Steam and the end of mods.

[kromey]

Actually SOPA/PIPA will be the death of mods. This affects us all, American or not.

 

Let your voice be heard here.

 

Actually, SOPA/PIPA will be the death of the internet as we know it, not just mods, with consequences extending well beyond US borders.

 

Americans, sign the petitions and call your Congress people incessantly, make it known that you oppose these toxic bills; everyone else, contact your State Department (or equivalent thereof) and let them know you're concerned about the impacts of these bills on basic civil rights, both here and abroad -- international pressure on the US government, especially with Obama sitting in the White House, certainly can't hurt our chances of beating down these things.

 

 

On topic: There's absolutely no reason to believe that Skyrim being on Steam will prevent us from being able to mod it. I mean, case in point: It's on Steam, and we can mod it, and we don't even have the official tools for that yet!

 

Saying that Steam is the end of modding is to deny the reality of dozens -- if not hundreds! -- of fully moddable games currently on Steam, including many (most? all?) of Valve's own top titles!

[MofoMojo]

...deleting... I don't want to take part in another SOPA/PIPA discussion. Let's stay on topic. Edited January 19, 2012 by MofoMojo

[Sunnie]

...deleting... I don't want to take part in another SOPA/PIPA discussion. Let's stay on topic.

 

lol! Theres 2 or 3 other threads about this very same exact thing. Yay for more duplicate threads!

Seriously though, would be nice if these dupe threads started getting locked...:wink:

[rabidNode]

With the integration of steam workshop things are going to change. How remains to be seen. We already have a Ck that has been delayed because of the workshop and if somewhere in there legal agreement they want to start having priority over certain tinkering it could be possible we will have to hack our own tools together like we have been somewhat. I do not think MODs for skyrim will be so cut off but I tend to think that by next incarnation of a tes game the landscape of this free modding will have greatly been altered. Steam itself as it is in the business of data mining and demographics would be happy with owning rights to the modding tools and having a legal rights to that which is built with them but I am sure that it wont be so extreme and a balance will be found. regardless some modders will go to selling their content after the workshop comes out and we will have new hoops to jump through to use the ck and distribute mods.

 

I personally would rather have steam out of this altogether but someone is making good money here or the potential of good money so steam is not going anywhere. And Steams goal is simply to increase traffic and thereby increase their ability to sell ads and mine demographics information.

[Matth85]

I personally would rather have steam out of this altogether but someone is making good money here or the potential of good money so steam is not going anywhere. And Steams goal is simply to increase traffic and thereby increase their ability to sell ads and mine demographics information.

 

Money runs the world.

The game industry is having a rough time to stand, because of piracy and the multi million cost to produce games.

Modding is a big part of gaming, and we get/do it for free.

They use steam to show a few ads, get tenfolds the profit in the long run.

 

Am I the only one seing this?

You do realize that due to the craptastic economy of the world, the game industry is on a breaking point? Only the biggest AAA titles, and the bigges companies, can be safe. For instance, if SWTOR runs dry and ME3 fails, Bioware is out of luck. Bethesda is still golden, since they didn't ruin their own names with Skyrim.

Now, with Steam they can get a solid footing in the long run. Look how long Morrowind/Obliivon was modded, and the traffic on these sites. Now say Bethesda gets 0.5 bucks per visitor, per ad. So, in 5 years they have doubled their income. Steam have also gotten a nice income. We, well, we've lost nothing.

 

People are scared of the "You allow Valve to have some of the right of the mod": But you know what? 80% of the mods are small mods, which the author forgets about and/or abandon after a few years. We see this very clearly now, when half the requests are "PLEASE port X from oblivion to Skyrim! The author doesn't answer PMs!".

The only people who got anything to fear from this, is if they make mods taking multiple years to make, and don't want to give any right to anybody. And these people would usually provide a link to people for their own sites.

 

People really blow this so hard out of proportions, and spell the doom of the world way too early.

[Sarimae]

As a Total war games user I am a bit suspicious, since that series uses Steam, the great mods are over,before Empire , the Total war the games brand ,had a great modability,now only few things are changeable.Creative Assembly bet on DLCs and don't provide any mod tool or even any documentation to helps us, Does the same will happen with this game? I mean, can I expect new caves or dungeons,new cities,creatures,new quests etc. ,as in the previous game Oblivion»

 

I can't believe I'm allowing myself to be dragged into this.

 

"Creative Assembly bet on DLC and don't provide any mod tool or documentation to help" - You have proof that because it's on Steam, that they didn't provide modding or documentation to mod? Sounds like they made the wrong bet. Fallout 3, Fallout: NewVegas are both on Steam, both by Bethesda, and both have TREMENDOUS mod support. Oblivion, which is also on steam now, still supports just about every mod ever released as far as I know.

 

/me goes to log into steam and check out my games list...

 

Counter Strike - Moddable

Counter Strike: Source - Moddable

Day of Defeat: - Moddable

Day of Defeat: Source - Moddable

Dead Island - Moddable even though I don't think there are tools specifically released by the developer

Far Cry - Moddable

Far Cry 2 - I think it's moddable but never got into it

Frozen Synapse - Moddable

Half Life - Moddable

Half Life 2 - Moddable

Gary's Mod - Moddable, and not required to MOD Half Life even though valve makes money selling this "Mod tool"

Left 4 Dead - Moddable

Left 4 Dead 2 - Moddable

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. : Shadow of Chernobyl - Moddable

Torchlight - Moddable

The Sims - Moddable

TrackMania - Moddable

Unreal Tournament 3: Black Edition - Moddable

X3: Albion Prelude - Moddable

X3: Terran Conflict - Moddable

 

Same of these games are directly BY valve, who places a high value on modding in the community, some of these are from other companies using Steam for distribution which support modding, built either in the game or external editors, and some of them aren't supported by the developer with toolsets but allow a great bit of flexibility and were designed with modding in mind.

