Paid mods for skyrim.

[SoundSpark]

What's the use in crying over  spilt milk, whats done is done.

[Jazzby]

The backlash has been so intense it almost seems detrimental for authors in the long run.  People have already un-endorsed and outcast authors like Isoku and Laast.  People have even pledged to stop using mods from Chesko, even after he posted a letter to the community about his reasoning and how he will use the system and honestly, his idea of handling this with delayed releases isn't terrible, but after this whole debacle people will just pirate his stuff out of spite for what happened.   

 

The funny part is that those authors that took the deal are now ostracized by the people that they made the mods for in the first place. 

Yeah, I see some of that too and that's honestly kind of extreme. One thing though is I'm a bit underwhelmed by Isoku's response to the whole thing, but I agree completely with Chesko's. I'd wait for a Nexus release if it's only 1-3 months. He's being very open and honest about it.

 

As for the situation in general, some big names are already saying this is a bad idea and that they will keep their content free to download(what I said earlier was extreme). I think a lot of the bad direction in this is how the userbase in general, particularly on the Nexus, is handling it.

 

That's not to say this is perfectly fine and everything will blow over soon. But the only authors I care about right now participating, to my knowledge, are Isoku, Chesko, and Arthmoor. Isoku seems to have done it on a bit of a whim, but his mods are still available. The only difference I can think of is Wet and Cold not being updated on Nexus. Chesko's being open and honest about it, and bringing his mods to the table for free too. Arthmoor, I read somewhere on the pages, has stated that his other mods will still remain free, and seems that the Castle Volkihair mod he made is the only one up there.

 

I don't see too many people biting at this right away.

[Arizona_Steve]

What's the use in crying over  spilt milk, whats done is done.

 

Because without the backlash, Bethesda and Valve will think it's perfectly OK to allow paid modding and steal 75% of the proceeds. Then Fallout 4 will come out and will be locked to steam, and sites such as this one and the Nexus will be history.

 

I have updated my mod descriptions on the Nexus to state that the resources from them cannot be used in any paid mod. All of my mods will remain free and I want no part in this debacle.

 

[Tarath]

I woke up, feeling llike crap, unaware of any of this news. My left eye was swollen, my body ached, but I still went online as part of my daily routine. Only to be taken aback by this horrific news. I know I'm probably blowing this out of proportion, but this is the worst thing that has come to Skyrim. I LITERALLY feel like crap. I dont know if its a combination of that news or just woke up on the wrong side of bed, I just feel really down.

This is going to set a precedent on how mods are going to be released. Already Isoku (Wet and cold) and Chesko (Frostfall, Arissa) have moved to Steam workshop and started the ball rolling. And they state that they will release it to nexus after a month or two.
Don't get me wrong, Im not saying they should NOT be paid, its just they are going to get a paltry sum of 25% of the cut, and a lot of respect lost. Hell, I would've left it on nexus and UPHELD that its going to be on nexus and never paid. That would surely provide more of an incentive for users to donate to him. I know it would've made me do it and im a cheap bastard.

Sorry for the rant, I just felt i needed to get it out of my chest, excuse me while I grab a drink and just wish this was a bad dream or something. Cheers.

[Taskmaster]

Jenga.

 

[Irrational]

Jenga.

 

 

 

Inquisition

[aqqh]

 

Seems like Fore has done something to at least delay this madness - after his intervention due to FNIS usage, Chesko's fishing mod got taken down from the workshop and thus Valve's entire "mod collection".

Pictured: Fore after single-handedly taking down Valve's mod package

 

 

hardly

that fishing mod never was a part of that bundle.

[Jexsam]

 

 

Seems like Fore has done something to at least delay this madness - after his intervention due to FNIS usage, Chesko's fishing mod got taken down from the workshop and thus Valve's entire "mod collection".

Pictured: Fore after single-handedly taking down Valve's mod package

 

 

 

 

 

hardly

that fishing mod never was a part of that bundle.

 

Oh come on! I was trying to be funny! I thought it was funny. Even 'shopped the T into an F...

