rylasasin Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 Honestly this whole 25% payout thing is a giant red herring and only serves to ignore the real fundamental problems with monetizing mods. Even if you give 100% to the modders, that doesn't take away the fact that modders are making a profit, and creating a product to be sold rather than something to be enjoyed by all. Now, I won't get into the idealism behind this. IE Modding is a hobby and should remain so. It's at the end of the day pointless and we've all heard it before. Instead I'll concentrate on the material, historical fact. The provable fact is, that the profit motive actually retards innovation, not encourages it. Contrary to popular belief. Especially for communities like this. Think about it: Say you were a modder, and you wanted to make some money. Okay, what is more likely to net you cash: - A mod that requires months if not years to put together and may or may not draw attention on launch and requires a lot of advertising to get and may not make money right away, only when enough people pay attention to it which may take anywhere from days to years. OR - A thousand cheap armor and weapon mods that you spend a few hours on each. Right. You're going to go with option number 2. It carries the least amount of risk, it requires the least amount of investment. And in the business you want the greatest return with the lowest amount of risk and cost involved. (Sound familiar by the way? Right. This whole system to begin with. Except the risk and unforeseen expenses turned out far greater than they anticipated.) People who think that somehow paid mods would have lead to greater better mods are forgetting the lessons taught by the 1983 Video Game Market crash: That quick profit introduces oversaturation. Something that is sadly repeating itself with steam's greenlight system. This is why AAA gaming is going down the shithole it is, cranking out the same call of duty, the assassin's creed with Microtransactions, the bland TESO, the buggy games, etc. And why software development in particular has been going down the same hole too. Why we get a "slightly improved" FIFA every year, why we get new iphones with "a few new features". Why we get a "slightly different windows that looks better" every few years. Because no one wants to innovate or be creative, because that costs time. And time is money. Why do you think Duke Nukem Forever was utter shit? Why do you think that we've never seen Half Life 2 episode 3 let alone Half Life 3? Fuck at this stage if the idealist's braying held any water, we should be talking about Half Life 5 at the very least by this point. Because Steam was a lower risk investment that generated a greater return. Why spend money on creating something that's horribly out of date when your low risk platform is generating much more cash for far less expenses? The fact that Skyui 5.0 would have been "slightly improved", that the Paid version of Ineed and wet and cold was almost identical only proves this point. This is why "Midas Mod Paid" had "a few" new spells instead of being a complete reworking. This is why the mods on the shop besides those were utter shit or just identical to free versions. People don't want to throw lots of time in something that won't sell. I also love when they bring up TF2 hats as an example of how it "works" or how we should just accept it. But you know what? That market really hasn't evolved at all. Statistically speaking, one paid TF2 mod is pretty much like the next one. If anything it too is a victim of oversaturation: thousands of mediocre hats and very few very good ones (not that there really can be any really good ones) Meanwhile the free community has things like Falskaar, Lost Spires, Old Good Stalker Mod, Zeta Crew, New Vegas Bounties, Project Nevada, Sexlab, etc. Things that would never have been possible without the free flow of information, assets, etc. Something that just doesn't work in a paid system. The fact that most of the mods that are actually worth selling, IE Falskaar, were only possible with community assets by authors who would not see a cent of it and know that darn well only complicates matters further. It's basically like me coming over to your house for dinner and cookies, taking your fanfiction, adding it to my novel, and selling it behind your back. Also, Falskaar was made by a team. The more in your team, the more people that will be holding out their hand and saying "we demand our share". Which means higher cost. In business, you want to reduce cost in any way humanly possible. So for that reason large teams for something that may or may not sell are a terrible idea. So obviously you're left with only using vanilla assets or having to do modelling/texturing/etc yourself. Or hire people to work on your mod. Which means more time spent and less time developing your mod and/or less profit for you. Which again explains why its financially better to sell a bunch of crap rather than work on something great. On the flip side, it is also why the community has continually produced such great stuff. With free modding, there is no "cost". There is no balancing "investment" vs "payout", no trying to determine what is "profitable". There is You, the Community, what you submit, and what they think of it. That's It. There's nothing else. Thus you are