Skyrim Paid Mods After Fallout 4

It's obvious.

The bean-counters at Bethesda (the people who are actually in charge in big businesses) see the Skyrim Nexus and Steam Workshop and wonder why they aren't making money off of the mods.

This is especially true when you compare how much money mobile games are making off of microtransactions after an initial $0.99 or lower buy-in to the app.

We will be lucky to have moddable games moving forward, and should count a games mod-ability as a positive when reviewing and considering a purchase.
 
So, I'm gonna say that Fallout 4 paid mods are a very, VERY high possibility. They obviously didn't learn their lesson.

Welp, guess I'll stick with Morrowind. Still the highlight of the series, anyway.
 
As always, vote with your wallet. If you don't buy the stuff they'll stop selling it.
 
After the shitstorm that just passed on this issue not too long ago?

Well... I hope we have another shitstorm then. That's the only way to get results it seems.
 
Would people really be dumb enough to buy a mod? Serious question is serious.
 
Without mods, these games don't have anywhere near the success they do. If you want to start charging for mods, you better be giving the base game away for free, because that is about all it is worth.
 
I wish they would go with a donate button. I think the concept of modders being able to profit off of their creations is a good thing. There is some astonishingly good stuff that has been made for Skyrim, and I can't help but wonder how much better it could be be if the creators were being paid. Maybe we'd already be playing some of the more ambitious projects like Skywind/Skyblivion. Maybe we'd have more DLC quality mods like Moonpath to Elsweyr.

I think careful consideration needs to be made as to who profits where. I fully support the idea that Bethesda should get a cut. They made the game and they made the creation kit. To suggest they shouldn't get a cut is akin to saying Wal-Mart shouldn't get a cut of your transaction when you shop there. The bottom line is, without Beths work, people wouldn't have the platform in which to create content. It's quite fair they get paid. I don't think they are entitled to nearly half, though. If anything, the spread should be the opposit, 45% creator, 30% Steam, 25% Beth.

I also think it would require significantly better moderation. There would need to be a system in place to keep people from taking someone else s work and uploading it for money. There also would need to be accountability for things being broken or misadvertised.

I don't know if there is a right way to do that. If not, better to err on the side of caution and not attempt it (again). But if a system can be found to bring this about in a way that is fair to everyone from the creator to the user, I really don't have a problem with it. I'm about demanding something for nothing, and I'm always happy to pay for things where I feel compensation has been earned (whether it is required or not).

Would people really be dumb enough to buy a mod? Serious question is serious.

Yep, absolutely, if the circumstances were right. There is plenty of content that I wouldn't mind paying (read: donating) for. There's some really great work out there. Why shouldn't the people who worked hard to create it make a little bit of cash off it?
 
Bethesda Plans To Revisit Skyrim Paid Mods After Fallout 4.

http://www.idigitaltimes.com/bethesda-plans-revisit-skyrim-paid-mods-after-fallout-4-459131


What is wrong with these people? Donation button isnt enough for the modders? Bethesda needs to stop scheming over mods.

Sometimes I feel like, growing up as a gamer, the games series we love seem to exist by the grace of a double edged sword. Either way, their fate is never good.

Favorite games of mine:
Half-Life 1. Small company hit's huge success. Followed up by HL2 many years later. Decent story in HL2 but a little more hand-holdy. A litte less mysterious. By EP2, the game is very hand-holdy and kind of a meh experience made for the more mainstream palette.

STALKER - Amazing games that were moderately successful. But not successful enough to overcome poor management. Serious now defunct due to lack of commercial success (Maybe coming back though)

Morrowind - Standard-setting game backed by a long establish lore from the old days of gaming. Game bridges TES into mainstream success with Oblivion appearing on XBOX 360. The series gets some watering down from Morrowind (Meaningless leveling. No dice-rolls for hits, and many other points). By the time Skyrim comes along, the game is a beautiful berserker simulator. There's no point in being anything besides a dual-enchanted-mace wielding idiot.

I don't know whether to like or hate when a game hits big time success. Every time it does, the soul is stripped out so it can be upsold to more mainstream audiences backed by it's predecessors reputation.

When a game series sticks to what it does well and keeps refining it incrementally, the series seem to fall in to bad times or become no more.

As far as Bethesda (Zenimax) is concerned, I resent that they are the owners of such great IP like The Elder Scrolls and Fallout. Their greed is now outweighing the quality of their games. I'm not going to support FO4 until GOTY. And even then, I won't bother unless they make it clear that mods will be donation-only.

