Paid modding is back

[LoneWolfEburg]

 

There's a lot of ambiguity as to what Bethesda actually expects to sell. Their "What types of content will be included in Creation Club?" paragraph on website seems to be oriented towards small-scale mods rather than things of Falskaar/Forgotten City/Interesting NPC's scale.

 

That's not exactly true. They have mentioned that things like new worlds and quests are acceptable things to submit to the Creation Club.

Even when these mods were largely developed by one person, they still had to hire voice actors. Will Bethesda provide the voice actors for all the localization languages and the translators necessary to localize all the text? Their page says that the CC content is fully localized, after all.

[NismoMan]

 

 

There's a lot of ambiguity as to what Bethesda actually expects to sell. Their "What types of content will be included in Creation Club?" paragraph on website seems to be oriented towards small-scale mods rather than things of Falskaar/Forgotten City/Interesting NPC's scale.

 

That's not exactly true. They have mentioned that things like new worlds and quests are acceptable things to submit to the Creation Club.

Even when these mods were largely developed by one person, they still had to hire voice actors. Will Bethesda provide the voice actors for all the localization languages and the translators necessary to localize all the text? Their page says that the CC content is fully localized, after all.

 

 

Really interesting point there, friend. Very perceptive!

I really doubt they'll invest resources localizing big quest mods... which leaves us with... Blimey!... Mudcrap and horse armors :ohmy:

[NexBeth]

I would think that if they accept proposals for more complex projects that involve professional voice actors that it would be up to the mod maker to pitch their project with this aspect included. The cost for production will need to be a part of the negotiated compensation. It may be that when viewing the MA's proposal, Bethesda will offer to provide the VAs or other production assets. But, going in, I think that will need to be a part of the breakdown in the MA's project proposal.

[LewisBishop59]

I want the modders to make money and I will be using this service if they have the correct content on I'm not buying a single sword mod when there is tons I can get for free, DLC sized mods and Overhauls like Enderal I will gladly pay for.

[Carbon14]

I want the modders to make money and I will be using this service if they have the correct content on I'm not buying a single sword mod when there is tons I can get for free, DLC sized mods and Overhauls like Enderal I will gladly pay for.

They will hardly be "making money". You won't be paying the mod authors, you will be paying Bethesda, who will have given a tiny portion to the modder. It's like saying I want Bethesda's "workers" to make money, while knowing that they are hiring workers from around the planet probably working well below reasonable industry rates. They are paying up front payments to the modders, and not giving a percent cut. I don't think anyone would ever say "I want to support Chinese sweatshop workers by buying Nike shoes".

 

 

I would think that if they accept proposals for more complex projects that involve professional voice actors that it would be up to the mod maker to pitch their project with this aspect included. The cost for production will need to be a part of the negotiated compensation. It may be that when viewing the MA's proposal, Bethesda will offer to provide the VAs or other production assets. But, going in, I think that will need to be a part of the breakdown in the MA's project proposal.

Nobody will be making major mods under this scheme I think. Nobody is going to go to all the work of organizing, building and working on what amounts to a small game for a single payment and no profit share.

Edited June 18, 2017 by Carbon14

[Qurion]

Paid mods, some posted from the FAQ earlier on in the thread that they are not. Well, it comes down to how you want to look at it. In essence and structure, the DLCs are also mods, the difference is just that they are part of the lore as well as made by bethesda themself. So to me, these paid mods are microtransactions.
Moving on from that...

The targeted group to sell these to is probably the console user. Let's be honest here, as of right now, we have more than a hundred thousand mods total for skyrim all over the internet, including asia, beth net and all those blogs. PC user will not see a value in purchasing a number of armors with the choice that already is there, console user though would be happy to see new content.

Something I do would love to see would be full on DLC size content, that is the kind of stuff PC user would pay for.

Worst case, there will be mod piracy happening and a seperate site will profit with ads on the demand on those paid mods. Best case, we will see content that add proper value in terms of size, something that is worth paying for when we keep in mind how many mods there currently are.

 

 

I want the modders to make money and I will be using this service if they have the correct content on I'm not buying a single sword mod when there is tons I can get for free, DLC sized mods and Overhauls like Enderal I will gladly pay for.

They will hardly be "making money". You won't be paying the mod authors, you will be paying Bethesda, who will have given a tiny portion to the modder. It's like saying I want Bethesda's "workers" to make money, while knowing that they are hiring workers from around the planet probably working well below reasonable industry rates. They are paying up front payments to the modders, and not giving a percent cut. I don't think anyone would ever say "I want to support Chinese sweatshop workers by buying Nike shoes".

I would think that if they accept proposals for more complex projects that involve professional voice actors that it would be up to the mod maker to pitch their project with this aspect included. The cost for production will need to be a part of the negotiated compensation. It may be that when viewing the MA's proposal, Bethesda will offer to provide the VAs or other production assets. But, going in, I think that will need to be a part of the breakdown in the MA's project proposal.

Nobody will be making major mods under this scheme I think. Nobody is going to go to all the work of organizing, building and working on what amounts to a small game for a single payment and no profit share.

 

We may want to wait for a few weeks and see how the contracts are going to look like. My guess is the same as yours, Bethesda, no, not the game studio, makes a rather greedy impression in recent times. No review copies and other bad business practises do show the direction they are going in and I, too, have concerns that they will attempt to rip off modder.

[RGMage2]

I would think that if they accept proposals for more complex projects that involve professional voice actors that it would be up to the mod maker to pitch their project with this aspect included. The cost for production will need to be a part of the negotiated compensation. It may be that when viewing the MA's proposal, Bethesda will offer to provide the VAs or other production assets. But, going in, I think that will need to be a part of the breakdown in the MA's project proposal.

