When Beth wins, and mods cost money...

[elmetnuter]

 

The same issue persists now as then, people simply can't afford hundreds of dollars for mods, and I'm not even talking about single armour mods or minor gameplay things. There are dozens of mods that people consider essential to making the game playable at all. All that will happen is people will only pay for a couple of the central mods like SkyUI and modders of other stuff like Wyrmstooth or Homemaker won't bother because hardly anyone will pay for them. They'll either release them for free anyway or get annoyed that their hard work isn't being rewarded like others and give up entirely.

 

As others have said, donations are the only sensible solution here and Nexus already does that.

Donation or Free options are the only one relevant in Beth.net world or Nexus because:

> A mod will be always in a Beta state.

> A modder is not a product manager or a sales person nor obligated to deliver anything.

 

Free or Donation makes possible for the Author to have a life besides modding so he can appreciate modding.

Asking for a definitive price is denying modding as a hobby and ignite the inner entitlement that comes with a product you paid.

 

Donation is a Thank you, a recognition and help. Price tag is call to fire.

The problem is that no one donates. I've been modding for 10+ years, while donations have been available for 4-5 years. I've received a total of 2 donations in that time period. And they were, combined, less than $10. When you look at the aggregate, practically no one donates.

 

And if people can't afford "hundreds of dollars" for mods, well, I'm sorry that you can't. Neither can I. But first, not all mods will require payment, and secondly, you can't go out and buy every single video game that developers release, now can you? Do you tell all the indie game developers that they shouldn't sell their games because you can't possibly afford to buy them all?

 

As for the whole "appreciating modding", how about you let each individual mod author be the judge of what they do and don't "appreciate", ok?

 

 

I am well aware that donation does not give modders a salary nor do I imply pretending to know what modders receive as donation as I am not a psychic.

I was comparing Donation to Paid mods, debating the OP statement.

 

As for "the whole appreciating modding", I am confuse about the possible offense that I made.

I don't know your life and don't assume anything about you as a modder. Maybe my English is not good enough (I am French) to explain that: Modders like and CAN appreciate what they do IF the means of delivery out there respect their artitistic rights.

 

If my previous sentence did sound to you - that I am feeling entitled to receive something from modders and that they should be happy pedaling in their cave to bring me electricity - That was not the case.

 

I have made one mod myself as a thank you to all Nexus people and particularly the modders that makes my playthrough amazing and interesting. I have no skill in 3D or scripting nor do I have the time right now to jump into all those things. But I would not be here if I was not respecting this community.

[Reneer]

I am well aware that donation does not give modders a salary nor do I imply pretending to know what modders receive as donation as I am not a psychic.

I was comparing Donation to Paid mods, debating the OP statement.

 

As for "the whole appreciating modding", I am confuse about the possible offense that I made.

I don't know your life and don't assume anything about you as a modder. Maybe my English is not good enough (I am French) to explain that: Modders like and CAN appreciate what they do IF the means of delivery out there respect their artitistic rights.

 

If my previous sentence did sound to you - that I am feeling entitled to receive something from modders and that they should be happy pedaling in their cave to bring me electricity - That was not the case.

 

I have made one mod myself as a thank you to all Nexus people and particularly the modders that makes my playthrough amazing and interesting. I have no skill in 3D or scripting nor do I have the time right now to jump into all those things. But I would not be here if I was not respecting this community.

I see. I think the issue was my misunderstanding of what you intended to say. My apologies.

 

Zanity didn't mean to set the world on fire.

 

He just wanted to start...

 

... a flamewar in our hearts.

 

Honestly, my opinion is that modding should remain in the realm of hobbyists because I'm old fashioned and think that paid modding is just going to result in a weaker overall community. I also feel like it could easily just become a new form of spec work where otherwise talented people who don't appreciate their own skill set work for pennies when they should be given a salary. Though I would be remiss to not admit that's pretty alarmist on my part... it's just it would feel more honest on Bethesda's part in my opinion if they just hired talented community members and paid them an honest wage for the content they generate if they want more paid content.

