Starless Aeon Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 I haven't read any arguments that say modders must be paid. The only person that can decide whether the modder deserves any money is the person that's looking to purchase. Supporting paid mods and supporting free mods are not mutually exclusive. I'm sorry mate, but there is no functional model for paid mods. Especially not one where modders gets 25%, and in order to boost their income they are trying to rob their customers. There is no way you could possibly introduce paid mods in a way that is fair for both modders and users. Either the modder gets too little for too much work, or the customer pays way too much for too little content.
bjornk Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 I'd really like to see some examples of a successful paid modding environment, which is as big as, let's say the modding scene of any Bethesda title, before I can decide whether or not paid and free modding are mutually exclusive. I currently think that they can't live together.
Sacremas Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 Way I'd like to see it happen; Mod Paysite, like GOG.com for example, download exclusive mods after paying with credit card, download same way as on Nexus, sure it'll be pirated but what won't? At least the modder gets something out of his/her loyal fans. Regulated in regards to stolen work. Kickstarter for Falskaar sized projects, support the mod up front for a modest amount, get early access and access to beta forums and discussions, stuff we have with Kickstarted games like Pillars of Eternity. Afterwards the mod goes up on above paysite. Shit mods like armor/weapon mods and updates to other mods? Stick to freebie zone unless you're cooperating on something like Non-Immersive Armors.
Raydark Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 I am happy that this happened as we avoided the consequences of this scheme. However, I am sad at the same time that things will not be the same again for the modding community as the damage has already been done. Of course, we will need to be prepare for the second coming of such incident again.
D_ManXX2 Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 I'd really like to see some examples of a successful paid modding environment, which is as big as, let's say the modding scene of any Bethesda title, before I can decide whether or not paid and free modding are mutually exclusive. I currently think that they can't live together. I think you would be surpriced check out mount and blade community. How paid and free mods go side by side without any ill effects. check out this mod: https://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/FireAndSword mount and blade have shown what is to do it right way without having any of the hassle that Elderscrolls got for introducing this. This professional group joined up after taleworlds introduced paid system for mods. This was a kind of DLC but for warbands kind of something like Falskar for skyrim.
pornphile Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 I'm sorry mate, but there is no functional model for paid mods. Especially not one where modders gets 25%, and in order to boost their income they are trying to rob their customers. There is no way you could possibly introduce paid mods in a way that is fair for both modders and users. Either the modder gets too little for too much work, or the customer pays way too much for too little content. Do you think this is the first time Valve has tried this? It's not just hats, it's also game changing weapon mechanics.
aqqh Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 I'm sorry mate, but there is no functional model for paid mods. Especially not one where modders gets 25%, and in order to boost their income they are trying to rob their customers. There is no way you could possibly introduce paid mods in a way that is fair for both modders and users. Either the modder gets too little for too much work, or the customer pays way too much for too little content. Keep in mind that we're talking about very experienced modders here. They do know how donations system looks like. We dont. Lets not pretend that this is otherwise. They decided that 25% on steam is a better alternative for them. And imo it had to be a lot better since they did not hesitate to risk their reputation.
bjornk Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 I'd really like to see some examples of a successful paid modding environment, which is as big as, let's say the modding scene of any Bethesda title, before I can decide whether or not paid and free modding are mutually exclusive. I currently think that they can't live together. I think you would be surpriced check out mount and blade community. How paid and free mods go side by side without any ill effects. check out this mod: https://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/FireAndSword mount and blade have shown what is to do it right way without having any of the hassle that Elderscrolls got for introducing this. This professional group joined up after taleworlds introduced paid system for mods. With Fire & Sword is a standalone game, not a commercial mod, but yes, Mount & Musket, Brytenwalda were free mods that turned into commercial products, and if I'm not mistaken they still exist as a free mod. It's a good way to utilize modders talents, but the situation we have here is a bit different. If I'm not mistaken, Bannerlord will use the Steam Workshop for distribution of mods. We'll see how things turn out for M&B modding scene when the game has been released.
