Steam and Bethesda remove paid modding from Skyrim Workshop

[Aavok]

In response to post #24733199. #24733474, #24733594, #24733919, #24733969, #24734114, #24734584, #24734984, #24735109, #24735199, #24735449 are all replies on the same post.

Elta1 wrote:

sa547 wrote: All the damage could've been averted if the powers-that-be asked for a public consultation in the first place.

Saije wrote: Stop trying to ride the white horse here.

Modders turncoated on the community with hilarious haste.

Users responded in the way that an individual betrayed will always respond.

And now that the dust is settled and the greedy have shown their true colors.

(The fact that they don't give flying f*#@ about the community, just money.)

Now that the paid modding has been vanquished and said greedy individuals have no

recourse except to accept that they were completely happy in their betrayel.

You try to paste the blame on the ones betrayed rather then the ones betraying...

Ridiculous.


I hope if one lesson has been learned from all this it is this...

People will betray each other in a heartbeat when money is involved.


The only modders who deserve any sympathy are the ones that were attacked by the

greedy capitalist pushing pissants for not standing at the side of their fellow turncoats.

Sorry if I get banned for this comment... But it needed to be said.

focusv5 wrote: In a world where everyone has a voice (the internet), you're going to get all kinds of extremes in terms of opinions, and it clearly showed over the past few days. The blame cannot be placed solely on the users as if they were all issuing death threats and spewing absolute hatred. There were of course many users that were constructive and not issuing death threats by explaining that this system could have worked if it was implemented better. Don't let the sour few spoil your opinion of the masses. I wouldn't hop on the 'pity bethesda/valve' train as a result of hearing death threats as these sorts of statements are not uncommon in nearly all avenues of life. You make absolute statements like 'the users' as if they represented everyone, there were many who were calmly involved in the discussion as well.

JCDNWarrior wrote: Change is not neccesarily good. We're talking about a hobby that many of us have put thousands of hours into. I don't think the modding community should be seen as villains in this. Especially if people wish to ascribe good intentions to Valve and Bethesda (Two companies that would probably not even exist anymore or be very small without their modding communities).

AAA gaming has been going downwards for years and modding is what keeps the spirit of gaming alive for millions of people. Messing with that by introducing money and consequentially greed, on top of a very easily abused system of Steam Workshop and more and more information uncovered about how this was planned long in advance, and there's no way that the modding and gaming communities wouldn't raise absolute hell over this.

I just truly hope that all parties learn from this. However, with monetary interests involved, I think everyone should be vigiliant that this could happen all over again, just better repacked in PR-speak than Gabe Newell's meltdown AMA.

daedriccat wrote: Lets stop calling those who wanted to keep to the TES tradition of sharing free mods as being afraid of change. That is short sighted and ignorant and the typical cry of those who wanted to profit from modding.

SirTopas wrote: Oh, horsecrap, Saije. If modding does come to an end, it will be folks like you with your pitchforks, torches, tar and feathers who end it with your demands for "ideological purity". You and your ilk have already driven Chesko, the author of Frostfall and other outstanding mods, out of the community completely. On the other hand, you, I note, have never published a mod. Again I ask, who is more greedy? The modders who have put thousands of hours and real money into modding or people like you who demand that the results of that work be provided to you for free?

Hamthaak wrote: SirTopas: You just received a kudo for this.
Saije: no offense, mate. but this kind of attitude is just what i got tired of in the last days. Who betrayed you? Who owes you (and me, and anyone else here) anything? We should be thankfull to anyone who creates mods we can use for free. THEY are the basis of this "community".

TehKaoZ wrote: ^This

phantompally76 wrote: SirTopas, what about the thousands of hours mod USERS have logged playtesting mods, providing quality control, reporting bugs and glitches, providing feedback and suggestions to mod authors? Hmmm????

Not having ever created a mod does not invalidate one's opinion or stance on the matter. Without mod users, there would be no mod authors. Don't you ever forget that.

SirTopas wrote: phantompally76, not having produced a mod absolutely does have a bearing when people are making demands about what modders may or may not do with the product of their own work.

I get what you're saying but...
A bit over-dramatic don't you think?

[Azulyn]

In response to post #24733199. #24733474, #24733594, #24733919, #24733969, #24734114, #24734584, #24734984, #24735109, #24735199, #24735449, #24735464 are all replies on the same post.

Elta1 wrote:

sa547 wrote: All the damage could've been averted if the powers-that-be asked for a public consultation in the first place.

