Kendo 2 Posted May 6, 2015 Posted May 6, 2015 Modders for Valve made 57 million from sales. They might have netted that much for Valve but that wasn't the gross payout to the people who made the content. I follow financial news and I haven't heard anything from anyone about the big modding bucks at Valve. And there is no way to verify that number since Valve is not a publicly traded company. The company’s owners, their CPAs and the IRS are the only ones who really know. Valve can say whatever they want, they can even LIE. As far as people stealing mods and uploading them for profit; that will indeed happen. Valve has a horrible record on this already and they are hesitant to discipline offenders since they are customers as well as thieves. Steam/Valve says, “So they stole a mod an uploaded it here? If we ban them they’ll no longer be able to buy anything and they’ll go to one of our competitors for games. And I don’t see what the big deal is, mods are free.” That lackadaisical attitude won’t fly in a paid mod market. Something else that won’t fly are forums like Nexus playing favorites with their members if they choose to participate in paid modding. In that market, if someone steals a mod and uploads it to Paid Nexus for profit Dark0ne will have to do something tangible. Something else they won’t be able to do is discipline one uploader for theft and not someone else for doing the same thing. They won’t be able to protect their friends, hide posts and ban people who file complaints. Nexus won’t be their personal sandbox anymore and they won’t be able to do as they please. Steam/Valve and Nexus not being able or willing to hold a standard is why I said in an earlier post that vending sites need to be ran as businesses and not game forums or discussion boards. 'Because I said so' is not the mission statement of a corporation. [This next part is an extrapolation, but the proposed conditions are very real.] Another aspect of paid modding from the hosting side is where the servers are located. Both Steam and Nexus have host servers in the United States. That means they are subject to U.S. law (sorry Dark0ne if you don’t think that’s true) since they are doing business in the United States. That also means the FCC, the FTC and Federal Laws will apply. So imagine a mythical world of paid mods that Valve controls and people are stealing mods and then selling them on Steam. The problem was de facto created by Valve, they profit from it and they aren’t doing anything tangible to stop it. Welcome to the world of racketeering, Valve. All it takes is enough civil complaints (notice I said civil and not criminal) and the FBI will be prompted to start an investigation. That is the beauty of the RICO Act.
Gameplayer Posted May 6, 2015 Posted May 6, 2015 I thought that software and particularly gaming software was treated rather low on the list for Laws? Anyways I have a feeling that it wont be the mods original author that will be filing complaints with the Legal system but rather companies that believe that the content of said mods being uploaded for profits are legally theirs. The other angle would be breach of TOS of the applications used by mod authors to create the content in the first place. Those two items I think will carry more weight and if companies thought oh shit Valve is trying to lay a blanket claim to our stuff that would certainly shake things up and perhaps lead to suits involving getting a nice amount of this "LIE" money from Valve and any other entity that might be able to pay out. It'd have to be big though, companies are not interested in pursuit of legal procedings unless there really is an actual real profit at the end. Unless of course your company is named Bethsada, then you'll go to war cause some unknown Indie titled their phone game app "Fallout Fortress"........... ----------------------------------------- After that Total Biscuit Interview, My impression from having listened to the whole thing and read all of the articles that DarkOne aka Robin has written is that he really doesn't have a very professional stance just yet. Honestly just about everything he said felt like he's trying to get the community to go along with the idea that its a small minority......Psht he's just mimicking outright whatever Valve and Beth want him to say, he's being such a tool and expecting us all to swallow his garbage. The last letter he wrote basically told the community that "Its time to move on." That's a pipe dream, there are people out there just hearing about this fiasco or its just their first chance to say something about this what they don't get to say their piece? Gotta say real smooth move guy.
Kendo 2 Posted May 6, 2015 Posted May 6, 2015 Licensing is a legal quagmire, at least from the patent side of things which is what I'm really familiar with. Licensing for copywrite protected software is probably just as sticky. That's why I was saying before that the free software modders use probably won't be viable in a paid modding scheme. All of the hacked student versions of 3DMax and Photoshop modders use are protected by licensing and premade game content bought from a vendor is even more so. Dak0ne I don't want this derailed into his or his site's shortcomings. That being said he is not a reliable or trustworthy person. One minute he is bemoaning on Nexus the costs of running the site and there will have to be cuts and he's asking for donations. Then he goes on holiday to Greek islands...and recently he stated in an interview that Nexus is self-supporting and always has been. He has no need of the 5% service provider fee from Valve. He lies so much and is so inconsistent with his stories that he can't keep them straight. His input as an 'expert' was a joke and that whole interview was the pro-paid mod side of things and not the reality of what it entails for the community.
