The Creation Club - How to make it helpful to the Modding community, not destroy it

[MightyZ0G]

 

 

 

What singleplayer only games have become "micro-transaction driven"? Microtransactions work in multiplayer games, but I have yet to hear of a single-player game

^^^ This.

I don't see cheap, limited effect DLC on single-player games (ex: the workshop expansions) having the same effect that microtransactions do in multiplayer games.

 

 

they don't work (yet) because we have the free options of modding and console commands.

 

modding a game and sharing those mods in a community such as this is not a right. it is something that the copyright holders allow.

 

the lack of a modding community will not hurt game sales in any way.

most PC gamers have a console as well. studios could stop making PC ports of games and 99% will just buy the game on console (just like they have to do with exclusives).

 

I don't have a console, and I don't want one. If developers stop making games for PC, then I stop playing games. It really is that simple.

 

That said, I don't see beth shutting down the modding community. There's no percentage in it for them. No mods *might* put a dent in game sales, but, I doubt beth would notice it. The creation club is never going to put out the volume of work the free-modding community does. Remains to be seen if they will even do anything on the scale that the free community does. (I don't expect we will ever see a total conversion from them......)

 

 

there is no money in the modding community for Bethesda or, more importantly, Zenimax.

about 85% of Skyrim's sales were on a platform with NO MODS.

history has shown that a game will sell whether it has a modding community or not.

it doesn't matter to Zenimax whether the Creation Club can put out the volume of work that the free modding community does. what matters is that if there is no free modding community, Zenimax gets the lion's share of the revenue from mods instead of the big, fat zero they get from mods now.

 

of course they won't need to produce the same volume of mods.

they won't be doing any slooty mods for the same reason that there is no nudity in the vanilla game.

they won't be doing conversions of Mass Effect or HALO outfits and weapons because of copyright.

they will only have to work on safe, shareholder friendly mods.

[eldiabs]

 

No matter what way anyone tries to spin it, this is the official introduction of microtransactions into bethesda games. We all know from every other microtransaction driven game where that eventually leads. These 'creators' (internal or external) are helping issue in that change to the fallout and elder scrolls games. I'll not support any of them. Best of luck making money to them, whatever floats your boat.

 

What singleplayer only games have become "micro-transaction driven"? Microtransactions work in multiplayer games, but I have yet to hear of a single-player game

 

I still think it's jacked up no matter how you look at it or try to make it sound like a very select few modders are finally getting their fair pay day for their efforts. That's never what any of it was about (at least to most of us). Now it is. Bethesda finally found a way to bank on the efforts of the community (not the user community, the modding community).

I doubt many of the people who will get accepted will have that mindset. It's more about being able to spend the time focusing on modding. How many mods have died in development because the person (or people) working on them just didn't have the time to work on them? I've only made a few fairly small mods, and they were almost all delayed significantly (i.e. months) because I didn't have the time to work on them. There are two others I have not yet completed for the same reason.

 

And while I seriously doubt I would get accepted if I were to apply, my main consideration when I thought about doing so was the potential access to assets I couldn't get otherwise. I'm not planning on trying, both because I doubt I'd qualify and because I won't have the time I'd need to spend in order to meet the development milestones in a reasonable amount of time, but I have thought about it.

 

And despite what I've been told numerous times I am still not convinced they won't pursue dmca claims (which take about 30 seconds to fill out and send) if content by modders directly conflicts with something in their microtransaction club. Maybe not on these games due to how entrenched modding is, but what about future games and content?

You talk about how easy it is to send a DMCA, acting like it is no big deal, but filing a false DMCA is perjury. Yes, Bethesda has tons of money so no individual will fight it, but if they do it on a significant scale I'd be surprised if there was no class-action suit or something along those lines.

