Vapourware Steam is (NO LONGER) charging for mods now lmao

[Vicar]

You think selling mods would make Skyrim modding scene better off because GABE TOLD YOU SO!

You know what bro, you're getting awfuly boring with your silly PLANT!1!! bullshit. Be a grownup and try to accept people can disagree with you on internet without trying to be mean to you.

And your wall o' text is a hodge podge of legitimate concerns, fearmongering and narrow mindedness. If your underlying motive is the childish "moneyz spoilz everythingz" Occupy Wall Street hippie tosh, voiced by some of your palls itt, then there's no point arguing with you. If it's a concern about the cooperation between modders, then all I can say to you is - trade doesn't destroy cooperation. People can and do freely cooperate even in commercial sphere. Even big developers help each other all the time. Just read some of Dan Vavra's comments about their close relationship with Larian, CDPR and others.

And third, and probably most important - this wasn't supposed to be just about your stupid Skyrim. The reason I'm disappointed the entitled welfare queens didn't let that experiment to go on is because I don't give a fuck about the AAA production. I play mostly smaller games with much smaller player base. And googling mods for those can be real pain, especially if they're Russian or other non-English. Because even if you find a few modders putting some work into improvements, they sure as fuck can't afford to translate them.

As I said over and over - this was an interesting project that could've fallen flat in a year or two but it could've also exploded in something truly great. Sadly, it was quashed by stupidity, greed and entitlement of spoiled brats. That's all there's to it, all the bullshit rationalizations notwithstanding.

I'll not repeat the points the above but will just add on a bit:
do you know anything about Skyrim modding at ALL? How the mods are interdependent? Just an example - Chesko's mod was removed from paid workshop because it used fore's FNIS, which by the way, was the only way to add custom animations to skyrim because Beth fucked up and it became much harder than past TES. Fore, like the SKSE people, made skyrim modding possible and people are still using their tools. How this was implemented fragmented the community as people like fore are strongly against paid mods and people using his tools to monetize.

What is this, entitleception? Why are you so entitled? So people in the Skyrim modding community should just let Valve and Bethesda screw the community because of people like you who aren't even in the community and 'dont give a fuck about AAA production'?
Probably because this entitlement argument is stupid anyway, especially in this case.

 

[Lucky]

If you charge money for a fanfic, you will be expected to pay a royalty.
If you charge money for a mod, it is understandable that the company who owns the IP will also expect a royalty.
I feel like you are getting caught up in the mechanics of how the project is created and distributed (be it mod, fanfic, etc.)

Reverse the situation.
Take a new engine. Remake an old game in a new engine using some part of the original assets. You require the original game to be able to play the new game. Those kind of projects get shut down all the time See - http://www.projectvaulderie.com/

That's because those mechanics are why people are expected to pay royalties for derivative work for this particular reason. It's the difference between brand and materials. Something being stand-alone or reliant on another product makes for a huge difference, especially when determining whether someone is owed royalties or not. These mods do not stand on their own own feet, while fanfics do.

Those kind of non-profit projects getting shut-down is just companies abusing their position to nip mods in the bud that they feel might come to compete with their own future projects. I'm not aware of any of those kind of projects actually being taken to court over it on legitimate grounds. Not to say that they would never win, but it goes against the spirit of what copyright is supposed to entail. This is hardly a universal thing either, since there are plenty of projects that are not taken down: http://www.openxcom.com/
A stand-alone remake that re-uses assets and requires payment is a completely different matter.

 

[bylam]

This is an extremely fine line to tread, though.
For example, one could argue that Harry Potter itself relies on an array of previously established fiction (let's say they "inspired" the HP universe) - why don't any of these factions get a cut?
If one were to write "The additional stories of Barry Botter" and changed all names, the resulting book would not infringe any copyright, but STILL be entirely built upon the HP premise.

