How much does Bethesda owe the Skyrim modding community?

[notInterestedInFun]

Title says it all. I haven't played for very long but it looks like mods contribute a huge amount of content both technical such as ENB/texture/other mechanistic elements, and overall storyline to the "vanilla" Skyrim SE. Of course, the core engine is still Bethesda's creation. How much credit do you think the modding community deserves? And in hypothetical budget size for Bethesda? 

[spoonsinger]

£2.33?

[Andy14]

4 minutes ago, notInterestedInFun said:

Title says it all. I haven't played for very long but it looks like mods contribute a huge amount of content both technical such as ENB/texture/other mechanistic elements, and overall storyline to the "vanilla" Skyrim SE. Of course, the core engine is still Bethesda's creation. How much credit do you think the modding community deserves? And in hypothetical budget size for Bethesda? 

In short - nothing.
As a longer version - nothing, nothing at all, zero point nothing, not even a damp handshake.
The users and also Moder (who are also users) use the option that Bethesda has given and use it far beyond that.
For Fallout 4, Bethesda was actually considering whether to allow modding at all and to publish a CK.
Sex with animals, rape, etc. (and beyond) were the reason for these considerations. They did it anyway - they are not idiots. But they don't owe anyone anything - on the contrary, we should be grateful that modding is made so easy and legitimate.

 

 

In case it wasn't clear, my statements relate to the title of your post:

How much does Bethesda owe the Skyrim modding community?

Edited July 11, 2021 by Andy14
Reference to title

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, Andy14 said:

In short - nothing.

@notInterestedInFun Total agreement with @Andy14... and that is pretty much all games that we play and mod. As much as we HATE some of what Bethesda or EA or whichever game maker may or may not have done when they made the game... they did make the game... we bought it, and without it, what would we be playing or modding??? Or complaining about?????????????????? And believe me... I complain A LOT!!!!!!!!!!!! ?

[notInterestedInFun]

15 minutes ago, spoonsinger said:

£2.33?

 

14 minutes ago, Andy14 said:

In short - nothing.
As a longer version - nothing, nothing at all, zero point nothing, not even a damp handshake.
The users and also Moder (who are also users) use the option that Bethesda has given and use it far beyond that.
For Fallout 4, Bethesda was actually considering whether to allow modding at all and to publish a CK.
Sex with animals, rape, etc. (and beyond) were the reason for these considerations. They did it anyway - they are not idiots. But they don't owe anyone anything - on the contrary, we should be grateful that modding is made so easy and legitimate

 

I don't mean actual financial obligation, but hypothetical value? Sure, people volunteered, doesn't mean their work isn't worth anything or deserve credit.

 

I don't have creature packs but sex with animals is a worthwhile feature in my opinion. What would life be like if sex with animals is somehow made impossible irl? Just plain stupid

[Gukahn]

Just now, LadySmoks said:

@notInterestedInFun Total agreement with @Andy14... and that is pretty much all games that we play and mod. As much as we HATE some of what Bethesda or EA or whichever game maker may or may not have done when they made the game... they did make the game... we bought it, and without it, what would we be playing or modding??? Or complaining about?????????????????? And believe me... I complain A LOT!!!!!!!!!!!! ?

I think i would finally play Vampire the masquarade again ? It's the kink stuff that chains me to skyrim.. That and my inability to get hyped by new stuff as i used to xD

 

Well Beth takes sometimes notes to the Big mods.. Remember The legacy of the dragonborn? I just say Skyrim Expansion of ESO. They obviously saw the mod, found it a interesting idea and implemented their own take on. So yeah, Beth learns from mods what user might like in their next games but saying Beth owns anyone anything just because they made Morrowind + The other Games modular is a bit too much ? s like i say i owe the guy on the road i saw yesterday fixing his car anything just because i took notes to some things he did.

[notInterestedInFun]

4 minutes ago, LadySmoks said:

@notInterestedInFun Total agreement with @Andy14... and that is pretty much all games that we play and mod. As much as we HATE some of what Bethesda or EA or whichever game maker may or may not have done when they made the game... they did make the game... we bought it, and without it, what would we be playing or modding??? Or complaining about?????????????????? And believe me... I complain A LOT!!!!!!!!!!!! ?

