Guess who's back, back again ♪ Paid mods back, tell a friend

[Nash]

Can't wait to see what other kinds of rubbish the video games industry is going to come up with in future!

[Chris]

I think it's less "paid mods" and more of an extended DLC program. The biggest difference is it's going to be very heavily curated, Bethesda are going to put any prospective "mod" going to this system through a full dev cycle, localization, testing, etc. It's going to have Bethesda's own work, as well work from other dev studios and certain talented modders. Perhaps you could see Obsidian putting out a large scale TC for Fallout 4, for example. You have to have a portfolio of work to even be considered for the program, and it doesn't allow existing mods to be retrofitted, it has to be all-new work. Effectively, by becoming a Creation Club member, you're freelancing for Bethesda. They pay you to make your "mods", which they have to approve of before hand. You get paid up front when they accept your proposal, and for reaching development milestones, just like a real developer in the industry.

There's a more in-depth FAQ here: https://creationclub.bethesda.net/en

The main thing I don't like is the use of "credits" (aka Bethesda Bucks) to buy this stuff. It's the same underhanded trick consoles use with their points system to buy things... you no doubt won't be able to buy just the amount of credits you need, so you have to get/pay for more than you actually want and you'll have some credits left over. That in turn creates a psychological pull to come back and buy more credits for something else that you might not have otherwise, since you already have some in your account that goes toward it. It basically makes you pay more to incentivize you to keep paying more.

[Gez]

It seems to be like a Greenlight for mods.


Honestly I can see why it makes sense from Beth's perspective:
1. A large part of the appeal of their games is their modability
2. But most of their sales are on consoles, and you can't mod consoles
3. You can offer some mod download service, but then you have to pay $$$ to Microsoft and Sony so that they can do quality control (and so you need to invest $$$ more bucks to do your own QC first)

Based on that, you have three options:
A: Offer a heavily-gimped custom content sharing system (like what SnapMap is doing, or what you can find in LittleBigPlanet or Super Mario Maker)
B: Sell select mods as DLCs while making sure they are of professional quality and don't use ripped content
C: Drop the idea entirely and leave modding as a PC exclusive

[Nash]

Yes, I am fully aware of all these points but it all remains to be seen how will the execution be and will it succeed. It does look good on paper but seriously, curated DLCs? They can't even release bug free vanilla games...

If they start locking Unofficial Patches behind the CC in their next game then I guess I'd have no other choice but to continue playing vanilla.

[Arctangent]

"they" would end up being the people making the Unofficial Patches in this context. After all, it's not like this is overriding modding period, but allowing modders with profession-grade talents to earn money for their work if they make their move to get it approved by Bethesda. It's entirely the onus of the modders themselves to take the steps to get their paywall.

Which would mean that even if one Unofficial Patches modpack gets accepted into this, it's not like other people aren't suddenly going to stop making their own. Hell, I have a hard time imagining an Unofficial Patches mod even getting into something like this, between the fact that they aren't exactly "sexy" and the fact that it'd make Bethesda look like they have the self-awareness of a turnip to get people to pay for someone else fixing their games for them.

[Chris]

If they start locking Unofficial Patches behind the CC in their next game then I guess I'd have no other choice but to continue playing vanilla.

Bethesda won't lock anything behind the CC, except their own stuff. Other devs/modders have to actively apply and put stuff on their of their own volition to have it there, that's not Bethesda's call. On top of that, they're not preventing free mods. So if you, I, or any other modder sees an Unofficial Patch pop up on the CC and don't want to pay for it, we can make our own free version. As long as we don't use content from it directly, they can't copyright the idea of an "unofficial patch".

[Nash]

I don't know, on the other hand you can see it as "let's pay people to make content for our game but not put them on full payroll". AKA exploiting naive budding game designers/content creators with dreams. They get to take credit for having their content in the Big Game, we only pay them a fraction of the cost!

"How dare content creators get paid for their work!" is invalid. I'll gladly pay them - hire them fulltime into your team to make the main game and I'll pay. I've paid full price for the base games, some even more than once.