actually encouraged to put more effort into something if you want a higher rating and more downloads. Or, in a simpler term: Fame. And before you try to argue that this is the same system: no it's not. Fame is not profit, regardless of what Valve and many modders would have liked to think. It does not work the same way, and it is not earned the same way. Fame is earned when you make something awesome and people enjoy it and give you a high rating. Profit on the other hand is earned when the commodity you sell earns more than what you put into it. Fame is not cumulative (well it is, but not in that way), it is not exchangable for anything, and you cannot take advantage of it like you can profit. They are two completely different monsters and need to be treated differently. The actions that Valve took to quell the protests: removing comments and restricting ratings to those that downloaded it would have only worsened things if it hadn't been smart and pulled the plug when they did. The 25/30/45 system only ensured that a system that was broken to the very core would never work at all. The people who think that this system would have allowed them to develop the next Counterstrike and/or Garrys Mod are living in delusion and have no clue how economics or running a business works. (Not to mention these things developed as a result, not in spite of, a free modding system. And there is nothing stopping them from doing so now since indie development developed and is developing just fine without this system. But then again I don't even think they believe that, and they're mostly just bullshiting because they're buttmad that they can't sell some cheap armors on steam now.) and are blinded by pure idealism instead of seeing material reality for what it is. This is why I said earlier that this was a nonsolution to a problem that didn't need fixing, and more importantly, why it could never be fixed. No amount of Duct Tape or reform can fix something that is this materialistically broken. This was a system doomed to fail no matter what you did to it. Giving modders a better cut wouldn't have fixed anything. You can try to take a giant collection of dog turds and dress it up all you want. Put toppings on it, bake it into a cake, put frosting on it, put it into soup, whatever. Yet at the end of the day, no mater what you do, it's still a pile of shit and nothing is going to magically stop it from being a pile of shit. Don't think however that it means it wasn't worth fighting against, its failure would have dragged free modding down with it if it was allowed to limp a lot longer than it did.
BoozeJunky Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 @sinuev2 BSA could be mandatory and encrypted no more loose files to easily rip and that could be implemented into the CSE/CK. But that still wouldn't work, because to be effective you'd have to gimp/ban tools like BSA Browser, which is an essential modding tool. If I want to make an activator out of a static, I need that program in order to explore the game's files and extract it to my game directory. Only then can I can add a new object in a different category, and have the proper model to correspond with it. Even if the GECK/CK could point a new path to a model in the BSA, if I wanted to tweak it at all, I'd still need to extract it to work with it in 3DS Max or Nifskope.
Zor2k13 Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 @rylasasin You are saying the same thing I posted way back in the beginning of the other thread, the crash of the gaming industry in the 80's and so on but it is not so easy to write off creativity as expensive. Creativity has value because only humans can be creative, robots can't do that and AI can't do that yet. People are creative and creative people are valuable but the industry has been more and more stomping all over creative people salaries for a long time now. Just look at the ad industry it takes a lot of creativity to make all those things that came out of the ad industry over the last what, 80 years? norman rockwell comes to mind and funny superbowl commercials don't make themselves. Creative people are rare because not even all humans can be really creative only some more like a few. There are only so many geniuses in the world, there was only one einstein only one tesla. I can guarantee you though that if AI could mimic creativity even a little it would be used to try and replace creativity in the business. Already there is AI writing news articles a LOT of them actually and if you didn't know it you couldn't spot which articles they wrote. Someday robots will be taking your order at mcdonalds and cooking your food too so work in the future will be about thinking and creativity and anything related to it not manual labor. Technology will take over everything at some point. @sinuev2 Bugfesta would sacrifice that functionality to encrypt/lock down everything it has happened in the past with other companies it will happen again. They could get the CK to read from authorized BSA files so the content could be viewed in the CK but not extracted to disk by it so you can select something in a menu or look at something but no way it will come out of there. Modding will suffer so they can protect the business model. We already know they don't really care if their games don't work well so what else would they do?