 

Since you mentioned EA, one of my favorite games is battlefield: bad company 2. For me, it's superior to all newer titles, and I've put in some time in those. It was released in 2010 so there are some outdated stuff like bad hit detection, bugs here and there, and ofc a bit outdated graphics. What people have done for Skyrim is beyond my wildest imaginations for what modders can do to a game. In this example, many have wanted a new Battlefield Bad Company release, some say they just want a graphics refresh. But EA never got around to it. That's a lot of wasted potential isn't it

[notInterestedInFun]

2 minutes ago, Gukahn said:

I think i would finally play Vampire the masquarade again ? It's the kink stuff that chains me to skyrim.. That and my inability to get hyped by new stuff as i used to xD

 

Well Beth takes sometimes notes to the Big mods.. Remember The legacy of the dragonborn? I just say Skyrim Expansion of ESO. They obviously saw the mod, found it a interesting idea and implemented their own take on. So yeah, Beth learns from mods what user might like in their next games but saying Beth owns anyone anything just because they made Morrowind + The other Games modular is a bit too much ? s like i say i owe the guy on the road i saw yesterday fixing his car anything just because i took notes to some things he did.

 

Yeah that makes sense. But just to be clear, I wasn't referring to the value of ideas that Bethesda took and implemented in later games - how much would, say, Microsoft or Google owe Apple? Nothing. But if someone took an iPhone 3GS and modded it to work like iPhone 8, I'd say there's some value in that work especially if iPhone 8 had never existed.

[Swe-DivX]

...Open Source Game engine? ?

[Gukahn]

1 minute ago, Swe-DivX said:

...Open Source Game engine? ?

they would get broke ?

[notInterestedInFun]

2 minutes ago, Swe-DivX said:

...Open Source Game engine? ?

 

Just now, Gukahn said:

they would get broke ?

 

That means modders have what it takes to make new games competitive with what Bethesda can do themselves, and Bethesda makes hundreds of millions if not more out of them, not to mention their budget alone is tens of millions. I think that says a lot about the quantity and quality of modding done in skyrim.

[Gukahn]

5 minutes ago, notInterestedInFun said:

 

Yeah that makes sense. But just to be clear, I wasn't referring to the value of ideas that Bethesda took and implemented in later games - how much would, say, Microsoft or Google owe Apple? Nothing. But if someone took an iPhone 3GS and modded it to work like iPhone 8, I'd say there's some value in that work especially if iPhone 8 had never existed.

I understand your meaning. But it's hard to say.. If we take my example, i would guess not as much as you might think, more then we would except. They get valuable ideas  out of the modding community, no questions asked here and skyrim and oblivion still get sold and played all over the world which is good for Bethesdas reputation as a gaming company. So they owe them  a promise that the other games get a CK As Well.. ? Well they sure should do it anyway..

[Swe-DivX]

5 minutes ago, Gukahn said:

they would get broke ?

Honestly, I do not think so ? Would love to support a graphics engine that is updated (not the case with Skyrim as we know). But that they now do not let us download the multiplayer server for fallout 76 is really sad.

[Wolfshrike]

55 minutes ago, notInterestedInFun said:

Title says it all. I haven't played for very long but it looks like mods contribute a huge amount of content both technical such as ENB/texture/other mechanistic elements, and overall storyline to the "vanilla" Skyrim SE. Of course, the core engine is still Bethesda's creation. How much credit do you think the modding community deserves? And in hypothetical budget size for Bethesda? 

 

It's really hard to say. I doubt Skyrim or Fo4 would have had anywhere near the longevity they've enjoyed without the modding scene, though. 

[notInterestedInFun]

19 minutes ago, Wolfshrike said:

 

It's really hard to say. I doubt Skyrim or Fo4 would have had anywhere near the longevity they've enjoyed without the modding scene, though. 

 

Yeah even Skyrim SE comes with pretty shitty default graphics - the kind that makes you uncomfortable because the visuals do matter here. I still enjoy playing Counter-strike 1.6 even though it has no graphics by today's standard, and I don't really care for CSGO stuff. But that's because the focus is on competitive gameplay. I do hope sex mods don't end up being about competitive gameplay

 

Like literally half the solutions to problems in skyrim is: disable Bethesda feature/setting, use this instead...

Edited July 11, 2021 by notInterestedInFun

[Gukahn]

25 minutes ago, Wolfshrike said:

 

It's really hard to say. I doubt Skyrim or Fo4 would have had anywhere near the longevity they've enjoyed without the modding scene, though. 

I doubt anybody would even remember skyrim without mods... Oblivion yes, Morrowind holy shit of course.. But vanilla skyrim? I would have played it once and then never again tbh. 

 

8 minutes ago, notInterestedInFun said:

Like literally half the solutions to problems in skyrim is: disable Bethesda feature/setting, use this instead...

The first things that came from the Modders where Bug fixes and solutions..

 

But back to the point, of course they wouldn't get broke only because their engine gets free. Just a small gag on my part. I am german, that's our humor ?

My other post stands at is tho.

[Andy14]

39 minutes ago, notInterestedInFun said:

 

 

I don't mean actual financial obligation, but hypothetical value? Sure, people volunteered, doesn't mean their work isn't worth anything or deserve credit.

