I'm fine with Beth getting something. They made the foundation so the mods can be made. I just do not want them only paying modders less 50 percent of each sale. Modders are only improving the game so Beth can make more sales, they should be happy if they can get a lot of people to mod for them.
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Is the hate for paid mods justifiable?
- Thread starter LelouchZero
- Start date
I'm fine with Beth getting something. They made the foundation so the mods can be made. I just do not want them only paying modders less 50 percent of each sale. Modders are only improving the game so Beth can make more sales, they should be happy if they can get a lot of people to mod for them.
If you read up on Creation Club you would know that none of those things apply.
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Seriously people read up about Creation Club or watch below video from TB. Its not paid mods.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hLmM6pK0wg
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Thats not how it will work. Bethesda will pay for making a mod/dlc (they will pay in 3 stages during development), not take a percent of the sales. So creators will get money for their work no matter if Bethesda will sell content or not! Its a big change and it will make big project to generate more income for creators and will also allow for bigger project to have bigger budget.
Thats why its not paid mods. Its contracting system, just streamlined slightly for amateurs, not professional companies.
Foxy the Fox
Member
I dont want to pay for mods but I am all in for a better system to give optional tips to the creators directly.
Kageshinzo
Member
I am not going to apply the following article to the Creation Club as that's something that I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt to; I believe it can be a good way for exceptionally good modders to get compensated IF they can make it work.
Anyway, two year old article but I think this is still relevant if the discussion is for a general paid mod storefront attempt by a major publisher akin to what Steam tried to do before. If the OP topic is about this type of paid mods, then I am very much in agreement with the Nexus owner, and why I think a shoddy paid mod project will only be detrimental to the modding scene.
Anyway, two year old article but I think this is still relevant if the discussion is for a general paid mod storefront attempt by a major publisher akin to what Steam tried to do before. If the OP topic is about this type of paid mods, then I am very much in agreement with the Nexus owner, and why I think a shoddy paid mod project will only be detrimental to the modding scene.
Dinky Dino
Member
Yes. See I don't mind a donation button being added to their page. Or all proceeds going to the modder. But this is just publishers wanting to get their hands on more income for no work. I'm not supporting this. It's a slippery slope that will lead to them wanting to monetize every aspect if they haven't already. I can already imagine half finished games to let the modders do the rest and the publishers getting paid/rewarded for it. No thanks.
HF2014
Member
Well, as much as i hate paying for DLCs, i think it a great initiative to support some creators who invest time on it and think they could squeez some money out of it. If all mods were becoming paid, yes i would be angry, but its just an initiative to maybe give some creators a push of visibility with time invested. Its a choice creators have and buyer also have.
What? No that's incredibly dumb.
Have you ever played games with mods before? If you have you know that there are compatibility issues and some mods become unstable. Even if it seems everything is okay with the game at the moment, there might be a specific part of the game that mods will conflict and create a crash. Issues like these aren't rare by any means and happen with even the most popular (free) mods.
Greenlight and kickstarter has shown that people will do anything to make a quick dollar, even if that means uploading someone else's mod (happens all the time on the Steam Workshop), lying about features, etc.
Unless these issues are resolved paid mods will continue to be disliked.
The foundation are paid with game cost
Would you buy a DLC that Bethesda contracted to Obsidian? You probably would
So why dont you want to buy DLC from some amateur team being contracted by Bethesda? Because this is what Creation Club is all about.
SirNinja
Member
The hate for paid mods is justifiable. The hate for the Creation Club is not.
Bethesda's marketing for the Creation Club could have been so much better. People need to realize that this is essentially a way to get more official content for Skyrim and F4 - fully tested, compatible, lore-friendly, and made by pro developers as well as the best modders. The DLC they showed (silly stuff like the dwarven mudcrab) were obviously just quick examples thrown together in a hurry; it's possible that a lot of big, high-quality stuff could come from this.
They should never have attempted the whole actual paid mods thing way back when. The internet saw shades of this in the CC and of course - of course - they flipped out and overreacted in the most breathtaking possible way. If the Creation Club was Beth's first stab at it, and if their message was more on point, this would have been much more well-received.