pinky6225 Posted May 6, 2015 Posted May 6, 2015 If they ever actually fully do pay for modding. I simply wont play them anymore. I'm surprised G.u.network doesn't charge for the mods, they seem to worship dragbodys shit work enough. lol I think modding will die down or alot of underground websites will become popular if nexus and steam become pay to mod. Okay, no nude body mods...BFD. Now look at the existing fan base for mods and their habits. They look for adult mods and while on that site browse other content, and they download that too. To a lesser degree there are follower and quest mods that require nude body replacers, and those mods have other requirements too. SSKE, SkyUI, official DLCs, etc. All of this in intertwined and if one part gets no exposure then the other parts start to suffer. I think regardless of legalities and other issues their wouldn't of been nude mods anyway or other adult mods. Despite the age rating a game has their is always public outcry when its done by the actual devs (gta hot coffee mod outcry for example) so i think steam would need to stay well clear of any "questionable" mods mainly for reputational reasons Which is why i'm kind of surprised steam didnt also have a vetting process for mods before they available Its also why i'm rather unconcerned about the "future" of modding as i don't think major platforms will ever adopt the kind of stuff you have here on LL so unless they locked games to "offical" mods only their will always be unoffical sites and i doubt they would have gone down the lock route as the outcry about that would have made the paid mods outcry seem small and insignificant
isahale Posted May 6, 2015 Posted May 6, 2015 If they ever actually fully do pay for modding. I simply wont play them anymore. I'm surprised G.u.network doesn't charge for the mods, they seem to worship dragbodys shit work enough. lol I think modding will die down or alot of underground websites will become popular if nexus and steam become pay to mod. Okay, no nude body mods...BFD. Now look at the existing fan base for mods and their habits. They look for adult mods and while on that site browse other content, and they download that too. To a lesser degree there are follower and quest mods that require nude body replacers, and those mods have other requirements too. SSKE, SkyUI, official DLCs, etc. All of this in intertwined and if one part gets no exposure then the other parts start to suffer. I think regardless of legalities and other issues their wouldn't of been nude mods anyway or other adult mods. Despite the age rating a game has their is always public outcry when its done by the actual devs (gta hot coffee mod outcry for example) so i think steam would need to stay well clear of any "questionable" mods mainly for reputational reasons Which is why i'm kind of surprised steam didnt also have a vetting process for mods before they available Its also why i'm rather unconcerned about the "future" of modding as i don't think major platforms will ever adopt the kind of stuff you have here on LL so unless they locked games to "offical" mods only their will always be unoffical sites and i doubt they would have gone down the lock route as the outcry about that would have made the paid mods outcry seem small and insignificant I wouldn't count on that most current trends don't give me hope that companies are going to pull back from the current effort to make their products more restictive and locked down. Unfotuantly I hold much less faith than a lot of you guys outcry and public openion are far too fickle and weak to grinding attrition for me to belive it has any reasonable chance of stopping this path of development.
roflcopter117 Posted May 7, 2015 Posted May 7, 2015 Personally, it was nice to see that feature get scrapped; I was a bit worried it would start a big paid mods trend but thankfully that wasn't so. On the contrary, I can see paid modding popping up again in the future so long as there is money to be made. The adage "we won the battle but not the war" comes to mind when I think of this.
Sacremas Posted May 7, 2015 Posted May 7, 2015 Like CDProjectRED, inExile Entertainment is looking to secure a place in gamers and pirates hearts, they're going to later this summer release a game of the year edition of Wasteland 2 with an updated engine, graphics and a lot of extra voice work and a new perk system. And this total overhaul will be released for the low, low price of absolutely nothing if you already own the game, no matter where you got it. Meanwhile the Season pass for the next Arkham game will cost more than the game itself. And probably contain more of the game than than what you initially pay for.
Kendo 2 Posted May 7, 2015 Posted May 7, 2015 Yeah I got a notice from GFWL that my pass was going to expire. Really? Okay. *uninstalls Arkham* I played through as Batman and then again with the Cat Woman dlc (which I liked better because of her combat moves and being able to travel over buildings with that nifty whip of hers). After two play throughs I'd seen all there is to see and done all there is to do. No reason to buy an extension for the game or keep it installed. Anyway, I looked at the Creation Kit EULA and Bethesda changed the terms by adding an adendum to allow them to control mods uploaded for profit. That Section 5 wasn't in the EULA I agreed to back in 2012 when I first installed it. Pretty damn shady way of doing business.
