What benefit is the CK the Bethsoft?

[Borborygmus]

 

Borborygmus,you can do anyting whit the CK,just like in oblivion and fallout.

 

 

yes, this utterly fails to answer my question, which essentially boiled down to "can non computer smart people use the CK"

[SkjoldBjorn]

Beth is'nt owned by EA yet, the day EA owns Bethesda is the day we will not get any more modding tools and all games will become linear crap. Just look at what they did with DA2..DA was like a little closer to my favorite game baldurs gate, except without the AD&D ruleset.

I doubt that Bethesda will willingly destroy the modding community they got now, that would not be good PR for their games in the future, i for one will not buy anything they release in the future if they decline modding. As Sunnie said, a modding community does not have the resources to come up with a mod that beats a DLC from Bethesda, they got people who have been working with things like this for many many years. But i will not deny that things can change, i have walked into that trap blindfolded before and came out very disapointed (thank you Bioware for working with EA, i can never trust your games will be good again. ) Bioware was one of the few i had hopes for.

[Lord High Inquisitor]

The CK does several substantial things for Bethesda. Lets look at it purely froma business stand point.

 

The Creation Kit requires upfront money to create/code/program. This takes cash from them, and in the short run they will lose out. Lets look at the long run though, a financing point of view. This down payment will create a lifecycle for this piece of software(skyrim) that will last longer than most of its competitors because its providing the customers a means of staying with the game, a continous means of staying with the game. Bethesda, with this Creation Kit is producing long term customers. Sure you may already have the game, "Thats right! How are they making money off me?". Its simple, advertising. You are promoting and showing mods off to your friends, this creates interest. You are also staying in the loop on the game longer, thus your paying attention to events and upcoming products for your software, DLC and such.

 

Your staying with the game longer than it was intended not because of replayability but because you have easy access to content for free. I personally bought Oblivion purely becaus of the mods out for it. I bought it 4-5 years after its release. Bethesda makes a great deal of continous profit because of this.

 

This is why the Creation Kit is such a good idea.

[jimhsu]

Bioware's situation, so to speak, is one reason I've about given up on mainstream gaming (Bethesda being one of the few companies still holding the flag here) and mostly embraced the indie scene. When game developers are no longer constrained by marketing, delivering multi-million budget AAA games, and trying to maximize audience appeal, we can really get some creative ideas out there. Going back to Skyrim, modding is one of the few ways that big companies can afford to challenge convention and "try new ideas" -- and they even get to do so for free.

 

Just a few ideas in Skyrim that were (plainly) ripped from previous mods in TES:

 

Dragons (Akatosh Mount, etc)

Crafting (several examples, including Morrowind Crafting)

Companion inventories (Companion Share, for example)

Various armor and weapon designs

Player homes/housing

Dual Wielding

A huge number of other activities

Edited February 7, 2012 by jimhsu

[Alithinos]

So your question is what's the gain from Bethesda's part,right ?

Well while mods could take the place of some would be dlcs,in the long run modding benefits them,and in many ways too.

 

1) First of all it keeps players being kept interested in a game,long after it's over. The more people playing your game for the more time,the better.

 

2) The continuous occupation of people with their game creates an automatic hype around this game and the next one for the series,a hype the developer/publisher doesn't have to move its little finger to achieve it other than just releasing the tools,and of course hype is always welcome.

 

3) The more in numbers and more good in quality the mods are,there are more chances some players would be willing to buy the game after a while.Some people didn't bought Skyrim because they weren't so interested in the setting or didn't liked its gameplay.But depending on the nature and amount of its mods,it will make a bunch of people to actually go and buy it after they see what mods are out there.

For example that's what happened to me with Half Life 2.(Yeah I know it's a good game and should have played it no matter its mods or not)

 

4) Finally,it gives them ideas and let them see how their game would play if it had some new features in it that they didn't bothered to implement theirselves.They might hadn't done a feature for the game during its development because they weren't sure how it would end up and if it worthed it.But if a feature gets done by some modder team,and it works well,they have a good example of what feature they could add in their next game.

[jet4571]

 

Modding may have been around for a long time...but it now is direct competition for DLC...after all, why buy Horse Armor when you can get 20 variations of Horse Armor for free?

 

I think the rise of DLC, especially item-oriented DLC like Horse Armor, GRA, etc. Is the biggest threat to modding as we know it.

 

Wow you have no clue do you? There were mods years before DLC was ever heard of or any publisher used the acronym. Infact if you get down into it DLC is a concept that publishers stole from modders. Instead of free they charge money for it because they are greedy bastards. But DLC has the advantage of being 3/4 finished for some games and completed for others on day 1. Take Horse armor for Oblivion, was incomplete when Oblivion was released but instead of calling it a day and all that work a loss they completed it and sold it as DLC. Now take anything DLC for any of the COD games and that s*** was done before the game hit the shelves.

 

Historically DLC was always included in an update free of charge until someone decided to see if idiots would buy it. and they did. Also oddly enough it was console gamers who bought DLC and made it a norm to pay for s*** we used to get for free.