 

And what do you mean by "conflict"? If you mean "mod conflict", they'll just blame the mod author of the conflicting (free) mod. If you mean fills the same role (e.g. adding a new piece of armor), they'd have to completely shut down the free modding scene. If you mean adding something that looks the same (e.g. someone makes and releases a piece of armor that deliberately looks the same as some Creation Club armor), it would be silly of them not to, as the person was doing so maliciously (and even then, if the MA shows proof that they made that asset themselves and aren't uploading a copy of the mesh taken from the Creation Club, I doubt they'll bother). They probably would just remove it from their site (or not allow it in the first place), so no console players could use that mod.

 

How long will it take for them to release the creation tools for future games to the community now? Time will tell there. Hope I'm dead wrong. They haven't exactly covered any of this from what I've read on their website.

Why would they be talking about the release time for the creation kit for a game that hasn't even entered development yet? That makes no sense whatsoever.

 

Also, thanks to the 3rd party tools that have been developed over the years for Gamebryo/Creation Engine games, there were still over 11K mods released in the 7-ish months between the game's release and the CK's release. There have been about 14k released in the 13 -ish months since. With the exception of quest and location mods, almost all other types of mods can be made relatively easily without the CK.

 

Think the full size dlc are rough now? Wait until the shareholders get a look at the time to profit margins of microtransactions vs full size dlc. How much content will be cut from future games to dribble out through their club? They even say a majority of the content is coming from their internal devs in the about section. Hahaha. Come on. Couldn't they have just done another full sized dlc with that dev time? Or drop it all for 5 bucks? Wonder why they didn't.

I would be very surprised if "Most of the Creation Club content is created internally, some with external partners who have worked on our games, and some by external Creators" remains true in the future (unless it flops and they don't continue it past the end of this summer). They are likely just trying to ensure that one of the problems with the attempt at Skyrim paid modding (lack of choice at launch, with most of it overpriced and/or stolen) is not repeated.

 

I would be honestly surprised if the amount made through the Creation Club is even close to the amount made from DLC. DLC have a huge profit margin compared to the base game, largely because the vast majority of the assets (whether that be textures/meshes/music, game mechanics or even the game engine) already exist. If you look at the plugins for the DLC-added locations, you'll see that the vast majority of the stuff used are from Fallout4.esm.

 

And no, they couldn't just "make another full sized DLC with that Dev time", or "drop it all for 5 bucks". You talk about shareholders, good luck convincing them to focus the time on even more DLC for an "old" game, and they'd consider a $5 stuff pack DLC just the same. Full sized DLC require cohesion between a much larger team than something like this would. That adds significant time/people to the project. Plus, if they released it as DLC, they would either:

1) have to deal with the backlash over it not being included in the Season Pass (especially since they jacked the price up to $50), or

2)include it, which means they would only make money from the people who didn't by the Season Pass but would buy this stuff (I don't see that as being a very big overlap).

 

They've already shown they care about public opinion, as evidenced by them pulling the paid mods attempt for Skyrim almost immediately, rather than trying to fix their bad implementation of it.

 

That's actually a good counter to many of your points. Mass DMCAs of legitimate mods: will generate tons of bad publicity. Not releasing/significantly (1+ years) delaying the release of the CK while maintaining the Creation Club for new games: tons of bad publicity. Not releasing DLC for future games while maintaining the Creation Club for them: tons of bad press, and almost certainly significantly lower profit margins.

 

If you still don't believe that bad publicity will affect game publishers:

-Topware disabled the console while trying to sell microtransaction cheats. Result: tons of bad press, and Topware re-enables the console

-TakeTwo DMCAs OpenIV. Result: tons of bad press, they rescind the DMCA against OpenIV (the situation hasn't fully ended, but them pretending to back off only to shut Open IV down again would just reduce trust even more than leaving it taken down, and would keep news about it relevant longer)

 

You (and a lot of others) seem to believe that the situation here is identical to other games that don't have an active modding scene. The laws of supply and demand apply here just as they do elsewhere. If you have a large supply (i.e. free mods), you have to stand out to sell well. If you charge $1-$5 for individual weapons/vehicles/etc... for a game that either has no mods, or is very difficult to use mods with, people will buy them. If they charge $1-$5 for individual armors/weapons/etc..., and people can download tons of free armor/weapon mods that are just as good in quality, those types of items won't sell well. The ones that are actually worth the cost will do well, and that is something that Bethesda will take notice of. And since they already will have spent money on the overpriced mods, they would almost certainly (eventually) reduce the price so they can at least make some money off of them.