 

I don't have creature packs but sex with animals is a worthwhile feature in my opinion. What would life be like if sex with animals is somehow made impossible irl? Just plain stupid

And I meant it the way I wrote it - nothing, nothing at all.
Maybe one should turn the thought around. I don't know if you're moderate, but suppose it is you.
Wouldn't it annoy you not to be able or not to mod a game? How is it?
Isn't it rather that all these mods are actually only possible because Bethesda not only allows us, but and even encourages us to do so?
And on the other hand, let me say - it's a win win, these people are not idiots.
Neither philosophically, financially, morally or in any way responsible for our actions, nor owed in any way to anyone - not even theoretically.

For Skyrim I think I create about 48 mods and mostly even published them. Some even here. With my old original account more than now, because I don't feel like publishing anything anymore. In addition to the mods, I own 476 armor (I created it myself), a completely different dynamic body system and a whole sack of mods for the "Adult" area.

And now the joke - Skyrim interests me ZERO.
Oblivion, Fallout New Vegas, Fallout 3 I don't care.
For me it's just a playground where I have a little fun with Blender, Marvelous or 3Ds. Perhaps not many will act for the same reasons as I do, but that too is part of the simple truth.
And that's only possible because Bethesda sponsors it.

[Durante]

Honestly, I have a different perspective. They owe almost everything to their success. The day they cut out mod support is the day their games will become mediocre meat grinder RPG's that everyone forgets about 5 years down the line. They could try to create a nearly bug free, graphically jaw dropping game like for example RDR2 but will they? Nah. Just need the bare minimum and some sweet little lies.

[Andy14]

1 minute ago, Durante said:

Honestly, I have a different perspective. They owe almost everything to their success. The day they cut out mod support is the day their games will become mediocre meat grinder RPG's that everyone forgets about 5 years down the line. They could try to create a nearly bug free, graphically jaw dropping game like for example RDR2 but will they? Nah. Just need the bare minimum and some sweet little lies.

You're right with that. But that wasn't the question, was it? I described it as a win-win situation.
But does that mean Bethesda owes anyone? I do not think so. And that was the question. Not whether Bethesda benefits from it and has any use. They are completely different things.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, notInterestedInFun said:

EA never got around to it.

Maybe not involved in that game, maybe he was, but @namaradus, who pops into TS3 from time to time, worked on some of TS3 has talked about EA not caring so much about fixing things when found and pushing to get the product to market and patch it later kind of attitude. If they don't see there being a HUGE $$$$$$$$$$ in it for them, up grading the graphics of a 10 year old game won't happen.

 

Being a TS3 CC maker, and having converted some TS4 to TS3, I look at the meshes and think how much I could do if EA was to rerelease TS3 as 64 bit! 32 bit TS3 can't handle a lot that we stuff into it, but TS4 is like driving a Bugatti in a parking lot going 5 mph. Unless EA believes they can make tons of cash, it will never happen, and since many TS3 players won't go Origin, and that is what EA will want to do, they probably don't see a good investment. Same with upgrades to anything they already have your money for. They just make # 4... #5.... etc...

1 hour ago, Swe-DivX said:

...Open Source Game engine? ?

Not sure how that would work, but I'm sure any game dev is going to retain some sort of monetary rights to their materials.

[Guest]

They owe the mod community an apology for treating them like low I.Q, idiots who don't know any better when it came to their 2015 paid mods BS. Did they? No. Instead they regrouped and made a strategic plan to roll out the same garbage known as Creation Club. This is where they drew the line for me and I lost every last bit of respect I had for them.

[notInterestedInFun]

1 hour ago, Andy14 said:

And I meant it the way I wrote it - nothing, nothing at all.
Maybe one should turn the thought around. I don't know if you're moderate, but suppose it is you.
Wouldn't it annoy you not to be able or not to mod a game? How is it?

 

And on the other hand, let me say - it's a win win, these people are not idiots.
Neither philosophically, financially, morally or in any way responsible for our actions, nor owed in any way to anyone - not even theoretically.

 

 

Really? Just because I have an urge or feel compelled to make something better, my actions have zero value? When I say owe, I mean it in the sense that Bethesda own Skyrim (SE) and the value of this game has increased substantially (or at least retained its retail value) with the efforts of the modding community. What other 10yo game sells for $40 in 2021?... And I want to emphasize that I don't care much about how much Bethesda has actually made from Skyrim. They could give the game away for free and it's still a high value creation from my point of view. Sure people don't always agree, but let's just say for you - if everyone on the planet see things as you do how good is Skyrim SE? And how much of its value comes from modding?

 

After you have an answer to that question, then - just for fun - you could put a dollar amount to it. If vanilla Skyrim is worth 50M+ in labor, how much would all the modding be worth? Again you can say from your perspective (if you think digital creature sex is worthless, then the pack is worthless; I disagree even tho I don't dig it personally), or from the perspective of a Skyrim connoisseur. 

