Mod Monetization Madness
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- Опубліковано 6 тра 2015
- There's no reason that modding Skyrim should be a hobby for the rich. Learn what happened with Valve and Bethesda's briefly-lived Skyrim mod monetization program, what went wrong, and why.
- Ігри
I loved the narrative of paid mods being a small scale Rapture lol
You remember that joke about DLC getting so bad that you'll literally have to buy each part of the game and assemble it yourself?
We just came so _fucking_ close to that actually happening.
Donut117 There was a joke that HL3 would be an MMO with no story, reused models, all DLCs are P2W and all that jazz because Valve are mostly greedy fucks.
I used to laugh at that. Used to.
+Donut117 There is a game called DLC Quest that did just that.
As funny as it sounds at first i'm afraid this might be the future of tripple a gaming.
+Hans Peter I thought that game was a satire!
+Stanley yeah thats what hes saying mate :]
Donut117 Scary if not comical
I was very easily on the 'Paid mods is a good thing' side as soon as the news came out. Modders get to get a consistent flow of revenue, what could be bad about that.
Well, everything in this video, evidently. You very easily changed my mind, with very good reasons.
iDragonarion The idea in itself is not a bad thing it is the implementation of it that failed the idea this time.
Other wise it could be a very good thing for the modding community.
Erik Armstrong This. Even he went through a slew of potentially better, or at least preferable, implementations of this idea that Steam and Bethesda clearly just had no interest in pursuing.
Gmr Leon Yea especially with Bethesda having said that it shall not be curated.
Same here. I had seen the community upset over it but didn't fully understand until he laid out the background of the whole thing. The only positive I've found, now that I better understand what's going on, is that I've been introduced to how good mods are for the game. I had been hesitant to apply mods because I've had issues with mods in the past. This is the only way I can look at this fiasco and see a bright side.
iDragonarion Yeah, the idea in itself isn't necessarily bad.
"Is a modder not entitled to the sweat off his brow??" - perfect, 10/10.
Xardas5 45% of it are belong to us :p
Makkasu0 No says Steam, it belongs to Gaben.
Get it? Coz Gaban is our God, u know...
No, says Steam, it belongs to Gaben!
No, says Bethesda, it belongs to Todd!
No, says Jim Sterling, it belongs to the consumer!
Yes, I know your comment is 4 years old. But I wanted to make the joke.
There are a lot of gaming industry discussion channels that just piss and moan about companies being money-grubbing bastards, consumer rights be damned. Yours is one of the only channels I know of that dives into these stories deeply enough to actually have something worthwhile to say about them. Thank you for the thoughtful criticism you always bring to the table, George. It's not going unappreciated.
exactly
exactly. in an interview, Gabe himself was asked about the game industry, and he basically said "it sucks". That's it. people love to blindly criticize, but it's just useless whining when you don't have the evidence to back it up. That's why I watch SBH
"Imagine how much less attractive an Elder Scrolls game is going to look if you know there's going to be no mods for it"
I don't even have to imagine. The lack of any content significant mods for Elder Scrolls Online is most of the reason I never had any interest in it.
Bleeters Have you heard that Gta 5 does not allow moding? I know the game is still fun without mods, but still...
It's an online game having significant mods doesn't work.
Nihlus x well, if you're okay with the rubbish car/character/weapon customisation in solo, considering the amount of games that allow much more variety, including...Saints Row, Fallout, Just Cause...it's not that fucking hard to enter a scripted animation on a character bone system. at least it improves over the utter garbage that was GTA4, vanilla self indentification wise. (i never felt close to niko ONCE like i did with CJ, Claude Speed, or The Boss).
GTA5 is empty and frustating on many points, especially as a SOLO experience, which is the CORE of a open world based shooter. why? because the micro and side stories end up being more interresting than the main story line, because only Trevor is worth a watch and because Runtstar needs to favorise it's microtransaction cards bullsh*t on the online mode...oh, i almost forgot north yankon, which i've been able to visit again, for like two days, before a fucking update went on....butthurt much? how about the miserable optimisation problems that were gradually fixed by weekly fixes? how about having a dozen cars LOCKED away from the solo game?
