Why does bethesda host PC mods?

[EmissaryOfWind]

I sincerely hope to be incorrect but it might be to create a platform for paid modding in the future, that way Valve doesn't get anything from it. I really hope this is false.

 

Why? If they finally get their sh*t together and improve their terrible website, don't you think modders deserve to be paid for the sometimes hundreds of hours they put into their work?

[tartarsauce2]

Because in the near future, mods of Beth games on all platforms will ONLY be hosted on Beth.net, and Beth will monetise such mods by making them the equivalent to paid DLC.

 

Why do you think Beth is moving to an iDTech based engine for all new games? Why do you think Beth emphasised mod like paid DLC for FO4, and NOT the vastly more popular quest/location mods that FO3 and NV had?

 

The future of Beth modding is MODULAR mods that each contain a DRM, Zenimax IP block that prevents them legally from being distributed elsewhere (like here). The new mods should work 'better' and 'easier', and will be visually more straightforward to browse and install- pleasing the casual player base that is far more important than the player base represented by serious Nexus users.

 

These mods will be vastly more trivial than the best seen in Skyrim- but that makes their creation, sale and profit potential far, far better- which is all that matters to Zenimax. The golden age of modding Beth games pretty much ends with the re-issue of Skyrim.

 

 

 

 

The concept of a Bethesda-owned site is not so bad in and of itself, but what they made is absolutely terrible, full of bugs, bad design, with bad moderation. Personally, I think they have a looooooong way to go before I consider switching from Nexus to beth.net.

 

There is also the fact that bethesda.net, being controlled by Bethesda (and thus Zenimax) will only support Zenimax-approved content, which as of now can't include nudity, swearing, violence against children, and more. The Nexus, while having much stronger moderation, has less strict guidelines.

the argument for tolerance of things like nudity, swearing, violence against children before used to be that the modders represented a new group of people who provided a benefit but were also independent enough and individualistic? nascent? enough to not be controllable without the entire thing going end up, once they get that bland stuff in they can control the majority of groupings and nail at anyone who isn't in their control scheme, it makes for a poorer modding scene but it makes it more profitable

kind of the same way that on an overall level, cracking a plankton eating sea animal's shell open to get at the inside isn't overall a more efficient feeding system but it's certainly good for the predator that does

 

the counter-argument is that bethesda can do whatever it wants, it gave us the tools, it's so nice etc, but because the modding scene was in fact a selling point often for the game, as well as the game world being well made/large/interesting at any rate, it was a symbiotic relationship at its finest

 

however after seeing what happened with fallout 4 in terms of vanilla story and the DLC it looks like they're trying to control and milk the system for all its worth, which almost means they're not producing any actual content outside of some pretty pricey DLC, looking at doom and quake - I can't help but wonder why quake even exists to be honest, that sort of system used to be in games like unreal where there were different game modes, but now it's the same level of content for more money

 

what we're concerned about I think is the idea that paid modding becomes a thing, but the quality of the baseline game goes down/disappears or at least the amount of it, to an empty shell, the amount of money gained for the work done skyrockets, it's indecent business practices, and it will *eventually* but not immediately burn sales revenue away as reputation gets out and earlier games can do good enough - but of course corporations are often very short-sighted because of the legalities involving requiring profit motives etc (not always their fault but sometimes they do engage in very antisocial and unnecessary behaviours that hopefully/can backfire) so even the idea that this will likely result in degradation of their brand doesn't necessarily matter to them, right now they seem to be in a VERY expansionist phase, and some things being rather poor in quality or lacking isn't as big of a concern because they're modularized to be able to take hits like that and then maybe learn the next time around

 

thing is, when you've got that attitude and those legalities kick in etc, it generally results in a lot of pressure on the gamers who are essentially reliant on the company doing a good job to get what they're actually desiring, and the good reputation being soiled is a slow process reliant on consecutive bad decisions, even then if it's something that's lowest common denominator and it ruins everything good about the game that the original players, or middle of the timeline players enjoyed, it doesn't matter to the company

 

of course, that all said, fallout 4's vanilla is pretty hollow, but I think someone snuck a game in there, and some of the humour's nice enough I suppose, but it really does lack some of that quirkiness that even as I'm playing FO3 right now, I love, the world placement is good, the little easter eggs that is, really nice, they've always kind of done that and I like it

but the actual scripted/hand placed yadda yadda is kind of lacking

 

as for paid mods, yes, but it's not in a vaccuum, so it creates a disparate situation between groups of people, but this is all classically in line with Divide and rule aka dīvide et īmpera

Edited June 24, 2016 by tartarsauce2

[Chessboard]

Mod Creation is done on a PC. It wouldn't make much sense not to include the ability to host the PC version of a mod. Even though Bethesda.net is becoming primarily a Console compatible mod hosting site (due to the primacy and better site design of Nexus in the field of PC version mods), its only common sense that they have the tools on hand to handle PC mods. Maybe they will attempt paid mods again, who knows, but it also gives Bethesda an option other than dealing with Steam (at the least, negotiating leverage when dealing with Steam).

 

Everybody likes to go "oh, business, its so evil" but the truth is that without that business you would be downloading mods for Fallout 2 and discussing how another fan attempt at a sequel mod has failed rather than discussing what might be in ES6 or FO5 when it *does* come out. I have played plenty of fan made mods that are equal to what the studios have produced but they are the exceptions and not the rule. I hope Bethesda doesn't forget that the primary success of a game is not in the mods but in the initial product put out by the studio. Mods are only the spice, the recipe has to be good to begin with.