Quisling Posted May 7, 2015 Posted May 7, 2015 GFWL closed two years ago. Sacremas is talking about Arkham Knight, which is out in June. Also, Catwoman was release day anti-resale DLC. Harley Quinn's revenge was the season pass DLC.
Kendo 2 Posted May 7, 2015 Posted May 7, 2015 Shoulda prefaced my post with the date it happened. And I never played HQ since I was done with the game.
cornbreadtm Posted May 7, 2015 Posted May 7, 2015 http://www.gamersnexus.net/gg/1926-steam-paid-mods-postmortem-analysis Rather liked this article. I have to agree though that if they actually got some of the best modders we have in the community instead of modders from Dota 2, TF2 andCS this whole thing would have went a different way. Of course not every good modder in our community would have jumped on but they would have had a leg to stand on rather than a bunch of poor quality mods for sale with promises of added content. Weight sliders, female versions, forge crafting. These aren't suppose to be added content. Which was proof that Bethesda didn't care or they would have skimmed through the mods and told Valve to wait a week while the mods got some improvements. You don't reveal a new mall while men are hanging off the sides trying to install window. And stolen content. Bethesda isn't going to loose any sleep over content that they believe they already own. "Screw the rules we have money" - Bethesda 2015
sillplain Posted May 8, 2015 Posted May 8, 2015 http://www.gamersnexus.net/gg/1926-steam-paid-mods-postmortem-analysis Rather liked this article. I have to agree though that if they actually got some of the best modders we have in the community instead of modders from Dota 2, TF2 andCS this whole thing would have went a different way. Of course not every good modder in our community would have jumped on but they would have had a leg to stand on rather than a bunch of poor quality mods for sale with promises of added content. Weight sliders, female versions, forge crafting. These aren't suppose to be added content. Which was proof that Bethesda didn't care or they would have skimmed through the mods and told Valve to wait a week while the mods got some improvements. You don't reveal a new mall while men are hanging off the sides trying to install window. And stolen content. Bethesda isn't going to loose any sleep over content that they believe they already own. "Screw the rules we have money" - Bethesda 2015 Nice article!! good job!!!!! Laughing a lot while reading it.. it's really amazing!! trully amazing after i saw the paid mods myself, so amazing that i won't even download them even if it's for free.. That weapon though, i would've preferred if it's Kantusa the script sword from jugg's item instead of sange and yasha..
sunder02 Posted May 8, 2015 Posted May 8, 2015 Another postmortem video of the whole ordeal I liked a lot , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emW15aLYbp4
Coopervane Posted May 8, 2015 Posted May 8, 2015 I have to agree though that if they actually got some of the best modders we have in the community instead of modders from Dota 2, TF2 andCS this whole thing would have went a different way. I doubt it. This was a microtransaction system, plain and simple, the exact same system we've seen from F2P titles like TF2, Dota2 and CS:GO on Steam previously, just straight ported over to Skyrim and dumped in it's lap. Microtransactions work in Free-to-Play titles because the user got the game for free, and so we accept that the Developer has to make a buck off of it by selling us the extras, be they skins, boosterpacks or whatever form that might take. Although even here it's a tricky buisness model that requires careful considderation and management. You have to price things right, you need to make a buck, but also be careful not to come off as unfair and greedy to the players, or they will reject it and the whole game could fail outright. It's a fine balance, and a fair few games have broken their neck trying to find it. Skyrim was not Free-to-Play. Skyrim was a full-price retail game with full-price DLC ontop of it. How has adding microtransactions to such a game gone over with the playing public previously? Well here's a hint: EA did exactly that with Dead Space-3, and then went on to say that "this is the future! Consumers have embraced this buisness model, and we will add this to all our future titles!". Have a Linky why not. And what happened? EA got the shit kicked out of them by the paying customer via massive backlash, and has had to retract all future plans for doing anything of the sort with a poor coverup, saying "ohh but we only ment mobile games!" (yeah dude.. because DS3 was totally mobile and stuff). So my conclusion? If Beth/Valve wants to tag on a system like this for FO4/TES6, then they need to release those games for free same as Valve did their microtransaction vehicals, or there will be trouble..
cornbreadtm Posted May 8, 2015 Posted May 8, 2015 You act like if the best modders release updates for at least 20 of the most popular Skyrim mods on the Nexus that people wouldn't have bought them. People were able to ignore the paid modding because nothing good went up. But if good stuff did go up people would have bought it and a profit would have been made. Enough that Valve would have thought twice about closing it down even with the bitching going on. Money changes things, always. Of course your right about the micro transaction and that they didn't follow the "F2P but wait there's fees!" rules but Bethesda doesn't care about that. They want money. Charge for the game. The DLC. The mods. Might even add a $25 charge after you play the game for over 200 hours.
