Mods and Money!?

[dagobaking]

CC is just over-priced paid modding where the authors get a small cut and the community has no say over what the content can be.

 

The companies make money from modding capability indirectly by extending the life-cycle and interest in the title. Think about how many AAA games were huge in the year after their release that are forgotten now. Skyrim would be in the same boat by now without modding and there would be a lot more pressure financially for them to make sequels faster.

 

They don't need to take a cut from what users want to spend on a mod authors product in order for mod capability to still be good business sense.

[TheWilloughbian]

As for incentive to make mod able games. Well, if you look at the download counts for games on Nexus, Skyrim has  1.4 billion. That's a LOT of ad revenue. I don't see modders getting a cut of that. I'm sure Bethesda has noticed this too.

 

The thing that's likely too keep free modding going, is the fact that console gamers aren't making any mods... Yet.... Up until now, it's pc gamers making all the mods.

 

That might be the next thing. Toolsets/Building Kits for console. Didn't Sony have a thing like that? 

 

"Mods for consoles" is still rather new. And I really think it's the driving force behind the "Paid Mods Movement". I'm sure people at XBOX were like "What do you mean, Free??? No. No. No. Microtransaction." It will be interesting to see how it works out.

 

[GrimReaper]

On 6/18/2018 at 4:32 AM, dagobaking said:

CC is just over-priced paid modding where the authors get a small cut and the community has no say over what the content can be.

 

The companies make money from modding capability indirectly by extending the life-cycle and interest in the title. Think about how many AAA games were huge in the year after their release that are forgotten now. Skyrim would be in the same boat by now without modding and there would be a lot more pressure financially for them to make sequels faster.

 

They don't need to take a cut from what users want to spend on a mod authors product in order for mod capability to still be good business sense.

There's a simple rule in economics: Put in the required amount of effort to reap maximum profits. Afaik the CC works by using modders as contract workers, they don't get a cut, they get paid a fixed amount of money for their work, like pretty much any employee out there.

 

And again, the current patreon model for mods only works because the market isn't regulated, there are no rules, no fees to be paid and everything other than the paid mod in question is basically provided for free so if you want to sell your mod, there's no monetary investment necessary but I expect that to change. Frameworks and tools usually aren't interesting for the consumer because there's nothing usable for them to be found in such things so people developing these things charge the content creator himself for using their stuff. If you want to make a game in the unreal engine, you'll have to buy a license from epic games. If you want to use 3DS Max to develop your game, you're going to have to pay autodesk for it. And so on and so forth - basically for every third party tool and middleware that you use to ease the development of the product you want to sell you'll have to pay for.

 

Modders don't, even if they want money. And that is inherently unfair on multiple levels. There's a mountain of work behind any project that isn't visible at first sight and the people who contributed to said mountain get absolutely nothing. That is why I expect modding on a whole to generally dumb down to CC levels because it's too big a risk otherwise. Why make a complex mod that has multiple dependencies which all need monetary investment when you can just make a pretty armor, sell it for 5 bucks and be done with it. Even if it doesn't sell that well the initial investment is low so it doesn't really matter that much, it's the same reason many devs release tiny DLCs instead of full blown addons.

[Jazzman]

Sitting on the giant shoulders of all those who came before begging for chicken feed, that's embarrassing.

[dagobaking]

57 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

There's a simple rule in economics: Put in the required amount of effort to reap maximum profits. Afaik the CC works by using modders as contract workers, they don't get a cut, they get paid a fixed amount of money for their work, like pretty much any employee out there.

Interesting points. I think you are right about the CC model as far as I know. I haven't really looked too far into it as things that can only be done without F4SE tend to be mods that I am the least interested in.

57 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

 

And again, the current patreon model for mods only works because the market isn't regulated, there are no rules, no fees to be paid and everything other than the paid mod in question is basically provided for free so if you want to sell your mod, there's no monetary investment necessary but I expect that to change. Frameworks and tools usually aren't interesting for the consumer because there's nothing usable for them to be found in such things so people developing these things charge the content creator himself for using their stuff. If you want to make a game in the unreal engine, you'll have to buy a license from epic games. If you want to use 3DS Max to develop your game, you're going to have to pay autodesk for it. And so on and so forth - basically for every third party tool and middleware that you use to ease the development of the product you want to sell you'll have to pay for.

