My take on paid mods

[stebo104]

Personally I do not think that a mod should have a required payment on it to use or try out. But at the same time, if you get a mod and really enjoy it, why not donate a little bit of money to the author of the mod. This is telling the modder that you really like his/her work and should keep working on it to make it better, more make other good mods. Also in doing payments in form of donations, the more you donate the more your telling the author his/her work is, and as the mod user you control how much you give to author. But if mod is on a required payment, you spend that money and may end up not even liking the mod. So as the mod user you end up loosing out, pissed off, and start saying not so pleasant things to and about that author.

 

 

[Deleted31005User]

I agree, but for Skyrim paid mods are not going to happen again since it was a complete disaster.

However I have this strong feeling that it will creep up again with the next game Bethesda launches.

[Grasmann]

People have become very catious with dlc and even more so with microtransaction.

Paid mods is a whole next level of this.

I don't think it will ever be successful.

 

Maybe it will work for a while if they try it with another game.

But if the percentage of abandonment is as high as on the nexus and if there are

as many half-broken and outdated mods this will be more than a disaster.

 

If you have a game like skyrim where many mods are interacting with each other and

compatibility and stability is important the requirement to pay up front is horrible.

 

I don't even know how often I tried a mod and didn't like it or it didn't work well with other

mods I wanted to use.

 

Of course the idea is to prevent such things with putting money on the table, but who's

gonna bet on that if there is no quality control and no required guarantees?

[RurikNiall]

I agree, but for Skyrim paid mods are not going to happen again since it was a complete disaster.

However I have this strong feeling that it will creep up again with the next game Bethesda launches.

 

See, maybe I'm being naive, but I actually have more faith in Bethesda. They may not be the best at QA, but they have shown that they actually listen when their fans shout at them, they could have easily cranked out more horse armour for Skyrim but they didn't. I'll grant you Hearthfire was could be argued to be only a few steps above horse armour since it's stuff the modding community could and had already done, but it did add actual content to the game and it's stuff the console players wouldn't have access to, plus I have a lot of fun role playing with it so it's okay in my book. Point is I think Bethesda won't be trying this stunt again. Valve, on the other hand, I don't doubt at all they'll try this with other games, maybe one whose community I participate in maybe not, we'll burn that bridge when Valve tries to cross it, though.

[NiteBeast]

For me the argument is pretty simple. Was your intention when creating the mod to make money or to make something for yourself you thought was cool and then thought maybe others would like it too?

If you answer the former then consider starting a business, getting a license deal with Bethesda, and generate DLC for profit. If the latter then consider it a hobby until you wish to make the transition to the former.

[Deleted31005User]

 

For me the argument is pretty simple. Was your intention when creating the mod to make money or to make something for yourself you thought was cool and then thought maybe others would like it too?

If you answer the former then consider starting a business, getting a license deal with Bethesda, and generate DLC for profit. If the latter then consider it a hobby until you wish to make the transition to the former.

That's a bad way to look at things tbh, I started Lakeview Extended as a simple overhaul of the original pool mod, all I did was place statues and plants around it.

But people kept asking for me to expand it, putt walls around the manor, put in NPC, add new navmeshes, you name it!

Then I hit the limit of the game engine since there was too much clutter and it began to lag, so I simply couldn't add more things on that mod and so I decided to create Tel Nalta which took me to another level of modding, the stuff I did for Tel Nalta II is easily 10x more advanced then with the previous mod.

 

You can say I started it just for myself, but now those mods evolved to a point where I don't really mod for my own anymore, I listen to my users and I want my mods to do well and be as bug-free and stable as possible which is why I keep maintaining them.

Now lets say that I met a nice girl and we got married, or that I suddenly had a kid or a new job that was very demanding of my time, would you not consider wanting some money for your mod at that point?

 

You cannot simply say "only mod for your own pleasure", modding something good takes several months, if not years, and by that time your life is completely different and your priorities have shifted completely.

Don't get me wrong, I'm against paid mods for many many reasons and I have been vocal about the downsides of paid mod this entire time (even signing that petition and PMing others to do so as well), but I'm not naive to think that everyone that begins to mod as a hobby needs to remain doing it just as a hobby...

 

Tbh I haven't even played Skyrim for almost 2 years now, all I do is play other games and when I get tired of those I mod for another few weeks/months, then when I get tired of modding I go to another game.

It keeps me from burning out.

Edited May 1, 2015 by Guest

[NiteBeast]

I'm not saying mod just for your own pleasure, it's your choice if you want to only do user requests, the motivations are your's alone. Being bug free I understand very much, that's a matter of pride and doing your best in any thing you do is a good idea.

