nightscrawl Posted October 2, 2017 Share Posted October 2, 2017 (edited) The game will be dead to us, but we are not the audience they are courting. PC in general is along for the ride and modding is only a tool R&D uses to farm ideas and potential talent pool for the CC. But PC is the driving force behind modding, and they are mining the PC players/modders for that very talent pool you mention. Heck, they made SSE free for the PC players (Legendary owners) to help drive the SSE modding forward (to benefit the new console players) and it has. Edited October 2, 2017 by nightscrawl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ethreon Posted October 2, 2017 Share Posted October 2, 2017  The game will be dead to us, but we are not the audience they are courting. PC in general is along for the ride and modding is only a tool R&D uses to farm ideas and potential talent pool for the CC. But PC is the driving force behind modding, and they are mining the PC players/modders for that very talent pool you mention. Heck, they made SSE free for the PC players (Legendary owners) to help drive the SSE modding forward (to benefit the new console players) and it has.  And they're most likely making scraps. Come on, if they want to cut off modding they can do it and totally not give half a f*#@. Publishers are doing WAY worse s#*! and give 0 f*#@s about image. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nightscrawl Posted October 2, 2017 Share Posted October 2, 2017   The game will be dead to us, but we are not the audience they are courting. PC in general is along for the ride and modding is only a tool R&D uses to farm ideas and potential talent pool for the CC. But PC is the driving force behind modding, and they are mining the PC players/modders for that very talent pool you mention. Heck, they made SSE free for the PC players (Legendary owners) to help drive the SSE modding forward (to benefit the new console players) and it has. And they're most likely making scraps. Come on, if they want to cut off modding they can do it and totally not give half a f***. Publishers are doing WAY worse s*** and give 0 f*#@s about image. My post isn't about the general alarmist suggestion in this thread that modding is going to be destroyed by the CC. I don't think it will be. I was responding specifically to Arthmoor's suggestion that PC players don't matter for the future of modding on console. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidwalshireland Posted October 3, 2017 Author Share Posted October 3, 2017 It makes sense for developers to be aware of popular mods for development ideas. I see no issue with that. In fact I see it as a good thing. At its best it means developers are listening to players and adapting to player ideas and desires - all of which is a good thing for gaming in general. Of course when issues of money and copyright etc come into it it gets complicated. The way we do business in neoliberal capitalism requires the locking-up of creativity behind proprietary copyright laws and paywalls. It shuts down or at least hampers the natural processes of creativity. One of the underlying reasons for these changes in business practice has to do with digital delivery. How games are developed and purchased and supported has changed. There are still gamers clinging to the old high street retail model and physical ownership of a box and a disc; but most of us have moved on and are adapting to the digital age. There will be a lot of disruption and controversy as corporations and customers adapt to the digital retail environment and systems. Mistakes will be made and corporations and customers will struggle to find equitable solutions. It will take time. The responsibility of customers is to let corporations know how they feel about their products and business practices - review bombing for example, both negative and positive, is one way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gnarly1 Posted October 3, 2017 Share Posted October 3, 2017 There’s a lot of focus on what the CC means for modding but very little analysis and understanding of Zenimax’s underlying strategy. Apple, Facebook, Google and in particular Steam have demonstrated exceptionally well the sort of cashflows that can be generated from the creation of their own proprietary content aggregation, sharing and distribution platforms. These platforms aren’t just valuable because they generate revenue - they also scale extremely well so the marginal cost of adding another user is negligible. Bethesda didn’t have that and their experiment with paid mods was a disaster in part because they were piggy-backing on Steam’s platform and weren’t masters of their own destiny. They learnt from that lesson and created their own proprietary platform. It also reduces their overall risk by diversifying and increasing their revenue streams which means that if a major game release tanks, it’s relative impact is reduced. They also know that microtransactions are extremely profitable in part because there’s virtually no cost per acquisition once the user is on the platform. And because they’re potentially capturing user data from the platform more or less in real time, that data can be mined for customer insights and product offerings can be tailored to specific market segments based on actual usage patterns which increases the value of revenue per user. So in addition to creating their