Jump to content

Drawing a line under recent events and moving on

Dark0ne

By Dark0ne
in Site Updates

 Share

Recommended Posts

hafizlordfeast Rookie

hafizlordfeast

Posted
Posted
In response to post #24956179.


  Reveal hidden contents


Can the Nexus implement Patreon? I mean it is seem to be a logical way to support the modders with a very intuitive system. YouTubers, did it, and most of the time, people who give money and reach the requirement, got some kind of reward, and also able to help the modders reach certain goals.

Of course the mindset of modders are varied if they expect for people to give them money or else, they won't give you content. But if successful YouTuber provide quality contents, people will surely glad to give them money, and probably be the same to modders as well.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • Replies 520
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

retnav98

retnav98

Posted
Posted (edited)
In response to post #24941974. #24942164, #24950944, #24954954, #24957899 are all replies on the same post.


  Reveal hidden contents


I was saying relative to the era, towns like Lowell, Mass. and others built almost IDEAL working conditions, only to cut costs in favor of profit...The point as I attempted to convey,(stated outright) was that it isn't NEW.

Even the most altruistic businesses are not tethered to the WORKER's issues. It's ironic too that of all the labor abuses of the 19th century, you key on CHILD labor....since CHILDREN can and DO publish MODS. I have no doubt that Valve had no interest in determining how much time a KID spent per day or how late into a 'School Night' they stayed up MODDING...and since those KIDS contributed to the "Community" and by extension Valve/Bethesda's PROFITS...
They already are "Getting kids to clean...".

The Midas mod that employed pop-ups in the free version to advertise the Pay version was not likely to be detected by a cursory glance. And it certainly wouldn't have been found if the scrutiny was only applied to the PAY MOD. The change over from Free to pay as Valve was attempting...didn't last long enough to realize all the ways it could be subverted...Maybe they think they have enough experience with other PAY MOD models...but if that were the case...they certainly didn't show it. Edited by retnav98
Link to comment
Share on other sites
bullpcp Contributor

bullpcp

Posted
Posted
In response to post #24954969.


  Reveal hidden contents


Ohkay... lets try again.

I stated

"Trigger warning: This post is about perspective and relative importance. This may caused those with over-inflated senses of self importance to feel fear, anxiety, rage, or other negative emotions and lash out uncontrollably at those that have triggered them.

I love mods and i know it is easy to lose perspective being part of a modding community but the reality is... the modding community is simply not that important to the success of Bethesda's games or their bottom line.

According to Bethesda only about 8% of Skyrim players have ever used even a single mod and that less than 1% have ever created one. Given that the majority of those that have used mods would still have purchased and played Skyrim without mods this leaves well less than 4% of their sales in some way dependent on the modding community.

For the fraction of the 8% of mod users against paid for mods, and would never pay for mods if available, you aren't even potential customers and aren't terribly relevant to Bethesda's business decisions. Bethesda decisions about paid for mods also have to take into account the other 92%+ of Skyrim players that have never used a mod and to the other fraction of 8% that that are potential customers of paid for mods. Together they comprise well over 92% of their customers.

The VAST majority of Bethesda's customers are not part of the modding community. This community, both for and against paid for modding, is a very small minority of Skyrim players.

Some here have completely lost perspective on their relative importance to the success of Bethesda. Some have claimed, against all evidence, that Bethesda's success is somehow dependent upon mods and modding in general. This does not empirically seem to be the case.

Even if all who oppose paid for mods boycotted Bethesda they would see, at most, a few percent drop in sales of their game. A drop that may very well be more than made up for with increases in revenue from mods and those that may very well purchase their game due to the ease of use and easy availability of paid for mods."

Then YOU responded with.

"That's not how these things work, alas. Your fractions do not represent how buying decisions are made."

You didn't define what "these things" were... alas. I never stated that the fraction represent how buying decisions are made. Your lack of specificity make it difficult to interpret what you mean and respond in a constructive manner.

Please be aware that I ONLY mentioned Skyrim and the relative contributions of the 8% of mod users to Skyrim's units of sales and Bethesda's bottom line. Any mention of anything outside of these parameters and what I have specifically stated has NOTHING to do with any of my points even if it is super important. Do other things matter? Of course. But pogo sticking around like a madman does not make for constructive dialog.

Please don't ASSUME but FEEL free to ASK and I will try to do the same. I feel no sense of obligation, and I don't expect you to, to respond to responses on assumed writings I never wrote, assumed ideas I don't hold, or assumed opinions I don't agree with.

