First the star wars mod and now this happened in GTA5 (Try to put up with his style of delivery. It’s worth it)… Really bad month for mods, this…
Honestly the worst part is Bethesda bringing back paid mods. More companies will start doing that as a result 
I support paid mods, it will make modding community more invested and will produce higher quality expansions.
Agreed, if it’s managed properly and the mod makers get a fair cut, I’m fine with it. It would be a shame to be missing out on good mods because you can’t afford to/don’t want to pay for it, but that’s no different to how you’d feel when a new game/DLC comes out and you can’t justify buying it yet.
I don’t agree with paid mods. Modding is a passion. I believe in modders having a donate button and I believe in former modders building a portfolio and being hired as developers by the games industry. I do not agree with the games industry feeding on the talent of modders for doing nothing themselves. Sure you’ll see some good content and polish for a while, but it’s likely we’ll revoke our right to mod in the future without going through the channels publishers want us to. Premium modding kit, Premiums mod subscriptions, undermining free modding sites by making unique file types or something that can only be uploaded to their shitty mod site, and making it so mods are not only less common and less accessible, but they milk people trying to make money making them or engage in their passion.
If you actually did some research instead of spreading "Internet hate", you would know that what Bethesda plans to do is much closer to a regular paid freelancer job, it’s not "paid mods". Obviously it’s going to depend on the exact implementation, but the way it looks now ( Creation Club and scroll down to FAQ ) it looks like regular programmer jobs, being paid for milestones, going through an application process to even get the job, etc. And it seems Bethesda (or somebody they hire) is going to do QA and support for those creations. And you can’t just submit any existing free mods, even the ones you created.
So this really seems much closer to ie. Long War for XCOM(2), just on a broader scale with more than 1 chosen external developer.
Free mods will always exist as many of them are done as passion projects, but it’s equally nice that if you want to have them as you job, there’s going to be a process for that. Not a simple process of just getting paid for mods, but a proper development cycle with stakeholders, etc. I just with the Internetz don’t shut this one down as the terms and conditions seem completely reasonable this time around.
[quote user_id=“13633351” avatar=“https://assets-cloud.enjin.com/users/13633351/avatar/medium.1434890353.jpeg” name=“Freghar”]If you actually did some research instead of spreading "Internet hate", you would know that what Bethesda plans to do is much closer to a regular paid freelancer job, it’s not "paid mods". Obviously it’s going to depend on the exact implementation, but the way it looks now ( Creation Club and scroll down to FAQ ) it looks like regular programmer jobs, being paid for milestones, going through an application process to even get the job, etc. And it seems Bethesda (or somebody they hire) is going to do QA and support for those creations. And you can’t just submit any existing free mods, even the ones you created.
So this really seems much closer to ie. Long War for XCOM(2), just on a broader scale with more than 1 chosen external developer.
Free mods will always exist as many of them are done as passion projects, but it’s equally nice that if you want to have them as you job, there’s going to be a process for that. Not a simple process of just getting paid for mods, but a proper development cycle with stakeholders, etc. I just with the Internetz don’t shut this one down as the terms and conditions seem completely reasonable this time around.[/quote]
Hmm ok… yeah, everyone just kept saying paid mods. I know this looks ok now, but still there might be more to this in the future. I’m already kind of annoyed at bethesda and their mod site. It had a very shaky release, and didn’t have any of the important bureaucracy in place that the mod nexus did, and any user could upload anyone’s mod. I’m worried all mods in the future will only go through their in-house modding site, and they might try something like subscription, and premiums that’s my main concern.
[quote user_id=“13633351” avatar=“https://assets-cloud.enjin.com/users/13633351/avatar/medium.1434890353.jpeg” name=“Freghar”]If you actually did some research instead of spreading "Internet hate", you would know that what Bethesda plans to do is much closer to a regular paid freelancer job, it’s not "paid mods". Obviously it’s going to depend on the exact implementation, but the way it looks now ( Creation Club and scroll down to FAQ ) it looks like regular programmer jobs, being paid for milestones, going through an application process to even get the job, etc. And it seems Bethesda (or somebody they hire) is going to do QA and support for those creations. And you can’t just submit any existing free mods, even the ones you created.
So this really seems much closer to ie. Long War for XCOM(2), just on a broader scale with more than 1 chosen external developer.
Free mods will always exist as many of them are done as passion projects, but it’s equally nice that if you want to have them as you job, there’s going to be a process for that. Not a simple process of just getting paid for mods, but a proper development cycle with stakeholders, etc. I just with the Internetz don’t shut this one down as the terms and conditions seem completely reasonable this time around.[/quote]
I know it’s more of a freelancer job. But this is just the first iteration of it. I’m honestly expecting next thing is stopping other means of modding their games to force everyone through their CreationClub. I mean come on…they have been releasing the same game multiple times and are just milking the Skyrim community, do you really think their intentions are actually good? They just want to cash in on some lost profit. I’m still hoping it massively backfires on them and they get poor-reviewed into the ground.
Another thing is: Yeah I get that moders are kind of doing it for free and they get nothing in return as let’s be honest pretty much nobody donates to moders. But there is one problem here. In my Skyrim playthrough I think I amased like 40 mods. Like…for that amount of mods I think I would have had to pay maybe like $100+(probably more). That’s a bit absurd don’t you think ? Considering I’m basically paying Bethesda first and not directly the moder…it’s a bit dumb. I mean come on, there are so many Skyrim mods some of my hardcore friends have 100+ mods in there. Imagine paying at least 2 dollars for each mod… And then there is the possibility of some of them not working together. Idk I view modding in video games just as I view DIY devices like TrackIR and arduino stuff…I don’t have to pay for everything that I make out of that Arduino, just for the basic package (just like I pay for the basic game) and then It’s up to me if the thing I build actually works or explodes on me.
TBH, i don’t care whether the mods would be better quality or not… As soon as I have to pay any amount of money to use a mod while playing, It has gone to hell. Paid mods will mean the death of modding communities.
To be honest if I made a mod and the option to get a cut was there for everyone who downloaded it, I’d probably make it really polished and sell it. But I’d rather that than be paid a wage, because i’ll make a lot more money with royalties. What annoyed me about paid mods was the massive cut steam and bethesda took. What annoys me the most is how much profit bethesda will make from creation club paying them a meagre wage. whilst the risk venture of royalties would be much more lucrative.
It will really depend on how Bethesda implements it. To me, it seems they are just trying to get employees for creating content without actually calling them employees (and giving them the legal benefits they would have as employees), not to monetize mods. If the submissions are really going to be QA/reviewed and supported, it’s unlikely that they would be worth for every $2 texture or shader tweak, this seems to be more aimed at bigger stuff, "DLC" size, like Endereal or Nehrim (which are free, but you get the idea). The additional benefit for Bethesda is that they get a chance to enforce their micro-payment currency onto any buyers, opening a world of other purchases for the same buyers (removing initial barrier).
If they implement it badly and make it essentially Steam Greenlight, then it’s going to be a shitstorm alright. If they take this as an opportunity to make its kinda-employees sign NDAs and prevents mod creation outside the program, it’s going to be an ultra-shitshorm.
Either way, I don’t think paid mods are necessarily a bad thing - developers were screaming the same about Steam "refund" system and how people would just refund short games, but statistics prove otherwise and sales have actually increased (allegedly), so the obvious outcome is not always the real one.