Boycott Beth.net

[Alexotero1219]

 

 

Someone read too much Adam Smith.

 

Okay, so basically, this is how it would work if people weren't people. If everyone behaved exactly the way that market theory dictates, the problems would solve themselves. But people do not behave rationally and will buck the expectations of the system for any number of reasons.

 

Assume, for a moment, that I make a mod that's easily copied. Say, something that stops the new radio files from starting after Confidence Man. That's a pretty simple edit that I'm actually not quite sure I'm not just doing right now instead of talking about it. But I knock it out in an afternoon and toss it out on Nexus. Then, two years from now, paid modding returns. Well, there probably won't be a lot of people who want my mod but don't have it yet, but I'll take it down from free hosting services and put it up on commercial ones. Not a single change to the file. Even if not many people download the paid version, I've still managed to pull some profit from the work.

 

Now, someone comes along with a mod that does the same thing. They decry me for having 'sold out' by moving my mod to a paid model, but theirs is on the paid site as well. Which of us is the 'bad guy'? Me for discontinuing free access to my mod or the copycat for trying to release the same product based on the idea that I'm a sellout?

 

And even if his mod is cleaner than mine, or somehow slightly more streamlined, what is the practical difference to the player? Other than he says his is better?

 

And consider something without an easy replication, like a questmod or a voiced companion. If I follow the same model of moving it to a paid distributor without any marked changes or increases in quality, you can't reasonably release a mod that does the same thing better or does the same thing free because by its nature what I made is unique. Short of mod theft you can't create the exact same product.

 

Now let's look at two similar ideas tackling the same thing. Let's say that I move an Easy City Downs race betting mod to a paid platform without meaningfully changing it, and someone else makes their own. By some measure or other, theirs can be claimed 'better' than mine. But still, both will likely continue to collect purchases. Both Minutemen 2.0 and We Are The Minutemen tackle the same problem in different ways, and both are top-downloaded faction mods.

 

So, essentially, the ideology of the perfect free market solution doesn't actually work in the real world. The market doesn't solve the problem of people making a quick buck, it actually actively encourages them to.

 

And again, I'm not completely convinced this is a bad thing. It sucks for consumers, sure, but I'm not sure that makes it wrong.

 

As for the failure of "trash mods", a mod that added a single extra apple to Skyrim was a smash success. You cannot count on the consumers to make rational decisions on quality of product either.

 

 

 

1. I never read any of Adam Smith's works and you do not need to have read Marx either. The base logic of the free market is something everyone who sells things will understand.

2. You should not worry about people calling you sell-out. Envious people will always hate you for what you have. However, if you decide to sell a mod without any additional content that you made available for free before, you can expect your ratings to go down which will affect customer confidence in your products.

3. About unique mods, they can still be compared to each other. Two different weapon mods can have vastly different production values. One can be trash that just collects old weapon models from fpsbanana and puts them into a mod, and the other could be a from scratch model with high end production value.

4. And if 2 different ideas do the same thing, the better one will have more sales. And the best one is the bar other mods will be compared to and that will also regulate their prices.

5. The quick buck never works, because if you screw over a customer with a product that looks nice on the surface but is trash, which the player will notice, then your ratings will go down.

6. About the apple mod. If that thing sold for 1$, and someone bought it with the clear description "Adds a new apple", well then you got your money's worth as a customer. And what if the texture on the apple was supreme? And if it sold millions of copies then it did something right. After all you can decide on your own what you want to buy.

 

The market will adjust the price of things. It works in a game's microcosmos. So let's not drag in other real world complications of different free market situations.

 

 

Ask yourself, when you buy a new graphics card, or a radio, or a pair of shoes (because you are a woman), what do you pay attention too? My guess: Brand name and what you associate with it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. You have no idea if thats accurate and as someone else stated before its naive. Sure you might think monetizing something will increase the quality but that simply isnt true. The way markets like this tend to work is they produce what is in demand not what is innovative or better. To provide a more grounded example do you remember skyrim nexus when people found out they could make cbbe slutware and get 100 thousand endorsements? I do. Now imagine if modders figured out they could make skimpy clothes and make 100 thousand dollars?