[NNS10]

I'm not totally opposed to the idea of supporting mod authors with a few bucks, but the fact that they probably don't even get most of the profit is pathetic.  So lets call it for what it is, which is a easy way for Steam and Bethesda to get a few bucks off of other people's work.  Why would any mod author sign up for this?  They are essentially signing on to work for these companies, doing 100% of the work, and only getting a small portion of the revenue.

 

[...] I could see some people spend a few bucks on a couple of mods but no one's going to mod like they do now if they have to pay for it.

 

[...] This makes me real scared about what shitty practices Fallout 4 might have.  

 

Agreed. I'm not opposed to mod authors making some money, but that should be done through donations or something like Patreon. Selling mod content itself becomes problematic due to the nature of modding.

 

The argument against paid mods shouldn't be centered around price. The real issue is modding, especially with Skyrim, is a community activity.

 

Many mods borrow from others or have dependencies on other mods. It's like open source coding--through borrowing and re-using existing work, the wheel doesn't need to be re-invented, and mod authors can focus on new features. This open atmosphere of sharing content and resources is what allows the creation of high volumes of high quality mods.

 

Once you try to monetize that, re-using resources is no longer considered sharing, but stealing. And most major mods re-use resources to some extent. Gameplay mods probably use SKSE, SkyUI (MCM), FNIS, or some other framework. Some also borrow assets like item models. NPC mods generally borrow texture mods, hair mods, body mods, clothing mods, etc.

 

The modding community for Skyrim is undoubtedly one of the most active modding communities out there, but it's also one of the most interconnected. The sheer volume of small mods is amazing, and that creates a giant pool of content to share and build off of. But attempting to monetize mods will destroy the inherent nature of sharing in the community, which is what makes Skyrim modding so successful.

[ShivasBane]

I used to pirate a lot of software but then eventually came to the conclusion that supporting the developers of same software by actually buying it was the correct choice. But in seeing where they are heading with this crap I think I may have to reinstall a torrent program on a dedicated computer to fight theivery with theivery. The only reason this game is still so popular is the fact that you can still get new content offered by the community for free. People create mods to share their work and to further their skills. If this is how game studios are going to be treating their dedicated fans then I will withdraw my support. Trying to extract money from people who have already paid what was asked in the beginning is nothing short of extortion. WTF?

[lindazana]

Well my friends, this is the beginning of the end of our beloved hobby.

 

Just wait until they send out a patch that will lock modding to downloads from the Steam workshop (if you haven't noticed, you can't disable auto-updates for Skyrim anymore).

 

 

 

The whole "canceling auto updates" thing has actually been around for several months now. Caused a hell of an uproar in the Starbound mod community. Way to avoid this is to set the update to ONLY run on launching the game, and launch the game through either a desktop shortcut, the game folder, or SKSE. Making sure to backup your entire folder just in case. Option two, is to turn off your internet on launching the game, then turn it back on once it's up. And option 3, is play pirated, non-updating versions.

[ao2thend]

I woke up, feeling llike crap, unaware of any of this news. My left eye was swollen, my body ached, but I still went online as part of my daily routine. Only to be taken aback by this horrific news. I know I'm probably blowing this out of proportion, but this is the worst thing that has come to Skyrim. I LITERALLY feel like crap. I dont know if its a combination of that news or just woke up on the wrong side of bed, I just feel really down.

This is going to set a precedent on how mods are going to be released. Already Isoku (Wet and cold) and Chesko (Frostfall, Arissa) have moved to Steam workshop and started the ball rolling. And they state that they will release it to nexus after a month or two.

Don't get me wrong, Im not saying they should NOT be paid, its just they are going to get a paltry sum of 25% of the cut, and a lot of respect lost. Hell, I would've left it on nexus and UPHELD that its going to be on nexus and never paid. That would surely provide more of an incentive for users to donate to him. I know it would've made me do it and im a cheap bastard.

 

Sorry for the rant, I just felt i needed to get it out of my chest, excuse me while I grab a drink and just wish this was a bad dream or something. Cheers.

