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[Nokterian]

WELP.

SkyUI is now offering paid support.

What's more, the next update - which will require payment - is going to tackle crafting menus. The one thing that everybody wanted it to do but that it didn't interact with.

EDIT2: I know a lot of people are going to think this is a fear-mongering post, but just to clarify: this is not about the fact that SkyUI is going away, or that it will no longer be able to be used for a free user. The free version will still be available for download, and in theory, the MCM will still be updated. This is to highlight that a very prominent mod in the community is being updated with further paid support. It is a powerful message to Valve and to Bethesda, in my opinion, and sets a precedent for the discussion going forward.

EDIT: For those who are just perusing this thread and need some more context:

SkyUI is one of the fundamental mods that most builds, regardless of how crazy or how vanilla you like your experience to be, require in order to get their game running. It also comes built-in with what is known as the MCM, or Mod Configuration Menu, which permits other mods to basically permit users to alter settings in-game.

While this isn't the end of the world - any changes to the MCM that get made in 5.0 are going to get shifted into the 'free' version of SkyUI that is still up in the Nexus - this potentially sends a big message to mod authors and Bethesda.

SkyUI is consistently among the top 10 mods of all time, and is one of the most, if not THE most, downloaded and endorsed mods for Skyrim. It is considered a crowning achievement of the modding community in that it was free, and heavily overhauled the interface to make it useful.

And it is now going to require payment in order for you to receive any further benefits. Drop the mic.

 

[Bornstellar]

SkyUI wouldn't exist if Bethesda didn't release the game with such a garbage interface built in.

Exactly. I'd have no problem rewarding the author, but no way in hell should Beth get a dime because someone has to fix their crappy interface.

 

[VandalD]

Well they created the game in the first place, I thik tha entitles them to a cut.

A 75% cut.... yeah, I do think that's too much.

I don't think Bethesda should get anything. That they're taking advantage of modders in this way will certainly make me a lot more cautious before buying one of their games that has mod support. I don't intend on supporting a company who puts out a subpar product then also takes money from the fans who fix it. SkyUI is a prime example. I'd buy it for a dollar, as it's a really good mod that fixes parts of the horrible PC UI, but Bethesda deserves NONE of that money.

 

[Dwalls]

You don't think the author os SkyUI deserves your dollar for his work?

Sure, but then again last time I played skyrim I had a mod collection that was a good hundred mods big. If I have to pay a dollar to access every one of them? Well damn, I don't really have 100$ to spare, nor do I think it'd be a wise investment of my cash. At this point I'm just going to chalk all of this up to a loss and add skyrim to the never going to play(again) tab of my steam list. The rest of y'all have fun being nickel and dimed into oblivion. Future of PC gaming sure is looking bright, will extend my ridiculous season pass/DLC boycott to include games with paid workshop support now too.

 

[Vaporak]

Well they created the game in the first place, I thik tha entitles them to a cut.

A 75% cut.... yeah, I do think that's too much.

They got their cut when the customer bought their game. This is no different than when Comcast pressures Netflix into giving them extra money beyond the paid for bandwidth. A company has seen they are in a position of negotiating power and are leveraging it to get more money out of consumers. Nothing else is happening here. Concern over the modders is just a smoke screen put up by Bethesda and Valve to try and deflect criticism.

 

[Krejlooc]

Sure, but then again last time I played skyrim I had a mod collection that was a good hundred mods big. I don't really have 100$ to spare, nor do I think it'd be a wise investment of my cash. At this point I'm just going to chalk all of this up to a loss and add skyrim to the never going to play(again) tab of my steam list. The rest of y'all have fun being nickel and dimed into oblivion. Future of PC gaming sure is looking bright, will extend my ridiculous season pass/DLC boycott to include games with paid workshop support now too.

My heart breaks for all those being nickled and dimed to death off the good will of people who have provided them hundreds of free products for years now. Truly.

 

[crazyrabbits]

That seems very silly. About it not showing benefits yet: are you talking just about the Skyrim incarnation here? Because I'm sure the people making their living on DOTA items might disagree. And for Skyrim, it has hardly had the time to show any benefits as I'm sure you can see.

As for the Nexus somehow being more ethical: sorry, I don't see it.

This is an order of magnitude different than DOTA items. As I said before, there is a large gulf between cosmetic items and glorified DLC that change massive aspects of the game built by the community. Likewise, there is no artificial rarity with mods as there is with certain TF2/DOTA/CS items.

