Poll of the Day > bethesda added paid mods to fallout 4 today

(+) Yeah! (+)

smh, i thought they learned with skyrim
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There are paid mods for The Sims 4 these days

people won't stop hustlin for nothing
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for some reason i had it in my head that sims didn't have mods, and i don't know why, cuz when i think about it mods makes sense for the sims
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Sims would be shit without its custom content. Can't go back to vanilla
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Why was there a huge backlash to paid Skyrim mods back in the day?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NszI8b9bevM

Who cares? It's not like it's getting rid of free mods. Now with people being incentivized with a paycheck, we can get actual quality mods as well. As long as there's proper quality control on Bethesda's end, and reasonable pricing and access to content, this could be a good thing.

All I'm pissed about is the new patch breaking my script extender...

Snuggletoof posted...

As long as there's proper quality control on Bethesda's end

Sadly that isn't the case, hence the backlash. You'd think they'd have learned after it flopped the first time.
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Snuggletoof posted...

As long as there's proper quality control on Bethesda's end, and reasonable pricing and access to content

It's doubtful any of that will be true.
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helIy posted...

smh, i thought they learned with skyrim

They did. They learned how to get away with it better this time.

And next time after that, they'll get away with it even better.

Developers don't get less greedy just because gamers object. They just figure out better ways to cover their tracks.


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Metro2 posted...

Why was there a huge backlash to paid Skyrim mods back in the day?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NszI8b9bevM

because people literally just stole other peoples free mods to sell them.

that, and mods have always been free, so asking people to now pay for them just made them not fucking pay for them.
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Metro2 posted...

Why was there a huge backlash to paid Skyrim mods back in the day?

It's Bethesda. They make 80% of a great game and say "here, you guys finish it and then you can have fun with it". Charging for the remaining 20% that other people worked on feels like they're just trying to squeeze more money out of us, especially when it was free before.
The modders got 25% of the mod's revenue under that plan, too, so it's hard to spin it as supporting the devs.

I'd let some companies get away with paid mods, but not Bethesda. Not until they release games that actually function unmodded (or reduce the price of the base game so that paid mods just bring it to normal).

Though this new thing seems a little different. They're gonna help the modders develop the mods, apparently? No clue.
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That, and the prices were outrageous for mostly crappy work, sometimes stolen work, and the modern got 25% and only when the mod has made $400+.


Now, you can buy horse armor for $6.
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funkyfritter posted...

Snuggletoof posted...

As long as there's proper quality control on Bethesda's end

Sadly that isn't the case, hence the backlash. You'd think they'd have learned after it flopped the first time.

I would agree with that for the first time around, as Valve had a completely hands-off approach at the issue. That's where it falls apart, that's why we see stolen content and shitty "protest" mods.

But lets be real, 90 percent of the backlash was people crying at the word "paid". Screaming that it would be the end of free mods, and completely ignoring all of the benefits having a compensated supply of quality content creators would bring. Consider what happened with Youtube when people started making money for their videos. We got hours of high quality content, and thousands of people got to make careers out of doing something they love.

I'm not going to say with confidence that this will work out this time round. It's entirely likely it will fail again. But I have much more confidence now that they've had a chance to fail before and possibly learn from their mistakes.

AlleRacing posted...

Now, you can buy horse armor for $6.

I never understood that complaint considering people have been paying for useless skins for their characters in plenty of other games for years.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Developers don't get less greedy just because gamers object.

Developers aren't the ones pushing shit like paid mods, Publishers are.
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Snuggletoof posted...

Who cares? It's not like it's getting rid of free mods. Now with people being incentivized with a paycheck, we can get actual quality mods as well. As long as there's proper quality control on Bethesda's end, and reasonable pricing and access to content, this could be a good thing...

And a whole bunch of really really shitty mods that people will pump out as quickly as possible then advertise deceptively to make a quick buck. Bethesda will come out and pretend like they're going to heavily curate the community, but chances are it will just end up looking like the Google Play store. It also probably means that they're going to try to add some sort of mod validation system which is effectively adding another layer of DRM because they don't want people to pirate mods.

I mean if some people want to buy them more power to bethesda I guess

I won't be one of those folks though
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Oh yeah and they probably won't be able to manage cross compatibility issues, so expect to buy a paid mod that breaks one of your other paid mods.

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RCtheWSBC posted...