Bethesda's marketing for the Creation Club could have been so much better. People need to realize that this is essentially a way to get more official content for Skyrim and F4 - fully tested, compatible, lore-friendly, and made by pro developers as well as the best modders. The DLC they showed (silly stuff like the dwarven mudcrab) were obviously just quick examples thrown together in a hurry; it's possible that a lot of big, high-quality stuff could come from this.
They should never have attempted the whole actual paid mods thing way back when. The internet saw shades of this in the CC and of course - of course - they flipped out and overreacted in the most breathtaking possible way. If the Creation Club was Beth's first stab at it, and if their message was more on point, this would have been much more well-received.
I see that many people here didn't even saw Creation Club FAQ.
Creation Club are not paid mods it is Bethesdas program for contractual work. Bethesda will pay developers in advance to develop ideas they pitched to Bethesda and are approved. All content will be tested and devs will need to reach milestones and stick to the schedule they agreed with Bethesda. Those same devs will have access to Bethesda Studios devs who will help them when it is needed.
And in the end Creation Club is not mandatory it is up to the devs to decide what they want to do.
Creation Club are not paid mods it is Bethesdas program for contractual work. Bethesda will pay developers in advance to develop ideas they pitched to Bethesda and are approved. All content will be tested and devs will need to reach milestones and stick to the schedule they agreed with Bethesda. Those same devs will have access to Bethesda Studios devs who will help them when it is needed.
And in the end Creation Club is not mandatory it is up to the devs to decide what they want to do.
RollerMeister
Neo Member
I feel like most of it is going to be horse armor styled micro-DLC, which is going to be awful. Something good coming out of this depends entirely on how much money Bethesda is willing to part with for content development, and I doubt they'd pay for any serious expansions made by randoms...
GrantDaNasty
Member
I take it you've never purchased DLC for any game?
So no one will buy this shit and idea will die after some time. Creators will still get money for the work though.
But yeah, its all on Bethesda now.
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One more thing that people do not realize, that this can actually help modders. Why? Because contractors will ask for Creation Tool enhancement to make their project reality. If they will have some ambitious idea and current system will be really shitty at doing it, they will request development support from Bethesda and in Bethesda interest will be support them to finish their work.
If the whole Creation Club work, it can actually improve Bethesda games in the long run.
What does any of this have to do with what I said? You'll pay for a broken Bethesda game but won't pay for mods that purport to fix or improve said broken game. Sometimes these mods will fail to deliver on their promises... but this is something Bethesda or any other developer is sometimes guilty of as well.
Do you dislike paid games, by this logic?
No one likes broken products/software. Citing the imperfection of mods as a reason to dislike paid mods is utter nonsense. FFXIV: Stormblood's servers broke on launch. Does that mean I should dislike paid MMOs now because they break sporadically?
Justified. Thinking of the long-term with stuff (Bethesda's CC) like this isn't gonna go well.
Nailed it.
Nailed it.
If they're well made, aren't using other people's mods (without their permission) then I'm fine with them getting some money for their time.
I'm not happy with the split ratio though, and this is in a more general sense rather than Besthesda, but the likes of Valve etc take far too much from hat/map makers in my opinion.
I'm not happy with the split ratio though, and this is in a more general sense rather than Besthesda, but the likes of Valve etc take far too much from hat/map makers in my opinion.
time allen
Neo Member
I think there were some fair criticisms of Valve/Bethesda's first go at it but I don't think it's such a rotten idea for modders to be able to make money on their stuff in a more explicitly commercial way if they have permission to do so from IP owners. I think, ultimately, that a lot of the invective comes from people who don't want to pay for things which previously were free.
People put a lot of hard work into this stuff. If they want to give it for free, sure. But I'm not against some kind of compensation for the creator.
The publisher should get as small of a cut as possible, however. It's about allowing people to keep games evolving and relevant, not lining the publisher's pockets.