I totally agree that it is a fine line to tread. As with all legal stuff, there is nuance and that is generally sorted out in the courts. They totally exist wherever they are allowed to (like as parodies) http://www.amazon.com/Barry-Trotter-Shameless-Parody-Gollancz/dp/0575074973

A total conversion mod changes virtually everything - storyline, characters etc. - and only uses the underlying engine (should be no issue as the player of the TC HAS to own the game), so it doesn't build upon the underlying game's fiction at all - why should the developer of said game get a cut?

It depends on how much of the backend changes, but (most) engines are still asking for a cut of revenue. Unreal asks for 5%, Unity has an upfront cost. Bethesda could argue that the backed is still theirs and ask for a cut of revenue. This is a complication caused by the way software works and would not come up in the case of fanfic. Fifty Shades of Grey started life out as a Twilight fanfic, then removed all the references and became "it's own thing".

That said, I think the developer DOES deserve a cut, just not the 50% Bethesda was aiming at. If Steam weren't a monopoly, they probably couldn't get away with their 25% either.
But if Bethesda had limited themselves to taking the same cut as Steam did, I bet the uproar (if you want to call it that) about this would have already been significantly less loud.

Agreed, though I think the entire presentation of it was handled poorly. Not just by Bethesda and Valve but also by the modders who probably have zero business or PR skills.

Modding has traditionally been a field where copyrights are basically ignored as long as the holder of those doesn't come down on mod makers with a cease and desist. Polite modders will (try to) credit the work of others to a degree (these models have been taken from game xyz, this texture was from CrazyMofoModder155), others will not. Some people will try to ask for permission, but use stuff anyway if they get no response.
As time passes, it's also often the case that projects are dropped by their devs and then salvaged by others, only to be dropped again and picked up once more ...
In such muddy waters, charging for a mod is often the equivalent of those shovelware CDs full of freeware or - more recently - the books offered up on Amazon consisting of printed Wikipedia articles.

Absolutely, and I love modding (and have been involved for a long time before it became my day job). Imagine if everything on NWVault had a price... that'd be hard to sort through.

 

[GrainWetski]

Entitled modders demanding money for their work.

I'm still amazed people defend Bethesda taking most of the money. Are you guys paid by them or just fucking retards?

 

[markec]

You know what bro, you're getting awfuly boring with your silly PLANT!1!! bullshit. Be a grownup and try to accept people can disagree with you on internet without trying to be mean to you.

Its funny when you tell someone to be a grownup when your previous posts pretty much consisted of "Lol, you entitled butthurt pricks you only want free shit"

And your wall o' text is a hodge podge of legitimate concerns, fearmongering and narrow mindedness. If your underlying motive is the childish "moneyz spoilz everythingz" Occupy Wall Street hippie tosh, voiced by some of your palls itt, then there's no point arguing with you. If it's a concern about the cooperation between modders, then all I can say to you is - trade doesn't destroy cooperation. People can and do freely cooperate even in commercial sphere. Even big developers help each other all the time. Just read some of Dan Vavra's comments about their close relationship with Larian, CDPR and others.

What was the first things that happen with this controversy. You had mods pulled from Steam because people used content made by others and many modders removed their mods from Nexus because they were afraid someone will steal their stuff. Not really something that will inspire feeling of cooperation between modders. Difference between you and me is you look at this with optimism I with pessimism, also the difference is that I have some knowledge of the of the Skyrim modding process and people involved yet you have none. And if you start to generalize that all modders and developers are the same you really have no idea what you are talking about. Developers are people who deal with the public, they need to have credibility in eyes of that public, making controversies only harms the company. I know examples of modding groups that have one member steal assets and selling them as his own. Just one incident is enough to bring crisis to a community, with this you already had several on day 1.

And third, and probably most important - this wasn't supposed to be just about your stupid Skyrim. The reason I'm disappointed the entitled welfare queens didn't let that experiment to go on is because I don't give a fuck about the AAA production. I play mostly smaller games with much smaller player base. And googling mods for those can be real pain, especially if they're Russian or other non-English. Because even if you find a few modders putting some work into improvements, they sure as fuck can't afford to translate them.

