Discussion for Workshop Paid Mods

Post » Thu Apr 23, 2015 11:57 pm

I didn't see a thread on this yet, and I know we're going to want to talk about it, so I'm making one.


Moderator edit:
Here is the official news, as some people have missed it: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1516784-skyrim-workshop-now-supports-paid-mods/

Other threads on the subject are likely to be merged or redirected here. Thanks :)

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Nomee
 
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Post » Thu Apr 23, 2015 11:21 pm

Does anyone remember the discussion we've had about paid mods since literally the Morrowind days, and we concluded almost every time that it would never happen?

And then it just happens out of (almost) nowhere?

This is by far the craziest thing I have seen in a long time. Ive not yet made up my mind about it being a good thing or not, but this changes nearly everything. Nothing has caused such mixed feelings for me in a long time.

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Ian White
 
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Post » Fri Apr 24, 2015 10:14 am

Unless it's regular DLC, no. User created mods are, and always have been, free. If it's just optional, and done to support the modder himself, then that's the purpose of something like a Patreon or Paypal.

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Ashley Campos
 
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Post » Fri Apr 24, 2015 9:25 am

Have you been to the Skyrim Workshop in the past few minutes? There are now mods with price tags.

As of today you can now make a living out of making new content for Bethesda games. This changes everything.

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Kelly Upshall
 
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Post » Thu Apr 23, 2015 10:03 pm

well this says fallout 4 will have paid mods support i will buy it on ps4 if it comes out

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Lyndsey Bird
 
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Post » Thu Apr 23, 2015 9:05 pm

Here are my actual thoughts in the interest of keeping the first post clean:

I think this is a good idea, though there will be growing pains and resistance. Having the option to give the author money, especially for mods that one considers essential to the enjoyment of the game, is great. I can see myself uploading to both Nexus (as a free alternative) and the Workshop (for those who want to offer monetary support).

In terms of pricing, I expect the market to self regulate. We're probably going to see some really expensive and really cheap mods at first. There will be modders who think their work is worth exuberant prices, and there might be users willing to pay those prices... but, in the end, much like the indie or mobile game scene, things will likely depreciate back down to reasonable (or even too cheap) amounts. We've had free mods for over a decade - no one is suddenly going to want to pay for every last thing.

I also think that they are releasing this at such an awkward time to give them (and the market) time to figure things out prior to the release of whatever they have in the pipeline. Their next game (whether it is FO or TES or something else) will doubtlessly use this system, and having time prior to launch to figure everything out is invaluable.

This would be my absolute dream scenario. Had mods been monetizable back in 2009, I probably would have kept up with modding.

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Nichola Haynes
 
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Post » Fri Apr 24, 2015 12:01 am

I'm not a fan of this proposal to be honest. I go to user created content because it is free and modders find issues and bugs the developers overlook. Not to mention it could be expensive now to get the Elder Scrolls experience I want if the vanilla game can't give that to me.

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Anna S
 
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Post » Fri Apr 24, 2015 12:20 am

This is kind of why I am having so many mixed feelings. On one hand paying for mods just seems somewhat wrong to me. On the other hand this means that there will be so much new and high quality content for Bethesda games since people can now have it as their job.

Once again, this changes everything. If I can pay the rent by making things in Tamriel, I may just go ahead and do it. I am sure many other people feel the same. This may be the start of a new renissance in modding, depending on how well it goes over.

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Sebrina Johnstone
 
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Post » Fri Apr 24, 2015 3:52 am

I think it's important to remember that this is entirely optional on the creator's part. If creators decide to charge Dumb money for their mod, no one is going to download it, and they will hopefully get the hint and make it cheaper. Or someone else will get the hint and make an alternate version that's free.

Like I said above, I personally plan on having both a free and a paid option for anything I release in the future.

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Brittany Abner
 
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Post » Fri Apr 24, 2015 12:56 pm


Correction: As of today, you can make money by copying someone else's content for Bethesda games, and passing it off as your own. That's going to to be the big game-changer.
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Kevin S
 
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Post » Fri Apr 24, 2015 8:25 am

I think the mods are a lot more vetted than that. The handful of paid mods on the workshop right now are all high quality, and I assume that theres a lot of communication with Valve to make sure it is your own work, alongside many other things.

What is interesting is that a lot of these mods use SKSE, and now they are paid for. I wonder if the SKSE team was ever contacted about this.

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Iain Lamb
 
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Post » Fri Apr 24, 2015 4:17 am

And I almost feel like in every instance, asking for a refund is going to be a fight. Just thinking of that one user who has like 100+ mods installed and the mod they just paid for breaks their. Obvious user error but they will blame the author. Heh.

We'll see how far Valve goes in terms of support.
I won't take part in any of it though. Sticking with the nexus.
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Mr.Broom30
 
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Post » Fri Apr 24, 2015 8:35 am

I see a future where all mods have to be payed for, and this is the first step in that direction. Donations are the way to go (nexus-style), that way you at least have a choice.