 

For it to really "kill" the modding community, they would have to not just stop supporting mods completely, but actively attack free mods. Considering how one of the big selling points for Fallout 4 was modding, and modding was the main reason for console users to buy Skyrim SE, I'm pretty sure that's not happening. That would almost certainly lose them more from lost sales than they would make from the Creation Club-style monetization.

 

Some general comments on the Creation Club:

I personally doubt that what we saw of the "store" is going to be fully representative of what is available (prices or otherwise). The fact that one of the things listed is actually called "Horse Armor" (which appears to be the Giddyup Buttercup pieces stuck to some power armor), I'm assuming it is part mock-up, part joke. It was a really stupid joke, considering the paid mods fiasco, but a joke nonetheless. And I also think one of the reasons they are setting up the system the way they are (i.e. paying for development) is to let them control the prices, which lets them avoid the issue of idiots with an inflated sense of their content's worth.

 

 

 

Some things that I think Bethesda could do to ensure this idea is a success: provide the proper support to modders they accept into the program. Not just for polishing/conflict checking/localization, but give them access to things like the raw texture files, which would allow a mod author to make their content match existing content more easily. The raw textures would let you (as an example) make a pristine version of the Red Rocket, or weather it differently than the vanilla ones. If someone wanted to make a mod that let you repair all the roads in the Commonwealth, they could do so much more easily with access to the same assets as an internal dev can use. Within the limits of their existing license agreements of course, though the way they have it structured makes it possible they would be legally considered independent contractors which should give them a lot more leeway. They could potentially be able to give access to the actual tools they use (rather than the crippled Creation Kit), assuming the contracts allow whatever licensed software their version contains that they had to remove.

 

They could add the necessary hooks/features a mod requires for some feature a mod author comes up with, such as making conditionals work for "Scrap" recipes while still allowing you to scrap an item with a normal recipe regardless of conditionals. shadowslasher410 has been trying for several months now to make it so the mod Scrap Everything lets you control what is scrappable in-game (as has been asked for extensively), and if conditionals actually worked for scrapping that update would have been released hack in early April. Instead she is making a 4th attempt at it, as the first three didn't work due to various issues things the game engine can't do. And some other planned features were scrapped outright, since they are currently impossible.

 

In other words, the best chance Bethesda has of making the Creation Club not only successful but liked, is to truly work together with the modders they accept into the program, rather than just doing the minimum they have to. That will give us mods that were just not possible before the program, which will drive sales of those mods.

 

 

Thoughtful response. But I still don't agree. We obviously disagree on a majority of these things. I'll address a few of them. Not to change your mind of course. ;]

 

I don't think I wrote anything about the modding scene being killed off by this? Maybe I did...but I don't think so. If anything it's has the potential to cause a rift in the community.

 

Even without the creation kit modders still created content for these games. Delaying the kit is entirely feasible, and completely within bethesda's right. As is any modders working for bethesda. More power to them. I'll personally not support any of them. I've donated to plenty of modders. But I'll never donate a penny more to any that join the club. Maybe I'm one of the few who did donate. It's unfortunate most don't. They'll make more working for bethesda anyway (even if it's a fraction of what the profits are it's still money right?). Good luck to all of them!

 

DCMA claims. I'm not speaking about any currently existing material. If that was the case there would have been takedowns issued already, and there aren't. That's a conflict I don't think even Zenimax wants to tackle. But what happens when some smartass makes a cooler mudcrab armor, maybe they call it Mr. Jenkins Body Armor? It's entirely their creation, custom models and textures. And it turns out better, and it's free? Maybe it shoots lightning out of its butt or something.You think they'll let that slide when it takes literally no effort to send a threatening email to the modder? This is a silly example (as silly as paying for mudcrab armor perhaps?), but one that I am using to prove that it is entirely feasible. Look how many sarcastic modders are out there. Someone is bound to do something similar just to prove a point. If they let even a single one slide, it opens up the option for any 'creation' they sell to be custom built by a modder for free. I can't stress this enough. This is a company that has to sue devs if they use words in their game titles that match their own. They have a precedent already for not being lenient.