For fuck sake already, YOU CANT GENERALIZE ALL MODDING COMMUNITIES thats the point im trying to tell you. You cant compare Skyrim modding to other games modding, its not the same to mod Skyrim or Starcraft. Its not the same, you cant use same logic to justify paying mods for DOTA2 and Skyrim because the modding scene is completely different. You dont understand because you have no knowledge of it, and you refuse to listen people who try to explain you the difference. I dont mind if people sell hat for TF2, map for Starcraft, player model for Unreal, because people who make those things they dont need help of large part of community both in advice and assets to make mods but in Skyrim you do. And if all of those people put a price tag on their help who will stay to mod. There will be no free mods, how many people would give a mod for free after paying bunch of money just to mod. Im sure there would be lots of sword and armor recoloring mods but that is not something Skyrim needs. In the end you lose both modders and players.

As I said over and over - this was an interesting project that could've fallen flat in a year or two but it could've also exploded in something truly great. Sadly, it was quashed by stupidity, greed and entitlement of spoiled brats. That's all there's to it, all the bullshit rationalizations notwithstanding.

You are a idiot who has no idea what he is talking about and my advice for you is just to abandon this thread because with every following post you manage to appear even more dumber then before.

 

[Lucky]

It depends on how much of the backend changes, but (most) engines are still asking for a cut of revenue. Unreal asks for 5%, Unity has an upfront cost. Bethesda could argue that the backed is still theirs and ask for a cut of revenue. This is a complication caused by the way software works and would not come up in the case of fanfic. Fifty Shades of Grey started life out as a Twilight fanfic, then removed all the references and became "it's own thing".

The thing is that a game build on the Unity or Unreal engine has all the necessary files contained within it for the player to use it. This is not the case with a mod reliant on a game and any money that Bethesda might claim to being owed (supposing we agree with said claim) could be said to be included in said requirement. The equivalent of the engine situation would be for each Skyrim mod to come packaged with Skyrim.

You could actually do something akin to Fifty Shades of Grey, though it would basically amount to making a new game. DotA 2 pretty much did just that.

 

[rezaf]

Absolutely

I guess our positions aren't that different in the end...

Entitled modders demanding money for their work.

Entitled gamers wanting all their mods for free.
In my last post I outlined why I think charging for mods is generally a bad idea, but I think it'd be very nice if Steam would provide an infrastructure for making donations to mod developers. Now, we all know Steam is everything but nice and they'd charge a 25% cut of every donation and only pay out donations once more than 100 would have amassed and all that crap, but in PRINCIPLE, I think this COULD be a good thing.
Because modding takes a lot of time. And chances are you'd be personally happy with a mod when only 30% of the work has been done, isn't it worth a little tip if you'd bother finishing it all up for a general release?

But this should generally be a DONATION. Not a mandatory up-front payment.

 

[Jigawatt]

It was you, the bitchers, who shushed me with "are you a modder? no? then fuck off!1!!". Other arguments were "it's about the community you know" and "it will destroy modding" or "you don't understand modding". When in fact people just flap their gums because someone si taking their bowl of free shit away (and not even that, free mods would still be freely available, that's what makes your silly whining even more hilarious).

You read my comments about your bullshit rationalizations kiddo but didn't understand what that word means? Now you know.

dude - your very first post in this thread:

Appart from that my message to the butthurt nerds would be - you wanna get shit for free? Then make something for free first. Then you can bitch.

 

[zeitgeist]

What percentage of a sculpture should the maker of the chisel be entitled to?

 

[cvv]

dude - your very first post in this thread:

Appart from that my message to the butthurt nerds would be - you wanna get shit for free? Then make something for free first. Then you can bitch.

So everyone bitching here is a charitable modder? Really? All the people admitting they're bitching just because they wanna haz stuff for free that's nothing for you? You've just filtered that out? Jesus, this thread.