 

Every single, and I do mean every single, innovative modder would stop all their projects to learn how to make outfits to make skimpy armors and get in on that money. That is 100% how market economies work lol its not even arguable. So no just because something has a price tag now doesn't mean it will suddenly become more innovative and higher quality. Maybe armors and such might reach higher level of quality but the less profitable, and often times most interesting an innovated mods such as quests will decrease in quality and quantity.

 

2. This is anecdotal and you might be the only mod author besides magnus that ive personally seen describe their beth.net experience that way but im glad you're having a positive experience.

 

 

@magnus

I agree with everything you said except the first part. No one would upload their paid for mod on one site and upload a free version on another. So yeah the mod that a user could get for free will no longer be uploaded for free or it will be with cut features (see skyUI) So yeah the consumer still looses.

 

1. Yes it is true, the proof is nearly every modern video game you bought. You think Doom or COD or BF4 would look this glorious if the company and its employees would not have been motivated by a big paycheck to work so hard on it? Money is the best motivator. If money were no motivator we would still be stuck with pacman and text adventures.

 

 

Every single, and I do mean every single, innovative modder would stop all their projects to learn how to make outfits to make skimpy armors and get in on that money. That is 100% how market economies work lol its not even arguable. So no just because something has a price tag now doesn't mean it will suddenly become more innovative and higher quality. Maybe armors and such might reach higher level of quality but the less profitable, and often times most interesting an innovated mods such as quests will decrease in quality and quantity.

You are wrong again. Let's assume for the sake of argument that an apple mod would cost 1$. A quest mod with some new interior cells 4$. Mods that are larger than that will command a larger price tag because of the work involved. And you need to consider the market demand for different things. Not all players want an apple mod. Some players want gun mods, or new companions or new maps.

 

 

Every single, and I do mean every single, innovative modder would stop all their projects to learn how to make outfits to make skimpy armors and get in on that money. That is 100% how market economies work lol its not even arguable.

Making skimpy armor requires work too. Just because it has tits does not mean the production quality is low. And if market economies would indeed work like that, then why are there Porsches, SUV cars and not just reasonably priced toyotas?

Some people want top-shelf things and are willing to pay a higher price for that. And money is the biggest motivator and the biggest quality tester too. When someone has paid money for a mod he will make sure you get carpet bombed with complaints about the tiniest bugs in your mod. And if the mod you just sold for 20$ does not hold up that level of scrutiny then your ratings will go down and it will damagee your sales.

 

1. I dont really understand what you are trying to say here. Yes money motivates no one is denying this. I don't buy COD or battlefield type games because they are carbon copies and this is exactly what im talking about. Once those companies know they can produce essentially a reskin of the same game at as small a cost as possible they will continue to do it. The same thing will happen to mods in a paid modding environment imo. I don't know how what you said here means im wrong. I think you are partly failing to understand the user base here. Most users buy beth games for the mods (at least most PC users I think) and most users like mods because they provide something new to the game. If you take that away because the market incentivizes the creation of the same type of thing then you have a problem and that problem manifests itself in the form of less purchases and less downloads.

 

2. We largely don't need to speculate on what demand is like in the "modding market". We can see it in the form of hot files, and downloads/endorsements. Its not as simple as you put it. It all revolves around demand not price when it comes to these sorts of markets. If you make a quest mod and charge $4 for it and it gets 10k downloads but another author makes a skimpy armor mod, charges $0.50 for it, and it gets 100k downloads the skimpy armor is still much more profitable and possibly cheaper to make in terms of labor. So the market will ultimately incentivize the creation of the few highest demanded types of files. Whereas at least in a non-monetized market, or perhaps monetized by non-direct prices, people are less incentivized in this way and can produce what they feel like without getting hit by so much opportunity cost.

 

3. I never said making armor didn't require work. Why do people always jump to this when nothing I said even remotely implies that? Also you are comparing apples to oranges. The auto market behaves nothing like the modding market. There are no luxury mods, there are no symbols of status and/or class in modding. The feature sets of mods and automobiles are entirely different so of course are their markets.