Bleeters Except ESO wasn't even created by Bethesda and any true Elder scroll fans know that ESO should not be put in the same name as the Elder scroll series.
I've never bought a game based on what mods are going to be available for it. When I first saw Skyrim gameplay, I got excited and bought the game. For my PS3. I had a blast. Now, I'm not saying that modding doesn't do everything he said, but I never understood why "vanilla" is almost a derogatory term. If a game sucks, don't buy it.
I think an optional donation system is probably the best way to go.
Garrette This needs more likes
I liked. So I did my part.
What if it becomes a mandatory donation system? example: www.patreon.com/sonicether
Why not do an itch io pay what you want system? Its basically the same as a donation anyway
I love how he literally predicts the creation club.
"I would rather see a rotating selection of premium mods, commissioned by Bethesda themselves, released on a seasonal basis."
Amazing.
When i released the HD Texture pack for Dark Souls, i never would even think about asking the community to pay for it ( or donate ), just hearing peoples happy responses was more than enough for me. I mod because if i can make someone enjoy a game more that i love then i am happy.
I think Black Mesa are a good example of how to do this kind of thing. They have all the permission from Valve and released a free version first.
Oh and they aren't Horse Armour which helps.
IRocaNox Exactly.
Vallorn If I understand correctly, Black Mesa isn't even a mod. It's a game that was built entirely 100% from scratch using the source engine and Half Life 1 as a source, obviously.
IRocaNox hilarious considering console users are willing to pay 60 bucks all over again just so they can play a game at 60fps with slightly better visuals. BM is cheaper, but has significantly more work put into it that you'll never see a in console "remaster".
PARAN0IDxGERBIL Actually they are using their own modification of source engine. Thats even more reasons to justify $.
IRocaNox I don't play graphics, I play games. But if I have the option between "just good game" and "good game with great graphics", I will choose the latter.
The rapture comparaison is very apt
***** why would you be quiet so soon after acquiring my r-apt attention?
im not sorry.
Jovial Giblets I'm not so ture that joke was apt.
Redem10 One could say that rapture is where capitalistic society is headed.
Redem10 Everyone's a socialist... not really working out to well for Europe now is it?
Damian Clark Europe is not socialist
And with Rock star games banning people for using mods in single player, I have a feeling that Rock star saw nothing but dollar signs, and wanted a peace of that pie
Yousef Alamer We don't know if Rockstar did that for the paid modding; but it may be a possibility. To me however, it may had to do with the controversies R* had to deal with in the past, especially the Hot Coffee incident. Hackers already uncovered possible future DLC content and I think that's one of the reasons I think.
Yousef Alamer I think it has more to do with them being unable to distinguish singleplayer from multiplayer, and harmless visual and FOV mods with actual cheaters.
As we've seen now, I don't think anybody is going to try to pull this shit for a while. It'll be back, but hopefully be done more sensibly and not be applied to such an entrenched and passionate community.
Grandpa Scout yes I'm aware of that, but banning people for using mods in single player just to enhance the field of vision is just aobsurd
Yousef Alamer not sure if you've actually been keeping up with the news, but they aren't banning anyone for single player. At least, not intentionally. Today, they clarified that they are supportive of the modding scene so long as it stays away from online.
Drunk Tom oh really? I wasn't aware of that, that's good, let's hope things stay that way
The Majoras mask music playing as things got more and more chaotic and the Bioshock parallel was genius. Nice video.
You are a remarkable journalist.
Marcus Rakentine This is still as true today, as it was three years ago. Easily one of my favourite channels on UA-cam.
That Bioshock bit was nothing short of brilliant.
Well, Super Bunnyhop has successfully reached 100,000 subscribers. Congratulations, George.
He just hit 300K 2 years later
In a strange way I'm glad this happened, but only because it ended the way it did and taught the industry a lesson that hopefully won't be soon forgotton.
I think Bethesda and Valve seriously misunderstood the fundamentals of what makes modding valuable, which I think is that it's all about people that really love a game wanting to put enough work in to make it better or different for *themselves*.
