Mods and Money!?

[Kimy]

7 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

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.

If they shut down open modding, CC will die along with it. The entire idea of CC is to recruit talented modders who have proven themselves, and let them make official content. Without open modding, how would they even identify the modders they want to recruit? The more likely approach is them not killing open modding, but open distribution - by requiring mods to be uploaded to a curated platform only, which they can both control and monetize without having to give modders anything back for their work. Which they might feel tempted to do, regardless of a handful of people practicing "Early Access modding".

We will see when they reveal TES6 in more detail, I suppose. However, if they try that, they will STILL lose a healthy portion of the best modders currently supporting their games - most halfway famous modders are good enough to write original games from scratch, so that's what they will probably do if Beth takes away their chances to mod on their own terms. That's the point that Dagobakling repeatedly tried to make - if you don't tolerate talented modders to monetize their work to a certain degree, they will do something else, and there will be fewer mods for people to enjoy, particularly in the high-quality segment. It's a Lose/Lose/Lose thing for all three parties involved, Beth, modders and users alike.

[GrimReaper]

14 minutes ago, Kimy said:

If they shut down open modding, CC will die along with it. The entire idea of CC is to recruit talented modders who have proven themselves, and let them make official content. Without open modding, how would they even identify the modders they want to recruit? The more likely approach is them not killing open modding, but open distribution - by requiring mods to be uploaded to a curated platform only, which they can both control and monetize without having to give modders anything back for their work. Which they might feel tempted to do, regardless of a handful of people practicing "Early Access modding".

We will see when they reveal TES6 in more detail, I suppose. However, if they try that, they will STILL lose a healthy portion of the best modders currently supporting their games - most halfway famous modders are good enough to write original games from scratch, so that's what they will probably do if Beth takes away their chances to mod on their own terms. That's the point that Dagobakling repeatedly tried to make - if you don't tolerate talented modders to monetize their work to a certain degree, they will do something else, and there will be fewer mods for people to enjoy, particularly in the high-quality segment. It's a Lose/Lose/Lose thing for all three parties involved, Beth, modders and users alike.

Your claim sounds reasonable but please consider the fact that the modding community for the longest time existed without monetizing anything, so I doubt the people that are in it for the money alone won't have much of an impact if they leave. Also, to clarify: I'm not against an early access model if the content actually gets released for everyone later down the line. I still don't really like it on a personal level because I don't want to see modding turning into a market, but that's another issue really. When I talk about paywalls or modders selling their mods without technically selling them, I'm talking about the people that use hard paywalls, i.e. no cash no mods, not now, not ever.

[27X]

2 hours ago, Kimy said:

If they shut down open modding, CC will die along with it

GMod operates still today with sanctioned paid modding, and so does Second Life, and they continue to make money. Conversely Sims has had paywall mods since 2 and people still pay, so your premise might or might not apply to the Bethesda community, it certainly doesn't apply to many others.

 

On 6/22/2018 at 12:18 PM, dagobaking said:

licenses

Beth is perfectly capable of paying for sublicensing, and they have the profits to do so. They expanded their company size by 600% over the last three years, and Zenimax now owns four additional studios with full staff and over 300 man-years of experience. They have and have had the money. They choose not to. They are capable of financing the entire pipeline and maintaining the ecosystem. Digital Extremes has done literally that with 100% paid mods, no freebies, no gimmes, and there's literally 5K dollars worth of content on their arm of the workshop for their "free" game.

 

You can continue to shift the goalposts around all you want but the natural conclusion of your premise has already occurred with GTA, Payday, Second Life and Sims, and it isn't the randian paradise you purport it is.

[Halstrom]

And it isn't Brimstone fire and hell either.

[winny257]

18 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.

false!!!
each of the Skyrim installed (also modders), enters into a contract with Bethesda, in which He the terms of use must accept, otherwise an installation is impossible!
I suspect nobody ever read these conditions, especially the point that the copyright concerned. 
 

[winny257]

4 hours ago, t.ara said:

modders: she- and he...ggg - ladies/girls also are modding, and they do it often more better then the men....think about the beautiful clothing and lot of other stuff.

Do you know, actually I am disappointed and angry at the same time!
the main culprit of this disaster carries Bethesda herself, They have started to introduce pay mods and now almost every modder wants a slice of the cake.
before the introduction of paid Mods, no modder would have dared to sell his mods!
and you are right, it's easy for Bethesda to stop the free, already-installed mods, then we all know, all Beth games running about Steam.
even in offline mode, They can block any game. 
 