 

A quick glance of my TOOLS available to install shows even some I left out of the list:

 

GECK - New Vegas Edition (mod tool)

King's Bounty: Crossworlds Editor

Left 4 Dead 2 Authoring Tools

Left 4 Dead Authoring Tools

Portal 2 Authoring Tools

Source SDK

Sixense SDK for the Razer Hydra

Torchlight Editor

 

What part of psychosis is kicking in that people think Steam + GAME = Conspiracy to stop modding.

 

If I had mods that I SLAVED on for months on end that I could put up on Steam and charge, I'd CONSIDER it. There are certainly reasons NOT to do it. If you want a good story of MOD to RICHES just go check up on what Valve did for the guys that took Halflife (A valve game) and made Counterstrike...the MOD.

 

 

Those games mentioned above are on steam, yes, but the modding tools are not integrated in steamworkshop.

 

We will see...

[DizzasterJuice]

Speaking of money, did Dark0ne ever get his definative answer?

posted by Dark0ne 12/1/11 -

 

I decided to send off a quick email to Matt Grandstaff, the Bethesda community manager, to ask him about the potential for mod authors to earn money through the Steam Workshop system:

 

QUOTE

I just wanted to get some clarification on "mods for money". Obviously TF2 and Steam Works allow users to upload their mods and get money for it, and with this announcement there's some speculation that Steam Works is going to allow this for Skyrim as well in some form or another.

 

Matt responded:

 

QUOTE

Our focus with the Steam Workshop is creating an environment where users can create, upload, download, and rate free user content.

 

I tried to get a bit more clarification on this point as it still leaves a little room for interpretation (I want my clarifications ironclad!):

 

QUOTE

Thanks Matt,

 

I'm sorry, I don't want to be a pain (I really try to not bother you folks at Bethesda at all)! Can you just confirm that mod authors will not be able to upload mods and earn money through the Steam Workshop? E.g. everything except Bethesda's DLC will be available for free download?

 

I just want to make extra sure before I go clear everyone's fears on this one!

 

Matt has not provided further clarification on that point.

 

I hate to be sceptical about Bethesda when they've done so much for this community, but this still leaves me sceptical.

Edited January 19, 2012 by DizzasterJuice

[magnemoe]

With the integration of steam workshop things are going to change. How remains to be seen. We already have a Ck that has been delayed because of the workshop and if somewhere in there legal agreement they want to start having priority over certain tinkering it could be possible we will have to hack our own tools together like we have been somewhat. I do not think MODs for skyrim will be so cut off but I tend to think that by next incarnation of a tes game the landscape of this free modding will have greatly been altered. Steam itself as it is in the business of data mining and demographics would be happy with owning rights to the modding tools and having a legal rights to that which is built with them but I am sure that it wont be so extreme and a balance will be found. regardless some modders will go to selling their content after the workshop comes out and we will have new hoops to jump through to use the ck and distribute mods.

 

I personally would rather have steam out of this altogether but someone is making good money here or the potential of good money so steam is not going anywhere. And Steams goal is simply to increase traffic and thereby increase their ability to sell ads and mine demographics information.

I have this positive view that the steam workshop is to make more people use mod and make it more mainstream. They have said they wanted mod for consoles. Quite possible they was planning of doing their own portal before steam came inn. Yes it delayed the CK, and I have no need for the workshop.

However I do not see any signs of any dark plot or the dark brotherhood here.

[NorthWolf]

Yes, Valve, who makes significantly more moddable games than Bethesda that don't require convoluted script extenders and whatnot to be heavily customized, are holding us back with Steam, which is their digital distribution service that... distributes games. Bethesda, who doesn't care about how this would damage their future sales, is actually conspiring with Steam to make mods more difficult to access and implement a pay-for architecture so they can gain additional money from people. They released the game knowing people would already be well aware of the structure of most of their files and thus be able to immediately mod the game anyway using extenders and tools like TESEdit... because... uh...

 

Look, just because you don't like Steam doesn't mean they're the bad guys. They bent over backwards to make Steam copies of Oblivion open to all modifications, including script extenders, when it was found out it wasn't. Then they did the same thing for a very old Morrowind. You might not appreciate the service but it is the least harmful DRM I have ever encountered and has not, for a single moment, ever prevented me from playing a game. It's not even DRM to me. It's the only way I can play games. You might have worse experiences. You might not think they're that great. That's cool.

 

That doesn't make them conspirators looking to leech off you.

 

If Bethesda wanted to make mods pay-for they would not have released the game without the tools and they would likely have been displeased with the incredibly predictable advent of the SKSE and ScriptDragon, both which implicitly break the EULA, but they've taken absolutely no action against either mod. They have allowed us to release mods with 3rd party tools, which would completely undermine attempts to commercialize modding.

 

And, ultimately, if they do commercialize mods, you should be blaming Bethesda. This is their property and they make the choices. You might hate Steam, and I won't blame you for that. But blame Steam for what it does poorly: automatic updates and the likes. But don't swoon over Bethesda and assume they were seduced by Steam into being grungy profit-mongers.

 

Steam is too busy trying to sell digital hats to seduce anyone.

[gmillar]

People don't seem to realize that Valve is by far the most trustworthy game developer/publisher out there today. If you're that out of touch with the game industry, please refrain from commenting on it. Not aimed at anyone in particular, just the ignorant people that cry out with the same groundless complaints every day.