Coopervane Posted May 8, 2015 Posted May 8, 2015 You act like if the best modders release updates for at least 20 of the most popular Skyrim mods on the Nexus that people wouldn't have bought them. People were able to ignore the paid modding because nothing good went up. But if good stuff did go up people would have bought it and a profit would have been made. Enough that Valve would have thought twice about closing it down even with the bitching going on. Money changes things, always. Of course your right about the micro transaction and that they didn't follow the "F2P but wait there's fees!" rules but Bethesda doesn't care about that. They want money. Charge for the game. The DLC. The mods. Might even add a $25 charge after you play the game for over 200 hours. Some would have, yes, others would have pirated those mods, or waited for the free alternatives that would be likely to spring up. Even the DS3 microtransactions did make EA some money, no doubt about that, but at what cost? You can strongarm people into paying for things they find unfair and unreasonable to a degree, but it comes at a cost. Yeah some will buy it, they feel they have to, but few if any of them are going to be happy about it, or leave the experiance with any goodwill or sense of loyalty twords the company or product. And of course, it's going to generate bad PR, lots and lots of the stuff, and also cost them sales of the game. There's a reason EA backed down from their plans to put microtransactions into everything, and it's not that they were afraid that it woulden't make them money, no, it's that they were afraid of the other costs.. Oh, and i should probably defend the whole "there would be free alternatives" thing. Even if we discount the possibillity of people doing it out of the kindness of their heart, or because they would considder the Interwebz fame they would get from it more valuable than the dubious payout they would get from Valve, there would still be people who would rather release free than paid. Why? Because the tax laws in a whole slew of countries would demand it. If i had tried to sell a mod on SWS and the thing actually did moderately well and made me some good coin, then that would have been the worst possible thing that could have happened to me. I would have gotten backhanded so hard by taxation, and get forced to register for a CVR-Number and declare myself a company (or face criminal charges for not doing so), that it would have ruined me within a few months. You'd best belive modders from countries like mine would still work for free, because the alternative would be waaaay worse..
Nixea Posted May 8, 2015 Posted May 8, 2015 http://www.gamersnexus.net/gg/1926-steam-paid-mods-postmortem-analysis Rather liked this article. I have to agree though that if they actually got some of the best modders we have in the community instead of modders from Dota 2, TF2 andCS this whole thing would have went a different way. Of course not every good modder in our community would have jumped on but they would have had a leg to stand on rather than a bunch of poor quality mods for sale with promises of added content. Weight sliders, female versions, forge crafting. These aren't suppose to be added content. Which was proof that Bethesda didn't care or they would have skimmed through the mods and told Valve to wait a week while the mods got some improvements. You don't reveal a new mall while men are hanging off the sides trying to install window. And stolen content. Bethesda isn't going to loose any sleep over content that they believe they already own. "Screw the rules we have money" - Bethesda 2015 Wow... I had no idea that most of the paid mods were of such awful quality. Pretty hilarious to read though, specially the album review thingy.
Coopervane Posted May 8, 2015 Posted May 8, 2015 Another postmortem video of the whole ordeal I liked a lot , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emW15aLYbp4 That video is actually a really good breakdown of things, atleast from my perspective of it. I could add a few more points to it, expanding on why i felt it was a really bad idea, but he covers all the major problems with the system quite expertly, and in a format that's much easier to digest than a long forum post. So yeah, thumbs up to Super Bunnyhop there. Job's a good'un mate!
Zor2k13 Posted May 8, 2015 Posted May 8, 2015 Anyone see this? http://www.vg247.com/2015/05/07/fallout-4-demo-e3-2015-rumor/ To be revealed behind closed doors one of their best game franchises?