own platform to ride the microtransactions cash tsunami, I think they’re making a move to attract modders back in to the ‘fold’ so to speak because there’s intrinsic value in an active user base, even if many in that user base aren’t actually handing over any cash (like most of Facebook’s users), and customer data is valuable in and of itself. So no, this isn’t the end of player made mods - there’s intrinsic value for Bethesda in a vibrant, talented community improving the longevity of its games by making free stuff that, via the EULA, Bethesda has a licence to use. Effectively they’ve got a huge team of evangelists continuing their marketing effort on their behalf well after the original marketing budget’s run out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CosmicArrow Posted October 3, 2017 Share Posted October 3, 2017 (edited)  It makes sense for developers to be aware of popular mods for development ideas. I see no issue with that. In fact I see it as a good thing. At its best it means developers are listening to players and adapting to player ideas and desires - all of which is a good thing for gaming in general. Of course when issues of money and copyright etc come into it it gets complicated. The way we do business in neoliberal capitalism requires the locking-up of creativity behind proprietary copyright laws and paywalls. It shuts down or at least hampers the natural processes of creativity. One of the underlying reasons for these changes in business practice has to do with digital delivery. How games are developed and purchased and supported has changed. There are still gamers clinging to the old high street retail model and physical ownership of a box and a disc; but most of us have moved on and are adapting to the digital age. There will be a lot of disruption and controversy as corporations and customers adapt to the digital retail environment and systems. Mistakes will be made and corporations and customers will struggle to find equitable solutions. It will take time. The responsibility of customers is to let corporations know how they feel about their products and business practices - review bombing for example, both negative and positive, is one way. The one issue with developers looking to mods for ideas is execution which Beth have totally failed on. CC on FO4 launched with nothing but overpriced skins and Survival Mode for Skyrim is ill conceived in certain areas like 190 apples = 1 piece of cooked food and it completely ignores the need for water. I'm glad I got Survival mode for free because if I paid $8 for it I would have been pissed. One of the good things about digital delivery is the lack of a disc and packaging. Back in the PSone and 2 era I actually had to buy games twice due to broken discs which really sucked. The way I saw digital delivery was the customer doesn't have to take care of physical copies anymore and the game companies no longer have to worry about packaging or the reselling of games. I did not see the aggressive approach publishers and devs would make with microtransactions though and it really peeves me they are making their way into single player games with the risk of base games being chopped even further in development. Basically the customer is getting less and less value out of their games and its no wonder why so many are pissed at microtransactions. Edited October 3, 2017 by CosmicArrow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DimosZargarda Posted October 3, 2017 Share Posted October 3, 2017 (edited) I doubt it will, but if it does, you cannot blame Bethesda only the modders, because it is still their choice weather they want to create mods for free or money. I myself am not a modder, but so far they get nothing else but a thank you for their work, if they want to make money of it, im cool with it Edited October 3, 2017 by DimosZargarda Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baer2x4 Posted October 3, 2017 Share Posted October 3, 2017 For me and maybe only me, it signals the probable end of Bethesda. When I launched SSE today it was updated by Beth & I got a pop-up that said some of my mods would not work in this version. Don't know how or if I even can roll back. All this makes me sad & angry. Just another company out to make as much money any way possible. Wish they had the integrity of the modders here. (just a view of a noob) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zanderat Posted October 3, 2017 Share Posted October 3, 2017 For me and maybe only me, it signals the probable end of Bethesda. When I launched SSE today it was updated by Beth & I got a pop-up that said some of my mods would not work in this version. Don't know how or if I even can roll back. All this makes me sad & angry. Just another company out to make as much money any way possible. Wish they had the integrity of the modders here. (just a view of a noob)^^^You only need to update SKSE64.................. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glaseye Posted October 3, 2017 Share Posted October 3, 2017 Well, don't use SKSE64 (yet), but after the update, my game won't start at all, got the notification from the logitech drivers that my skyrim profile was loaded, and then nothing..... maybe it is a mod causing it, but figuring out which might be a pain in the ....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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