responsible for this debacle still has a job.

Wolvenlight wrote: Chido, I have to take FavoredSouls side here. Regardless of whether or not paid modding was a good idea overall, (and I personally think it wasn't,) the consumer portion of the Nexus was far more filled with extreme vitriol and hatred towards the paid authors, people who have given so much for free already. Very few mod authors who tried the paid workshop actually cared enough about being compensated to the point they wouldn't have modded in the first place. When presented with the option, they tried it. It did okay for some but ultimately failed. Many of them accepted that gracefully. Heck, it was always a possibility, quite a few games allow mods to be sold. Bethesda could always make that choice, and you know this is true, because they just did. However brief it was. And if your motivation is experience and a portfolio, then money is your motivation, simple as that.

When people like you attack them, calling them entitled brats, a disease, tell them how they should think, why they should do modding, (or anything,) as if you own the very concept... coming off to others as if you think you're so much better than them because you do it for free? (Not to be confused with "for nothing.") You prove everything the paid authors say against you and the people who first started this "war." Especially because you attacked first. I don't care how many mods you've made. I've never made one in my life and I'm on the paid authors side here. You think they're delusional? We don't need your mods either. We don't need you. Bethesda doesn't need you. There will always be other people. Your opinion isn't automatically better because you've made mods for free, or at all.

Also, no, nobody is going to replace them when they leave. People will come and go as they always have, but only you and your kind have chased good people away by being so dead set against not the system for it's flaws, but the innocent people who did nothing but fall outside your banner. We have lost their mods, their ideas, their concepts and assets because of the horrible things said by people like you. I like free mods, but I like fair, kind people a lot more. If I had to choose, I'd rather have a smaller more expensive modding community than a hate filled one. (Neither exist, but hey.)

Enough is enough. It's fine if you think it's a bad idea. Discuss it's flaws, rail against Bethesda, be logical, convince people. Don't hurt innocent people, and don't let jerks goad you.


Also, please learn how to use the word "entitled" correctly. I haven't seen anyone use it right once this entire fiasco.

Xazomn wrote: I would never pay for mods. Games and dlc's are expensive enough , let us not talk about cut to pieces micro dlc's for just a weapon or outfit. Why should i pay for mods that fix bugs that had to be solved by the game creator in the first place .
Most mods are made for themselfs they like to share, for the fun, for learning experience, realy,i wont pay for that.
Mods making my game intresting, sure , mods make the gameplay very intresting and makes me play longer with my games just like Skyrim . That game is 4 years now, other games even older. New games don't stay new. Why should i pay for mods that keep my old game intresting. If i need to pay 200 dollars for mods to keep a 4 year old game fun to play or even keep using mods that i already used and sudden need to pay for, well simple as that, i would buy a new game and put the rest into my pc and nothing into a old game and the mods.

As modder, for me it is the fun i got with the community, the learning experiences i get , i can show my thoughts,feelings ideas . I share my mods as others share them. To see my mods used in stories,comics or screens or companion mods means more to me then money.

MetalGearModder1155 wrote: You'll never know what you have until you don't have it anymore.

It's mainly to make a point about how, when an opportunity to make money vanished, people will complain, crash, and burn about how unfair it was that it was taken away... even if they were totally fine with pay-less modding, just to put on their resumé.

The same thing with the people who USE the mods... they have free mods from absurdly kind people in the community, but they don't even donate. What [else] happens (aside from the concern of crappy, low-quality content that might not even work) when that gets taken away? An uprising, and people LEARN what they had, as it's been taken away.

Personally, I'm too warm-hearted plenty of the time, so I end up feeling so bad when some good modder, such as FavoredSoul, gets up and leaves because no-one was appreciating them for their hard work. (AGAIN, Steam. Donate button, custom message from author. That'd fix so much.)

Yet, people don't seem to get that it was their fault for not actually giving credit to good modders for their work. Instead, when the modder even THINKS of taking advantage of the new system, they get bashed and beaten for wanting to feel accomplished for their work, thanks to worthless stacks of green paper.

May sound trite: but give damn credit where it's deserved. I mean, come on, SKSE and SkyUI both are very well-done. The SkyUI is eye-pleasing, fancy, and it's not terribly clunky either. SKSE... it allows you to create mods, basically.

Also, alter account was lost. Don't mind the post history.

Dragonfire12 wrote: Bethesda and Valve just killed the Goose that lays the Golden Egg. Modding has kept Skyrim and Oblivion, even Morowind, Fallout 3 and New Vegas, alive longer than they would have been otherwise. This means more sales of the games and DLC's. In that respect Bethesda has made money on modding.

I can understand Bethesda's motivations. It was Greed, they wanted to pocket some extra cash, from mod authors, plain and simple.

Funny thing about killing the Goose that Lays the Golden Egg. There is never any profit in it. Bethesda and Valve will never be able to undo what they have done. They have torn the modding community apart and set them against each other. Not only that, the rift will not have healed when Bethesda rolls out Fallout 4.

This has cost those fools money. The Goose is dead...

CaladanAnduril wrote: Your disgusting comment only prove how much "professional " jealousy could be between modders.
I'm also modding games from the Quake era but it NEVER occurred into my mind to blame others for their decisions.
You say, quote
"... thousand young bright minds will replace you " end of quote.
It ever occured in your mind that the young brilliant modders will also read your comment?
And maybe, just maybe, they will be not so happy to replace the loss?... being so brilliant? and seeing the treatment of a modder to another fellow modder?

And above all... you totally missed the point of FavoredSoul, you just used his statement to make some advertising to your "reputation", who knows, maybe someone will remember you, if they are not already forgotten you as a modder.

Again, just hate and hypocrisy...

@ Dragonfire12
@ Xazomn

These are points very well made. Edited April 30, 2015 by sunshinenbrick