Saije wrote: Stop trying to ride the white horse here.

Modders turncoated on the community with hilarious haste.

Users responded in the way that an individual betrayed will always respond.

And now that the dust is settled and the greedy have shown their true colors.

(The fact that they don't give flying f*#@ about the community, just money.)

Now that the paid modding has been vanquished and said greedy individuals have no

recourse except to accept that they were completely happy in their betrayel.

You try to paste the blame on the ones betrayed rather then the ones betraying...

Ridiculous.


I hope if one lesson has been learned from all this it is this...

People will betray each other in a heartbeat when money is involved.


The only modders who deserve any sympathy are the ones that were attacked by the

greedy capitalist pushing pissants for not standing at the side of their fellow turncoats.

Sorry if I get banned for this comment... But it needed to be said.

focusv5 wrote: In a world where everyone has a voice (the internet), you're going to get all kinds of extremes in terms of opinions, and it clearly showed over the past few days. The blame cannot be placed solely on the users as if they were all issuing death threats and spewing absolute hatred. There were of course many users that were constructive and not issuing death threats by explaining that this system could have worked if it was implemented better. Don't let the sour few spoil your opinion of the masses. I wouldn't hop on the 'pity bethesda/valve' train as a result of hearing death threats as these sorts of statements are not uncommon in nearly all avenues of life. You make absolute statements like 'the users' as if they represented everyone, there were many who were calmly involved in the discussion as well.

JCDNWarrior wrote: Change is not neccesarily good. We're talking about a hobby that many of us have put thousands of hours into. I don't think the modding community should be seen as villains in this. Especially if people wish to ascribe good intentions to Valve and Bethesda (Two companies that would probably not even exist anymore or be very small without their modding communities).

AAA gaming has been going downwards for years and modding is what keeps the spirit of gaming alive for millions of people. Messing with that by introducing money and consequentially greed, on top of a very easily abused system of Steam Workshop and more and more information uncovered about how this was planned long in advance, and there's no way that the modding and gaming communities wouldn't raise absolute hell over this.

I just truly hope that all parties learn from this. However, with monetary interests involved, I think everyone should be vigiliant that this could happen all over again, just better repacked in PR-speak than Gabe Newell's meltdown AMA.

daedriccat wrote: Lets stop calling those who wanted to keep to the TES tradition of sharing free mods as being afraid of change. That is short sighted and ignorant and the typical cry of those who wanted to profit from modding.

SirTopas wrote: Oh, horsecrap, Saije. If modding does come to an end, it will be folks like you with your pitchforks, torches, tar and feathers who end it with your demands for "ideological purity". You and your ilk have already driven Chesko, the author of Frostfall and other outstanding mods, out of the community completely. On the other hand, you, I note, have never published a mod. Again I ask, who is more greedy? The modders who have put thousands of hours and real money into modding or people like you who demand that the results of that work be provided to you for free?

Hamthaak wrote: SirTopas: You just received a kudo for this.
Saije: no offense, mate. but this kind of attitude is just what i got tired of in the last days. Who betrayed you? Who owes you (and me, and anyone else here) anything? We should be thankfull to anyone who creates mods we can use for free. THEY are the basis of this "community".

TehKaoZ wrote: ^This

phantompally76 wrote: SirTopas, what about the thousands of hours mod USERS have logged playtesting mods, providing quality control, reporting bugs and glitches, providing feedback and suggestions to mod authors? Hmmm????

Not having ever created a mod does not invalidate one's opinion or stance on the matter. Without mod users, there would be no mod authors. Don't you ever forget that.

SirTopas wrote: phantompally76, not having produced a mod absolutely does have a bearing when people are making demands about what modders may or may not do with the product of their own work.

Aavok wrote: I get what you're saying but...
A bit over-dramatic don't you think?

Pretty sure the death threats thing is being blown out of proportion by all the white knights and butthurt. I mean, c'mon folks. You are on the internet. I'm sure you've all visited the cesspool that is 4chan. I'm sure most of the turds issuing death threats were just trolls anyway.

[Brasscatcher]

In response to post #24734234.

chaptermaster21 wrote:

[sirname95]

Its fantastic coming from the tons of info and this information in this blog, that free modding will forever be with us. Awesome! Free modding will always be around considering how much we support it.

 

Also, this whole situation really opened my eyes about advertisement. I'll totally support advertisement even with a Supporter Membership or Premium, if it helps the Nexus.

