Has anyone seen my jaw? It dropped on the floor and I can't find it.

To answer OP's question... I can't recall any developer that has regulated mods for their game. Not in the sense of, "You are not allowed to mod this game" and face legal trouble over it if they did. Some game devs like Rockstar have made it extremely difficult for modders to change anything. Some refuse to release dev tools. Some are the complete opposite and highly encourage modding like TaleWorlds did with Mount and Blade. Not only did they have a section on their forums but they encouraged modding, released the tools to do it easier, and even helped push some of the bigger ones into releasing standalone products.

I pretty much foresee Bethesda taking a back seat and watching what players/modders end up doing to the game. I can see a mods section of the forum here, but that's it. Would be nice if these devs would recognize the success of their games because of mods. Skyrim for example... amazing game... but it was the mods that made it replayable and really exciting for people to keep throwing hours into it. Quite a few games have stayed at the forefront because of mods.

Numbers don't always matter there. Like me for example, I picked up skyrim, played for 3-4 hours, hated it, and just returned it

Nah...Mods will be rolling out soon, Geck isn't necessary to make a mod. Only advanced stuff and to make life easier.

Your data is probably correct, however its an major diference between the people who both preorder and keep the hype alive 5 years later and the one who buy the game on steam sale and never finish it.

If you look at the people playing Skyrim today most uses mods.

In short all customers are not equal,

Have an good guess that lots of the long tail of pc sales are people going from console to pc because of mods and newer pces.

Last I have some doubt about the data seeing the mess the Skyrim achievements is in and how the probably only report steam workshop mods and the construction set came long after the game.

Finaly trying to restrict moding is likely to drive it underground this has an high chance of increasing piracy.

Note how much better Skyrim sold on pc compared to Oblivion.

I agree and SkyUI having 5.3 million downloads does not mean ti's been downloaded to 5.3 million different copies of Skyrim. I've downloaded at least 6 times (including new versions, new PCs and rebuilding PCs). I'm in no way discounting the number of people playing mods, but it's nowhere near the majority of players some modders want it to be.

Is there any doubt that Skryim would have made money if not a single PC version was sold? Mods are not something BGS could not survive without (that's my point).

So, Fallout 4 Nexus is up.

About the supposed 8-10% Skyrim PC players using mods: outside steam workshop they have no data on who uses what.

The game launcher does not phone with that data. Which is easily verifiable if you use some sort of proper firewall or packet inspector. Imagine the crapstorm of epicoseness if it did though.

If that figure is only the workshop. With Nexus being the more popular repository. And since there are quite a lot more large and small repositories and other types of sites where mods are shared. I'd honestly assume that the figure is at least 30%, and probably quite a bit larger.

But since there is no real way to actually determine real figures factoring in every player, it's all assumptions.

If I recall correctly, having watched Pete Hines explain, it was in the context of discussing console mods.

The point being that across the player base (including consoles) only c.8% play modded and bringing mods to consoles would be an opportunity to raise that %.

The gist of the conversation was:

Bethesda like that there is a modding community but they'd like it not just to be available to PC gamers.

It was from one of the panel interviews (not one of Bethesda's own) at E3.

That EULA you guys are worried about is the same standard legalese you're going to find on practically every game ever sold in the last 10 years. Including all of Beth's previous titles. That's not the EULA mods get governed by.

Wait for the CK. Check the EULA that comes with that. Then you'll know.

That number is of unique downloads. You contributed once to that number, not six times unless each one was on a different IP and/or PC.

Check http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/3863/? for proof. 5.3 million unique downloads. 10.5 million downloads total.

The smaller number tracks the number of people that had downloaded it at least once. The latter says how many times it was downloaded.

Hey, I have been away for a while as there have been no good games released to mod. Perhaps I have not looked hard enough, but I can't find any information on if the G.E.C.K. will be released with the game, or like Skyrim, come several months after the games release?

Does anyone know or point me to a source?

Thanks!

Not sure the source, but I heard that it'll be put out in January. Definitely not release day, though.

You have rules for sites, Steam has stronger rules than Nexus, in that it don't allow nudity.

Nexus has few rules here but have some including [censored].

None allows using content from other games, this is standard, some more shady sites allows this.

Where has been no move to take down this sort of sites, it can often be hard and they pop up again.

Just keeping it underground is enough.

Nobody will bother with the rules for the CK anyway just the sites, changing the CK rules might however force Nexus to change policy. I find this very unlikely and have unforeseen effects. Say forcing Nexus to ban nudity and more people will use the shady sites who is not wanted.

This talk has started because of bethesta.net and console mods. It was the same nonsense before Steam workshop.

Thanks @Marss

For some reason, this forum will not allow me to Quote anyone...

I was afraid that the GECK would be months behind the actual game. But I do plan on making my usual 'Levelers' mod for Fallout 4. I guess I will have several months to find and plan a site for it as well as what objects to use.

Yes, note that number of real unique downloads is probably an bit lower as some people forget password and change email so they re-register.

However its far above 4 million.

Data mining of steam data and other sources indicated Skyrim PC version sold less than 360 version but more than PS3.

PC version has sold more than other versions after this as many go from console to pc because of mods.

Now the real interesting thing is that SkyUI require SKSE who does not support an cracked Skyrim. Yes you might also get an cracked SKSE however this will complicate things a lot.

As far as I know "Early 2016" was the release date so that can mean into March possibly.

Individual site rules have little or nothing to do with the EULA though.

Todd said as much during E3. The tools will be out in early 2016. Which all depends on whose definition of "early" they're using.

Cool. Good to get a more... accurate... figure. At least we know what was specifically said. Early 2016, probably means the 1st quarter of 2016.

Still not release day though, lol.

Nexus has already posted there mod section for Fallout 4