About paid mods for popular games and whatnot

[DoYourBest]

Here's a message for you, mod creators that want to sell copyrighted assets around the world. I'm sure you will read it, sooner or later (mainly because this is the most popular adult gaming website) unless a mod thinks this discussion has no place here, that is. If that's the case, know that I didn't create this thread as means for flamming but to make people understand why mods can't be sold. This website doesn't allow paid mods, and I think it's the right decission. Why? Keep reading.

 

It's really simple in fact. When a mod is created, several steps are involved. One of them is reverse engineering (unless there are official modding tools released by the dev team), which that alone goes against the terms of use of the EULA. Reverse engineering is the process of decompiling the game code, assets or other files to extract their resources in order to alter, modify, improve, change or in other words, create a mod. When you do this, you are already infringing the EULA. When you do this and sell the content you created based on this, you are breaking the law and any development studio could sue your ass and with reason.

 

Then comes the artistic part of it. Normally, a mod is released to change an outfit, a costume or piece of equipment. But there are already A LOT of assets included in the mod that are not made by the modder. Things like the rig, which controls how the character behaves when you walk around in the screen. They can't modify the rig because if they do, that would produce errors in-game and the mod wouldn't work correctly. This rig is copyrighted. You can't sell a mod that makes use of copyrighted material. Period.

 

That's just one example. There are several more, like eyes, face, head, hair, materials, textures... and so on and forth, that are packed with these mods for them to work and they are also copyrighted. Again, you can't sell them. You have no copyright to them.

 

But this is not all. When these modders ask you "not to edit their mods, not to re-upload their mods..." They are literally asking people what the EULA forbids them to! Isn't that ironic? They are telling you that his/her mod is copyrighted to them, like WTF dude? You have reverse engineered the game, extracted the assets, modify them, repacked them and sell them. It's fucking hilarious!

 

I'm making this thread because, sadly, this is becoming a trend with websites like Patreon, which allows almost all shit to be sold there. Is this a new form of piracy? Modders charging for modified copyrighted game assets?

 

And to finish. You know why loverslab or the other famous website don't allow paid mods? I guess it's because game companies would sue their asses for allowing that crap on their websites, but I also believe because it would be really low. YOU CAN NOT SELL COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL. Get that into your skulls.

 

Stay safe, happy modding, free the mods, mods should be free and for fun. Thank you to all those modders around the world that still believe in the modding community as a means to make games better and not making a profit.

[Dark78]

Thank you

[UmbiCs]

i totally agree, though it seems weird to me that while uploading paid mods here is not allowed, i have seen countless posts where these paid mods are "advertised". These post either should have their own category or something, or should not be allowed at all imo.

[SirNibbles]

Though I mostly agree with you, you shouldn't forget that a lot of mods are entirely new things.

Not something that is modified or edited, but entirely new objects/animations/textures/music or whatsoever made from scratch and then carefully ported to a working format for "insert_game_name_here". Although earning money with selling mods is prohibited by the EULA of the game in question, there's also the other side of copyrighted creations of the artist (if they are indeed made from scratch). And paywalling mods is not allowed either on this website (unless you're apparently good friends with the moderators, as history has taught us before with some specific cases. I recall it is allowed for a max of 1-3months but then they have to be released for the public)

That "rig" you talked about is a rig made from scratch too (at least for Skyrim it is), and then freely distributed for anyone to use. This doesn't fall under copyright because it is not made by the developer of "insert_game_name_here" and thus the EULA doesn't apply to here.

 

I'm not really sure which of these sides would win in court (probably the side with the most financial influence) but both can be considered "correct" if you look at it the way I just described. 

I'm not trying to defend people who paywall mods, but let me just say that creating mods takes a lot of time; time that could've been spent in actually working a job to earn money. So I can understand why some artist's ask money.

 

If we're talking morally, then that's an entirely different situation. 

I don't support paywalled mods, and never will. And honestly this kind of business is ruining modding in general. 

Something that Bethesda and Valve tried to do earlier and failed at it, with one side effect.....the modding community got mostly split up. 

After that it became much worse, up till this day and will probably become even worse in the future. The only way we can stop it is by boycotting it, but it seems like no matter what gets paywalled some people will buy it anyways (those are the real people to blame if u ask me).

Maybe if people did that with actual games as well, the gaming community wouldn't have been filled with microtransactions and useless dlc that you see everywhere nowadays.

 

But as long as there's money to be earned, even by a small amount (because like I said, some people will buy it anyways) it will continue and encourage other people to act the same.

