Steam and Bethesda remove paid modding from Skyrim Workshop

[ramccoid]

In response to post #24761834. #24762054, #24762089, #24762294, #24762689 are all replies on the same post.

greggorypeccary wrote:

sunshinenbrick wrote: This is why it is also about our experience of art... and we should be careful we don't buy into buying "art" for art's sake.

That is to say art is a very subjective thing to experience and why our relationship with it matters. I buy Bethesda games because they enrich my life, not just cuz they are sold as such

joeriz9 wrote: Mod makers who want to be artists, Should make a living of it, and proof it by making a mod that's worth the while.

The creator of falskaar purely made Falskaar to show what he was capable of, and got a real job out of it.

greggorypeccary wrote: Mod makers already are artists. I never said all art is good.

joeriz9 wrote: True, let me rephrase that. If you want to make a living of it.

I do work as a freelance artist and do earn a living at it. I also do mod and share the creations, the similarities are not that different, just basically a different medium to work with.

[DarkPrice21]

[shotgun188]

In response to post #24761574.

Gdgdgdgdd wrote:

The appearance of the donation button is set by the mod uploader on the Nexus and has nothing to do with the Nexus' owners/staff, Bethesda or Valve in any way.

[greggorypeccary]

In response to post #24761834. #24762054, #24762089, #24762294, #24762689, #24762759 are all replies on the same post.

greggorypeccary wrote:

sunshinenbrick wrote: This is why it is also about our experience of art... and we should be careful we don't buy into buying "art" for art's sake.

That is to say art is a very subjective thing to experience and why our relationship with it matters. I buy Bethesda games because they enrich my life, not just cuz they are sold as such

joeriz9 wrote: Mod makers who want to be artists, Should make a living of it, and proof it by making a mod that's worth the while.

The creator of falskaar purely made Falskaar to show what he was capable of, and got a real job out of it.

greggorypeccary wrote: Mod makers already are artists. I never said all art is good.

joeriz9 wrote: True, let me rephrase that. If you want to make a living of it.

ramccoid wrote: I do work as a freelance artist and do earn a living at it. I also do mod and share the creations, the similarities are not that different, just basically a different medium to work with.

As am I

[MrKit]

People like games with MODs. The game companies know that. While I am grateful for the SDKs, I doubt they released them out of the goodness of their hearts. I believe they do it to make money. The more quality MODs there are for a game, the more copies of the game the company sells. Businesses are in business to make money. That's what the SDKs are about.

 

Understand, as I said, I'm grateful. I would not play Oblivion, Morrowind, Fallout New Vegas, Fallout 3, Skyrim and many other games if they could not accept MODs easily. I'm also grateful to the Nexus. It's a great place to get MODs. Membership here is not expensive.

 

I have thousands of MODs on my computer, most downloaded long before there was a simple way to donate. I am poor, and I'm used to getting MODs for free. Even so, I will try to donate $5 here $10 there over a lot of time on the MODs I use and love the most. It's the best I can do.

[sunshinenbrick]

In response to post #24761834. #24762054, #24762089, #24762294, #24762689, #24762759, #24762869 are all replies on the same post.

greggorypeccary wrote:

sunshinenbrick wrote: This is why it is also about our experience of art... and we should be careful we don't buy into buying "art" for art's sake.

That is to say art is a very subjective thing to experience and why our relationship with it matters. I buy Bethesda games because they enrich my life, not just cuz they are sold as such

joeriz9 wrote: Mod makers who want to be artists, Should make a living of it, and proof it by making a mod that's worth the while.

The creator of falskaar purely made Falskaar to show what he was capable of, and got a real job out of it.

greggorypeccary wrote: Mod makers already are artists. I never said all art is good.

joeriz9 wrote: True, let me rephrase that. If you want to make a living of it.

ramccoid wrote: I do work as a freelance artist and do earn a living at it. I also do mod and share the creations, the similarities are not that different, just basically a different medium to work with.

greggorypeccary wrote: As am I

There also is too much emphasis that people can only fall into two camps:

Modder

User

I think its a great deal more complex than that.