 

Yeah, I'm not opposed to donating or even paying for mods, but the majority of the money isn't even going to the authors.

 

 I paid $60 for the game, then I paid for all three DLC's (another $45 out the window) and now, I have to pay just to get content for a game that is years past its prime, from modders who can't claim to support the mod like a company could (but when has a company actually supported their content anyways), nor can they claim that the mod will even work properly with other mods. I have to do all of this knowing that most of the money doesn't even go to the content creator, and instead goes to the companies that A. already took $105 of my hard earned dollars to kindly give me a buggy game that didn't even work correctly until modders fixed their pathetic mess of a game, and B. have no quality control or care for the customer in anything that they do (A. being Bethesda and B. being Valve).  

 

Do modders get a thank you from Bethesda for making Skyrim worth playing? No.  They get manipulated into making Bethesda even more money.  And the worst part?  Modders see this as an opportunity to make themselves some money, but don't take into account that in the end, they were given a small scrap while Bethesda and Valve take the majority of the money for work they didn't do.

 

Before today, we at least could hold solace in the fact that modding was for the most part untouched by the disgusting and inhuman business practices that had plagued the video game industry for the past decade or so.  Now, we don't even have that.  

[nekroskoma]

This has got to be a legal clusterfuck. I don't mind someone making money off their mods. Hell i might be more motivated to mod some games if I could make some scratch for my efforts. This is not the way though, this is a bad joke. It is plainly a bad deal.

 

I'm glad to see that FNIS is not having any of this, while I would like SKSE to be the same I am ok with their Apathy.

[Cezul]

I can't say that I'm shocked at all, but I am most certainly appalled.

  Was a donation button really all that hard to code? 


Not to mention, if all the good mods got behind a pay wall, people would cease to buy Bethesda games, since modding is the main thing that brings people to Elder Scrolls/Fallout on the PC platform to begin with. Literally fucking themselves in the long run.
 
 

[aqqh]

  Was a donation button really all that hard to code? 

Not really.

But you know how it looks like atm?

You make a mod. You spend 300 hours tinkering in Creation Kit. 3 times as much learning how to use creation kit.

Lets say that you succeed and create a fun mod.

 

How much donation do you think you can expect? Call it success if it would be 20 bucks per month.

[Warrunner]

To me, I'd be pretty OK with a donation system, but straight out selling? Not so much.

 

Virtually every good mod uses SKSE and FNIS at this point, the authors of whom I am sure have no damn interest at all in seeing others get paid for their work.

 

Now, alternatively you have to look at it like this: If a cash incentive will make people build huge story mods that have the same level of content as official expansions? I'd be pretty cool with that, but that'd be the kind of thing I'd donate for, not spend money on. Hell, if its quality, I'd be perfectly OK with donating 20 bucks for it; similar price to what an out-of-box DLC expansion.

 

The real trick is going to be what happens when the next game comes out that slightly changes the engine or has a new one entirely: What happens when someone makes a new version of FNIS for the next elder scrolls games and then BAM, puts it up on Steam for 5 dollars?

[hardlol]

Hey people, do u ever thought of creating foundation system like Patreon, where content creators will put goal of $ for certain mod or mod update. I think this is more fairy system than that 75% greedy cut. Why should people pay valve/bethesda for things they didn't create?

[aqqh]

Hey people, do u ever thought of creating foundation system like Patreon, where content creators will put goal of $ for certain mod or mod update. I think this is more fairy system than that 75% greedy cut. Why should people pay valve/bethesda for things they didn't create?

because to create a mod you are using tools created by bethesda and your work is also based on the game made by bethesda - to they want their cut. 45% to be precise

 

becasue trying to sell you're using a platform that is owned by Valve - and they want their cut. 30%. Its the same as if you would want to sell your work on apple upstore for example.

[Guest Vendayn]

I uploaded my wasteland mod to workshop, and not nexus, because my two friends (good friends of mine) only use workshop. They refuse to use nexus because its too "complicated" (they only really play consoles heh)

But its free! FREE!