And yet, as it stands right now, the Nexus is much more ethical. You have the option to donate to a modder if you so choose, there is no artificial restriction on how long you can use your mods for before requiring a refund because you ran across a bug, and there is no apparent value for the workshop system over other avenues, not considering the various ways Valve and co. have tried to puff up said system.

In one day, we've seen "early access" mods, mods being released that aren't even normally accessible in the game (and require console commands to summon), a mod that has either been pulled down (or is being pulled) due to a contributor exercising copyright over one of its components, several modders looking towards developing "free" and "paid" versions of their projects and Valve being ostracized by a large chunk of players. In effect, exactly the same thing that happened to the Sims community as pointed out repeatedly here.

 

[Dwalls]

My heart breaks for all those being nickled and dimed to death off the good will of people who have provided them hundreds of free products for years now. Truly.

My heart breaks every time I hear a neo-libertarian spout his line of free market bs that could be tl;dr'ed into: fuck you give us money.

 

[FunkyMunkey]

The idea of releasing a shitty interface and making 50% of what a modder earns off of fixing it (improving it) after opening monetization of mods is multiple levels of messed up LOL what a shit show

 

[Krejlooc]

My heart breaks every time I hear a neo-libertarian spout his line of free market bs that could be tl;dr'ed into: fuck you give us money.

Yes, fuck you, give me money for my work.

 

[Mesoian]

The idea of releasing a shitty interface and making 50% of what a modder earns off of fixing it (improving it) after opening monetization of mods is multiple levels of messed up LOL what a shit show

200%

 

[Ganzlinger]

The idea of releasing a shitty interface and making 50% of what a modder earns off of fixing it (improving it) after opening monetization of mods is multiple levels of messed up LOL what a shit show

You mean 75%

 

[BennyBlanco]

 

[cdyhybrid]

Yes, fuck you, give me money for my work.

Sure. I just won't be giving Valve and Bethesda money for it.

 

[Krejlooc]

Sure. I just won't be giving Valve and Bethesda money for it.

Looks like you will, or you wont get the product.

 

[Mesoian]

Looks like you will, or you wont get the product.

It certainly does.

 

[Ganzlinger]

Yes, fuck you, give me money for my work.

Speaking of which, what is your mod, dude?

 

[jmga]

My heart breaks for all those being nickled and dimed to death off the good will of people who have provided them hundreds of free products for years now. Truly.

Would you set a price for HLVR?

 

[vcc]

Exactly. I'd have no problem rewarding the author, but no way in hell should Beth get a dime because someone has to fix their crappy interface.

Enabling mods is massively expensive. The alternative is lack of any mod support which makes the job much harder and any sort of change much less likely.

 

[cdyhybrid]

Looks like you will, or you wont get the product.

I won't be getting the product then

And there's a strong chance I won't be missing anything.

 

[CookTrain]

Looks like you will, or you wont get the product.

On the one hand, when such a vocal component of your market is yelling "Fine! We won't have the product!", maybe that's a hollow threat.

Oh the other hand, when that vocal component leads to, for example, monster pre-orders of GTAV... maybe their threat is the hollow one.

Maybe Valve just feels confident they can call the bluff.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Looks like you will, or you wont get the product.

you act like you're head of the modders union. my sides.

 

[Dwalls]

Enabling mods is massively expensive. The alternative is lack of any mod support which makes the job much harder and any sort of change much less likely.

Enabling mods isn't quite as expensive as you make it out to be. In most cases the same tools used for development of the actual product are the tools given to the community to play around with, or you know produce monetized dlc with.

 

[Krejlooc]

Would you set a price for HLVR?

We talked about it in the past.

 

[Krejlooc]

On the one hand, when such a vocal component of your market is yelling "Fine! We won't have the product!", maybe that's a hollow threat.

Oh the other hand, when that vocal component leads to, for example, monster pre-orders of GTAV... maybe their threat is the hollow one.

Maybe Valve just feels confident they can call the bluff.

The people saying they wont pay already aren't paying, though.

 

[reckless]

Enabling mods is massively expensive. The alternative is lack of any mod support which makes the job much harder and any sort of change much less likely.