You don't mod a game because you want to be rewarded. You see something that can be improved, or have an idea that's so exciting to you that you will work for hours just to make it happen. When you share it with other people it's just to say "Hey, look what I did. Cool, huh?"
And everyone's (mostly) happy to collaborate and allow derivative work because it's all about sharing this game and exploring its possibilities.
The moment you throw money in like this you break this system. Instead of mods being a "product" for the modder, the focus is on the end users. You get people making mods just because they'll make money, and those who make mods for fun will be expected to provide support and upkeep for their product if they sell it, instead of just receiving appreciation from fellow enthusiasts.
This is why, imo, donations are a much better format for supporting modders. You won't get low-effort "entrepreneurs" because trying to build a business off donations from a fan-base that doesn't exist yet just doesn't work. And those that do give money to modders they believe deserve it know they are doing so without any expectation of reciprocal services.
Modders do some amazing things to games, and I believe they really do deserve to be rewarded - but weirdly that's mostly because they do these amazing things without any real expectation of a 3rd party reward.
The only thing that *really* disgusted me about the payed mod madness was that 45% Bethesda cut. Get the fuck out of here with that when one of the most popular mods for your game is an unofficial patch. You deserve to take fuck all from consumers or modders who just want to fix your shit broken game.
That Bioshock's Rapture analogy has to be one of the most clever and true comparisons I've heard.
I have no problem with modders getting paid for their work.
I do have a problem with paying for mods, however, because of the legal and ethical issues it raises, as well as how it will fracture the modding community.
My biggest problem, though, was with how steam implemented it. It was clear that there was no thought put into it, that there was no testing or preliminary studies, and that they weren't prepared for the clusterfuck that it caused.
The result has been that I have finally lost the last bit of faith in Valve as a distributor. This was allowed to happen, and thus valve cannot be trusted not to do something like this again. They are like a child, blundering around with no idea as to the damage their actions are causing, and yet still expecting you to trust them after they have proven that you cannot.
IVIaskerade The best argument against this type of thing is that modders work together, they use other mods to expand upon their mods to try to make the best mods possible. Once you add money no one is going to want to work together, share, or cooperate with each other.
IVIaskerade
I will probably be extra vigilant of Valve/Steam in the future... because this was an EA-level of greed.
The utter complete lack of understanding of how the modding community works... and what it does for the games, is bewildering. Someone at Steam should get a firm kick to their arse after this botched event.
Yammo Yammamoto Everyone should. In the past half year they made some very anti-consumer decisions. No reselling of items from chests for 3 months (to prevent you from getting the items you want - now you need to buy another chest), the 5 $/€ initial purchase on new accounts to be able to chat/have a profile, the monetized modding shenanigans, and I could continue. Be vigilant!
IVIaskerade It'll happen again, but if anything that Valve has proven with this whole fiasco, it's that they are willing to listen to their community. When they try this again, I think they are going to take far more care with how the system is setup, and I do think it will be better. Will it be good enough? Well, we won't know that until it's debuted.
Damian Clark They aren't, though. They did this despite the backlash over greenlight. They didn't learn their lesson the first time, and there are no second chances when there's no reason not to do it right first time.
This is what Gaming Journalism should look like.
"the market will regulate itself", lol.
Excelent work as always, George.
watching this again after the creation club announcement.
...And here we are again. Goddammit Bethesda, you just couldn't leave well enough alone, could you?!
What I find most interesting about the debacle is that the Valve defense of "Oh it's for those big huge mods" didn't work at all - Skywind, Luftahraan and other big mod developers came out clearly that they wouldn't go with that. I think that says a lot.
JCDentonCZ I understood the argument along the lines of "If talented Modders get the chance to get paid for their Work, they might make Mods in the SCOPE of Skywind" which is actually a reasonable suggestion.
The system Valve&Bethesda put in place was completely retarded though.
Valve should give potential Modders a platform like Greenlight/Kickstarter to present a project and have it funded by donations.
Etherlad
Well, I think it all started with basically deciding for the mod community what they want rather than to actually ask and discuss in open forums of discussion instead of the hush-hush, lawyer-up-front approach. It also shows that they don't understand the mentality of modders, big and small.
