Bethesda should do more to reward and promote modders

[4allout]

Hello Nexus, I ask if you have the time please read my petition below, and please sign it on change.org and share it if you agree! I know this doesn't totally apply to the Nexus as it's a separate entity, but I know that many modders upload their mods to both Bethesda.net and Nexus, so this should still interest some people here. If it gets enough signatures/attention, I will personally email it to Bethesda and Matt Grandstaff to see if they will issue an official response!

One of the hallmarks that distinguishes Bethesda Game Studios’ games from others are the modding tools released by Bethesda and the amazing mods that consumers of their games make. Some mods just add little things to the game, while some like the recently released Enderal for Skyrim or FROST Survival Simulator for Fallout 4 add totally new worlds, or revamped ones, that sometimes almost take as much time and effort to make as the games that are used as the foundation for them.

This is not news to consumers of Bethesda games, but Bethesda themselves have increasingly touted this aspect of their games in recent years. At Microsoft’s E3 conference in 2015, Todd Howard used a brief showcase mainly to announce that mods would be coming to Xbox One before coming to PS4. Then with the reveal of Skyrim: Special Edition, one of the main selling points of that remaster was that skyrim mods would be playable on console for the first time as shown in the game’s reveal trailer, as well as being displayed on the back of the game’s case and on steam. Undoubtedly, many people purchased Fallout 4 and especially Skyrim SE on console because of the promise of console mods. Therefore, Bethesda is profiting from the hard work of thousands of modders, most of whom do not get any sort of compensation or promotion, donations or otherwise. Now, there is no real problem with this; Bethesda doesn’t even have to release these modding tools, and the modders know that they are pretty much exclusively doing this for the fun of it and to bring joy to others. However, I and many others believe Bethesda could do much more in the way of rewarding and promoting modders, without giving any sort of monetary compensation or constructing a process similar to the “paid mods fiasco” on Steam a couple of years ago. How you ask?

Well my suggestion is a “Modder Royalty Program”. Here are my ideas for how this could work: Bethesda can create a tiered system based on either downloads or favorable ratings across all platforms (whichever they deem most appropriate). So once a mod reaches 1000 downloads/ratings say, that modder receives some sort of badge to display on their Bethesda.net profile. When a mod receives 5,000 downloads/ratings, that modder receives a badge and a discount code on the official Bethesda store. When a mod receives 10k downloads/ratings, that modder receives a badge and a code for a free item on the Bethesda store of $40 or less value. When a mod receives 20k downloads/ratings, the modder receives a free Bethesda game of choice and a badge. Any mod that receives 30k downloads/ratings or more receives a badge, is displayed on the Bethesda.net main page for a period of 30 days, and if he/she so chooses is granted a “MyCreation” interview. Of course Bethesda could make these rewards/tiers however they want, these are just suggestions.

Besides this “Royalty Program”, Bethesda could do other things to promote modders as well. Bethesda has done the aforementioned “MyCreation” interviews with a select few modders, but the last one of these was over a month ago. I would like to see Bethesda doing these more often. Another thing they could do is interact more with the wider modding community on bethesda.net. Maybe have a section where devs and other employees highlight their favorite mods, and put a little badge on the mod that says “Staff/Dev recommended”. Bethesda could also promote specific mods more often on social media, possibly streaming their favorites, or even getting the opinions of developers and others on certain mods. Maybe even have a competition where the top 5 mods chosen get shown to Todd Howard himself and he gets to give his opinion on each and pick his favorite! Sweet little things like these would go a long way toward showing the modding community how much Bethesda truly values and appreciates their efforts.

Having been a small part of creating a Fallout 4 new-lands mod “Realm of Dusk”, I’ve gotten to see the tremendous amount of effort and time that goes into making mods. Many of these modders are incredible and talented people who often put creating these mods ahead of themselves and spending time with others. Bethesda has this great platform with bethesda.net, and could certainly utilize it more to promote and reward modders. The rewards in this “Royalty Program” are most likely peanuts compared to the extra profits Bethesda have made thanks to modders, and would show modders that Bethesda truly cares about them as well as just being a very kind gesture. Even though Bethesda has no obligation to do anything for modders, I and many others believe they should do something along the lines of this “Royalty Program”, or at least interact more with the community as stated above. While there are surely kinks that would need to be worked out with such a system, Bethesda could ultimately do with it as they please, and it would incentivize and energize modders to create many more amazing mods, as well as boost the morale of the entire community. I strongly urge Matt Grandstaff (Global Community Lead for Bethesda), Pete Hines (VP of PR/marketing), and all of Bethesda Softworks to consider the ideas put forth in this petition, and make 2017 the year of the modder!

https://www.change.org/p/matt-grandstaff-bethesda-should-do-more-to-reward-and-promote-modders

[Athanasa]

Before we go that far, can we have an actual useful wiki and documentation for papyrus and Creation Kit?

 

"We're pro modders! But we're not going to make it accessible for people to learn how."

[werr92]

I honestly find Papyrus documentation to be simple and clear. There used to be a user-friendly introduction article when Skyrim came out. But once you read that or are already familiar with any programming language the rest is syntax. And IMHO it's very handy that devs keep it simple on the wiki page instead of diving into some sort of the jungles.

