Maybe in the world you live in. In the one where I live, a CEO who causes a company's projected (based on past performance) revenue to drop like a rock is gone in a matter of months, not years. And if gamers are such idiots, why would they hesitate to cough up your theoretical "never-gonna-happen" purchase prices for the CS/CK? People did actually pay for Horse Armor, if you'll recall.

And by the way, nice job on making sure the "new" poll option is as obviously biased as the others.

I'm gonna say no, they already have the CK anyways, it is what they build the game with. All they do is limit some of the functionality of it and release it as an .exe for download.

Rather than donations making it more likely to persist for every, I imagine donations would only encourage them to make "donating" mandatory. Which is something no one here wants.

For one, I don't have a PC that's going to be able to run this game, so I won't get to use the CS.

For two, with bills, gas prices, kids and many, many other things. I need someone to give me a donation, ok? :hubbahubba:

Haha :biggrin:

I'd pay for it once if Bethesda really needed the money or something. They'd better have a damn good excuse however and I wouldn't come to their rescue more than once.

I think that, in general, the CS (or CK with Skyrim) is as much a treat to Bethesda as it is to us. We get to make mods and stuff with some of the tools they've used for the games, increases the "life-span" of the game for most players and is all in all great fun. Bethesda get to see innovative new ideas (as well as really stupid ones) from the modders which may prove to become an inspiration for them in their development of future games and they get a really dedicated fan-base.

I'm going to be realistic here.

In a corporation shareholders are everything. In the end all of the higher ups are basically slaves to the shareholders wanting money. Good ideas may be shot down just because they don't yield as much money as superior but less lucrative other ideas. A successful gaming series may be shut down simply because while it is profitable it isn't AS profitable as the shareholders want.

If you show them people are willing to donate for the construction set, rest assured the shareholders or their representatives will DEMAND they charge extra for the customers to ever use it. This is one of the reasons corporate oversight is so important, in more serious cases. History has shown that company leadership will do anything legal or otherwise to appease shareholders. In this case it's mild since it's only a video game, but history has shown corporations willing to poison customers in the name of profit while denying the evidence they know for decades, or even lock low paid workers in factories at gunpoint (this still happens sometimes too). By comparison to those more serious things the more legitimate idea of charging customers extra for a previously free feature is absolutely mild and something I'm sure shareholders would love if it get them more profit. The game developers may love that this feature is free, but as the DLC age has shown a great many things that used to be provided to customers at no extra charge now carry a $10+ premium price tag. Let's not add the construction set to that list.

Edit:
Someone said ZeniMax is not in this situation, but still as others said if you show them you're willing to "donate" they may as well just make the charge mandatory.

Only if Bethesda pays the modders in return.

It is the developer kit they're releasing.It costs them nothing.

Since the OP likes "plausible" scenarios, perhaps they should give a thought to the very plausible scenario where this thread, and people flocking to say "Yes, I'd donate money for the modding tools" is seen by the corporate payamasters- then is the very thing that makes the Construction Kit become a paid DLC rather than a free download. "Look, they're willing to pay for it, and we like more money, more money, more money, so I see a win-win here!" :blink:

No need for a donation (but thanks for the thought). Releasing the Creation Kit, like the previous construction sets, is our thanks to you guys for supporting TES over the years.
:tes:

They can't stop making a CS. The CS released is the same CS they use to make the game (minus a few features, I'm told, but I'm not sure what those few features are).

A decision may be done to charge for the CS, whether a new CEO is in charge or not; who knows... a lot of people would pay for it, I am sure.

And that's why we support TES. :tes:

Same here. The attraction of Bethesda's games is that they can be modded; hopefully they won't decide to make them less attractive, but if so, I'll move on to something else.

I'd donate for a Fargoth real-size plush.

:o

But he's so irritating. I suppose at least he's not that gittish creature you meet in Mournhold, whatever his name was. I'd like to see a cuddly guar or at least a mudcrab, but I guess that's getting off topic.