What happened to Dovakhiin Hideout?

[Dark0ne]

None solicitation of donations has always been a rule here at the Nexus, and it's in our terms of service. I've been CC'd in to a conversation between Thandal and Shawkab from the 16th of January (3 days after the mod was uploaded to the Nexus) where Thandal specifically tells Shawkab that he needs to remove any donation solicitation in his file description. Shawkab removed the link and the conversation was amicable. It then seems like the link to donations was added again at a later date by Shawkab, and not noticed again until recently when Dante spotted it.

 

This rule is nothing to do with us, and is because Bethesda have always disliked the idea of mod authors making money from their mods because it opens up a hell of a lot of legal horribleness. Something they don't want to deal with. Something I don't want to deal with.

 

I coded a complete donation system for the Nexus sites several months back (mod authors will be able to see the detailed thread, that has many pages of replies and feedback on the matter) but it has not gone live because Bethesda's stance on donations seemingly hasn't changed.

 

I'm going to email GStaff later on today, pointing him to the issue of solicitation of donations with Dovahkiin Hideout (among other mods) and get a final answer on the matter. If he says donations are fine, I can roll out this donation system on the sites and any mod authors who are keeping their mods off the Nexus because we don't allow the solicitation of donations are welcome to reupload their mods here.

 

Until then, you still cannot ask for donations here on the Nexus.

 

Generally speaking staff should warn mod authors first that asking for donations is not allowed, before any action is taken (they might hide the file until the author reads their PMs). If that didn't happen in this case then I'm happy to hear from Shawkab. His account isn't banned (and wasn't ever banned as far as I know), contrary to the internet rumour treadmill.

[ProjectVRD]

He spoke on his facebook lastnight, explaining a little into detail into what happened. The mod is also available via the Curse Mod Manager which works a little bit like Nexus Mod Manager. I obviously cannot say what happened, out of respect for the guy it is not my business to divulge what happened, but it doesn't look good for this mod to come back to Nexus.

[Thandal]

Added Rob to the convo.

[Dark0ne]

I have emailed GStaff the following:

 

Hi Matt,

 

I hope you are well.

 

I wanted to contact you to try and get an official response from Bethesda on the subject of mod authors asking for donations. I know, it's a touchy subject, and one I am loathe to go in to with you. But it has reared its ugly head recently and I am in need of an official response.

 

First of all I want to clarify I'm talking about completely voluntary donations here, and not "donate to receive this mod" or "donate to recieve special content for this mod" requests. The last two requests (donate to receive something) being something we refuse outright, out of hand, and will remove files for instantly. The first is something that touches a bit more of a nerve. So the type of requests I'm talking about are where mod authors write "If you liked this mod, please consider donating" in their descriptions.

 

Our policy on the Nexus has been to not allow mod authors to ask for donations on their mods. Full-stop. We adopted this policy from the start because it was my belief that Bethesda did not want authors receiving donations at all, and that it presented a nasty legal grey area that neither you or I wanted to explore further.

 

Can you provide any insight in to this? I would like to be able to allow mod authors to receive voluntary donations on their files, if they so wished, but would not cross you on this issue (indeed, I don't think I've ever "crossed" Bethesda and if I have, please let me know!). Essentially I would like to be able to tell users either (a) they can receive voluntary donations on their files or (b) our relationship with Bethesda is more important than mod authors receiving donations on their files. As it is right now we have an issue with the author of Dovahkiin Hideout (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=7611) who has pulled his mods from the Nexus because we won't allow him to ask for donations, when Curse and Steam Workshop will. So I feel we're being chastised on a policy that is being enforced to ensure we are in-line with Bethesda's ideals, when Steam Workshop is being used to ask for donations.

 

Essentially, I'd just like to know how detrimental it would be to our relationship if I were to provide a medium for mod authors to enter their Pay Pal email to receive completely voluntary donations.

 

Any information would be greatly appreciated,

 

Robin

Skyrim Nexus

 

I won't copy and paste it because it would be a breach of privacy, but If I get a response I will let you know the verdict. As far as I'm concerned, what Bethesda say on this matter is final.

[jet4571]

None solicitation of donations has always been a rule here at the Nexus, and it's in our terms of service.

 

That was my theory on why he pulled the mod.

[Korodic]

lmao, anyone of us can create a house mod. >.> To think he was so hell-bent on getting a donation that he would rather remove the mod than the donations button. I saw his response on his website and honestly he seemed very professional about it, but still it seems like a greedy thing to do to me. As I make these mods for the pure enjoyment of others, if the rules state I cannot ask for donations, then I would accept my fault and remove them from this site, but removing it all is a killjoy to fans.

[Sunnie]

None solicitation of donations has always been a rule here at the Nexus, and it's in our terms of service.

