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[Frumple]

... if the numbers beth used was actually accurate (8% of purchasers using mods), that might be an argument to make, nenj.

And Ro, I've seen multiple modding communities that have experienced exactly what I was talking about. It happened to WC3 and Civ IV just off the top of my head, the latter within the last year or two. You do, actually, see patches come out for games with multi-year breaks in between, that play merry hell on established mods. It's a damned sincere concern, especially when the company is rolling out major changes to parts of their infrastructure (like providing for paid mods, or changing multiplayer methods, or correcting long-missed security holes, and so on, and so forth).

[Flying Dice]

All the data Valve has is re: workshop mods. I'd guess that that 8% they quoted is merely the number of people who a) bought Skyrim via Steam and b) used Workshop mods.

[nenjin]

All the data Valve has is re: workshop mods. I'd guess that that 8% they quoted is merely the number of people who a) bought Skyrim via Steam and b) used Workshop mods.

Right. If you want to know how much users actually use mods, try asking the Nexus how many user accounts they have.

[Rolan7]

@Frumple
That's certainly true.  I'm actually kinda surprised and relieved that they didn't release a patch along with the paid mod system.  Which could just mean they were waiting to gauge the reaction, first.  Hypothetically though.

@Flying Dice
I think we agree.  Someone *could* just stop updating, but that basically means losing out on the living mod community and any official patches that might eventually get released...  Which is lousy.  So yeah, maintaining compatibility is a serious concern.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Urist, you're repeating the worst arguments but in a really nice way.

even if everything was priced at a dollar, over time you'd still be paying ludicrous amounts of money if you wanted to get everything

Most mods would probably continue to be free (since making $400 revenue would take too long to be worth it).  Tiny ones were going for much less than a dollar, and only a major overhauls like Wet and Cold would cost more (ignoring joke mods, of course).  This would adjust to meet what people are willing to pay.

Also, it's not a good argument...  "It costs a lot to buy a ton of content" does not mean "It's right to prevent people from charging".

Secondly, again, mods just SHOULDN'T be paid for. That would be like your friend telling you, hey I wrote this really cool song, but I need you to give me five bucks first before I can play it for you. What!?

A typical customer is not every modder's friend.  And even if someone is friends with a modder, or any creator, that doesn't entitle the friend to receive all the creator's work for free.
http://www.twogag.com/archives/2927

also I'm seeing some copyright being thrown around here, let remind everyone that copyright for code is pretty weak, especially if you're working mostly off of a larger game's code.

Hard to enforce, I guess you mean?  I suppose...  It'd essentially be up to Steam to handle copyright claims, since very few people would have the resources or inclination to involve lawyers.  Pointing out a pre-existing copy on the Nexus should be enough.  If not, it'd be a valid criticism of the system.  We won't find out until they try again.

I wouldn't even have bothered to buy Skyrim if I new the average mod load would cost 6x what the game does.

It wouldn't.  Even if it did, that's not an argument.  People spend many times more money on software than they do on Windows itself.  Or consoles.  It's theoretically fine to spend more money on content for a platform than on the platform itself.
But, it wouldn't really happen in this case, due to all the free content and the low amount people are willing to pay.
Also, your existing setup would continue to work fine, without having to rebuy everything.

I beg to differ. Regardless if most mods were free, if all the "big mods" (subjectively) were priced at $5.00 then i'd still be paying like $80-$120 for all the stuff I want, which is ridiculous. I don't think it would adjust at all, how would it help sales to lower your price if your competitors are wildly different in content and execution. Furthermore, it is a good argument, because mods are user-created endeavors.

On the topic of that 9gag comic, it's entirely out of place. Modders never had any expectation of being payed. Also, the hyperbole and situation makes that an incomplete simile at best. I would never ask a modder to mod anything at all, nor change their mods in any way. Suggestions are suggestions, but I also rarely make those. Mods aren't games, they are mods. The amount of work between making a working mod and a working game is drastically different. If you want to be paid for developing a game, develop one. If you mod a game you like than share that with others, than don't expect to get paid. On the whole, you haven't done anything drastically different. You haven't fundamentally altered the experience. Even total conversion mods tend to retain CORE MECHANICS. If we are still using Skyrim as an example, look at wet & cold. The only thing it really ADDS is exposure to the elements, which frankly, for its popularity, is kind of a small thing in Skyrim. I've played wet & cold for a long time and rarely does it affect me in any meaningful way. A mod I might of payed for is the MERP mod that was for oblivion and eventually got axed when it went over to skyrim. That mod fundamentally changed the game, and I woulda payed out the nose for it gladly.