[Kimy]

8 hours ago, winny257 said:

false!!!
each of the Skyrim installed (also modders), enters into a contract with Bethesda, in which He the terms of use must accept, otherwise an installation is impossible!
I suspect nobody ever read these conditions, especially the point that the copyright concerned. 
 

Dagobaking was in fact referring the usage terms when pointing out that Beth has failed to ever attempt to enforce their EULA against "Early Access modders". And not trying to stop it for a prolonged period of time is the next best thing to consenting to the practice. It's not that people started to do that only yesterday. Don't forget that they DO go after people outright selling mods, but to the best of our knowledge they never went after Early Access modders. There is every reason to believe that Beth considers that practice ok, at least quietly so, and that's how they would probably argue it in court.

Click-through licenses are generally not regarded to be on the same level with written contracts btw., and no modder really ever signed anything in writing. Judges have tossed out click-through EULAs quite regularly if they found them vague, overreaching or unreasonable, or the plaintiff couldn't prove enough that the users even had to be aware of the terms (and the sheer length of these things could be viewed as unreasonable.) Would they win? I have no clue. I am no lawyer. But there are exactly two possible reasons why they didn't try to end Early Access modding yet. Either they chose to tolerate it, or their legal department doesn't believe they will win with enough certainly to warrant the inevitable PR disaster.

 

Again, I am not sure what your side of the argument is hoping for. Let's assume that Beth would unleash the lawyers and shut down every attempt by modders to get compensated for their hard work, even when they are not outright selling mods. The result would be most if not all of these modders quitting or reduce their efforts to levels that can be argued is still a hobby and not a job. And that would be preferable in what way? A -very- healthy portion of all major mods have Patreon links in their creator's signature. Would you prefer it if all these people left in frustration and went playing games instead of working on them? I get the idea that users find free stuff cool. But you can't have the cake and eat it. The reason why you can play good games is because people can earn money with them. The "you get what you pay for" logic isn't any different for mods. If you're willing to toss your favorite modders a few bucks here and there, they will make more and better mods for you. In the end it's your decision. *shrug*

[darkconsole]

7 hours ago, t.ara said:

modders: she- and he...ggg - ladies/girls also are modding, and they do it often more better then the men....think about the beautiful clothing and lot of other stuff.

 

"often do it better than the men"

 

the best way to negate bad arguments is to use a bad argument of equal severity in the other direction. that way they cancel eachother out!

 

i believe those of us in the middle do better than both of you single sided modders. able to see how the men suck and able to see how the women suck and avoid both! how about them beans. XD

[dagobaking]

On 6/25/2018 at 1:23 PM, GrimReaper said:

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.

I didn't jump topics. I was responding to your point that anyone making money on Patreon while making mods is playing with fire over theoretical intellectual property violations. The fact that Bethesda embraces F4SE in their own publication, even though it is also a clear violation of their usage terms, would be a substantial fact in an intellectual property case.

 

I think that, for "playing with fire" to have merit, you have to identify a business reason why Bethesda would sue people. I already gave a business reason why they wouldn't. Because they would risk losing the modding community. Instead of being iTunes, they would be Metallica.

 

It's not like people making money on Patreon do so at Bethesda's expense. Shutting those people down gains nothing for Bethesda. It would create a huge legal bill for themselves and risk pissing a lot of people off. After all, if a mod makes money, it is because people like it enough to pay for it. So, take it away and you instantly create angry customers.

 

I can agree that they probably do have bean counters who have studied the value of the mod market vs theoretical increases in microtransactions without a mod community. And they may very well pursue that further in the future. But, I think it would ultimately prove to be a major miscalculation. Some other game will be more open and Bethesda's games will just blend in with the dozens of other games that only have 6 months of interest. 

23 hours ago, 27X said:

Beth is perfectly capable of paying for sublicensing, and they have the profits to do so. They expanded their company size by 600% over the last three years, and Zenimax now owns four additional studios with full staff and over 300 man-years of experience. They have and have had the money. They choose not to. They are capable of financing the entire pipeline and maintaining the ecosystem. Digital Extremes has done literally that with 100% paid mods, no freebies, no gimmes, and there's literally 5K dollars worth of content on their arm of the workshop for their "free" game.

Just trying to follow the point here in the context of my quote about licenses...? Yes. They have so much money they could theoretically make their own proprietary 3DSMax if they wanted to. But, like many other companies it would be impractical. Same logic that modders use when building off of each others work. And the same financial relationship could be set up.

 

If they were forward thinking, they would facilitate a pay-market for modders where the authors get to keep nearly all or all of the proceeds rather than trying to squeeze out that much more profit so that they can grow by 610% instead of 600%.