[DoYourBest]

@SirNibbles You are wrong, I suggest you re-read. I explicitly mention games with modding tools. In that case, you are free to mod the game and, if the EULA of the modding tools allow it, earn money from it. This is not the case with the majority of games. I'm obviously talking about the latter. The rig you are talking about is made from scratch or built upon the vanilla skeleton. Then again, if Bethesda doesn't allow you to earn money, you can't. Period. it's their game, it's their product and they are the ones that decide if you can earn money out of their work. Remember, it's DERIVATIVE work.

 

I didn't touch the moral subject, because I believe is subjective and unimportant. I'm talking legal facts. The majority of paid mods are based on copyrighted assets and infringing the EULA. Not a single paid mod that I've seen on Patreon or otherwise is free from copyrighted assets. All make use of the rig, or the head, the hair, the eyes, and so on and forth with a long long long etc of assets. The majority of these paid mods consist in importing exporting assets, tweaking them, repacking them and releasing them. I'm repeating myself.

@UmbiCsAdvertising paid mods is forbidden I believe, you can just report those posts.

[avebrave]

I agree that people should read the EULA for the games they are modding for, and as long as the EULA forbid to release paid mods, than you better don't ask for money. I'm definitively for a open and free modding community, because this encourages creativity. Hiding mods behind a paywall will ruin that.

I can agree on many facts you're mentioned, and understand the intention of your post, but you shouldn't mix copyright and paid mods together as there were no difference.

1 hour ago, JackWall said:

Things like the rig, which controls how the character behaves when you walk around in the screen. They can't modify the rig because if they do, that would produce errors in-game and the mod wouldn't work correctly. This rig is copyrighted.

I respectfully disagree on this therm.

If you paint a picture on a piece of paper you don't hand over the intellectual property of the picture to whoever holds the copyright of the paper. You do not hold the copyright of the paper, but for the picture wich is painted on it.

Since you mentioned outfits: If you create your models and textures form sketch you'll hold the copyright for them, using the game specific skeleton doesn't change that fact. (but this highly depends on the EULA for each game)

1 hour ago, JackWall said:

But this is not all. When these modders ask you "not to edit their mods, not to re-upload their mods..." They are literally asking people what the EULA forbids them to!

Not sure if you point only on the modders who are hiding behind pay-walls or to all modders. Anyhow I disagree that modders are not allowed to ask for "not re-upload their mods", if a modder uploads a mod the user is allowed to use it under the rules the author appointed. (as long as they are not against the EULA of course)

Plus, speaking for free of charge released mods, you should always pay respect for the work a mod author did, and therefor respect their rules. Why? Because they may get frustrated and keep their mods for themselves, or quit modding. So in the long run you'll lose more mods than you'll get.

 

Cheers. ave

[DoYourBest]

@avebraveI want to adress 1st the last paragraph. I'm obviously talking about paid mods. Out of respect to the modders that release their work out of love for the game they have modded, people should respect their whishes and not redistribute their mods.

 

Believe it or not, but a rig is WAY more complex than a piece of paper. I'm 100% positive all assets contained in the game files are copyrighted, are made by someone working for "A" company to be used in "B" game and by playing the game and owning the game you agree to the terms, and unless specified by the EULA in official modding tools, you are not allowed to reverse engineer the game and make use of said assets for your mods.

 

You might believe you own the copyright to a texture mod or a model. Then again, you are NEVER allowed to make a profit from that content UNLESS you sell it uncompressed and as a separate file, not a complete mod.

 

Let me put you an example. There's a famous mod for Yakuza games that improves the game visuals. That mod needs the .exe file to be modded. Releasing that mod is illegal because it goes against the game's EULA, therefore, the modder created a tool for you to mod the .exe yourself. See where I'm going?

 

You can sell your model, your texture, but you can't put a complete mod with copyrighted assets in it and sell it. That's illegal. There's no way around it. But then again, they wouldn't have many sales that way, would they now? ha!

[ray314]

I guess thats why people get patreon instead of directly asking for payment for a mod.

[johnpage]

well if all mods needed payment then eventually it wold destroy the modding community there are many like me who feel that mods are produced illegally but for the joy of the game they are done i generally dont play any games i cant mod, mods in my eyes make me want to purchase a game because i like what the mod does, and of note ANY game you purchase has a statment of copyright that you must not alter said game, what developers need to realise is that modding SELLS games so it should be developers paying modders not the end user, simply put developer makes game and releases it with development tools, modder mods game and presents it to community, community like the mod so buys game developer pays modder its win win all round.

