Sorry to see more great mods removed

[cossayos]

 

That´s not the reason you can not get paid for your hard work. As Ethreon already mentioned most gamedevs use software not invented by them. Go to Steam store, at least 85% of games sold there are made in external specialized programs, still they are not free for all. People get paid not for using some unique tools, people are paid for their talents and time. That´s how it works everywhere.

 

 

But guess what ... This work turns into a product with every liability attached once you pay for it. That's the difference to mods. It's also that a game company and/or the publisher of any given game, would approach paid mods differently. You'd have to pay license fees for altering their products or they would outright forbid any alteration being made.

[ad3d0]

I never said that nothing will change if modding gets paid. All I´m trying to say that modders deserve to be paid for their work, if they are ready to take some responsibilities of course.

[Reneer]

But guess what ... This work turns into a product with every liability attached once you pay for it. That's the difference to mods. It's also that a game company and/or the publisher of any given game, would approach paid mods differently. You'd have to pay license fees for altering their products or they would outright forbid any alteration being made.

I'm not 100% sure what you're trying to argue here, but I'll take a crack at it.

 

In terms of "liability" it's simple: every game developer, from the indie one-man team to the AAA game devs, has to work out what they are and are not liable for when selling software. All software EULAs, for example, explicitly disclaim any liability for damage caused to your system and at most you will get your money back that you paid for the software. So even if you can prove that Bob's Mod literally set your computer on fire, you aren't getting compensated for that loss unless Bob has a decent PR guy.

 

As for the "different publishers, different rules / fees" bit... I mean, that already happens. Go look at the licensing setups for any number of game SDKs (Unity, Unreal, Lumberyard, etc) and you will plainly see that they all have different rules about when and if you need to pay them after you release your software.

 

It used to be that you had to pay up front to use those tools, but now many of the game SDKs have an easy licensing system. Bethesda could have charged for the CS / CK back in the day, but they realized that they could (theoretically) make more money by releasing the tools for free and simply taking a cut from each paid mod sale. This strategy vastly lowers the barrier of entry to modding and it costs Bethesda pretty much nothing, but it allows them more control over the ecosystem.

Edited December 27, 2016 by Reneer

[mac2636]

The liability issue is one reason I think a paid access site supported by advertising would be a better way to get money in the hands of mod authors. Problem is, it would significantly reduce the profit margins for Bethesda and require them to be directly involved and dedicate measurable resources to be the intermediary between mod authors and users. Unfortunately, this is not something Beth is willing to do or capable of doing.

 

Mod authors absolutely deserve some type of compensation for their work, which ideally should be decided by the authors themselves. Unfortunately, it is a necessity that Bethesda be involved, which historically has completely fouled up the whole process.

[cossayos]

Mod authors absolutely deserve some type of compensation for their work, which ideally should be decided by the authors themselves. Unfortunately, it is a necessity that Bethesda be involved, which historically has completely fouled up the whole process.

 

Don't forget they're doing these mods for their own satisfaction and just make them available to the public. It's not as if they were taking orders on what to create.

 

Sure, they deserve credit. That's what the endorsment and paypall buttons are for. Turning this into a business would be the road to hell. With Bethesda determining what's even allowed to do when making money, and in all probability cashing in on licence fees, since it isn't provided for free anymore.

[mrmini]

Paid mods change the relationship between mod player and author. Honestly I don't care if an author wants to charge or not, it just puts more of a burden on them to make the mod work perfectly. It probably won't be something a lot of them are actually ready for, those commenters will become much more important to them.

I guess in the end, the choice to leave and take down their mods, is completely up to them.

[Deleted12668574User]

So, if the company creates a game to make money - it´s ok. But if some one makes mod with assets, at least not worse than company made (often they are even better), he doesn´t deserve to get paid for it?

 

Don't get me wrong, if you make a mod, you ultimately get to decide how it's distributed. If that distribution includes compensation, that's on you. My comment wasn't meant to imply that one's good works don't deserve compensation, but rather if your reason for modding is to make money, you're doing it wrong.

 

Not sure if Nexus could do something similar, but Curse uses an "author rewards" program where they basically split up a portion of the subscription revenue and give it back to the authors. Not sure how the algorithm works exactly, but it's pretty fair.

[Shaundi7]

That's why you download the mods and save themn on your HD. Stuff you downlaoded and saved can't be taken away from you. No matter if the creator decides he/she needs to take the mod down.

So remember: always save and archive it.

[Reneer]

Don't get me wrong, if you make a mod, you ultimately get to decide how it's distributed. If that distribution includes compensation, that's on you. My comment wasn't meant to imply that one's good works don't deserve compensation, but rather if your reason for modding is to make money, you're doing it wrong.

And why is that, exactly? What is there about wanting compensation / payment for the hard work we do when creating mods that suddenly makes it "wrong", but when we develop other software / textures / art and sell that outside of the mod community, that is "good"?

Edited December 28, 2016 by Reneer

[Deleted12668574User]

What is there about wanting compensation / payment for the hard work we do when creating mods that suddenly makes it "wrong", but when we develop other software / textures / art and sell that outside of the mod community, that is "good"?

Again, there's nothing inherently wrong with wanting to be rewarded for what you do. "If you're modding to make money, you're doing it wrong" is really not that difficult of a statement to grasp. It merely means that if your only motivation for creating mods is to make money, you probably shouldn't bother. That's not what a modding community is about. As I mentioned before, a system where the modding sites reward authors or even a donation button/page is more than reasonable and sufficient. Of course, this is assuming Bethesda even allows it.