If I write "fire is hot" and you respond with the logical equivalent of "No it's not, water is wet." I will try to politely as possible point out that you aren't responding to anything I wrote and simply move on, and I would appreciate the same courtesy in return.

"What matters is the anticipated value of a game vs. the price asked. As such, someone as much as considering the use of mods - whether they end up using one or not - will attribute a greater value to the game and as such be willing to pay more."

I'm interpreting this to mean that those that use and value mods will value games that allow mods more than those that don't. I agree. I would ASSUME that those who specifically value the game for it's mods, and pay a premium for this feature, would probably use mods.

There also exist individuals that purchased Skyrim without the intent of ever using mods, or that even have knowledge of mod existence, that later utilize mods. I am one of these individuals. I personally know of several other purchasers of this category. I can only speculate as to how much of the 8% of mod users never originally intended to use mods and therefore did not value the game at a premium because of Skyrim mods.

The only way that this would be relevant to the 8% mod user statistic would be if there were more mod users that valued the game specifically for the mods but did't use mods than there were individuals that didn't value Skyrim for mods but did use them.

"That also means they will buy earlier, when the price is still higher."

I interpret this to mean that mod users disproportionately purchase Skyrim earlier and pay a premium. The implication would be that even though only 8% of Skyrim users use mods that they contribute disproportionately to the profit of the game as they pay a premium earlier in Skyrims release. If this assumption where true this would probably be correct.

"Mods also contribute to the longevity of the game, postponing the end of the product life cycle. To get such an effect would normally involve COSTS for Bethesda. Thus, they profit from prolonged attractiveness of the game, at a time when it has long recovered the production costs, without having to invest further."

I agree that mods contribute to the longevity of the game. You mention postponing the product life cycle from Bethesda's point of view they only care about the revenue phase of the product life cycle. If you are referring to how mods contribute to this continued revenue stream you are stating that mod users are purchasing Skryim latter in the productions cycle for less money. If modders contribute disproportionately to latter revenue streams they can not disproportionately also contribute to earlier revenue streams. These are mutually exclusive.

There are one of three possibilities, early purchase, late purchase, or that mods users have the same time preference as normal Skyrim purchasers and don't contribute disproportionately to any time revenue stream. My ASSUMPTION is that the early adopters and the later adopters somewhat cancel out and that you are left with a marginal, if not statistically insignificant, difference in time preference for Skyrim mod users purchasing habits.

"So, talking about a reduction in sales as a pure percentage is missing the point - a pure reduction in sales numbers says nothing about lost profits. A 4% loss in sales that manifests itself in week 1 has a much more serious effect on profits than an overall 4% loss that's distributed over the entire lifetime of a game."

Missing what point? Since I never stated nor implied that unit sales throughout time had equal value, and that I don't believe that, I'm unsure of what point I'm missing. You could have stated that other factors would contribute to profit. And I would have agreed.

You state that "a pure reduction in sales numbers says nothing about lost profits" this is a gross exaggeration. I agree that earlier more profitable sales contribute disproportionately to profit but again you stated that decreases in sales "say nothing". Surely you can admit what a gross exaggeration such a statement is.

FCF1/(1+WACC)^1+...+FCFT/(1+WACC)^T for any value of FCF>0, over any reasonable range of values of T the values of FCF "say something" and sense FCF one of the primary factors in determining is unit sales, unit sales matter.

Please note that at no time did I state that timing of FCF did not matter. I only stated that it would take an extremely different mod user time preference for the differences to be of significance. For instance all early purchasers or all late purchasers would be significant.

"Lastly, I'm not sure what makes you believe that paid mods will have a greater ease of use. They will have the very same compatibility problems as every other mod out there. They are also far less easy to use than alternatives, with Steam caring little for load order and dependencies."

This is were I explicitly state that I'm GUESSING or SPECULATING with the following in explicit reference to why paid mods would THEORETICALLY have greater ease of use.

With fewer mods of higher quality it would behoove those who make them to make them compatible. This could also result in purposely incompatible mods but then again that would almost certainly be illegal.

My ASSUMPTION would be that if millions of dollars were to be had with paid mods that the mod utilities would probably improve. I could be completely wrong as this is all pure speculation about mod compatibility.

I have not stated nor implied anything outside of this very specific topic on paid for mods.