pornphile Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 I'd really like to see some examples of a successful paid modding environment, which is as big as, let's say the modding scene of any Bethesda title, before I can decide whether or not paid and free modding are mutually exclusive. I currently think that they can't live together. Is Skyrim the only mod scene you're involved in? There is a much bigger world out there. Feel free to explore 1200 pages of freebies. This is on Renderosity alone.
windpl Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 I'm sorry mate, but there is no functional model for paid mods. Especially not one where modders gets 25%, and in order to boost their income they are trying to rob their customers. There is no way you could possibly introduce paid mods in a way that is fair for both modders and users. Either the modder gets too little for too much work, or the customer pays way too much for too little content. Keep in mind that we're talking about very experienced modders here. They do know how donations system looks like. We dont. Lets not pretend that this is otherwise. They decided that 25% on steam is a better alternative for them. And imo it had to be a lot better since they did not hesitate to risk their reputation. Well Chesko wrote what was his motivation, oh wait you should know that.
bjornk Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 I'd really like to see some examples of a successful paid modding environment, which is as big as, let's say the modding scene of any Bethesda title, before I can decide whether or not paid and free modding are mutually exclusive. I currently think that they can't live together.Is Skyrim the only mod scene you're involved in? There is a much bigger world out there. Feel free to explore 1200 pages of freebies. This is on Renderosity alone. I was asking for paid mods, not free ones and from what I understand, these are not "mods". The question here is, if two mods of the same content and quality exist in both free and paid form, would you pay for it? I doubt it. The paid one would have to have some extra features in order to justify its price, which brings us back to the fact that they can't co-exist.
modslave Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 I'm sorry mate, but there is no functional model for paid mods. Especially not one where modders gets 25%, and in order to boost their income they are trying to rob their customers. There is no way you could possibly introduce paid mods in a way that is fair for both modders and users. Either the modder gets too little for too much work, or the customer pays way too much for too little content. Keep in mind that we're talking about very experienced modders here. They do know how donations system looks like. We dont. Lets not pretend that this is otherwise. They decided that 25% on steam is a better alternative for them. And imo it had to be a lot better since they did not hesitate to risk their reputation. I don't think anyone with more than two braincells is unaware that donation buttons don't get pressed. I've worked in Second Life for 10 years, a lot of my content is pay to use but a good chunk of what supports my content is not. I pay for that out of what I make. And I have thousands of Second Life users that utilize that support content, free of charge, all the time. I've had a donation button on my website to help support that unpaid support content for at least 6 of the ten years I've been in business, and I can count how many donations have been made in those six years on the fingers of both hands. Granted some money is better than no money but that aside donation support has never ever come close to offsetting what I spend to ensure people can continue to enjoy what I provide. Now, that aside, that has not made me jump full tilt into locking everything I do behind some kind of "you must pay this much to do this thing" kind of situation....and believe me I know, probably better than you do, that people do not value things that are free, and in all fairness the content I provide in Second Life and the community I run, I have every right to make it "exclusive" or "pay only" but I don't...because thats not how it started. I have always tried to find ways to not involve taxing my community and fanbase, even if I need to. For example, every year for the last ten years I've had to pay taxes to the Federal and State government because my SL income is untaxed. This year alone I have 1200 USD in taxes I have to pay and I don't even have the money right now to pay it...I certainly haven't exported that cost to my users, and the money simply isn't there because I spend almost 75% of what I make to be able to keep going. So that 1200 USD has to come out of my pocket...and sure, you might argue that I 'deserve' to be supported and people should help me offset those costs because they like what I do...but the world isn't made out of money, most people playing Second Life and by comparison, modding Skyrim and playing that as a daily experience, simply don't have a lot of extra money. Simple facts are is I know donations don't work even better than most Skyrim modders do. But that hasn't pushed me to monetize all the things I could possibly monetize even in an environment that allows me to do it. Its called ethics. And even when "making a decent living" level money is involved...its possible to still have ethics.