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A Lo RIkIton'ton
 
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Post » Thu Apr 23, 2015 9:15 pm

Many of the questions you have so far will be covered by a comprehensive FAQ that will be up on the Workshop, as far as we know all the eventualities will be covered.

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Siidney
 
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Post » Fri Apr 24, 2015 2:25 am

This is a great step forward as it encourages professionals to contribute their time towards making top quality mods. I had tried this a few years ago with my Unholy Darkness mod for Oblivion selling my voice acting files to accompany the free mod, (which they said *should* be ok) but Bethesda sent me a cease and desist after a few crybabies voiced their opinions. I moved on to make 7 Days to Die and have done very well, but now that they are doing this, I'd be interested in making mods again in my spare time. It's not that I need the money (I don't) but in order to make compelling mods it takes a year or two of your spare time to do a really nice piece of work and that time has to be compensated somehow. This will bring more professionally done mods to the community, possibly some nice DLC type stuff. Imagine if a few of the guys from Obsidian did a huge mod after hours how awesome it would be, or maybe even some of the Bethesda staff wrapping up some content that wasn't ever finished that didn't make it into Skyrim?

But before there was no way to police it or for Betheasa to share in the revenue, which Steam has done. Steam opened up early access a few years ago and we've done very well with it. It's funny I see a lot of people complain about steam but I love them, their platform has changed a lot of indy developers lives forever, mine included.

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Richard
 
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Post » Fri Apr 24, 2015 5:04 am

No different than the fact that you can make money making hats for the TF2 mercs or the Dota 2 heroes.

Personally, I think that paying for a mod should be an option to ensure higher quality work. All mods should be free regardless of content, from the mod that shuts up Nazeem to the mod that completely overhauls the game, and if you really enjoy one and want to see more from it, then you can hand the creator a few bucks. As said above, the paid mod thing should be treated more like a donation box to help the maker out, not as the only way to obtain mods. If I'm going to pay for user-made content, I'm going to want it to be worth my damn money.

If anything, the paid mod system could be used by the developers to pre-release DLC packs for a slight discount and have them tested early in the process. I'm sure that people will be overjoyed to help work out the kinks of TES VI's official add-ons, if it means playing them early.

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how solid
 
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Post » Thu Apr 23, 2015 10:22 pm

What a terrible move, well, for consumers at least.

And as much as I like a couple of the authors on that Steam page, this is going to be a permanent black spot in my mind for them. £3.35 for Wet & Cold? You must be joking.

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Jonathan Montero
 
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Post » Thu Apr 23, 2015 11:31 pm

This is also (theoretically) opening up the road to monetizing things that aren't mods. Can I charge for a TES novel, a web series, or a standalone TES game? What about modder's resources?

I'm also wondering if this is a step towards getting modded content onto consoles somehow.

If people don't pay money for mods, the modders won't make them pay-only. Look at the app store. People don't pay for mobile games, so most mobile games are free. In these first few days we're probably going to see a lot of authors charging a lot of money. But pretty soon people will figure out what the consumers are actually willing to pay.

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Matt Fletcher
 
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Post » Thu Apr 23, 2015 10:48 pm

It's the end of the spirit that was behind modding; it's very very bad.

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ruCkii
 
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Post » Fri Apr 24, 2015 12:01 pm

In my opinion there are plenty of mods that are more that worth getting donations, as I've done more than once for mods that truly deserve it. But actually paying for mods before I can download them? Sorry but that just breaks the line between paid developers and modding completely.

Offtopic rant, some of the modders that where actively reporting people who sold mods before, some of which where exceptionally good (Unholy Darkness for one), are now selling their own mods. That's a bit hypocritical in my opinion.

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Matthew Aaron Evans
 
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Post » Fri Apr 24, 2015 6:02 am

The spirit will still be there, the enthusiasm will still be there, just the modder will be able to gain a little recompense for their time and effort if they so choose.

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Taylor Thompson
 
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Post » Fri Apr 24, 2015 4:25 am

In working with Valve on this, we've brought up this up as a major concern (along with other concerns I anticipated upon announce). If you review the FAQ on the Valve announce, I think you'll see that they're going to be examining many of your concerns.

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BlackaneseB
 
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Post » Fri Apr 24, 2015 1:14 am

What about all the mods that use all these modder's resources made by unpaid members of the community?

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Jake Easom
 
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Post » Fri Apr 24, 2015 10:28 am

I feel that this move will only encourage a greedy closed-source mentality which totally defeats the original purpose and spirit of modding. Get ready to start paying for Unofficial Patches, folks... you KNOW Beth will never release bug-free games and you NEED Unofficial Patches for the game to be even considered playable. :/

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Charlotte Lloyd-Jones
 
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Post » Fri Apr 24, 2015 9:30 am

Just because, for some reason, pinned threads seem to often be invisible to forum members, :) http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1516784-skyrim-workshop-now-supports-paid-mods/

Useful info.

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vicki kitterman
 
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