In regards to charging for mods - DISCUSSION THREAD

[Emma]

As this has turned into a discussion thread, I have moved my original post here: emmates.proboards.com/thread/1744/regards-charging-mods-original-post

[cyrano]

Well said, Emma. Thank you.

With all the terrible things being said these past couple days threatening to tear apart the community, your words make me feel, if not hopeful, and least a little more at peace with all the changes going on around us.

[Seeker]

Hail and Salutations!

After having visited many boards and news pages in order to get my mind around that what has happened in the last days, I was left head-shaking and quite sad. I will also not lower myself to repeat anthing of the harshly-formulated arguments I had the displeasure of reading over the last hours. I just want to say that I am glad to have read Emma's opinion and her post about her view on all of this mess. And as usual, I fully agree with her sentiments. All about modding and the early days when Morrowind was a new thing really do capture my own feelings on the topic.
It is good to come back here and see that this forum is still a place of people understanding and treating each other as decent human beings, while nonetheless making their opinions known.
So, in accordance to what cyrano has already very rightly stated, my heartfelt thanks to Emma for yet again being the voice of reason, while also passionate and caring about the very essence of the subject: respect and sharing. You, mylady have soothed my frayed nerves, indeed!

Take care,

Seeker

[wotan]

Antiscamp - you may know him for his Dibella's Watch mod - has stated he'll never charge for his creations.
Azura's Watch and Frontier and all he does will be available for free.

Also, the Hall of Torque supports the idea of mods shall be free. Registered members will be able to download mods from all modders who want to publish their creations at the HoT.

[jgf]

Apr 25, 2015 22:34:00 GMT wotan said:

.... the idea of mods shall be free. Registered members will be able to download mods ....

I do not wish to appear argumentative, but those statements are not congruent. "Free" is you go there, download what you want, and leave. No registration required. Otherwise such files are only free to registered members ...which means you pay in the form of supplying at least an email address to the site in perpetuity (I've never seen an option to "unregister" anywhere).

Having been online for twenty-five years (and cursing computers for forty) the increasing requirement to register everywhere now days thoroughly irritates me. I have been to sites where you could not even view the home page without registering (if you cannot view the site, how the heck do you even know you want to register?). Now I do not mind registering at sites where I will be an active member; certainly the site owner wants to know who is posting in his/her forums, even if only by a screen name and email; and certainly a site owner wants to know who is uploading files to their site. But these are two-way interactions; a download is a one way interaction - a "drive by" - and I see no need for registration for this.

At times this requirement can be ludicrous. I neither read nor speak German, why should I register at a German race sim site just to download one mod the creator has not made available anywhere else? (Someone had posted the link on an English language site.)

In fact I can think of only two excuses (not reasons) for such a requirement:

1 - The site is artificially inflating its "registered membership" count. "We have 500,000 registered members!" But check the lists and you will find the date of last activity of 495,000 of those is the same as their registration date. This is equivalent to a store bragging "we have 100,000 customers", when 98,000 of them merely walked in, looked around, and left without a purchase.

2 - The site is maintaining a list of emails. For anyone online more than a few months I need not explain the objections to that.


My acrimoniousness was brought to a head by experience with two major sources of custom content for a game I recently started playing. One site boldly proclaims on nearly every page, "our files are all free, all the time", but click a download button and you get "these files are for registered members only". So they are NOT free. The other site makes you wait sixty seconds for a download then limits you to a speed that makes a 56k modem seem fast ...unless you want to pay $3.95/month for membership (they also have huge black and red popups complaining if you are using AdBlock).

I propose a universal registration system; something like PayPal is for purchases. If you are interested in a site you click a "Register" button and all is handled in the background; the site gets credit for a visitor/member, and you get access without having to provide information (and often waiting for a "validation email" which may take days, or even weeks, to arrive).

As for charging for mods, that seems a recent development. In the past "Payware" has never been popular, nor greatly accepted, outside the FlightSim community, where an entire cottage industry has sprung up supplying (usually) high quality aircraft, utilities, and scenery. It was tried in the race sim community fifteen to twenty years ago, but its proponents were a decided minority and within a few months of the programs' release they had been freely uploaded to so many places that their creators gave up trying to make money from them. Today a few remain, mostly specialty software such as used for creating tracks. But the current trend in games seems to be towards the paradigm set by Train Simulator 2015 or "The Sims3" - sell a basic game then release a stream of "Expansion Packs", often costing more than the base game itself (in the case of Train Simulator, buying all the DLC will set you back around $3000 ..."Barbie Doll" marketing). And I am certain Steam just loves such software. The worst thing is, I do see an inclination among many modders to jump on the gravy train; they start by brazenly asking for "donations" to "support their work", next it is "send $5 and I'll email the download link to you", finally a full-fledged payware site.