You say, "oh, but modders still deserve to get paid for their work", no, they're hobbyists. If they want to spend more time on their work than that, fine, but I won't pay for it if it doesn't fundamentally change the game, add something drastically new, and especially if it just more of the same. Not any more than I would pay for DLC anyways. When DayZ became a game, I paid for that. When Mount & Musket turned in to Napoelonic Wars, I paid for that. Counterstrike, Gmod, Killing Floor, etc.

Another good example. Look at Gmod. It would suck to pay for the different modes in Gmod. Why? Because making and playing different game modes is essentially what Gmod is all about. Modding is part of the game, in Gmod's case IS the game to some extent. Same thing for Skyrim.

[wierd]

I already mentioned that once you go away from donations to direct pay, you lose fair use and a bunch of other things!!

It isnt like this is some crazy "Oh, I dont like that, URRRGH!" poop slinging thing here.  It's about "Hey, doing that will seriously ruin EVERYTHING because then lawyers HAVE to get involved!!"

No, you don't understand the legal issues, as much as you harp on them.


"Fair Use" is basically irrelevant to modding Skyrim.  Fair use is reproducing someone else's copyrighted materials under certain circumstances.  Examples listed in the law are:

for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research

Even if it was relevant, which it isn't, charging money does NOT automatically disqualify fair use.  It's a factor, much as the amount of material copied is a factor.  If someone used graphics from My Little Pony in their mod, then they would need Fair Use to argue that it's parody or something.  They don't need Fair Use to modify Bethesda's art assets or add new ones, even if they charge.

That thing where Bethesda sued the maker of Minecraft?  Know why they did it? THEY ARE LEGALLY REQUIRED TO, TO PROTECT THEIR TRADEMARK.  Why? Because that's the way the laws are written!

Yes, trademark.  That is also irrelevant here.  If someone made an independent game called Sky's Rim, trademark might be an issue.  If someone makes a Source game and sets it in the Elder Scrolls universe, Bethesda might step in if it gets too large (this happens commonly with Star Wars fangames/mods, for example).  That's protecting trademark.

The attack trained lawyers are what would have fully destroyed the modding community, as everyone would have to protect their IP like a mother hen, or risk losing legal protection of that IP-- Because that's the way the law works. Even when using copyleft licenses, you are STILL having to resort to being a mother hen about it-- because you have to constantly expose incorrect use, and seek remedy from the courts when discovered, or else you lose the legal protection on your IP.  (Look up Laches doctrine, and Equitable Estoppel. If you DONT aggressively go after people who misappropriate your IP, then you cant sue them later, because they can use these defenses to torpedo your suit. That's why the attack trained lawyers ARE NOT OPTIONAL.)

Copyright such as on code and art assets does NOT have to be defended like trademarks.
http://sites.lib.byu.edu/copyright/about-copyright/basics/

This has been a huge misconception the last few days.  But no, if you copyright your code, someone else can't steal the rights.  Even if they charge money.  It's still your code, they're still violating your copyright.  Whether you can stop them is a different issue - but you don't suddenly HAVE to.

Rolan, Copyright is NOT immune to Either Laches or to Estoppel, as per this supreme court decision, and is also subject to a 3 year statute of limitations.

patentlyo.com/patent/2014/05/copyright-preclude-limitations.html

If what I said is as false as you said, why did MGM arguue based on it, and how did it get to the supreme court?

Simply because the IP enforcement issues I cited were not specifically copyright claims, but were other kinds of IP claims, does not make copyright some magical unicorn that is free of those problems.  In reality, it is even more troubled due to that 3 year statute of limitations. If the alternative marketplace is able to direct sell mods without giving bethesda/zenimax/valve thier pound of flesh for 3 years, then a case can be made against future enforcement attempts, which is exactly in-line with what I said-- attack trained lawyers are necessary.

as for your rebuke about fair use, I further direct you to how it is decided in courts.

www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/fair-use-rule-copyright-material-30100.html

Note the section on scholarship and research. The experimental reverse engineering of a copyright encumbered software project for the purposes of attaining compatibility is, in many countries, a legally protected fair use.

with that in mind, note the bolded heading just a little ways in-- commercial use, which direct mod sales would be, would not be a protected use, even if done for research, simply because the motivator is commercial in nature!

Boom, exactly what I was getting at!

