Arctangent wrote:
DLC faces these exact same issues, but it doesn't seem to have issues selling.
DLCs are also usually backed by much bigger budgets, developed by larger groups of people and provide a lot more content than a single mod (at least, mods at the level of those presented in the video), so of course they'll sell reasonably well if the price is worth. But they are creating a new platform for mods that will have "official" content grouped alongside greenlit fan content, yet they tell us, "but here's the catch: while platforms like this are nothing new, we'll have the products therein cost you money!", with the only incentive being quality control in a community that is so large that it doesn't desperately need modders to up their game by any means.
I'm all for modders wanting to cash in on the time and effort they put into the awesome things they do, but that's why there are the far more sensible options of putting up a donation bar or a Patreon, which allow fans to support them of their own volition. Making your mods "paid" and effectively locking many out of your creation in a particular scene that is known for providing legally free products since its inception will obviously garner negative receptions no matter what.
Arctangent wrote:How would a cruddy game get this kind of content in the first place? I mean, I guess there are people who genuinely like Sonic 06, but there still needs to be a large enough community around the game for there to be people to a. want to create stuff for it and b. have the right combination of perseverance and skill to actually create something that remotely looks sellable. Add to that that creating content for a modern game from scratch is not remotely as simple as it is for something like Doom, and a plan to salvage a game by relying on your community to fix it for you is pretty damn flawed.
It has been a common practise by greedy, deadline-heavy companies to shelve out incomplete games for full price in time for the holiday season, and then quickly proceed to advertise DLCs, special editions and/or remakes to reassure customers that they NEED those things for the true experience that they were promised way back when those overhyped and misleading trailers aired.
Skyrim's mod scene is not necessarily a testament of how great the standalone Skyrim game is, but rather because of how popular and accessible it is, how much potential it holds as a game, and
especially because everyone who has the game says that
it's a much greater game with mods. You can't fix games like Sonic '06, but you can pick up decent games with lots of potential such as Skyrim and Minecraft and take them to their absolute heights thanks to custom content, and that's the main reason why they sold so well and became as iconic as they are today.
Chris wrote:Ultimately, the current problem with Creation Club is Bethesda's PR sucks (this is nothing new). They should've known it would've drawn comparisons to paid mods, and should've made it their #1 priority to clearly differentiate it from the start (i.e. in the video presentation). Show how it's different before people start thinking it's the same. Instead, we get a mock-up that doesn't represent the system and looks suspiciously like the old system (the "showcased" mods would not be allowed since they're small preexisting mods, exactly what people are afraid of happening), with all the useful information in an FAQ that most people won't read before making up their minds, if at all. Not having a known currency scale for their "Credits" doesn't help the presented mock-up, with one of the problems of the previous paid mods system was small stuff being over-priced (something Bethesda themselves have run afoul of, e.g. Horse Armor, though they have gotten better about that since then).
Exactly! They had a semblance of common sense in stepping away their previous blunder about paid mods, so one would think that if they still had something of the sort in the works, they'd at least put good effort into not making it sound remotely as bad it did, so now that the damage is done, it's fair to believe that if they didn't care to make the PR behind this one good, the Creation Club will most likely face-plant its way to extinction.
60dollartechdemo wrote:That's why I'm worried about Bethesda/Zenimax shutting down the Nexus (or other big mod sites, if they exist). For people to even bother with the Creation Club, they'll need to make sure that they can *only* get mods through their crummy paid service - and yeah, Zenimax's lawyers are probably the most predatory out of the entire games industry.
I think it's perfectly reasonable to be worried over something like that, in light of recent events with T2, and nobody would put it past Bethesda to pull something like this, since their initial paid mod idea was frankly absurd and out-of-touch with the communities they work with. They deserve all the outrage they can and will get if they bring to light such a nasty context to their Creation Club idea.