The publisher should get as small of a cut as possible, however. It's about allowing people to keep games evolving and relevant, not lining the publisher's pockets.
Its not ... All risk is on Bethesda with this system. If the mod/DLC wont sell, they wont get return of investment.
Also again, its not paid mods.
Read up about the system, then comment on it.
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Again not how it will work ...
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=241715451&postcount=202
I H8 Memes
Member
Bethesda got "paid" with million and millions in extra sales. Skyrim is a great game. It's a 7 or 8 million copy seller. Maybe 10 million. That is very rare company.
Skyrim was reported to have sold over 20 million copies. That was back in 2014.
Eh, I dunno.
I feel like the game industry is already trying to nickel and dime a lot of things. Bethesda is also already infamous for it's 'horse armor' dlc, right?
Maybe it was inevitable anyway but even games like Persona 5 have paid, on-disc, over priced DLC. Games like GTA V, where you would think they would make fun of these practices have micro transactions built into their full priced game and to make it worse, the online experience is obviously catered to want to make you buy the shark cards. Money definitely feels like the equivalent to a 'stamina' component in a F2P game.
As someone said earlier too, they are using 'moon dollars' too so expect extremely inconvenient pricing that makes you purchase a minimum of 5 moon dollars when you only need .60 cents.
I feel like the game industry is already trying to nickel and dime a lot of things. Bethesda is also already infamous for it's 'horse armor' dlc, right?
Maybe it was inevitable anyway but even games like Persona 5 have paid, on-disc, over priced DLC. Games like GTA V, where you would think they would make fun of these practices have micro transactions built into their full priced game and to make it worse, the online experience is obviously catered to want to make you buy the shark cards. Money definitely feels like the equivalent to a 'stamina' component in a F2P game.
As someone said earlier too, they are using 'moon dollars' too so expect extremely inconvenient pricing that makes you purchase a minimum of 5 moon dollars when you only need .60 cents.
I H8 Memes
Member
I give up. This is exactly the same as when we begged these dummies not to buy horse armor.
Bethesda's Creation Club is just a way to outsource microtransactions. Bethesda doesn't have to invest anything in the development of the DLC, but takes a cut from the sale. What's not to hate about this?
I'm all for modders getting monetary compensation for their work... But not by forcing it by turning mods into commercial products.
I'm all for modders getting monetary compensation for their work... But not by forcing it by turning mods into commercial products.
Not true. They pay fully for development and get back money and profit from selling dlc/mod. Its totally safe system for creators, because full risk is on Bethesda.
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I wrote this like 3 times already just on this page ... Why people do not read posts? Its so annoying.
In itself I don't have anything about spending money on mods ( I wouldn't donate & patreon some mods/mod creator otherwise ), and certainly don't think only a small part of that money should go to the mod creator.
Depending of how it is done, I sure see the positive for the creators, and can see some positive effect for the players too.
But it can also come with downsides ( for the players ) other than "now you need to spend money", depending of the implementation :
- it can drive creators away from so type of content they know they can't monetise
- official mods platform can be worst than what the current free alternative offer ( like Mod Organizer >>>>>> steam workshop )
- fear of seeing that paid platform become the only way dev allow people to share their mods in future title
- mod interaction with each other is complex, IMHO a 2 hours refound policy is absolutely not right for them, mods should have a very very lenient refound policy.
Depending of how it is done, I sure see the positive for the creators, and can see some positive effect for the players too.
But it can also come with downsides ( for the players ) other than "now you need to spend money", depending of the implementation :
- it can drive creators away from so type of content they know they can't monetise
- official mods platform can be worst than what the current free alternative offer ( like Mod Organizer >>>>>> steam workshop )
- fear of seeing that paid platform become the only way dev allow people to share their mods in future title
- mod interaction with each other is complex, IMHO a 2 hours refound policy is absolutely not right for them, mods should have a very very lenient refound policy.
"Modding is supposed to be a hobby/passion project, don't bring money into it in any way. I still want everything for free btw" is a garbage mindset. Fuck people who think like this.