Aydoo Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 @rylasasin You are saying the same thing I posted way back in the beginning of the other thread, the crash of the gaming industry in the 80's and so on but it is not so easy to write off creativity as expensive. Creativity has value because only humans can be creative, robots can't do that and AI can't do that yet. People are creative and creative people are valuable but the industry has been more and more stomping all over creative people salaries for a long time now. Just look at the ad industry it takes a lot of creativity to make all those things that came out of the ad industry over the last what, 80 years? norman rockwell comes to mind and funny superbowl commercials don't make themselves. Creative people are rare because not even all humans can be really creative only some more like a few. There are only so many geniuses in the world, there was only one einstein only one tesla. I can guarantee you though that if AI could mimic creativity even a little it would be used to try and replace creativity in the business. Already there is AI writing news articles a LOT of them actually and if you didn't know it you couldn't spot which articles they wrote. Someday robots will be taking your order at mcdonalds and cooking your food too so work in the future will be about thinking and creativity and anything related to it not manual labor. Technology will take over everything at some point. Hopefully Elder Scrolls 9 can mod itself for me, since by then the modding community will have finally committed suicide. :>
Guest endgameaddiction Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 I'm just going to say that Doc made a very good statement. And I admit I was one of the name callers and I participated in this immaturity. All i can say to that is, heat of the moment. In the end everyone's opinion truly validates upon themselves and those who agree with them do and those that don't, don't. it's been settled and feeding more hate is just going to end up another rage thread like some in the past. Everyone's entitled to their opinion and it's your choice to respect it or not. The most important thing is to just keep respecting your fellow LL members. So I'm going to step out of this in peace with anyone I may have offended and let them know that whether paying for mods or not, it's a choice they make and I'm not the one to decide what's the best way to spend the money in their wallet. I see you guys back on the other topics.
guk Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 Honestly this whole 25% payout thing is a giant red herring and only serves to ignore the real fundamental problems with monetizing mods. Even if you give 100% to the modders, that doesn't take away the fact that modders are making a profit, and creating a product to be sold rather than something to be enjoyed by all. Now, I won't get into the idealism behind this. IE Modding is a hobby and should remain so. It's at the end of the day pointless and we've all heard it before. Instead I'll concentrate on the material, historical fact. The provable fact is, that the profit motive actually retards innovation, not encourages it. Contrary to popular belief. Especially for communities like this. Think about it: Say you were a modder, and you wanted to make some money. Okay, what is more likely to net you cash: - A mod that requires months if not years to put together and may or may not draw attention on launch and requires a lot of advertising to get and may not make money right away, only when enough people pay attention to it which may take anywhere from days to years. OR - A thousand cheap armor and weapon mods that you spend a few hours on each. Right. You're going to go with option number 2. It carries the least amount of risk, it requires the least amount of investment. And in the business you want the greatest return with the lowest amount of risk and cost involved. (Sound familiar by the way? Right. This whole system to begin with. Except the risk turned out far greater than they anticipated.) People who think that somehow paid mods would have lead to greater better mods are forgetting the lessons taught by the 1983 Video Game Market crash: That quick profit introduces oversaturation. Something that is sadly repeating itself with steam's greenlight system. This is why AAA gaming is going down the shithole it is, cranking out the same call of duty, the assassin's creed with Microtransactions, the bland TESO, the buggy games, etc. And why software development in particular has been going down the same hole too. Why we get a "slightly improved" FIFA every year, why we get new iphones with "a few new features". Why we get a "slightly different windows that looks better" every few years. Because no one wants to innovate or be creative, because that costs time. And time is money. The fact that Skyui 5.0 would have been "slightly improved", that the Paid version of Ineed and wet and cold was almost identical only proves this point. This is why "Midas Mod Paid" had "a few" new spells instead of being a complete reworking. This is why the mods on the shop besides those were utter shit or just identical to free versions. People don't want to throw lots of time in something that won't sell. I also love when they bring up TF2 hats as an example of how it "works" or how we should just accept it. But you know what? That market really hasn't evolved at all. Statistically speaking, one paid TF2 mod is pretty much like the next one. If anything it too is a victim of oversaturation: thousands of mediocre hats and very few very good ones (not that there really can be any really good ones) Meanwhile the free community has things like Falskaar, Lost Spires, Old Good Stalker Mod, Zeta Crew, New Vegas Bounties, Project Nevada, Sexlab, etc. Things that would never have been possible without the free flow of information, assets, etc. Something that just doesn't work in a paid system. The fact that most of the mods that are actually worth selling, IE Falskaar, were only possible with community assets by