So instead of everyone getting a chance at making a little money from their hard work, only a chosen few get to do so? How is that any better? Edited July 7, 2016 by Reneer

[CiderMuffin]

Except by having the modding scene remain a non-paywall one more people are going to work on it, the community won't be cutthroat, you won't need to make a professional mod page nor would you need to really advertise, it's easier on mod reviewers, it builds trust among mod users due to the fact there would be a lot of outrage if people paid for a mod that ended up in a broken state and the community won't close itself up and keep all the secrets to themselves, modder resources will stop being a thing with paid mods because no one wants to share their work if they aren't getting a piece of the pie and of course all it'll do is introduce a new wave of mod piracy like the one that was already sprouting up last year when they announced paid mods.

 

You claim "no one donates" but I've seen modders talk about getting donations on this site and some have opened up patreons that are doing well. No you won't be able to live off it but forcing people to pay for mods isn't a good idea to try and make a living when there is no guarantee that said mod will work or cause problems. All we'll see is an overbloated system of paid mods where it's still a select few who managed to get big get money and the people who can't push their mods as well, have no names for themselves and/or are new to the modding scene after a year or more, well their mods would get ignored.

 

If no one donates to you I'm sorry but that's still a better system then forcing a price tag on it and causing problems.

[PoliteRaider]

modder resources will stop being a thing with paid mods because no one wants to share their work if they aren't getting a piece of the pie

 

This is simply not true.

 

While I've only done modding for FO4, I took a quick look just then at another community. In five minutes in google I found a number of free templates and full permission modder resources for second life. In addition they seem to have thriving communities sharing modding knowledge, PSD templates, tutorials and the like.

[CiderMuffin]

Ok, that might work for cosmetic stuff but Bethesda-style games aren't just cosmetic stuff.

[PoliteRaider]

Ok, that might work for cosmetic stuff but Bethesda-style games aren't just cosmetic stuff.

 

That seems like an arbitrary distinction. Why is that such a difference?

[CiderMuffin]

Because it's just nothing but skins and animations. Bethesda's games are more then that which ends up becoming a problem. There is also the fact that Second Life fixs this by forcing mods to all be placed on their own marketplace unlike Bethesda's games, then it brings up my previous point of new members who have nothing to them will most likely not make anything because it's drowned out by a ton of other mods or just people unsure of buying stuff they're unsure of in terms of quality.

 

Second Life's community also not completely honest as I got stories of how some modders ripped content from other games or mods and successfully selling said ripped content. It got so bad at one point two members sued Linden Labs for not doing anything about the pirates. Like holy crap, if you think the recent Bethesda.net mod theft is bad Second Life users and content creators have been dealing with this for years.

 

Hell, the simple idea of a community run marketplace around game items or mods is downright awful and we see evidence all around of it being a garbage idea. From Second Life's Marketplace piracy to the recent CS:GO gambling controversy clearly the best idea is to not include real money for this stuff unless if it's by choice through donation.

Edited July 7, 2016 by CiderMuffin

[PoliteRaider]

Because it's just nothing but skins and animations. Bethesda's games are more then that which ends up becoming a problem.

 

Why?

[CiderMuffin]

Because they're just skins. With Bethesda's games you have scripts, location changes, engine modifications, different types of lighting, landscape changes, sometimes people change how NPCs work, sometimes people write in entirely new ways for an NPC to act and then you have stuff like compatibility patches. Bethesda modding isn't just cosmetic crap, it's filled with stuff that can cause problems if people don't know what they're doing.

 

Though to be honest just being cosmetic doesn't mean it's ok either. There is also the fact if you want it like Second Life's you'd need to make the marketplace in-game, you'd need to integrate the marketplace into the game, you'd need to do a lot of stuff that in the end would limit what modders can do and would essentially be the death of the Nexus and other legit mod hosting sites.

 

There is also still the fact that every community run marketplace has been complete garbage and doesn't change the fact it would cause modders, modelers and texture artists to be more tight lipped.

 

For instance this wouldn't even have half of the 817 mods in it if paid mods were a thing

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/searchresults/?src_cat=82

 

There is also the fact that paid mods would become over-saturated that no one new coming in would make anything which is actually becoming a problem in the DOTA 2 community.

Edited July 7, 2016 by CiderMuffin

[Honeycone]

 

But also remember that we can cry as much as we like at the prospect, but future open-world games on Beth's new engine will have mods that can only be hosted on Beth.net, so everything is changing no matter what people may say here.

This is just guessing, right? If they actually said that, I'd imagine it would be impossible to not hear about it. I don't think mods will be exclusive to Beth.net.