23 hours ago, 27X said:

You can continue to shift the goalposts around all you want but the natural conclusion of your premise has already occurred with GTA, Payday, Second Life and Sims, and it isn't the randian paradise you purport it is.

Pointing out that you were criticizing a point that I didn't make is not moving goal posts. Posts are in the same place.

 

This debate largely stems from Sims modders successfully making money modding. The highest income mod I've seen on Patreon is also in Sims. So, I'm not sure why you keep bringing it up. It seems to contradict your point by providing evidence that paying for mods both encourages more mod production and that people are willing to pay for mods.

 

Also not sure why you keep bringing up "randian" simply because I've suggested that compensation encourages people to do things. That idea is also part of 3000 other economic ideas that are not Randian. Even Bernie Sanders thinks that people should be paid for their work.

 

11 hours ago, winny257 said:

false!!!
each of the Skyrim installed (also modders), enters into a contract with Bethesda, in which He the terms of use must accept, otherwise an installation is impossible!
I suspect nobody ever read these conditions, especially the point that the copyright concerned. 
 

Been there. Done that. It's not that simple. A businesses over-all behavior can very easily invalidate terms.

 

US law surrounding intellectual property errs on the side of people keeping ownership of their work product. You have to jump through very specific and clear hoops to transfer it to someone else. And even then, it does not take much at all for that to become invalidated. If this went to court, I think Bethesda would lose most cases on IP. They don't get to automatically own artwork and code simply because it can be connected to their game. In many cases the majority of mod work takes place in tools that Bethesda doesn't even own (3DSMax, Flash, text editors, etc.). A modder could easily argue that it is that portion of the work that they are entitled to be paid for.

[Halstrom]

2 hours ago, darkconsole said:

 

"often do it better than the men"

 

the best way to negate bad arguments is to use a bad argument of equal severity in the other direction. that way they cancel eachother out!

 

i believe those of us in the middle do better than both of you single sided modders. able to see how the men suck and able to see how the women suck and avoid both! how about them beans. XD

Indeed, the whole sliding scale thing between Male and Female is completely 1 dimensional thinking

[Halstrom]

28 minutes ago, t.ara said:

Ich denke sicherlich nicht eindimensional, sicherlich nicht. Meine persönliche Meinung in Bezug auf die positive Arbeit verschiedener ModderInnen ist völlig in Ordnung und bedarf keiner Diskussion. Die "böse" t.ara....kommuniziert jetzt auch mal im Heim-Spiel-Modus?!

 

Eine deutch ich kerbumfazzle, nein spreken gut un keener diskusssion nitch funf seiben Weiss refrigerator

[Matt59]

hello to all

bit of background?

my kids got me into gaming may year ago and together we beat sky fallout along with may other un-modded. Now rounding the corner in life got myself my first good gaming PC

and discover the very talented people out there creating mods and giving life to all our old favorite games  like they where new.

 

That being said I always endorse mods i down load first step in saying thank you for the wonderful work, yes free is something we all wont to keep as we slowly lose small bits of it in real life, but  the hours  and quality support to us all totally understand the pay thing more if it dose inspire mods growth (as Kimy said) and agree. Any who hopping off my sand box, just keep it it fun, take it from a dusty old biker life is way to short.?

 

PS

 and yes even endorsed this thread its awesome sorry i missed it earlier

[QuietPippin]

Selling your mods or hiding them behind some donation minimum is shady as fuck.

 

This is a hobby and it should just stay as one. Money taints everything and it's crazy loverslab allows some of this stuff.

These outfit modders selling private mods through discord and such  ....   They still include the nude body made by Caliente/Ousnius

and i'm pretty sure both of them specifically said their assets can't be used in paid mods or donation minimum access content. Same for mods that require FNIS.

 

Leave it up to the user's choice if they want donate like how Niero does without holding off high quality assets behind some wall.

 

 

You know who you are and what you are doing is wrong.

[dagobaking]

1 hour ago, QuietPippin said:

Selling your mods or hiding them behind some donation minimum is shady as fuck.

 

This is a hobby and it should just stay as one. Money taints everything and it's crazy loverslab allows some of this stuff.

These outfit modders selling private mods through discord and such  ....   They still include the nude body made by Caliente/Ousnius

and i'm pretty sure both of them specifically said their assets can't be used in paid mods or donation minimum access content. Same for mods that require FNIS.

 

Leave it up to the user's choice if they want donate like how Niero does without holding off high quality assets behind some wall.

