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[Dunamisdeos]

I think once the concept of a paid mod is accepted, there will be a precedent for Bethesda to regulate even non-paid mods. To draw from the above scenario, what if the free golden mudcrab skin becomes more popular than it's lower-quality paid counterpart? Bethesda can make the case that this free guy is infringing on their profits.

I'm sure Bethesda's response to that would be "but we'd never".

[Sergarr]

they're back

Well, it seems to be significantly better than the last time. The process they describe looks to be a formalization of the existing DLC-making process, and we know it's quite functional.

Money over quality...

Money is quality.

[CABL]

Money over quality...

Money is quality.

If that was the case, then every AAA game in the existance would be original, unrivaled masterpieces, and CoD games would regularly get GOTY awards each year... Too bad that I don't live in the magical world.

Anyway, I wrote my rant only to summon you and get some laughs out of your stereotypical radical capitalist attitude. Good night, my dearest friend... We'll continue our e-penis fencing tomorrow.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Anyway, I wrote my rant only to summon you and get some laughs out of your stereotypical radical capitalist attitude. Good night, my dearest friend... We'll continue our e-penis fencing tomorrow.

What a quote.

[forsaken1111]

Really. I mean you guys can flirt in PMs if you want without dropping rants in threads just to piss each other off or whatever

[CABL]

Really. I mean you guys can flirt in PMs if you want without dropping rants in threads just to piss each other off or whatever

Okay, I'll not touch the thread again. I'm gonna go and have some healthy sleep...

[forsaken1111]

I will say that I agree about the dwarven mudcrab tho, that's kind of neat

[Sergarr]

Money over quality...

Money is quality.

If that was the case, then every AAA game in the existance would be original, unrivaled masterpieces, and CoD games would regularly get GOTY awards each year... Too bad that I don't live in the magical world.

They are masterpieces, though, as evident by loads of people playing them. Sure, you can say that they're low quality as defined by critics, but overall, these critics constitute only a small part of humanity, and since equality is one of the main principles of UN, their influence on the quality assessment therefore ought to be small, if we adhere to the human rights' basic democratic principles.

To override the inherently subjective evaluation of the many with the subjective ones of the few, and unelected few at that, would be tyranny.

Now, if we had any objective measure of quality, there could be an argument that we should use that instead of the subjective one, as being more stable over time. But, as far as I know, there isn't.

[Criptfeind]

Game critics don't count because of human rights.

Damn. That's deep.

[Rolan7]

I think once the concept of a paid mod is accepted, there will be a precedent for Bethesda to regulate even non-paid mods. To draw from the above scenario, what if the free golden mudcrab skin becomes more popular than it's lower-quality paid counterpart? Bethesda can make the case that this free guy is infringing on their profits.

I'm sure Bethesda's response to that would be "but we'd never".

Why would the existence of paid mods completely change copyright law?  Multiple people can make mudcrab skins, they each have copyright on their skin, and they can each charge or not.  I mean, "infringing on profits" isn't a thing.  You infringe on copyright.

If someone makes a great Bruma mod and charges for it, I'm free to develop my own and release it for free.  I just can't copy their assets or code.  Technically I can't copy anyone's assets or code, unless they give permission - which a lot of people do, generally under some sort of open source license.

But eh, I've been over this a thousand times in this thread.  Just wanted to repeat it one more time and then probably let it be.  There *are* significant issues with paid mods, I think Putnam did the best job describing how it would impact development, but people have some wild theories about this.

[Sensei]

I don't like the idea of money in mods. Mods are already known (and sometimes specifically popular because) they play fast and loose with things like intellectual property. Aside from the obvious lightsabers and storm trooper armor, modders often borrow code or ideas from each other. We already saw a lot of straight up stealing other people's mods in bad faith during the Steam paid mods disaster, but what about people who see a mod and think they can do the same thing but better? I predict additional drama surrounding this, whether the copy is better or worse. What about people who issue bugfixes for other people's mods? That would be weird to pay for. What about compilations and repackaging and the like? People used to operate on the honor rule about crediting people and not repackaging their stuff if they don't want, but now will Bethesda be issuing DMCA's to the free versions of direct copies of paid mods? That's mayyyyybe OK if they're direct copies, but what if they're just similar? What about when mods are made by teams who inevitably don't work under a formal contract, then break up and fight over accreditation and probably fork the mod? Who should be allowed to charge for work the whole team contributed to? What about when you pay for a mod, and a later update to the base game makes it stop working?

