Do Sony and MS Think the CC is Paid Mods? Or: Why the CC is Dumber Than You Thought

[RS13]

tl;dr: Bethesda is operating on the assumption that Sony and MS are treating the CC like paid mods, and unless Sony and MS change their policy they CC is basically DOA (and yes, maybe DOA even if they do). And Bethesda's rushed this out anyway.

 

As many of you know, the CC has downloaded almost 700 mb of files onto your hard drive. That's not awful now, but it's obviously not sustainable going forward. We could easily have more than 100 GB of mods for Skyrim SE and Fallout 4 each. Since the base consoles have only about 400 GB of effective space and since Skyrim SE+Fallout 4 take up 50 GBs by themselves, those two games could, by themselves, take up 62.5% of consoles effective storage. (And about 35% just for fallout 4!) Needless to say, most console players would just delete the game rather than lose that much space.

 

I mention console gamers because apparently this was done for their sake. Elianora put it this way: "The [problem is] console mod storage size limit and the plugin limit count. Patches like these bypass those. Source: I'm on a Creation Club chat with the BGS team as I am part of the CC." (https://redd.it/6xgucj)

 

Notice what that means: MS and Sony are treating these as like MODS. And Bethesda is right now operating on the assumption that Sony and MS aren't going to soften their stance towards the CC. Now maybe Beth is just being cautious, but I have to believe that if they had assurances in hand, they wouldn't be trying to get around a limitation that doesn't exist on the Beta platform of choice.

if Sony and MS don't soften their stance, Beth's only options are to (I) turn Fo4 into bloatware, (II) keep the number of CC mods very low or (III) give Sony the finger and have all files download only when purchased and count against the 2 GB cap. Option (II) doesn't seem likely to generate enough sales to justify the PR hammering that Bethesda's taking. Option (III) will cut out the player base most likely to buy from the CC and limit just how big the Xbox whales can be. (All the current CC content can be purchased for about $30 and takes up about a third of the allotted 2GB. That's some mighty slender whales.)

 

The upshot is that if the CC has a snowball's chance in hell, MS and Sony have to play along. And the only conclusion to draw from the Beta is that they haven't yet told Bethesda that they will. And Bethesda's rolling this out anyway. Whatever you think about the CC--and I still think it could have been (could still be?) good for everyone--its rollout is even more shortsighted than the paid mods fiasco with Skyrim. It's as though Bethesda learned nothing from that disasterpiece and even less from the hiccups bringing mods to consoles.

[FishBiter]

http://www.pcgamer.com/bethesdas-creation-club-archive-is-being-downloaded-automatically/

[Gilibran]

Solution is probably to obvious for devs to come up with it. Sign up for the CC and get a fallout4.exe and files with CC content or do not sign up and keep everything as it was prior to CC. Consolers happy, PC players happy, Bethesda happy, anyone who does not want CC happy, SE devs happy they do not have to update with every CC fart, Modders on Nexus happy they do not have to update their SE dependent mods with every CC fart, everyone happy :-)

[RS13]

Solution is probably to obvious for devs to come up with it. Sign up for the CC and get a fallout4.exe and files with CC content or do not sign up and keep everything as it was prior to CC. Consolers happy, PC players happy, Bethesda happy, anyone who does not want CC happy, SE devs happy they do not have to update with every CC fart, Modders on Nexus happy they do not have to update their SE dependent mods with every CC fart, everyone happy :-)

That's not a good solution either. Bethesda wants to sell CC mods. Letting people lock themselves out of the CC is obviously antithetical to that goal. Besides, many who signed up for the CC would do so unknowingly and they'd then face the problem of CC Bloat. Does Bethesda let them opt out later? Or are they forced to delete FO4? What if they've already purchased stuff from the CC?

 

Consolers aren't happy, because they're forced to choose between sacrificing a huge portion of their hard drive or going without the CC--which in the case of PS4 players may be their only way to get mods. That's a choice between two crap alternatives.