 

 

You know who you are and what you are doing is wrong.

 

Selling other peoples assets against their terms is one thing. But, on what basis do you claim that people wanting payment for their work is shady in any way?

[MadMansGun]

3 hours ago, dagobaking said:

on what basis do you claim that people wanting payment for their work is shady in any way?

it's super shady and down right sleazy, everything relies on someone else's work and/or software, Eg....

at the bare minimum a skyrim sex animation relies on:

Skyrim, of course? 

SexLab

Skyrim Script Extender

Fores New Idles Skyrim

SkyUI

SexLab Animation Loader

Microsoft notepad

JContainers

NifSkope

hkxcmd

3ds max 2010/2012 (most likely a pirated copy these days)

Nif Importer

havok content tools

the rigs for making animations (optional, i don't use them myself)

TES5Edit (if making new animated objects)

 

 

and if it's a creature animation:

More Nasty Critters (it has around 40 modders worth of assets on it's own)

Creature Framework

[QuietPippin]

4 hours ago, dagobaking said:

 

Selling other peoples assets against their terms is one thing. But, on what basis do you claim that people wanting payment for their work is shady in any way?

If you are using other peoples free assets/tools for your mod to function, why would you even think it's fair to charge or hold off anything for a public release ? 

 

When a mod author releases a gigantic quest mod with professional voice acting or essential bug fixes/quality of life mods or a foundation itself for thousands of other mods to be created but never asks for a single penny.

What gives some of these people the balls to charge for a preset,head mesh, or a compile of meshes/textures

most likely taken from daz, or a free render port site (straight from other games in some cases) . Everyone of these paid mods hidden from a public release was built using the groundwork of someone else that released their shit for free. These mods hidden behind donations pages are not fooling anyone either. Until Bugthesda themselves say it's okay for users to sell their stuff through private means

it will remain scummy to me.

[Kimy]

6 hours ago, QuietPippin said:

 Money taints everything

Quick, tell your boss you don't want a salary anymore, and rather work for free. Money taints you!

[Halstrom]

1 hour ago, QuietPippin said:

If you are using other peoples free assets/tools for your mod to function, why would you even think it's fair to charge or hold off anything for a public release ? 

 

When a mod author releases a gigantic quest mod with professional voice acting or essential bug fixes/quality of life mods or a foundation itself for thousands of other mods to be created but never asks for a single penny.

What gives some of these people the balls to charge for a preset,head mesh, or a compile of meshes/textures

most likely taken from daz, or a free render port site (straight from other games in some cases) . Everyone of these paid mods hidden from a public release was built using the groundwork of someone else that released their shit for free. These mods hidden behind donations pages are not fooling anyone either. Until Bugthesda themselves say it's okay for users to sell their stuff through private means

it will remain scummy to me.

If a mechanic charges you to put some wheel bearings in your car made by someone else that you got for free then its shady as fuck...………
If someone gives you a heap of free paint and you paint your house and then sell it for an increased price then that's shady as fuck too.

Its obvious you cheapskate clowns have no fucking idea of the work going into many mods before typing such insults to people creating mods then wonder why you are ignored when you ask for more mods...…….

[Halstrom]

2 hours ago, MadMansGun said:

it's super shady and down right sleazy, everything relies on someone else's work and/or software, Eg....

at the bare minimum a skyrim sex animation relies on:

Skyrim, of course? 

SexLab

Skyrim Script Extender

Fores New Idles Skyrim

SkyUI

SexLab Animation Loader

Microsoft notepad

JContainers

NifSkope

hkxcmd

3ds max 2010/2012 (most likely a pirated copy these days)

Nif Importer

havok content tools

the rigs for making animations (optional, i don't use them myself)

TES5Edit (if making new animated objects)

 

 

and if it's a creature animation:

More Nasty Critters (it has around 40 modders worth of assets on it's own)

Creature Framework

Yep there we go, by cheapskate logic, unless an animator recreates all these assets and tools they have to spend hundreds of hours learning those tools and making animations for users for free or they are insulted as being super shady as fuck...…
I doubt there are ANY game modders in the world with the time and skills to do all of the above to create a basic sex animation mod. ant then people want Pregnancy etc...…….
How much is a mod going to cost if someone making a mod has to add the respective creators charges for all of these into every animation he makes? Mods will cost more than the original game.
Anyone who doesn't think their time is worth money should stop asking for more animations and create their own if they demand them for free

[MadMansGun]

2 hours ago, Kimy said:

Quick, tell your boss you don't want a salary anymore, and rather work for free. Money taints you!

i would love to do that:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_VSIdAx4PQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rh3xPatEto

 

2 hours ago, Alkpaz said:

So you would not take my money if I donated to you? Also, yes, you make some damn fine work MMG. I would have no problems donating to you. As I did say earlier, Fore refused my donation offer. The SKSE from what I have already heard also refuses donations. SkyUI team left modding because of a backlash by "the community" about selling their mod on Workshop (2015). 