Agreed on multiple levels. No regulation is an important aspect. I think that any market that is regulated by a company too close to other sources of making money from games is always going to be doomed to fail. Or, if not fail financially at least fail in the eyes of most mod creators and users, imo.

 

Also true about the consumers of platforms like unreal. In the link I posted a few pages back to themeforest, there are wordpress themes that come packaged with underlying plugins. I presume that they have worked out some kind of deal with those plugin makers so that per sale payments get passed on in some percentage. But, to the end user, they don't need to download and buy a list of dependencies. They just pay one price and get the whole pack that is needed. Something similar could be worked out for mods.

 

WickedWhims is a framework and it looks like it makes more revenue than any other mod that I've seen. Haven't looked around that extensively though...

57 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

 

Modders don't, even if they want money. And that is inherently unfair on multiple levels. There's a mountain of work behind any project that isn't visible at first sight and the people who contributed to said mountain get absolutely nothing. That is why I expect modding on a whole to generally dumb down to CC levels because it's too big a risk otherwise. Why make a complex mod that has multiple dependencies which all need monetary investment when you can just make a pretty armor, sell it for 5 bucks and be done with it. Even if it doesn't sell that well the initial investment is low so it doesn't really matter that much, it's the same reason many devs release tiny DLCs instead of full blown addons.

It's true. That's why I feel motivated to debate this issue. There is always going to be pressure for a system to break when it involves a few people coming home from their day job to work nights on a product that tons of people want to use for free. It's just asking for corporations to come in and re-market the entire effort to their benefit and everyone else loses out.

 

Would be great to see a grass roots, community centered effort instead. But, that will require people to consider that dollars mean more than pushing like buttons.

[AWP3RATOR]

For me it's like religion.  I don't partake in it, but don't mind if others do.  

 

This is a hobby/past time for me.  I enjoy making the mods or helping others to make their mods.  I don't do this for money, endorsements, or fame.  When I make a mod, I try to do something that hasn't been done before:  see a need, fill a need.  Some are serious, some are outright silly.

 

It's rewarding enough to be able to actually make content for games I enjoy spending time playing.  Seeing something you created for the first time inside of a AAA game is downright special.

 

While I don't personally ever ask for it, and in fact actively refuse offers - I will support authors who ask for patronage and I will donate to others who do great work - it's just the way of freeware on the internet as far as I'm concerned.  If I see something that warrants financial support, I have no problem dropping the author some patronage.

[Guest]

Some forget something..
There is modders who have no interest and no fun to continue to dev on a game they do not play since years.
But continue for the people, In my case, If I receive no money for the work I do on Skyrim, that do not interest me to do anything for this game at all..
It's because I have a patreon that I stil doing something on this game, otherwise, it's more than a year that you wll not see any Kom animations..
From my Pov Skyrim is mainly a engine in who I put my content that people want, that's it, it's a work, not a fun hobby...

 

Now true, there is no regulation and people buy with their eyes before knowing the value of some work.
When many people pay $ 10-15 only for clothes conversions, it's too expensive and I consider it a theft.
But the day they realize that a conversion is done in less than 30 minutes by a novice, they realize that they spent money stupidly for people who take advantage of their ignorance,

it will regulate itself...
As in our world, customers end up realizing things.

[dankmemesxd]

2 hours ago, komotor said:

Some forget something..
There is modders who have no interest and no fun to continue to dev on a game they do not play since years.
But continue for the people, In my case, If I receive no money for the work I do on Skyrim, that do not interest me to do anything for this game at all..
It's because I have a patreon that I stil doing something on this game, otherwise, it's more than a year that you wll not see any Kom animations..
From my Pov Skyrim is mainly a engine in who I put my content that people want, that's it, it's a work, not a fun hobby...

 

Now true, there is no regulation and people buy with their eyes before knowing the value of some work.
When many people pay $ 10-15 only for clothes conversions, it's too expensive and I consider it a theft.
But the day they realize that a conversion is done in less than 30 minutes by a novice, they realize that they spent money stupidly for people who take advantage of their ignorance,

it will regulate itself...
As in our world, customers end up realizing things.

But you started to create anims for skyrim without patreon in mind? Like the delayed release system came later, after you got bored?

