Steam and Bethesda remove paid modding from Skyrim Workshop

[sunshinenbrick]

In response to post #24733199. #24733474, #24733594, #24733919, #24733969, #24734114, #24734584, #24734984, #24735109, #24735199, #24735449, #24735464, #24735474, #24735764, #24735829, #24736169, #24736484, #24736504, #24736694 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?

Azulyn wrote: 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.

MysticalFlare wrote: @phantom, you don't need mod users to be a mod author. More often than not, I make mods exclusively for myself. I don't know where you got the idea that you have any authority over the author, but that sense of entitlement is pretty ridiculous.

bjornvaldr wrote: Not sure I agree with you and not sure you got the point of it all. The only people who should be demonized here are the ones who went around spamming middle finger ASCII art or harassing mod authors. Reactions such as protest banners and hiding mods were justified. Since when is protesting against something you feel is wrong childish? Don't lump everyone into the same category just because people share the same distaste for paid modding. The Workshop has been known - and is still known - for people stealing mods. People who hid or pulled their mods, while their reactions may have been a little early to do so, were justified. They didn't want people stealing their hard work and selling it. The people who pulled their mods with the idea of exclusively selling them, however, that's a different story. I won't get into that one though. You can't blame people for feeling betrayed. Sure, some people went about expressing this in stupid ways, but not everyone went around spamming and harassing. And no. No one banished anyone. The only mod authors who left were ones who didn't have the foresight to see what they were doing was going to cause a backlash. I hope they come back, but if they don't, I'm not going to beg them to do so. Yeah, it sucks they got harassed, but that happens on the Internet. I wish it didn't, but people need to thicken their skin.

asanesslights wrote: Now you're trying avert towards the users, which in fact only expressed their feelings because of sudden change. Now the gamergate journalists will make an article off this one.

LeianneG wrote: @phantompally76

"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. "

********************** ADDRESSING THE ABOVE STATEMENT ******************

USERS who have donated their time, work and talents improving a mod -
are no longer JUST USERS ... they are ALSO contributing Mod Authors!

Sorry, but I would still be a mod author WITHOUT mod users .. as I make my mods FOR ME FIRST - and then, if I feel you or someone else might enjoy it - I choose to SHARE.

Tar wrote: Remember that this is what normally happen when change and new rules get pulled down on peoples head without any warning. This was neither the mod makers fault or the users fault, they felt they was cheated, this was all done by Valve and Bethesda for not doing what should have been done when change is on the agenda.

Anyway, some users overstepped and their actions should not be tolerated. But lets look forward and try an unite the community again, lets get this farce created by valve and Bethesda out of our system.

jfisha wrote: I understand exactly what you're talking about, Leianne, but my response would be the same to you as it was when I read a contributor to SkyUI say he didn't feel there was a community on Nexus....

"The almost 300 thousand people who endorsed your mod would disagree."

Communities should always contain a wide variety of people. I have come to realise just how varied opinions are on in this community and the number of times I have thought "s#*! that's a insanely good point".

I think it is the sense of community that was what caused such a strong reaction from everyone here. I think what Bethesda (perhaps Valve) and everyone here found out through this is how intricate and precious this wide variety of people and how they interact is.

You cannot package it in a box and sell it for the lowest price. We should be proud of that and I hope Bethesda and everyone here appreciates the value of it. Edited April 28, 2015 by sunshinenbrick

[Brasscatcher]

In response to post #24736589.

Vesuvius1745 wrote:

Agreed. I posted somewhere back in one of the other topics that I disagree with forcing mods behind a paywall. User funding for this hobby should always be voluntary. BUT. Bethesda (under Zenimax pressure, I'm sure) has released games in terrible condition for a AAA title. If anyone should be profit-sharing with crews like SKSE, SkyUI, Unofficial Patches, it should be Bethesda. Sure is nice having a devoted and skilled-enough fanbase to make your game run for you.

I decided with Skyrim to not preorder the next Bethesda game for this very reason. There's no point, if the friggin thing isn't going to work out of the box.

[zanity]

Zenimax pushed this cr*p, knowing full well what they were doing. Valve saw only dollar signs. Bethesda's key people are far too weak willed to ever say "no" to their Zenimax masters.