Starless Aeon Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 Keep in mind that we're talking about very experienced modders here. They do know how donations system looks like. We dont. Lets not pretend that this is otherwise. They decided that 25% on steam is a better alternative for them. And imo it had to be a lot better since they did not hesitate to risk their reputation. Yes, I know. And i hold no ill will against modders who decided to sell their mods. Sure, their decision could have cost community much more than it already did, but hey, it was their decision, and I'm fine with that. They will have to live with that decision. But they knew from the beginning they would have to set the prices for their mods too high in order to have any income worth mentioning. None of the mods on paid mod page was worth the price. With exception of few mods they were basically poorly done and worthless. Those worth downloading were way too expensive, because they were essentially cosmetic changes with no real impact on base game.
pornphile Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 I was asking for paid mods, not free ones and from what I understand, these are not "mods". Let's not mince around the word 'mods'. It's alterations or additions to core content. The internal communities refer to the contents as mods and is an example of free and paid content coexisting. If you want game modding examples, have you looked at Team Fortress2, Dota 2 mod scene?
Angrybird Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 Don't worry guys it will probably still come back.
bjornk Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 I was asking for paid mods, not free ones and from what I understand, these are not "mods".Let's not mince around the word 'mods'. It's alterations or additions to core content. The internal communities refer to the contents as mods and is an example of free and paid content coexisting. If you want game modding examples, have you looked at Team Fortress2, Dota 2 mod scene? As I've written in my message above, two mods of the same content and quality cannot co-exist in both free and paid form. Similarly, you can sell your 3D models and assets and give away some of the lesser ones as "freebies", but you'll never be able to find the same 3D model of the same content and quality as both paid and free.
pornphile Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 As I've written in my message above, two mods of the same content and quality cannot co-exist in both free and paid form. Similarly, you can sell your 3D models and assets and give away some of the lesser ones as "freebies", but you'll never be able to find the same 3D model of the same content and quality as both paid and free. Now you've just reframed your argument to an issue of quality. Which is still consistent with being able to support both free and paid mods.
bjornk Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 As I've written in my message above, two mods of the same content and quality cannot co-exist in both free and paid form. Similarly, you can sell your 3D models and assets and give away some of the lesser ones as "freebies", but you'll never be able to find the same 3D model of the same content and quality as both paid and free.Now you've just reframed your argument to an issue of quality. Which is still consistent with being able to support both free and paid mods. Funny, you still don't get it. I've been trying to tell you that if you support paid mods, it will harm free mods in return. Just like in the link you've posted, free mods will become "freebies" of lesser quality.
Chaos63 Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 Don't worry guys it will probably still come back. Seriously, complain when it's here, complain when it's gone. People either never really cared to begin with, or just plain didn't know what they want. This shit can't blow over soon enough.
Coopervane Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 So the steps of concepting, modeling, UVing, texturing, skin weighting, animating, transferring assets, level design, quest building, dialogue writing, audio recording, audio tuning, audio editing, and quality control are not "services" rendered? The paying customer took one look at this thing, said "This does not benefit me in any way, shape or form. This is just yet another way for the gaming industry to try and suck the last few quarters out of my pockets, and after they have already taken so much!", and then revolted violently. So there's your answer jacques00, the paying customer said: "NO!". This hackneyed scheme was only ever going to benifit a very small handfull of modders (due the whole monthly quota thing, only the biggest fish were going to see any paydays), and of course Valve and Bethesda who were taking the lions share (or all of the share, if the mod didn't meet quota). What was the incentive for the paying customer? To be nickled and dimed for every individual armour or sword mod like some bad free-to-play game, only the game wasen't free? How's that a good deal for the paying customer? There was not a single item on that cashshop that was actually worth the money (based on? The worth, quality and content of officially licensed DLC, aswell the value of the parent game and it's DLC), and there was hardly going to be. Maybe a small handfull after a long time, but that doesen't really offset all the Horse-Armour beeing peddled at far too big a cost to the consumer. And we're not stupid, we all knew that this was going to be content that wasen't given to us at a minor fee, as much as it was content beeing taken away from the free side of modding. So again, how did that benefit the paying customer? We knew it didn't, we knew it woulden't, and so we didn't want it! The one and only way that this could have been a benefit to the paying customer, was if every Steve and Jane coulden't sell just any junk, but rather, that only mods of exceptional quality and content density could be sold, giving modders and incentive to make more mods of such high quality, and the customer would also benifit from the creation of exceptional content (assuming it'd be sold at a fair price). But that's not what the system was, that is not what it was promoting or what it would deliver. Anyone could see that, and that what it was giving us would always have been a worse deal to the customer than what we had before (nevermind all the deeper worries about how it would likely change the modding community and such). Every transaction involves both a seller and a buyer, and for a good transaction to take place both of those parties must be satiesfied with the arrangement. What you and every other proponent of this system seems to do is focus entirely on the benefits and rights of the seller, and utterly forgetting that there is also a buyer in this equation, a buyer who also has wants and rights, and who must also agree to this system before it could ever succeed and be a mutually beneficial and sustainable system.
