Paid modding is back

[dovapix]

 

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.

 

I agree a 100% with you but most young people prefer communism!

[Jusey1]

 

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.

 

I don't think you truly understand how money works for a game company like Bethesda...

 

Firstly, the money that a game makes is split up between Zenimax (the direct owner of Bethesa), Bethesda Softworks (publisher), and Bethesda Game Studios (creators). From the there, the money isn't directly given to any specific person but rather used to pay off the people working there overtime. Think about this for just a mere second... Where do the money comes from that they use to pay off everybody working at BGS? It comes from the sales of their last game and is split between the hundreds of people who has worked on the game, including voice actors, scripters, and so on. This money has to be continue to be used to pay everybody for their work currently on the current project until they make more money on their next release, or via other means... Since, before, it was taking around 4-6 years for Bethesda to release their next title, it takes some time, and the money made from their last project has to sustain those years of work.

 

On top of that, the games has been improved over the years. Taking longer as time goes by and requiring more people to make said games, such as more voice actors for example due to having every NPC fully voiced. Which means, more money is required to pay everybody off. Plus, right now, Bethesda is currently working on two new projects that isn't Elder Scrolls or Fallout, which these products can EASILY flop and make barely any money for when they put all of their work on Elder Scrolls 6... What does Bethesda needs to do in order to keep their company working?

 

Well, we saw the first thing they tried already which was a lazy attempt at paid mods and that failed, for good reasons. The second thing they tried was Fallout Shelter and Elder Scrolls Legends card game. Games meant to add sustain to a company. It does seems that Fallout Shelter is successfully working but I don't think many people really care about Legends that much, which in turn is probably why E3 this year had that Skyrim expansion for Legends. It's familiarity to hopefully draw in a bigger crowd to the game. And now, the current newest thing is the Creation Club which they're are actually working on to release new content for fans, whether it is a good thing or a bad thing is currently unseen but once this Creation Club is out, then we will know...

 

Anyways, what I am saying that the money made is used to pay everybody off during their off-time. Let's go back to McDonalds example. Sure, you do more work on a busy week but what happens if NOBODY comes for the next week? The extra money made from the previous week is used to pay off the workers for that week, simply as that. Even if you get no service, you're still being paid for your work. That is completely fair. You're being paid for using your time and doing the work, even if you aren't doing much to begin with. Not because you're selling things while doing nothing.

[NexBeth]

But also take into consideration that the "time off" for ES is self-imposed time-off. They want to squeeze as much as they can out of ESO and Skyrim before proceeding to ES6 for obvious reasons. It's all very much on their side of benefiting and it always will be. That is how capitalism and big companies work. Its not about being fair. Fairness comes into play when the collective work force is generally on the same page and putting forth the same demands.

 

It really is up to modders as to the possible success of CC. If they are ok with low-ball offers and jump into contracts with Bethesda for a penny's worth, then CC will be a success that benefits Bethesda to the max. However, if they hold out for better, then they may be in a position to get more. That would be a collective effort though and judging from my very short time as a modder, there is not a whole lot of collective thinking among modders. I don't expect anyone to get per-download payments at least in the beginning....but will be glad to be wrong about that. This is a trail for Bethesda as well as for modders.

[RopeSander]

I've read a lot of opinion on this topic, but I must say... none of us could be here without the modding community, really think about that.

 

Bethesda IS trying to influence the modding community and make it work for them, whether you argue it's for benign purpose or not doesn't really matter.

 

This community IS unique because there is no established 'wall' between users, modders or the different levels of modders (in skill/dedication), by this I just hope to express how the atmosphere of the Nexus encourages people to be creative for the sake of being creative. Personally I believe we have all mostly benefited from the way things are NOW.

 

Why change any of it... there aren't really any problems... (before you over-react to that), I am aware that I personally cannot attest to the grief of having thousands of hours of work stolen by someone else, but as far as I can tell the majority of the community is not in support of such practices and will stand with golden shinning armor in resistance to such cowardly and deviant acts. I believe many of the complaints issued by many in the modding community should be seen for what they are... a luxury. Not to suggest they don't hold water, but I do believe that once the modding community embraces ANY kind of sponsored modding to the point that it is the mainstream... there is no going back, and many will look back and think "I wish things had just stayed the way they were."

 

Make no mistake, someone who works for Bethesda somewhere can't believe how much they can make off of TES series when the games are released with so many bugs, and they hardly have to market them. Not to mention the profundity of the modding community, and if you think that there is absolutely no desire coming out of Bethesda to grab some coins from us, then you are simply naive.

 

I guess I just hate to see the struggle of our "forefathers" go in vain only to allow a more 'Milk Toast' version of commercializing user's mods rise up in it's place.

 

Let's just keep things the way they are, please.

 

Thank you for your time.

[FrankFamily]

"Let's just keep things the way they are, please."

 

That's pretty ironic given the community we are talking about. If modders thought that regarding games they wouldn't make mods.

[RopeSander]

I was speaking to the specific issue. Not in general to apply to all things under the sun. I guess I should have been clearer on that point.

[FrankFamily]

Your whole argument is summed up by that sentence given it's all about being afraid of change because of change itself. I'm just pointing the irony in that since modding is about changing games.

[pierreluimeme]

Can't stop laughing after i watch this creation club video :

[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.

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.

 

I agree a 100% with you but most young people prefer communism!

 

 

The irony being that the problems that the post you quoted points out are actually issues with Capitalism. CEOs giving themselves the lions share of the profits while the workers who actually produce get much less - you guessed it, that's capitalism at work baby!

 

As far as "modders getting what they should be getting", well, the community sees to it that they don't, doesn't it? Remember that one time where modders might have had a chance to put their mods up in a paid fashion and get paid per-download? Guys like you raged and shut it down. Now you're trying to shut down the chance that they even get a few paychecks for their work. And you're doing this in the name of... capitalism? You sure you know what that word means? Here's a hint: It doesn't mean getting stuff for free.

 

In fact, "We all get the same mods, for free, no matter how much we're willing to pay" is... you guessed it, communism. :wink:

 

 

As far as "changing the way things work", good luck with that. I don't think bethesda mods is going to make any of that happen. For now, I'm just supporting a system that allows modders who put in the effort to get some money and industry experience out of it. If you can think of a real good reason why shutting down Creation Club will make it more likely that modders get those things, I'm all ears, but for now Bethesda is the only one with a good idea.

 

People like to pretend they're trying to shut this stuff down in the name of the community, but to me it always stinks of "I don't wanna pay for anything". Let's face it, the community is more so the modders than it is the mod users, cause without them there would be no modding community. That's the part of the community I support, and the part I'm concerned about, and the part I think should be getting more for what they're doing. This gets them that, in a way that solves the problems that matter to them.

 

And hey, if donations worked, we wouldn't even be having this conversation because the mod authors that bethesda talked to about this would have said "No thanks I'm making plenty of money". They didn't though.

 

 

PS - yeah I know your post was probably sarcastic. I just couldn't pass up the opportunity though.

Edited June 28, 2017 by FishBiter