Is Community Action the Answer to Bethnet's Problem?

[blaze1514]

This is regarding the issue on Bethesda.net. The stolen mod issue. I know I am late to talk about it, but I have work and needed a bit of free time to actually post.

[edit:]This issue is probably discussed in joint with people on Bethesda.net. I have made a second thread there to discuss this. Just remember that any criticism of their actions so far will get the thread shut down. Please keep that sort of thing on this thread here. https://bethesda.net/community/topic/180510/community-action-against-mod-theft

I want my position to be stated right off. I think this is a very NON-ISSUE. Stolen mods exist all over the internet. The only reason it seems to be a rampent issue on Bethnet is because its the only service you can use to install mods for consoles. If there were 3-5 different services that would allow such a thing, it wouldn't be be as concentrated on Bethesa's site. This is coming from a guy that had led game projects and was an avid forum goer here (in Fallout NV) and on Sugarbombed.

Now my position being stated, I do understand the need for something to be done. Crimsomrider had his/her own thread on Bethnet, but it was locked. https://bethesda.net/community/topic/140089/wip-mod-piracy
In his thread he brings up many points and ideas. Most are too extreme for me. I felt getting rid of private mods on Bethesda.net was wrong, and I definitely believe that doing the same to WIP mods is bad as well. Leaving the ability for a group of friends or testers to have a private (or semi private) mod uploading area is good. Though I will get into this more farther down.

My solution takes care of one of the main issues with the stolen mods. Taking down the publicity and income of the you-tubers that spread them.
https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/policies/#community-guidelines
In YouTube's community guidelines, there is a specific form for reporting illegal acts (I would have just copy and pasted the exact section, but the page only would load in Spanish). Taking part in, and promoting copyright theft of a mod-maker's assets (and many game dev's assets) is against the law. We as a community need to start flagging these youtuber's videos. We need to take action against the real crooks here. The ones spreading the stolen content around need to be silenced, before we can do anything else. Right now its so easy to get stolen mods because of the publicity, if we take that away, then they can upload all the stolen things they want, and very few will even know.

If possible we should do the same thing for any of these people that are using patreon. Reporting their accounts by enough people, with simple and clear reasoning could have patreon take action against their accounts as well.

There are people on Bethesda.net that do want the right thing.
https://bethesda.net/community/topic/178517/crimsonrider/3
This being the case, I will make a second thread there, saying my idea. I hope to get some feedback, and will try to avoid getting the thread shut down by the moderators. [edit: link] https://bethesda.net/community/topic/180510/community-action-against-mod-theft

Now on the point of WIP section. I think that maybe a limit for the number of people that can download a WIP mod could help this. Make the limit 5-10. That would still give leeway to beta testers, and keep the ability to have a WIP mod. However it wouldn't be available on mass, like they are now.

Edited January 19, 2018 by blaze1514

[jjb54]

 

I want my position to be stated right off. I think this is a very NON-ISSUE. Stolen mods exist all over the internet.

 

Just because it is happening, does not mean it's right. Theft is wrong, period. It's this attitude that is killing a lot of mod creations and some just out right taking their mods totally OFF NEXUS - STEAM.

 

Beth does not really care. It's seriously " ... not their concern ... ".

 

Until Beth actually steps up with some serious Protocols and FOLLOW THROUGH with them .... well, nothing is going to happen. Their ( Beth's ) inaction's actually feed the problem. Why? The people who take other people's mods and such, KNOW BETH WILL DO NOTHING ABOUT IT ... thus, " no worries " ... and thus, Beth Feeds the problem.

 

[blaze1514]

 

I want my position to be stated right off. I think this is a very NON-ISSUE. Stolen mods exist all over the internet.

 

 

Just because it is happening, does not mean it's right. Theft is wrong, period. It's this attitude that is killing a lot of mod creations and some just out right taking their mods totally OFF NEXUS - STEAM.

 

Beth does not really care. It's seriously " ... not their concern ... ".

 

Until Beth actually steps up with some serious Protocols and FOLLOW THROUGH with them .... well, nothing is going to happen. Their ( Beth's ) inaction's actually feed the problem. Why? The people who take other people's mods and such, KNOW BETH WILL DO NOTHING ABOUT IT ... thus, " no worries " ... and thus, Beth Feeds the problem.

 

 

I know my opinion is unpopular. I just wanted to make sure everyone knew right of that I wasn't a zealot of this issue. I see the reasoning and understand why it is wrong. My personal belief is that you cannot stop human nature, and piracy of mod authors work is part of that. Large billion dollar industries have been pouring money into anti-piracy for years, and they haven't made a real dent. I think that the idea of stopping all illegal mods on Bethesda.net is futile. I also think that when you take into consideration the fact that Bethnet is the only site/service for millions of people to modify content on their systems... the illegal content here is probably negligible. If we compare all stolen/illegal mods that exist for F4 on other modding websites, and compare them with the Nexus(and other legal mod sites), I am sure that the ratio is probably similar.

 

Now with all of this said, I do think that at the fact this is the only service means that its a lot easier to manage any illegal content. With enough effort we might be able to cut this river down to a small creek.

 

That is why I have brought up the ideas of going for the YouTubers that promote the mods themselves. If we cut the publicity, then we have illegal mods that only get 5-10 downloads... instead of 50-100. The same goes for the limit of WIP seeders. If only 5-10 "testers" were aloud to download WIP mods on the site, then it could help cut down on the giant rush.

 

I also encourage you and everyone else to go and look at the sister thread to this on Bethnet. Link has been edited into the original post.