Edited April 28, 2015 by sirname95

[DariyanSkie]

In response to post #24734689. #24734814, #24734964 are all replies on the same post.

keshin wrote:

Brasscatcher wrote: +1, to your entire post.

tem1980 wrote: Hopefully this shows people that they didnt have worst intentions. Like Robin said, it would have all been much better if they had posted such things in the beginning.

Bethesda didnt need to respond at all, they could have gone hardline, and the internet would have fallen into silent complacency within a few weeks. Albeit with a new undercurrent of distrust and simmering hatred.

And implemented a donation vs paywall system, which would have been far easier to understand even for the screaming masses. Not to mention much clearer intentions on bethesda's part.

I still wouldn't have had half as much to say about it if they even wanted a SW cut of the donation system. Just because they have done alot of things they didnt need to for the community.

i think we already got the "hardline" part with Konami we dont need it from beth. TBH my biggest worry with this whole charge thing was with the ppl that develop unofficial patches with games that beth couldnt even bother to do themselves- what if they started releasing broken games and they were confident that the mod community -which is now getting paid for their craft -to fix the broken games - hell we are doing it already throw money into that and it becomes a serious problem. suddenly devs dont have to work anymore since ppl will download fixes to the games. all the responsibility goes to the modders- now lets be honest i dont think well i really hope it would never be that bed, but u never know money does change ppl. BUT NOT ALL . what was really scary was how this would have divided everyone more than it already has, moddb, nexus, and steam , at one point to the steam paid workshop it would be hard to be a community anymore but now ud be a business, and we all know how much they like to screw each other over. this wouldnt have worked anyhow gabe even admitted he had no idea what he was doing kinda what happened in his whole ps3 debacle. this guy is wrong a lot. there was no reason to think he would be right this time. Edited April 28, 2015 by DariyanSkie

[Rayek]

Glad to see this happen. Little bit of respect for Valve for admitting they might have been wrong.

 

Wounds take a while to heal though.

 

While I'm not against some form of modder compensation, this was not it. Originally I weighed the pros and cons and the cons were so top heavy that I stopped and made my personal conclusion pretty quickly.

 

I won't be surprised to see round 2 in the not so distant future...either from Valve or some other company.

 

EDIT: Oh and Kudos to Bethesda on their DRm stance.

Edited April 28, 2015 by Rayek

[Brasscatcher]

In response to post #24734504.

Mr. Dave wrote:

Feels good, man. Cheers! :D

[SirTopas]

In response to post #24733934. #24734419, #24734709, #24734869, #24734934, #24735014, #24735414 are all replies on the same post.

kjj92 wrote:

Beetlecat wrote: Heh. No kidding. Even so -- I made a point of visiting his and chesko's paypal pages (via nexus) to kick them a thank you for all they had provided me up to this point.

Maybe it was a backhanded "f*#@ you very much" and maybe it's passive aggressive of me --I am from Seattle after all-- but I honestly *do* feel like they've contributed in no small part to making Skyrim a better game after all these years.

I'm not expecting a more heart-felt apology from isoku, but I know this SW implosion has to hurt. ;)

As for most of the rest of those "top mods" chosen for the roll-out. What the HELL?

phantompally76 wrote: Indeed. Almost none of them would have been endorsed or popular as FREE mods, let alone paid mods.

If I was a talented modder, and I was contacted by that company, and if I didn't have any principles, and was dumb enough to buy into that scam, you can bet your sweet bippy I would have brought my A-game with the most impressive mod I could create. Otherwise, what would have been the point?

The general consensus was that of those 17 (19) mods, only one of them was worth any amount of money, because all the others were either 1). crappy mods, 2). still in very early development, 3). stripped down updates of mods we already have for free.

SirTopas wrote: Why on earth would you believe that isoku or any one else owes you an apology? Quite a sense of entitlement you're carrying around there.

jfisha wrote: It did hurt to see Isoku go. However, once I saw that Cabal (maker of all the great amidianborn textures), was firmly with us, I didn't worry about it to much. If I took everything out of my load order but the cabal's mods, it would still be a gorgeous game.

phantompally76 wrote: @SirTopas

True, Isoku doesn't owe us an aplogy.

We don't owe him an apology, either.

Brasscatcher wrote: @phantom +1'd

There's so much bitterness in this thread. It's just as disgusting as the derps with the ASCII baners on the steam workshop comments.