They make the money back and more from people buying their game specifically for the mods. Due to mods they can also ignore problems because the community will fix it so they get to save a lot of money too. ( unofficial patches, SkyUI etc..)

 

[Krejlooc]

you act like you're head of the modders union. my sides.

It's almost like I have personal stake in this practice or something.

 

[jmga]

We talked about it in the past.

And what was the answer? Or maybe a link to read it.

 

[CookTrain]

The people saying they wont pay already aren't paying, though.

The outcomes aren't limited to "They pay or they don't" though. Being all brazen about "Gimme my money! I earned it!" when you've got the backing of Valve's soft monopoly when a lot of modders seemed pretty content with the donation model prior... that just leaves ample room in the freespace vacuum you create for someone to scoop up all your prior goodwill.

So here comes, for example, GroundUI and it's purdy and nice and does all the right things and maybe it's not as shiny, but hey, the dev isn't parading around like the new hotness and it's free. And the uppity modder is left staring at the reflection in the pond with no bone at all.

It's like a really, tremendously lame standoff.

 

[Atilac]

Because of various reasons already highlighted in the thread.

- The mods that are monetized right now are all old mods that are now pay for. In some cases they removed the free version, they're pay only now.
- It actually doesn't encourage mod development in a way you think. People will never get a ROI on huge, large scale mods. So this will encourage smaller, easier to make, less complicated mods. You'll see more super flashy "badass" swords and less quests or other more complex, harder to advertise products that would be more expensive.
- To go with that, many of the best mods require libraries and extensions made by other people who may not want their work used in a paid mod. This puts a huge stop on any major mod projects that are paid.
- It's nearly impossible to enforce proper rights on large paid mods because they're often large colab efforts that may use bits and parts of tons of mods and one person not liking it being paid ends it right there.
- The mod makers only make 25% of the money, which is pathetically low for the amount of work they have to do versus what Valve and Bethesda do. This isn't like Dota 2 where Valve curates, implements and further does maintenance on the cosmetic, plus advertises it. This is a mod maker on their own, to do their own maintenance
- If a mod breaks something you only have 24 hours to realize it and even if it is broken you don't get a proper refund, you only get Steam wallet money back, so no matter what that money is lost. Larger mods sometimes take much longer than 24 hours to debug, especially when combined with other mods. Game breaking issues may no manifest until way past 24 hours, especially if it's a fairly obscure issue.

I had a retort to everyone of your points, but my responses were eaten when it failed to post. My points essentially boiled down to: the market will fix the price overtime. Free mods will be more popular. Large mods won't stop existing if they can't get a ROI, since they exist now with no ROI. If the creator believes valve and bethesda are taking too large of a cut, they will move on to other games or release their mod for free - if you think the cut is too large, don't buy it, the market will feel that overtime. Buy mods only from trusted people, wait for reviews of mods before you buy anything.

 

[IcyRhythms]

It's interesting to see all these greedy people get exposed(expose themselves at that)with this thing Valve is allowing for. What was once "I do this as a hobby and because it's fun." turned into "I'm doing all the work! Pay me!"

 

[Shambles]

Geez skyUI as well hey? RIP modding. So we'll have mods charging money while using other peoples free mods. And we'll have mods than depend on other mods in order to work but they might have a free version and a more advanced paid version so you can't even depend on your dependencies anymore... What a mess.

SkyUI wouldn't exist if Bethesda didn't release the game with such a garbage interface built in.

I know you're partly joking but there's several people who have seriously stated that Bethseda deserve a cut which is a joke. They got their money when I bought the game. They should be paying the modders for bringing new customers through them not charging them money. Do we start paying a cut to intel for using x86 code in the game as well? After all if it wasn't for Intel developing x86 this game wouldn't exist!

I had a retort to everyone of your points, but my responses were eaten when it failed to post. My points essentially boiled down to: the market will fix the price overtime. Free mods will be more popular. Large mods won't stop existing if they can't get a ROI, since they exist now with no ROI. If the creator believes valve and bethesda are taking too large of a cut, they will move on to other games or release their mod for free - if you think the cut is too large, don't buy it, the market will feel that overtime. Buy mods only from trusted people, wait for reviews of mods before you buy anything.

The problem is, as we learned with pre-orders and DLC, that the market will continue to do this even if it only makes them $10/year.

