Would Those Who Oppose Paid Modding Have an Issue With it Being Limited to Consoles?

[GoodfellowGoodspring]

Steam/the players fought back once against paid mods and won, if paid mods are allowed on another platform then modding still becomes about making money and not love for the game so its just the same.

 

Let the devs create the official stuff to the game they own and earn money on it. Modding is a hobby and for those who love playing the game, lets face it, without free mods most of us wont still be playing Skyrim today.

[RustyXXL]

...and not love for the game...

 

Here's the thing, Modding originated in some guys saying, hey let's see what we can change about this game ourselves, and most of the times the games were not chosen because they were loved, but because they were most accessible to be modded even without any kinds of official tools. Companies hopping the train by releasing official tools came much later. So to some of those people companies like bethesda "abusing" the modding community was a thing back then, and they used the same kind of argumentation the contra paying mods community nowadays uses, and said the same doomsday things. So from the very start modding wasn't about the love for the game, but, if you want to coin a phrase it was for the love of modifying any game, where which game it was didn't really matter, as long as it was accessible to modding.

And even nowadays the reasons for modding are much, much more diverse. You of course have the ones that do it for the love of the game, no discussion about that. But usually you find those type of modders on long "outdated" games, ie the kind of modders that still work on various projects related to the original X-Com. Those guys don't care wether or not there is any kind of official modding support. On games like FO4 with official modding tools you have guys that want to get their names out for various reasons, be it internet fame, to promote youtube channels, to build a portfolio to use to get in the gaming industry etc. pp. There are guys who do it for the sake of modding, or because they were playing the game and found something they wanted to have different. You have guys that do it because modding in bethesda games is relatively easy to get started with. You have guys who simply want to get files in the hotfiles and find ways to abuse the system to get there, and of course you also have the ones who do it because they like bethesda games in general or fallout 4. And all of those reasons are perfectly valid. There is nothing bad about it.

 

Let the devs create the official stuff to the game they own and earn money on it. Modding is a hobby and for those who love playing the game, lets face it, without free mods most of us wont still be playing Skyrim today.

 

Well, you are a couple of years to late, to say modding is just a hobby, because there are already plenty of people out there that used the modding scene or their modding fame to get jobs or other ways to earn money, and there are people out there who have build some kind of reputation with the explicit goal of using this reputation for their own goals, whatever they may be.

And you know what? That's perfectly fine with me. but saying "modding has to stay free forever" is just being hypocritical, because wether you have a direct or indirect financial benefit from modding isn't any different. It's still a financial benefit, with the difference that it would be much harder to get the same kind of financial benefit directly, than it is possible to get indirectly.

[tartarsauce2]

eh, a black guy saying he's not black isn't really a good rhetorical argument, but I've gone and done stuff outside of this community myself for a variety of things too, it's good that you acknowledge that you're looking to get something out of it aside from just a good job well done, I don't begrudge it, and yes that's a "payment" of sorts and one can't ignore it

 

 

and you're right that with paid modding, free modding could probably still co-exist, with a quality difference, this is one of the things I brought up, but you don't seem to be aware that trying to give people a sense of entitlement in any direction is the problem here and that the whole paid mods debacle is in fact that once that happens it absolutely starts feeling oily to people and that this is like the end of the world within a few years time for any company based on reputation, I've seen more than a few games companies that had a good reputation become decrepit because of it, and I watched with particular interest as various ways their models became untenable started to emerge, or if not untenable, untenable "as is" and watched as "accountability to the fans" crumbled, which is not something I'd say is entirely conscientious but partly due to institutional momentum: the diminution of this is why certain journalist sites... started engaging in clickbait stuff because of the monetary pressures - stuff gets pretty sheisty with desperation, I've spent my fair share of time in both poor and well to do neighbourhoods kid :mellow: some real raiders and mongrels kinds of material, with some really sly bargaining under the table, black and grey market stuff interpersonally, stopped talking to one person when they started calling me by different names in earnest within 20 seconds of each other - for undisclosed reasons that involve alcohol amongst other things

systemic risk is the real deal, and not in a good way, and is one of the reasons why I brought up a way to potentially monetize but keep it at arms' length from the typical hobbyist crowd too