 

[Turjan]

So everyone bitching here is a charitable modder? Really? All the people admitting they're bitching just because they wanna haz stuff for free that's nothing for you? You've just filtered that out? Jesus, this thread.

Oh, come on. You were just held to your own standards. That doesn't mean anyone else has to follow them.

 

[cvv]

So everyone bitching here is a charitable modder? Really? All the people admitting they're bitching just because they wanna haz stuff for free that's nothing for you? You've just filtered that out? Jesus, this thread.

Oh, come on. You were just held to your own standards. That doesn't mean anyone else has to follow them.

What? Have you even read what I said here? About my days translating games and movies subtitles and uploading it all for free? Plus my own standards? What standards? Have you actually noticed I'm not on your side?

You know what guys, I'm sick of your bullshit. Just keep your little circlejerk, yapping about evil money spoiling everything, I don't give a shit anymore. As one of you said - you won. Great job, truth and love triumphed over evilness and hatred again. You've made a difference, have a star.

 

[Tzaero]

Lets do some proper detective work here.

ENHANCE

THERE MUST BE MORE TO THIS....
ENHANCE AGAIN

CHRIST....

HAVE YOU COME SEEKING MODS?​

 

[Curious_Tongue]

I've never used a mod in my life.

 

[praetor]

am i the only one who finds it hilarious how (both of) their explanations touched upon how "this is not a money grabbing scheme to make some profit with 0 work whatsoever, seriously, we're making less than 1% of our daily revenue with this shit"... well, if money wasn't a factor and you're making peanuts, why take a cut at all, let alone 75% fucking percent of it! lulz. totally not to make money...

 

[Jigawatt]

dude - your very first post in this thread:

Appart from that my message to the butthurt nerds would be - you wanna get shit for free? Then make something for free first. Then you can bitch.

So everyone bitching here is a charitable modder? Really? All the people admitting they're bitching just because they wanna haz stuff for free that's nothing for you? You've just filtered that out? Jesus, this thread.

I made no judgement about whether or not your requirement to have made something for free is a license to bitch - I intended only to show your hypocrisy.

I am firmly against the idea of paid mods on both ideological and pragmatic grounds (ie. I'm a bitcher) and for what it's worth to you (nothing - because you're not here to argue in good faith but to make a point) I have given plenty away for free. I maintain several software packages available for free under MIT license, available for any person to use in any manner they wish. Given that they are libraries targeted for other devs to use in webapps, they are most certainly used in other for-profit software and the only benefit I receive is something to put on my resume. And this is completely fine by me.

I love the communal, sharing nature of the open source community, a spirit that seems to be shared by most in the modding scene. But by adding this sudden shift to allow some community members to easily put a price tag on mods for one the currently most popular games to mod on the largest PC distribution platform, that spirit will be slowly eroded. Veterans unhappy with the new status quo (because they share a similar mindset to myself) will quietly fade away - new members to the scene will pick up on the social norm that it's expected to charge for mods, and soon enough we'll be drowning in mediocrity - because let's face it, if you had the talent to make a living out of mods (at a 25% cut!) you would just develop a game properly.

 

[Bruticis]

am i the only one who finds it hilarious how (both of) their explanations touched upon how "this is not a money grabbing scheme to make some profit with 0 work whatsoever, seriously, we're making less than 1% of our daily revenue with this shit"... well, if money wasn't a factor and you're making peanuts, why take a cut at all, let alone 75% fucking percent of it! lulz. totally not to make money...

Am I only the one that finds it hilarious how people are shocked, appalled and unhinged that companies want to try to make lots and lots of money?

 

[cvv]

I made no judgement about whether or not your requirement to have made something for free is a license to bitch - I intended only to show your hypocrisy.

MY hypocrisy? This thread is full of it but I'M the one who's hypocritical? Where is my hypocrisy?