But this just deepens my appreciation of the many people who have freely given us their work over the years; I fear that, like the concepts of respect and courtesy, they shall soon be relics of the past.

[jet4571]

There's a reason sites require registering for a download. That reason is hotlinking. If it is required to register first another site cannot post the mods description and link directly to the site that hosts it download. The site that hosts it loses traffic and bandwidth. Traffic generates them funds to host the files through ads and hotlinking is the same as adblock traffic, the ads do not generate revenue to pay for the bandwidth and server for the files. Member count doesn't really have any purpose and artificially making it higher means there needs to be a larger database which costs more money for the company in storage and backup costs, member count doesn't make money which is why many companies will delete inactive members after a set inactivity time. Also the larger the database is because of inactive members the slower the database will become with searches so it will hurt in that regard as well. So next time a small website like HoT asks for registration they are asking for a valid reason, not some nefarious plot to have more members just to have them.

OT:
Well said Emma. I have said it many times that competition will hurt modding and I have witnessed competition destroy a whole mod community where now nobody makes mods for the games anymore. Free sharing of ideas, solutions, and all knowledge makes not only a stronger mod community but better mods while money and competition does the opposite.

[rhyls]

'I have invested so many hundreds of hours in modding over the years, and I have loved every bit of the time I have spent in the construction sets and in the creation kit.
I would have payed for the right to mod, as it has given me so much and been such a vital part of my life. And, actually, with Skyrim, I HAVE payed, because it's a high cost to keep on modding and figure out new features when your work, which used to be appreciated, is mocked on Youtube, by people who actually gets money to make fun of it, when trolls on Nexus keeps getting at you, when players start demand that you should do better, more, different, when others rip your content without even giving credits and then end it by marketing their work as "better than Vilja".

Vilja - she has been my main project since 2009, my artificial child. You can like her or hate her, I will still love her to bits. I don't "own" her, I have always worked in small teams, sharing knowledge with others. Vilja in Skyrim is by me Amgepo and Lycanthrops, Vilja in Oblivion is by me and CDCooley. And there has been so many others involved as well, testers, people replying to questions in forum thread, people making optional looks for her, writing manuals etc etc. She is really a community project.'
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Emma, Although I can understand your feeling hurt, being upset at the negative posts on various sites. Please, never never doubt your true and honest fans. They are all around you, here and elsewhere,
I have been on and off this forum for many years and every one who posts on here I think,is dedicated to you and Vilja.
Anywhere I see a bad post I defend you. There will never , in my opinion,be  a AI character so 'real' as Vilja.

 I admire you, your hard work through the years, the dedication,  From my perspective, you are well loved by us all.   All the team should feel very proud in the creation of A wonderful, exciting, very lovable Vilja.

I could never play in Skyrim without her, I've tried and always end up going to her.

[Elwyn]

Paying for mods IMO seems to be an inherently bad idea, I agree with Emma's comments, well said.
Re: negative comments on mods: there's an old saying: "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."
Now, imagine an internet where everyone followed that advice.

[Falion]

Your post Emma, is spot on, I couldn't agree more!

[wotan]

This new deal between Bethesda and Valve has caused modders to become afraid - afraid that their mods and resources will get stolen by some random person downloading them and then uploading them to the Steam Workshop and setting a price tag on their hard work. It's the reason why the modders at HoT want their downloads only available to our registered members. I've seen the same fear over at the Nexus.

[Seyheb]

I've been continuing to follow the debates about this on various forums, though much of it is repetition now and isn't adding a lot that's new. However, I still think Emma's comments above are absolutely right.


The Bethsoft forum is no longer running its poll, but at the last count almost 90% of voters were against the proposals and only 4.2% for, with the rest undecided.

[Emma]

Apr 26, 2015 18:50:54 GMT Seyheb said:

I've been continuing to follow the debates about this on various forums, though much of it is repetition now and isn't adding a lot that's new. However, I still think Emma's comments above are absolutely right.


The Bethsoft forum is no longer running its poll, but at the last count almost 90% of voters were against the proposals and only 4.2% for, with the rest undecided.

