My greatest fear when it comes to The Elder Scrolls and Bethesda sandbox games in general is that some day I might wake up to a Beth announcement that they will no longer release a construction set for their games.

It would be a huge loss for me personally, as Bethesda is all I have to turn to for PC games these days with every other developer being prodded into 2-3 year development cycles by their trash publishers (Activision, Nintendo, 2K etc) that spawns games for the masses. I don't want that to happen. Now, I think Bethesda/ ZeniMax knows that their CS is what keeps their games successful on the PC, but in case a hostile take over happens or any other unforeseen apocalyptic event, what better way to say it than in green numbers on the quarterly report?

Furthermore, why the heck not?

They're always gonna have a CS. I don't want to donate money for it. Stop giving them ideas.

My donation is buying the game.

So you'd prefer either:

1) New CEO walks in and demands they charge everyone for it,
2) New CEO walks in and demands they stop making it

Both the above scenarios are plausible...

They're getting money from me for the game. And that's it.

Won't vote though, there's no simple "no" option. Hell, I might even be convinced to go with "No, have you seen the bugfests they release, that we need the CS to fix? We should be getting the same salary as their QA people!"

Alrighty, I added another option to the poll.

For me the CS is as fun as the game, and in the long term it will be undoubtedly the focus of my attention, so yes, I would pay for specific material/dlc software that could improve my world building/modding.

IF they want to charge you for it, which won't happen, how would donating money help that? It'd cost us regardless.
IF they demand to stop making it, which won't happen, how would donating money help? It would be the same as if they charged us anyway.

If we donated money instead of paying for it, either they would make less money that way or random people get it for free while we pay extra. It's stupid.

EDIT: 2 especially is never EVER going to happen because a huge number of people who buy for PC wouldn't even bother if it didn't have the CS. Modding is hugely popular.

So is this one:

3) New CEO messes with formula that's been a sure winner for years, sales tank, "New CEO" becomes "New benefactor of severance package" for destroying revenue stream, and is replaced by newer CEO with enough sense to know which side his bread is buttered on and not make such a damn fool mistake.

:P

And in the non-financial world, 10 years have passed, and idiot gamers are either ^{*RESENTING THE COMPANY FOREVAHR OMG RESENTMENT*} or dead.

The CS is a slightly cut down version of their inhouse development tool, it doesn't cost them enough money to ship with the game to justify raising the price - even a few pennies across several million sales would dwarf the costs of it.
However, by all means allow donations. I don't have the cash to splash like that, but some people do!

Seeing as it has been free and included in (at least) Morrowind, Oblivion and FO3 (NV as well?) it would just be wrong to start charging people for it now. Modding is such a large part of the TES community by now that it would be counteractive and alienate some, if not many, of the users. Charging for an item that up until this point has been free just because you can is not necessarily okay (a statement which in an of itself makes the economist in me cry loudly.)

edit: especially since they already charge us $50-80-ish for the game itself, plus the DLC's which in most cases don't have that much content anyway, with some exceptions.

Has there been any suggestion that the CS kits are going to stop?

Oh.
Well then what's the reason for this post?

This statement makes no sense.

It costs them nothing to release as it's the exact same tool they use and it's extremely positive for their sales due to the massive modding community the TES has.

So not releasing it would be incredibly dumb.

The CS (or CK for Skyrim) is what they use to make the game. So the only extra they're doing for the fans is packing it up and offering a download online.

No. My donation for Bethesda is buying the game (Edit: Collector's Edition) and its DLCs for the PC to show I like mods. If there was no mods tools then I would likely invest less money to the game.

No, they already confirmed it. And the last Gamebrio-engine based games since Morrowind had a CS being released. Why should Skyrim be different? And regarding DLC: It's only an incentive for Bethesda to make even better DLC because people will spend hundreds of hours making awesome mods!

if they ask

yes

but if they really need the money they can place the CS on a dvd and sell it with the game for some extra cash which I will pay gladly

I would prefer to donate to the Red Cross.

Do you think Bethesda is a NGO? No, it′s not.

Bethesda makes awesome games, but they are paid for them, and very well paid I must say. Have you forgotten Horse armor?

Zenimax is privately held so a hostile takeover isn't really possible, and there is no need to appease stockholders interested only in short-term profits with numbers on quarterly reports. When you're building franchises for long-term profitability, you make different choices than when you're milking them for shorter-term gain.

By fostering an active community the CS greatly increases the legs on Bethesda games. Not only do a number of console players eventually buy a PC copy, but the longer a game enjoys an active community the longer word of mouth is likely to attract new players--both to their TES and Fallout games. After a bit of initial experimentation with item packs (horse armor, spell tomes), Bethesda also seems to have settled on forms of DLC that are not primarily candy stores, so that the CS doesn't threaten competition in the same way toolsets do with some franchises. It's also named for an Apple construction set Todd had when growing up. A feature as popular as the CS, with as good a business case for it as the CS has, that devs are interested in including seems to me really, really unlikely to go away.

^ This ^

+1

Thats like saying everyones gotta wear fire proof stuff now
cuz dragons might attack earth...its plausible but who cares really..like its gonna happen cuz some guy said so...zenimax wouldnt give up there golden egg(bethesda) in a million years
Both the above scenarios are plausible...yeah...sure bro..Bethesda might cancel skyrim we should all steal copies while we can