[Ronald]

The community, and modding in general, will not change unless we make it change. Today we saw some really, really ugly stuff. Flaming mod creators, or people who think that this isn't the end of the world, is not ok. All this did is give modders the possibility of getting paid for their work. It didn't eliminate free mods, or other hosting sites, and it's not going to. If modders stop modding or stop helping eachother it will be the decision of those modders, NOT a necessary result of the potential to earn a few $

If you don't like this decision... don't support it. Don't buy the mods, don't use the workshop. Continue on with life as usual. Being a jerk to creators hurts the community in a very real, tangible way, *right now*. Not in a hypothetical what if future, but right now.

As for the 25% revenue. It's not great, and I wish it was better, but it's pretty standard as far as I know. I run an online store where I make an average of about that per sale. I get paid out regularly. In other words, it's not the best deal, but you absolutely can make money from it.

[Joie Perez]

It says I don't have permission to post links. The subreddit is literally called Skyrimmods. It's the stickied thread at the top.

[Mel E]

Btw, more and more i think that the community has to get the handle of things. I hope that some day we will have a open-source game with similar style to Skyrim and same ability to be modded. I don't even care if it's worst but it just shows how we can't really trust corporations. I'm learning to do 3d modelling and i was thinking about doing stuff for Skyrim but if there is no guarantee that my stuff will never be used on a paid mod them i'll just not go forward with that.

Also, about what i said before, i know about OpenMW but it still uses assets and the setting by Bethesda so while the engine code is open source the game as a whole is still not communal, still owned by a corporation.

[Tiffany Holmes]

I think Bethesda can put a stop to this nonsense if they just let us know their intentions. If they plan to kill off the Nexus, by making modding future games a SW exclusive for example, that would be very bad. The lack of forthrightness has me the most upset.

[Emma-Jane Merrin]

Just saw this announcement awhile ago.

I'm curious how this affects paid mods dependent upon SKSE, like Wet and Cold. Do the mod authors have to compensate the creators of that utility? Even if they don't, I would think it would irk guys like ianpatt and behippo to know all their hard work given freely to the community is now being used by certain individuals to benefit monetarily. EDIT: N/M just read some responses above mine. Ugh, how disappointing.

As somone who recently reinstalled Skyrim a couple months ago to play on and off, I'm dubious of this entire proposition. I currently have 116 mods installed via Mod Organizer. I must have tried out well over 300 mods before discarding most due to personal taste, incompatibilities, etc. I see the Steam mods being offered around 1-5 dollars apiece currently. There is no way in hell I would shell out hundreds of dollars for trying out hobbyist mods lacking professional polish and support. Yes, I know about the supposed refund policy, but unless I'm not understanding it correctly, that only applies to mods that are defective or broken in some way, If it just doesn't appeal to you after paying up, oh well. Too bad so sad!

Mod authors frequently abandon their work or make changes undesirable for fans of their mods. When it was free, that was perfectly fine and their absolute right seeing how they were doing this out of the goodness of their hearts for the community. Money changes that equation dramatically. Look for players plunking down cold, hard cash to become much more demanding regarding support and updates.

I'm not looking forward to watching mods get slowly removed from or no longer being udated/supported on the Nexus and other free sites only to vanish behind the Steam paywall. It's already happening with some popular mods like Wet and Cold and Arissa on day one.

[Isaac Saetern]

I saw many posts of modellers and asset creators, like i want to become, deciding not to work with Skyrim anymore for fear of their work being sold and they getting absolutely nothing for it. Afaik Valve gave permission for Chesko to post Art of the Catch even while knowing that he did not have Fore's permission and it was him, not Valve, that pulled the mod off once Fore gave his opinion.

Content creators don't have any guarantee that their work will not be stolen and monetized and that Valve will not actually encourage it since Chesko himself said that if it's freely available for download it's ok.

[Shirley BEltran]

There will be WAY more aggressive behavior towards mod makers from people. Either upset that X mod is behind a paywall, or upset the X mod they paid for is not what they expected. Hell people used to get entitled when mods were free, think how bad it'll be with money involved. I sense deaththreats and mod makers ending up leaving for greener pastures.

If a person releases a mod for free only on Nexus, and someone steals it an releases it on the workshop to trick the uninformed....how hard is it going to be to get that paid version taken down? Valve policing policy on Early Access and Greenlight clearly show they don't give any damn about the content on their service.

How does a mod team that wants to monetize their work going to do it? I've worked on teams who's members are located all over the world. That just seems like another way to drive wedges between modders, either team work will have to be free or contracts will have to written up to handle the money.

As others have said, the percentages are pathetic, 25% to the mod creator is a ripoff and only truely big mods could make that viable. But big mods need teams (see above). Mods also won't get big if they are held behind a paywall. So either they start free and stay free....or down the line they switch to a paywall....(see deaththreats aggressiveness)

Towards the end of my modding days I started to just make modding resources for others to use. I couldn't care less about people using those small resources in a paid mod....but I bet others would with their work. Is there going to be a reduction in resources with this system? Maybe.