I get the bitterness, I pull a lot of effort on other things without expecting anything in turn myself, but where that exists I just spit it out as such, I think you and I are a little similar, although not too much, and one of the differences lies in just how seriously one treats the average 47%'er as a part of the whole - or at least it seems like it from the way we've been talking
most of my stuff is in real world politics, and I've sifted through tons of the stuff, garbage and quality alike since about 2009- only really taking breaks recently because I've noticed other people are beginning to pick up the slack and I'm getting grey hairs from it, so I don't have much to show in gaming communities as of yet, but I do know attitudes, yours at any rate is rare and I misjudged it
also, I made no mention of you being a prima donna, just in case you thought that part was directed at you I really did intend it to be for high cost high profile modders and as you can tell I had no idea, the hubris part, ehh, was a mistake - I'll be more careful in the future, it's been some time since I haven't been surrounded by completely shallow kinds of people, tbh I'm beginning to understand why politicians are "shallow"

Edited April 29, 2016 by tartarsauce2

[Chessboard]

Bad idea if you don't like paid mods on the PC, great idea if you do.

 

I can't disagree that anyone doing mod work that is actually worth a buck should get some sort of reward for their time and effort but the who, how, and how much is a whole other debate.

 

But the part where you single out a specific group just because you can is a questionable practice. Consoles never even had the option to even use mods so whether or not they should be charged while PC remains free not really a valid argument. Besides, what to stop console users from boycotting paid mods like PC users did. It not like they were used to having them before unlike PC users. I bet being made to pay for some that is freely given to others will be a big motivation in their boycott.

 

Consider this as well. Companies and governments often use the method of introducing service changes, laws, and restrictions that are unpopular to the majority by first applying them to a limit group as a way of getting a door in the foot toward eventually applying them to everyone else. An example of this would be mandatory seat belt laws in my state. For many years making this a law was opposed by the majority. Finally one year they introduced a law mandating that children must be belted when in a car. The argument was that these children were not old enough to be responsible for their own safety and had to be protected from this unsafe situation created by their parents negligent actions. The law passed because it only applied to children and who doesn't want to see children kept safe.

A few years later another law was proposed. Surprise! mandatory seat belts for adults. But this time a twist was added, you would not be ticketed for failing to wear a seat belt unless you were also being ticketed for another vehicular violation. Already used to putting seat belts on children and since this law would only be applied to adults who are actually demonstrating unsafe driving it was able to get passed.

Finally...you guess it...a law was eventually passed which gave the police the right to pull you over simply for not wearing a seat belt.

 

However, if you are for paid modding then this is probably the best way to get paid modding introduced back on the PC. PC users won't welcome the idea especially after the last fiasco. But if you first introduce it to anther group that is not the PC crowd, then the PC crowd will be less opposed. First you get people used to paying for it by only rolling it out to a controlled group like the console users. After it becomes accepted on consoles then you simply start charging PC users at that time. "I used to get it free, why pay now", they will say. "Hey, they pay on consoles, why should you be different" will be the response. While many will continue to throw a fit, many others, who might have resisted the idea before, will agree that it just might not be fair to help shoulder the cost of mods like the console users are.

[huginq3]

 

Why should other people have to pay for the same content we get for free? That's plainly unfair.

 

Why yes ! Why should we pay for something that took hours and hours of work, hours and hours of learning and time a modder could have used to be a consumer instead of a creator !

 

In case you're wondering I'm answering that sarcastic as decent modding isn't something you fart out in a whim.

This 'we need everything free' attitude is sickening, and a reason why I'm very skeptical about what custom meshes I'll be using for F4, Beth meshes I can kitbash to save myself the drama when some *censored* decides to steal it. (because I can't use kitbash on my portfolio, as it isn't 100% mine )

 

 

Obviously I'm pro paying for mods,this isn't something that won't happen, it just will. People are spending more and more into their mods and the quality has skyrocked from Oblivion to Skyrim, this community has some of the most impressive work all around. However they have to be 'stand alone' mods, I know this eliminates the more complex mods but I imagine if you go build your mod on FO4E things just get complicated with payments, credits and copyrigths.

 

Let me ask you this, what if I pay for a mod, and as most mods in here get no support or updates or patches after a while because that paid modder don't have the time, the skill or simply just got tired of making this mod?

What then? What will we be paying for really? What is this really then? A mandatory donation?

 

FYI: I have no issues donating money to a modder for a great mod that actually work, will be supported till the vanilla version got to the final stage were it will no longer get patched anymore and we know the mod will work as long as we want .

What I am saying, when all of those issues are taking care of, I will most likely support paid mods.