"They will also have a mod creator behind them who has no idea about the legal obligations they are under, nor has the logistics at their disposal to meet them..."

I clearly state that it is not a good idea to get into legally binding obligations without having a clear idea of what you are getting into. This applies to all parties involved including, mod creators, mod purchasers, Bethesda, and Valve both in the Untied States and Abroad. People should also be aware of support systems available to them. When you sell paid for mods you don't get to do it half way or partially. You are legally obligated and committed as soon as you sign the contract and money gets involved. If you are not sufficiently knowledgeable on contracts you should obtain legal council. Paid for mods would be for real and for serious. Having written all of that I'm only referring to individuals and legal entities doing their due diligence and the logistics at their disposal. I'm not referring to or somehow implying anything outside of this.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
z929669 Contributor

z929669

Posted
Posted (edited)
In response to post #24956179. #24957369 is also a reply to the same post.


  Reveal hidden contents


But what is the 'requirement' used by the mod author to solicit 'investment"? The point is that there should not be any requirement. MAs contribute what they see fit to contribute, and users reward them with donations or endorsements or whatever.

Must MAs submit proposals and solicit for supporters?

YouTube is more of a service, and contributors provide content as the audience requests. Some people make a living on YouTube in this way (and/or with ads). Modding is completely different, and I don't think Patreon fits at all. Maybe some MAs feel differently though. Edited by z929669
Link to comment
Share on other sites
aegiltheugly Apprentice

aegiltheugly

Posted
Posted (edited)
In response to post #24941974. #24942164, #24950944, #24954954, #24957374 are all replies on the same post.


  Reveal hidden contents


Oh.....So no child labor then? ;-( Because I have an obnoxious nephew that.....well....never mind.....forget I said anything! Edited by aegiltheugly
Link to comment
Share on other sites
phellen Contributor

phellen

Posted
Posted (edited)

If anything, I think this whole event demonstrated just what a good job the Dark0ne and the rest of the Nexus staff do to keep things running smoothly here for everyone, and I know I'm not alone when I say thank you very much for all you guys do, and great job stepping up your game (pun intended) to help moderate over the past few weeks.

 

Sincerely Phellen

Edited by phellen
Link to comment
Share on other sites
hafizlordfeast Rookie

hafizlordfeast

Posted
Posted
In response to post #24936654. #24942449 is also a reply to the same post.


  Reveal hidden contents


@WightMage: That's why it is a much better reason for Bethesda and Valve to do this rather than Nexus. Nexus isn't a gaming company that receive multiple profits on a daily basis, it is an independent company that offers free services but logically expected to received profits through support and premium payment. If not, it will impossible for Nexus to keep going.

I thought that the community know much better than this? But of course, why would Bethesda and Valve want to give money? Pretty sad that Bohemia at least able to give prized money to modders, despite being criticized for charging expensive DLC. They give tens of thousand dollars (or probably currency) rewards to modders who did deserve it. Not some half baked mods that expected people to pay for it.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
aegiltheugly Apprentice

aegiltheugly

Posted
Posted
In response to post #24936654. #24942449, #24958474 are all replies on the same post.


  Reveal hidden contents


I think the plan as outlined would require both the permission and cooperation of Bethesda. The idea could be possibly be sold to them less as a profit center and more as a public relations/marketing tool to keep people interested until they release their next FO/TES title in 2020 (always an optimist).
Link to comment
Share on other sites
sunshinenbrick Grand Master

sunshinenbrick

Posted
Posted (edited)
In response to post #24936654. #24942449, #24958474, #24959114 are all replies on the same post.


  Reveal hidden contents


The Nexus community obviously goes very deep. Bethesda owe a lot of their success to the people who it has collaberated with to make one of the largest artistic movements on the planet (in my isolated opinion).

They owe their following to approach this whole thing in a much more open and holistic manner. Don't worry, loads of people could make a whole loada cash (if that's what they care about) advertising through these sweepstakes. It could be a real event that would pull in huge numbers of customers. Damn I sound like a hungry neo-liberal capitalist *facepalm*

My point is the Bethesda modding scene is so complex and intricate that a well supported pay-for mod (system) is highly tricky without some involvement from them. I am unsure how a "hands off"approach will not just lead to the whole idea becoming a mess.

Personal opinion.

EDIT: Reviews will be a slow process but not impossible for the more popular mods.

EDIT2: I still believe however, that the maintaining of a parallel free modding environment is essential to make any of this really take off. Edited by sunshinenbrick
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...