Charging money for mods was almost a thing!

[Major Cooke]

Pffft. People can find subreddit threads already pirating the shit out of every mod hosted up on the paywall.

I don't think it'll last... one way or another. Why? In effect, I treat this like Blizzard's Diablo 3 auction house. I never got to experience it because I was only given the game over this past christmas, but blizzard outright cut that snake's head off. It failed them miserably and caused them more pain than it was worth. People are already cheating the system by buying the mods, uploading them elsewhere and then forcing a refund.

In reality, mod makers truly aren't making a fucking mint at all.

[Project Shadowcat]

Shit's broke, yo!

[Major Cooke]

Nothing, and in fact you could just buy a mod, copy the files to a folder, get your refund, and keep using the files because there's no drm or anything in TES mods at all and they have NO way to prevent this. The whole thing is nonsense without any anti-piracy measures at all.

In fact, this is how they're abusing the shit out of it right now and putting mod piracy all over reddit.

[Blue Shadow]

Money changes everything, doesn't it? Ads in mods... we've reached a new level of ridiculousness.

I can only imagine how toxic this will make the relationship between modders and players (or "developers" and "consumers"), now.

[Ghastly]

I've been a part of several modding communities over the years (never did anything in most of them, but I've contributed to a few). This one of course, FreeSpace, BattleZone 2, Baldur's Gate, Super Mario World and some others. I've seen some amazing work come out of all of these communities; Demon Eclipse and Double-Impact from Doom's communities, the BG1NPC Project and Sword Coast Stratagems for Baldur's Gate, the MediaVPs and Blue Planet series for FreeSpace, SMWC Productions for SMW, etc.. Then there are the massive endeavors like Hexen: Edge of Chaos, Doom 3: Phobos, STALKER: Lost Alpha, Halo CMT SPV3 and others. It would be great if the authors, some of whom are my friends, some I really look up to and almost all who are really awesome people, could be compensated for the huge amount of work they've put into these. But there is a huge amount of abuse that this kind of pay-for-mod system could lead to.

For one, I should point out that Brutal Doom initially started as a copy/paste of two or three different mods and gained in popularity from there. Apparently Steam paid workshop already has problems with people copy/pasting other authors' work. Even if you like Brutal Doom and are of the opinion that he took those authors' work to new heights, could you imagine if Sgt Mark made money off of their work from the start?

Valve is already really bad at quality control. There are several God-awful games like Revelations 2012, copyright infringements like Bloodbath Kavkaz and even the lazy, outright, scam The War Z. Then they announced neither Valve nor Bethesda will be curating the mods for sale, which has led to several joke and protest mods. How do you think this will turn out?

In reality, mod makers truly aren't making a fucking mint at all.

The author also makes only a 25% revenue share, by the way. Even if mod piracy wasn't a thing, they wouldn't really be making anything anyway. This isn't Valve's/Bethesda's opportunity to support modders for their hard work, it's just a cash-grab.

[Nash]

At this point after all the discussion that's happening, I am surprised to see people STILL supporting this bullshit, ESPECIALLY thick-headed modders (some of whom are very talented in code but apparently shite at common sense and business) who still insist or are even considering monetizing their measly ESP plugins... shaking my fucking head right now.

[Xtyfe]

I'm still waiting on the response from Valve and Bethesda. Their response will decide the future of all of this. If they shut it down than there is still hope, if they dismiss it than I quit.

[Zanieon]

This is not only on the hands of Valve and Bethesda, they might gave the idea, but if the all other Triple A companies (like EA, Activision, Capcom, Konami, SNK, Blizzard, Ubisoft, Epic Games, Nintendo...) disagree, then they will be alone on this and probably all this others will start a court case to make Valve and Bethesda stop supporting this.

But i have my doubts, Epic Games already joined such thing for Unreal Tournament 4, EA, Activision and Capcom don't gives a shit.

[Xtyfe]

https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comment ... and_steam/

It seems Gabe himself is now doing damage control.

[Major Cooke]

@Ghastly: But I'm talking about the charge backs. The 25% alone was the injury, while the loopholes for chargebacks occurring so there's MASSIVE amounts of pirating going on, is the salt on the wound. Perhaps it might teach the modders not to go with such a broken fucked up system.

[JimmyJ]

https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comment ... ?context=3 what an astoundingly ignorant and stupid thing to say. Holy shit I thought Gabe Newell of all people would know better about how modding works.

[Xtyfe]

https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comment ... ?context=3 what an astoundingly ignorant and stupid thing to say. Holy shit I thought Gabe Newell of all people would know better about how modding works.

Not anymore it seems, not with this.

It's hard to say whats going to happen still, he doesn't seem all that concerned with the bad press.

[scalliano]

mod piracy

Now, THERE'S an oxymoron if ever I heard one ...

[Big C]

https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comment ... ?context=3

So many downvotes.

[JimmyJ]

https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comment ... ?context=3

So many downvotes.

I guess you could say the community has spoken.