Nobody will be making major mods under this scheme I think. Nobody is going to go to all the work of organizing, building and working on what amounts to a small game for a single payment and no profit share.

 

@Carbon14, That might not be true, I would hesitate to make any sweeping judgements. There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all when it comes to human beings, and that certainly applies to mod authors. It is possible that there is a mod author out there with a large and complex major mod idea who will jump at the chance to see his/her vision turned into Official DLC, as in a way that would immortalize their dream. Such a person might be willing to forgo any residual income in favor of a lump sum contract payment, in return for working with Bethesda devs to make it all come together in a way they could never do on their own.

 

My impression, taking Bethesda's plans at face value based on what they have told us so far, this is not paid modding. What they say they are doing is opening up to mod authors the process of pitching ideas for DLC, and then if they like the idea, they will take on the mod author as a freelance contractor to work on the project in collaboration with Bethesda devs until finished.

 

The question as I see it is: will they be true to their word, or is it really a smoke screen for something else? At this point we can't make any reasonable judgement. We need to wait and see how it plays out. See what type of projects they accept, and how many. If the accepted projects are few, and the bar is set high, then this is not paid modding. On the other hand, if they just rubber stamp all proposals and take a hands off approach in development, then it would indeed be paid modding.

 

Either way, personally, I'm OK with it.

[FishBiter]

I'm just gonna go ahead and point out that Bethesda employees don't get payed on a per-sale basis, and neither do most employees at most companies. If you work at McDonalds you don't get a bigger paycheck if the joint sold more burgers that week. The idea that modders are required to be paid on a per-download basis is not grounded in the reality of what modders essentially are: freelance game developers. Once the modder is part of this project, they're effectively a freelance developer, and will get paid the same way as if they were a freelance developer who started working with the company outside of CC. This, quite simply, is fair. Paying them on a per-download basis would be completely unfair and would leave Bethesda employees wondering "...why am I working here? I could be making more by making content for this company through the creation club". Think about it, some of the most popular mods have 1,000,000 downloads - if they gave the modder only 1$ per download ( ridiculously low, chosen for effect ) then that modder just made a million dollars. How many BGS employees you think are raking in a million dollars in less than a year while doing more work throughout that year than that modder did? And yeah, a million is an extreme example. Try 500,000... 300,000... 200,000 these are still big dollar amounts, especially if you raise that 1$ per download to something like 2 or 3. Per-download payment is just unrealistic.

Edited June 19, 2017 by FishBiter

[NexBeth]

Fishbiter, you make a very good point indeed. I personally think they will get paid per project, not download. At least at this stage of the CC. However, project reimbursement does not have to coincide with Bethesda employee salaries. Frequently, contractors get considerably more dollar per hour based on that is their only compensation. "Employees" get a whole benefit package which is usually worth about 1/3 of their salary, plus they have steady employment.

 

Now, down the road, if they have a prolific free lance MA making them a lot of money, said MA may well be able to negotiate a very nice deal that may include a per download compensation. Bethesda employees have a whole team to put together their work, the free-lancer has his/herself to do all the work. There are big difference between the independent MA contractor and the Beth employee.

[Carbon14]

I'm just gonna go ahead and point out that Bethesda employees don't get payed on a per-sale basis, and neither do most employees at most companies. If you work at McDonalds you don't get a bigger paycheck if the joint sold more burgers that week. The idea that modders are required to be paid on a per-download basis is not grounded in the reality of what modders essentially are: freelance game developers. Once the modder is part of this project, they're effectively a freelance developer, and will get paid the same way as if they were a freelance developer who started working with the company outside of CC. This, quite simply, is fair. Paying them on a per-download basis would be completely unfair and would leave Bethesda employees wondering "...why am I working here? I could be making more by making content for this company through the creation club". Think about it, some of the most popular mods have 1,000,000 downloads - if they gave the modder only 1$ per download ( ridiculously low, chosen for effect ) then that modder just made a million dollars. How many BGS employees you think are raking in a million dollars in less than a year while doing more work throughout that year than that modder did? And yeah, a million is an extreme example. Try 500,000... 300,000... 200,000 these are still big dollar amounts, especially if you raise that 1$ per download to something like 2 or 3. Per-download payment is just unrealistic.

So your answer to that is to say that workers who have produced the actual products being sold and being able to earn money based on the number of people interested in paying for that product is... "completely unfair"... riiight. Surely you should be encouraging the world to work in a way that those that produce the value actually benefit from it. If Bethesda's workers don't see bonuses or huge pay increases from the success of the games, and instead a bunch of ceo's, publishers and other leeches do, then that is the problem. Not other workers getting fair recompense for the value they produce. If Bethesda has to compete with people selling individual work and making lots of money, maybe they would have to... I don't know.. pay their employees more to keep them working there? Perhaps they would actually have to spend some of the millions of dollars they make on paying their workers more, the ones who actually built the game? That would be more "fair" would it not? Instead we see a world where businesses are turning record profits and workers are seeing nothing of it...

 

In your analogy of McDonalds, why should the workers not get paid more if the store has a busy week? They worked harder right? We already have rudimentary systems like this, where if you work overtime you are paid more. Unfortunately most of our economic systems are from a time before the internet, before easy communication, organization and micro payments. You're suggesting the shitty method we currently do things, where bosses and middle men who barely produce anything can exploit the workers who actually produce the value is a good thing, and we should force that system to stay even though we are finding ways to automate away the middle men.

Edited June 20, 2017 by Carbon14