[Cathrin Hummel]

Yes the "Urheberrecht" (as it is called in my country, we have a bit of a different copyright law as US) if a mod author doesn't want it. It won't happen with one of my mods ever.

[sam westover]

EU and the US also have a different view on intellectual propriety

In the US the intellectual property can be transferred or relinquished as a whole, in Europe the author retains the moral rights over the work of intellect and they cannot be alienated, not even by contract. (it would be the same as, for example, forfeiting any other right granted by law. No contract can force the applicants to waive it).

[DeeD]

Watch out, we got an agent from Zenimax Damage Control over here.

Educated guess aside, non-profit organizations survive solely from donations, if Bethesda sees non-profit modders and instantly think of a way to corrupt them into greedy aholes, the Devil is going to reserve a throne for them to the right of Fuhrer

[jodie]

Well they have figured those steps out long ago if they are the least bit competent...

Oh, wait

[RAww DInsaww]

I cant imagine there is any legal reason. They employ outsourced developers all the time to create assets for their IP's.


I'm sorry but Gabe's reasoning is complete [censored]. It rewards everyone who wants to throw some crap up on the curated workshop.

Plucking top tier modders from the community to build things in an official capacity (with support) not only is a better incentive for modders to do better, but also won't mess with the collaborative process that is making mods so good right now.
It took years to build that level of trust and friendship in the community. And those mods are better than anything that is currently up on the WSC.

[Tamara Dost]

Maybe you asked for it, I didn't!

Maybe some modders campaigned in our back so that Valve and Beth initiate the whole paid mods system, I didn't!

[Brian Newman]

Trying to play catchup.

You're closer to the mark with your "official" and "unofficial" talk. I don't see the point in going over the actual definitions of the terms DLC and mod again. There were already pay-for mods before Skyrim, for the games that Valve owns. Back in the day there were pay-for mods for The Sims. Still mods.

After all, what happens if/when the minimum price of a mod can be set to $0.00? Making the "pay" part completely optional and essentially a donate button that Valve/Beth get a cut from? Are those "mods" or "DLC" in your books? If they're DLC, are they still required to be supported? Why, when most people probably won't pay for them?

You see why your argument falls apart? I'm fine if we want to put a specific label on them, a better one than "paid mod", so there's a distinction, but to say they're "not mods" is inaccurate. That's not being pedantic. That's being correct.

I have. In the last thread I gave 4-5 different alternative models off the top of my head. I linked to a podcast from Gopher discussing further alternatives. All I can do is make posts; I can't control whether you see or read them.

By telling modders what they should or shouldn't be allowed to do. That's never sat well with me and never will. That won't protect the future of modding, even if pay-for mods go away.

I'm focusing on modders getting paid because that IS the environment now. Sure some mods require you to pay for them, does not mean you will have to pay for all mods for the next Fallout and/or Elder Scrolls.

See how easy it is to come up with hypotheticals? We can "what if" all day to absolutely no end. That's why I focus on the concrete.

Good will is a resource, a currency, in business (in anything really). Companies generate goodwill in order to leverage it in some way. They don't inherently get anything from people liking them; they get money from people who buy their products because they like them. Lots of people here have brought up the fact that the moddability of Bethesda games has already brought them money because people buy their games in order to mod them. That's probably true to some extent. It brought them goodwill, but they only care about that goodwill because it might mean bigger sales and profits. They can't bank their goodwill, they can't go buy food or cars or yachts with it. They turn goodwill into money, one way or another. This is just one more attempt at doing so, which may or may not be successful.

You think companies like spending money and resources on their public relations and customer service departments? No. They'd rather pocket that money and keep it. They do it because they think the money and resources they invest in PR and CS will lead to greater returns in the long run.

As to why they should create good content...they should because they still have to sell games. Sales of mods will never replace sales from the actual games. If they put out poor quality games, demand will go down, sales will drop, and that includes mod sales as well. Maybe they will try to get away with putting out inferior games (lots of people have claimed they already did this with regards to Oblivion and/or Skyrim before pay-for mods existed); if the consumer base acknowledges this and refuses to accept it by not buying their future games, Bethesda will respond, or they will go the way of the dodo as many gaming companies have because they tried selling products the consumer base was unwilling to pay for.

[Natalie J Webster]

Back when I was young, the dream of many demo coders and talented hackers who exchanged their software via BBS was to be able, on day, to work on their own game. I don't know if the modders of today are content to receive a small time wage and working on other people's IP. Is that really recognition? What I gather from success stories like those of Notch and Gary is that, at a certain point, you've to make your own destiny if you truly want to become successful.

Modders are first and foremost hobbyists; they like to experiment and to share their knowledge with other enthusiasts. They like a certain game, they decide to pour a lot of time and effort into it; they're dreamers and yet they have no delusion of grandeur. Some of them are really smart guys and can certainly outdo even 'professional' and paid game designers, but they do it out of passion, not for petty money.

I don't doubt some modders may be happy to receive some compensation but, to me, they probably chose the wrong 'profession'. They should better off seeking fortune as professional programmers or working on some original, indie game.

