I sure hope you like paying for your mods

The more I read and think about the whole idea, the more I get the impression this is just a cynical move to use modders for the corporate DLC scheme.
Why make your own hands dirty with horse armor DLC and risk your reputation when you can have someone else doing that for you?

...because if this was really about helping and benefiting the modding community, there would be no reason to keep 75% of the revenue.

It also highlights that we have a struggle about who owns games. Because the logic for that monetary distribution means that Bethesda's game is merely a service for modders to make money off - they get their part for providing the basis to build the mod upon, while Valve takes money for advertisment and promotion. So this whole idea of paid mods is another step in the direction of games as a service platform - an idea that the "big publishers" are trying to push for years and years now in an attempt to limit consumer rights ("you don't own it, you just licenced it") to create ever new ways to get more money from the player.

GAGA Extrem said:

The more I read and think about the whole idea, the more I get the impression this is just a cynical move to use modders for the corporate DLC scheme.
Why make your own hands dirty with horse armor DLC and risk your reputation when you can have someone else doing that for you?

...because if this was really about helping and benefiting the modding community, there would be no reason to keep 75% of the revenue.

It also highlights that we have a struggle about who owns games. Because the logic for that monetary distribution means that Bethesda's game is merely a service for modders to make money off - they get their part for providing the basis to build the mod upon, while Valve takes money for advertisment and promotion. So this whole idea of paid mods is another step in the direction of games as a service platform - an idea that the "big publishers" are trying to push for years and years now in an attempt to limit consumer rights ("you don't own it, you just licenced it") to create ever new ways to get more money from the player.

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Whilst i mostly agree with this, paid for mods do work in some games. Like TF2. So you could make an argument saying that if you had a built in component in a new game, then it might be more manageable. It wont work in Skyrim because its too established and theres too much free content out there. But you will still have the problem of intellectual theft, plagiarism etc. Steam has just opened up a huge can of worms.

Well, the situation for TF2 is also completely different. You can't compare modding a FPS with modding an open world RPG.

Apart from that paid mods in TF2 are limited to equipment and maps, Valve pays close attention to what stuff is getting released and it is a game of their own design.

It almost seems like Valve just lifted the user made items store system from TF2, Dota2 CSGO etc with their limited user created aesthetic items for multiplayer or otherwise heavily curated and limited mods and applied it to the wild west of unrestricted modding somehow expecting it not to result in a poostorm.

Edit: A quality check on some of the 18 mods Bethesda chose to be the pioneers of this new model. I wouldn't use these mods for free.

And just to lose all remaining faith in humanity it seems that glitchy armor you have to spawn in from the console to even use has made almost 1000$ for the author...

To be fair, this has all happened over a weekend. I highly suspect that come Monday morning there will be some very interesting meetings taking place at both Valve and Bethesda. I expect some sort of statement or announcement either the same day or by Wednesday at the latest.

trader/warrior said:

It almost seems like Valve just lifted the user made items store system from TF2, Dota2 CSGO etc with their limited user created aesthetic items for multiplayer or otherwise heavily curated and limited mods and applied it to the wild west of unrestricted modding somehow expecting it not to result in a poostorm.

Edit: A quality check on some of the 18 mods Bethesda chose to be the pioneers of this new model. I wouldn't use these mods for free.

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Wow. I knew you couldn't get the set of armor through normal play, but I didn't realize it was designed so awfully given the asking price.

For the record, Immersive Armor and Immersive Weapons are free and are of far higher quality.

To be fair, this has all happened over a weekend. I highly suspect that come Monday morning there will be some very interesting meetings taking place at both Valve and Bethesda. I expect some sort of statement or announcement either the same day or by Wednesday at the latest.

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It seems that the backlash is entirely unexpected, which is both good and bad. Good because it means Valve and Bethesda were coming from a good place when they implemented the program. Bad because it shows that both are pretty out of touch.

Scarlet_King said:

Wow. I knew you couldn't get the set of armor through normal play, but I didn't realize it was designed so awfully given the asking price.

For the record, Immersive Armor and Immersive Weapons are free and are of far higher quality.



It seems that the backlash is entirely unexpected, which is both good and bad. Good because it means Valve and Bethesda were coming from a good place when they implemented the program. Bad because it shows that both are pretty out of touch.

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After playing Immersive Armor and Weapons for a while, I'm not going to agree that they're higher quality. The quality of those mods seems highly overstated to me.

Yeah, that's what has kept me from joining the inane protest stuff on the Workshop. I think that this isn't just a cash grab and was legitimately viewed as something that modders and mod users wanted by the people at Bethesda. Really, there does not seem to be opposition to modders getting paid for their efforts, just in the way that it has been implemented. If they had made it simply donations through the Workshop, I doubt the uproar would be what it is now, even with modders only getting a 25% cut.

sherbz said:

Whilst i mostly agree with this, paid for mods do work in some games. Like TF2. So you could make an argument saying that if you had a built in component in a new game, then it might be more manageable. It wont work in Skyrim because its too established and theres too much free content out there. But you will still have the problem of intellectual theft, plagiarism etc. Steam has just opened up a huge can of worms.