[GrimReaper]

2 hours ago, komotor said:

Some forget something..
There is modders who have no interest and no fun to continue to dev on a game they do not play since years.
But continue for the people, In my case, If I receive no money for the work I do on Skyrim, that do not interest me to do anything for this game at all..
It's because I have a patreon that I stil doing something on this game, otherwise, it's more than a year that you wll not see any Kom animations..
From my Pov Skyrim is mainly a engine in who I put my content that people want, that's it, it's a work, not a fun hobby...

 

Now true, there is no regulation and people buy with their eyes before knowing the value of some work.
When many people pay $ 10-15 only for clothes conversions, it's too expensive and I consider it a theft.
But the day they realize that a conversion is done in less than 30 minutes by a novice, they realize that they spent money stupidly for people who take advantage of their ignorance,

it will regulate itself...
As in our world, customers end up realizing things.

Regulation doesn't mean what you think it means. Regulating a market is done through laws and rules you must abide, which is currently circumvented by modders by pretending to not sell mods (which isn't allowed because you don't own the respective IP) but instead asking for donations and donators just so happen to receive exclusive benefits. I expect this to change, sooner or later a big corporation will get pissed off because people are making money with their IP without their consent. You might think the big guys in suits already made enough money by selling the game but this isn't how the market or the laws regulating the market work.

 

If the likes of Bethesda decide it's time to catch-up with paid mods outside their domain it's not going to be pretty. Bubbles tend to burst sooner or later.

 

But honestly, that last part? About how consumers won't play along when they're ripped off? Sure, that's why microtransactions, pre-oder bonuses and shit like lootboxes are still a thing, right.

[dagobaking]

19 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

If the likes of Bethesda decide it's time to catch-up with paid mods outside their domain it's not going to be pretty. Bubbles tend to burst sooner or later.

 

I think that the bubble bursting if it came to all that would be Bethesda's.

 

And they seem to know it based on how much they tried to obfuscate the fact that Fallout 76 will not release with mod capability.

 

[Cock Sucker]

Something tells me I'm going to get flak for this but meh....

 

IF someone makes an original mod with unique models and doesn't use other people's assets or game assets THAT'S one thing, someone who makes a mod using game assets or uses / needs other people's mods / assets to work to me that's a big NO. (on paying for it).

 

as an example if I made a mod that uses SL w/ zaz stuff then charges say £10, should I pay a portion to SL makers and zaz makers? A big yes but most don't

 

Same as I don't subscribe to paetron type stuff, if I payed /subbed to everything I like i'd be poor and / or homeless now, so who do I choose? Tough question.

 

As an alternative example...MMD vids? I love them more ecchi the better, but most makers use other people's models, stages, motions even copyrighted music. If I did a paetron to say Joe blogs for £10 a month does Joe pay the model, stage, motion or the music artists a cut for they're hard work? Again most don't

 

Rubbish rant over.... lol

[dagobaking]

5 hours ago, KM100z said:

IF someone makes an original mod with unique models and doesn't use other people's assets or game assets THAT'S one thing, someone who makes a mod using game assets or uses / needs other people's mods / assets to work to me that's a big NO. (on paying for it).

 

That just isn't how software development works. If everyone getting paid to make software followed this idea, Bethesda couldn't get paid to sell any of its games since they make use of several systems they didn't build. The entire UI is built with Flash for example.

[pinky6225]

1 hour ago, dagobaking said:

 

That just isn't how software development works. If everyone getting paid to make software followed this idea, Bethesda couldn't get paid to sell any of its games since they make use of several systems they didn't build. The entire UI is built with Flash for example.

Beth would have paid for licenses to use other peoples software so i suppose in theory a modder that made a resource could license the resource for other modder to use if it is a tool thats seperate to the creation kit/what you brought from beth

[dagobaking]

Yeah. The norm is for software developers to decide for themselves what model works for them. That takes many forms. Some do open source (Wordpress). Some use distribution licenses (Havok). Some just charge once for the tool (Flash).

 

Monsanto would love it if the public viewed small farms the way some in the modding community view mod authors.

[Kimy]

13 minutes ago, dagobaking said:

Yeah. The norm is for software developers to decide for themselves what model works for them.

So do mod authors. It's generally frowned upon to use assets in your mod without proper permissions. Some actually DO say that their assets cannot be used in for profit projects. As long as that's respected, I don't even see where the problem is.