authors who would not see a cent of it and know that darn well only complicates matters further. It's basically like me breaking into your house, taking your fanfiction ,and selling it online. Also, Falskaar was made by a team. The more in your team, the more people that will be holding out their hand and saying "we demand our share". Which means higher cost. In business, you want to reduce cost in any way humanly possible. So for that reason large teams for something that may or may not sell are a terrible idea. So obviously you're left with only using vanilla assets or having to do modelling/texturing/etc yourself. Or hire people to work on your mod. Which means more time spent and less time developing your mod and/or less profit for you. Which again explains why its financially better to sell a bunch of crap rather than work on something great. The people who think that this system would have allowed them to develop the next Counterstrike and/or Garrys Mod are living in delusion and have no clue how economics or customer support works. (Not to mention these things developed as a result, not in spite of, a free modding system. And there is nothing stopping them from doing so now since indie development developed and is developing just fine without this system. But then again I don't even think they believe that, and they're mostly just bullshiting because they're buttmad that they can't sell some cheap armors on steam now.) and are blinded by pure idealism instead of seeing material reality for what it is. Your Sir have won the thread. A well done essay to recap all the things that were not new discoveries, but have clearly been proven in the past 4 days. But that still wouldn't work, because to be effective you'd have to gimp/ban tools like BSA Browser, which is an essential modding tool. If I want to make an activator out of a static, I need that program in order to explore the game's files and extract it to my game directory. Only then can I can add a new object in a different category, and have the proper model to correspond with it. Even if the GECK/CK could point a new path to a model in the BSA, if I wanted to tweak it at all, I'd still need to extract it to work with it in 3DS Max or Nifskope. Of course you wouldn't encrypt the mod yourself. You send them the loose files / BSA, they automatically put the DRM on it.
jacques00 Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 Even if you give 100% to the modders, that doesn't take away the fact that modders are making a profit, and creating a product to be sold rather than something to be enjoyed by all. Now, I won't get into the idealism behind this. IE Modding is a hobby and should remain so. It's at the end of the day pointless and we've all heard it before. Instead I'll concentrate on the material, historical fact. The provable fact is, that the profit motive actually retards innovation, not encourages it. Contrary to popular belief. Especially for communities like this. But you are ignoring the fact that no one is taking your free mods away. No one. You have a choice and you will still have a choice. If you are scared that turning a profit kills innovation, then you forget the numerous advances in science, technology, history, and art where that was exactly the case. You should not dictate to people what should and should not be acceptable--then you'll become everything that you hate and fear. Let modders at least have the option whether or not they want to charge for their mods. No matter how much passion a person has, in the society we live in today, passion does not put food on the table and feed the family. If a modder decides to choose to make a mod project a full-time job instead of just a hobby, would you take that away from them? Have you no empathy for people wanting to take control of their own life and do something that they want to do? If you don't want to pay for their work, then don't. No one is forcing you to. Find a free mod elsewhere. Can we not have both options to choose from? Do you understand how this works?
Dudemanguy Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 @rylasasin Professional research has actually been done that supports what you're saying. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect
BoozeJunky Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 A Bunch of Stuff A dumb idea just hit me... what about modding for charity? Like, instead of the modders themselves getting paid, Bethesda and Valve can get their meager (or major, as the case may be) cut, and the rest go to a reputable charity organization of the modders choice, based on a list of approved charities by the Steam Workshop. It wouldn't retard the creation of new assets, at least beyond it's current level, and would help (I think) encourage the sharing and distribution of assets to as many modders as possible so that they can create their own works doing the aspects of modding they're good with - and the motivation behind which not just being the hobby and community of the experience, but actually helping out and making a difference for organizations that need it. But that still wouldn't work, because to be effective you'd have to gimp/ban tools like BSA Browser, which is an essential modding tool. If I want to make an activator out of a static, I need that program in order to explore the game's files and extract it to my game directory. Only then can I can add a new object in a different category, and have the proper model to correspond with it. Even if the GECK/CK could point a new path to a model in the BSA, if I wanted to tweak it at all, I'd still need to extract it to work with it in 3DS Max or Nifskope. Of course you wouldn't ecrypt the mod yourself. You send them the loose files / BSA, they automatically put the DRM on it. But that doesn't address my concern. Once it's DRM'd, how do I get into that file so that I can make changes to resolve conflicts, fix bugs, and tweak it to my needs. Do I fill up my load order with mods modding mods? Or if I can get access, then what's to stop me from ripping it apart and stealing the assets?