 

And last but not least, this statement, right here from the bethesda page. So...yeah, MOST of the content is created internally.

Most of the Creation Club content is created internally, some with external partners who have worked on our games, and some by external Creators.

[HeArTBeaT15]

No matter what way anyone tries to spin it, this is the official introduction of microtransactions into bethesda games. We all know from every other microtransaction driven game where that eventually leads. These 'creators' (internal or external) are helping issue in that change to the fallout and elder scrolls games. I'll not support any of them. Best of luck making money to them, whatever floats your boat. I still think it's jacked up no matter how you look at it or try to make it sound like a very select few modders are finally getting their fair pay day for their efforts. That's never what any of it was about (at least to most of us). Now it is. Bethesda finally found a way to bank on the efforts of the community (not the user community, the modding community). Well...more than before, even though the only reason their games last as long is because of the modding community. What's so funny about all of this is the external 'creators' are such a small, most likely insignificant part of it in the big scheme of things. They'll be nothing more than small time contractors for a microtransaction machine that's internal driven for the majority of the content. I'm sure a few of them will most likely walk away with a bit of cash for their efforts. Yay for them I guess. And despite what I've been told numerous times I am still not convinced they won't pursue dmca claims (which take about 30 seconds to fill out and send) if content by modders directly conflicts with something in their microtransaction club. Maybe not on these games due to how entrenched modding is, but what about future games and content? How long will it take for them to release the creation tools for future games to the community now? Time will tell there. Hope I'm dead wrong. They haven't exactly covered any of this from what I've read on their website.

 

Think the full size dlc are rough now? Wait until the shareholders get a look at the time to profit margins of microtransactions vs full size dlc. How much content will be cut from future games to dribble out through their club? They even say a majority of the content is coming from their internal devs in the about section. Hahaha. Come on. Couldn't they have just done another full sized dlc with that dev time? Or drop it all for 5 bucks? Wonder why they didn't.

couldn't of said it better myself!

If anything, at least this community will see less of those type of modders.

I'd personally feel less ashamed begging on the street than being a part of this trainwreck.

But please, go spend your time making bethesda rich instead, and enjoy your 50$ a week,only that with that method you will be hit by restrictions, like deadlines, investment limits and the like.

Do you really think you will be doing modding as usual?

No, you will be doing it as a job, only that it will be a shitty pay and a lot of headache.

You'd be better off applying for an actual job in your domain and get paid , then wait on Bethesda's small change.

Modding , in my opinion ,was and should always be free of the "getting paid" aspect.

For me at least its sharing my ideas to others so they can enjoy what i vision as fun and exciting, not something to fill my pockets.

I may not have many uploads for nexus, as i have limited free time, but used to mod other games in the past (ex. Gta San Andreas, CS 1.6, etc) in the past, just for fun and to pass the time, so from my point of view this looks very bad,sry.

 

You might say "Whats wrong with making money from something i enjoy doing for free", but that just said you never meant, or enjoyed doing it for free, meaning you were more of a wannabe developer asking for attention and a bone, not a modder.

Edited June 28, 2017 by HeArTBeaT15

[HeyYou]

 

No matter what way anyone tries to spin it, this is the official introduction of microtransactions into bethesda games. We all know from every other microtransaction driven game where that eventually leads. These 'creators' (internal or external) are helping issue in that change to the fallout and elder scrolls games. I'll not support any of them. Best of luck making money to them, whatever floats your boat. I still think it's jacked up no matter how you look at it or try to make it sound like a very select few modders are finally getting their fair pay day for their efforts. That's never what any of it was about (at least to most of us). Now it is. Bethesda finally found a way to bank on the efforts of the community (not the user community, the modding community). Well...more than before, even though the only reason their games last as long is because of the modding community. What's so funny about all of this is the external 'creators' are such a small, most likely insignificant part of it in the big scheme of things. They'll be nothing more than small time contractors for a microtransaction machine that's internal driven for the majority of the content. I'm sure a few of them will most likely walk away with a bit of cash for their efforts. Yay for them I guess. And despite what I've been told numerous times I am still not convinced they won't pursue dmca claims (which take about 30 seconds to fill out and send) if content by modders directly conflicts with something in their microtransaction club. Maybe not on these games due to how entrenched modding is, but what about future games and content? How long will it take for them to release the creation tools for future games to the community now? Time will tell there. Hope I'm dead wrong. They haven't exactly covered any of this from what I've read on their website.

