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oldladyonthemoon
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Thinking on this, I feel that the following is most likely to happen.

 

After a flood of many mods going over to paid and maybe evening coming back, there will be a huge backlash and the majority of mods will continue to stay free. Any new mod that is paid will forever get negative comments and few adopters....and one thing that kills mods is if nobody uses them. There will also be a flood of crapware mods from people trying to cash in on the gullible.

 

At some point there will be larger mod project that do go the paid route which have significant content and people will be willing to pay a small amount for them. I expect that if there are large content mods then at some point people will make pirate copies of it and that'll be it.

 

Mods that go paid will have to earn the right to charge money, those that don't will be ignored. It'll be no different then the rest of steam, people are willing to pay money for content as long the content is worth it.

 

 

I still don't like the move and I think is goes against everything the modding community has built up since Morrowind (remember when people defended bethesda's right to shut down modders who tried charging for content). But this is how I feel it will end up being.

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I really hate to have a "there goes the neighborhood" feeling about all this but I do. My mods will never be offered in a pay system. I have two mods on Workshop at the moment and I think I'll pull them off this weekend and upload them here instead. 

I’ve been thinking of doing the opposite. If I’m worried about people stealing my mods and selling them against my wishes (lol, I am a beginner so this is pure speculation in my case), wouldn’t it be best to offer them for free on Steam as well as here and on the Nexus? Then only the very stupid consumers would buy from a thief what I’ve offered for free. I mean, people have to actually buy the mods for anyone to make money.

 

Like I said, though, I am brand new at this. What do you seasoned modders think?

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Well, I thought the same way as you at first, but then I remembered seeing the same mods uploaded on Workshop twice with different uploaders, and they weren't translations of the originals. It might be a little bit of a deterrent to already have it on Workshop though not any guarantee that your mod won't be uploaded to the pay section by someone else.

Really, taking them down is more for my own personal reasons than an attempt to keep them from being hijacked.

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Just look at the damage done to The Sims 3 modding "community", where it seems more than half are selling mods, including hair mods. These types of modders are so proprietary and even mercenary in that they'll even try to file a DMCA against anyone who uploads a payware mod.

Edited by sa547
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^

Those were joke mods, mods apparently intended to mock the paywall system by turning otherwise insignificant and small objects into costly-looking mods.

 

What is also both funny and sad are the few people who are actually buying them.

Edited by sa547
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All my previous mods on Skyrim Nexus will be completely free, as will a couple of my upcoming mods, mainly because I don't think it's right to charge for something that was free already as people may rely on it for their current saves and should continue to have the same access as before, and also because most of them are not of a quality I would even consider charging for. Ideally I'd have Steam as a quick and easy way for people to pay me what they think my mod is worth while having it available for free via other sites with a donate button if they want to give me 100% of the money. In an ideal world I'd also have someone willing to hire me and I'd be able to afford to feed myself.

 

Modding for me started as a hobby when I was 13, back then I didn't have to worry about money so it never bothered me, it never affected how much effort I'd put into a mod, school affected time of course. Now I'm out of Uni, in a over saturated job market that has employers barely looking at me, I'm having to sell my belongings to get enough to eat and pay rent/bills, this option to charge for mods is something that could help me, even if it's a tiny amount of money it's still something that could help me live. I'd be more than happy to rely on donations if anyone did donate but a lot of people think that should purely feed back through to the mod itself (which to be fair, me continuing to live instead of starving is going to allow the mod to continue), but I've never seen a donation, I've rarely seen a thanks for mods I've made previously. I'll continue to release smaller mods for free and any that are of an IP that I do not own of course (wouldn't charge for that even if I had permission), but I have a couple larger mods in mind that I'll be charging for, and I'm considering what I could do to have a free version available but still give people incentive to buy the paid version while also being fair in the process. And I have a few ideas for that.

 

Whatever you think on the matter, there are plus sides to this, as much as there are bad. I'm not saying this is a good thing or a bad thing for the modding community in general, but it's that strong at this point all it will do is make a new section of mods that people who oppose the system will ignore whenever looking for new mods, maybe a little modding piracy for those who don't care about pirating things and for those who pirated Skyrim anyway nothing really changes.

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I removed the two mods I had uploaded here, out of fear that someone steals them. I also cleared my wip thread. Frankly, I don't know what to do; the only thing I know is that I will carry on modding Skyrim but I won't release them, at the time being, at least.

 

The paid mod list on Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/browse/?appid=72850&browsesort=mostrecent&section=readytouseitems&requiredflags[0]=paiditems&actualsort=mostrecent&p=1&numperpage=30

Edited by ladyonthemoon
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Right now, Nexus came out with an option for modders not allowing anyone to upload their stuff to SWS, but even then thieves would ignore the permissions and upload.

 

The Change.org petition has completed the needed 30k signatures to persuade the suits to reverse the decision.

 

However, I was shocked that the chief SkyUI dev thought it would be all right to sell the next version of the mod:

 

http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1516818-discussion-for-workshop-paid-mods-thread-4/page-5#entry23943540

 

I hope he realizes that monetizing is a terrible mistake.

Edited by sa547
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I removed the two mods I had uploaded here, out of fear that someone steals them. I also cleared my wip thread. Frankly, I don't know what to do; the only thing I know is that I will carry on modding Skyrim but I won't release them, at the time being, at least.

 

The paid mod list on Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/browse/?appid=72850&browsesort=mostrecent&section=readytouseitems&requiredflags[0]=paiditems&actualsort=mostrecent&p=1&numperpage=30

Really there should be no fear of this since you can submit a DMCA claim against mods that have been stolen, afaik any money they could have claimed is refunded to users and the mod is removed, admittedly this requires you policing the paid mods too but people are typically quick to call out mod theft as soon as it's noticed.

