Paid mods are now available on the workshop

[hellanios]

The Shroud of the Dark Side has Fallen, begun the Modder War has. May the Force be with us!

 

Edited April 23, 2015 by hellanios

[TechAngel85]

I suspect they chose Skyrim because it is such a large and well developed modding community. It's either going to flop, not make any real difference, or kill the modding community. Headline reads: "Bethesda and Valve singlehandedly destroy modding community!" Haha! I seriously doubt it's going to cause as much of a difference in the long run. Once the dust settles, I suspect everyone will be back to business as usually...albeit, down a mod or two in their setups.

[Neovalen]

The Shroud of the Dark Side has Fallen, begun the Modder War has. May the Force be with us!

 

I totally feel Senator Organa at the end of the clip. *hangs head knowing this will doom us all*

[Marthenil]

Well, I know that STEP does not endorse this (obviously) but, if this kind of logic continues I will not be ashamed to hoist the Jolly Roger. Thank the lord for living in a backwater country where it's totally safe :P

 

Support the developers, they said. Until they start milking you.

[hellanios]

I totally agree with Total Biscuit 

 

[EssArrBee]

Well, I know that STEP does not endorse this (obviously) but, if this kind of logic continues I will not be ashamed to hoist the Jolly Roger. Thank the lord for living in a backwater country where it's totally safe :P

 

Support the developers, they said. Until they start milking you.

Hey, aren't you a mod author dude?

[Marthenil]

Hey, aren't you a mod author dude?

Nope. Aside from stuff I make for myself that I can't share due to copyright issues.

Edited April 24, 2015 by Marthenil

[oqhansoloqo]

 

Last thought - Why Skyrim mods? It doesn't make sense to me unless they decided it would be their "lab rat".

EXACTLY what I am thinking.  They want to get a feel for how they can profit from this endeavor before they release the next Fallout or TES title.

 

Even more reason for the game companies to put out uncompleted products.  Now they can do that and then make a KILLING off of all the modders willing to give 75% profit to them and at the same time finish the game for them.  And they just sit back and earn money without spending anything.  Let the modders put the icing on the cake for them.  Not be liable for having to offer support for the mods either.  TOTAL money grab.

Edited April 24, 2015 by oqhansoloqo

[Marthenil]

Well Skyrim is what made modding popular in the mainstream scene, at least in more recent times. So it sounds reasonable that if you start something like monetizing mods for various games (allegedly they are going to do this for other games, my only hope being Bohemia (Arma) rejects a similar deal) to start from the bigger one.

 

Also, Bethesda. Recent experiences with Zenimax Online ( Owned by Zenimax who owns Bethesda) has shown me the truth regarding them. There's many reasons why you might object to such a system as a developer, and if there is one company that doesn't give a damn about it, it probably is Bethesda.

[GrantSP]

Take note of this section of the Creation Kit EULA regarding ownership of modded material:

 

 

 If You distribute or otherwise make available New Materials, You automatically grant to Bethesda Softworks the irrevocable, perpetual, royalty free, sublicensable right and license under all applicable copyrights and intellectual property rights laws to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, perform, display, distribute and otherwise exploit and/or dispose of the New Materials (or any part of the New Materials) in any way Bethesda Softworks, or its respective designee(s), sees fit. You also waive and agree never to assert against Bethesda Softworks or its affiliates, distributors or licensors any moral rights or similar rights, however designated, that You may have in or to any of the New Materials.

Essentially Bethesda & Valve are calling in that right. Despite the assertion of modders, and the support of sites like Nexus that imply ownership of modded material, modders have in fact simply been feeding the fatted cow that belongs to Bethesda, not their own.

No matter what time or effort you, the modder, have invested YOUR work is in fact NOT YOUR work and never has been. Making it a paid for content service is just the logical next step from the companies that actually DO OWN that content. All that has happened now is they, Bethesda & Valve, have said:

Hey we appreciate all you've done, here, have some scraps from our banquet table."

 

The only difference to this model is with tools that have absolutely no connection to assets owned by either company.

If you have a mod that requires the use of a tool to setup the mod correctly or create the finalised product fit for installation, and that tool doesn't allow for paid for use, then you may have bitten off the hand that feeds you.