Storefronts that pocket most of the money and give creators scraps is a very raw deal, though it's still good in some ways because it could let people turn their talents into an actual way of supporting themselves.
The most equitable way forward for modding would be some combination of a storefront that offers creators much better dividend, a pay-what-you-want system where hobby modders could give their work away while still presenting an easy route for donations and tips, and a readily accessible means of directly supporting modders like people currently do on Patreon.
Storefronts that pocket most of the money and give creators scraps is a very raw deal, though it's still good in some ways because it could let people turn their talents into an actual way of supporting themselves.
The most equitable way forward for modding would be some combination of a storefront that offers creators much better dividend, a pay-what-you-want system where hobby modders could give their work away while still presenting an easy route for donations and tips, and a readily accessible means of directly supporting modders like people currently do on Patreon.
Because you seem to be thinking that people who dislike paid mods don't want to give money for a content creator's hard work, that's not the case for everyone.
Where did I say I wouldn't pay for paid mods? I gave a reason why people are against paid mods, compatibility issues are still common but people don't make a big deal of it because people are not paying for mods. I'm not going to pay $5 for a mod only for it later to be broken by an update or DLC later down the line with the content creator abandoning it.
Yup, nothing can be done about that. But compatibility is still an issue in the modding community. And sometimes a content creator making a mod compatible to please their dozens/hundreds of paid customers might be too much work for them and it might end up on the mod being abandoned.
You might be willing to pay money for mods that won't play nice with your other mods and maybe even the game itself, but for the most part consumers want products that work.
Servers going down near launch of the base game, expansions, and during the introduction to certain events are common and are nowhere as common as the issues of broken mods and incompatibilities when it comes to modding.
M0nochromatic
Member
Modders asking for money is fine. I've donated to some Fallout NV modders because I liked their work, but Bethesda trying to drain their fans for the communities' own creations is incredibly scummy and worthy of derision.
Not much we can do about it though. Remember the outrage about Horse Armor DLC? So much for that, the entire gaming industry is now on an entirely new level of wringing money out of their consumers pockets, something that 2006 Bethesda could only have dreamed about. I expect they'll get away with it this time and in 5 years we'll be happily paying for mods and patches that we used to get for free, and only a fraction of it will actually go to the people who created them.
Not much we can do about it though. Remember the outrage about Horse Armor DLC? So much for that, the entire gaming industry is now on an entirely new level of wringing money out of their consumers pockets, something that 2006 Bethesda could only have dreamed about. I expect they'll get away with it this time and in 5 years we'll be happily paying for mods and patches that we used to get for free, and only a fraction of it will actually go to the people who created them.
WaterAstro
Member
What's the percent cut that is taken?
Anytime I buy a piece of software I open myself to the risk of failure/incompatibility; that's just reality. I'm not opposed to paying for software even though that risk exists universally. Only the simplest of self-contained programs always "play nice" with your other programs. And sometimes not even then.
So common but still not common? Which is it? Server failure rate during launch weeks is the norm in my experience. it may be a bit of an exaggeration but I'd say the occurrence rate is 99%. You're telling me mod incompatibility is higher than 99%? And this justifies being against paid mods?
Ploid 3.0
Member
Will there be license fees for mods that use knowledge from person A that figured out how to inject scripts which mega mod AB305 depends on?
Mods are sometimes a crowd sourced effort. Remember Archive Invalidation? Imagine the license fees of the person/s who figured that out.
Potter Harry's Bag of Tricks
Requirements:
Archive Invalidation
Sky UI
SKSE
ToothPaste 3.3
etc.
Special Thanks (permissions):
Dewbie
SamFish
101001
Naz
Mods are sometimes a crowd sourced effort. Remember Archive Invalidation? Imagine the license fees of the person/s who figured that out.
Potter Harry's Bag of Tricks
Requirements:
Archive Invalidation
Sky UI
SKSE
ToothPaste 3.3
etc.
Special Thanks (permissions):
Dewbie
SamFish
101001
Naz
They do invest in the development of the DLC. I swear to God people who say this shit didn't read even the first thing about how the Creation Club works.