[Arctangent]

It certainly isn't possible that showing off quality work directly to game developers doesn't provide a great amount of material for a resume later down the line, no, and it's patently ridiculous that said game developer could take interest in the modders directly and offer them a proper internship or even permanent employment if they prove potential as valuable assets.

I've paid full price for the base games, some even more than once.

y'do realize that "full price" for a modern video game isn't even a hundredth of the actual cost of making it

that's why a video game can sell hundreds of thousands of copies and yet still be a commercial flop

meanwhile if like 99% of the game's asset and code is already there then whatever you're adding in is far more likely to bring in profit with only a couple hundred sales even if you only get $4 per, not to mention that modders are far more likely to have a completely different source of primary income which means some hobby project you get to sell will make you additional money immediately off the first sale

[4thcharacter]

LMAO, the comments are brutal.

"Can't wait to pay 9.99$ for high resolution horse genitals"

Simply gold.

[Reactor]

Dag-nabbit, not again...they kicked the hive once, the hornets came out buzzin' loudly ready to sting. Now they kicked the hive twice and took a seat atop it with naked butt. Do these idiots ever learn?
Too bad freddyD gave up on continuing the "Bad PC games" series, somehow I have this sneaky feeling that he could literally bathe in test subjects...

I wonder when Grezzo 2 Special Edition will be available for 10 bucks.

[Nash]

I wonder when Grezzo 2 Special Edition will be available for 10 bucks.

The cringey part is that there will probably be people who'd pay for that...

[Reactor]

And that's exactly what bothers me. Grezzo 2's....ahemm....."success" will encourage a lot of talentless circlejerks to create such horrible toxic mutoid abominations of a game and sell them for cash. Possibly with tons of copyrighted material inside. This happened before (Space Trucker anyone?), now it'll become a common and favorized method. We shall see soon enough...

[Chris]

talentless circlejerks to create such horrible toxic mutoid abominations of a game and sell them for cash. Possibly with tons of copyrighted material inside.

Considering the majority of content on the Creation Club will be made by Bethesda themselves (as mentioned in the FAQ), there's not going to be junk mods by others cluttering up the place. Also modders have to be able to show the ability to create their own content just to apply (as mentioned in the FAQ), let alone be accepted. Bethesda also has to approve the concept before the prospective creator will see any money (as mentioned in the FAQ), so anything released in the Creator's Club has to get Bethesda's OK. Additionally, Bethesda is going to be checking, vetting, and testing everything going through the system (as mentioned in the FAQ). If there's copyrighted or illegal material in something, either Bethesda will be able to catch it before it ever gets to release or you can expect them to act on it relatively quickly once it's discovered since Microsoft and Sony are involved too. Considering the big problem mods have currently on the PS4 have is that Sony is unwilling to let user content onto the system, and this program is being made available for the PS4, Bethesda's putting themselves on the line with Sony by taking full responsibility for anything that gets out there via the Creation Club. If too much problem material keeps getting through, neither Microsoft or Sony will allow it to continue on their systems, effectively killing the program.

Really, read (+ comprehend) what the FAQ says. Many of the problems present in the original attempt for paid mods, and what people are predicting with $10 hi-res horse genitals or a flood of illegal junk mods, is simply not possible in the new system. Are there possible issues with the new system? Yes, but we won't know if those problems will occur until see the system in action. It really is a rather different beast than what they tried before, from their description of it. Let's just wait and see.

[Reactor]

Meh...don't be so sure. I know you have trust in people's fair intentions regarding making paid mods or TCs, but there'll always be some jokers who'll try to misuse this opportunity. And the alarming number of such idiots is what bothers me. Let's hope there'll be no Grezzo 2 for ten bucks.

[Nash]

Yeah as I said; looks good on paper but it remains to be seen how will it be ran in practical and realistic terms. How far will the Powers That Be continue to do their job to curate stuff, or will the entire system fall into App Store Hell and how fast will that happen...