I don't think there's anything wrong with the completely free model since the moment money gets involved, it's lawsuit-time across the board as the video referred to. Patreon or donations in general seems like the best approach either way.
Modding is experimental by nature and since in the case of Skyrim it's on a engine with severe limitations (32-bit only, for example) and is easily made unstable and crash-happy, I think even in the case of Patreon it could cause a lot of stress and issues in development. Delays in release would also be harder for fans to swallow when money is involved in it even with that model.
JCDentonCZ Modmakers were contracted to make new or updated versions of their mods for the paid side. They had 2 months to develop/update their mods, so that's why the quality wasn't there.
FinestSeven
Well, it's hard to say. If you look at the imgur compilation of a player going through the mods, many of them truly shouldn't have been THIS low quality, even Shezrie's Bleakden Town - Mind you I love Shezrie's Old Hroldan Town - while large, absolutely should've been far better quality than what was presented.
It seemed like there was no love poured into these mods, no vision, no real goal but to, well, make money it appears.
I can understand that a lot of things would be in the way, but surely, if I joined such a project, my page would have, at least, a huge "THIS MOD IS IN VERY EARLY DEVELOPMENT" and probably set up live-development streams with Twitch like the Luftahraan team does and be as transparent and supportive of my customers (as they paid money) as possible.
JCDentonCZ Not really trying to defend the thing as a whole, but very short dev time is still one of main reasons it failed so badly.
...can we appreciate how kind of awful Valve is sometimes? Or maybe just how out of touch they've become? I want them to go back to making games, they were lovely back then...
old valve is dead. they stop making games year's ago.
They consider themselves technology devs now, not game devs.
How about SteamOS though? Eh...eh??!?
You are a very talented writer. I've been thing through your catalogue of videos since becoming a subscriber (yes, I'm one of those guys that came here after the Konami thing) and I've enjoyed a ton of them. Keep up the good work and you have have just earned a fan. Cheers!
The voice of reason in this world of insanity, ladies and gentlemen
man you wouldn't belive what just happened
I'm cringing now, as I wait for Elderscrolls 6. Will modding be free and open as it always has, or will they slip in some sort of monetization system, just like every other shitty game company out there. I've always praised Bethesda for their fan-centric business practices. Now I'm worried, and that's sad.
kevnar It's not even that hard. Skyrim and Fallout are so easily moddable because of it's filestructure, so inofficial Modmanagers like the Nexus Modmanager make it easy even for amateurs to mod the Game.
If Valve&Bethesda make the Workshop the only legal Modmanager and make "unnoficial Modding" a bannable offense by the EULA, like Rockstar just did with GTAV, they have a stranglehold on the cummunity.
And when the Workshop is the only legal and only consumerfriendly way to mod the next Fallout, they can do whatever the Fuck they want including selling Horsearmor.
Etherlad Or...If you live in a country with consumer friendly laws like Brazil, since you already own Elder Scrolls 6/Fallout 4, you can just download and install a pirated version and use mods with that version. Here in Brazil if you own the product, you can use the pirated version for personal use without any problems. This saved me when AC2 launched, the pirated version was, and i think it still is the better version of that game (to play single player, of course).
kevnar You know what makes me laugh? Everyone thinking that Valve wanted to shut down free modding. Newsflash folks: if they really wanted to do that, then Valve would of just removed their entire FREE Mods section. Or better yet, wouldn't of offered a cut TO THE NEXUS.
Etherlad They don't want to get rid a free modding, as I said, they were offering to share a cut to Nexus with no strings attached to show appreciation and recognition for all they've done.
kevnar This combined with Fallout 4's announcement certainly has me worried too. Mods will be inevitable for this release, and they've said outright the only reason they took it back this time was due to the fact it was an *established* free modding community. What happens when a new game comes out?
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong on this, if the devs have expressed this won't happen.
I have to say that Bethesda taking 45%, more than Valve's 30% (which hosts the service) is particularly greedy. Why did they feel they (a) deserved more than Valve and (b) deserved more than the modders? Why didn't they just take 20% or so and leave 50% to the modders?