ttpt Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 If you wanna call this winning you should at least use the proper term, it's called a pyrrhic victory. After all the dust has settled we really are left poorer for the experience. The program targeted talented modders and if you think losing the likes of Chesko and others is not a big deal then you haven't been paying attention to TES modding. You may say "oh someone else will pick up where he left" and while we may recover in time it's gonna take a while. For an example take wrye of wrye bash, he left at a point when the community was in turmoil and while wrye bash got ported to later games it was never quite as feature rich, easy to use, and powerful as when she was around. By the time of skyirm wrye bash can only really target leveled lists effectively. Sure, we got TESedit as an alternative, and while it's quite powerful when you know what you're doing, it's definitely not as easy to use.
Zor2k13 Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 They would not care about bugs as we know already. I think a certain level of modding would simply no longer be possible they would herd people to the simple stuff that sells better like armor and weapons stuff. The only access you would get is while using the CK and they would control what an activator looked like it would not be up to modders. Remember DRM is from closed minded security people, creative stuff is from open minded creative people and those two don't ever really get along.
rylasasin Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 A Bunch of Stuff A dumb idea just hit me... what about modding for charity? Like, instead of the modders themselves getting paid, Bethesda and Valve can get their meager (or major, as the case may be) cut, and the rest go to a reputable charity organization of the modders choice, based on a list of approved charities by the Steam Workshop. It wouldn't retard the creation of new assets, at least beyond it's current level, and would help (I think) encourage the sharing and distribution of assets to as many modders as possible so that they can create their own works doing the aspects of modding they're good with - and the motivation behind which not just being the hobby and community of the experience, but actually helping out and making a difference for organizations that need it. You know what? You aren't the first to have that idea. In fact... You didn't steal that idea off my reddit post, did you? (Don't worry, no hard feelings if you did, ha ha.) On a idealistic level, I'd say go for that. Much better than giving most of it to Beth/Valve for doing nothing, and for some modder for thinking he's the center of the universe and shitting on the community. Of course, the problem here is that then you get modders complaining "Why U no let me keep monies?" Just so long as the modder got to choose which charity it went to. And as long as he couldn't make said charity (Moddername's fund for new computer) But materialistically... Donation drive stretch goals would be far better for that, IE: "I'm starting a donation drive. I have Sky UI 5.0 ready to go. Once we reach XXXX dollars, we'll release it as a gift to the community for their generosity." rather than hiding the entire mod behind a paywall. Or some sort of delaywall IE "The free version will remain and paid version will be released to the public once we reach XXXX dollars for charity." Hell, people already do speed run events for this sort of thing.
jacques00 Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 @rylasasin Professional research has actually been done that supports what you're saying. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect Don't forget to read the "Controversy" section thoroughly before making up your mind on that one.