[damanding]

I honestly find Papyrus documentation to be simple and clear. There used to be a user-friendly introduction article when Skyrim came out. But once you read that or are already familiar with any programming language the rest is syntax. And IMHO it's very handy that devs keep it simple on the wiki page instead of diving into some sort of the jungles.

I highlighted the key point, it helps if you already know how to script. Most modders didn't get into this already knowing how to script in other languages so the learning curve is a lot tougher.

[cartman1975]

Is this some kind of "bring more mods to consoles" thread?

I'm happy with the nexus and dont need any badges or discounts.

[damanding]

Honestly badges wouldn't mean a thing to me either. I don't even care enough about Steam achievements to bother with using a mod to re-enable them when playing a modded game. I have pretty much no Steam achievements. Discounts might not be bad though. that could be useful. I finally got around to posting my mods on bethnet to be nice and to prevent never ending begging from console users. I also disabled all comments on those mods and told people to come here for support because I think the bethnet site is really terrible and just doesn't offer me the options this site does. I have nothing against console users at all and I think they deserve to enjoy mods like the rest of us. Most of them are even nice people. The handful that automatically down vote all PC mods on bethnet though are pathetic d-bags. Ultimately if they aren't going to allow some form of financial reward like discounts or paid modding, I think the *least* Bethesda could do would be to offer us decent tools and documentation. Mod authors are the reason their games still get played years later.

[llamaRCA]

I honestly find Papyrus documentation to be simple and clear. There used to be a user-friendly introduction article when Skyrim came out. But once you read that or are already familiar with any programming language the rest is syntax. And IMHO it's very handy that devs keep it simple on the wiki page instead of diving into some sort of the jungles.

 

The Papyrus documentation is fine, imo. The documentation for the FO4CK itself, however, is severely lacking. It's inexcusable considering they promised players mods and then neglected to give us much information about the new kit. I mean, yeah, we can figure things out like we always have, but if they are promoting/promising the work they expect us to build, you'd think they'd bother to give use better/more information than they've given us in the past..

[spacefiddle]

This is impossible. Bethesda isn't, like, a person who can just decide to do random things or implement some complicated affiliate program with lots of small moving parts.

 

It's a medium business owned by a very large and publicly-traded media conglomerate. Public corporations do not, as a rule, decide to give anything to anyone else because it would be "cool" or "the right thing to do."

They do, as a rule, spend a great deal of time in meetings discussing ways to further monetize their properties and customers.

They absolutely do not spend time and money on things that provide a benefit to others, without a clear quantifiable gain.

This is not hyperbole; this is the law. A public company is legally bound to avoid all actions that negatively impact its bottom line. It's a fact that's been used for decades to justify cutting corners, lowering quality, outsourcing jobs, and slashing costs in every area (except executive salaries).

 

The paid-mods stuff that popped up was not someone at Zenimax saying "hey, these guys really add value to our games. We should find a way to reward them."

It was someone saying "look how popular and widespread this 'mods' phenomenon is, where people provide and consume content for free! We should find a way to monetize that."

Any benefit to the modders obtained along the way would be a secondary effect, used mainly as marketing for how wonderful their program is.

 

I'm sorry to come crashing into your long detailed post, but there won't be *anything* that compensates modders in *any* way unless Zenimax sees a direct benefit to itself for it. And I mean direct benefit, not "good PR."

[Reneer]

This is impossible. Bethesda isn't, like, a person who can just decide to do random things or implement some complicated affiliate program with lots of small moving parts.

 

It's a medium business owned by a very large and publicly-traded media conglomerate. Public corporations do not, as a rule, decide to give anything to anyone else because it would be "cool" or "the right thing to do."

They do, as a rule, spend a great deal of time in meetings discussing ways to further monetize their properties and customers.

They absolutely do not spend time and money on things that provide a benefit to others, without a clear quantifiable gain.

This is not hyperbole; this is the law. A public company is legally bound to avoid all actions that negatively impact its bottom line. It's a fact that's been used for decades to justify cutting corners, lowering quality, outsourcing jobs, and slashing costs in every area (except executive salaries).

This is wrong. Since we're talking about Bethesda, which is owned by ZeniMax Media, Inc., we'll work with the state laws that govern ZeniMax, which are those of the state of Maryland. Maryland law, specifically MD Corp & Assn Code § 2-405.1 (2015), states that a director of a corporation shall perform his duties:

"(1) In good faith;

 

(2) In a manner he reasonably believes to be in the best interests of the corporation; and

 

(3) With the care that an ordinarily prudent person in a like position would use under similar circumstances."

 

Notice, of course, that none of that says that the directors must maximize profit or that they must avoid hurting the corporation's bottom line. What it does say is that the director must act in the best interests of the corporation, which may not mean that the company must maximize profits, but instead might mean that the company create meaningful relationships with its customers at the expense of maximizing profit. What is in the "best interests" of the corporation and what that means is up to the board of directors.

[spacefiddle]

Um... okay. Bold text aside, we're not talking about state incorporation. We're talking about Federal regulation of a publicly-traded company... as I clearly stated. State laws do not come into play at any time. That's a nice bit of fast searching to dig that up, but the behavior of a corporate director as mandated by state law is not what I've mentioned, at all.

 

Don't get me wrong, I would love to see this work. I'd also love if a company would resist the urge to sell itself to an investment group or go for the IPO, remain private, and be free to be as generous, or innovative, or crazy as they want. So far, it doesn't happen very often.