I agree that this wouldn't have solved the problem, which I think is mainly about the modding culture, but I do think Valve's intentions were sincere -- they've always been very transparent about their business models of creating in-game economies ('long term greed', as Gaben calls it).
It just works
For modding, 8% on Skyrim sounds like bullshit. Maybe if they weighed every console and legally-obtained PC copy, MAYBE it would be 8%. But I think if you just look at the PC copies, that number should be at least 30-40%.
Seriously? There are people who play Skyrim on PC without mods? Inconceivable!
+Notthedroids Yourelookingfor I only did that for the first hour.
Also according to a friend of mine, in Russia they've had functional console mods for Bethesda games on Xbox for years, yet somehow when Bethesda actually tried themselves they failed horribly. Still no console mods for PS4 either.
Your channel deserves so much more traffic than it gets, seriously you make excellent videos.
Exactly, HOW are you not a much more well known journalist? Your research and attention to detail is extraordinary.
Holy that was incredibly on point! Great job on the journalism, George. Really, that felt like a feature I would watch on a serious news show. Well played.
Excelent journalist outlook into the monetization mod scandal, Whenever I want to listen to an educated, informative opinion about a gaming topic I come to this channel! I appreciate all the effort put into each episide and i hope to see more!Super Bunnyhop
Best video i have seen on the subject, and i have seen a lot. Very well thought out and put together. Thanks!
You layers your videos with so many references that can be joyfully dug through but you do it in such a way that the viewer doesn't need to know the references to enjoy the content.
Not even a week after this there were modders who were complaining that they made their living off modding and that whiny entitled gamers ruined them. I hope they all starved.
Also you'll regret your "I'd rather see a premium charge" when Fallout 4 is released and it turns out it's on an encrypted DRM that demands a monthly subscription in order to download any mods on it.
FartMaster69 than piracy will save industry once again like it was many times before.
FartMaster69 If corporations have enough of something, it is ways to suck money out of our wallets.
I expect some sort of primitive (paid) modding initiative on consoles to make us all swallow their greedy semen.
robert nomok Only way to save this industry is killing it.
...Makes me feel like a JRPG villain.
TrueKaras funny thing, villians in jrpg have more character and motive than in wrpg.
Pillars of eternity is another proof. Thaos is just deus ex machina with Only way to save this world is almost killing it. Villians in porn have more character than in obsidian, bethesda and bioware games.
I love how you put all 3 days of the Clock Town music to the belonging days - That's a type of detail I just love to see (and hear) - You're becoming one of my favorite UA-camrs! (and that's not just because of the massive Metal Gear fandom I share with you)
Keep it up!
After following UA-camrs like Total Biscuit and your channel for quite some time i have to say that your videos are the best fleshed-out coverages and the most interesting to watch.
Your video editing has reached, and is the best I have seen from these types of gaming news shows. Subtle
God damn George. I am so happy I found this channel a few months ago. My highest respect!
You, my good sir, have earned a subscriber. The way you put this was fantastic and filled a lot of holes 8chan left
That split is probably the thing that bothered me most.
Another excellent video George, your analysis is top notch as always, covered every issue I had with this debacle. Keep up the good work sir
Wow, one of the best write ups I've ever seen on this channel. And this is a notoriously excellent channel. Especially those bits around 6:30. Hell to the yes for standing up for the little man George.
The real question is why not just let modders set up a "Support" button on their mod pages which lets you donate to a paypal or something? Patreon is great, but it'd probably be used even more if the button was part of steam itself...
Unggh feels so good to see some of the points I struggled to get across during a weekend of increasingly furious and drunk forum posts expressed logically and eloquently.
Love the timeline treatment too, really emphasizes just how fast the whole situation moved.
Great video, thanks for the work you put in! This has to be one of my favorite channels on UA-cam. On another note, only 8% of player used mods in Skyrim? That seems really low, I wonder how they actually came up with that percentage.
Love the Majoras mask reference.
Great video as always George. I found myself unusually impressed by your editing this time around.
Perfect. When the monetization program began, I wrote a half-assed, still very unfinished 5 page article about my immediate concerns about the practical problems I was expecting would completely screw up the system, but it quickly became obsolete when the program was cancelled anyways and because I didn't really bother finishing it.