And for fucks sake, I'm so sick of Gambryo and bethesda's general lack of optimization after release. At least give us two years of good engine optimizations for better video cards after release. In the days of 8GB RAM and 4GB video cards being practically mainstream, Skyrim still has a 3GB memory limit.
 
I don't care if there is paid mods. As long as free is always an option. Take that away then I'll be pissed.
 
Whoever said they see the app store and the money streaming in is exactly right.

And all the people shelling out $1,000s for clash of clans and stupid ass kingdom building games, with no skill other than having no time or spending obscene amounts of money, are to blame.

Not just them, but the people spending all kinds of money spread out on the app stores. It's crazy and it's sad, and P2W monetized app BS is going to be the bane of quality gaming for a long, long time. :mad:
 
Whoever said they see the app store and the money streaming in is exactly right.

And all the people shelling out $1,000s for clash of clans and stupid ass kingdom building games, with no skill other than having no time or spending obscene amounts of money, are to blame.

Not just them, but the people spending all kinds of money spread out on the app stores. It's crazy and it's sad, and P2W monetized app BS is going to be the bane of quality gaming for a long, long time. :mad:

That's okay. When those people get to retirement age and then suddenly realize they dont have a pot to piss in then they'll wish they hadn't spent all that money on senseless games. LOL :D
 
Without mods, these games don't have anywhere near the success they do. If you want to start charging for mods, you better be giving the base game away for free, because that is about all it is worth.

Especially when the base game is as buggy and half-done as the gamebryo engine games (Skyrim and FO) have been.
 
There is a neat possibility with paid mods. You could get serious, but small gaming studios behind a mod for one of these games and they could sell the mod for a decent price. I'm not talking about a new shield or clothes or changing how the horse works. I am talking about throwing a full fledged expansion at one of these games. You could keep Elder Scrolls 6 going forever. Now the rest of this stuff? Ridiculous, as you all fear this practice could ruin the modding community.
 
What is wrong with these people? Donation button isnt enough for the modders? Bethesda needs to stop scheming over mods.

More like what is wrong with self-entitled people? I've seen many modders explain on Reddit and Nexus forums how donation buttons don't work - that everyone just assumes someone else will donate and its not their problem - just gimme gimme gimme..

Not sure what the big deal is if a modder wants to charge for their time and effort. Did you start weeping into a pillow when apps in Apple/Android appstore were 99 cents?
 
Without mods, these games don't have anywhere near the success they do. If you want to start charging for mods, you better be giving the base game away for free, because that is about all it is worth.

Hallucinate more. Judging by preorders, I'm fairly certain Fallout 4 is worth more than free.
 
There is a neat possibility with paid mods. You could get serious, but small gaming studios behind a mod for one of these games and they could sell the mod for a decent price. I'm not talking about a new shield or clothes or changing how the horse works. I am talking about throwing a full fledged expansion at one of these games. You could keep Elder Scrolls 6 going forever. Now the rest of this stuff? Ridiculous, as you all fear this practice could ruin the modding community.

On the other hand it can complicate things and bring legal/compensation issues. The large total conversion mods have many different developers come and go throughout the development period for obvious reasons. When things are free it is one thing; bring money into it and "fair" compensation for the team members becomes a nightmare. There is no central company to ensure everyone gets paid "fair", and "fair" is based on opinion.

Some other ways it can hurt mods is that bigger mods often start using free assets. As it progresses new unique assets may be added. This is especially true for larger mods. Put things behind a pay wall and all of a sudden getting a big project off the ground may be harder because you can't temporarily use free assets as stand ins for the first few releases.

Finally, it may make traditional (free) modding less impressive to those looking to get into the game industry. Obviously as it is now the more well down, more downloaded & recognized projects will look better on a resume. But bring profit/revenue into it and its another check off/requirement. Was it of good quality? Good, but did it sell? Did it continue to retain sales for a long period after its release? It just raises the bar, and often not in a good way. Kind of like how being a door opener requires a 4 year college degree these days.
 
A large issue is the sudden change of any established system.

Bethesda announcing well in advance of release a plan, along with details, regarding the monetizing of mods in a future game.

versus -

Introducing suddenly a method to monetize mods into an already released game with an established community, both in terms of userbase and content creation, with gaping issues in the form of implmentation.

The latter is what happend with Skyrim.

If Bethesda wants to come out an state firmly plans to implement this with Fallout 4 prior to release it would different than doing so a year or more down the line when the community and content has been established. There should be unstandable justifiable push back from existing interest holders from sudden major changes.