 

Think the full size dlc are rough now? Wait until the shareholders get a look at the time to profit margins of microtransactions vs full size dlc. How much content will be cut from future games to dribble out through their club? They even say a majority of the content is coming from their internal devs in the about section. Hahaha. Come on. Couldn't they have just done another full sized dlc with that dev time? Or drop it all for 5 bucks? Wonder why they didn't.

couldn't of said it better myself!

If anything, at least this community will see less of those type of modders.

I'd personally feel less ashamed begging on the street than being a part of this trainwreck.

But please, go spend your time making bethesda rich instead, and enjoy your 50$ a week,only that with that method you will be hit by restrictions, like deadlines, investment limits and the like.

Do you really think you will be doing modding as usual?

No, you will be doing it as a job, only that it will be a shitty pay and a lot of headache.

You'd be better off applying for an actual job in your domain and get paid , then wait on Bethesda's small change.

Modding , in my opinion ,was and should always be free of the "getting paid" aspect.

For me at least its sharing my ideas to others so they can enjoy what i vision as fun and exciting, not something to fill my pockets.

I may not have many uploads for nexus, as i have limited free time, but used to mod other games in the past (ex. Gta San Andreas, CS 1.6, etc) in the past, just for fun and to pass the time, so from my point of view this looks very bad,sry.

 

You might say "Whats wrong with making money from something i enjoy doing for free", but that just said you never meant, or enjoyed doing it for free, meaning you were more of a wannabe developer asking for attention and a bone, not a modder.

 

And where do you get your information on how much they are paid? Working conditions? Etc.?

 

We simply do not know the majority of the information you are condemning CC with. It's a lot like the global warming alarmists.... all the doom and gloom predictions, and not a single one has come to pass.

[sinlessorrow]

 

Â

Â

As other mod authors have said and I'll chime in: donations don't work.

They work. Perhaps not if all you're interested in is money but they work just fine. If all you want is money pick another way, don't destroy our community.

Â

You just contradicted yourself. So mod authors earning money from their mods is a bad thing now because it's 'destroying our community'? and how exactly do donations ensure quality and promote creativity? Following this logic of yours, that must mean that all the mod authors who don't/have never recieve/d any donations must (according to you) not produce quality or creative mods?

Please provide actual proof that donations work to back up your assertions. You've already had three mod authors telling you that they don't (at least one of them is a veteran modder, but the fact remains that mod authors are in a far more qualified position to state whether donations work or not) so if you want anyone to actually believe you, give us evidence. Back up your claims, or it shows that what you say is irrelevant.

Â

Â

I clearly said if your interest is purely monetary driven, then no, the donation system may not be your first choice. If however you want to maintain the creative atmosphere and the free flowing of information on modding, resources and assets etc then the donation system will be the way to go.

Â

It's like health care in the US. We know that a Single Payer program is the most efficient cost effective and  accessible form of healthcare, but a few people want to make a buck so they are willing to let these thing go as well as let b people die to do so. Modders wanting to monetize mods are essentially doing this to the modding community.

Â

So, it all comes down t what you are after. I admit that modders could make more money monetizing mods...but at a great cost.

Â

Since we have a working community that as I have shown is producing quality work, I think the burden is on you to explain to us what exactly will the average gamer gain from having our community hijacked by greedy people and mods monetized..

Congrats on nailing the liberals are idiots who only want free s#*! handed to them schtick. You nailed it with that post.

