[Chloe Botham]

I don't get the argument going on right now.

If you're hired to bug report, it's QA. You get paid.

If you report bugs out of your own free will and weren't hired to do so, you'll get a thanks and no payment.

[Jessica Stokes]

Of course it's sabotage. It's intentionally crippling a part of the mod and really only ends up punishing some of the mods users. Because it really does nothing to the SkyUI team or anybody else. If somebody really wanted to protest SkyUI, they would quit using it and strip all of the MCM stuff out of their mods completely, instead of still relying on that particular team's work to better their own work when they seem so morally opposed to the SkyUI team's actions. That right there would be a far better protest than one that only affects users of said mods.

[Samantha Mitchell]

No but if you did fall on it you could claim for damages.

PS. Poor anology.

[Hannah Barnard]

I'm just going to throw this out here because I haven't seen it mentioned yet. I see a lot of variations on arguments about "why shouldn't modders be compensated for their time and efforts" and responses of "donations or patreon are a better answer than a steam paywall". The Nexus generates significant income from add revenue, using the uncompensated work of modders. Nobody I've seen has suggested that the Nexus share add revenue with the modders who are paying their bills. I never view youtube but this seems to be how it works. If youtube worked by demanding payment from viewers it would not earn a penny, and I think that largely applies to the issue of asking mod users to be paying modders. Now that Bethesda and Valve have opened the door to compensating modders, maybe this should be on the table for discussion.

[Nadia Nad]

Possibly, another way to look at it is how some people find day zero vulnerabilities and require compensation before reporting the bug.

[sarah taylor]

Eh. It kinda was, but it's the first one that leaped to mind.

A better one that a friend came up with:

Do you demand to be paid for putting the clothes you tried on back on the rack? That's their job, after all.

[Jessica Nash]

Gopher's open letter to Valve, mostly with alternative ideas on how they could've/should've gone about things. An interesting listen if you're against the terrible model but not pay-for-mods on principle:

https://soundcloud.com/gophergaming/paying-for-mods-gabe-what-were-you-thinking

[Erin S]

No, it in fact will not continue to be so. Every single mod that's downloaded for free from some other site will be seen by Valve and Beth as lost revenue. Sooner or later, they WILL issue takedown orders. Technically, anything that's added to a Beth game becomes Beth's property, so they will be able to, and more to the point WILL, successfully argue that competing sites are pirating their property.

Make a note of that right now. I guarantee it will happen.


You're not going to have a choice. Free mod sites WILL BE shut down. That's absolutely guaranteed, since every single download of a free mod will be seen by Beth and Valve as lost revenue and they're not going to stand for that. They didn't become multi-million dollar companies by accident.

When this goes through, you'll have two choices (three really) - you'll be able to pay to mod your game or you'll have to play the vanilla content for free. If you're not willing or able to pay for mods, YOU WILL NOT GET MODS. (except for the third option, which is a touchy subject hereabouts and I'm not sure if I can address it even in this context).

[Andrea P]

You know I have users of my mods who actually do proffesional QA (high wombat if you are reading this ) and not only simple bug reporting for free if I ask them and are very happy that they help out. I appreciate that a lot and it is one of the reasons why my mods always will be free.

[lucile davignon]

I doubt it. Beth is not terminally stupid and that is shooting themselves with anti-tank guns in the feet.

[A Dardzz]

Which obligations has this mod developer to you, MCM or SkyUI?

[Leonie Connor]

Really glad Gopher is being a force of reason in this.

[Portions]

They're doing it right now since their games have thrived off modding and they're effectively killing it.

[Chenae Butler]

So, what you are saying, is that paid modding can only exist when there are thousands of free mods for you to use to fill up your mod list.

[Alyesha Neufeld]

I... I think I hit the max character limit... :/

I don't know, maybe because every time money gets involved things always takes a turn for the worse?

There's a reason it's called modding and not "producing DLC" you know

Stop them from what? From thinking that big numbers is the end all? That's their own detriment. The more they're obsessed, the worse their condition will be, they'll stop on their own.