But then the issue is Bethesda, and similar parties, likely know there would be push back affecting initial sales and content creation if they were to announce early.
 
I fucking knew it. Fallout Shelter was a test!

The whole point of it was to offer "non obligated micro transactions" to see if people were willing to pay, and they were, in mass. God damnit Bethesda stop turning into EA, you were one of the few gentle giants!
 
Didn't paid mods split the Skyrim modding community as well? I've been out of the loop for a while, but I remember the creator of SkyUI putting his entire framework behind a paywall, thereby gimping any mod that uses it, and people lost their shit at him. Modders started attacking other modders, and people started profiting off the fact that there was no verification system for creation, so you could just download a bunch of mods off Nexus and upload them to the workshop for a quick buck.
 
Didn't paid mods split the Skyrim modding community as well? I've been out of the loop for a while, but I remember the creator of SkyUI putting his entire framework behind a paywall, thereby gimping any mod that uses it, and people lost their shit at him. Modders started attacking other modders, and people started profiting off the fact that there was no verification system for creation, so you could just download a bunch of mods off Nexus and upload them to the workshop for a quick buck.

Basically, this whole thing is a terrible idea and requires a lot more effort than Bethesda realizes to get working properly.
 
I fucking knew it. Fallout Shelter was a test!

The whole point of it was to offer "non obligated micro transactions" to see if people were willing to pay, and they were, in mass. God damnit Bethesda stop turning into EA, you were one of the few gentle giants!

People are spending money in fallout shelter? WTF...it's not even a good game. I have it on my phone to take up a few seconds while I'm on the crapper. Spend money on it? My faith in humanity is challenged by this thought.
 
More like what is wrong with self-entitled people? I've seen many modders explain on Reddit and Nexus forums how donation buttons don't work - that everyone just assumes someone else will donate and its not their problem - just gimme gimme gimme..

Not sure what the big deal is if a modder wants to charge for their time and effort. Did you start weeping into a pillow when apps in Apple/Android appstore were 99 cents?

You must have completely missed the backlash when Bethesda first attempted to implement this? Backlash from both consumers and modders. Were you weeping into a pillow as well?
 
Didn't paid mods split the Skyrim modding community as well? I've been out of the loop for a while, but I remember the creator of SkyUI putting his entire framework behind a paywall, thereby gimping any mod that uses it, and people lost their shit at him. Modders started attacking other modders, and people started profiting off the fact that there was no verification system for creation, so you could just download a bunch of mods off Nexus and upload them to the workshop for a quick buck.

I agree that Bethesda's previous attempt was ill prepared. They have to come up with a system that guards against people profiting from someone else's work.

But assuming a mod is truly the work of a modder, and he wishes to put his work behind a paywall, I think it's unfair to criticize these modders for doing so. It is their work, and they have the rights to do so, provided there's a legal avenue to do so.

Not that I'm saying I want to see all mods behind a pay wall, but I can't deny these modder's right to sell their work if they are allowed to do so.
 
I agree that Bethesda's previous attempt was ill prepared. They have to come up with a system that guards against people profiting from someone else's work.

But assuming a mod is truly the work of a modder, and he wishes to put his work behind a paywall, I think it's unfair to criticize these modders for doing so. It is their work, and they have the rights to do so, provided there's a legal avenue to do so.

Not that I'm saying I want to see all mods behind a pay wall, but I can't deny these modder's right to sell their work if they are allowed to do so.

I have a problem with being nickel and dimed to death. When it comes to big content mods like Wyrmstooth yes I am more than happy to pay $5 for something like that but things like "Mesh enhancements, Extra Facial Options, Enhanced World Map" I mean this is a Bethesda game we're talking about here. I could easily have over 100+ mods in my game which can add up quickly. I don't like this and modding should never go this route.
 
Gentleman, may I suggest a visit to Nexus and download all your favorite mods into a safe location, it seems like a chore but you will be glad for it later. That way when you want to do another run through Skyrim after Fallout 4 comes out you wont have to pay for your favorite mods. Theres a shitstorm coming and you can safely play all your mods end of this year and beginning of the next year regardless how this pay per mod plays out. Any thoughts on this before they start pulling mods off Nexus and reuploading them to Steam to be payed for in a few months or so?
 
Since Valve and Bethesda would be taking profit from the mods, i would imagine that they would need to tightly regulate the people who can post mods. I could see a lot of people using pirated software to create the tools and I can also see people uploading "Thomas the Tank Engine dragons" and "Master Chief Power Armor" Since Valve/Beth get profit from it they could be caught in the legal battle if whoever holds the IP of assets modded into the game decides to sue the mod maker. Right now it gets swept under the rug because those mod makers get no profit for adding it, but if they start making a livable wage from producing good content but with stolen IPs it could lead to major issues.
 