Edited January 19, 2018 by blaze1514

[dragonslayer2k12]

The problem is not just beth it is consoles if this game was not on console we wouldn't be having a problem with beth right now because console hordes would not care about this game at all and thus point their herd attention somewhere else.

[blaze1514]

The problem is not just beth it is consoles if this game was not on console we wouldn't be having a problem with beth right now because console hordes would not care about this game at all and thus point their herd attention somewhere else.

I find your attitude slightly disturbing. I agree that consoles themselves suck, the people are not the issue. As I just mentioned, there are just as many stolen mods for PC. they just are on other download sites. Meaning us in the PC space do the same thing as the "console hordes".

 

I think Bethesda's inaction is a problem, but I don't think we can do anything about that, not very easily anyway. I think that the idea of console mods is amazing and very beneficial to modding as a whole. It opens up ideas and possibilities from millions. However the close-minded and poor way Bethesda has implemented this has been a very detrimental factor. Hell even now, they have 5gb of console mod room for Skyrim, but still the same 2gb of space for Fallout 4. Its insane. They say that Microsoft has to make the change... but they leave it at that, and refuse to actively try and get them to do so. Its been a publicity stunt for them, and that is all. That is why all these issues are happening.

 

With all that said, there is nothing you or I could really do to change Bethesda's attitude. So what can we as a community do with the cards we have been dealt?

[ZeroAndOne]

<.<

Edited February 5, 2018 by ZeroAndOne

[dragonslayer2k12]

I find console users extremely disturbing one of them always manages to get a patreon account going and slap their address on someone else work and the only reason why hidden mods on beth site are hidden is because console users are trying to port mods to console and keep them going so mods like CBBE are often posted and hidden and there is always that one jerk that tries to sell CBBE. Look at all the console user begging in the comments section of every mod to please port it to console. Almost a third of comments for any mod are begging for console port comments. I don't care if console users manage to get a mod working on console that wasn't released by author as long as they credit the original author and don't try to monetize it but that is almost never the outcome. Once beth finally does something about it the mod gets yanked and it is removed from any consoles it is on I assume. Console is the testing ground for doing worse things with creation club and making things worse for pc users later on. Long term this whole selling other ppl mods thing will push people into those hidy hole sites on the net where only a few hundred or less users have mods from a site similar to those korean mod sites.

 

I don't think anything can be done about this and it is looking like a sign of problems in the gaming industry long term. Console is the cow that will be milked to death right in front of everyone. They tried it with cell phone and tablet games but that market is not what they thought it would be. All they have left to care about is console market and when it crashes they will eventually come crawling back to pc users but this time we should just let them rot for a while and keep our money.

 

The only effective way for anything to change is for the trend in general to go way down for console and pc for a long time and finally crash. One or two of us stop buying their games doesn't make a difference but when just about everyone is tired of games then we see some action.

[Evangela]

You're all on your own with any issues involving mods. Bethesda wont help. If this were years ago, maybe.

[blaze1514]

You're all on your own with any issues involving mods. Bethesda wont help. If this were years ago, maybe.

That is why I was hoping to try and get some feedback on a possible community action against the illegal mods. However it seems that everyone here has a disdain for the console users. Which is very misplaced... and that isn't just an opinion. Its an educated assessment based on the societal aspects of this situation. console user doesn't equal bad. Just like PC user doesn't equal good. We both have good and bad. I will agree that its.. 'more than annoying' to see the constant stream of "please port this" messages. However I feel almost as if us PC people are the rich and well off, while the console users are poor and starving people that were just let into our area. However they aren't aloud to eat unless we give them food. The last line of that analogy is the issue. Modding on consoles is good for gaming, but the obvious mistreatment of the console users is a big problem. If Bethesda had let a company that specialized in mod managing (*cough* Black Tree Gaming AKA Nexus) port their own mod manager to use with consoles. And just told them to keep out adult content... this issue wouldn't be an issue. It would have been the most obvious choice too... if sharing mods was honestly about the love of the community BS that Todd Howard spouts.

However we all know that that wasn't the real reason. It seems that the mod size limit, the terrible mod manager, and the restrictions on PS4 are all helping to feed into Bethesda's "Creation Club". Hell, I even saw someone say "You need to put your mod on creation club so PS4 can use it."< That is the point. They are wanting everyone to pay for mods, and they are doing everything they can to push console users to do this. We can't do much about this fact

 

Then on the other coin. Some console users dislike us because they think we are selfish and don't understand us or why Mod Authors wouldn't want to share things there that they do here. Then a majority of them have given up, and keep waiting for Bethesda to change, or have given up hope on it altogether. They don't even want to try talking with us. That is what the other thread I posted seems to suggest anyway.

 

However the fact is that the console users on Xbox still have a way to mod, and it does have issues. Could we as a community come up with a way to make it better? For them, and for the modding community as a whole?

 

(side not: when I got done writing that bit about the starving masses I realized that PC vs mods is a good Capitalism/Libertairanism vs Communism/socialism thing. PC, generally costs more up front, but is much more personal and gives you more freedom of choice. Console, cheaper up front and meant for everyone, but is very limited and compared to the alternative, is very lacking and highly restricted.)

Edited January 20, 2018 by blaze1514

[jjb54]

Problem is, blaze1514 - Beth will NOT listen to the Community. You could push any idea you want, but it will fall on DEAF BETH EARS.

 

See: BETH COULD CARE LESS.

 

So let me know if you come up with an idea that will 1st - Get Beth to CARE.

 

. o O ( good luck with that one. )