 

My point is simply, that if you want to make money online then you can't think of it like a side-venture, a small thing you do when you can. You're selling online, legally it doesn't matter if you ship a million units or four, you're legal responsibilities don't change. I think that reality has been largely ignored in this discussion. That's why I say if you really want to charge money then you may be better off starting a modding business, getting a license deal and sell new DLC authorized by Bethesda.

 

But that's my opinion.

[Grasmann]

I'm not saying mod just for your own pleasure, it's your choice if you want to only do user requests, the motivations are your's alone. Being bug free I understand very much, that's a matter of pride and doing your best in any thing you do is a good idea.

 

My point is simply, that if you want to make money online then you can't think of it like a side-venture, a small thing you do when you can. You're selling online, legally it doesn't matter if you ship a million units or four, you're legal responsibilities don't change. I think that reality has been largely ignored in this discussion. That's why I say if you really want to charge money then you may be better off starting a modding business, getting a license deal and sell new DLC authorized by Bethesda.

 

But that's my opinion.

 

I agree that as soon as you charge money for something you have a responsibility towards your customers that everything is working.

But to be honest not even bethesda themselves are taking that too serious.

How many bugs did the mod community need to fix to get the basic game stable? It's crazy.

 

I always considered that the deal with bethesda.

They create awesome games with atmosphere and story, but they kind of lack the skills to get it bug free ( or as bug free as possible, because every game has bugs ).

In exchange they give us modding tools so we can fix what they couldn't, be it lack of skills or lack of time, doesn't matter.

And all the other mods that come around keep their sales going.

 

This is a wonderful concept in my eyes.

 

Of course they could hire modders to create dlc for them but that's a risk.

If they have to pay some very good modders for some months it's their money they spend before it generates any money on it's own.

When allowing us to sell our mods ( and lets not forget they get 30-35% of the money each and every time ) they are essentially doing the following:

They shift the risk of losing money from themselves towards their customers.

 

Because if a mod is new in the workshop for 5$ and sounds amazing you buy it.

Then you realize it's not even finished, or maybe the creators even told you it's early access and they're gonna finish it if enough people buy it.

But in the end it's never finished or ends up being really bad.

It's not bethesdas or valves problem. They already made their money.

If the mod creators made small updates until the refund time of the first wave of customers is expired they could in theory just stop the development and you're f***ed.

 

Money changes things, and most of the time it makes things worse.

Edited May 2, 2015 by Grasmann

[Wraithofdoom]

 

I agree, but for Skyrim paid mods are not going to happen again since it was a complete disaster.

However I have this strong feeling that it will creep up again with the next game Bethesda launches.

 

See, maybe I'm being naive, but I actually have more faith in Bethesda. They may not be the best at QA, but they have shown that they actually listen when their fans shout at them, they could have easily cranked out more horse armour for Skyrim but they didn't. I'll grant you Hearthfire was could be argued to be only a few steps above horse armour since it's stuff the modding community could and had already done, but it did add actual content to the game and it's stuff the console players wouldn't have access to, plus I have a lot of fun role playing with it so it's okay in my book. Point is I think Bethesda won't be trying this stunt again. Valve, on the other hand, I don't doubt at all they'll try this with other games, maybe one whose community I participate in maybe not, we'll burn that bridge when Valve tries to cross it, though.

 

Why do you think they listen to their "fans" - i hate that term, players is more accurate - and removed this ? out of the good of their hearts ? They knew this would cost them a lot, they realize people can pirate stuff, no one needs to pay for a game to play it, we pay for it because we believe its worth the price and the devs are worthy of our money, essentially we are gifting them that money because the option to play for free exists. Im not condoning piracy but this are hard facts. So they would rather keep their "fans" buying their games than have everyone hate them, how many comments like "i will never spend a single penny on your games again" have you heard in response to this ? i dont think they are empty words, they want to play the next game sure, but they can still do that. They need your support, remember that, and also remember what they are, a company. I respect them for their games and i think they deserve every penny they make, but never forget what they are and what their ultimate goal is, im not saying the goal of that one guy who works at texturing is to squeeze every dollar out of anything and everything he can, no, im saying thats the goal of the company and those who make decisions like this. Dont ever believe companies care about anything except their wallet, even if it hurts the entire humankind (dont mean gaming companies here lol), this is proven.

Edited May 2, 2015 by Wraithofdoom

[RurikNiall]

I don't think the why of it is really important to it, whether they listen to our complaints because they care about us or because they care about our money the end result is the same.