[Leyic]

For all the anecdotal evidence flying around, let's get some numbers in here. Given that Workshop did show the number of "current subscribers", it's possible to form a decent estimate regarding how much any modder made. Here are the cases assuming everyone bought at minimum and at suggested prices:

Author	Minimum	Suggested
Laast	1,092.84	1,092.84
xilverbulet	474.66	950.91
isoku	158.28	724.53
Vermilion Wlad	154.44	544.44
T_Vidotto	220.88	518.79
volvaga0	85.76	432.26
Veerl	170.77	343.27
Kwrrrttty	230.57	343.27
Sebastian	170.77	343.27
Shezrie	220.89	331.89
Arthmoor	301.01	301.01
Corvalho	279.93	279.93
Rafael De Jongh	279.93	279.93
RadLyte	121.87	121.87
Fido	112.44	112.44
Stilgren	49.38	49.38
Jeremy Klein	49.38	49.38
Jimo	18.84	36.93
Valve Artists	18.84	36.93

Source: Data I pulled and tabulated from each mod's Workshop page while they were up.

So for all the talk about how modders wouldn't get over the $100 threshold and never see a dime for their work, only four or five of 19 didn't make it. That still seems poor, but then consider that the service was only up for ~96 hours. It'd be nice to have similar numbers for donations, and those aren't even saddled by NDAs.

To be perfectly clear: I am still against ValveThesda's implementation of paid modding. However, I find it stupid to force every single modder to find employment elsewhere should they wish to make some supplementary income from their talent.

Modders never had any expectation of being payed. <snip>

Why is that the case? Because all the modders in the very beginning decided that they would never receive money for moral and ethical reasons, or because Bethesda stamped it out with their EULA?

[Putnam]

Modders never had any expectation of being payed. <snip>

Why is that the case? Because all the modders in the very beginning decided that they would never receive money for moral and ethical reasons, or because Bethesda stamped it out with their EULA?

In my case the former, but I can't really know, ask Eul/Meian/Ragn0r/Guinsoo/Neichus/Icefrog/the thousands of modders who make mods for games that aren't bethesda

[NullForceOmega]

Okay, I've been staying out of this like I said I would, but you really don't appear to grasp the difference between a hobby and a job so here goes:

Should I pay you to make your own lures for fly fishing?  NO.  You put in the effort, you did the work, and you get the primary benefit.  Should I pay you to make ME lures for fly fishing, when you are a fly fisherman?  MAYBE, unless you don't mind making them, otherwise yes, but if you are just going to make more anyway, probably not.

Should I pay you to build ultralight aircraft for your hobby?  NO.  You put in the time and effort, but the expectation is that the primary benefit still goes to you.  If you are an ultralight enthusiast and I ask you to assist me in building my own ultralight, should you be paid?  Maybe with a beer, or a flight, but probably not in money.

This pattern repeats through every single HOBBY.  Ultimately you are doing it for YOU, if others benefit okay, maybe as a show of community you'll get some cash, or a drink, or to try something out.

As a modder you are NOT a service.  You are NOT providing anything that demands renumeration.  I care nothing for your assertions of 'I have bills to pay', so does the fly fisher, so does the ultralight flyer, and they are spending a tremendous amount of time and effort (and in the flight enthusiasts' case, massively more money than the modder).

You want to get paid for this kind of work, become a developer, then you actually have room to talk.

[penguinofhonor]

.

[Tack]

Okay, I've been staying out of this like I said I would, but you really don't appear to grasp the difference between a hobby and a job so here goes:

Should I pay you to make your own lures for fly fishing?  NO.  You put in the effort, you did the work, and you get the primary benefit.  Should I pay you to make ME lures for fly fishing, when you are a fly fisherman?  MAYBE, unless you don't mind making them, otherwise yes, but if you are just going to make more anyway, probably not.

Should I pay you to build ultralight aircraft for your hobby?  NO.  You put in the time and effort, but the expectation is that the primary benefit still goes to you.  If you are an ultralight enthusiast and I ask you to assist me in building my own ultralight, should you be paid?  Maybe with a beer, or a flight, but probably not in money.

This pattern repeats through every single HOBBY.  Ultimately you are doing it for YOU, if others benefit okay, maybe as a show of community you'll get some cash, or a drink, or to try something out.

As a modder you are NOT a service.  You are NOT providing anything that demands renumeration.  I care nothing for your assertions of 'I have bills to pay', so does the fly fisher, so does the ultralight flyer, and they are spending a tremendous amount of time and effort (and in the flight enthusiasts' case, massively more money than the modder).