[dagobaking]

Just now, Kimy said:

So do mod authors.

Unfortunately, not with the same reaction that regular software development receives. Nobody bats an eyelash that someone charges a dollar for some random file renamer tool. But, if mod authors even delay releasing a product for a month there are dozens of threads about how it threatens the existence of modding. In reality, its the other way around.

Just now, Kimy said:

It's generally frowned upon to use assets in your mod without proper permissions. Some actually DO say that their assets cannot be used in for profit projects. As long as that's respected, I don't even see where the problem is.

Agreed. I think that is a separate subject though from whether or not the community should embrace a system where the work mod authors do is economically sustainable.

 

[GrimReaper]

On 6/21/2018 at 8:00 AM, dagobaking said:

 

I think that the bubble bursting if it came to all that would be Bethesda's.

 

And they seem to know it based on how much they tried to obfuscate the fact that Fallout 76 will not release with mod capability.

 

I think you seriously overestimate the significance of the modding community. It's a symbiotic relationship between developer and modding community, sure, but Bethesda in this case is the host, not the symbiont. The PC market isn't the biggest out there and only a fraction of PC players use mods that go beyond simple things like new armors and such or maybe the unofficial patches. Many also don't use mods at all. Do mods help sell the game? Sure, but the exact amount is hard to quantify, they also don't help that much with generating money continuously which is all the hype nowadays, hence the Creation Club. I mean there's still people who pirate Skyrim or didn't buy the Legendary Edition when it was like 5 bucks or so and are moaning when a mod requires all DLCs.

[dagobaking]

3 hours ago, GrimReaper said:

I think you seriously overestimate the significance of the modding community. It's a symbiotic relationship between developer and modding community, sure, but Bethesda in this case is the host, not the symbiont. The PC market isn't the biggest out there and only a fraction of PC players use mods that go beyond simple things like new armors and such or maybe the unofficial patches.

I think you seriously overestimate Bethesda's willingness to give up any chunk of profit. The modding community doesn't need to be their largest source of buyers in order to still represent an amount of revenue they want to keep.

[RitualClarity]

1 hour ago, dagobaking said:

I think you seriously overestimate Bethesda's willingness to give up any chunk of profit. The modding community doesn't need to be their largest source of buyers in order to still represent an amount of revenue they want to keep.

If they are even interested in the "modder" that helped make them famous and wealthy.  They may be trying to move away from open game modding into a more controlled modding system where only selected things can be altered and such under their watchful eyes.  Some of the changes in the past seem to point to this possibility. Then they can make money off it much easier than before and not have to deal with as much tech issues (or publicity issues like adult mods) like they do now.

[khumak]

On 6/20/2018 at 12:12 PM, GrimReaper said:

There's a simple rule in economics: Put in the required amount of effort to reap maximum profits. Afaik the CC works by using modders as contract workers, they don't get a cut, they get paid a fixed amount of money for their work, like pretty much any employee out there.

 

And again, the current patreon model for mods only works because the market isn't regulated, there are no rules, no fees to be paid and everything other than the paid mod in question is basically provided for free so if you want to sell your mod, there's no monetary investment necessary but I expect that to change. Frameworks and tools usually aren't interesting for the consumer because there's nothing usable for them to be found in such things so people developing these things charge the content creator himself for using their stuff. If you want to make a game in the unreal engine, you'll have to buy a license from epic games. If you want to use 3DS Max to develop your game, you're going to have to pay autodesk for it. And so on and so forth - basically for every third party tool and middleware that you use to ease the development of the product you want to sell you'll have to pay for.

 

Modders don't, even if they want money. And that is inherently unfair on multiple levels. There's a mountain of work behind any project that isn't visible at first sight and the people who contributed to said mountain get absolutely nothing. That is why I expect modding on a whole to generally dumb down to CC levels because it's too big a risk otherwise. Why make a complex mod that has multiple dependencies which all need monetary investment when you can just make a pretty armor, sell it for 5 bucks and be done with it. Even if it doesn't sell that well the initial investment is low so it doesn't really matter that much, it's the same reason many devs release tiny DLCs instead of full blown addons.