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The TF2 store sucks, same with the CSGO and Dota 2 one. Ridiculously high prices and a horde of people with more money than sense. They barely even tested a lot of the TF2 skins if they tested the mat all, there were a number of problems like the models only having a high poly version which caused FPS issues for people on lower end settings. Almost none of the weapons added anything of value to the game (and Valve were the ones who came up with the in-game affects, not the creators of the weapon), and for the most part just made it more confusing and less enjoyable.

The CS:GO skin prices are just laughable, people willing to pay $100s or even $1000s of dollars for a skin only because it's rare, most of them don't even look very good, many of them just look foolish "tacticool" or like a douchey teenager's idea of cool stickers.

On the other hand, modders get 100% of donations made to them on Nexus. I understand why Valve should be able to take a cut, given it does use their servers, but does Bethesda really need to take such a large cut?

As for IA and IW, to each his own.

On another note:

http://www.gog.com/
mostly old games there is no DRM they are working on an optional client called galaxy
http://www.greenmangaming.com/
sells steam keys i have no idea if steam gets money from those sales - note: green man gaming is not a key reseller they get their stuff from the publishers/devs they also like to bombard you with 20% off codes
http://www.desura.com/
this has changed quite a bit i remember it being indie steam but hey they sell steam and DRM free
http://www.amazon.co.uk/ (or http://www.amazon.com/)
you all know this one they sell physical or keys and do occasionally have deals or sales
www.origin.com
never would i have expected to see the day i would recommend origin over steam the store is mostly EA but there are some non EA stuff (quite a bit of ubihorsehocky as well) for EA games there is an actual returns policy (one week after buying or 24 hours after first run whatever comes first) and on the house gives you free and game time gives you a few hours to play a game before buying (you can add a game time game to your library and use those hours up whenever you feel like as well)
https://www.humblebundle.com/store
charity and all that (oh and constant sales)
http://www.gamersgate.com/
like greenmangaming - i personally have never used it because i keep forgetting it even exists but i have seen people say good things (it sells steam keys as well as origin and uplay probably some DRM free idk)
http://itch.io/
DRM free indie storefront
https://indiegamestand.com/
more indie games
https://www.direct2drive.com/#!/pc
https://uplay.ubi.com/
ubisoft games ._.

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Wow. Those linked mods are really terrible. Of course, the utterly inadequate refund policy is going to have a equally rough ride if it gets challenged anywhere with reasonable consumer laws.

Btw, anybody hear about pirated mods? Can you believe that? Pirated mods.

EQandcivfanatic said:

To be fair, this has all happened over a weekend. I highly suspect that come Monday morning there will be some very interesting meetings taking place at both Valve and Bethesda. I expect some sort of statement or announcement either the same day or by Wednesday at the latest.

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Gabe Newell has already done an ad hoc, unofficial AMA on one of the gaming reddits, but unsurprisingly a lot of his answers were just vague and buzzwordy (not that I blame him, per se - no matter what I think about this whole thing, I honestly think he couldn't really have said anything else). Whether there is an actual statement or announcement of some sort, we'll see. I hope so. This is something that's gotten one of the largest modding commnities on fire.

Actually, I'm afraid that Valve and Bethesda just think that this is nothing much but a bunch of angry meme-loving entitled cheap redditors making a big noise. And, to be fair, some of it is, but there are plenty of legitimate complaints as well, and complaints from many modders themselves (I found a reddit thread listing the (negative) reactions from a number of prominent modders (dunno exactly how prominent they are but I recognize some of them and their mods)). So, at the least, I don't think this is merely a matter of spoiled people not wanting to pay as a few have claimed - there are serious issues here, and surprisingly for some the fact that you have to hand money over to modders is one of the least among them.

EQandcivfanatic said:

Yeah, that's what has kept me from joining the inane protest stuff on the Workshop. I think that this isn't just a cash grab and was legitimately viewed as something that modders and mod users wanted by the people at Bethesda. Really, there does not seem to be opposition to modders getting paid for their efforts, just in the way that it has been implemented. If they had made it simply donations through the Workshop, I doubt the uproar would be what it is now, even with modders only getting a 25% cut.

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I think there would still be an uproar and controversy, but it would've nowhere been as bad as what we currently have. Despite all the forthing ranting, I do agree that most aren't opposed to givnig modders money, they're just opposed to the way it's done and the sudden, unannounced manner this new system was introduced without regard for the potential consequences.

So Skyrim's user rating on Steam has dropped from 98% positive to 88% apparently, but is anyone else not able to see it? And it's not just Skyrim, for the last few days or so I've noticed that a lot of games on Steam don't show the user ratings, while some do. And these are for ones that have been out and rated.