[greggorypeccary]

In response to post #24761834. #24762054, #24762089, #24762294, #24762689, #24762759, #24762869, #24762924 are all replies on the same post.

greggorypeccary wrote:

sunshinenbrick wrote: This is why it is also about our experience of art... and we should be careful we don't buy into buying "art" for art's sake.

That is to say art is a very subjective thing to experience and why our relationship with it matters. I buy Bethesda games because they enrich my life, not just cuz they are sold as such

joeriz9 wrote: Mod makers who want to be artists, Should make a living of it, and proof it by making a mod that's worth the while.

The creator of falskaar purely made Falskaar to show what he was capable of, and got a real job out of it.

greggorypeccary wrote: Mod makers already are artists. I never said all art is good.

joeriz9 wrote: True, let me rephrase that. If you want to make a living of it.

ramccoid wrote: I do work as a freelance artist and do earn a living at it. I also do mod and share the creations, the similarities are not that different, just basically a different medium to work with.

greggorypeccary wrote: As am I

sunshinenbrick wrote: There also is too much emphasis that people can only fall into two camps:

Modder

User

I think its a great deal more complex than that.

Honestly most modders are not really users. Once you start modding you almost never play.

[jfisha]

In response to post #24748904. #24762514 is also a reply to the same post.

mcguffin wrote:

Teruke wrote: nexus has ads, why not give 1% of ad revenue to modders, if a download is made ??

@Teruke

I've wondered the same thing myself. Why can't they do it like youtube does it. Those guys/girls get paid without any expense coming from the consumer themselves. Couldn't that at least be an option on the table when further discussing how to compensate our better mod authors?

Hell, while I'm waiting on a download, I'll watch a couple of Toyota commercials if it means that the mod author is getting a little bit of a kick back Edited April 28, 2015 by jfisha

[Teruke]

In response to post #24745044. #24745229, #24745464, #24745559, #24745634, #24745674, #24745769, #24746064, #24746434, #24746794, #24746974, #24747029, #24747269, #24750919, #24751124, #24751414, #24753424, #24762449 are all replies on the same post.

oldnotweak wrote:

jfisha wrote: Did you not read any comments that were in support? Did those get deleted or something?

ChizFoShiz wrote: The trouble is the users out number the authors by such an incredible ratio that we have no voice, no one is able to speak up for any of us against a tidal wave of entitlement like what we just witnessed this weekend.

If you want to *really* feel disgusted go over to reddit and read all the circle jerking "we won" nonsense.

It's absolutely shameful.

chaotix14 wrote: Most of those were just afraid their mods and the future modding community would go and hide behind a paywall. Also it didn't help that they launched it on steam, the problems with early access, greenlight, the open sewer gates policy on the store and even the steam workshop itself as a service, did not fill the community with a lot of faith in what this would turn out to be. And reading about the 24 hour return policy didn't exactly fill many with faith. I mean it basically was a statement that either said: "we don't understand mods. And we don't understand that you might not have the time to immediately go play the game." or "We don't care that you are left with broken stuff."

BadYeti wrote: You haven't seen entitled users until you accept their money. :P

theblueshark wrote: should have been a 1 week trial..some mods wont show that its s#*! till you're half way there..

@ oldnotweak some people that did not want the paywall is due to the cut modders were having. though we were outnumbered by people that wanted it for free forever.

diyeath wrote: @ ChizFoShiz entitlement works both ways. For nearly 2 decades we've had a community that had no issues with creating content without guaranteed monetary incentive.

Money absolutely corrupts thought process and this is a perfect case study of that social phenomina.

ChizFoShiz wrote: @ diyeath "A perfect case study" in what way? Modders get the option to be compensated and then get run off the internet? Yeah, those guys were so corrupt. Give me a freaking break.