The "modder" just pitches an idea to Bethesda. If Bethesda signs off on the idea, then the mod goes into development and the modder gets directly paid from then on to develop the idea into a shippable product. That's investment. Bethesda sets development milestones and deadlines. They QA and provide feedback on it just like internally developed DLC.
Fimbulvetr
Member
First off, that's an incendiary thread title and an unfocused OP. Is it about paid mods generally, or the Creation Club specifically? This thread has cohered around the latter, which is definitely worth having discussion over, but that wasn't the best way to start.
So yeah, Creation Club. It's very different from Bethesda and Valve's Steam paid mods concept from two years ago, basically being a contract system for amateurs, with all of the oversight, restrictions and rewards that entails. It is a closed system. This inevitably makes it vastly smaller and less diverse than the full breadth of the modding community, and severely limits its influence on that broader community. The basic system of communal sharing the community subsists on can't really be threatened by this program because the major communal building blocks, things like script extenders, are completely opposite from the approach the Creation Club is taking. Still, there will almost inevitably be some amount of brain drain from the community regardless because talented members of the community will naturally want to partner with Bethesda, thus closing off themselves and whatever assets they create to the community, and that's unfortunate, but unlikely to be catastrophic. Personally I do also have misgivings about any entity taking amateur work and reselling it under its own banner without fully embracing the amateur creators, but that's a complex issue that we don't need to go too far into here.
The question that anyone that isn't either being disingenuous or has a direct profit motive is really asking in this situation, and the question the OP seems to be trying to address is what is the best way to help the modding community flourish? The Creation Club, unlike the Steam paid mods concept, isn't even trying to answer that question. It's really not very innovative or ambitious. It's not an apocalyptic disaster like the Steam paid mods concept, but it's not a bold or at all idealistic vision for the future either. It won't have a large impact, but it will function as intended. The funny money currency is definitely bullshit though.
Mod support has always and will always be in the best interest of any game developer, the Creation Club or any other system of dev/publisher payment for mods doesn't change this. This isn't an argument for the Creation Club's existence.
So yeah, Creation Club. It's very different from Bethesda and Valve's Steam paid mods concept from two years ago, basically being a contract system for amateurs, with all of the oversight, restrictions and rewards that entails. It is a closed system. This inevitably makes it vastly smaller and less diverse than the full breadth of the modding community, and severely limits its influence on that broader community. The basic system of communal sharing the community subsists on can't really be threatened by this program because the major communal building blocks, things like script extenders, are completely opposite from the approach the Creation Club is taking. Still, there will almost inevitably be some amount of brain drain from the community regardless because talented members of the community will naturally want to partner with Bethesda, thus closing off themselves and whatever assets they create to the community, and that's unfortunate, but unlikely to be catastrophic. Personally I do also have misgivings about any entity taking amateur work and reselling it under its own banner without fully embracing the amateur creators, but that's a complex issue that we don't need to go too far into here.
The question that anyone that isn't either being disingenuous or has a direct profit motive is really asking in this situation, and the question the OP seems to be trying to address is what is the best way to help the modding community flourish? The Creation Club, unlike the Steam paid mods concept, isn't even trying to answer that question. It's really not very innovative or ambitious. It's not an apocalyptic disaster like the Steam paid mods concept, but it's not a bold or at all idealistic vision for the future either. It won't have a large impact, but it will function as intended. The funny money currency is definitely bullshit though.
Mod support has always and will always be in the best interest of any game developer, the Creation Club or any other system of dev/publisher payment for mods doesn't change this. This isn't an argument for the Creation Club's existence.
I stand corrected. Then the Creation Club is totally fine, since these are not really mods and we should stop calling them so. They are outsourced DLC/microtransactions. If that's the case, Bethesda can do whatever they want, as long as they don't force these DLCs by banning traditional mods.