Cynical Misanthrope Posted May 8, 2015 Posted May 8, 2015 I don't think the idea of getting paid for modding is such a bad idea. The launch however was just... I still can't find any words to describe this whole joke. I'm not a modder myself, but I'm a musician. And I would like to think, in a way, they are similar. You take your own time, to create something that both you and others can enjoy. Sometimes it takes months of none-stop working. Sometimes you might need to spend cash on software, hardware, strings, drumstick, drumhead, cymbals, and not to mention, booking a studio. Maybe print some booklets for your demos/CD's. All these things cost alot of money. I still choose to spend all these money because to me, it's my life. It's my biggest passion in life. Okay, I lied. Cannabis are. But in 2nd place anyway. Personally I would never force someone to buy my shit that I create. I want to share it for free, because hopefully, someone will like it, and that's enough of a reward for me. You have no idea how strong emotional impact it is to receive "your music change my life" or "your music stopped me for killing myself" etc etc. And that in turns just fuels the passion even brighter. I would had approached this paid thinghy as the artist Cloukicker does (just one of many). Who still releases their stuff for free, but have the option for fans to "pay what you want" I think modding could have had the same approach. It might be difficult to sort out stolen shit and all that. My knowledge is limited in the area. What if you use stuff from other creators? Should they also in turn get payed? What if the mod breaks my game? What if I get scammed because I honestly thought I paid for a sword, but got unicorn instead? Stuff like these is just one of the reason that I think in general, paying for mods is a difficult idea to implement. The mods would be forced to be policed, and when it comes to that, I kinda think the whole magic behind creativity is lost. I like the idea, but it's just to many defective variables. I'm glad is gone. But it will come back in the future. In one way or another.
Kendo 2 Posted May 9, 2015 Posted May 9, 2015 FINALLY the financial world (as in the real world) talks about it. http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/04/24/valves-paid-skyrim-mods-are-a-legal-ethical-and-creative-disaster/
Sacremas Posted May 9, 2015 Posted May 9, 2015 One thing I was thinking about while reading the above article (dated though interesting), how exactly can Fore have monopoly on animaiton mods? Now this is probably pure and utter ignorance and stupidity rearing it's ugly heads, so beat me down if so, but from what I've seen Fore isn't much of an animator, he's just a heck of a good programmer who had a good idea. His new flying mod was a good example, the initial animations were HORRIBLE, but the collision system and radar and that were great! Sexy Move, I'm not sure how many of those moves he actually made, I'm leaning toward few to none, he just built a very good framework for many of them to be in there at the same time. As such him not allowing Art of the Catch on the Workshop wouldn't that be like the Java owners not allowing any game that needs SkyProc patchers to be monetized, because it uses their java software without paying them for it? As far as I know aqqh made the fishing animations, not Fore, but most news sites is making it as if the fishing animations came from another mod.
Quisling Posted May 9, 2015 Posted May 9, 2015 Yeah, a lot of people completely misunderstood that. The Art of the Catch could even work without the animations anyway. But if you wanted the animations, you needed to have FNIS installed & run. And even though Valve were technically right to say that if Mod A is freely available, there's no legal reason you can't rely on it in your paid mod, morally you'd have to say that if you're using someone else's mod, you owe them something. And Fore's price is that your mod can't be sold (there's precedent after all, Bethesda have been requiring the same up until now).
Sacremas Posted May 9, 2015 Posted May 9, 2015 Chesko got hit doubly hard on that and being one of the face guys for the whole thing that was left out to dry, hence the death threats on him instead of Gaben or Todd Howard. Triply hard if you look at the fugly-ass Arissa that was uploaded for sale, I mean she was vanilla fugly because he tried really hard not to use assets from other mods, and no one want that when the free Arissa looks so much better. And imagine if the paid mods and Arissa had stayed up and someone made a Nexus patch for the fugly version to give her a better look using Apachii hair and SG skin and whatever, would Apachii and Hello Santa be cool with their mods effectively being used to support a paid mod? Probably not so such a patch could never be made and Arissa would stay fugly and no one would want her. And even after trying that hard and mutilating his his companion character to make her presentable he still had to take down the first mod because no one at Valve or Bethesda bothered to ask Fore, even after they told Chesko several times they would. And unlike the SkyUI folks Chesko actually didn't come back to Skyrim modding only because of the money, he'd been working on his mods for a while before getting invited. Thankfully he actually got past all the shit and is now posting Art of the Catch on the Nexus for free, Arissa is TBD and Frostfall and Last Seed is still in development. If I got death threats on me I sure as fuck would not be releasing anything else. I'd be more like "*NexusUser and NexusUser and this anonymous email dude released death threats on me so no more frostfall for you. If you dont' like that, please go kill those guys. Kthxbai!"
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