 

[cdyhybrid]

I had a retort to everyone of your points, but my responses were eaten when it failed to post. My points essentially boiled down to: the market will fix the price overtime. Free mods will be more popular. Large mods won't stop existing if they can't get a ROI, since they exist now with no ROI. If the creator believes valve and bethesda are taking too large of a cut, they will move on to other games or release their mod for free - if you think the cut is too large, don't buy it, the market will feel that overtime. Buy mods only from trusted people, wait for reviews of mods before you buy anything.

What if Valve prevents free mods from functioning?

 

[Krejlooc]

And what was the answer? Or maybe a link to read it.

so some personal insight into HL2VR dev process for all those "this kills passion! You don't need that money to make a living!" crowd

our mod will be depreciated in about 3 months. As in, it will no longer work. OVR is dropping direct X 9 support, meaning our only option is to switch to an OpenGL renderer. This is tantamount to essentially a complete rewrite of a very significant portion of our mod.

Now, all 3 members of our team got together explicitly to try and start a career in VR development. Our artist, Jaz, lives in the UK, and, without violating his trust here, he is in dire times financially. For the past year and a half, one of the only things keeping him sane is looking ahead to potentially getting a paycheck by landing a job thanks to his mod work. To really drive the point home about how dire some of our finances are, two of us had to pitch in to buy one of us a $25 invite to a tech demo we needed to work with. That individual couldn't afford $25.

I am in the process of setting up my own development studio through private funding. I have reached out to Jaz to try and get him to relocate to the US to try and get him making some money here. Setting up my own studio, managing a project, then actually going through with development is a massive undertaking. Nate, our project lead, has a career in Austin now. We all have social lives and day jobs. We estimate the work it'll take to get HL2VR going without Direct X 9 will be hundreds of hours of coding for Nate and I. Any time I put into HL2VR comes at the expense of my day job, which I truly work around the clock.

We have had serious discussions about whether or not we can afford to personally keep HL2VR going. The knowledge that we could eventually sell the mod has been an enormous factor in keeping us going. Speaking of which - this has been known for a good year and a half now. I find it funny that those bemoaning what this means to the "community" apparently aren't apart of said community because they had an entire seminar about this at Dev Days. Black Mesa is releasing under this model. This has been known for so long.

So, about that talk of the death of free mods and all that shit - we could have started monetizing our mod with Valve's blessing a long time ago. We have discussed selling our mod for ages now. We haven't, though. Why? Well, as professionals, we take pride in our work, and we do not want to sell something that is still a work in progress. Thus, for almost 2 years, this mod that we could have sold, has been given away for free. We have hundreds of thousands of downloads of our mod, and haven't seen a dime from it. We don't even operate an ad server on our project website. Nate pays the fee.

The notion some of you guys have that we, who have done work for free for years, are somehow going to struggle to become motivated to keep our monitzation going is ridiculous. If we are selling a mod and an update breaks it, we have more motivation to fix it now because, so long as it's broken, we can't keep selling it. Don't you guys get it?

. Tl;dr: not now, maybe one day

 

[Mesoian]

What if Valve prevents free mods from functioning?

That's DRM, and then the cracks start coming out. It's never worked in the history of video games.

And with Steam already straddling the line of being a marketplace and actual DRM, the last thing valve wants is people saying, "you have to use this, or you can't play the game, such is our decree". That's bad business all around.

 

[Mavromatis]

It's almost like I have personal stake in this practice or something.

But do you? Reading your past posts it looks like you gave up and since you were not okay with putting an unfinished mod through payment you wouldn't be in this workshop anyway. Are you sure that you aren't acting emotional about this because all that effort and hardship can't finalize the product without cash?
Are you actually developing a mod for Skyrim or any game with Workshop support at the moment?

 

[Etnos]

Paradox's response to "any comment on paid modding?"

https://twitter.com/PdxInteractive/status/591630305783603200

Paradox smart fellas

 

[vcc]

Enabling mods isn't quite as expensive as you make it out to be. In most cases the same tools used for development of the actual product are the tools given to the community to play around with, or you know produce monetized dlc with.

There is a difference between tools used by a technical team and a tool aimed towards consumers. I work in a non gaming field by the dev time difference for a internal tool vs a external product is about 500%. They aren't just releasing their dev tools; they are also making documentation, QAing it, and taking a risk that the extra work will mean anything to anyone.

 

[cdyhybrid]

That's DRM, and then the cracks start coming out. It's never worked in the history of video games.