The crazy thing about CC is that it was promoted as a way to compensate modders for "mini DLC" that would presumably be of higher quality than the free mods we already had access to and would be QA tested and guaranteed to work by Bethesda.  I think it's great that Bethesda is actually paying some modders some nontrivial amount of money for making CC mods. 

 

The problem is the format they chose to use means that even if someone wanted to make a big DLC sized mod, it's not even possible because you can't fit something like that into an ESL.  So you're never going to see something like a Falskaar or a Bruma from CC.  All you're going to see are things like swords and horse armor.  So for most people, CC will always be entirely irrelevant other than the annoyance factor involved in disabling updates so that it doesn't break the mods you do use when they update the EXE.

 

To quote one of Gopher's videos on the subject "yes to Falskaar, no to horse armor..."

[GrimReaper]

14 hours ago, dagobaking said:

I think you seriously overestimate Bethesda's willingness to give up any chunk of profit. The modding community doesn't need to be their largest source of buyers in order to still represent an amount of revenue they want to keep.

Like I said, the sales boost from modding is hard to quantify. However, Bethesda's games also sell very well on consoles, even before the mods for consoles thing. Right now they're seeing a lot of borderline illegal activity coming from the modding community and that some parts of said community are making money off of them. Modders that hide their mods behind paywalls are playing with fire because all it takes is one publisher pushing for legislation regarding that matter, i.e. no more hiding behind 'well since it's donation based I'm not really running a business or actually selling stuff you know :^)'

 

Or they silently kill open modding like ritualclarity said - and the modding community right now gives them every justification they'll ever need. You can't point fingers at them if all they're claiming they're doing is protecting their intellectual property.

[dagobaking]

2 hours ago, GrimReaper said:

Like I said, the sales boost from modding is hard to quantify.

You don't need to quantify it down to a number to observe the massive use of modding sites like Nexus. And Bethesda has acknowledged its importance numerous times and has made clear decisions around it.

 

In my view, its not a debatable point whether or not Bethesda wants to keep modders engaged in the same way or more. And suing them would obviously damage this.

Quote

 

However, Bethesda's games also sell very well on consoles, even before the mods for consoles thing.

So? Doing well on consoles doesn't mean that a for-profit company will disregard doing well with other markets too.

Quote

 

Right now they're seeing a lot of borderline illegal activity coming from the modding community and that some parts of said community are making money off of them.

Bethesda provided modding tools for the public to use. And those modders have worked their asses off on the mods. They are not making money OFF of Bethesda. They are making money off of their own work. And Bethesda has made money because of their work as well.

 

Even if they had some fine print usage terms against making money with mods, it wouldn't hold up in court given their mixed messages and clearly ignoring their own terms. They literally have instructions for how to use F4SE on their own wiki site and that matters legally (when you do not enforce your own terms consistently). 

Quote

 

Modders that hide their mods behind paywalls are playing with fire because all it takes is one publisher pushing for legislation regarding that matter, i.e. no more hiding behind 'well since it's donation based I'm not really running a business or actually selling stuff you know :^)'

In your opinion. In my opinion, as I said before, I think it would be Bethesda playing with fire to sue modders over this.

Quote

 

Or they silently kill open modding like ritualclarity said - and the modding community right now gives them every justification they'll ever need. You can't point fingers at them if all they're claiming they're doing is protecting their intellectual property.

I have direct experience with this subject. No judge would rule that Bethesda has a valid claim against modders on intellectual property grounds for mods that they built with their own time when Bethesda provides and documents the tools needed to do so.

 

The case would immediately turn to show that Bethesda lured people into thinking it was ok to mod the game and that they profited off of it. And then are trying to attack the little guy for getting paid for their time. They would lose spectacularly.

 

Nobody making mods signed any contracts. Unread usage terms only go so far when you have 6 years of contradicting actions on top of them.

[Kimy]

7 hours ago, dagobaking said:

Nobody making mods signed any contracts. Unread usage terms only go so far when you have 6 years of contradicting actions on top of them.

This is a very important point to make. "Early Access" modders might operate in a legal grey area, but Beth and other publishers have tolerated the practice for years now. They cannot reasonably claim to have had no knowledge of it for THAT long, given how widespread it has become. The first thing a judge would ask them is "Uhhh, why you do go after them -now-, when they must have had the impression that you're tolerating it?" IP rights are widely viewed as a "defend them or lose them" thing.