By TALOS, grow up people.

Those who treated mod authors so shabbily most assuredly owe those mod authors copious apologies. It's one thing to say "I don't like the idea of paid mods". It's quite another to say "I hope you die". Those who posted things like the latter owe apologies to the mod authors and to the community as a whole for the damage they've caused.

[Sarfured]

In response to post #24734844. #24735134, #24735264 are all replies on the same post.

PROMETHEUS_ts wrote:

badkrma wrote: This is true....if it weren't for mods, I would never have put 100's of hours into each Bethsoft game...

SirTopas wrote: Indeed, which makes Bethesda's ham-handed handling of the whole thing doubly puzzling. They took a potential win-win and turned it into a lose-lose.

I put about 200 hours into my Skyrim when I first played it. Then I lost interest and didn't play it for a year. Once I saw people on YouTube with their awesome mods, I learned how to use the mods and away I went. I'm now 150 more hours into a modded Skyrim and still going.

[Azulyn]

In response to post #24732344. #24732604, #24732704, #24732709, #24732774, #24732869, #24732879, #24733044, #24733464, #24733739, #24733824, #24733844, #24734224, #24734679, #24734879, #24734924, #24735019, #24735179 are all replies on the same post.

CelticPaladin wrote:

calfurius wrote: I know quite a few modders became disgusted with the way some members of the modding community treated them. I'm mostly concerned if Chesko is coming back or not, he didn't deserve anywhere near the level of hate that he got.

phantompally76 wrote: I hope that's not the case.

I do, however, hope that in future they think twice about arrogantly condescending mod users looking for assistance with their mods in comments sections, like they have in the past. I'd stopped using some of their mods before this crap ever started because of that.

Riprock wrote: Hopefully time will make him realize that words on the internet are just words. We put way too much stock in typed messages.

CelticPaladin wrote: The number of vitriol and death threats were insane. I couldn't blame them for leaving this community behind. It'd be depressing, but there you go.

meredithmiles wrote: What I don't understand is why Arthmoor, Chesko and Isoku don't already have job offers in hand. Seriously, they are all three hardworking, dedicated and skilled. If I ran a game company I'd have snatched them up ages ago.

This is a great time to donate to them, I think.

jfisha wrote: Each team only lost a handful of endorsements. Yes, there was some angry vitriol, but most people respectfully disagreed with what they did. No more, no less.

BarnabasCollins wrote: I don't even see why people were targeting the modders anyway. For me this was never even about the modders, but the future of modding itself. The modders are innocent.

oblivion104 wrote: I stayed away from the melodrama and only sign the petition,but what happened to chesko??

Also, what happened to the paid mods? Did they take it down?

phantompally76 wrote: heh, apt user name there.

Wait, there are mods for Skyrim??????

Noortje wrote: They would never have updated skyui if it wasn't for the pay offer. I doubt they will finish skyui 5.0 and release it now, but it's not like it was ever going to be free in the first place.

Saije wrote: f*#@ that... We weren't black hearted. They were when they gave us a big green middle finger.

SNSDLOVER wrote: Honestly if they love modding and love sharing their mods to us, I doubt theyll leave. Modding could be their hobby or passion so Im certain this wont make them go away.

redrat07 wrote: there were d-threats to people who left to go to the paid system ?

phantompally76 wrote: @redrat, not in the quantities that people here want you to believe.

There was certainly some of it.....there always is. But the vast majority of butthurt mod authors and white knights are including irate mod users who posted "uninstalled and unendorsed, shame on you" along with any amount of criticism in that category. And THOSE comments grossly outnumbered any sort of threats, and were perfectly fair and justified.

BluemaxDR wrote: Oh, they won't stop developing mods. Just stop posting.

Arendella wrote: Chesko I don't have a problem with.

Isoku and SkyUi? definitely will never use their mods again *Will just use old version of SkyUi*. Was just a big slap in the face when he was all giddy about putting his mods up on Steam Workshop just pissing everyone off even more.

jfisha wrote: Thumbs up, Phantompally.

There are some mod authors that are going pull an Anita Sarkeesian and chastise our entire community because of a very small amount of very angry comments, but if you go back and look at comments, you'll notice most of them are people just saying they're disappointed and unendorsing.

jfisha + phantompally76
Amen.
Most of the comments I saw were reasonable criticisms and/or remarks of disappointment, not frothing rage and threats of death and venngeeeaanncceee as all these white knights would have you believe.