Repetition, yes... You're pointing out something that I have been thinking of, too, from another direction.

I so much hope that the recent events won't be the end of modding as we know it, but what I fear is this: Bethesda is trying this out on the Skyrim community now, so that all the anger has went out of this agitated discussion by the time they launch Fallout4. Then, with Fallout 4 they can happily launch a full-scale pay-for-mods-system on Steam only, and we have already resigned and accepted this new trend, like we once learnt to accept that Skyrim and the ck was Steam only (which also caused a rage when it was first mentioned).

Smart, from their perspective. By the time TES6 arrives, charging for mods will be the general standard, introduced with the ageing Skyrim (tearing the community up), and fulfilled with Fallout 4.

[Seyheb]

Yes, I can see that it could be their 'game'. In fact one or two others have suspected the same. It could explain what otherwise would appear to be a rather clumsy launch of the scheme. However I fear this will be damaging whatever the outcome, although I very much hope not.

[jgf]

""If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."
Now, imagine an internet where everyone followed that advice."

Lol, you would eradicate half the existing websites ...and 90% of the political sites. I frequent one where half the threads deteriorate into "stupid right wing nut job!" and "ignorant lib socialist!"


As for paying for mods, I fear this is the wave of the future. We are dealing with a new generation of gamers, ones growing up with Steam and Origin, who consider paying for every little thing the norm. The precedent has been set, and eventually attitudes will shift and freeware will be denigrated - "How good can it be if they're giving it away?"

I fully believe computer gaming will degenerate into a solely subscription based system. No longer will you buy a game which you can enjoy as long as you like (I frequently drag out "oldies" like Deus Ex or System Shock II), instead you will pay a monthly fee to play a game as long as its developers deem it profitable; mods will be extra one-time purchases. And when profits no longer warrant keeping the servers online the game will disappear, only a memory for its fans. This will be utopia for companies such as EA, who have long expressed a desire to eliminate the used game market (by their logic, if you buy a used car for $10,000 the manufacturer should have the right to step in and demand another $5000 before you can register it).

[Dova]

Apr 26, 2015 18:11:08 GMT Dova said:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," and Now is such a time for the modding community.

As we all have a few days to absorb the facts and think about the situation, it should already become crystal clear that the Skyrim community is the guinea pig to test the waters for the paid-for-mod scheme in future games. What this also means is, the future generation of games and modding depends on us, US right here right now, to defend the art of modding.

The art of modding. Regardless of what belief we are supporting, we all love modding. Whether you are a modder or a mod user, there was someone, somewhere along the way, who taught you how to install a mod, how to optimize the game, how to sort load order, how to script, model, texture, animate, etc., and give you the satisfaction on expanding the gameplay, or feeling accomplished because you made a change.

Yes, making changes, isn't that what we are all about? Recall that ultimate satisfaction and joy that overcome us when something is working, so powerful that it just let us forgive and forget the hours of frustration we've put in. And don't forget the mentors and friends we've made along the way. That, my friends, is the beauty of modding, the willingness to learn and selflessness to teach. And we all know too well that this will cease to exist when monetary profit is involved in the wrong way. Whether or not you want to support modders with money, we should see by now that this isn't heading in the right direction.

When the paywall was implemented, we know it was coming, we just never knew it was this soon. And that, is not a poor planning on Valve/Bethesda's part, it was exactly how they wanted it. We expected a backlash, and so has they. In the mix of the backlash, there was lots of hate and anger, and with the purposefully poor communication by Valve/Bethesda, the strong emotions were directed everywhere, dividing us and wearing us out. Yes, we have recovered and regrouped a little since. We have a petition, we have spoken why, some has uploaded some very amusing mods to both Nexus and steam, both free and paid. But is that enough? No, I don't think so. Because this was never the experiment for profit or trying to smooth out the system to begin with.

Let's think forward for a little bit. Here are some of the spotlight issues we have focused on: permission on using others' assets, legality of using 3rd party developer softwares/tools, how to address mod compatibilities, the refund system, the DRMification of mods and modding tools, and ultimately our rights to "our" content. Yes, to each of their own, they are all very valid issues, and there have been already many posts explaining them much better than I will ever can. But that's besides the point. The point is, these are our issues, never are they Valve/Bethesda's.

Being a major games DRM platform and game studio, it's suffice to say they know how to deal with all these issues much better than we will ever equip to be. Yet, they choose to not address them, they choose to make themselves appear ignorant and led us to think that straightening out the kinks is what the experiment about. Perhaps they might not know it all, but anyone would be a fool to say that they didn't really think it through.