I couldn't quote since the thread got locked. Blame mobile view and the horrible desktop view, I haven't used desktop view for approximately 4 years

I have. I have seen what DLC and Early Access did to the gaming industry. None of them are pretty, and at least DLC and Early Access had some justification for them back when they started.

You, however, haven't considered the future. You consider a future where people can get rich from modding, you imagine a future filled with yet another Notch of Gary Newman, and everybody is happy.

Not a fat chance. Thanks to DLC, now each store has their own pre-order exclusive and you need to get the Definitive Pack to get everything, and DLC started out as small expansion packs.


You imagine and you hope, but I've seen the evidence so far. For parties that get a cut, Beth and VALVe have done nothing for Chesko, their poster-child. The only scenario you have is in the future. Well people also said that in the future, things will be grim, and with the current events, it'll only lead to the latter.


Because finance is a fickle thing:
You'll earn income, not donations, so you'll most probably need to file a tax on that too.

Don't have to worry about DMCA? Tell that to Arissa

Don't have to market it? And how will you earn money from it? Even Free2Play need to market heavily to keep the revenue stream, and they're not behind paywalls!

You need to pay people for their work, that's what royalty is. Once your mod is for sale, if you include someone else's work you need to pay them royalty. The better your mod is, the higher the chance you'll use 3rd party content, because not even Archimedes could invent the airplane, and he was the Walking Library of his time. The more royalty you need to pay, the less your income is, and if you want to get enough money to justify all your hard work, you need to raise the price to take into account the royalties. Or, you just bite it and pay for a one-time payment license up-front before you sell anything.


Mod reviewers are honest because no money were involved. Once money is involved, everything goes. Video game reviewers have been known yo get "incentives" from publishers to create favorable reviews. Ubisoft placed review embargo knowing full well Unity was a steaming pile of excrement. Those "reviewers" you trust? Heh. You better trust them when they say that no, that gilded pen they got from a mod company does not bias their view at all.


You say that you can't find any appreciation in the scenario with your mod, if you don't count via numbers, then what?

I already told you appreciation is when someone told me they like my mod. That's enough. Someone else shared my taste, that's good.

I addressed everything I could address, now, if only you can tell me the future that is "not black and white" and that I "have not considered" is.

Because the present is a big, huge, excrement hurricane

[Mr. Ray]

Does this open the door for console mods as bethesda would own the mod?

[Lloyd Muldowney]

No, I doubt it.

[Skivs]

Curiosity: is there a list of mod around that were removed from the nexus ? I saw shezrie stuff being removed, but I'm curious..

[M!KkI]

Heard about 70+ mods hidden, Apollo said in reddit he's hidden all his mods for now. dunno about others.

[Javaun Thompson]

I've seen it mentioned once or twice, but you've got a point.

Here here.

[OJY]

They are!? The Nexus is goin.. wait, no it's not. Gopher made this point: IT'S NOT KILLING THE MODDING SCENE.

It won't. Sims2 went paid modding, and then the paid modding sites folded.

No. Paid modding would exist regardless, my point is that I don't use paid mods because while I agree that people should be able to charge if they want, I don't think the majority of modders will.

[Tracy Byworth]

If someone goes to a modder (who gets paid for having his mods in Steam paid service) and tells him" give me a fee,and i'll give you a bug report", can the modder say no, it's fine,will wait till i find it on my own or someone tells me for free.

Yeah, the modder can say no, it's his right. He didn't hire him to investigate. On the other hand, it could be irresponsible to the customers of said modder,who have problems playing, or even broken saves, cause of the bugs, and wait for the fix, perpetuating their damage. And they would be pissed if they found out the modder could fix them sooner.

[Claudia Cook]

... You're completely ignoring the point that the modding community was a shadow of its former self. You're forgetting the exact point you saw earlier about what happened to Minecraft, to GTA...

Modding will be here. Will it be a shadow of its former self? Yes.

[Bonnie Clyde]

Didn't the modding community for sims 2 split into two different factions cause of that?

[Thomas LEON]

They did but sadly after the legal free mod sites for SIMS 2 where heavily damaged and the others have gone underground.... Not what I want to happen for Beth games.