I am not against paid mods, but not in this way. The amount to the modder is way too low and if you compare mod prices to OFFICIAL DLC you can clearly see most are a ripoff. Total Conversions or Large Questline mods are the sort of thing that deserve to be paid mods, no every little model or gameplay tweak someone made.

[ImmaTakeYour]

I'm not going to blame Bethesda. They're a company and they need to make money, that's how it works modders on the other hand should know better. Especially ones who have been in the community for years. Bethesda is taking the risk to try something new and while that something new is awful and won't last for long as given evidence with the massive backlash authors have been getting and the backlash on the forums.

Isoku who took suggestions, bragged for months about the features of the new version only to go "Lol pay me five dollars" and then gave a "Meh, sorry but not sorry" attitude in his "apology" and explanation post are a problem and the title "sell-out" very much applies to him.

[vicki kitterman]

You're right it will not end modding but it will divide a community. Precedent that is been set here today can open the door for a for some really nasty possibilities.

There is no way to avoid either of these outcomes with the allowance of paid content.

[Erika Ellsworth]

Perhaps you could explain your situation better because it sounds like you are more anologous to Steam/Valve in this case rather than the mod authors themselves.

[ezra]

By the time Fallout 4 comes out, you will be dead wrong. And I am appalled that mod authors and prominent voices in the community such as yourself are not up in arms about the 25%. It's clearly exploitation.

[Laura Mclean]

That's probably because Valve/Steam themselves can't get in trouble for selling the content per their TOS/UELA. I'm guessing Chesko would be 100% liable if there was any sort of legal situation involving fore.

Not saying that's why Chesko took it down, but rather that's why Valve okay'd it going up when the whole thing was somewhat questionable.

[Robert]

I agree, unfortunately.

[Kara Payne]

This has definitely killed any excitement I would have felt when they announce the next Fallout or Elder Scrolls especially since they will probably use a new engine that will make it easier for them to confine mods to the steam workshop.

Goodbye nexus and mod organizer.

[OnlyDumazzapplyhere]

I was really excited to see what new game Bethesda was going to announce at E3, but I know that the steam workshop was updated before E3 for a reason. It worries me about the coming months. I lost a lot of faith in my favorite game franchise today. We should all be worried about the future of the games we love.

PS don't forget to buy that season pass *chuckle*

[ZzZz]

Check out spreadshirt.com. They let you design items and run a store, just like Steam does. Each item costs a flat fee, all of which goes to spreadshirt, and the creator can decide to charge more on top of that to get paid themselves. It's not the same payment structure as Steam, but I am 'leasing' space on their storefront, like I would with steam, and they are taking the majority of every sale I make, just like Steam.


Care to make this a wager? numerous mod authors have said that they've got no plans to take cash. Unless Bethesda has completely recoded how they handle mods, we'll be able to keep sharing and downloading them for free.

[Veronica Martinez]

The mods being paid for is backfiring massively.

Bethesda Softworks and VALVe shot themselves in the foot.

Apparently 2 hours in after the announcement 10,000 PC gamers were complaining that mods should be free. There is a petition now with 14,000 signatures.

Then there is reddit which is blowing up.

Also I read so many comments of PC gamers who are now leaving Steam permanently as in not purchasing video games from Steam anymore and flocking to purchase video games from other digital distribution retail services like gog.com and Electronic Arts (EA's) Origin.

Tomorrow this news will possibly be exploding.

[Jordyn Youngman]

Do you have a link to the petition?

[Lucky Girl]

Can't link petitions on this forum.

[Hope Greenhaw]

As a modder I can certainly understand the temptation of getting paid for the labour. I've personally given my mods hundreds if not thousands of hours of development time. So I can see why similar modders would want to jump on board.

I think we can find a balance like timed exclusivity or something. I'm more worried about the long term impact through sites like the Nexus and dark creations and TES alliance.

[Justin Bywater]

The cool thing about modding is that it was always a hobby. No way I am paying a cent ever for a mod. I will stick with the Nexus and whatever does wind up there going forward.

[Sweet Blighty]

Not sure... Are you a lawyer? I'm not even sure if there is a precedent with stuff like that or if we are on legal "no man's land" here. Maybe there was something on the past for people monetizing on stuff under licenses that do not allow derivative commercial work? I even think there are some Creative Commons licenses that cover that (Creative Commons was what i was thinking of using about assets and mod i produce).

I believe the Chesko took it off because he felt that since Fore did not agree it was wrong for it to be sold, but i'm not sure if there is much that can be done legally against someone that uses your freely available work on their mods, specially if we consider TOS/EULA.

I do think this is going to be a turning point for the modding community and ever for groups of pirates. This might create a precedent in the future that will migrate to more serious issues and interest the Pirate Party and people on the Copyleft movement but that is basically myself overthinking it.

[Glu Glu]

A quick search shows that this already attracted the attention of pirates. It's gonna get ugly.

[LADONA]

I'm sure steam if they wanted to implement DRM they could check the checksums of files of paid mods if not purchased in the players steam account then remove them from the data folder.

[Lisha Boo]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoYWdHe4tQ4

That is all

It will be interesting to see how everything goes in the future