Has anyone entered into Bethesda's Creation Club?

[kthompsen]

 

I'm just musing on different delivery models and how each has a different effect on the quality of products. If you take offense, I suggest to not take it so personally. Especially not an attack on you, if you keep things to yourself and don't care about users at all. Why are you interested in replying to me, if that's the case? I mean, paid modders care about customers (i.e. users) and community projects care about the very community they're working in (i.e. other users). In each case, it's about creating something to impress others.

 

I make little mods for my own use personally, so I partly understand just doing things in your own little world. I'm not much of a modder myself though. I'm a musician first and foremost, so I understand you even better from that angle. I play mostly for my own entertainment (and therapy).

I apologize if I came off harshly. The whole "modding should be done X way for Y reason" often strikes a nerve with me for a variety of personal reasons and I often make the error of replying when that nerve is still hurting. And I replied to you both out of that (unhelpful and wrong) anger as well as pushing back against the growing number of people in the community who use that particular style of argument ("modding has always been about X / modding should be done for Y reasons") to try and denigrate mod authors who don't follow their viewpoint. It's been used both in the distant past (the old Cathedral versus Parlor debates), the recent past (when paid modding was first introduced), and increasingly moreso as the Creation Club nears launch. In my anecdotal experience most of the people making this type of argument, in relation to paid modding, simply don't want to spend money on mods and use an appeal to tradition as an easy, if flawed on multiple levels, method of rhetoric.

 

And I never said that I don't care about people who use my mods - I said that I mod for myself first and foremost. The needs and wants of users are a secondary concern - if I was modding to "impress" people I wouldn't be making the mods that I do.

 

 

No prob. I'm fairly new to speaking publically (on this site at least), so I don't mean to tread old territory.

 

Just to be clear though, I support both methods of getting mods out. I only meant that the best way for "free" to compete against well polished, paid projects is for people to put their minds together in open projects. It's a good way to work out bugs and get a lot of talent. And no one person has to work full time on something like that.

 

I'd love to do it myself btw, but I really don't know where to start for the type of mod I'd like to see. Specifically a community made city mod project. It'd also be best started by someone who already is known for city mods. Not some scrub like me :P But there's so many talented people that if they put their heads together, I have no doubt it'd be something amazing that not even Bethesda could do better.

[Reneer]

No prob. I'm fairly new to speaking publically (on this site at least), so I don't mean to tread old territory.

 

Just to be clear though, I support both methods of getting mods out. I only meant that the best way for "free" to compete against well polished, paid projects is for people to put their minds together in open projects. It's a good way to work out bugs and get a lot of talent. And no one person has to work full time on something like that.

 

I'd love to do it myself btw, but I really don't know where to start for the type of mod I'd like to see. Specifically a community made city mod project. It'd also be best started by someone who already is known for city mods. Not some scrub like me :tongue: But there's so many talented people that if they put their heads together, I have no doubt it'd be something amazing that not even Bethesda could do better.

I fully support both methods as well and I fully agree with you that the likely best way for free mods / projects to "compete" with paid projects is by combining the efforts of multiple people, often in an open-source manner. We need only look at the success of Linux distributions to see that open-source projects can "compete" against paid projects (if I didn't play videogames I would be running Ubuntu / Debian full time). That all being said I would likely never join an "open" project for the same reason I don't often collaborate with other mod authors - I simply don't feel like it. :tongue:

 

And don't sell yourself too short. Every mod author in existence was a scrub when they opened up the Creation Kit for the first time. :)

Edited August 7, 2017 by Reneer

[kthompsen]

 

No prob. I'm fairly new to speaking publically (on this site at least), so I don't mean to tread old territory.

 

Just to be clear though, I support both methods of getting mods out. I only meant that the best way for "free" to compete against well polished, paid projects is for people to put their minds together in open projects. It's a good way to work out bugs and get a lot of talent. And no one person has to work full time on something like that.

 

I'd love to do it myself btw, but I really don't know where to start for the type of mod I'd like to see. Specifically a community made city mod project. It'd also be best started by someone who already is known for city mods. Not some scrub like me :tongue: But there's so many talented people that if they put their heads together, I have no doubt it'd be something amazing that not even Bethesda could do better.