[Judasace]

 

Modding may have been around for a long time...but it now is direct competition for DLC...after all, why buy Horse Armor when you can get 20 variations of Horse Armor for free?

 

I think the rise of DLC, especially item-oriented DLC like Horse Armor, GRA, etc. Is the biggest threat to modding as we know it.

 

Wow you have no clue do you? There were mods years before DLC was ever heard of or any publisher used the acronym. Infact if you get down into it DLC is a concept that publishers stole from modders. Instead of free they charge money for it because they are greedy bastards. But DLC has the advantage of being 3/4 finished for some games and completed for others on day 1. Take Horse armor for Oblivion, was incomplete when Oblivion was released but instead of calling it a day and all that work a loss they completed it and sold it as DLC. Now take anything DLC for any of the COD games and that s*** was done before the game hit the shelves.

 

Historically DLC was always included in an update free of charge until someone decided to see if idiots would buy it. and they did. Also oddly enough it was console gamers who bought DLC and made it a norm to pay for s*** we used to get for free.

 

 

Sorry, since everything you said backs up my point of view, how is it that I have no clue?

 

Now that companies have discovered and are emphasizing DLC even more (To the point of deliberately releasing half-finished games to sell you the rest later) it really benefits them financially to eliminate mods and the modding community.

 

I think that eventually Zenimax will decide that it's better to sell 200k copies of a weapon pack now than spread out some unknown number of game sales over 10 years.

[jet4571]

No It does not back your point of view as you wrote it. You write that mods are now direct competition for DLC when that's not true. DLC is a stolen concept from modders that was bastardized. In the quote you claim it to be otherwise buy saying that mods are NOW competing with DLC.

 

BTW I dont agree with you at all. Mods help companies! Just ask Alithinos who just about quoted me with his own words in a similar discussion I had a couple years ago.

 

So your question is what's the gain from Bethesda's part,right ?

Well while mods could take the place of some would be dlcs,in the long run modding benefits them,and in many ways too.

 

1) First of all it keeps players being kept interested in a game,long after it's over. The more people playing your game for the more time,the better.

 

2) The continuous occupation of people with their game creates an automatic hype around this game and the next one for the series,a hype the developer/publisher doesn't have to move its little finger to achieve it other than just releasing the tools,and of course hype is always welcome.

 

3) The more in numbers and more good in quality the mods are,there are more chances some players would be willing to buy the game after a while.Some people didn't bought Skyrim because they weren't so interested in the setting or didn't liked its gameplay.But depending on the nature and amount of its mods,it will make a bunch of people to actually go and buy it after they see what mods are out there.

For example that's what happened to me with Half Life 2.(Yeah I know it's a good game and should have played it no matter its mods or not)

 

4) Finally,it gives them ideas and let them see how their game would play if it had some new features in it that they didn't bothered to implement theirselves.They might hadn't done a feature for the game during its development because they weren't sure how it would end up and if it worthed it.But if a feature gets done by some modder team,and it works well,they have a good example of what feature they could add in their next game.

[Alithinos]

 

Modding may have been around for a long time...but it now is direct competition for DLC...after all, why buy Horse Armor when you can get 20 variations of Horse Armor for free?

 

I think the rise of DLC, especially item-oriented DLC like Horse Armor, GRA, etc. Is the biggest threat to modding as we know it.

 

Wow you have no clue do you? There were mods years before DLC was ever heard of or any publisher used the acronym. Infact if you get down into it DLC is a concept that publishers stole from modders. Instead of free they charge money for it because they are greedy bastards. But DLC has the advantage of being 3/4 finished for some games and completed for others on day 1. Take Horse armor for Oblivion, was incomplete when Oblivion was released but instead of calling it a day and all that work a loss they completed it and sold it as DLC. Now take anything DLC for any of the COD games and that s*** was done before the game hit the shelves.

 

Historically DLC was always included in an update free of charge until someone decided to see if idiots would buy it. and they did. Also oddly enough it was console gamers who bought DLC and made it a norm to pay for s*** we used to get for free.

 

 

Sorry, since everything you said backs up my point of view, how is it that I have no clue?

 

Now that companies have discovered and are emphasizing DLC even more (To the point of deliberately releasing half-finished games to sell you the rest later) it really benefits them financially to eliminate mods and the modding community.

 

I think that eventually Zenimax will decide that it's better to sell 200k copies of a weapon pack now than spread out some unknown number of game sales over 10 years.

But there will be a time where their team will have to move on to new projects,and will stop making dlcs for that game.

And after that there will be no new stuff to keep players interested.

[Kalimni]

Borborygmus,you can do anyting whit the CK,just like in oblivion and fallout.

 

 

yes, this utterly fails to answer my question, which essentially boiled down to "can non computer smart people use the CK"

 

it depends on how "non computer smart" you are. If the CK functions anything like Oblivions CS, the average user can probably start modding after reading a couple of tutorials. Rigging up story lines will take learning scripting to really be effective though. Now, if you are great-grandpa Jim-bob (no offence, jim-bobs of the world) Can't figure out how to turn it off "non computer smart" there is probably no amount of tutorials that will help you.