 

That was my theory on why he pulled the mod.

 

Ditto, that was overly obvious when I scanned through his blog. I suppose my (then) speculation was actually not speculation! :tongue:

[Sunnie]

lmao, anyone of us can create a house mod. >.> To think he was so hell-bent on getting a donation that he would rather remove the mod than the donations button. I saw his response on his website and honestly he seemed very professional about it, but still it seems like a greedy thing to do to me. As I make these mods for the pure enjoyment of others, if the rules state I cannot ask for donations, then I would accept my fault and remove them from this site, but removing it all is a killjoy to fans.

 

That just proves he isn't in it for the fun or for the community, he's in it for the $$ he is trying to generate. Honestly, that mod is not all that, but it got popularity because he hacked it together before the toolset was released. Now he is suffering the headaches from such folly as the mod has to be completely redone in the toolset to fix a number of issues (ran into this same thing with my arrows mod).

[Shawkab]

This doesn't need to be and didn't need to be such a large issue. I don't blame Dark0ne or anyone for removing my mod. The spotlight isn't on me, I made a few hundred off this, that is about it... If Bethesda wants that back then that's fine. Nexus on the other hand could be in huge s*** if they make even the slightest mistake with this, so I decided to just remove the sight to keep everyone in check. I think it could have been handled better, I was offended by some of the remarks, but that is in the past and I don't really blame the moderator for following the terms he agreed to abide by. The issue I have is the variety of views on the situation, not with players but by moderators, there are a few moderators who have used my mod since 0.1 and have said nothing of the issue. I had one time been banned for this exact same thing but then was told that as long as I don't directly link to paypal I would be fine.

 

The only thing I really care about is the content created by fans right now. The donations are not as amazing as most people seem to think.. I'm in no way profiting off donations, it all went into my belly in the form of energy drinks long ago. I won some money from a contest made by Curse a long while ago before CK was released and that is by far the most I have seen from modding, it bought me a new PC if you're that interested in knowing.

 

To remove all donation content I would have to remove the Book of Supporters, all Books created by players and most NPCs. 70% of the players currently in the Book of Supporters are either Testers of the Hideout, Friends, or just people who asked to be in there, I kind of figured this would happen when I put that many names in there, people email me all the time bashing me for accepting donations but in reality there isn't much there at all. I have had a few extremely nice people donate a large amount but I always thank them and always make sure that their intentions were completely of their own will and that I wasn't goating them into it in any way.. Most donators actually email me asking how or where to donate without having any prior knowledge of my donation links. So to think I'm the only one accepting donations is just silly.

 

The act of adding books and the inclusion into the Book of Supporters are just my, "thank you," to those who donated or supported in any way shape or form, they have never been a form of "gimme money and I will make you a book," all my notes on the subject state that I will add a book for anyone. I added four new NPCs that were Supporter exclusive, Two of those NPCs were made for my long time Testers, two were made for Donators.

 

If my mod has to be the guinea pig to help get donations accepted on this site then I'm fine with that. I would like to one day play a recreation of Morrowind in Skyrim and to think that is possible without contribution to the developers of that idea is just blasphemy.. The amount of man hours put into even a single quest is mind boggling. Everyone loves to say, "Oh wow, A morrowind recreation would be amazing.." but no one likes to actually think of the reality of a feat that large.. A morrowind recreation would consist of thousands upon thousands of hours by VO Actors, Scripters, Level Designers, Sound Designers and much much more.. You cannot just simply port over Morrowind and profit.

 

But yeah, this doesn't need to be a large issue. Really. I voiced a bit of my opinion on facebook which I probably should never have done but what is facebook without a bit of drama?

Edited March 9, 2012 by Shawkab

[Shawkab]

Sunnie & Korodic are perfect examples of people who take simple matters and only try to add fuel to a fire that should have never been inflamed in the first place. The hours I put into this mod would consist of a profit of maybe 5 cents an hour, at most.

 

Like Sunnie said, this mod was made way before CK and there was around 200-300 hours put into this mod before a single donation was made, since CK it has just been one big headache trying to reform it to CK standards.. One day I replied to a question about donations and received $60 from a lady who suggested I add a donation button.. I glimpsed at a few mods and saw that one or two of them had even gone to the point of making banners asking for donations, so I figured it was completely fine, and it was, for three months.

 

People are making this more then it needs to be. I tried to just keep it to nothing but how do you when people are asking where Hideout is.. I have been deleting comments praising me or bashing me or anything on the subject on the steam page and curse page all day, it really doesn't need to be an issue, can be handled by Dark0ne. (I may have deleted dark0nes comment on Steam even by accident =p)

Edited March 9, 2012 by Shawkab