 

BUT: As it is now, being a premium member in here, tested som mods, and having more or less issues with all mods, as in:

Checking if that mod is compatible with this mod, be sure to check if this will work with this mod etc etc.

Thing is, the overall quality of mods need to have a much tighter quality program to make sure they will work and that the consumer actually get what he get the impression he/ her is paying for.

 

It will be a totally other ball game if you go the paid way with this, and many modders also put up warnings that I will not take request to make my mod compatible with this or that mod, basically saying I do this for my own pleasure but I do give you access to it. Not all though, but it is for sure some of the issues that needs to be addressed before this is a real thing to consider.

 

What about the support? You can not just deny people with issues then? Right?

 

So, many will now think I am against this, I am not, in fact, I think this can be the solution to more quality mods for sure, but somebody need to police the part were the customer get what they are paying for...

 

Ok, don't shoot me now, I wrote this in the best interest of both parties, I hope you (all) see that trough my crappy Engrsih :P

 

 

 

 

[CamouflageUK]

I voted no.

I support the modding community 110%. their work is beyond amazing but if there is to be any financial support it should come from Bethesda, they are the ones who have profited massively over the years. Afaiac... without modders being all over FO4 from release and the promise of more, bigger and better quality mods once the tools were released, it would have died within a fortnight. Bethesda know this and have raked in possibly millions in extra sales from FO4 and their older games directly because of mods but have given nothing back that I know of. In fact they still don't 'officially' recognise the modding community, it's still a case of 'we don't support the use of mods....' but they damn well support the cash rolling into their wallets because of them.

Also making consolers pay for something we get for free is just not right... but... how much extra work will it be for the modders to have their mods work on consoles? About that, I have no idea....

[RustyXXL]

eh, a black guy saying he's not black isn't really a good rhetorical argument, but I've gone and done stuff outside of this community myself for a variety of things too, it's good that you acknowledge that you're looking to get something out of it aside from just a good job well done, I don't begrudge it, and yes that's a "payment" of sorts and one can't ignore it

Yeah, I didn't aim to start a philosophical discussion about prejudgement and racism, I wanted to send a signal. For that reason I chose One of the more popular videos. I think for that purpose that Video isn't to bad, but it of course has its weaknesses, we really don't need to discuss here. It would totally derail the thread. :wink:

And I never said a "good job, well done" wasn't a kind of payment or an incetive. I'm just saying that different forms of paying work differently on different modders, modding for different reasons. And for me direct financial support works much better as an incentive as a "good job, well done", because I really don't care all that much about the oppinions of random strangers on the internet, even though this Thread might give another impression in some parts. But that's because I think this topic is still highly interesting to discuss.

 

and you're right that with paid modding, free modding could probably still co-exist, with a quality difference, this is one of the things I brought up, but you don't seem to be aware that trying to give people a sense of entitlement in any direction is the problem here and that the whole paid mods debacle is in fact that once that happens it absolutely starts feeling oily to people and that this is like the end of the world within a few years time for any company based on reputation, I've seen more than a few games companies that had a good reputation become decrepit because of it, and I watched with particular interest as various ways their models became untenable started to emerge, or if not untenable, untenable "as is" and watched as "accountability to the fans" crumbled, which is not something I'd say is entirely conscientious but partly due to institutional momentum: the diminution of this is why certain journalist sites... started engaging in clickbait stuff because of the monetary pressures - stuff gets pretty sheisty with desperation, I've spent my fair share of time in both poor and well to do neighbourhoods kid :mellow: some real raiders and mongrels kinds of material, with some really sly bargaining under the table, black and grey market stuff interpersonally, stopped talking to one person when they started calling me by different names in earnest within 20 seconds of each other - for undisclosed reasons that involve alcohol amongst other things

 

systemic risk is the real deal, and not in a good way, and is one of the reasons why I brought up a way to potentially monetize but keep it at arms' length from the typical hobbyist crowd too

Man, had to look ab some phrases in google translate, so please forgive me, if I have misunderstood anything. English ain't my primary language. Usually I'm pretty good at understanding it, and I even watch all my movies and series in english, so it's relatively rare, that I have to look stuff up. Not excusing, but explaining. :wink:

You see, I am not trying to give anyone (neither modders nor users) any kind of sense of entitlement.

On the contrary, I'm fighting the sense of entitlement a lot of users and modders that think mods should stay free have, if I sound like I want to give anyone any sense of entitlement, I'm sorry for that. I would ask you to tell me where you got that impression from, and maybe I can clarify.

