Good morning folks, today I'd like to retread a topic form earlier this week that has compounded further. A topic that many are passionate for as it's one of the cornerstone reasons to play a PC game over a console game.Â
I'm of course talking about Mods.
This last week has been turbulent for the Skyrim/Bethesda mod scene to say the least. After a heavy handed implementation of paid mods on Steam, Valve and Bethesda backed off and reverted the changes citing that they implemented it in the worst way. It's plain to see that they took the blame for this mistake, something that has redeemed them in a small way.
The controversy hasn't ended, however. The vitriol against mod authors that wished to be paid for their work has lead to the same kind of anger from the authors themselves. Many are spitting acid back at their users, citing some damning statistics about how little their work is paid or even appreciated.
 Sir Edhelsereg made a post detailing exactly how much recognition and pay he's received for his free mods on steam:
The team behind the popular SkyUI, a mod that makes a more user friendly PC UI, are backing away from the scene they just re-entered. The lead developer, Madoxx, noted that for over 5 years of the addon's deployment his team earned less than $500 in donations. He goes on to say that there never was a community.
Other modders have called gamers 'fairweather friends'. More are calling for the end of free modding at all. What was left of the Skyrim mod community has descended into infighting, chaos and disdain that poisons the relationship between developer and user.
Why do I bring this up in this thread instead of the old Valve thread? Because this kind of controversy has a damning effect on a single game company: Bethesda.
Bethesda is a game development company notorious for wanting to tell a story but not having the talent or resources to tell it reliably. Their games are as notorious as Obsidian's in that both companies tend to make buggy messes of games that require a modding community to stabilize it. In the last week some have even speculated that by allowing mods to be paid and Bethesda taking a cut of those sales that they are promoting the sloppy work and profiting from it for years to come.
So the effect on Bethesda is three fold. First, gamers have lost more faith in the company after what some see as a blatant cash grab. Two, one of the biggest communities of their games is imploding in an explosion of venomous attacks between developers and users. Three, the truth of the matter is that Bethesda games do require a strong modding scene to reach their full potential. This scene is shrinking and vanishing before our eyes.
This implosion is good evidence on why not to piss off a consumer base that you rely on. So many game companies have been nickle and diming their consumers this last past decade and it seems that this was the breaking point for some. Others have been toiling away in a literally thankless money pit trying to repair broken games while trying to help other players have as much fun as possible. Both sides are fed up with the trigger being the very developer and publisher for that game.
I'm of course talking about Mods.
This last week has been turbulent for the Skyrim/Bethesda mod scene to say the least. After a heavy handed implementation of paid mods on Steam, Valve and Bethesda backed off and reverted the changes citing that they implemented it in the worst way. It's plain to see that they took the blame for this mistake, something that has redeemed them in a small way.
The controversy hasn't ended, however. The vitriol against mod authors that wished to be paid for their work has lead to the same kind of anger from the authors themselves. Many are spitting acid back at their users, citing some damning statistics about how little their work is paid or even appreciated.
 Sir Edhelsereg made a post detailing exactly how much recognition and pay he's received for his free mods on steam:
Quote:I started publishing mods two years ago. Since my first mod was released on the Skyrim Workshop my mods have recieved over 200,000 individual downloads and two donations.
That means 0.001% of users donated.
...
My most popular mod has been downloaded by over 70,000 people of which less than 1.5k of them have rated it. That means 98% of users didn't take the time to rate the mod (and that is above the average for most mods on the Workshop), an act which takes one click, and costs nothing to do.
The team behind the popular SkyUI, a mod that makes a more user friendly PC UI, are backing away from the scene they just re-entered. The lead developer, Madoxx, noted that for over 5 years of the addon's deployment his team earned less than $500 in donations. He goes on to say that there never was a community.
Other modders have called gamers 'fairweather friends'. More are calling for the end of free modding at all. What was left of the Skyrim mod community has descended into infighting, chaos and disdain that poisons the relationship between developer and user.
Why do I bring this up in this thread instead of the old Valve thread? Because this kind of controversy has a damning effect on a single game company: Bethesda.
Bethesda is a game development company notorious for wanting to tell a story but not having the talent or resources to tell it reliably. Their games are as notorious as Obsidian's in that both companies tend to make buggy messes of games that require a modding community to stabilize it. In the last week some have even speculated that by allowing mods to be paid and Bethesda taking a cut of those sales that they are promoting the sloppy work and profiting from it for years to come.
So the effect on Bethesda is three fold. First, gamers have lost more faith in the company after what some see as a blatant cash grab. Two, one of the biggest communities of their games is imploding in an explosion of venomous attacks between developers and users. Three, the truth of the matter is that Bethesda games do require a strong modding scene to reach their full potential. This scene is shrinking and vanishing before our eyes.
This implosion is good evidence on why not to piss off a consumer base that you rely on. So many game companies have been nickle and diming their consumers this last past decade and it seems that this was the breaking point for some. Others have been toiling away in a literally thankless money pit trying to repair broken games while trying to help other players have as much fun as possible. Both sides are fed up with the trigger being the very developer and publisher for that game.
