this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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TL;DR: Execs finally think they can get away with it (again) and so paid mods are back on the menu.
I thought they already had paid mods. Isn't that what was added into the Anniversary Edition?
They sought out modders and paid to have them make content to be included in a DLC. This change lets any mod, including already existing ones, become paid.
I don't think that's correct. There's a vetting process (so it cannot be "any mod"), and it can't be an existing free mod.
https://creations.bethesda.net/en/creators/bethesdagamestudios
Thank you for correcting me, that's good to know! That's nowhere near as bad as I thought it'd be.
Easy on the revisionist history, there. Valve's previous attempt to introduce paid mods broke the existing mod system, and took the lion's share of the profits for Valve and Bethesda. The math on how much modders would make was absurdly low compared to the effort they put in, and most of the available mods were built on a community's worth of contributions. There was no curation, no protections for creators or consumers, and the door was left wide open for scammers and charletains to sell other people's work.
It was a terrible plan.
This isn't about players demanding work for free. Players bought the game (sometimes more than once) and many of the mods fixed significant bugs and problems. Mods provided ui improvements and new content to keep the game fresh.
Quite the contrary, this is Bethesda capitalizing on the free labor provided by the modding community over the years. This new system has already broken SKSE, upon which hundreds of additional mods are built. The SKSE team has already patched the problem, but that's just one free mod. Who compensates them for fixing the thing Bethesda broke?
People who didn't live through it and only read news articles are going to get the impression that players revolted in 2015 because everybody wants a free lunch. If it was just unhappy freeloaders, why would they have pulled the feature so quickly? Surely losing the choosy beggars all at once would not have had any effect on revenue, so how can that possibly explain the unmitigated PR disaster and public apology?
I agree that a person has a right to charge for their work. I just feel mods are a real legal quagmire. The best way around all of this is a Pateron style system where a creator is supported but not directly charging for mods.
The issue is that mods often use some part of the original creation so ownership is a tricky issue. However if the company is willing to pay creators then I guess that is OK, like this case.
Bethesda introducing an official way to sell mods solved the legal problem of using the game's assets.
The modding community is the reason Bethesda has been able to get away with selling the same game for over a decade.
There are a million ways to solve the "legal problem", such as "don't initiate legal action against moddders".
This wasn't a problem that needed a solution.
That's a different legal problem as there are situations where if you don't protect your trademark you can lose it. But I'm not a lawyer and don't know if that situation would apply to mods.
Even in that case, it's easy enough to solve: grant permission explicitly under the condition that the assets remain in the context of the game (eg, don't export them to other games).
Consider other games that explicitly provide a blanket grant for people permission to use their game footage in videos (Team17).
Solving a problem that doesn't actually exist.
I fucking hate civil lawyers and MBA bros.
Just edited to comment for clarity on that. Thanks.
Why are you talking about legal issues when you're replying to someone talking about moral ones?
No, but modders fix Bethesda's games for free.
Turning around and charging for those is a bit meh.
I'm not entitled to anything, but still doesn't mean I'd shell any money for crowdsourced fixes to a 12 y.o. game.
Yea you are. Stop creating things if you don't like it.
Profit motivations kill the hobbyists and hobbyists are greater
The world already is infatuated by awful copyright laws.
Let de modders stay amateur before greed grabs them too.
You are missing context and the knowledge of the modding culture. Morrowind modding scene is alive and well and that's because peıple keep modding for the community and because they love the game, it is not a for profit effort. When the aim shifts from making a great mod to making money it isn't genuine anymore it is corrupt.
YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A MOD