Edited July 18, 2016 by Alexotero1219

[TimeLadyKatie]

 

Ask yourself, when you buy a new graphics card, or a radio, or a pair of shoes (because you are a woman), what do you pay attention too? My guess: Brand name and what you associate with it.

 

That's how I like my sexism, friends. Weirdly tacked on to a rant about the perfection of free-market ideology.

Edited July 18, 2016 by TimeLadyKatie

[chucksteel]

 

 

Ask yourself, when you buy a new graphics card, or a radio, or a pair of shoes (because you are a woman), what do you pay attention too? My guess: Brand name and what you associate with it.

 

That's how I like my sexism, friends. Weirdly tacked on to a rant about the perfection of free-market ideology.

 

Good one ladyKitie!!

 

For the rest of you could you please begin again I started reading this thread with out my tinfoil hat and I think some stuff slipped away or was wiped by the NSA!

[lelcat]

 

1. I dont really understand what you are trying to say here. Yes money motivates no one is denying this. I don't buy COD or battlefield type games because they are carbon copies and this is exactly what im talking about. Once those companies know they can produce essentially a reskin of the same game at as small a cost as possible they will continue to do it. The same thing will happen to mods in a paid modding environment imo. I don't know how what you said here means im wrong. I think you are partly failing to understand the user base here. Most users buy beth games for the mods (at least most PC users I think) and most users like mods because they provide something new to the game. If you take that away because the market incentivizes the creation of the same type of thing then you have a problem and that problem manifests itself in the form of less purchases and less downloads.

 

2. We largely don't need to speculate on what demand is like in the "modding market". We can see it in the form of hot files, and downloads/endorsements. Its not as simple as you put it. It all revolves around demand not price when it comes to these sorts of markets. If you make a quest mod and charge $4 for it and it gets 10k downloads but another author makes a skimpy armor mod, charges $0.50 for it, and it gets 100k downloads the skimpy armor is still much more profitable and possibly cheaper to make in terms of labor. So the market will ultimately incentivize the creation of the few highest demanded types of files. Whereas at least in a non-monetized market, or perhaps monetized by non-direct prices, people are less incentivized in this way and can produce what they feel like without getting hit by so much opportunity cost.

 

3. I never said making armor didn't require work. Why do people always jump to this when nothing I said even remotely implies that? Also you are comparing apples to oranges. The auto market behaves nothing like the modding market. There are no luxury mods, there are no symbols of status and/or class in modding. The feature sets of mods and automobiles are entirely different so of course are their markets.

 

 

1. You are wrong. If you think Bf4 is a simple reskin of BF3 or that the COD games are then you are factually wrong (this is a metric fact. You can count all the new from scratch assets compared to the previous game, then you can start making calculations on the man hours of work involved). Whether you do not like that particular gameplay is a your own preference. But you get your money's worth in terms of assets and production quality.

 

Funny how no one ever complains about Fallout2 being a carbon copy of Fallout1 with some new sprites.

 

2. The tit mod market has its own competition. The best tit mod is going to win. You see, free market magic strikes again. Also not all modders are good at making 3d tits. So you make a set of tits to quickly cash in, you can bet someone better is probably already owning the tit segment of the market.

And this is very the market gets even more magical. When the tit segment is saturated there are still other segments that need to be filled by modders. If the market is full of oranges melons some people still want bananas. So your scenario of the mod market being swamped by tits only is defeated by free market magic.

 

3. You have a misconception about luxury cars. Which is that you think people buy them only to show off. But that is not the case. If you own a Porsche or a large SUV you will have fun driving that thing being all alone. The same goes for mods. Some people want item mods that contain a large volume of items for a low price. Others are willing to pay a higher price for fewer items if the price is reasonable.

Both toyotas and Porsche' have a reason to exist, because people buy them. Cars that aren't bought cease to be produced.

 

 

 

Ask yourself, when you buy a new graphics card, or a radio, or a pair of shoes (because you are a woman), what do you pay attention too? My guess: Brand name and what you associate with it.

 

That's how I like my sexism, friends. Weirdly tacked on to a rant about the perfection of free-market ideology.