 

From my limited exposure to Skyrim, and based on the fact that Skyrim is perhaps the only sophisticated sandbox game with a good sex mod, I'm very impressed with all the mods that exist (GTA V doesn't have a sex mod, though perhaps it's not even as "realistic"/immersive as Skyrim to serve as the best backdrop; Cyberpunk 2077 obviously doesn't have a sex mod despite its overly polished graphics - no city in the real world looks that good).

 

Edited July 11, 2021 by notInterestedInFun

[notInterestedInFun]

1 hour ago, Durante said:

Honestly, I have a different perspective. They owe almost everything to their success. The day they cut out mod support is the day their games will become mediocre meat grinder RPG's that everyone forgets about 5 years down the line. They could try to create a nearly bug free, graphically jaw dropping game like for example RDR2 but will they? Nah. Just need the bare minimum and some sweet little lies.

Agreed. Though I do appreciate their making things more open. They don't have to and there is a very large cost to it. Plenty of other games cut back on modability in their franchise. Not to mention every other game banning sex mods whenever they surface. I just read that cyberpunk banned a skin mod that let you "have sex" with a Keanu Reeve lookalike, except it's fully dressed and not really sex... How easy would it be to do that in Skyrim? Let's just say very. And obviously if you allow modding, no more releasing new game every year just so people buy the graphics/texture update. 

 

Another thing to note is that Skyrim modding has actively protected Bethesda's interests by making some mods verify whether the game is a legal copy. Obviously people with the interest and knowhow to mod can easily download pirated copies. But now the interest that mods generate feeds directly into Skyrim sales.

Edited July 11, 2021 by notInterestedInFun

[notInterestedInFun]

1 hour ago, LadySmoks said:

TS4 is like driving a Bugatti in a parking lot going 5 mph. Unless EA believes they can make tons of cash, it will never happen

LOL that's a very good analogy... I get that companies are money-driven and they believe it's the best way to go (invisible hand blahblahblah), and it's one of the main reasons I think franchises, Battlefield in particular since that's what I'm familiar with (I'm not a "go there do that" person, more of a "let me blow this up" user), have gotten worse in the last 5-10 years despite all the fancy technical tricks that people have developed. If you have to please everyone and get your focus group ratings as high as possible, you make mediocre crap that is less valuable to people who appreciate it. Most of the times, I'm inclined to think that you can't please everyone, and that's the way it ought to be (in some cases at least). 

 

I haven't played TS4 in a long time, but I imagine that based on your experience, it could've been a much better game for many people who can appreciate it if EA opened things up a bit more like Bethesda. Hence this topic, given all the freedom in Skyrim, how much have the modding community achieved? 

 

1 hour ago, LadySmoks said:

Not sure how that would work, but I'm sure any game dev is going to retain some sort of monetary rights to their materials.

Intellectual property rights/ownership thru closed-source, aka proprietary, is pretty much everywhere.

[notInterestedInFun]

3 hours ago, Swe-DivX said:

...Open Source Game engine? ?

 

Also, now that I think about it, Skyrim SE feels kind of like a token of thanks to the modding community. They didn't have to do it, but it seems that it has made Skyrim mods much better in the long-term. People who bought LE (which is just oldrim+DLC for the most part?) could, for a period of time, get SE for free. Ofc new players would just get SE, but it's not all that more expensive than oldrim right

 

They didn't go so far as to give SE for free to oldrim modders, but still 

 

And who releases a new version of a 6yo game that is a lot more stable and ported to 64-bits? Especially when sales of the old game is through the roof and people seem content? I don't follow new games that much but all I hear is how every new AAA title is released full of bugs, some never fixed, others taking years. Bugs probably don't deter people from buying because how do you know just how fucking bad the bugs are if you don't play it first?...

 

Skyrim: Special Edition was helped by the Fallout 4 production process | PCGamesN Does appear to be an exception for Bethesda. Also it looks as if Skyrim ended the franchise. I'm no expert so correct me if I'm wrong, but from an outside perspective, an RPG game that tops the sales should normally be followed up with sequels. If you don't allow extensive mods, update graphics, put in a new story, and people will buy it. Like Assassin's Creed. In this sense, Bethesda made sacrifices by letting modders create extensive content (I've seen many mods claim to be DLC-sized). What I've been doing is download "Noble Skyrim", "Skyrim 2018" "Skyrim 2020 Parallax" distributed for free by enthusiasts. I haven't gone into quests much, but I think the same thing basically happens for storyline. The Sims 4 is also pretty old with no sequel yet, but the expansion packs each cost as much as a game...

Edited July 11, 2021 by notInterestedInFun