 

Mind you that they DO go after people actually selling mods, so their inactivity in the other cases is a fairly clear signal that they're ok with the "Early Access" model. Otherwise they'd have put an end to it already, or at least tried to.

 

My personal guess is that they know very well what's going on, but decided to look the other way, not to run into a PR disaster of epic proportions and making some of the most productive and talented modders quit. I am pretty sure they earn a LOT more money by selling additional copies of their games thanks to a vibrant modding scene, than if they tried to prevent modders from making some minor cash on the side with their work. From a business perspective, it's a win/win situation, as is.

[khumak]

1 hour ago, Kimy said:

I am pretty sure they earn a LOT more money by selling additional copies of their games thanks to a vibrant modding scene, than if they tried to prevent modders from making some minor cash on the side with their work. From a business perspective, it's a win/win situation, as is.

 

Hopefully some people at Bethesda realize this, but based on the pricing of their CC content it's pretty clear that not enough of them do.  Rather than using CC as a means of creating additional value for the end user and driving sales of the base game itself they're trying to milk the CC content for all it's worth without driving an increase in sales of the base game.

 

If everything on CC was free they would make more money from it than they do now IMO.  Not on a per mod basis obviously, but via increased sales of the base game.  Nexus and LL are great sites, but as far as I know most of the people playing skyrim are actually playing the vanilla umodded game.  People modding the game extensively are still in the minority.  Most of the people I've talked to about Skyrim outside of the mod site comments think the game sucks because they've only seen the vanilla version.

 

How many mods do you use in your current game?  How many hours did it take you to build and test that mod list and make customized patches for it?  Imagine if someone with zero tech skills could just click on roughly that many mods (with roughly that complexity) and install them from within the game and it all just worked?  Sales would be massively higher even if the mods were all free.  Unfortunately using the current CC format that's not even theoretically possible since all you can do with an ESL is a small simple mod.

 

Same goes for mods that modders might put behind a paywall.  It's still extra content that drives increased sales of the game.  So even if Bethesda doesn't profit directly from those mods, it still drives additional sales of the base game so they do profit indirectly from it.

[GrimReaper]

3 hours ago, dagobaking said:

You don't need to quantify it down to a number to observe the massive use of modding sites like Nexus. And Bethesda has acknowledged its importance numerous times and has made clear decisions around it.

 

In my view, its not a debatable point whether or not Bethesda wants to keep modders engaged in the same way or more. And suing them would obviously damage this.

So? Doing well on consoles doesn't mean that a for-profit company will disregard doing well with other markets too.

Bethesda provided modding tools for the public to use. And those modders have worked their asses off on the mods. They are not making money OFF of Bethesda. They are making money off of their own work. And Bethesda has made money because of their work as well.

 

Even if they had some fine print usage terms against making money with mods, it wouldn't hold up in court given their mixed messages and clearly ignoring their own terms. They literally have instructions for how to use F4SE on their own wiki site and that matters legally (when you do not enforce your own terms consistently). 

In your opinion. In my opinion, as I said before, I think it would be Bethesda playing with fire to sue modders over this.

I have direct experience with this subject. No judge would rule that Bethesda has a valid claim against modders on intellectual property grounds for mods that they built with their own time when Bethesda provides and documents the tools needed to do so.

 

The case would immediately turn to show that Bethesda lured people into thinking it was ok to mod the game and that they profited off of it. And then are trying to attack the little guy for getting paid for their time. They would lose spectacularly.

 

Nobody making mods signed any contracts. Unread usage terms only go so far when you have 6 years of contradicting actions on top of them.

You do need to quantify profits, especially if it's an either or option. They might make more money shutting down open modding - if sales from the CC would outweigh the loss of games sold, for example.

 

My point is that people buying the game and using mods does not equal to said people stop buying the games if there are no more free mods available. Again, hard to quantify.

 

I'd also appreciate it if you wouldn't jump between topics frequently. This wasn't about modding in general or the script extenders which are inofficially sanctioned by Bethesda and which would be neigh impossible to shut down legally for the reasons you provided - I was strictly talking about paid modding. Pretty sure it's illegal to just sell mods which is exactly why nobody is outright doing it but instead uses the donations-with-benefits thing. And this has been a recent development, especially the hard paywalls, i.e. you won't get the content if you don't pay up.