I fully support both methods as well and I fully agree with you that the likely best way for free mods / projects to "compete" with paid projects is by combining the efforts of multiple people, often in an open-source manner. We need only look at the success of Linux distributions to see that open-source projects can "compete" against paid projects (if I didn't play videogames I would be running Ubuntu / Debian full time). That all being said I would likely never join an "open" project for the same reason I don't often collaborate with other mod authors - I simply don't feel like it. :tongue:

 

And don't sell yourself too short. Every mod author in existence was a scrub when they opened up the Creation Kit for the first time. :smile:

 

 

I might just test myself and see what more I can do. So far, I've just made NPCs and weapons. I'm also computing with my TV lol, but getting a new monitor soon. So I can sit and work better when that happens.

 

If anything, I probably should just make more city stuff for my own use anyways.

 

I know what you mean about gaming vs Linux.

[Ethreon]

At least one person openly said they are part of it. I know of a few others who are in. So yes, there are people in it.

[Deleted40837770User]

they can probly not say for then beth cant take credit for all their work

[BinakAlgo]

I do think that both ways to make mods could work. There are several modders that are not interested in payment at all.

 

But considering that most of us need to currency to sustain our life, I have the feeling that most the of people who develop are going to at least give a try to the Creation Club, I'm not sure what is going to happen then.

 

About the hiring/payment, I went with 25% because I think that's what Uber charges the drivers for each travel/service. In that experience, people thought it was a nice arrangement, but slowly they realized that they have to cover 100% of the costs, vehicle, driver, gas, oil, repairs, insurance, fines, accidents. Uber only gives the platform and for that, they cut 1/4 of what all drivers make and also "punish" drivers if they got a bad rating. Also, drivers had no employment benefits at all, no health insurance, no antiquity, no pension fund, etc.

 

I do think that "work from home" modalities are going to take similar approaches, and being everyone so desperate for work nowadays, people are going to accept those conditions.

 

A "freelance" employment would seem like a better option but cuts a lot of the innovation that "free modding" gives. Maybe someone wants to make a mod to form a court system in the settlements of Fallout 4, but Bethesda could say that they don't think it will work and won't green light it. So, at the end, Bethesda would tell modders what to do and that's missing the whole point.

 

Maybe the best would be a "fixed" amount of money depending on the success of the mods, like level 1 = $100 USD, level 2= $200 USD (it's just an example), and if devs don't produce enough material in a set time their contract could be terminated. But there is also the risk that, once again, being the devs pressured to deliver something, will do tons of "new swords" for skyrim mods, and none of the giant new lands or the difficult to program gameplay changes.

 

Maybe the "Valve" way could be better, buy a very popular and successful mod and give it the support and professional voice acting and acquiring all the rights to it and then sell a "much better version" of the mod that they can get for free. But things could get complicated if that mod uses open assets like textures and meshes.

 

What ever it happens, this is going to be very interesting, but I hope no one get's screwed up.

[JagMaker]

On the one side, as an example of paid work - this is kickstarter. People see that they want it, they like it, they invest in it the money to get it. If this system worked with mods -
1. people would pay 1,2,5,10 .. $ for what they really want.
2. Modders would receive more than they get now.
3. nexusmods would take 5-10% and become rich)

But mod is not a good, it can not be returned and received back money, or blocked as a game in Steam., it's not controllable as good. So while Bethesda does not think up the mod as an information product belonging to a modmaker - all this will remain as it is now.

 

other side -
All that is connected with payments is based on marketing. If we saw under every mod advertising in the style of "help develop your favorite game!" Or "every cent gives us the opportunity to make the game more interesting!" Or "help us make you happier!" - this would also work. This is the engine of trade. But, unfortunately, the only thing I found was a small, inconspicuous button to "donate." Donations, respectively, as much.

 

The third party is modmakers themselves. Their 50% who would like to receive money for mod, and 50% who just want to create (enthusiasts). If the first and second offered money for their work - both sides would agree to this. So while these "just creative" guys do not understand themselves and will continue to simply create - the mod will simply be given a freebie.

Edited August 15, 2017 by JagMaker

[BinakAlgo]

Interesting, thanks for your opinion.

 

I really didn't think about more "marketing" for Nexus and modders themselves, but that would work, along with making it "easy" to pay.

 

For example, because currency market instability and my lack of an account in USD or Euros and problems with PayPal, I can't give direct donations, or support anyone on Patreon.

 

If I could use a "universal" payment method like PaySafe Cards or something similar I could give donations in my currency right now. Heck, that's the only way that I could actually bought games, before that I had to pirate them because if they were imported they were too damn expensive or inexistent as there is little market for them here.