Scarlet_King said:

On another note:

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Green Man Gaming is completely legit and so is GamersGate. Direct2Drive is just they died once and the name was recently brought back but of course none of the old accounts or non-Steam games that were bought from it (and at the time, it didn't have that many Steam games).

cybrxkhan said:

Btw, anybody hear about pirated mods? Can you believe that? Pirated mods.

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Well technically there pirated mods before, there are some huge (and generally outdated) mod compilation torrents. So far though I don't know if any of the few paid for only mods have been put up on torrents yet though.

Maniacal said:

Well technically there pirated mods before, there are some huge (and generally outdated) mod compilation torrents. So far though I don't know if any of the few paid for only mods have been put up on torrents yet though.

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Already been done for Wet and Cold and iNeed. Dunno about the others though.

So Skyrim's user rating on Steam has dropped from 98% positive to 88% apparently, but is anyone else not able to see it? And it's not just Skyrim, for the last few days or so I've noticed that a lot of games on Steam don't show the user ratings, while some do. And these are for ones that have been out and rated.

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I'm not having that problem, but it is down to 87% now.

Originally Posted by cybrxkhan View Post
Btw, anybody hear about pirated mods? Can you believe that? Pirated mods.

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Sims already had this, except you didn't even need to use a torrent due to EULA magic being used against the people selling the mods.

Wet and Cold and iNeed

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What does iNeed do that Realistic Needs and Diseases don't for somebody who has never used the former?

Wet and Cold's at least aesthetic. At least Frostfall wasn't paywalled or anything.

Scarlet_King said:

What does iNeed do that Realistic Needs and Diseases don't for somebody who has never used the former?

Wet and Cold's at least aesthetic. At least Frostfall wasn't paywalled or anything.

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I don't know, I've never used either. Just relating what I have read. I've liked Wet and Cold in the past, but I can live without it if I had to. Really all of the "essential" mods in my opinion have come out pretty firmly against paywall.

So a word of warning for anyone playing Skyrim with Nexus and Workshop mods. It seems that a few mods are being intentionally sabotaged on the workshop by the creators in protest or something. It completely borked my 160 hour save game from all of this thanks to auto-update. This is all my own stupid mistake, but if you are as dumb as I was with my few saves and auto-updating, you could find your own saves similarly inconvenienced.

So, Workshop authors are screwing up their own mods? That doesn't sound practical.

In other news, this mod made me snigger with laughter rather too much for some reason.

Only the versions on the Workshop, the Nexus ones seem fine.

Arakhor said:

Wow. Those linked mods are really terrible. Of course, the utterly inadequate refund policy is going to have a equally rough ride if it gets challenged anywhere with reasonable consumer laws.

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Steams already had to change their ToC to comply with the Consumer Guarantees Act here in NZ, so that we can get refunds on anything that doesn't work as expected. So I'd expect that the 24hr time limit on refunds with these mods wouldn't apply to us if the mod was broken, as it'd be breaking NZ law.


I can possibly see some good stuff coming out of this, but not anywhere in the immediate future. With future games I could see a group of modders coming together, making agreements on revenue etc, and making something awesome.

Probably vastly outnumbered by people making in an attempt to make a quick buck though.

Maniacal said:

Well technically there pirated mods before, there are some huge (and generally outdated) mod compilation torrents. So far though I don't know if any of the few paid for only mods have been put up on torrents yet though.

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Scarlet_King said:

Sims already had this, except you didn't even need to use a torrent due to EULA magic being used against the people selling the mods.

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That's true. I've managed to come across priated versions of my CKII mods while I was googling them before.

However I think this will raise more awareness for these things, for better or worse.

Scarlet_King said:

What does iNeed do that Realistic Needs and Diseases don't for somebody who has never used the former?

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From what I heard iNeed is more minimalist and less intrusive and complicated than Realistic Needs. However, personally I use another needs mod that is even more minimalist and less intrusive called Eat Drink Sleep.

Thrawn said:

I can possibly see some good stuff coming out of this, but not anywhere in the immediate future. With future games I could see a group of modders coming together, making agreements on revenue etc, and making something awesome.

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With the current modding community, that might be possible, because there are already strong bonds and a sense of community built in; with future modding communities, I am a bit less hopeful. The root of a lot of modder drama for any modding community are arguments over permission/crediting, and how to best share materials. It's going to be a lot tougher to cooperate and make agreements if there's money involved, in my opinion, even more so if there are craploads of people involved - which may well be the case given how interconnected large modding communities might be. Your mid-sized mod might have ten, twenty, thirty different modders who would need compensation for stuff you borrowed beyond just the members of your team, and then you might need to compensate then for modders who those modders borrowed from, and then for modders who those modders borrowed from, ad infinitum.