One of the problems of the Skyrim paid modding debacle was, that some people (very succesfully) tried to push their agendas (Not wanting to pay for mods, wanting a bigger share, etc, whatever they may be, isn't really important here) by mobilizing the masses, without any regards for whom they might hit in the crossfire. There still are a lot of people not wanting to discuss the topic publicly, because they got caught pretty bad in the crossfire, and I really don't blame them. I'veover and over felt the wraith of these masses still following these agendas, without even knowing, or understanding what really was going on. Sure, there were some critique points that would have been needed to be adressed, but everything got blown way out of proportion.

And this is also the point where I have to say sorry to you. I also misjudged you, and mistaken you for one of those zealots, and I have to admit, that I skipped over some of your posts, because they partially sounded like coming from one of "them". Guess I should watch that Video myself again. :wink:

And yes, I say myself, Bethsda has to be very, very careful with going the paid modding route again, but I think they actually have a plan in the long run. I will go into more detail about that in the answer to the next poster.

 

I get the bitterness, I pull a lot of effort on other things without expecting anything in turn myself, but where that exists I just spit it out as such, I think you and I are a little similar, although not too much, and one of the differences lies in just how seriously one treats the average 47%'er as a part of the whole - or at least it seems like it from the way we've been talking

most of my stuff is in real world politics, and I've sifted through tons of the stuff, garbage and quality alike since about 2009- only really taking breaks recently because I've noticed other people are beginning to pick up the slack and I'm getting grey hairs from it, so I don't have much to show in gaming communities as of yet, but I do know attitudes, yours at any rate is rare and I misjudged it

also, I made no mention of you being a prima donna, just in case you thought that part was directed at you I really did intend it to be for high cost high profile modders and as you can tell I had no idea, the hubris part, ehh, was a mistake - I'll be more careful in the future, it's been some time since I haven't been surrounded by completely shallow kinds of people, tbh I'm beginning to understand why politicians are "shallow"

 

Actually I'm not all that bitter, more annoyed about all the politics involved in that. People using other people for their agenda, and constantly having to fight people fighting for other peoples agendas, without even noticing it etc, but usually I see everything with a whole lot of sarcasm, which admittedly may have been lost to translation and the limited medium a forum is itself. I tend to take most stuff on the internet not to seriously, and while I have felt a bit insulted, which was an additional reason I didn't spent to much time reading your previous posts, I'm not a person who generally holds a grudge. So lets just say, we both weren't on our best behavior there, and continue to more productive discussions. :wink:

 

[...] (cut to save you a bit of scrolling)

You have some good points in there, especially the thing about introducing new things step by step to larger groups. It is an interesting concept, I never spent to much thought about, while still knowing about it in a way.

But actually in my opinion Bethesdas plan is a bit different.

First of, I don't think to introduce paid modding with Fallout 4 again. I do believe, they listened to some of the major concerns that rose from the last try: The cut for the modders is to low.

They took this argument and started to cut out the biggest factor other than themselves and the modders - Steam.

The result of that is their own Distribution system - Bethesda.net, and smart as they are, they expanded it to consoles to maximize the exposure for the future.

They now try to work out all the kinks etc and get a stable system running for the future, while getting the people used to bethesda.net. They know that modders don't have to many incentives atm to distribute on 2 distributing platforms (nexus and bethesda.net) or to spent any thoughts on mods for consoles. That's why they are starting campaigns to get modders used to bethesda.net, like the one I recently read about involving xbox and nvidia. My bet is there will follow more of those things.

But they will keep everything free for now to get modders and users at ease, and most likely mods will stay free for fallout 4 on both pc and consoles.

Now they have time to work out all the kinks, improve the system and get everyone used to it, until the next game arrives, that will actually try to reintroduce the idea of paid modding, but this time from the start. They will pull some publicity stunts, pay some youtubers (as I suspect they do anyway) etc. to sell this as a positive step. Until then a lot of people will already have forgotten the skyrim incident and a whole new generation of users will have arrived who never even heard of that.

In my Eyes the most likely candidate to have the next iteration of paid modding from bethesda is TES VI.

 

[...] (also cut to save you a bit of scrolling)

Well, it's in reality the same deal as with for example Early access and beta titles. You get what you see at the time you pay for it. No guarantees for any future development, or that development goes in the way you expect it. Add to that a grace period in that you can get your money back (and the modder doesn't get the money until that is over), and most issues regarding that are solved. The modder has to make sure his mod is in a shape that users will keep it at least longer than the grace period. this would also resolve a lot of the issues regarding scammers as a neat side effect.