 

Can we leave sexism out of this. I would call it an empirical fact that women put a lot more attention and money into their wardrobe when it comes to shoes. And it is relevant to the discussion because the shoe market is not that much different from the car market. Different levels of quality and price tags.

[Deleted82156User]

 

Can we leave sexism out of this. I would call it an empirical fact that women put a lot more attention and money into their wardrobe when it comes to shoes. And it is relevant to the discussion because the shoe market is not that much different from the car market. Different levels of quality and price tags.

 

 

or a pair of shoes (because you are a woman), what do you pay attention too? My guess: Brand name and what you associate with it.

 

 

 

Wow dude. My god what a sexist bull statement to make that has zero to do with this discussion. Clearly you don't know women and only go by ignorant stereotypes.

 

Because she is a woman she is supposed to use the analogy of buying shoes!? Are you for real....I am a woman and I couldn't even give you one brand name of shoes!

[Alexotero1219]

 

 

1. I dont really understand what you are trying to say here. Yes money motivates no one is denying this. I don't buy COD or battlefield type games because they are carbon copies and this is exactly what im talking about. Once those companies know they can produce essentially a reskin of the same game at as small a cost as possible they will continue to do it. The same thing will happen to mods in a paid modding environment imo. I don't know how what you said here means im wrong. I think you are partly failing to understand the user base here. Most users buy beth games for the mods (at least most PC users I think) and most users like mods because they provide something new to the game. If you take that away because the market incentivizes the creation of the same type of thing then you have a problem and that problem manifests itself in the form of less purchases and less downloads.

 

2. We largely don't need to speculate on what demand is like in the "modding market". We can see it in the form of hot files, and downloads/endorsements. Its not as simple as you put it. It all revolves around demand not price when it comes to these sorts of markets. If you make a quest mod and charge $4 for it and it gets 10k downloads but another author makes a skimpy armor mod, charges $0.50 for it, and it gets 100k downloads the skimpy armor is still much more profitable and possibly cheaper to make in terms of labor. So the market will ultimately incentivize the creation of the few highest demanded types of files. Whereas at least in a non-monetized market, or perhaps monetized by non-direct prices, people are less incentivized in this way and can produce what they feel like without getting hit by so much opportunity cost.

 

3. I never said making armor didn't require work. Why do people always jump to this when nothing I said even remotely implies that? Also you are comparing apples to oranges. The auto market behaves nothing like the modding market. There are no luxury mods, there are no symbols of status and/or class in modding. The feature sets of mods and automobiles are entirely different so of course are their markets.

 

 

1. You are wrong. If you think Bf4 is a simple reskin of BF3 or that the COD games are then you are factually wrong (this is a metric fact. You can count all the new from scratch assets compared to the previous game, then you can start making calculations on the man hours of work involved). Whether you do not like that particular gameplay is a your own preference. But you get your money's worth in terms of assets and production quality.

 

Funny how no one ever complains about Fallout2 being a carbon copy of Fallout1 with some new sprites.

 

2. The tit mod market has its own competition. The best tit mod is going to win. You see, free market magic strikes again. Also not all modders are good at making 3d tits. So you make a set of tits to quickly cash in, you can bet someone better is probably already owning the tit segment of the market.

And this is very the market gets even more magical. When the tit segment is saturated there are still other segments that need to be filled by modders. If the market is full of oranges melons some people still want bananas. So your scenario of the mod market being swamped by tits only is defeated by free market magic.

 

3. You have a misconception about luxury cars. Which is that you think people buy them only to show off. But that is not the case. If you own a Porsche or a large SUV you will have fun driving that thing being all alone. The same goes for mods. Some people want item mods that contain a large volume of items for a low price. Others are willing to pay a higher price for fewer items if the price is reasonable.

Both toyotas and Porsche' have a reason to exist, because people buy them. Cars that aren't bought cease to be produced.

 

 

 

Ask yourself, when you buy a new graphics card, or a radio, or a pair of shoes (because you are a woman), what do you pay attention too? My guess: Brand name and what you associate with it.

 

That's how I like my sexism, friends. Weirdly tacked on to a rant about the perfection of free-market ideology.