And as for entitlement working both ways your example only illustrates the entitlement of the userbase more so, just because something has been free for the longest time, doesn't mean it has to forever, expecting that it must is pretty entitled I'd say.

icanhazmodspls wrote: @ ChizFoShiz. Yes i am entitled to some consumer rights. Firstly if i pay for a mod you can't guarantee it won't break my game as mods are inherently unstable with the game and especially with each other. Given that the majority of users use multiple mods that is rather important don't you think?

Second if i get a refund i want it to be in real money not steam monopoly money. These are basic rights as consumer so yes entitlement works both ways.

Lastly paid mods could only work if there was some form of quality control from steam, an area in which they are notoriously lacking in.

diyeath wrote: @ ChizFoShiz corrupting thought process is different than being corrupt. Very, very different. The only ones I'd truly consider corrupt are the ones who took down free mods to host them for money on steam. People like chesko are not corrupt in any visible way.

I'm basing my opinions off of emperical data collected over nearly 2 decades. That system worked fine and very, very few people complained. In fact the only one of note that I can remember is Locaster. So when you say that bringing up the fact that entitelment goes both ways shows even more entitlement I can't help but laugh because you're showing more entitlement. Its a gigantic fallicious loop perpetuated by ignoring that we had a system which worked for a very long period of time before this whole steam fiasco.

I'm not against paid mods as much as I'm against paid mods that mod authors couldn't possibly hope to support enough to justify the price tag. We all know that singular mod authors can't support the mods properly and that's fine, we're talking about potentially tens of thousands of users vs one poor guy trying to deal with all the bug reports and whatnot. But without the proper support it's not right to sell your product and we can see this in the quality of the paid mods, most of them were horrific quality with only a very select few being of good quality.

I think that you should sit down and consider all the moving pieces and chronological order of events in order to form a reasonable opinion.

I personally am in favor of a more agressive approach to donations, I really don't mind if there's a big fat "donation" button at the top of the description, blinking away in obnoxious seizure-enducing strobe effects because there's no implied warranty involved (which is a legal thing which modders would be subjecting themselves to and thus opening a can of legal worms).

Uranium - 235 wrote: "The trouble is the users out number the authors by such an incredible ratio that we have no voice, no one is able to speak up for any of us against a tidal wave of entitlement like what we just witnessed this weekend.

If you want to *really* feel disgusted go over to reddit and read all the circle jerking "we won" nonsense."

The only entitlement here is coming from you. Mod-makers are volunteers. They have ALWAYS been volunteers. Volunteering by definition means you shouldn't expect fiscal rewards for your work. Nothing about this relationship changed when you personally decided to make mods... unless you somehow feel that YOUR mods are worth more than those made by people whose creations predate yours?

You people knew the score when you started making mods. If you weren't okay with working without payment, then you shouldn't have made mods.

The fact that you're calling mod-users 'entitled'... man, maybe it's for the best that a lot of you are leaving. Good to see everyone show their true colors here. Nobody is making you make mods. If you think we OWE you for your work, then you are in the wrong business. I don't OWE you anything any more than the homeless OWE the people who volunteer to work at a soup kitchen.

ChizFoShiz wrote: @icanhazmodspls Never said anything about you not having rights as a consumer, for some of you I'm sure it IS a genuine concern over refund policies and content policing, but for the majority opinion it only takes a 30 second scan down any other outlet of discussion for this game to see the popular opinion is that mods and modders aren't worth it.

I've said this elsewhere but I'll say it again here, the system could have been changed based on feedback, refund policies can be altered, revenue distribution can be renegotiated, content policing can be provided and proven over time.

Lastly, of course I can't guarantee a plugin will work in tandem with any other plugins you want to run, no more so than Bethesda can guarantee your game will run once you throw 150 mods into it.