[EmissaryOfWind]

To be fair, although Bethesda games are much easier to mod and can have more advanced things done, people will mod pretty much any game, regardless of how much its creator facilitates or hinders modding. Bethesda's stance and their subsequent design choices and CK releases allow for greater things in the FO4 modding community, but there would be modding even without it. Not that I'm ungrateful for their facilitating our hobby, but they don't deserve by any means to be hailed as gods for publicly releasing what they supposedly use themselves.

 

@tartarsauce2, I realize my post didn't exactly convey what I wanted it to. I meant to say that Bethesda having control over the platform makes them pretty much judge, jury and executor over what modders can make. Having 3rd party sites, such as the Nexus or Lovers' Lab, allows modders the freedom to make and publish content that isn't Zenimax-approved.

[Gruffydd]

What exactly is so bad about a seamless ingame interface to download mods, instead of an ad-packed 3rd party site?

 

What ads?

 

Seriously, if you don't like the ads, buy a cheap one-month subscription, become a Supporter, and never see another ad on the Nexus again. It costs less than a cup of coffee, removes ads forever for you, and helps support this website.

[zc123]

Eh I have no problem with paying modders for their work if and only if

 

1: They can decide to release their mods for free if they choose.

 

2: They know some basic economics (IE you don't need to charge $10 for something that sells 50k times over)

 

3: If they get payed they need to pay attention to their work and make sure it aint buggy as hell.

 

4: The modders should get at least a 50% cut of profits from their mods.

 

5: Probably the most important. Bethesda must have at least a few people policing their site and another 1-2 handling piracy complaints at any given point 24/7.

5B: They must also have very strict punishments for mod theft, unless your doing things like invalidating CD keys and issuing steam hardware bans mod theft will not stop, especially if their is monetary incentive to do it.

 

 

If they did all that then I would be all for payed mods.

 

 

Given what bethesda and zenimax have shown us so far however I severely doubt how well they will handle paid modding however.

[RetroDaddy]

Why does any large company want control of the potential for profit. My belief is that Bethesda wants to make money from 3dr party moders talents. I believe they will eventually make it so 3rd party mods will not function unless downloaded from Beth.net, as stated above, DRM restrictions.

 

I have seen so many moders ideas eventually become built into these games, don't know if the mod author gave up their code to them or just outright pirated, an example would be the issue of rain in the game, up until Fallout 4, you could never go under shelter and not get soaked, Then in Skyrim, a moder wrote "Real Shelter" showed Bethesda it was possible, now it's in FO4. Did the mod author of "Real Shelter" receive any compensation or did he just quit his mod updates on his own????? Kind of strange timing with the whole thing.

 

I love the fact that mods of all kinds are available for our games and am very pleased that console players now have access to them, all for free. However if Bethesda starts wanting money for 3rd party mods, the games will DIE a horrible death because Bethesda will not be able to produce the quantity and quality of some of the great independent moders out here. My hope is for always free 3rd party mods, Maybe if Bethesda does like the NEXUS site and has a donation or maybe an annual fee for using the site, it could be something that would make sense, not popular sense, but none the less, it would not kill moding.

[lelcat]

Why does any large company want control of the potential for profit. My belief is that Bethesda wants to make money from 3dr party moders talents. I believe they will eventually make it so 3rd party mods will not function unless downloaded from Beth.net, as stated above, DRM restrictions.

 

I have seen so many moders ideas eventually become built into these games, don't know if the mod author gave up their code to them or just outright pirated, an example would be the issue of rain in the game, up until Fallout 4, you could never go under shelter and not get soaked, Then in Skyrim, a moder wrote "Real Shelter" showed Bethesda it was possible, now it's in FO4. Did the mod author of "Real Shelter" receive any compensation or did he just quit his mod updates on his own????? Kind of strange timing with the whole thing.

 

I love the fact that mods of all kinds are available for our games and am very pleased that console players now have access to them, all for free. However if Bethesda starts wanting money for 3rd party mods, the games will DIE a horrible death because Bethesda will not be able to produce the quantity and quality of some of the great independent moders out here. My hope is for always free 3rd party mods, Maybe if Bethesda does like the NEXUS site and has a donation or maybe an annual fee for using the site, it could be something that would make sense, not popular sense, but none the less, it would not kill moding.

Free mods will always have a quality limit. Because unless someone gets paid to go beyond the level of "fun hobby on the weekend", the quality of mods will always be limited.

 

 

 

I have seen so many moders ideas eventually become built into these games, don't know if the mod author gave up their code to them or just outright pirated, an example would be the issue of rain in the game, up until Fallout 4, you could never go under shelter and not get soaked, Then in Skyrim, a moder wrote "Real Shelter" showed Bethesda it was possible, now it's in FO4. Did the mod author of "Real Shelter" receive any compensation or did he just quit his mod updates on his own????? Kind of strange timing with the whole thing.

That is nonsense. A professional game programmer, working at Bethesda no less would not require help for a weekend modder to code so you dont get wet in the rain.

[Chiaro22]

Why wouldn't they though?

 

After all, it's their game. Once they made the site, for a large part in order to get mods to Xbox and PS4, why would they not include PC mods?

 

Concerning paid mods etc, they have other games in the works besides Fallout and TES. I'm not saying it won't be revisited for TES or Fallout, but it could be tried on other upcoming franchises too.

[Slavemaster4u]

probably because the CK is used to upload for consoles, and they just used the PC side to get the framework in place.

 

Once that was sorta working, opened up for the rest.

 

Just a guess.

The Skyrim Ck was able to upload directly to steam. So the upload framework has been there for awhile. All that they needed to do was change the upload direction. Then add it to FO4 CK.