Adam Jensen Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 If Bethesda hadn't done this, there wouldn't have been a civil war in the first place. That's what I meant by saying they broke the community. There was never a civil war to begin with so stop labeling it as such. There is no fight. There is no victory. There were no sides beside those who were watching on the sidelines and those who made the wrong decisions. The only victims here are those who were caught in the crossfire and lost useable money out of it and those whose reputation are scarred due to misdirected, misinformed presumptions by the public. If you honestly thought that the entire modding community, spanning past LoverLab, spanning past Nexus, spanning past Skyrim and Fallout, etc., all revolved around the Steam Workshop, then you have a very, very limited view of the modding community. The modding community is vast, diverse, and tightly knit. If you thought Valve and Bethesda intentionally created this rift between those who wanted to take agency in their life to those who wanted to tow a party line, then you have projected your intentions onto those you don't know. Valve and Bethesda made a stupid marketing campaign and owned up to it like they should. But you created this divide with your own narrative, own up to it. .....what? "There was never a civil war to begin with so stop labeling it as such. There is no fight." Either all of the insults and bickering were a product of my imagination and I been unknowingly in one serious bad trip for the past few days or there was in fact a lot of fighting. "If you honestly thought that the entire modding community, spanning past LoverLab, spanning past Nexus, spanning past Skyrim and Fallout, etc., all revolved around the Steam Workshop, then you have a very, very limited view of the modding community. Which is why in the past three days, neither Loverslab or Nexus have given the whole matter that much thought. In case you haven't noticed yet, the whole thing affected everyone, because as you yourself said, the modding community is interconnected. Which means, what happens in one place has an impact in whichever places are one way or the other connected. The modding community is vast, diverse, and tightly knit. Which is precisely what caused the whole problem in the first place. People were afraid that this was going to create a divide between modders and stagnate many mods' development. Why? Again, because as we established before, this whole community is an interconnected web. Modding is a community where someone brings an idea to the table and someone else uses this idea or foundation to build their own ideas. Take for example loverslab itself: FNIS > Sexlab > Sexlab Romance Without FNIS there is no Sexlab. Without Sexlab there is no Sexlab Romance. People seemed to be afraid that with Steam's system, modders would gate mods that act as foundations to others, behind wall. They feared that this in turn would divide the community and ironically enough, in their haste to stop this, they burned a bunch of bridges. If you thought Valve and Bethesda intentionally created this rift between those who wanted to take agency in their life to those who wanted to tow a party line, then you have projected your intentions onto those you don't know I am not one to believe in conspiracy theories. I had at no point implied any of that. But you created this divide with your own narrative, own up to it. What are you even talking about? You have taken my comment way out of context. I have created no narrative, nor have I even taken part of the damned thing. The only placed in which I haven commented about the matter is here, because frankly I didn't want to join the cesspool of hate that has overtaken the nexus and workshop in the past few days. I watched over the whole business and stood by silently for the most part. I don't believe in flaming people or harassing them and frankly I feel sorry for guys like Chesko.
guk Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 But that doesn't address my concern. Once it's DRM'd, how do I get into that file so that I can make changes to resolve conflicts, fix bugs, and tweak it to my needs. Do I fill up my load order with mods modding mods? Or if I can get access, then what's to stop me from ripping it apart and stealing the assets? Conflict resolution... probably not at all like in The Sims Whatever you install last wins the conflict, that's how the SWS already works. I don't think the typical SWS customer has ever worried about that. But not only over there, just read the million posts on LL and Nexus about the "dark face bug" which is usually just a faulty user installation. Also, many modders already support their own mod just as stand-alone. "Just disable all other mods, start the game through the bethesda launcher" - troubleshooting à la U.F.O. author. When i released my DNC mod, i also had to say first "well dude it works fine without your follower and custom race mods", then later provided fixes for all known bugs i found. Of course this would be unpaid work under the logic of the pro-pay faction.
Exar Kun Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 Honestly, if this mods for money idea was the best thing since sliced bread why all the secrecy? Obama care was herald as something the nation desperately needed yet did we know all the details about it? why was the American public unable to see several thousand pages of the law before it was voted on in the dead of night behide closed doors? We had to pass it before we knew how great it is? I saw alot of similarities going on here, with both sides spitting poison just as toxic at each other but at least the big companies got flak it rightly deserved. Although the modders that let open this can of worms probably could've let out the news even with the NDA the only way that Valve/Bethesda could've gone after anyone is if they already gave out their personal/tax info in anticipation for some quick cash not ever bothering to read all the EULA's and legal papers they signed off, for them to realize the truth that they sold their soul to the devil until after the fact was SOLELY on the modders that sold out, blinded by greed. Hopefully this won't show its ugly face again but I hope the divides this rift has caused will shore up quick, since now things are back to the way they were and should be. However I can expect the workshop to bring back the file limits again, they will probably do some sort of roll-backs, and does anyone knows if the free Midas magic mod took out the in-game pop-up ads for the non-existent premium version?