You want to get paid for this kind of work, become a developer, then you actually have room to talk.

Disagree. Most hobbyists get paid if they're doing their hobby to help others. I like to paint tiny figurines. When people ask me to paint their tiny figurines for them, I charge them.

[Leyic]

Modders never had any expectation of being payed. <snip>

Why is that the case? Because all the modders in the very beginning decided that they would never receive money for moral and ethical reasons, or because Bethesda stamped it out with their EULA?

In my case the former, but I can't really know, ask Eul/Meian/Ragn0r/Guinsoo/Neichus/Icefrog/the thousands of modders who make mods for games that aren't bethesda

You make it sound like there's no precedent for paid modding outside of Bethesda. I beg to differ. In particular: "The CD contains twenty WAD files created by various authors under contract." (Emphasis mine.) In any case, there were people in the early Morrowind days who were interested in monetizing their work but were told they couldn't due to the EULA. No moral outrage, no call for modding to be free forever. Even before that, modders were interested with monetizing Dink Smallwood mods; this was in '98-'99.

You want to get paid for this kind of work, become a developer, then you actually have room to talk.

The Falskaar author did this. The Moonpath to Elsweyr author is doing this. Neither of them is producing much content for Skyrim anymore, presumably because they're busy with their new, interesting jobs. Speaking for myself now, I'd rather they were still producing content for Skyrim because I'm not interested in trying to pick up other games. But they're not, and mods of that scale are appearing less often. People are getting tired of Skyrim, moving to other games, causing the community to slowly shrink and stagnate. How is that good?

Edit to my earlier list of payouts: Apparently no one's been paid yet. Quoting Arthmoor: "What we still don't know yet is if we're going to get our payouts. Since they're no longer talking to any of us we can't know." Source (post #153).

[wierd]

A better comparison:

I make a brand new kind of fishing lure, but have no intention of ever marketing it. I just enjoy making fishing lures. One day, a guy comes along to the lake I flyfish at, and sees my revolutionary new lure design. he offers to buy, or at least asks me for one of my special lures. I have plenty of them, because I make them. I'm a nice fellow, so I grant the request, and the guy takes one of my lures.

I expect that he simply intends to use the lure. I am perfectly fine with that use, which is why I gave him the lure.

That is not what this guy does. instead, he takes the lure home and carefully dissects the lure, seeing exactly how it works. He then writes a patent document on said revolutionary lure design, files it, and because I did not file one first, he gets the legal power and prestige of inventing that design, even though he is a charlatan. He sells the shit out of his amazing patented lures, that are flagrant copies of my design.  moreover, I can now no longer produce and distrubute my lures, because doing so violates his "rights."

That's basically analogous to basically every paid mod that was in the store.  The big mods in the community are cathedral style architecture. That means they are built on the combined knowledge base and skill set of many hundreds of contributors not on the main creditor list.  They use coding techniques pioneered and shared to the community. They use rigging and weighted mesh techniques and tool chains for file export that were pioneered and shared by the community. They then add their own contribution (which without argument, may be substantive and nontrivial!) and slap their name on, and demand full ownership rights.

See the problem?  When there is no profit motive to try to own other people's work, collaboration enables great things. Once you introduce that, it rips the community apart, because toolset makers have to protect their contribution from downstream users claiming their work, even if they dont purposefully comprehend that this is what they are in fact doing.  See the previous instance of a mod being taken down because of an animation package inclusion that was pretty important to the polished feel of the mod, being the property of another modder, who forbade paid mod use.

I could forbid all font mods and tools from being paid in nature, by asserting my property rights to the whitepaper and progenitor font toolset from which basically all morrowind, oblivion, and skyrim font editing tools descend.  All subsequent tools are derivative works of my original work. I can seriously shit in some cheerios. I dont believe that is an appropriate action, and would never do so, but I could well and truly do so, since i can establish the timeline of creation and innovation, which I did earlier in this thread.

Not everyone is as nice about that kind of thing as I am. Thats why that mod got pulled/neutered.

Many tools, guides, and mod packages were created under the implied social contract that all mods created with those techniques, tools, and progenitor mod packages would likewise be free for community use and innovation. That makes Estoppel especially applicable. Paid mod making represents a sudden change in the use of that property that these progenitors may not wish to permit, and sales can be legally stopped and distribution rights killed by prompt enforcement after the change. A modder may have created a magnum opus, be be legally barred from even distributing it, because of the enforcement of rights by works it is built on-- let alone selling his work.