Steam has no QA at all, this is going to be a trainwreck! Remember TotalBiscuit and ZeroPunctuation scandals? Spread like wildfire on the internet.
 
I have a problem with being nickel and dimed to death. When it comes to big content mods like Wyrmstooth yes I am more than happy to pay $5 for something like that but things like "Mesh enhancements, Extra Facial Options, Enhanced World Map" I mean this is a Bethesda game we're talking about here. I could easily have over 100+ mods in my game which can add up quickly. I don't like this and modding should never go this route.

I guess mod piracy will become a thing....Then modders can claim "lost revenue"

I agree. I wouldn't even bother installing graphical enhancements if I had to "buy a license" to them. Texture packs and things may be nice upgrades from the game that shipped 5 years prior. But it doesn't really change the games experience enough to warrant cost. But as you've displayed, "real value" isn't necessary to make people part ways with their cash. Not mention, it's rare for a Bethesda game to truly well fleshed out. So it's like half their game is propped up by mods and 3rd party bug-fixes. Capitalism at its finest.
 
Steam has no QA at all, this is going to be a trainwreck! Remember TotalBiscuit and ZeroPunctuation scandals? Spread like wildfire on the internet.

I had to google this to find out what you were talking about. I'm not sure it's fair to call it a scandal spreading like wildfire. It isn't scandalous, and it didn't make much noise.
 
Bethesda must be watching all these dumbasses on twitch throw money at streamers and was like dam these guys will pay for mods too CHACHING!!!:p
 
People are spending money in fallout shelter? WTF...it's not even a good game. I have it on my phone to take up a few seconds while I'm on the crapper. Spend money on it? My faith in humanity is challenged by this thought.

Meh, whoever owns an iphone is already lost to us.

BTW this paid mods model works perfectly for some games in the niche market. For example Train Simulator. They release new routes and locos weekly in their own name. That many times aren't made by them but accomplished modders. And not for 99 cents, but for horroristic prices, and the players eat it up like candy. And when I try to tell them that $40 for one map is unrealistic I'm the bad guy. It's a ripoff scheme. I don't think any other company makes more money / player than the "developers" of Train Simulator. I hate to admit it, but even I spent over $600 on it, in the last three years, and I only purchased mods when they were at least 50% off, but most of them for 75% off. Not even subscription based games bring in that kind of profit from a single user. Imagine this with a game that is not a niche product like Fallout 4, there is a ton of money to be made, and they know it, that's why they won't let this go despite the backlash.
 
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I have a problem with being nickel and dimed to death. When it comes to big content mods like Wyrmstooth yes I am more than happy to pay $5 for something like that but things like "Mesh enhancements, Extra Facial Options, Enhanced World Map" I mean this is a Bethesda game we're talking about here. I could easily have over 100+ mods in my game which can add up quickly. I don't like this and modding should never go this route.

Agreed, and based on the small period when Skyrim had paid mods, that was going to happen en masse (i.e. modders splitting up previous "packs" and selling individual weapon/armor skins for $0.99 a pop with a $20 (!?!) full pack).

I don't have a problem paying for awesome mods (like Falskaar for instance) but not going to be doing this BS micro-transaction stuff with individual skins.
 
I don't have a problem paying for awesome mods (like Falskaar for instance) but not going to be doing this BS micro-transaction stuff with individual skins.

Good luck getting a mod like that together. Certainly there will be some, but when money, legal issues and compensation comes into play it becomes much harder to do when you're coordinating with an English illiterate Russian (insert other nationality) who is never online when you are. Because that is how most large mod packs are. It becomes too stressful to put much effort into something when coordination between school/work (or both) & life when you're risking money.
 
Good luck getting a mod like that together. Certainly there will be some, but when money, legal issues and compensation comes into play it becomes much harder to do when you're coordinating with an English illiterate Russian (insert other nationality) who is never online when you are. Because that is how most large mod packs are. It becomes too stressful to put much effort into something when coordination between school/work (or both) & life when you're risking money.

Isn't that exactly what the concept of paid mods is supposed to alleviate? Modders getting paid = they can spend more time making/updating mods. At least, that's the ideal situation.

More than likely it will be a cash grab with Bethesda and Valve reaping all of the profit.

Then again, I'm also not paying for something where a patch could break the mod and then the modder runs off with all the money and never updates again. Fuck that.
 
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