 

3DSMAX seriously? Do game devs actually account for that in their pricing for the games they sell? Every piece of software we use is based on something else. It would be like saying Microsoft needs a cut on everything developed on its OS. 

i use to turn down donations all the time, just ask nicobay (i threatened him with a "nicosalad vore mod" because he kept trying to throw money at me all the time).

but i got sick of having my inbox flooded so i opened a patreon.

 

i was listing everything associated with animation work and usage, in theory you already paid Microsoft it's share when you bought the computer/OS.

i'm sure game devs do take the price of max into account, that program is fucking expensive if you pay for it.

 

2 hours ago, Halstrom said:

If someone gives you a heap of free paint and you paint your house and then sell it for an increased price then that's shady as fuck too.

one of my brothers is a painter, if he gives you free paint chances are the company was throwing it out because it's too old to be used and it would have cost them to dispose of it properly, therefor they saved money by giving it to you and making it your problem.

 

2 hours ago, Halstrom said:

Anyone who doesn't think their time is worth money should stop asking for more animations and create their own if they want them for free

they can be found here:

https://www.loverslab.com/files/file/2436-horny-creatures-of-skyrim/

 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Halstrom said:

Yep there we go, by cheapskate logic, unless an animator recreates all these assets and tools they have to spend hundreds of hours learning those tools and making animations for users for free or they are insulted as being super shady as fuck...…
I doubt there are ANY game modders in the world with the time and skills to do all of the above to create a basic sex animation mod. ant then people want Pregnancy etc...…….
How much is a mod going to cost if someone making a mod has to add the respective creators charges for all of these into every animation he makes? Mods will cost more than the original game.
Anyone who doesn't think their time is worth money should stop asking for more animations and create their own if they demand them for free 

In the list.. miss..

The OS, Microsoft Windows 
Intel/AMD/Nvidia hardware & software drivers, tools etc.

Etc, etc, etc,
 

What we need to create a complete platform hardware, a OS, development 3d tools, a new coding language, a game engine, all that from scratch and only then say it's our work and finally able to expect get something? Lol 

There is a different job, animator is also a full-fledged profession, a animator is not necessarily a modeler or coder who are also profession in their own right.
I personally know a animator who works at ubisoft, technically I know and I do more than him....

[Jazzman]

There's always one last little detail - modding is free leisure pursuit. For if it's no longer understood as such and thus liable for costs, well, you better register a business first not to run into trouble with the revenue dept by chance. Such a small business, however, would piss off Bethesda in no time. So I'd better leave it at voluntary donations, if ever.

[Halstrom]

14 minutes ago, Jazzman said:

There's always one last little detail - modding is free leisure pursuit. For if it's no longer understood as such and thus liable for costs, well, you better register a business first not to run into trouble with the revenue dept by chance. Such a small business, however, would piss off Bethesda in no time. So I'd better leave it at voluntary donations, if ever.

You only need to register a business or declare it in your tax return in my country if you earn more than $5k pa. You can E-Bay or whatever as much as you like till that threshold.
Despite what users think we aren't all chasing $100k to can quit our day jobs.

[Halstrom]

32 minutes ago, MadMansGun said:

they can be found here:

https://www.loverslab.com/files/file/2436-horny-creatures-of-skyrim/

 

Yep and if half the framework/tool mods you required for your work asked for $ per sale and the other half didn't, apparently you would be super shady as fuck to try charging for your work to cover that expense.
Its very noble you have the freedom to give it away for free, but you deny others should have the freedom to recoup a few $ for their 50 hours of work to buy a steak occasionally or upgrade their computer every few years.

[Jazzman]

1 hour ago, Halstrom said:

You only need to register a business or declare it in your tax return in my country if you earn more than $5k pa. You can E-Bay or whatever as much as you like till that threshold.
Despite what users think we aren't all chasing $100k to can quit our day jobs.

Sorry but they'd assess you for not having declared a small business or the additional income as such. One unfriendly contemporary that'd fink on you and you're financially dead, man.

And who are the 'we'? I've successfully modded between 2002 and 2006 and don't have the slightest idea on who 'we' are... doubtlessly not the ones we were before, huh?