[PoorlyAged]

If I may, please take off the blinkers for a moment. I would like to interject some rational thought.

 

Let's ignore the debate about the quality of Fallout New Vegas for a moment. Fallout New Vegas was developed by Obsidian Entertainment under a development contract to Bethesda. The Creation Club is just another way for development contracts to be created and developed by people and groups who are not as advanced as Obsidian Entertainment. But the principles are the same. Accepted content developers create content and get paid for their work. The authors will be paid for developing the content at various stages of development. The completed content will be made available to the user community much as DLC is today. In short, the Creation Club is a means by which more downloadable contend can be created and be made available. Nothing more, and nothing less..

 

Now let me pose a couple of questions. What is the rate at which Bethesda fixes bugs in their game? How many free mods are there which fix bugs in Bethesda's games which never get remedied by the vendor? If nothing else, there will always be a need for mods that fix Bethesda's games.

 

How many established authors are there? How many schlubs like me will never make the cut for the Creation Club? Yet here we are, already developing content for free. And we will continue to make mods. Why? Because it is fun, because it is a challenge or just to exercise 'the little gray cells'. Or just because we want to.

 

The Creation Club will not kill free modding. All of the apocryphal predictions are just irrational fear mongering.

[MightyZ0G]

If I may, please take off the blinkers for a moment. I would like to interject some rational thought.

Now let me pose a couple of questions. What is the rate at which Bethesda fixes bugs in their game? How many free mods are there which fix bugs in Bethesda's games which never get remedied by the vendor? If nothing else, there will always be a need for mods that fix Bethesda's games.

 

How many established authors are there? How many schlubs like me will never make the cut for the Creation Club? Yet here we are, already developing content for free. And we will continue to make mods. Why? Because it is fun, because it is a challenge or just to exercise 'the little gray cells'. Or just because we want to.

 

The Creation Club will not kill free modding. All of the apocryphal predictions are just irrational fear mongering.

 

did Bethesda care that there was no modding community fixing bugs in FO3 or Skyrim for PS3 and 360?

just because there is a need doesn't mean it will be addressed. Bethesda will only sort out bug fixes if their next game gets zero sales as a protest and that just isn't going to happen.

 

the majority of modders are people who just do it for the fun, challenge and mental excercise and that is how modding should be, with the freedom to create the mods you want to make, even if others think them in bad taste or offensive.

but how would modding continue if Zenimax or Bethesda decided that free mods were competition to the Creation Club and took out C&D orders on FO4Edit or FO4SE?

sure you can create mods for everything up to FO4, but what about TES VI? all they would need to do is a small edit to the EULA and serve up those C&Ds and the next game has no modding community but lots of armour/weapon packs in lots of different colours.

 

it isn't an irrational fear to suspect that a bunch of profit hungry businessmen would jump on any chance to make a profit.

 

there is one way that CC could work alongside a healthy free modding community.

if the CC really concentrated on a few quality mods that added new game mechanics that modders could build upon then that would force people to buy that CC mod if they wanted to use any free mod that used it as a master. no-one is going to use crab armour as a master though so they need to step up their game

[PoorlyAged]

You prove my point. Irrational fear based on wild speculation, imaginary injuries and regurgitated paranoia.

 

Please think before replying. The human brain is meant to be more than filler to prevent our skulls from collapsing.

[MrJoseCuervo]

These are not imaginative fears. This has happened many times before. Remember Sierra Games? They were bigger than EA until the suits took over and ran it into the ground trying to squeeze every cent they could from that company. Rushing releases, not fixing major bugs, unfinished content or poorly implemented. We are seeing the same thing now and not only that but OUR community is being targeted, perhaps Bethesda Game Studios is as well to some extent that I am not sure about. I do have an inside scoop on some of the shenanigans going on, that's how I found out about the CC announcement 3 days before it happened, but I have no insight into the thoughts feelings or fears of the people of Bethesda Game Studios. I just know they aren't the ones pushing for this.

[AGreatWeight]

Now you say that you have inside information? Isn't that convenient.

Prove it.