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[Retropunch]

Urgh, I was really, really disappointed to see this. Especially as pretty much ALL valve property other than HL2 has been based completely on free mods that they've turned into massive successes.

I'm very much hoping that they'll change things up as this keeps on backfiring - I can't imagine many mods will be sold (most are just cosmetics or additions that you could go without if they weren't free), and they'll end up with very disgruntled customers.

This constant squeezing absolutely has to stop. It's all anyone talks about these days - take the TW:warhammer thread; everyone is more worked up about how much they'll be squeezing with DLC rather than the actual game itself.

[UXLZ]

Exactly, with this current system is is pretty much just free money for them. Massive, huge amounts of it (if it weren't for the backlash and rejection, which thankfully we have.)

[penguinofhonor]

.

[wierd]

Penguin, you are approaching this as if it were a vacuum, with no consequences.

As Putnam, Myself, and others have pointedly told you, this is simply not the case. That's one of the reasons I mentioned the smoking ban, and drunk driving laws.

Drunk driving in particular.  A person wants to get a buzz at the bar, throw down the top of thier porche convertable, and speed down the highway.  They did not ask if the people they slam into and T-Bone at the 4-way stop wanted to die.  We make laws to keep the people in the intersection safe, at the expense of the wreckless drunk driver. By necessity, we must limit the executive freedoms of the drunk driver to do this.

As Putnam and I have told you, the mod community is cathedral style. The executive decision to monetize emperils other modders, by essentially tearing up the road. It becomes too legally unsafe to mod. People who want to mod, now are pushed out.

That's the how and why of it.

[penguinofhonor]

.

[scriver]

I believe Paradox has done that and it ended pretty poorly.

The only instance of that I can think if is Magna Mundi, which originated as a mod for EU3, got picked up nu Paradox, and then was silently cancelled a few years later.

Or do you mean the Mount&Blade expansions that were based on mods? I don't think you could say they "ended poorly" at all.

[penguinofhonor]

.

[wierd]

On the contrary, there is data to back it up.

Clearly, you are not well versed in intelectual property law. If an IP holder does not enforce thier rights (put a stop to appropriation and use by others) they lose the legal power to stop that use, under the principle of estoppel, and others. This is why big companies issue DMCAs like they were birthday cards, even for fair-use uses.

This means that for this policy to be viable, attacks by angry lawyers are a LEGAL REQAUIREMENT.  NOT OPTIONAL.

What was once a harmless hobby, is now "serious business."

The mere allegation of misappropriation can shut a modder down in that climate.

[Teneb]

I thought there was a Hearts of Iron thing that was completed but not super successful, and a couple other things that didn't pan out? I'll admit I could be misremembering.

East vs West, I think, is what you are talking about. The whole Cold War game.

[Sergarr]

I thought there was a Hearts of Iron thing that was completed but not super successful, and a couple other things that didn't pan out? I'll admit I could be misremembering.

East vs West, I think, is what you are talking about. The whole Cold War game.

That's less because this idea is bad and more like "the idea that they wanted to implement correlated poorly with the abilities of the shitty shitty engine Paradox uses in their games".

There were at least two Hearts of Iron standalone games that IIRC grew out of mods (Darkest Hour and Arsenal of Democracy) that were pretty successful, relative to the current fiasco at hand.

Anyway the whole analogy to the drunken driving is a little bit bad. It's a little bit more direct than that - people who produce the mods which cost money will want to increase their profits (because they're clearly not enough), and so will try to ensure that their mod cannot be replaced by a free one. This means that the paid mod creator will make their things in secrecy, to avoid being copied, and will hide their results from others, essentially making sure that other people will be constantly forced to re-discover that knowledge.

What that means is that free mods and paid mods cannot coexist in the same category, and will push each other. Either the free mods win, pushing the paid mod's profits into zeroes and essentially negating the whole purpose of introducing this shit, or the paid mods win by successfully hiding all their secrets from "dirty free-creators", lessening the total amount and variety of mods in the process because "secrecy kills knowledge".

[UXLZ]

The 'free modding system' was originally like if all the companies in a particular field (say, cars or pharmaceuticals) shared their research openly and willingly. Progress will... Slow.

[wierd]

The 'free modding system' was originally like if all the companies in a particular field (say, cars or pharmaceuticals) shared their research openly and willingly. Progress will... Slow.

and after all the low hanging fruit is gone, barriers to entry will shut out new modders.

[Bohandas]

Well in any case, I'm getting more worked up over this than I should be. I'll go ahead and leave it at that.

My points is such:
Content creators, both game developers and modder, have every right to attempt to sell things they've created, so long as any involved asset owners have given permission.
A consumer has every right to criticize that attempt, up to and including attempting to changing the rules so they cannot.
Those who are in charge of those rules have every right to refuse the consumer, at the loss of their prestige and sales.

I think we can agree with this, right?

Absolutely not

[AlleeCat]

What part can't you agree with?

[Bohandas]

On the contrary, there is data to back it up.

Clearly, you are not well versed in intelectual property law. If an IP holder does not enforce thier rights (put a stop to appropriation and use by others) they lose the legal power to stop that use, under the principle of estoppel, and others. This is why big companies issue DMCAs like they were birthday cards, even for fair-use uses.

This means that for this policy to be viable, attacks by angry lawyers are a LEGAL REQAUIREMENT.  NOT OPTIONAL.

What was once a harmless hobby, is now "serious business."

The mere allegation of misappropriation can shut a modder down in that climate.

Q.) What do you call 1000 prosecuting attorneys at the bottom of a lake?
A.) A good start