I'm not against it, I just hope there is a filtering process. I can see so many people jumping on this to make a quick buck:
-Few bug fixes $5
-Few bug fixes 2.0 $10 ($5 if you bought the first one)
All the while, they do not fix as advertised. With free mods you can DL it, see if it works, works with what you have DL'd already, and if it doesn't: DELETE. If you buy the damn thing, and dislike it, you are stuck with it.
Better yet, a trial period or something with them. Like 30 min trial or something, I dunno.
-Few bug fixes $5
-Few bug fixes 2.0 $10 ($5 if you bought the first one)
All the while, they do not fix as advertised. With free mods you can DL it, see if it works, works with what you have DL'd already, and if it doesn't: DELETE. If you buy the damn thing, and dislike it, you are stuck with it.
Better yet, a trial period or something with them. Like 30 min trial or something, I dunno.
I fully agree, still you know how it is. There are priorities in development, because time limited and task list almost infinite.
Push from Creation Club participant can increase priority of development planned features for mod tools or force Bethesda to hire some additional people to work on those tools as they have legal obliged contracts to cooperate.
I can see donated mods, but paid mods is going to be a harder sell.
even the idea of holding back until a patreon gets filled will put a bad taste in the mouth of some. when people do it sheerly for the love, that glows, and people like to give money to that. If it feels like someone is doing it for the money, then the expectations go way up.
even the idea of holding back until a patreon gets filled will put a bad taste in the mouth of some. when people do it sheerly for the love, that glows, and people like to give money to that. If it feels like someone is doing it for the money, then the expectations go way up.
Fimbulvetr
Member
Ah, I see what you mean. Yeah, it could have a positive impact in that way, but it would probably be pretty marginal. You characterize it kind of like Bethesda is being strong-armed into improving, but they control the terms modders are contracted under to begin with, so I don't think that's the best description, but I get your meaning. I don't think it's much of a factor to hold up as a major positive for this initiative, but I guess it's something.
While the Discussion around Creation Club isn't exactly the same as a discussion around paid mods, even if they do have some arguments in common and they can have a very big impact on each other ( positive and/or negative ).
There is always two sides to a coin, while Creation Club success can lead to Tool enhancement, it can also very well lead to tools getting locked behind the Creation Club as they get to see mods as a direct competition for their Creation Club dlc/mods.
Unlikely for fallout/skyrim, but that kind of thinking could come up when it comes to their next games; I can already see them putting a positive spin to it and say that they will only release the modding tool when they are 'mature enough thanks to the feedback they get from the creators of the Creation Club'.
whalleywhat
Member
Is this unfair? It is obvious enough why hobbyist endeavours based on sharing and support and reciprocity would be viewed with disgust by the corporate world. That some already viewed modding as the basis for building a portfolio was probably already undermining this, and making the mod scene seem like a less exploitative (and less rewarding--I could be wrong, but I don't think anybody's getting laid off mods) version of college sports. But the manner in which monetization will attract opportunists is going to be obvious enough. Should a small studio risk and invest in creating its own IP and reaping greater rewards, or just make mods? And this is totally setting aside the aspect of modding which completely disregards copyright law and mashes franchises together just because it gives them joy/amuses them, and they wish to share this.
Yes.
Dressing up your stance in moral purity is cute and all but at least own up to wanting free stuff. No one will think you less for it. Hiding behind "but the purity" is honestly more distasteful than Bethesda trying to get a cut of the pie. Pragmatic business decisions, fine, I understand it; disingenuous moralization to mask, at its core, a personal financial concern, cowardly.
I mean, fuck me, video games used to be a hobbyist endeavor engaged by playful programmers with time and expertise on their hands. No one gripes about the purity of video games being lost after Atari and Nintendo killed that early hobbyist spirit with their disgusting, corporate greed. At least, no one without a very bushy, thick beard who's only ever used *nix distros and FOSS.
whalleywhat
Member
Oh, wow, special insight into my 'true' intentions. Here we have the basis for all great arguments. Now let's get some more condescension...
Somebody got your goat. Sorry, but I don't think subjecting every form of human interaction to the rigors and logic of the market is going to lead to liberation for anybody. It's a matter of ideology. At least try and be civil.