 

[thesoup]

am i the only one who finds it hilarious how (both of) their explanations touched upon how "this is not a money grabbing scheme to make some profit with 0 work whatsoever, seriously, we're making less than 1% of our daily revenue with this shit"... well, if money wasn't a factor and you're making peanuts, why take a cut at all, let alone 75% fucking percent of it! lulz. totally not to make money...

Am I only the one that finds it hilarious how people are shocked, appalled and unhinged that companies want to try to make lots and lots of money?

Fucking entitled corporations.

 

[Jigawatt]

I made no judgement about whether or not your requirement to have made something for free is a license to bitch - I intended only to show your hypocrisy.

MY hypocrisy? This thread is full of it but I'M the one who's hypocritical? Where is my hypocrisy?

You said: 'you wanna get shit for free? Then make something for free first. Then you can bitch.' You were pre-emptively trying to shut anyone who hasn't made a free contribution out of the conversation.

Then you had a whinge: 'It was you, the bitchers, who shushed me with "are you a modder? no? then fuck off!1!!".'

Is this really so hard to understand? Sure, it doesn't invalidate your other points, but it shows either you're happy to be completely disingenuous or that logic and reasoning really aren't your strong suits.

 

[mastroego]

As I said over and over - this was an interesting project that could've fallen flat in a year or two but it could've also exploded in something truly great. Sadly, it was quashed by stupidity, greed and entitlement of spoiled brats. That's all there's to it, all the bullshit rationalizations notwithstanding.

Or perhaps short and long term disappointment (for the modders) has been avoided.

If there's an ounce of sanity left in the world (which I admit, there might even not be), people (barring a few hopeless cases) wouldn't have spent money on fan-made mods anyway.
It would be so utterly beyond stupid that I can't even put it into words.

I'd sooner switch to another game or another hobby altogether.

 

[cvv]

I made no judgement about whether or not your requirement to have made something for free is a license to bitch - I intended only to show your hypocrisy.

MY hypocrisy? This thread is full of it but I'M the one who's hypocritical? Where is my hypocrisy?

You said: 'you wanna get shit for free? Then make something for free first. Then you can bitch.' You were pre-emptively trying to shut anyone who hasn't made a free contribution out of the conversation.

Then you had a whinge: 'It was you, the bitchers, who shushed me with "are you a modder? no? then fuck off!1!!".'

Is this really so hard to understand?

No, it is, it's completely incomprehensible. First I told you repeatedly that I gave stuff for free too. And that's even besides the point because I'm not on your side, it's not me complaining about modders trying to charge for mods. And it's YOUR double standard, trying to shut me down "because I don't understand Skyrim modding". That one was truly hilarious.

And by the way what you said about sharing and caring and community, that's all just Occupy Wall street hippie nonsense to me. But I'm repeating myself again and that's how these kind of arguments always end up. Going in circles. As I said, you won, enjoy your glorious victory over the unspeakable evil that is money, and be happy. Ciao.

 

[Nikaido]

Please consider removing yourself from the gene pool asap.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

am i the only one who finds it hilarious how (both of) their explanations touched upon how "this is not a money grabbing scheme to make some profit with 0 work whatsoever, seriously, we're making less than 1% of our daily revenue with this shit"... well, if money wasn't a factor and you're making peanuts, why take a cut at all, let alone 75% fucking percent of it! lulz. totally not to make money...

Am I only the one that finds it hilarious how people are shocked, appalled and unhinged that companies want to try to make lots and lots of money?

No, that's understandable. What's surprising is the support they're getting from people who won't see any of that money. I mean, the modders at least get some breadcrumbs. What do the drones get for fighting against their best interests? To quote one guy on Youtube: "I don't see the big deal. Besides, it's my money : ) ". It's actually a bit creepy.

 

[Gerrard]

They might own the game, but your soul is yours.

Somebody hasn't actually read the EULA when clicking "Accept."

For reference
http://www.geek.com/games/gamestation-eula-collects-7500-souls-from-unsuspecting-customers-1194091/