Dudemanguy Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 @rylasasin Professional research has actually been done that supports what you're saying. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect Don't forget to read the "Controversy" section thoroughly before making up your mind on that one. Psychology studies always have these sort of things. You'd probably need to sift through thousands of papers that are sitting behind a paywall somewhere to really have an informed opinion on it. Nonetheless, the fact that it has reliably shown to occur is rather telling.
Kendo 2 Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 "Frankly, if they had written and released that blog piece when they'd first announced the paid workshop functionality then it would have helped to alleviate some of my fears." That's Dark0ne over at Nexus trying to cover his well-pounded ass after he bought into the modding for money scam. http://www.nexusmods.com/games/news/12464/? 'Fears'? What fucking fears? They sent him a proposal and a contract and he agreed to all of it for the sake of honorable mention as a service provider and few sheckles in his coffers. He wasn't concerned, other than being worried that people would find out what he was doing...and they did. That's when he started lying and then justifying. He's a quivering tower of Jello and I have as much sympathy for him as I do the modders who tried to cash in...and that's fucking none. These assholes were actually going resurrect mods they had abandoned and TRY to charge for updated versions. Nevermind the downloaders and fans who made the mods 'worthy' of Valve's attention. 'Fuck the fans who got me here. PAY ME.' It was that or they were going to charge for content they didn't make to begin with. But it's obvious backbone isn't in short supply in the Skyrim modding scene. The Alliance and silverlock both told Valve to get stuffed and so did about 90% of the modders out there who raised The Nine Layers of Hell to put a stop to it. They are the real heros in all of this and it will be THEM who continue to mod. Can't say as much for the butt-hurt babies who ragequit after the fans they turned on turned on them. People can hate the haters and defend the assholes who tried to charge for things they have no business charging for, but at the end of the day the haters will be the ones still standing. Not to worry though, the modders who wanted to charge for content will probably get their chance when the next game is released. Then all of the justifiers can be happy when they get to pay for mods that should be free and the rest of us get fucked. Modders have no business being in cahoots with big corporations. Modders are hobbists, not devs, not professionals or anything else. Just look at the payout scheme and the gerbil wheel mentality of Bethesda and Valve. Modders would have gotten a percentage of a percentage and Bethesda/Valve would have gotten to keep all of the profits and all of the interest until a modder breaks the magical $100.00 mark. And then they would be paid in Steam Dollars; a currency Valve sets the value on. Who the fuck in their right mind would sign on for something like that? I'll tell you who, modders who don't have an inkling as to what corporations really are or how they really work. They have no idea how to enter into a negotiation, how the Commercial Law League operates or what their rights are. Just sign the e-document and watch the big modding bucks roll in. That's how clueless these people are. Like Animal Mother said in Full Metal Jacket, 'Better you than me."
Kamen Rider Kuuga Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 As Homeworld Cataclysm said; "The war for the homeworld is over now... but the galaxy remains a dangerous place." Winning one battle does not make you any safer. We may have won this minor fight, but it'll never be over. We cannot, and should not, simply let this go. We need to keep pushing this, and send a clear message to Bethesda that we will not tolerate this shit. Otherwise, while they give up on Skyrim, they'll just DRM up the workshop on TES6 and FO4, then make it so we simply cannot fight back. We won't have an option then; paid modding will be the only way to mod PERIOD.
ratrace Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 After Gopher and all other big Youtubers had nothing else to do than to bash the community for their "hatred against certain modders", I'd like to express my sincere and heartfelt thanks to the community for the enormous backlash. Things like that don't work if it's too mellow. Though I don't endorse personal attacks and death threats, but I also cannot stand people accepting everything that has to do with making money just because it's a business. Maybe in the future we'll see attempts to put mods behind a paywall. And surely there'll be modders who can't resist to try. They know what will be happening. Valve, put a donation option next to each mod on the workshop. Nexus and LL should do the same, I think. I want to pay modders, but I want to havce that coming from my free will to do so, without that shabby aftertaste.