I'm glad to see that pretty much every major point I would've made is present here, though. With how much frustration I initially experienced over how seemingly obliviously Valve opened the floodgates for all these problems, this was truly joyous to watch.
That is what I like about you George, you do your research, and I do not mean "one side" research that just try to discredit the "other side", you do a full research out of the situation you want to talk. You are my favorite video game journalist out there, keep going.
This was an fantastic analysis why this was a disaster from start to finish, thank you Bunnyhop for the great video!
I enjoy your vids really much.
hearing you tear apart this controversy with so much vitriol is incredible. amazing vid.
This is your best video in months. It just hit me like a ton of bricks that I like your investigative reporting videos a ton of a lot more than your reviews.
I still come, occasionally, to this video just to hear/see the part at 10:34 .. what a PERFECT way to summarize an entire talkin point.
No wonder I lost interest very soon for Skyrim, I played it on console which doesn't have mods. Skyrim is a very medicore game with interesting world.
SuperArppis You summed it up very well. And I think with each iteration the formula gets more and more stale without its mods.
SWIFTzTrigger
Yeah sadly enough. I wish they wouldn't rely on the mods so much.
SuperArppis Yeah, you don't play Bethesda-Games on console if you can help it. I sunk like 1000 Hours into Skyrim and i think i played the shitty Vanilla Storyline like, once. 286 Mods and going.
Etherlad
Aye...
I think Fallout New Vegas is worth without mods because the writing in New Vegas holds it up and that is what Skyrim and Fallout 3 lack for me so i play those two on PC only
Nice video. Among other ones you've made. You just earned yourself another subscriber!
Keep up these excellent editorials please :3
Such a great video man, you nailed the point and this is definitely the best video about this that I've seen.
What an awesome video! Very well done as always!
Your videos have been so on point, subscribed.
What a grim vision for Elder scrolls 6
bro once i start working best believe part of my money is going to your patreon ffs, your content is top notch, wtf even the most boring titles of videos end up being ridiculously interesting and entertaining, and i just fucking love your reviews, you're a god bro, not exaggerating.
when I first heard of the paid mods I got this bad feeling I stayed as far away from it as I could and I am glad those days are done.
That ending with bioshock scenes was reallygood, it highlights the message of the game giving it grounding to the reality, well done sir.
GREED, its the greed. I have no problem paying the modder hell i even donated more times i can remember on Nexus. BUT the GREED of Valve and Bethesda was a slap to the face of a such a sacred tradition.
This channel has always been very good but now it's getting even better!
Seriously, if I was Gaben I'd hire you George. Bravo.
finally, a games journalist who feels like a normal person instead of the cynical, out of touch majority. Most journos talk about buying season passes and games and consoles like its nothing. do they even remember what its like to not be able to afford more than 4 or 5 games a year? very few i seen showed anywhere near enough outrage at the split for modders. simply another way for publishers to fuck us and restrict content unless we pay them...again. this system was greed personified, trickle down economics in its rawest form. Long may it lie, dead in its ashes
The complete mismanagement makes me sad. There are a lot of mods out there that have a good deal of work put into them, and the Black Mesa total overhaul of Half Life is on early access which I am fine with but... well, Valve used the same approach they did with Early Access and Greenlight, and this went in exactly the same way except the mod situation was far more explosive. As you said, it turned a bunch of little mods into nickel-and-dime micro-transactions and ramped up greed and exploitation exponentially.
Self-regulating markets cannot be trusted to work. There must be some kind of regulation in place to prevent that kind of outright exploitation, plagiarism and copyright infringement. And Valve just doesn't seem willing or able to do it.
Bruno Gonzaga
I suppose that is true, but there were also a rash of worthless and badly done mods you paid for.
And yes there were "joke" mods too, but if in an attempt to be satirical you're just straight-up being the thing you are making fun of then it's hard to see the merit in what they're trying to do.
Bruno Gonzaga You are spot on Bruno, even if their intent was to help modders, it ended up being a curse on both the conumser AND MOD makers.
Damn, that was a good summary/critique on that entire fiasco. Good work.