 

As for the script extender, they would have to update every time the CC updates, because not every PC player would opt out. Of course, they could just refuse and make players choose between microtransactions and F4SE, and while that would make things easier for them, it would only further harm the CC.

 

Basically, the only people who would be happy with this are the people who just want the CC to die, because at least they could ignore it.

[cossayos]

 

 

As for the script extender, they would have to update every time the CC updates, because not every PC player would opt out. Of course, they could just refuse and make players choose between microtransactions and F4SE, and while that would make things easier for them, it would only further harm the CC.

 

 

What concern is it of ours if something hurts the CC? I mean, you can't ask the script extender folks to run and constantly develop two versions, just for the sake of those who are into microtransactions. For me it's more important to not have some bloatware installed whenever they're updating their little cash printing scheme.

[RS13]

 

 

 

As for the script extender, they would have to update every time the CC updates, because not every PC player would opt out. Of course, they could just refuse and make players choose between microtransactions and F4SE, and while that would make things easier for them, it would only further harm the CC.

 

 

What concern is it of ours if something hurts the CC? I mean, you can't ask the script extender folks to run and constantly develop two versions, just for the sake of those who are into microtransactions. For me it's more important to not have some bloatware installed whenever they're updating their little cash printing scheme.

 

 

Sorry, I should have been clearer. I just meant that from Bethesda's standpoint that would be a disaster since practically no one's giving up F4SE to get the CC. It's one more reason they won't opt for it, and it's not a solution to the problem they've created for themselves.

[Daynen]

 

 

 

 

As for the script extender, they would have to update every time the CC updates, because not every PC player would opt out. Of course, they could just refuse and make players choose between microtransactions and F4SE, and while that would make things easier for them, it would only further harm the CC.

 

 

What concern is it of ours if something hurts the CC? I mean, you can't ask the script extender folks to run and constantly develop two versions, just for the sake of those who are into microtransactions. For me it's more important to not have some bloatware installed whenever they're updating their little cash printing scheme.

 

 

Sorry, I should have been clearer. I just meant that from Bethesda's standpoint that would be a disaster since practically no one's giving up F4SE to get the CC. It's one more reason they won't opt for it, and it's not a solution to the problem they've created for themselves.

 

Well, at this point, if the only way to get the message across is for the CC to immediately bomb, flop and get pulled, then so be it. If they have to basically hold our HD space for ransom, they have well and truly F*%&^ed up and need to face the music so the lesson can be learned once and for all.

[FishBiter]

 

 

 

 

 

As for the script extender, they would have to update every time the CC updates, because not every PC player would opt out. Of course, they could just refuse and make players choose between microtransactions and F4SE, and while that would make things easier for them, it would only further harm the CC.

 

 

What concern is it of ours if something hurts the CC? I mean, you can't ask the script extender folks to run and constantly develop two versions, just for the sake of those who are into microtransactions. For me it's more important to not have some bloatware installed whenever they're updating their little cash printing scheme.

 

 

Sorry, I should have been clearer. I just meant that from Bethesda's standpoint that would be a disaster since practically no one's giving up F4SE to get the CC. It's one more reason they won't opt for it, and it's not a solution to the problem they've created for themselves.

 

Well, at this point, if the only way to get the message across is for the CC to immediately bomb, flop and get pulled, then so be it. If they have to basically hold our HD space for ransom, they have well and truly F*%&^ed up and need to face the music so the lesson can be learned once and for all.

 

What lesson? Microtransactions are a permanent fixture on the gaming industry, there's no lesson for companies to learn - the lesson they learned was "this makes money, keep doing it" and that lesson gets reinforced every day. CC is here to stay, the only question left to ask is how long some people will continue to complain about it.

Edited September 9, 2017 by FishBiter

[mrkarol]

Bethesda will never learn since the console gamers praise CC. I used to be part of a PS4 mod community and a large amount of those players have bought CC mods. We are not the target audience, the ps4 players are.