Can't go back to vanilla

I too like kinky sex.

In all seriousness though, I'm not sure what the reasoning for this is. Unless the paid mods are made by the company, then I think it's defensible. But if made by people who don't actually work for you? Fuck off.
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Zareth posted...

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Developers don't get less greedy just because gamers object.

Developers aren't the ones pushing shit like paid mods, Publishers are.

A fair point. Though I'd argue that, at least in some cases, the developers are absolutely the ones pushing the idea of exploitative paid content, which is something you see more once you get out of the triple-A sphere of influence. It's really only at the top of the pile that you see things like EA dictating terms to its developers and forcing paid content and DLC on developers who don't really want it.

But in Bethesda's specific case, it could be ZeniMax pushing more for it than Bethesda itself, since ZeniMax seems to have a history of business and legal decisions that make them seem like a collection of walking shitbags. That being said, Bethesda is also technically a publisher (ie, it's both a publisher and a developer depending on which arm of the company you're talking about), so it's hard to say where most of the aggressive decisions are actively coming from.


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I assume it is still possible to donate money to your favorite modders instead of paying them via the developers, right? At least this way the modders get all/most of the donation instead of a cut after the developers take their share. That being said, there are a few YouTubers and manga scanlation groups that I donate to. Can't say there is one or two modder in particular whose work I follow. Maaaybe Darnified for the UI mods in Fallout New Vegas and Skyrim.
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If more than half the mods weren't shit that fixed the original stuff that Bethesda broke, I might be more on board with it.

As it is, fuck em. I'd rather patreon a content creator than give the mods pennies while bethesda is making cash for nothing.
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Snuggletoof posted...

But lets be real, 90 percent of the backlash was people crying at the word "paid". Screaming that it would be the end of free mods, and completely ignoring all of the benefits having a compensated supply of quality content creators would bring. Consider what happened with Youtube when people started making money for their videos. We got hours of high quality content, and thousands of people got to make careers out of doing something they love.

The biggest difference between this and Youtube is that users don't have to pay for Youtube. Additionally, many modders are already supported to some extent by ad revenue and/or voluntary donations. Charging for mods would provide them with more support, but at considerable cost to the consumers. On top of that, only giving the modder 25% of the fee is just insulting, given how little Valve or Bethesda did for the mod.

I think there's probably a good way to improve modders' compensation, but having the game's studio selling mods for it isn't a great way to do it.
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adjl posted...

Snuggletoof posted...

But lets be real, 90 percent of the backlash was people crying at the word "paid". Screaming that it would be the end of free mods, and completely ignoring all of the benefits having a compensated supply of quality content creators would bring. Consider what happened with Youtube when people started making money for their videos. We got hours of high quality content, and thousands of people got to make careers out of doing something they love.

The biggest difference between this and Youtube is that users don't have to pay for Youtube.

The irony is, we're sort of heading in that direction with YouTube Red.

And a lot of those money-making content creators are now getting strangled out of business (and into either retirement or moving to Twitch) because of YouTube's current reworking of the ad revenue system. Some of the higher-ranked channels on the site in terms of popularity are seeing massive cuts to revenue (like 75% reduction cuts) which are putting a lot of the creators who quit real world jobs to focus exclusively on producing YouTube content into deep shit. As a consequence, many of them are moving to platforms like Twitch, setting up Patreon accounts to support themselves, or otherwise moving content behind paywalls of one kind or another. So a lot of those "hours of high quality content" and "thousands of people making careers out of doing something they love" may be going away soon if YouTube doesn't sort its shit out (which it won't, because Google doesn't care) or an alternative video hosting site doesn't catch on (which it won't, because no one wants to stand against YouTube's current monopoly).


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Snuggletoof posted...

Now with people being incentivized with a paycheck, we can get actual quality mods as well

When has anybody been paid first and felt obligated to offer more?

You've got the order the wrong way round, people offer something worth paying for THEN they get paid.
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I didn't see the problem before, and I don't see it now.
Are people are pissed off because they have to pay money for mods, or that they're giving money to Bethesda? Because that's dumb, people are spending time and effort into something, and they should have the option of getting that money back.

It will push the market for mods out? Except the people who want to make free mods still can, and people who want to spend the extra effort and get paid for it can do so.

If free mods also exist beside paid mods, I really see no issue
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