Hope you enjoy

Also, if you're bored of waiting for fallout 4...or ever wanted a skyrim wasteland mod...this is the first wasteland mod for skyrim

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=430994185

[Darth Omix]

I've been spitballing ideas for mods and after today I've lost all interest in even trying if this kind of shit is going to happen.

 

Props to Fore for sticking up for his shit and for other big name modders to not suckling from the teat of Valve.

 

Modding was always a gray area legally since you're building content off of something someone else did, but I don't think charging a flat paywall is the right way to go about it. A pay-what-you-want or -what-you-can method of donation is a far more sensible way of doing things. I'd much rather buy a modder a coffee than pay for Valve's next gilded cocksheath.

[zzz72w3r]

Like many already mentioned in this and other threads, the risk is not about Skyrim but future of Bethesda games now that monetization has been decided.  It's probably inevitable.

 

Backlash with Skryim mod paywall is gonna be a cluster shitstorm and I am sure Bethesda has been anticipating it.  They are doing it now to get the bad publicity out of the way before what really matters which is to bring the ecosystem inhouse.  Once the payment platform is accepted, the next step is DRM and that's where the real money is.  Unfortunately here case studies do not support our cause.  In business models using micro-transaction 5-10% of users usually generate ~50-90% of revenue.  So if future games the mods are managed by a server and not on the client side, we can moan and cry all we want but there will be that 5-10% of players who will ensure enough talented modders only make mods for sale. 

 

I am sure Bethesda will still make their games easy to mod, probably even with better free tools but the real loss is that modding will no longer be a community affair but competition with mutual distrust. 

[hardlol]

 

Hey people, do u ever thought of creating foundation system like Patreon, where content creators will put goal of $ for certain mod or mod update. I think this is more fairy system than that 75% greedy cut. Why should people pay valve/bethesda for things they didn't create?

because to create a mod you are using tools created by bethesda and your work is also based on the game made by bethesda - to they want their cut. 45% to be precise

 

becasue trying to sell you're using a platform that is owned by Valve - and they want their cut. 30%. Its the same as if you would want to sell your work on apple upstore for example.

 

So basically they are trying to make profit from donations, thats sounds greedy.

 

[ousnius]

Just a note, SKSE could not be put on the workshop even if they wanted to. It's outside of the data folder and an executable. Same for ENB, BodySlide and FNIS.

 

CBBE won't be behind a paywall and mods using it are not allowed to be sold (be it armor or followers).

[27X]

really hope Bethesda isn't involved.

 

Bethesda set the price of the cut, how's that for involved?

 

 

The sad part of this is valve COULD have handled this correctly at any time.

 

Set up a curator council so mods could be checked and rechecked and made to be absolutely sure they passed muster, vetted said council so that no political shenanigans occurred and that content was not theft or infringement, set up a FAIR range of prices and a FAIR cut to each of the involved parties to make this worthwhile, but no, they simply copy-pasted DOTA's framework, right up to and including identical spelling errors in the EULA and ToS.

 

Valve has simply lost sight of what made them great, pure and simple.

 

The cliche of greedy 50 year old men conniving in collusion in boardrooms like some absurd political cartoon has literally come to pass.

 

This is also pretty telling of what Bethesda has become.

 

At this point I'm hoping CDPR does another original fantasy open world after CyberPunk releases, because tamriel just became a licensed property and nothing more today, and now Bethesda literally expects the community to fix their games for them in return for providing the incredibly poorly documented and half ass tools they've parsed out over the years.

[27X]

Just a note, SKSE could not be put on the workshop even if they wanted to. It's outside of the data folder and an executable. Same for ENB, BodySlide and FNIS.

 

CBBE won't be behind a paywall and mods using it are not allowed to be sold (be it armor or followers).

 

Untrue, they could either set the path based on requirements thereof, ME2 had an external launcher/configurator and so did A:CM and has every arkham game.

 

Secondly Bethesda can easily break outside content with a very simple verification scheme and there's not a damn thing any modder could do about it if they so chose.