[Wish Upon a Star]

i guess this is why ppl use patreon.  i must say i dont dislike paid mod since it encourage modder make mod. i mean even i dont like it then nothing i can do. i do make few mod too so i understand thing go how frustrated modding and share mod make more and more ppl want to make paid mod. For example, i have been play and mod doa5 for 5 years. for now, i dont see anyone make or share mod anymore except 1 guy i can see still make and sell mod for almost 4 years, and he still keep do it until now with doa6 too. so my point is simple, dont drag it out too much, i know you dont like paid mod but it doesn't change anything at all, you only waste your time

[DoYourBest]

Modding is not a job. Modding is a work of love. Modding is done as a hobby. Modding isn't meant to make you earn pocket money for your purchases. Modding is done because you have free time to spare and you want to improve or add something of value to the game. Modding has always been free because selling mods it's ILLEGAL.

 

Patreon is not donations when you block content from being seen by those that don't pay. Sooner or later Patreon is going to fall by a massive legal case. It's not that I don't like it. That's subjective, I don't care about feelings. I'm talking legal facts all the time. Also, worth noting I'm the creator of one of the most popular mods for Metal Gear Solid V on the other famous website. And I never created a Patreon to ask for money "oh poor me I need money to incentivate me because modding is so hard buah buah".

 

Leechers you are, those that paywall content that is copyrighted. One thing is to give the option to donate. Another very different is to FORCE donations, in other words, SELLING. If the game didn't exist you would be nothing lol Respect the fucking EULA.

[dup3w4sh1ngt0n]

As far as Patreon goes, you're not directly purchasing an item; it's a "donation" system for a rendered service so it's not the same thing. You're also being disingenuous with how you're describing what people are doing. They're not redistributing direct asset rips; that's illegal, generating completely NEW assets is not. Putting out clothing items, for example, that have skeleton weights that mean nothing outside of the game is not the same thing as distributing "cOpYrIgHtEd MaTeRiAl." I can directly translate a mesh and textures between games, but not a skeleton/armature. You sound like someone who doesn't really have a grasp of the fundamentals and just want to vent about freelancers wanting to, understandably, make money from their hard work. Due to the symbiotic relationship between devs and modders, I highly doubt they're stressing over the paltry amount modders are able to make on donation sites like Patreon (unless you're like Team Ninja and don't like modders because you're a greedy PoS and want to sell shitty clothes packs at absorbent prices). 

Also, most new developers aren't even creating their own game engines anymore as they use either Unity or UE4 so there's no real "reverse engineering" going on; this isn't 2008 with NinjaRipper and Texmod anymore. And even if you do have to reverse engineer something, you act like that isn't literally the foundation for every industry in existence. Automotive, medical, you name it. People purchase competitors products, tear them down, make a slight change to make it novel and sell it. 

Look at vtaw, a prominent producer of absurdly high quality clothing mods for FO4. You can't look at his work and tell me you don't feel guilty for downloading them for free, He's putting out DaZ-quality products HE MADE FROM SCRATCH. He EARNED his Patreon patron count, and eventually releases his mods from beyond the paywall for general consumption.

I am no where near as skilled as vtaw (I also don't use things like Marvelous Designer and zBrush (because they're paid programs and I'm broke) which would help out tremendously), but even I throw away hundreds of hours producing new, scratch-made content for free when I could be working a second job or socialising. It's painful to not get anything in return.    

[Wish Upon a Star]

1 hour ago, JackWall said:

Modding is not a job. Modding is a work of love. Modding is done as a hobby. Modding isn't meant to make you earn pocket money for your purchases. Modding is done because you have free time to spare and you want to improve or add something of value to the game. Modding has always been free because selling mods it's ILLEGAL.

 

Patreon is not donations when you block content from being seen by those that don't pay. Sooner or later Patreon is going to fall by a massive legal case. It's not that I don't like it. That's subjective, I don't care about feelings. I'm talking legal facts all the time. Also, worth noting I'm the creator of one of the most popular mods for Metal Gear Solid V on the other famous website. And I never created a Patreon to ask for money "oh poor me I need money to incentivate me because modding is so hard buah buah".

