Paying Money For Mods

[ninja_lord666]

I voted no. However, if you want to be hauled off to jail for infringement of copyright laws, go right ahead. It's not my fine.

[Vythicus]

In my humble opinion:

 

Nope they shouldn't charge money or charge for access to the files. It's give and take. You make a great mod to contribute to the cause, and 100's or 1000's of other people make a mod to contribute to the whole. I have been modding for years, have invested over 10,000 hours in one of my mods, I wouldn't want to charge money for it. I do it because I love it, I love the games, I love changing them to my design, to suit my tastes, to show off what I can do, and so on.

 

I'm sure many modders are learning a great deal from modding, and that is very rewarding. It's a learning experience. I hope that one day, my experience with modding will some day be helpful in getting a job as a video game or web programmer, and I suspect that many modders have similar plans. After all, there was a guy that iD Software hired after seeing how great his mod work with Doom1 was. So you see how it works?

 

In closing, if user made mods costed money, you would see stuff being stolen/copied without permission, uploading others works, and places to dowload them without money anyway, among other things.

 

Free mods! cheers!

 

-V

[thejake1453]

i can't make mods which is why i'm asking this question,

is making a mod for this game then selling it even legal? does bethesda even allow or like it? free ones i would understand them not getting mad at but selling mods you made, i thought they'd like, y'know get mad at you 'cos your making money off there product, like leeching (er i personelly don't think this, i just think big companies would) off them. so when you say "its nice to get thanked for you'r mods, but it doesn't pay the rent" thats what jobs are for, and if you have a real talented for making mods , work real hard on some then show them to bethesda, mabey they'll give you a job.

 

 

oh and if i have offended any modders out there, i diddnt mean to, so sorry if i did, just virtually kick my nuts.

[Sypron]

I think its a great Idea. However, it should be ENTIRELY (sp?) optional, all up to the modder to decide if it will cost money, and how much. If you are charging money, less people will download, meaning comments about mods will be fewer and more accurate. Also, if people are suspicious about the content of a mod, the modded could release "demos" of their mods. If people agree that the content is safe and qualatitive then they can pay for the full version. In the end, I think it is up to the modder, and I would not have any disputes with people asking for money.

[Dark0ne]

(Avoiding the illegal nature of selling mods for arguments sake...)

 

I believe selling mods would reduce creativity, increase "fake" or under-performing mods, reduce community support and interaction and make the community a more hostile place than it is. Money changes everything.

 

I think you'd see a lot of the more mature modders who produce some of the best works leave the community to be replaced by teens looking to make a quick buck with as little work as possible.

[crazydave]

(Avoiding the illegal nature of selling mods for arguments sake...)

 

I believe selling mods would reduce creativity, increase "fake" or under-performing mods, reduce community support and interaction and make the community a more hostile place than it is. Money changes everything.

 

I think you'd see a lot of the more mature modders who produce some of the best works leave the community to be replaced by teens looking to make a quick buck with as little work as possible.

My thoughts exactly, but an interesting idea (probably still illeagle) what if the money went toward maintaining the upload site.

[DeusXMachina]

I'm against paying for mods for several reasons:

1. It's illegal. Every mod legally is BethSoft's property, and no modder can claim a copyright. Nobody hinders me to take any big, great questmod and sell it as my own.

2. It's nearly impossible to define appropriate prices. If a mod with a chest full of cheating gear in the middle of the market district costs only 5 cents, what will you have to pay for a mod like Silgrad Tower or The Underground?

3. Who will be in charge for the definition of the prices? Will the modders have to provide lists how many hours they've worked on their mod?

4. Any attempt of commercialisation of modding will reduce the creativity of modders and the quality of the output in general. Not only are (perhaps imo) the best modders those who mod for their own pleasure rather than for the applause of the community. But even more modders will stumble on the scene who think they can make a coin of crappy mods nobody needs. Hosting and download capacities are another problem.

5. Any attempt of commercialisation of modding will reduce the fantastic cooperation between modders which has been established during the last years. No more tutorials for free, no more "I make you a texture and you help me with this damned script" and so on.

[Dark0ne]

1. It's illegal. Every mod legally is BethSoft's property, and no modder can claim a copyright. Nobody hinders me to take any big, great questmod and sell it as my own.

 

It is quite simple to get around this; especially for mods that involve user generated content such as textures. Provide the mod for free, but charge for all the user generated content; ergo the mod is free but the user generated content (which constitutes a part of the overall mod, but not the mod file which Bethesda owns itself) costs money. Bethesda don't own all mods, simply the .esp/.esm files generated with the Construction Set.

 

I know I'm playing devil's advocate/being a bit pedantic but, schmer. I felt like typing it.

[DeusXMachina]

ok, you're right. But with this argument, you could only get paid for modders resources. As soon as the CS comes to use in order to make playable files, the mod as a whole can't be sold any more.

[skullmosher]

Actually, it goes both ways.

 

The .esp and .esm files generated with the CS are fully Bethesda's property. They can yoink your .esp and .esm files and use them in a product intended to be sold to consumers.

 

However, you still have rights to your intellectual property. Specifically, your meshes, textures, sound files and scripts are not their property.

 

Which means that they will never bother to yoink the fruits of your CS labors, nor will they make any attempt to accomodate user created mods when releasing expansions to any ES game.

 

As for charging access to a site that contains mods... that's perfectly legal provided it can't be proved that access fees are being used for anything other than paying for hosting and bandwidth. Gamespy does this already, but they are digital hookers and not beneath such behavior (they need the money to pay for their addictions). If you pay your modders (grey area being that you take money for hosting your own mods) then there may be grounds for legal action.

 

If you want to get paid for your mods I would suggest following the path of Gooseman and his posse when they made Counter-Strike. For years it was a free mod, then Sierra/Valve bought them, made radical changes to the engine and paid them to make the mod for it. That was a total conversion mod, so that should give you a clue as to the amount of work you will have to do (with no guarantee of a payoff).

 

Good luck with that.