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It is prudent to add a No Commercial Use clause to your mod permissions if you wish for your work and derivatives of to remain free, but let's be brave and not strip our mods away from the community out of fear mongering. Mod theft has always been and will always be a present part of our community, where there are givers, takers follow. That paid mods now exist on Steam does not elevate that risk, free mods are stolen every day and rehosted for free too, don't let that stop you from creating. If all the artists of the world hid away because there might be thieves in the woods, there would be no more art, that's no way to live creatively. :yoda:

 

As for TESA, we have always supported a modder's right to choose what happens with their work like any other artist, we support their right to choose if they want to charge for their Steam hosted mods as long as the content is theirs or Bethsoft's obviously.

 

That said, TESA was created during a time when the community was breaking at the seams, we built this place to house the spirit of creativity, collaboration, and a sharing of knowledge/support, to form an Alliance of modders to preserve the future of modding. Those remain the tenets of this site our knowledge, our community, our mods, will always be free here and modders will always have this place to shelter in. :buddy:

 

...we also have cookies :cookie:

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*munching on cookies*

I went ahead and put up an announcment on my two homes at WS that they will be removed on Sunday. I wanted to give everyone time to unsubscribe and restick the esp or get rid of the mod if they wanted. I just don't feel right having anything on there now. They'll always be available to the community in some fashion, just not there anymore.

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At some point there will be larger mod project that do go the paid route which have significant content and people will be willing to pay a small amount for them. I expect that if there are large content mods then at some point people will make pirate copies of it and that'll be it.

This was one of my first thoughts. You thought people stealing mods was bad before, this will only escalate that. Someone will buy it then just upload the mod somewhere else.

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This was one of my first thoughts. You thought people stealing mods was bad before, this will only escalate that. Someone will buy it then just upload the mod somewhere else.

My favorite precedent (or preview) is the Sims 3 modding scene.

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Another reason to hate Steam even more.

But if this will be the actual practice, we can say goodbye to modders resources, tutorials, please help forums. For every borrowed basket of apples put in your mod you'll have to have a revenue base contract.

 

There is already a petition here:

https://www.change.org/p/valve-steam-to-remove-the-pay-for-workshop-items-option

 

 

 

 

 

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I removed the two mods I had uploaded here, out of fear that someone steals them. I also cleared my wip thread. Frankly, I don't know what to do; the only thing I know is that I will carry on modding Skyrim but I won't release them, at the time being, at least.

 

The paid mod list on Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/browse/?appid=72850&browsesort=mostrecent&section=readytouseitems&requiredflags[0]=paiditems&actualsort=mostrecent&p=1&numperpage=30

I notice that and I can't blame you for doing that.  If I were you I would probably relax and do something else perhaps playing a little, but not necessarily play Skyrim.

 

Just wait and see what happens before you decide what to do next.

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Another reason to hate Steam even more.

But if this will be the actual practice, we can say goodbye to modders resources, tutorials, please help forums. For every borrowed basket of apples put in your mod you'll have to have a revenue base contract.

 

There is already a petition here:

https://www.change.org/p/valve-steam-to-remove-the-pay-for-workshop-items-option

That's a pretty bad petition, 500 people would be nowhere near enough for Valve/Bethesda to change their minds, it'd have to be +90% of the fanbase signing it and that's never going to happen. Fact is they expected a backlash about it, they've been quoted saying that in emails between them and various modders that were contacted. No matter how well they did it there was going to be a backlash from those who oppose even the thought of it. 

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I wonder if the majority of modders they contacted supported the idea...... I would like to think the answer was "No"..... but, not like corporate would care about that. They see an opportunity to make money, without lifting a finger. Profit at zero cost. There is no downside for them.

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I wonder if the majority of modders they contacted supported the idea...... I would like to think the answer was "No"..... but, not like corporate would care about that. They see an opportunity to make money, without lifting a finger. Profit at zero cost. There is no downside for them.

I think this article answer your question.

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Upon reading this dev's rather casual response to the matter, I said "You have to be completely nuts."

 

http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1516818-discussion-for-workshop-paid-mods-thread-4/page-5#entry23943540

 

I never expected men like him to do an about-face when Valve presented them an opportunity that could potentially destroy and betray more than enrich them.

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There's a bad vibe I have with all of this. Modders can go "If you buy our premium version, you'll get exclusive content and content ahead of the free versions, or even content the free version will not have." I have a bad feeling.

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I suppose I'm not at all surprised that this became a thing.  Whenever there's anything being produced for free, there'll be a cynical pointy-haired boss somewhere wondering how it can be monetised, with the primary goal of how they get to take a cut.

 

Sims 3 was mentioned a few posts pack (in the specific context of stealing, which also doesn't surprise me) but I remember not really being particularly impressed by the paid-for mods any more than I was by the much larger quantity of free stuff.

 

I know Valve think that them throwing their weight behind it will make it a thing, but as far as I'm concerned it just makes them look more like EA Games; which I've always thought they were anyway, and never quite understood this "saviours of gaming" that so many see them as.

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:cavalier:

Sons of the Alliance! Of Nexus! My brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me! A day may come when the courage of modders fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the age of Modding comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you stand! Modders of Elder Scrolls!


[Just seemed like we needed a rallying LOTResq speech :whistle: ]

This day only changes modding and the spirit of it if we allow it to, and I for one will never go quietly into that dark night. The community lives in us, our fellowships, our collaborations. We are Modders, we can choose what happens next and I plan to keep making free content for a series I love. Don't despair my friends, don't fall down that spiral of fear, hate and doubt, (of the dark side these things are :yoda: ) this is our community, we are the creators, as long as we carry on so does it all. :toast:
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