 

Leechers you are, those that paywall content that is copyrighted. One thing is to give the option to donate. Another very different is to FORCE donations, in other words, SELLING. If the game didn't exist you would be nothing lol Respect the fucking EULA.

with you ? yes, i sure you make mod with love but not with many other. i have see many modder skyrim can make 1000$ each month just simple sell mod and char preset. and even patreon somehow fall which is i really doubt it happen, there are many more site like patreon, not mention there many modder from chine use patreon ver chine you cant access on normal way

[DoYourBest]

3 hours ago, dup3w4sh1ngt0n said:

As far as Patreon goes, you're not directly purchasing an item; it's a "donation" system for a rendered service so it's not the same thing. You're also being disingenuous with how you're describing what people are doing. They're not redistributing direct asset rips; that's illegal, generating completely NEW assets is not. Putting out clothing items, for example, that have skeleton weights that mean nothing outside of the game is not the same thing as distributing "cOpYrIgHtEd MaTeRiAl." I can directly translate a mesh and textures between games, but not a skeleton/armature. You sound like someone who doesn't really have a grasp of the fundamentals and just want to vent about freelancers wanting to, understandably, make money from their hard work. Due to the symbiotic relationship between devs and modders, I highly doubt they're stressing over the paltry amount modders are able to make on donation sites like Patreon (unless you're like Team Ninja and don't like modders because you're a greedy PoS and want to sell shitty clothes packs at absorbent prices). 

Also, most new developers aren't even creating their own game engines anymore as they use either Unity or UE4 so there's no real "reverse engineering" going on; this isn't 2008 with NinjaRipper and Texmod anymore. And even if you do have to reverse engineer something, you act like that isn't literally the foundation for every industry in existence. Automotive, medical, you name it. People purchase competitors products, tear them down, make a slight change to make it novel and sell it. 

Look at vtaw, a prominent producer of absurdly high quality clothing mods for FO4. You can't look at his work and tell me you don't feel guilty for downloading them for free, He's putting out DaZ-quality products HE MADE FROM SCRATCH. He EARNED his Patreon patron count, and eventually releases his mods from beyond the paywall for general consumption.

I am no where near as skilled as vtaw (I also don't use things like Marvelous Designer and zBrush (because they're paid programs and I'm broke) which would help out tremendously), but even I throw away hundreds of hours producing new, scratch-made content for free when I could be working a second job or socialising. It's painful to not get anything in return.    

Then do that! By all means. It's your fucking life, do whatever you want with it. Don't cry about it and ask for money! It's ridiculous.

 

I do have a clue or two about what involves creating a mod. You just fail to understand or want to ignore how illegal it is to sell a mod. Devs are not the ones calling the shots, what an artist thinks is of no value to the company policy and the legal documents that protect their intellectual property.

 

I said it already, you can let people donate to you, but blocking access to them for only those that are paying is SELLING. It's very very definition of how a business transaction is done.

[KotBasil]

"Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?"

 

I have no horse in this race, and I do love free stuff, but I find any attempts to dictate people what they can or can't do with the work they pour their time and effort to... just a tad annoying. Whether it's done by lawmen, copyright holders, hosting providers or forum users.

 

Also, the most "paid mods" authors I know have quite a reasonable policy of giving early access and better resolution to people who support them, which is a good compromise.

[Varithina]

20 hours ago, UmbiCs said:

i totally agree, though it seems weird to me that while uploading paid mods here is not allowed, i have seen countless posts where these paid mods are "advertised". These post either should have their own category or something, or should not be allowed at all imo.

They normally get around that by having free stuff on the same site, arguing that there is free stuff either earlier version of other things that are free and can therefore link pages that do have pay to access stuff on them, from what I am aware of though from here any links must go to free items, other things on the same site can be pay to get, but any items linked here must be free, there again keeping track of such things would be a full time job in its own right, so I think they rely on use to report links from here that are not free.

[lerver]

Imagine arguing that modding (stealing and adulterating copyright material that only works in a copyrighted software) is honest work. Imagine thinking pirates stealing goods and selling them as their own is completely legal and the law can and should protect them.

 

>"b-but they spend time doing them so that means honest work..."

 

Wew...

[KotBasil]

1 hour ago, lerver said:

Imagine arguing that modding (stealing and adulterating copyright material that only works in a copyrighted software) is honest work. Imagine thinking pirates stealing goods and selling them as their own is completely legal and the law can and should protect them.

 

>"b-but they spend time doing them so that means honest work..."

 

Wew...

 

Sooooo... This is a forum about stealing? Nice to know.

[lerver]

1 hour ago, KotBasil said:

 

Sooooo... This is a forum about stealing? Nice to know.

Well, you can't really steal content like a real pirate since said content can't work outside of the original game from which it was taken (though there are cases in which content is used to make crappy unfinished stand-alone games which benefit from patreon bucks and stupid people). I would call this instead a forum about ripping and modifying digital values from specific games without seeking monetary profit.

[Varithina]

1 hour ago, lerver said:

Well, you can't really steal content like a real pirate since said content can't work outside of the original game from which it was taken (though there are cases in which content is used to make crappy unfinished stand-alone games which benefit from patreon bucks and stupid people). I would call this instead a forum about ripping and modifying digital values from specific games without seeking monetary profit.