[Joanne]

Modders shouldn't be required to use it - it's their choice to put a price on their product. It's your choice whether to pay it. Anyway, I think plenty will use the zero option.

[brandon frier]

but who says one should not be allowed to profit from ones hobby? Who says just because you sell your product that you were not passionate in making it?

[Stephanie Kemp]

Beth should create good content and less buggy games ofc. But why should they, they got the modders to do that now, they'll be getting paid for it.

Having a donate button doesn't equal having to pay for a mod, at all! It's a huge huge difference between having free choice and no choice at all!

This move have the potential of Huge revenue for them. Imagine if Calliente gave permission to put CBBE on sales (she has stated clearly it won't, will always be free). And a ton of clothes added on STEAM. If a couple of swords sold 1000+ $$ in 2 days, well ,there you have it.

All they need is add a tag/logo saying "quality checked by Valve/Beth" w/e and those mods will have a stronger voice and sellling force than someone's on Nexus who puts the same cloth for free. Till people start reading the forum comments.

In my mind the only way to contain this, is to inform people everywhere about the crappy quality of paid mods on Steam. If Valve sees low revenue she will try at least to up her game. Else it will blow up and become a comedy after a while, where none will be taking Workshop seriously.

[Taylah Illies]

Goodbye to mods and all that.

They're fun to play with, but I'm never going to pay microtransaction fees on things that 9 times out of 10 break the game. Not to mention wading into all the ethical questions that as a "casual gamer" I'm not willing to navigate- so probably the Nexus is out for me too, for a Bethesda game anyway. And that will make me re-evaluate the total value of Bethesda games since that was one of the things that made them high-value.

Bethesda and Valve screwed up big time.

[Julie Ann]

you do have a choice thoug,ssimply do not buy mods, there are still plenty of free ones out there and no one is forcing you to buy anything

[carrie roche]

Totally, i don't intend to buy anything ever from Steam Workshop, never even downloaded anything from there.Was talking about younger and new gamers that pop every year who are too used to microtransactions with all them "free" mmos etc etc.

[Everardo Montano]

But unlike first party microtransactions, the third party microtransactions are not worth their price.

[Ashley Clifft]

I know a few people who play those MMOs and they've said that what Valve and Bethesda are doing is pretty stupid. At least with those free MMOs the market is regulated unlike the paid mod workshop.

[Shelby McDonald]

Mobile "Dungeon Keeper"

[Eibe Novy]

Since Beth is getting a 45% cut do you guys think Skyrim will receive some updates?

One of the reasons this model looks bad is because Skyrim is still broken and there were no updates in forever.

[Noely Ulloa]

Did Maxis/EA got a cut from the money, per-chance?

because either they do or they're not even remotely the same

If the minimum is 0, then what the hell is the difference between it and the previous, free model? if Beth is getting money they should provide something back to us. "They created CK!" yeah, well that's what your $60 was for.

My argument does not fall apart. Modders getting donations is non-profit, modders getting paid is for-profit, the difference between them is massive.

Which is why I said I haven't seen it, not that you didn't.

Funny, that's what Beth is doing with their EULA and some such

The environment now is the paid mods section is home of crappy, unpolished mods; the community is being split apart; Chesko was under fire and neither VALVe nor Bethesda, two parties that got money from his sales, helped him. That's the concrete evidence we currently have, which is not helping your case. Compare this to last month: none of this is happening and everything is going at "just fine" pace.

Well they released Skyrim with extremely crappy UI and it's still selling, we even have a dedicated mod to make sure you don't click the wrong item during a conversation. Now they want revenue from a mod that fixes their UI, made by people they've never paid.

I don't see how Bethesda is motivated to make good content and not just let the modders fix it for them.

[Maria Garcia]

I don't. I don't like being lied to, unless someone can lie well enough to convince me that Santa is indeed read

I appreciate someone who actually takes the time to gather facts, talks with others, comes to a decision and makes a plan rather than jumping in and opening their mouth just to put their foot in it. I appreciate Gabe from Valve going on reddit to address concerns and answer questions, but most of his comments were downvoted to Oblivion. He clearly did not know all the facts, and I don't think his comments helped Valve or the community.

For some people, the spirit of modding is sharing. And for some people this will remain true. There have been attempts from modders to get money in the past (the author of the Romance mod for Skyrim started a kickstarter asking for THOUSANDS of dollars to fund her project and pay her. The community was outraged, and most of her team (who were not informed beforehand) quit as a result. Many well-known modders blatantly fish for endorsemants (I've seen some guy write half a dozen articles on Nexus about how his mods aren't endorsed enough or mod users don't give him enough support/credit even though one of his mods is one of THE most popular and well-endorsed mods on Nexus), there have always been people who stole mods for whatever reason which is the opposite of sharing. Yes, sharing has always been a huge part of the community and big part of why it's so successful, but not everyone participates in that manner. This hasn't changed.

Agreed.

Not for Beth games. Beth allows modifying their files. They don't have to. That's why SKSE chose to stay silent. Beth MIGHT be able to shut them down (there are cases where EULA's were rejected in court as not legally binding). No one knows for sure unless/until Beth takes someone to court; SKSE just decided it wasn't worth the risk.