So what exactly is the experiment about then? You might ask. I think the better question is, WHO is the experiment about? We'd like to think the presumed target audience is us, and Valve/Bethesda like our presumption as well. But the truth is, the target audience aren't us, but instead, this is targeted to all other game studios/companies in the market. But aren't we the gamers, the loyal customers? Of course, but they aren't trying to keep us. So if there's a few of us who like the idea of the paywall, great! If there are a few legal issues against them that was brought up and they can figure out it along the way, even better. But in the end, they aren't trying to appeal to us. We might be a sizeable community, but we are only a small fraction of all the gamers in the world. All they really have to do is to wait, wait for us to wear ourselves out (hence the community "policing" and nothing more), because all the issues we have brought up, they will all shrink to nothing when we get tired trying. And no, they don't need to prove how much the profit margin is and they don't need to retain any of us. It's a bonus if they actually do. Keep in mind the world we are living in today, there will always be people who are willing to spend money on their digital avatars, and there are already billions of dollars of profit made by in game purchases everywhere else, especially in the mobile platforms, willingly or naively.

So what's the goal of opening this can of worms? It is exactly for the sake of opening a can of worms, to let the worms crawl out to all sorts of directions and let us die off in our own. Once we are tired and out of the picture, we also take away all the nasty issues with us. And then comes the new games, and the new players who know nothing about any of these, happily buying the games and getting the opportunity to make money by creating their own content in the restricted platform with tools they have to pay for. Once they commercialize some comprehensive game editing tools along with tutorials (charged separately or having the cost incurred with the game's price), gone are those innovative/creative days when we try to figure out something on our own, and there will be no more legal issues that they have to worry about (just as how helpless we are with anything created from CK). The scary part? This isn't FO 4 or TES 6 we are talking about, we are talking about most if not all games by all sorts of companies, because they are all watching this event unfolds with us right now. Conspiracy theory, perhaps, but it's certainly possible. And I would think this is the kind of strategic foresight someone spearheading a large company would have.

Those of us who will remain, will remain. Those of us who like to move on, will as well. We will be able to continue to make mods and play with mods, but never to the extend or the freedom of creativity that we have today. Yes, there will be money that can sustain certain modders, and the optimistic opinion of making money allow modders to produce better mods. Could be, but I think not, with the very forseeable future of restricted modding and EULA agreements, there leaves little room for adventure and passion.

There's no absolute right or wrong with the stance each of us take in this and it really doesn't matter, the bottom line is, we all love making mods and playing with mods. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with trying to make a career out of what you love, and quite frankly, that's what we all would like. My goal here isn't to take sides, but to simply point out what I think will likely to happen in the future. I admire those who are optimistic and want to make a career out of this, whether as a full-time modder or as a stepping stone to a full-time game developer job. But the sad truth is, I don't think modding will ever be as enjoyable as it does now if we just keep watching and eventually allow ourselves to pack up and leave. And for those who are prospecting, keep to your endeavors and thank you for what you have contributed before, but don't take our hobby out of our hands, your hands.

How can we keep modding alive? We should return to the roots of modding, and once again come together as a community, one that shares files, knowledge, skills, and methods openly and selflessly with the sole intention of improving modding as a hobby without violating anyone's intellectual properties. We don't have to compete against each other, we don't have to downvote anyone. And no, this does not equate to stopping someone from having a career, but an effort to remain true to our passion, and to remind ourselves that many, if not all, of the skills and knowledge each of us possess came from the community. And we should give back to the community via acts of passion instead of buying something off. We should be braver than before and keep producing quality mods and sharing ideas for free and openly, even post them on Steam and announce that they will remain free. Yes, there will be conflicts of interest, but if there are many quality mods remaining free, less there is the prospect of stealing ideas and assets. The robust community will speak for itself and will continue to inspire us and the new gamers who follow, and allow us to showcase our passion and advance our skills, which I think in itself is already one of the best portfolio opportunities to pave way for future careers.

Hey, don't forget, we are a tenacious bunch. Now is exactly the time to show everyone that we are the game changers!

-- Originally written in Vilja's WIP forum, 4/26/2015

This is certainly a big talk coming from someone who doesn't release mods, but I hope you will find something I have said agreeable. My only goal is to spark new trends of critical thinking, and let the ideas circulate the community before the situation gets worse. I am pasting this into several places: here, here, here, here, and here.