Xpyke Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 I came here searching for this news, here some more info (don't know if it was listed before) http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-04-28-bethesda-removes-paid-mods-in-skyrim I guess the petition was effective and all the people that helped forcing steam/bethesda have a part, so contratulations for us all!
mkprovince Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 Just found this.... a bit dated but... http://www.gamespot.com/articles/valve-sued-by-australian-consumer-watchdog-over-st/1100-6421983/ Does anyone know what happened afterwards?
Veladarius Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 The Fallout / Elder Scroll games would not thrive in a paid mod environment like it has with free ones. For me, the only reason I have played Skyrim as much as I have (5800+ hours) is both the quality and variety of mods available. Other games that have and support paid mods don't have the number of mods or can use the amount of mods at once like Fallout / TES can. Take a look at the number of mods you have and tell me if you could afford $1 - $5 per mod, I have over 1500 of them so I know I couldn't, not even just the 300+ I have installed.
guk Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 (...) And for the people that are literally baiting people into arguing with them over the topic that modders deserve compensation....I think you need to consider what the word deserve means, then look at the entire history of TES based modding and tell me at what point was it established and agreed that everyone that makes a mod deserves compensation for that. Better Bodies for Morrowind was not made because people felt they deserved compensation, they also had to host the files themselves and pay for their own bandwidth.....I swear this generation is the most entitled generation I have ever dealt with.....you make mods, great, you don't deserve compensation for making mods. Just like a guy drawing murals on the freaking street, no one is required to pay you a dollar because you're sitting there making a pretty picture. The community doesn't owe modders anything. No one owes modders anything, as a modder myself I don't believe anyone owes me anything. I did what I did because I cared enough about a certain aspect of a game to add something to it, or to fix something that was broken in it. Thats it...thats all. There is no deserve when it comes to modding. This was introduced through the backdoor. As soon as they allowed DONATIONS, it started to be about the money. And all the negative things that come with money, like ENVY and GREED. A little example: Modder A is female (or pretends to be), writes 150 posts every day on Nexus in pink fonts with lots of smilies and hearts. Her mods are mostly stuff like player homes and other easy CK drag&drop that a 10 year-old could have made just as good. Modder B is ?? (we don't know his/her gender), only writes on forums when absolutely necessary and when he/she does so, then only completely emotionless like "Lt. Commander Data". His/her mods are highly sophisticated scriptwork that took thousands of hours to create, revolutionary and the ultimate avantgarde with nothing coming even close. So now Modder A is getting 15000$ Donations. While Modder B is getting 200$ Donations. So let's not get too deep into why A is getting any donations at all for shovelware like player houses (advertising through social and sexual attraction etc). Instead let us try to see what B is thinking. Confronted with an imaginary PAYCHECK, suddenly it seems pretty unfair don't you think? Of course you'd be envious when all the other modders with their (excuse me) tiny little immersion mods à la Wet & Cold or player homes are cashing in trucks full of money, while you get the occasional peanuts thrown into your hat. So who had this fucking stupid idea to allow donations? Money is money, it does corrupt people's minds no matter if you have a donation system or a pricetag.
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