Kendo 2 Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 As Homeworld Cataclysm said; "The war for the homeworld is over now... but the galaxy remains a dangerous place." Winning one battle does not make you any safer. We may have won this minor fight, but it'll never be over. We cannot, and should not, simply let this go. We need to keep pushing this, and send a clear message to Bethesda that we will not tolerate this shit. Otherwise, while they give up on Skyrim, they'll just DRM up the workshop on TES6 and FO4, then make it so we simply cannot fight back. We won't have an option then; paid modding will be the only way to mod PERIOD. That's why you don't pre-order or do a release day purchase. You wait until their BS construction set for the new game is released and decide if they deserve you hard-earned money or not. There is no way Bethesda can't know they put out inferior games and the ONLY reason the PC market picks them up is so they can be freely modded. If modding comes with a pricetag it will not only wreck modding but also their bottom line. If I can't fix a Bethesda game there's no point in buying and I know I'm not alone on that. Pretty sure the decision makers at Bethesda understand that now.
Zor2k13 Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 Bugfesta has to see that doing the same thing over and over again while expecting better results is bad for business. They can't continue to make a buggy mess anymore it just won't hold up and probably takes longer to make too since they have to fix some of it to develop it to a point of release. Having to fix a LOT of things just to get it to a point of release means a lot of time was wasted and things are not done efficiently at all. Why do other game companies make products that work better than bugfesta games? if the other companies can do it why can't bugfesta do it? surely someone there has brought this up at a meeting somewhere though probably fired afterwards.
Adam Jensen Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 bloodborne.jpg I made you guys a picture. Enjoy. It's all over now.
jacques00 Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 Either all of the insults and bickering were a product of my imagination and I been unknowingly in one serious bad trip for the past few days or there was in fact a lot of fighting. Which is what I was referring to--the bickering was unnecessary and misdirected. The whole thing was painted as an "us" vs "them", which it never was to begin with. I never said they were made up, but that there was no real conflict. There was no fight because the other side never fought back. It was just a huge bullying campaign on the community's part (albeit, I 'll give exception to those who presented arguments in a civil and well-reasoned manner, but I can't say the same for the majority who did the mob-based name calling). Which is precisely what caused the whole problem in the first place. People were afraid that this was going to create a divide between modders and stagnate many mods' development. Why? Again, because as we established before, this whole community is an interconnected web. Modding is a community where someone brings an idea to the table and someone else uses this idea or foundation to build their own ideas. Take for example loverslab itself: FNIS > Sexlab > Sexlab Romance Without FNIS there is no Sexlab. Without Sexlab there is no Sexlab Romance. People seemed to be afraid that with Steam's system, modders would gate mods that act as foundations to others, behind wall. They feared that this in turn would divide the community and ironically enough, in their haste to stop this, they burned a bunch of bridges. Yes, this I understand wholeheartedly--which makes this what the topic of contention should be about, not whether or not someone is a traitor to the cause or if greed was an issue. Property rights are a valid argument for valid concern. This is what the issue should be about and we do not need a "war" to see that. And yes, that's what leaves me disappointed in the mess is that people had to burn those bridges, and for what? I am not one to believe in conspiracy theories. I had at no point implied any of that. Apologies if I gave you that impression. While I had quoted you to start off my response, I meant this in a broader sense based on the context of other messages I've read with people claiming mod authors and corporations are only doing this out of greed or some nefarious purpose. That in itself is a conspiracy theory. What are you even talking about? You have taken my comment way out of context. I have created no narrative, nor have I even taken part of the damned thing. The only placed in which I haven commented about the matter is here, because frankly I didn't want to join the cesspool of hate that has overtaken the nexus and workshop in the past few days. If I had taken you out of context, again, apologies as that was not my intention. When I said "you", it meant it in a more poetic way not literally you-you, but obviously that came out all wrong. I understand you were merely stating the obvious and I was trying to illustrate my observations by comparing them to yours, however it seems we have the same point of view on the matter. Thanks for the clarification. I watched over the whole business and stood by silently for the most part. I don't believe in flaming people or harassing them and frankly I feel sorry for guys like Chesko. Ditto that.
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