With a refund policy that could potentially have been changed to an acceptable system in your eyes though, would it not be a platform worth having?

diyeath wrote: @ ChizFoShiz now you need to consider implied warrany as it's a legal term which is applied when you charge money for a product.

icanhazmodspls wrote: @ChizFoShiz

I agree with you that paid mods have the potential to improve quality and are therefore worth a shot. However i have very little trust in Valve to set this up. Their vision of a digital marketplace is very libertarian and chaotic IMO.

Futhermore Valve's trackrecord regarding regulation isn't exactly good, for example Greenlight and broken games entering the store.

You do have a point that perhaps mod authors aren't responsible for a guarantee that mods are compatible with each other.

I think a solution would be a model similar to TF2 and CS. For example using polling Valve and or Bethesda can get a sense which mods are popular and or used together in the community. They can then get together with those authors to produce and release a separate DLC similar to Dragonborn or Dawnguard. The Pro's are IMO:

-sharing of resources between authors continues.
-proper Q & A resulting in consumer confidence and compatibility with other mods.
-since it's released as a separate game i have more options of buying it outside of steam/workshop.
-better pricing (release price for say 15 euros) and better bang for buck.
-better career opportunities for authors.

A concrete example: SkyRe+Wyrmtooth+Immersive Armors+"Random House Mod".

Anyway just some thoughts..

Sakorona wrote: @Uranium-235

It's awfully presumptuous of you to tell mod-makers what they are. Especially from someone who isn't even a modder.

Tyerial12 wrote: dont need to be a modder to use your eyes

Tarathiel_Torosir wrote: You don't know what entitlement is until you take money for a product and then see people pissed off because said product doesn't work.

Also last I checked it was legally required that those that sell software, which mods are, support their product for free for 2 years, this is why games are patched for a minimum of 2 years by the way, and modders would be making so little f*#@ing money that it wouldn't be viable for them to support the mod for 2 years. Not to mention that they can't guarantee that the mod will even work with the setup that their customers have. No I'm sorry, paid mods take away the freedom of the mod makers, they stop being volunteers who can stop whenever they want and suffer minimal backlash and instead turns them into slaves working for pennies.

aikante wrote: @ Sakorona

So are you saying modders are not volunteers and should EXPECT compensation? Uranium - 235 is right.

why is it that until now i was fed this? "modders mod because they want that respective thing in their own game, if by chance they also feel like sharing their work with others that might be interested in it, then yay for everyone...". <- where did this vanish to? I understand that with monetizing comes the prospective of being a modder for a job and the like, and some feel their work should be financially endorsed.. but really how many modders are out there? If monetizing occurs then you do realize some will be propelled while others would still fare the same as they have until now. You want monetizing to happen fine, you want money for your mods fine, i support it. Indeed like lots said, why shouldn't the modder be able to request pay for his work? It's perfectly fine. I just get the feeling, i might be wrong though, the modders that stepped up to defend this system, didn't just to did for the sake of the idea of modders having freedom to request pay, but more like "If you guys hadn't blown this up, i would have had some money to pay my bills by now, thx a lot, really helpful". I apologize but the way Steam did it, it wasn't okay. Edited April 28, 2015 by Teruke

[Fowldragon]

In response to post #24761574. #24762844 is also a reply to the same post.

Gdgdgdgdd wrote:

shotgun188 wrote: The appearance of the donation button is set by the mod uploader on the Nexus and has nothing to do with the Nexus' owners/staff, Bethesda or Valve in any way.

He's struggling with his English, but I believe he's referring to the fact that Valve/Bethesda seemingly ignored the idea that people would be selling what wasn't necessarily theirs to sell. and that up until now, Mod authors who gave consent for unrestricted use of their work were not considering the pay system that would be put in place.

Favoredsoul's work as well as apachii are unique as they have a GREAT deal of influence on MANY modders' work. Valvesda essentially IGNORED this entirely.