 

The rightful backlash (now demonised with the usual rubbish about 'death threats' and 'entitled ingrates') travelled upstream to the top Zenimax people and made them seriously worried about the amount of goodwill their group was burning off, for no real gain. THIS is how real business works. Look at how every tech site defended the horrific original plans for the Xbox One (always on NSA spying, no reselling games etc), only for Microsoft to REVERSE every single one of these plans when users made clear their disgust.

 

People power- and don't those who think they wield the 'real' influence, like site owners- just hate it when people power works.

 

Zenimax wants paid modding for Fallout 4, and Zenimax is going to get paid modding for Fallout 4. Good for them. The rules will be set in place from day one, and those that dislike the idea can simply boycott the game if they wish. But no-one can claim that Fallout 4 paid modding is 'unreasonable'- after all the game will still have the modding that most in the market lack.

 

Skyrim was never the same situation. Those claiming Skyrim modders had the 'right' to make money are like people arguing that the person who cooks for a dinner party has a 'right' to charge guests, because in a VERY different situation, kitchen workers expect to be paid. Skyrim modding took shape precisely because the license with Bethesda prohibited paid mods from the get go.

 

Skyrim mods thus borrow from one another so long as the various authors are merely courteous and respectful of one another, precisely because no-one makes any money. Almost every Skyrim mod offered for sale on Steam contained vast amounts of content the supposed owner had ZERO COMMERCIAL RIGHTS to exploit- and the people placing their mods on Steam knew this. Piracy of other people's IP, in other words, based on the 'principle' that the pirates were unlikely to be punished. Is the likelihood of getting away with a dishonest act an acceptable criteria for a software business. Many now defending Zenimax and Valve's original act certainly seem to argue so.

 

Zenimax didn't like the massive loss of goodwill. Valve was faced with the legal issues- and they were insurmountable. Clean paid mods could have been created for Skyrim from scratch eventually, but the game is ancient, its modding community already set in its ways, and the likely profit from clean mods would have been minuscule, and lost in the costs of cleaning up after all the illegally posted dirty mods.

 

And that is before we consider the can of worms that is 'fitness for purpose' when the whole point of Skyrim mods is to use as many as them as possible at one time, and live with the increasing creaky state of the core game as a result.

 

One assumes Fallout 4 has been redesigned to allow independently created mods to have a FAR greater chance of playing nicely with one another. After all this would be the advantage of targeting an engine at computers with at least 4 CPU cores (for 4 worker threads), 6GB+ RAM and a much more powerful GPU than Skyrim could ever have envisaged.

 

No-one should now defend paid Skyrim modding to any degree- accepting the truth of what happened offers the only chance for the community to heal. Those originally blinded by the dollar signs can hopefully apologise, and everyone can move on. It will be CANCEROUS for anyone to complain about the community victory, or to suggest Zenimax could have handled the situation 'better'.

 

Instead, let the paid mod 'debate' move to Fallout 4- especially the needs and expectations of paid modders if the new experiment is to have any chance of reaching the dizzy heights of the Skyrim modding community.

[DarkSyryus]

So from now on, April 27 will be Free Mods Day?

[WightMage]

In response to post #24732584. #24734194, #24736024, #24736399 are all replies on the same post.

WightMage wrote:

Brasscatcher wrote: High five, Wight. It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I include popcorn and phantom in this list too. I'll be chucking out a few friend requests today.

Asside from all the namecalling asshats, you people debate WELL. Even those of you making a case for the pay2mod marketplace. Salute.

I guess I have to stick around and be social now...it's kind of hard to go back into the cave after all this! Besides, with my confidence restored, I have mods to get back to work on!

ceilidhachaos wrote: Here, here! :)

jfisha wrote: I'll have to wait until next payday. I dropped a little too much in donations over the past few days. Wife's not happy

@Brass Damn right you should, lemme know if you ever need a voice actor or a script writer for a quest. ;)

And @jfisha, LOL, tell her you can write them off on your taxes or something. :P

[NaimaR]

How can they be "anti-drm" when both FO:NV and Skyrim is exclusively tied to steam drm?

[tiberseptm]

 

In response to post #24733199. #24733474, #24733594, #24733919, #24733969, #24734114, #24734584, #24734984, #24735109, #24735199, #24735449, #24735464, #24735474, #24735764, #24735829, #24736169, #24736484, #24736504 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?

Azulyn wrote: 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.