Adding this kind of thing to a community like this one, however well intentioned they claim to have been, is just plain insane, and patently stupid. I wont beat around the bush on that. It is mired in the intractable quagmire of people who's works are inseparably joined to other people's works, with all the contributors now pulling in different directions instead of pulling as one. 

all because some people thought it would be a good idea, without actually contempating what the consequences and realities of that would be.

This isnt just a bad idea now. It will be a bad idea tomorrrow, and a bad idea the next day, and the day after that.

I am not telling you to not do this, I am begging you not to do this, and struggling to grasp why you want to do this.

It's not wrong to want something. It's wrong to do something that affects many other people out of selfish reasons, which is what direct monetization does, and always will do, given THIS mod community, and the way it is structured.

It is doubly wrong to assert blithely that people who want you to stop are the ones being greedy.

Think about what it really is that you are wanting here. Be honest about it, and stop trying to rationalize it in rosy ideal conditions, because the real world is not ideal. It's ugly and full of conflcts of interest and politics, and pure premium bullshit all around. I beg of you. please dont ever consider that this kind of thing will ever be beneficial for the community.

Yes, you can prove that more financials can be extracted, but then again strip mining is very profitable too. that does not make it ethically acceptable as a solution when you consider the consequences.

The legal problems, the logistical problems caused by the legal problems, the political problems, the breakdown of collaborative power that can be leveraged from the political problems, and the resulting hatreds, feuding, biggotry and downright unpleasantness that would result are all just horribly toxic waste products of this idea in general. Donations allow modders to at least get SOME financial remuneration without causing the apochalypse. Yes, it isnt as financially effective-- but its far less ecologically destructive than the financially attractive option is.

Is the donation system perfect? o hell no. Is it better than getting nothing? arguably yes. Is it able to produce some limited currency stream without dumping poison down the well? yes.

Direct pay poisons the ground, but is very profitable. If all you care about is the profit, then it is the clear winner. If you care at all about the community, and not just your ability to exploit it for profit, then you see it for the ecologically destructive menace that it actually is.

so please, think about the consequences of direct marketing in cathedral style communities, and stop thinking about how much more money you could be making if you salted the ground and stripmined the community.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Okay, I've been staying out of this like I said I would, but you really don't appear to grasp the difference between a hobby and a job so here goes:

Should I pay you to make your own lures for fly fishing?  NO.  You put in the effort, you did the work, and you get the primary benefit.  Should I pay you to make ME lures for fly fishing, when you are a fly fisherman?  MAYBE, unless you don't mind making them, otherwise yes, but if you are just going to make more anyway, probably not.

Should I pay you to build ultralight aircraft for your hobby?  NO.  You put in the time and effort, but the expectation is that the primary benefit still goes to you.  If you are an ultralight enthusiast and I ask you to assist me in building my own ultralight, should you be paid?  Maybe with a beer, or a flight, but probably not in money.

This pattern repeats through every single HOBBY.  Ultimately you are doing it for YOU, if others benefit okay, maybe as a show of community you'll get some cash, or a drink, or to try something out.

As a modder you are NOT a service.  You are NOT providing anything that demands renumeration.  I care nothing for your assertions of 'I have bills to pay', so does the fly fisher, so does the ultralight flyer, and they are spending a tremendous amount of time and effort (and in the flight enthusiasts' case, massively more money than the modder).

You want to get paid for this kind of work, become a developer, then you actually have room to talk.

Disagree. Most hobbyists get paid if they're doing their hobby to help others. I like to paint tiny figurines. When people ask me to paint their tiny figurines for them, I charge them.

I mean, that's kind of the definition if NOT being a hobbyist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobby

[UXLZ]

I think we can all agree, at the very least, that attempting to introduce payed modding into the Skyrim community was an abhorrently idiotic decision. It doesn't seem they thought about what its effects would be, and just looked for the most popular modded game they could find. Wierd is right in the sense that almost all the Skyrim mods are quite interconnected, you can't just isolate them into their own contained modules easily.

Also, @Leyic, with those numbers you posted earlier, that is with 19 mods, most of which I'm pretty sure were fairly good. Now, imagine a marketplace with 10,000 or more ridiculously low-quality mods, knockoff mods, stolen mods, fake mods, etc.

Though to be honest, the thing that pissed me off the most about this whole ordeal was how much of a slice Valvthesda were taking for practically no effort whatsoever.