Paid mods for skyrim

[Cyborg]

Valve tricked modders with that legal trick into a disenfranchised slave status.

Keep the hyperbolic statements down. Unless you can actually prove that Valve wants to do this, I don't want to read these kind of trashy eye-grabbing sentences on these forums.

But censoring others' posts would be bring us all back to the Animal Farm, with our collective horses ass getting kicked by comrades.


 


I had to try my hand at it.


But seriously, Eraser has been around here for a long time, productively, as have a bunch of other participants in this hot button thread. Can we turn the temperature down? I don't want to see genuinely good people get pissed off and take their ball and go home over this thing.

[chemical_art]

I'm staying away from this, simply because it will end up in court one way or another. How it ends up there, and where the court is, will influence how things go.

Looking up legal precedent, there is very little about paid modifications to games. I have to go waaay back to game genie for NES (which sided with game genie) about something like this. That was over 30 years ago...who knows what the courts will decide now.

Anyway, unless valve decides to shut all this down, it will head to court. If I was Valve I would hope it would occur in the USA, because in the EU I see what (at a glance) seems to be multiple gross violations of law.

This is a very, very messy system.

Addendium: The more I think about this, the deeper the rabbit hole goes. I'm considering examining this as a thought experiment, it really can become a legal quagmire.  For example: now that is codified that a modder can release a product for profit of a game, what is the relationship of the modder relative to a company? A contractor with no specific contract? An intern? A volunteer? And how does Valve enter this? What is their relationship, legally? These relationships will have to be defined in court now that profit is in play.

[Wingflier]

Man, this thread has really brought out the best in this forum. You guys crack me up.

Thank you all, I needed this <3

[KingIsaacLinksr]

But seriously, Eraser has been around here for a long time, productively, as have a bunch of other participants in this hot button thread. Can we turn the temperature down? I don't want to see genuinely good people get pissed off and take their ball and go home over this thing.

I'll admit that looking at this, as I prep to go to sleep many hours after I posted that, the statement sounds....potentially harsher than maybe I wanted it to be. But I did want to head off any hyperbole from entering the thread before it got out of hand. It's mostly unproductive and gets people going down pointless rabbit holes.

As if we don't do that on Arcen anyway. *shrugs helplessly*

[KingIsaacLinksr]

Valve has ended the experiment: http://steamcommunity.com/games/SteamWorkshop/announcements/detail/208632365253244218

I'm not surprised. They stepped on a minefield without understanding the community. They tried it with an established game (big mistake). They didn't take copyright or licensing into account at all. So, they'll need to go back to the drawing board.

I still firmly believe in the concept, if not the execution.

[Draco18s]

I still firmly believe in the concept, if not the execution.

Ditto.

[Captain Jack]

Valve has ended the experiment: http://steamcommunity.com/games/SteamWorkshop/announcements/detail/208632365253244218

I'm not surprised. They stepped on a minefield without understanding the community. They tried it with an established game (big mistake). They didn't take copyright or licensing into account at all. So, they'll need to go back to the drawing board.

That's all she wrote.

I still firmly believe in the concept, if not the execution.

Having seen the first time this was tried... I don't. RIP WCoC.

[Cyborg]

I wonder how much goodwill capital they have spent on this experiment. Most people tend to view steam as being a great home for their games, and certainly more so than origin, but I think this episode has reminded people that there is something dark in the abyss.

[mrhanman]

I still firmly believe in the concept, if not the execution.

Ditto.

+1, FWIW.

Maybe they can come back in few months with a completely reframed system that won't piss everyone off.

[doctorfrog]

There's another thing to look for, I think. When a corporation wants to impose something it knows will be unpopular, like a new fee for something that was once free (like checked baggage), what they'll often do is something pretty outrageous to start with.

Since they're counting on backlash anyway, they have a lot more elbow room. If the backlash isn't much, they're pleasantly surprised and are free to keep the new feature in place as is. If it's substantial, they appear to recant by lowering the severity of the feature. Counting on consumers' lack of a long-term memory, it becomes the new normal.

So look out for maybe a partial--but not complete--retraction to the paid mods feature. Especially since it seems so outrageous to start with, and especially since in no way will any significant number of users stop using Steam or buying Bethesda games.

[Draco18s]

and especially since in no way will any significant number of users stop using Steam or buying Bethesda games.

Oh I stopped buying Bethesda games when someone told me that to "really play" an Elder Scrolls game you had to mod it.

[Wingflier]

From the Valve public announcement.

We've done this because it's clear we had no idea didn't understand exactly what we were doing.

I fixed it for them.

That they didn't foresee this coming, what with the WW2 level legal minefields confronting them, reveals an incredible lack of foresight that merits, in my opinion, a large group of people being fired.

Before any project like this is undertaken, they will have to create an incredibly dense and specific legal landscape, as well as devote the resources required that these strict legal considerations are followed to the letter, such as, for example, no plagiarization of other mod content, and no use of material that has been trademarked by other companies or authors.

All I have to say about that is: Good luck.

[doctorfrog]

and especially since in no way will any significant number of users stop using Steam or buying Bethesda games.

Oh I stopped buying Bethesda games when someone told me that to "really play" an Elder Scrolls game you had to mod it.

Yep, well, you and I aren't super significant a sample.

I spent more time modding Morrowind than playing it, it was like a second job. The combination of personality traits that attracted me to fantasy role playing was the same thing that kept me from being able to enjoy it without a ton of mods tweaked just so.

Before someone can say, "you're doing it wrong," yep, I was and so I just took a step back and realized I couldn't enjoy playing Elder Scrolls games because I'm aware of what a weirdo I am. I think I just prefer it when a game can hold itself together. (Actually, Morrowind mostly could, but not too sure about the sequels.)

[Draco18s]

Hey, you want to mod it, more power to you.  I mod the bejesus out of Minecraft.

What I meant was that in order to play the content I bought, I shouldn't need to mod it.  That is: it should be playable as is, and it isn't.

Minecraft is more that playable out of the box, even when you get down to it there isn't that much content, but it is playable.

[TheVampire100]

I used only a few mods on Skyrim. The one and only one I HAD to use was the one that removes the Frostbite Spiders. They give me shivers.
A friend on my however modded the game heavily, mostly because she "didn't like the appearance of the game". Whatever that means.

O thnk I also installed a destructtion buff mod because destruction spells were very underpowered in the end game (damage didn't step up like other spells).