There will on the other side be always a need of some form of moderation, and this is another thing I hope bethesda.net will adress in the long run and steam always was really bad at, if (or if i'm right more like when) they start another try at paid modding. But as I've stated above, I do think that they've learned a lot about what happened with Skyrims paid mod try.

Another thing about the support. A modder actually wanting to make money by paid modding has to give more extensive support and ensure more compatibility, and there are ways to improve on the compatibility front for a lot of the mods, without the need of merged patches and bashed patches etc. But in the end there will always be some conflicts that simply can't be avoided, and it's a little bit to much to ask that every modder has to know everyone of the thousands of mods, and how they might interact with yours. But let's give you an example:

Mod a adds a bunch of new gear to raider levelled list, even via safe scripting, so it doesn't cause conflicts with other mods modifying those levelled lists. mod b redistributes gear for raiders by getting rid of references to the vanilla levelled lists and adding it's own levelled lists instead, but without touching the vanilla lls, that are structured completly different, and would cause all kinds of compatibility problems otherwise anyway.

Now each of the 2 mods works perfectly fine. Even when combined, none of the mods influences each other directly, or cause any direct conflicts. Still Mod B will prevent the gear from Mod A to show up as it is intended. But whose fault is it? Both mods work exactly as intended, and as it happens to happen both modders haven't heard from each others mods. Its neither modders fault, just bad luck. this happened quite often in skyrim, btw, and while I haven't seen it yet in fo4, I've done enough editing of levelled lists in fo4 already to know it can happen anytime. A lot of users don't even notice it, or simply don't care to much, and it is in fact quite difficult, if not almost impossible for automated patches, as great as they are, to pick up these kind of conflicts.

By giving the users of paid modding the power to retreat from a purchase, this gets alleviated, however, but it of course has it's drawbacks. Ie. it will favour big, older mods, over small, newer mods, as these are more likely to appear on frontpages in toplists etc.

 

I'm not saying this is the perfect solution meant to solve all the problems, but it is a solution to a lot of the problems you mentioned.

[Wreth]

It'd be unfair to charge some people but not others in my opinion.

[RustyXXL]

I voted no.

I support the modding community 110%. their work is beyond amazing but if there is to be any financial support it should come from Bethesda, they are the ones who have profited massively over the years. Afaiac... without modders being all over FO4 from release and the promise of more, bigger and better quality mods once the tools were released, it would have died within a fortnight. Bethesda know this and have raked in possibly millions in extra sales from FO4 and their older games directly because of mods but have given nothing back that I know of. In fact they still don't 'officially' recognise the modding community, it's still a case of 'we don't support the use of mods....' but they damn well support the cash rolling into their wallets because of them.

Also making consolers pay for something we get for free is just not right... but... how much extra work will it be for the modders to have their mods work on consoles? About that, I have no idea....

 

About the first part: That's your oppinion, and I respect it as that, however I don't completly agree on that. I for my part would prefer them to give modders the opportunity to get paid by users, and improve the modding structures, tools and distribution systems with the extra cash they earn with modding, and invest that money in more games.

About the last sentence: I agree to the first part, on the last part: It heavily depends on the mod itself, and there will be mods that won't work at all on consoles (ie mods requirering f4se), for others no extra work will be needed on the mod itself. However you potentially have to manage an additional distribution platform, potentially doubling the efforts for releasing and support, complicating the efforts of collecting and reacting to bug reports, communicating with your users. etc. So no matter how complicated (or not) the version of your mod is to make, it may be a considerably larger amount of workload for release and support.

[minngarm]

Steam/the players fought back once against paid mods and won, if paid mods are allowed on another platform then modding still becomes about making money and not love for the game so its just the same.

 

Let the devs create the official stuff to the game they own and earn money on it. Modding is a hobby and for those who love playing the game, lets face it, without free mods most of us wont still be playing Skyrim today.

Well this is all sorts of naive. The players did not fight against it. The players were annoyed with the shitty system implemented and a handful of other assholes decided to capitalize on that because they were against people being able to make money for their work.

 

Making money does not negate or lessen anyone's love of what they do. In fact it is more common for people to do something to make money that they do not care for at all because it is usually difficult or not possible at all to make money on the things they do. So yea having the option for modders to make money in a fair system for what they want to do is a good thing all around.

 

The only real issue is the system implemented.