And the paid mods are back up again, looks like it was just database work.
The main problem I have with how Valve has handled this transition is the sudden change (Though mod makers were notified before hand, fyi), the horrible pricing structure and the legal implications of using others work.
Mod work, especially Skyrim's mod community. The vast majority is built on the work of others with the Expanded Scripts team being the cornerstone of the community. Restricting some of it to a paywall restricts other mods from working or the authors steal the parts they need for their own mod.
If the Expanded Scripts team decided to go behind a paywall they would single handedly bring the Skyrim modding community to it's knees.
The legal implications stem from the wide use of using other author's works as well as the heavy use of copyright images. It stumbles into a very murky area of fair use law as the likeness of one product is used in another. For example, using Final Fantasy armor, characters or weapons in Skyrim.
The implementation is a mess, mod authors are getting screwed pretty hard by the sudden change in standards that they have to conform with. The reach of such a change is larger than just Steam, as was evidenced by the DDOS attack on Nexus earlier today.
The main problem I have with how Valve has handled this transition is the sudden change (Though mod makers were notified before hand, fyi), the horrible pricing structure and the legal implications of using others work.
Mod work, especially Skyrim's mod community. The vast majority is built on the work of others with the Expanded Scripts team being the cornerstone of the community. Restricting some of it to a paywall restricts other mods from working or the authors steal the parts they need for their own mod.
If the Expanded Scripts team decided to go behind a paywall they would single handedly bring the Skyrim modding community to it's knees.
The legal implications stem from the wide use of using other author's works as well as the heavy use of copyright images. It stumbles into a very murky area of fair use law as the likeness of one product is used in another. For example, using Final Fantasy armor, characters or weapons in Skyrim.
The implementation is a mess, mod authors are getting screwed pretty hard by the sudden change in standards that they have to conform with. The reach of such a change is larger than just Steam, as was evidenced by the DDOS attack on Nexus earlier today.