As for TES5Edit, it's development is more complex than this, but you aren't wrong.

Gabe said it would. Maybe they don't follow through. We'll see.

There's already a platform lock. You can't get mods, free or paid-for on console. If someone chooses to buy Skyrim on console, then they are making the choice to not have the option to mod. This would be the same as someone choosing to buy Skyrim not on Steam IF they released a version that didn't require Steam to run. Except they would still be able to use the tens of thousands of free mods.

Now, that doesn't mean I like the monopoly Valve has built. I'm just saying it's par for the course.

It's been five days. It's clear that Beth/Valve made some mistakes/errors in how this all played out (don't think the head of Valve would've been out of the office for several days before this rollout if they expected this level of fallout). Just because they haven't completely revamped or given up on the system in 5 days doesn't mean they won't budge or make changes in the future.

Valve and Bethesda left mod-theft to the players before as well. Solid communities like the Nexus did a pretty good job of policing it. Other communities' entire goal was to promote theft. Those existed before and will continue to exist. You can't kill piracy completely (they can't stop people from getting their hands on Skyrim illegally either), but now there is at least incentive for them to help with policing paid-for mods because there is money involved.

And sure, we can go ahead and end mod resources as a thing. Nevermind that that'll hurt all the free mod makers as well. You want to help Beth/Valve kill the community? Then follow through with comments like that. Sheesh.

[C.L.U.T.C.H]

Had to split this up into two:

Not all help is free. What might Alex have been able to accomplish with Falskaar if he'd been able to PAY for better voice actors, or PAY artists to create new models and textures for him? Everyone who works for Bethesda doesn't get a % cut from all sales. They get paid a wage or a commission or whatever, and sign over any rights they have to the product. If Alex knew that he could sell Falskaar for $10 a pop after it was completely, would he have been willing to pay individuals to make content for his mod out of his own pocket? Probably not. But could he, under the new system? Yep.

Even with big projects, they are usually the primary work of one or maybe two individuals. No, something like SkyWind probably wouldn't work on this system because the work is just too fragmented, and too many people have come and gone throughout development. But what about something like Interesting NPCs which is a HUGE mod, even if it isn't a total game conversion or overhaul and doesn't add new lands?

That's a huge mod, with a lot of people involved. But it started out a lot smaller. Kris could have her (?) core team of herself and the 5 writers. They could split the actual sales they get from the mod. They could then contract out the voice acting and any scripting Kris can't do herself, paying others for their services at an agreed-upon rate/value, and writing up a contract transferring asset ownership to Kris and the iNPC team. The money the team gets could go right back into the mod, to hire more voice actors, to purchase recording equipment or studio time, to maybe pay model or texture artists to create unique items and things to further help the mod stand out. Kris and her team might not actually make any profit whatsoever. They very well could even lose money, as they do now, to continue improving the mod. But the mod would certainly be even better than it is now, and they wouldn't have to try and cover 100% of the costs themselves, which is just unreasonable (and why many parts of the mod still aren't "professional quality" as many mod users complain now).

Will pay-for mods ensure the development of such huge and complex and professional mods? Certainly not. But it at least adds another avenue into how they MIGHT be made.

I've read somewhere that you can only put a mod up for sale if it is not for free elsewhere. I don't know if that's true or not.

Having the idea and preparing for the possibility=/=planned from the beginning.

Also, while I like Beth a lot more than I like Valve, Beth did decide on the cut between themselves and the modder (of course Valve decided their own 30% cut, which is standard for them). Unless someone from Bethesda tells us differently, I'm not going to believe that Valve dictated to Beth that the modder could only get a 25% cut. Dark0ne from Nexus stated that he even suggested a bigger cut for modders to Valve/Beth which they considered before sticking to their plan.

You know what they say about assumptions...and donkeys

Modders are people with brains and can make their own choices. I don't think Chesko was corrupted into a greedy ahole. He was offered an opportunity and took it. For him, he quickly recognized it was a mistake. But it was still his decision. If someone is corrupt, they don't need Bethesda's help. And wanting to earn money for your efforts is not proof of corruption. I spent years tutoring people for free. Eventually people started to offer me money to tutor. In some cases, I took it. Now I'm not as pure as a baby lamb, but I don't think I'm any more corrupt than the average person.

[Bryanna Vacchiano]

I've reached out to Angry Joe on this as he loves tackling corporate greed in the gaming industry. Maybe he'll lend his voice to the cause.

[Captian Caveman]

https://youtu.be/NMZaYuXGYSI

Jim Sterling's video on this went up.

[Benjamin Holz]

No, actually, I don't. I'm not a native English speaker: not British, not Australian, not American, not even Singaporean, if you count that.

[Kill Bill]

That's not reverse engineering in my book. That's simply looking at the plugin file format and figuring out whether a particular record holds an int, float, or what have you, and making sure that the right information is contained within a particular record. Essentially ESP and ESM files are databases, and TES5Edit just allows us to edit some of the finer details that the Construction Kit does not.