 

As noted elsewhere, SKSE is a tool that is released on the MIT license and can be used in this manner, so all is fine in that regard.

Plugins that use SKSE may not be, and if your mod requires those plugins a legal minefield is before you. (or Bethesda)

 

FNIS is another tool that is used to make certain mods work properly. @fore has explicitly stated that he does not allow the use of his work in paid for content. Policing that might be a very tricky matter.

 

What about the 'proccer' style tools? What happens if the authors decide to favour one side or the other of this paid for model? How will we decide to use, or not use, mods that require these tools?

 

If the developers of xEdit or LOOT or MO ask for money I will have no problem paying for these, as they are solely the work of those developers and contain nothing derivative of Bethesda and hence there is, in my mind, no issue.

 

I don't have a problem with the modders that want to get something back for all their work, but I'm afraid all that I see in this model is them being screwed over by the big guys that actually OWN the content.

[kryptopyr]

• Some of the things people are saying about modders, both behind a shield of anonymity and without, is absolutely unacceptable abusive harassment. It's both embarrassing and completely disheartening. Personally, I'm more inclined to serious consider no longer contributing to the modding community due to the reaction I'm seeing than I am due to the new paid mods Steam model. Way more inclined.

+1  This sort of abuse of mod authors is going to do much more harm to the modding community than paid mods could ever do.  We're going to lose good mod authors who aren't going to be willing to continue to put up with these hostile attitudes and comments.

[WilliamImm]

I was never going to upload my mods on Steam Workshop because of how awful the system already was for Skyrim. Now I'm not going to do it further. It would be disingenious for me to put Even Better Quest Objectives behind a paywall, since a lot of the work still comes from whickus (with his permission). Putting mods behind paywalls is an idea that's anti-cathedral to the core. Don't particpate in this. Just don't.

 

Honestly, a much better way to support mod authors consistenly would be to use something like Flattr or Gratipay. Both are microdonation services that allow you to automatically give money to creators that you like. If the Nexus Mod site set up a feature that automatically sets up Flattr microdonations for every mod that you endorsed, a lot of the payment problems regarding mods would not be there. And we'd be less tempted to paywall ourselves.

[EssArrBee]

The hate going toward modders that have decided to use the system is quite abhorrent. You can't go around saying that we are a great community if that is how you act. Isuko did not handle his mod updates well, but the hate and entitlement from mod users is quite sickening to me. This stuff has always been free and it will always be free. Going forward there just isn't going to be 100% of mods released for free. I don't have to like it, but it's happening and I'm not going to spread that type of hate toward people because they make their own choices.

 

Chesko wrote about the reason he decided to go forth with this: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s53/sh/3c4f3e29-9b4e-41cf-9a72-1b3ed9f70c62/c727dccbb3398aebb5946afac7faaaea

 

I suggest you read it all the way through because it is quite compelling. 

[Marthenil]

No, the hate should definitely be directed towards Valve, and Valve only. And I think it would help if popular modders like you directed it (people on the internet are sheep :P) that way.

[Nozzer66]

Total Biscuit makes a few fair points in that video.

 

Lets be honest, the faeces was going to hit the fan on the whole modding as hobby vs modding as an income source sooner or later. And if the mod authors on here were to actually charge their time per hour spent on mods, you'd be paying lots more than 5 bucks for them.

 

My whole issue with the scenario is firstly: Valve's flat out greed. I might be able to give that a grudging pass if Skyrim was Valve content. It's not. Secondly: If someone had spent time and made all the assets in their mod from a blank sheet of paper, released it, and it was found to be awesome and a must have, I'd be bashing down the door saying shutup and take my money with the crowd. If and when that happens, I consider it a bit disingenuous to charge for a mod you're not 100% behind.

 

Of course, this is all academic now as Steam is 100% off my machine and will not darken my Hard Drive again until Valve pull their heads in.

 

And yes, the hate pointed especially towards Isoku that I've seen is a disgrace. I've actually reported a few posts on Nexus over that. Would suggest a few others do the same.

Edited April 24, 2015 by Nozzer66