As long as nobody is getting charged for it most game companies do not care, when you start asking for money they tend to pay attention, if only to get their share of said money.

[Guest]

On 4/11/2020 at 1:48 AM, JackWall said:

you can't sell them. You have no copyright to them.

I totally agree with you. We should respect game devs.

[beck11]

18 hours ago, KotBasil said:

"Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?"

 

I have no horse in this race, and I do love free stuff, but I find any attempts to dictate people what they can or can't do with the work they pour their time and effort to... just a tad annoying. Whether it's done by lawmen, copyright holders, hosting providers or forum users.

 

Also, the most "paid mods" authors I know have quite a reasonable policy of giving early access and better resolution to people who support them, which is a good compromise.

The OP is a whole bunch of nonsense to justify crying about being denied the use of some titty mod. You can be against paid mod but also understand why some people might want to see their time and effort repaid in some small way. Doing the chicken little thing of blowing up every little infraction and going "see, see....this is what happens when you have paid mods" is just playing to emotions rather then seeing the problem for what it is.

 

Truth is modding is now almost akin to actual game dev time if you want to put out something even remotely of quality. Some people might pick it up as a hobby and do it for free but when you suddenly start getting interest and demand it suddenly can become like a job you're not being paid for. And you're fooling yourself if you think your favorite modder who puts out free stuff has not at least entertained the thought of doing some kind of payment option.

 

I mean its scary, I get it, thinking about having to pay for mods. If I had to pay for modding I'd be a hundred or two hundred bucks down the hole every time I flirted with the idea of doing another modded Skyrim/Fallout playthrough. But at the same time I can't deny that someone had to put actual time and effort into making this thing, this thing that is better at doing something specific that I want to be done vs all the ones that other people have also made to do this very specific thing.

 

 

Bringing up the Eula as defense is just people trying to be guilt free about exploiting free work.....like you ever game a shit about any of these companies in the first place, fuck off.

 

This is not to shit on people that have a genuine interest in seeing modding be hobbyist and free and move away from the troubles that a paid system might bring. I think I'd count myself as in that group as well, if Im being honest. This is to the people that feel entitled to someones hard work when the only equal work they put in is how much grip strength they can put in their dominant hand and move it up and down.

 

And if you think you're here saving modding by shouting down and chasing away any modder that even dares to whisper about fair compensation you're fooling yourself. All you're doing is chasing away people with experience and expertise to fix problems, problems in your favorite game that Todd Howard and his merry band of elves could not even be bothered to address despite doing this shit for almost 20 years.  

 

In the mean time just do what I do, be appreciative of the modders that put of good stuff for free and give them their thanks and just ignore the ones that need to be paid for without throwing a fit about it. Or you can consider supporting those that have active patreons to allow them to continue to make your naked 3D dolls. Patreon is the perfect middle ground of throwing a few bucks a month as thanks and support without ushering in the apocalyptic end game of paid mods that some seem to think is inevitable.  

 

 

[johnpage]

Everything will be free one day anyway, times are changing daily folks.

[dup3w4sh1ngt0n]

On 4/11/2020 at 5:07 AM, JackWall said:

Then do that! By all means. It's your fucking life, do whatever you want with it. Don't cry about it and ask for money! It's ridiculous.

 

I do have a clue or two about what involves creating a mod. You just fail to understand or want to ignore how illegal it is to sell a mod. Devs are not the ones calling the shots, what an artist thinks is of no value to the company policy and the legal documents that protect their intellectual property.

 

I said it already, you can let people donate to you, but blocking access to them for only those that are paying is SELLING. It's very very definition of how a business transaction is done.

You know something, huh? What mods have you created from scratch and posted. I'll wait. 

Bro, if Bethesda (and other devs) TRULY had an problem with the little money mod authors are able to make, they'd threaten legal action. That has yet to happen (for Bethesda at least). Most people are tentatively "selling" ORIGINAL assets or a service like converting armors. What part of that don't you understand?

[DoYourBest]

@dup3w4sh1ngt0nI don't like repeating myself. You wanna know which mods I made? Check the thread.

 

WHICH PART YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND? C_O_P_Y R_I_G_H_T Search that. Stop putting as an example Bethesda, they have a Creation Club Store ffs. THEY DO SELL MODS. Thing is, they get their cut because it's THEIR GAME. I'll say it again, you can't sell mods unless there's a EULA that allows it, or like in the case of Bethesda, there's a official store that allows it and the copyright owners get their cut. It's that fucking simple to understand...

 

As you can see I keep talking in legal terms, I don't give a f about opinions or what people like or not. Selling mods without explicit permission from the publisher/developer is illegal. PERIOD.