MysticalFlare wrote: @phantom, you don't need mod users to be a mod author. More often than not, I make mods exclusively for myself. I don't know where you got the idea that you have any authority over the author, but that sense of entitlement is pretty ridiculous.

bjornvaldr wrote: Not sure I agree with you and not sure you got the point of it all. The only people who should be demonized here are the ones who went around spamming middle finger ASCII art or harassing mod authors. Reactions such as protest banners and hiding mods were justified. Since when is protesting against something you feel is wrong childish? Don't lump everyone into the same category just because people share the same distaste for paid modding. The Workshop has been known - and is still known - for people stealing mods. People who hid or pulled their mods, while their reactions may have been a little early to do so, were justified. They didn't want people stealing their hard work and selling it. The people who pulled their mods with the idea of exclusively selling them, however, that's a different story. I won't get into that one though. You can't blame people for feeling betrayed. Sure, some people went about expressing this in stupid ways, but not everyone went around spamming and harassing. And no. No one banished anyone. The only mod authors who left were ones who didn't have the foresight to see what they were doing was going to cause a backlash. I hope they come back, but if they don't, I'm not going to beg them to do so. Yeah, it sucks they got harassed, but that happens on the Internet. I wish it didn't, but people need to thicken their skin.

asanesslights wrote: Now you're trying avert towards the users, which in fact only expressed their feelings because of sudden change. Now the gamergate journalists will make an article off this one.

LeianneG wrote: @phantompally76

 

"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. "

 

********************** ADDRESSING THE ABOVE STATEMENT ******************

 

USERS who have donated their time, work and talents improving a mod -

are no longer JUST USERS ... they are ALSO contributing Mod Authors!

 

Sorry, but I would still be a mod author WITHOUT mod users .. as I make my mods FOR ME FIRST - and then, if I feel you or someone else might enjoy it - I choose to SHARE.

Tar wrote: Remember that this is what normally happen when change and new rules get pulled down on peoples head without any warning. This was neither the mod makers fault or the users fault, they felt they was cheated, this was all done by Valve and Bethesda for not doing what should have been done when change is on the agenda.

 

Anyway, some users overstepped and their actions should not be tolerated. But lets look forward and try an unite the community again, lets get this farce created by valve and Bethesda out of our system.

I understand exactly what you're talking about, Leianne, but my response would be the same to you as it was when I read a contributor to SkyUI say he didn't feel there was a community on Nexus....

 

"The almost 300 thousand people who endorsed your mod would disagree."

 

 

Well we should show them they're wrong. I asked them to enable the donation button on SkyUI because I wanted to thank them for the work they had done and to encourage them to continue the work they started after valve enticed them back with the incentives of marketplace monetization. They responded to thank me and tell me that they'd enable it. If you want to prove that donation systems can work and that the community can support good mods without monetization, that's a good place to start.

[abestrus]

In response to post #24735929. #24736429 is also a reply to the same post.

abestrus wrote:

asanesslights wrote: Ex-Modders be like "Hey Nexus, can you forgive me after I acted childish by hiding and pulling out my mods in your site? That was not me, 'I've been swindled'."

Nothing to forgive. They did what they thought was right. It's their mod and their product. Says a lot if they have that many downloads of their mod even if they act childish. That means it's an awesome mod. Why wouldn't you want talent like that back here? They gambled, but if they walk away we lose, not them.

Not arguing with you some of them are straight vicious in their replies on their threads. But again....if you don't like it, just don't download it.

I support modders, like all artists you have the rock stars that pee on their fans and give them the bird, and still pack arenas. And you have the pop stars that take selfies with their fans and sign autographs, and still pack arenas. It's not them you like, it's their music (mod)

[hector530]

WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE WORLD DIDNT END?!?!?!?!?

 

 

every user who made his account within last week told me modding was COMPLETELY DEAD

 

 

LOL @ the doomsday callers

[Jamez820]

Couple words from a long time lurker who stayed far out of the heat.

This is a small win among a world of gaming rife with betrayal and the "it's just business" aspect. I'd celebrate for now but the future is uncertain with both Valve and Bethesda's true business aspirations out and about. They demonstrated how easily they can take a huge fan-base community of modder's and players who were once self sustaining and happily coexisting and turn them against each other like wild animals. If anything this was a fire drill that went totally wrong and the collateral damage will take a while to repair. My personal feelings is Nexus should request a full on apology for the waves of damage and the witch hunting this caused the community. At the same time the community has to reflect on their actions toward each other in the uncertain moment and move forward to tighten the bonds that held us together in the first place.