And with Steam already straddling the line of being a marketplace and actual DRM, the last thing valve wants is people saying, "you have to use this, or you can't play the game, such is our decree". That's bad business all around.

Good thing we have a viable competitor to give our business to if they were to ever try something like that!

Oh, wait.

 

[Mavromatis]

Paradox smart fellas

I expected Paradox to get in the game, but I guess their method of buying/hiring the modders/mods works for them and they don't want to change it.

 

[Mesoian]

Good thing we have a viable competitor to give our business to if they were to ever try something like that!

Oh, wait.

If anything has the ability to give Origin more traction, it would be that.

 

[FunkyMunkey]

It's interesting to see all these greedy people get exposed(expose themselves at that)with this thing Valve is allowing for. What was once "I do this as a hobby and because it's fun." turned into "I'm doing all the work! Pay me!"

Apparently every single thing you do or create or share with others (whether it be a hobby or not), should and could be placed behind a paywall. It doesn't matter if it's behind a company using their weight and monopoly in the process, you should get money for spending time doing stuff. Hell, anything! I'm sharing this post with you all right now free of charge, I'm a damn saint.

The people thinking the "free market" will sort this out aren't thinking ahead. The free market rules don't quite apply normally when the provider has a monopoly on all ends of content delivery. Especially if developers choose to exclusively use steamworks and disallow nexus (but hey nexus is getting money with steamworks so there you go, joining forces).

 

[cdyhybrid]

If anything has the ability to give Origin more traction, it would be that.

Can't get Skyrim on Origin though =\

 

[Dwalls]

. Tl;dr: not now, maybe one day

Just start selling it now if you're so bitter about not selling it? If the demand is there surely people will buy it.

 

[Mesoian]

Can't get Skyrim on Origin though =\

Traction. Skyrim would be a lost cause, but there's always the next game.

 

[Krejlooc]

But do you? Reading your past posts it looks like you gave up and since you were not okay with putting an unfinished mod through payment you wouldn't be in this workshop anyway. Are you sure that you aren't acting emotional about this because all that effort and hardship can't finalize the product without cash?
Are you actually developing a mod for Skyrim or any game with Workshop support at the moment?

I am emotional about this because I have believed in and championed this for years now. I went through this process myself. I do not need modding goodwill anymore, I am transitioning into full time development. I am leaving indie gaming and modding... But that doesnt mean I still dont very much believe that modders should be allowed to be compensated. I still have tooooons of friends in this sector, I know their struggles. I support my fellow developers, and you can bet your butt I will put my money where my mouth is.

This isnt about how it personally relates to me, even if I am willing to tell my story. This is about my beliefs. I earnestly, honestly believe this is a great thing for literal starving artists. I am elated for my friends.

 

[vcc]

I know you're partly joking but there's several people who have seriously stated that Bethseda deserve a cut which is a joke.

Why is it a joke? A mod for a game no one cares about will have no interest. Bethesda made a game, paid for a major marketing push, and created dev tools. The mods are piggy backing on their work.

 

[Dwalls]

Apparently every single thing you do or create or share with others (whether it be a hobby or not), should and could be placed behind a paywall. It doesn't matter if it's behind a company using their weight and monopoly in the process, you should get money for spending time doing stuff. Hell, anything! I'm sharing this post with you all right now free of charge, I'm a damn saint.

The people thinking the "free market" will sort this out aren't thinking ahead. The free market rules don't quite apply normally when the provider has a monopoly on all ends of content delivery. Especially if developers choose to exclusively use steamworks and disallow nexus (but hey nexus is getting money with steamworks so there you go, joining forces).

Can't wait for steam to let me sell my music while taking 75% of the money earned because they're handling distribution. Oh no wait, I can sell it on several other marketplaces that offer far better compensation. Or I could sell it on my own website and keep 100% of the money. Too bad that doesn't exist for videogames anymore.

 

[cdyhybrid]

Traction. Skyrim would be a lost cause, but there's always the next game.

Not if Valve gives Bethesda a shitload of money to make it Steam-exclusive again.

 

[Mesoian]

Why is it a joke? A mod for a game no one cares about will have no interest. Bethesda made a game, paid for a major marketing push, and created dev tools. The mods are piggy backing on their work.

Then they should sell the mod tools, not demand tribute from anyone who ever used them.