I predict it will be a mess, and that's even leaving out the fact that the mod store WILL be flooded with trash, unless it's extremely difficult to get your mod on the store.

[WealthyRadish]

For me the core issue remains that modding "freedoms" exist exclusively at the pleasure or inability to police of the owner, and many owners make sweeping legal claims of total ownership of every work even tangentially related to their product. I think the law is pretty clear at least in the United States that owners do not in fact have those claims, but it matters little if modders don't have the resources to legally challenge them and no functional global legal system for handling it effectively exists.

What this seems to suggest is that the only limit against companies cannibalizing their modding communities for a quick buck or sucking its life out with a paid system is the consumer outrage from doing so, and the long term effects of having shittier games that nobody in the community will fix for them. But as Sergarr inadvertently pointed out, an aggregate group of consumers is generally very stupid about making informed purchases that complement their broader interests and avoiding ones that don't, and I think that the fear of pushback is a glass tiger that companies like Bethesda could easily shatter with gradual takeovers of the community like this.

With this specific system, I think the big question is whether it'll end up like Valve's system of incorporating skins, or will open the door to suppressing the "free" modders entirely. I think it's still pretty much impossible for the latter to happen even if Bethesda wanted it to, and they probably still genuinely don't want to, but I'm not really familiar with that modding scene.

[Dunamisdeos]

I think once the concept of a paid mod is accepted, there will be a precedent for Bethesda to regulate even non-paid mods. To draw from the above scenario, what if the free golden mudcrab skin becomes more popular than it's lower-quality paid counterpart? Bethesda can make the case that this free guy is infringing on their profits.

I'm sure Bethesda's response to that would be "but we'd never".

Why would the existence of paid mods completely change copyright law?  Multiple people can make mudcrab skins, they each have copyright on their skin, and they can each charge or not.  I mean, "infringing on profits" isn't a thing.  You infringe on copyright.

If someone makes a great Bruma mod and charges for it, I'm free to develop my own and release it for free.  I just can't copy their assets or code.  Technically I can't copy anyone's assets or code, unless they give permission - which a lot of people do, generally under some sort of open source license.

But eh, I've been over this a thousand times in this thread.  Just wanted to repeat it one more time and then probably let it be.  There *are* significant issues with paid mods, I think Putnam did the best job describing how it would impact development, but people have some wild theories about this.

Sorry, don't mean to be wild.  I'm sure I'm not explaining it right.

I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but does it not seem like a reasonable argument that since I am actively making money from my mods I would disallow you from using any asset whatsoever from my mod? Including, say, mudcrab-related things? It's their mudcrab asset, isn't it?

I think that once profit is established for the company in direct relation to mods rather than original content or DLC specific content,  it would give them grounds to claim that a modder is trying to get around their copy protection, much like how you are likely to get shut down for say, modding DLC content straight into a vanilla game. The difference is that you are cutting into their potential profit from their paid content.

I would love for you to explain to me why this is impossible. For reals no sarcasm, please do tell.

::EDIT::

For me the core issue remains that modding "freedoms" exist exclusively at the pleasure or inability to police of the owner, and many owners make sweeping legal claims of total ownership of every work even tangentially related to their product.

Essentially this. Once the concept of modding is publicly tied to corporate profit, could they not conceivably shut down any mod that they feel is hurting their sales, and claim damages if they do not? Even if they sell every mod for 2$, hundreds of thousands of mods are downloaded each month. They could absolutely afford to police that.

[Frumple]

... hasn't this thread had this conversation before? Like, I've got a headache right now and am feeling a little muzzy, but I could swear we've actually had chunks of the last few posts repeated verbatim somewhere upthread. If so, please stop making me doubt my perception of time on top of the visual fidelity ;_;

[Sensei]

I don't doubt it; I'm sure a lot of people have the exact same concerns now that they did before. That's certainly how I feel.