 

Can we leave sexism out of this. I would call it an empirical fact that women put a lot more attention and money into their wardrobe when it comes to shoes. And it is relevant to the discussion because the shoe market is not that much different from the car market. Different levels of quality and price tags.

 

1. When I meant reskin I essentially meant the same type of game. For example every youtuber that has access to bf1 right now tells you that it plays exactly like bf 4 and bf hardline, and contains mostly the same features, as bf4 same goes for most recent COD games. We aren't talking about how much work those games take to produce we are talking about the different consumers each game has or the different niches, or consumer itches, that they fill

 

2. we aren't talking about body mods we are talking about armor mods. The ones that tended to saturate the skyrim nexus in its later days. Of course there will be competition between authors but if those products show much more profit potential then the product one author is currently making he will likely see the obvious opportunity cost and invest more time in learning to make the profitable product then he will in making what he was currently making. If you honestly think profit motives wont effect the "supply" of various mods all I can say is that conventional wisdom says otherwise. Strongly says so too.

 

3. I dont have a misconception about how markets work. I largely study this sort of thing. Additionally luxury and "presence" as the marketing types call it does largely effect demand (and price) this is, again, conventional wisdom. Even if you take your shoehorned mercades benz mod versus cavalier mod example (which i still maintain doesnt apply) as fact then you are still dealing with the fact that luxury cars cost more and are produced less and again are largely the less profitable option to produce. Its the reason there arent heaps of luxury $500k model lines because its not worth putting loads of resources into making them. The reason companies do it is because of opportunity cost. If they dont produce at least a couple they aren't tapping into a possible revenue stream. So again even in this example you are seeing higher value stuff being produced less.

 

But the main issue with all the arguments you are making is you are trying to apply VERY simple supply and demand economics to a market that literally doesn't have a conventional supply. Most market analysts don't apply supply and demand auto market logic to software markets for exactly this reason. There also isnt a whole lot of research done on how the current modding market behaves, in fact there isnt a whole lot of research done on how the video games market behaves tbh so you cant really speak in absolute certainties like you are.

 

We can apply a few basic concepts with some evidence to support them. First a paid modding system will result in consumers perceiving a price increase. This has been researched plenty, and most findings essentially show that you cant sneak, for lack of a better word, price increases past a consumer (law of averages over time, not that consumers are especially vigilant). With that said a perceived price increase will result in lower demand, at least we can guess at this, which means lower sales. On top this the user will now pay a price increase from $0 to $X which is, graphed at rate, basically and infinite percent price increase. Will consumers accept this? I dont know but it seems unlikely. So the problem you are potentially going to run into is lower sales of the base game and what we can guess to be significantly lower purchases of mods then the downloads we see now that they are free.

 

So now you have to solve these two problems before you can even make a reasoned business pitch. First, how are you going to combat the drop in demand from one perceived undefined price increase and a very hefty actual one? Second if we monetize mods some other way (advertised donation platforms, selected authors incorporated into DLC type projects, increased advertising recruitment drive with some profits going to authors, modding license users pay flat to gain access to all mods, ect. ect.) what is the opportunity cost there? That is to say how much money would you and bethesda miss out on if you monetized mods a different way? You need to answer these two questions before you can even consider how successful a paid modding system will be. Everything else is just baseless speculation and essentially useless.

 

I sure hope bethesda has learned from their prior paid modding attempt and has hired the appropriate analysts to answer these types of questions before moving forward but we will see.

 

You simply cannot apply "free market" logic the way you are trying to apply it. It would be much more productive to focus on the types questions I asked above and try to do what research you can to find those answers.

Edited July 18, 2016 by Alexotero1219

[TeamBacon]

You guys are funny.

[gunslinger6792]

Welcome to one of the most derailed threads on the nexus forums. Coming up next did bethesda sell out to the ancient alien overlords of Egypt?!

[tawatabak]

reading this topic just for shits and giggle

please continue posting

this stuff made my day

[TheVampireDante]

Welcome to one of the most derailed threads on the nexus forums. Coming up next did bethesda sell out to the ancient alien overlords of Egypt?!

 

Nah, swamp monsters and fish men got to them first in a joint wetlands venture.