As a man who had 300 mods in Skyrim back before I uninstalled it, I would have had to put a fortune out for even half those.
Also paid modding being removed is a pyrrhic victory to say the least. The community is fractured, with both camps filled with rage and hatred of the other camps and the modders who were foolish enough to take this deal in the first place being left high and dry to deal with their now tattered reputations and lowered standing in the community. Valve and Bethesda essentially set the house on fire, said they were going to have a BBQ and they were going to charge, then when everyone screamed at them for setting the house on fire instead of immediately pulling out their wallets they acted surprised that people were angry at them for setting the fucking house on fire.
Got here through TB. Great video, liked and subbed :)
As always a great investigation job with a very entertaining narration of it. This has become mi favorite gaming chanel for a time now
Now I want to see a Critical Closeup of Majoras Mask, that'd be pretty cool.
Thanks for the fantastic informative video, have always loved your style of discussion.
That 1st day transition was awesome
Two years later, here we are again.
Having played a modless version of Skyrim on the Xbox360 and having an ultra-modded version Skyrim on my PC that I'm still playing to this day, I get what you mean.
On the console version I beat the main quest, every side quest, and pretty much maxed out the game's content. I enjoyed what I played but I ran out of things to do. A year later after getting a better PC and buying Skyrim during a Black-Friday sale, I played through the game again. It was not only better, it felt like a completely different game. Between looking 10x better, being far better polished, and the mod companion Inigo that would still be saying new lines I've never heard before 300 hours into the playthrough, all the same vanilla content didn't feel like something I had already done before. Atop of all that, there were countless more hours of quest mods to play through like Falskaar, Wrymstooth, Moon and Star, Agent of Righteous Might, Wheels of Lull, Rigmor, and Gray Cowl of Nocturnal (just to name a few). The console version, which I had actually liked before, was comparatively the lamest thing I had ever experienced. Sure I played modded Morrowind before but this was totally different.
Paid mods are a bad idea to begin with simply due to mod incompatibility. Mod update ruin compatibility with another mod you paid for? Unless you can beg the modder to fix it, which there could be potentially dozens of mods they'd have issues with, you're out of luck.
I'd rather not replace mods with broken, glitchy and often times incompatible microtransactions.
You wanted Creation Club and it was almost as bad.
Thanks for the heads up. I only got a glmipse of that topic before.
This was a great video. I appreciate majora's mask reference. Also I really gotta finish the original bioshock. I tip my hat to you, good sir.
The format of this video alone has made watching it a complete joy, with both the Bioshock and Majora´s Mask references. It really shows that you can´t just budge into an already established marketplace, change the rules of the game and throw curation out of the window.
Sometimes, I feel like Valve thinks we are dealing with a perfect competition sort of market, when, in reality, it could be far from that. Supply and Demand of mods depends solely on the fanbase´s acceptance about using them, which is often quite high for how these player-additions sometimes change the overall nature of the product itself (Take DayZ, for instance) . As you have pointed out, games like CS:GO and DOTA 2, as well as TF2 and some others, have handled this situation with far better results. But the fact of the matter is, Valve is curating this content, for better or for worse, at least they take the responsability of regulating a market that just can´t stand on its own two feet.
This whole debacle brings an important lesson: In a perfect world, with no malice of heart and no problems between people, this system would have worked like a dream. However, we do not live in that world. Stolen content is a reality. Real World economics are a reality. Backlashing is a reality.
They will try pulling this shit again someday... I hope for their sake that A: They do it in a NEW market to properly test the waters and B: Have some bloody curation on their part, because what they have done is like sending the Titanic to Greenland without a fraking captain on board... bloody disgraceful.
God damn George, this is true journalism right here. Absolutely fantastic.
Fantastic piece. Love your videos.
Great work as ever, George!
And, 2 years later...
Mod Monetization Madness 2 Electric Boogaloo when?!
it's interesting, you're giving a great review on a social experiment. feels like i am reading the review of a vault after it's died out, in a Fallout game.
nice use of Zelda music, some of my favorite tracks for the exact reason you used them...
Awesome video man, that rapture comparation is the best!!!!
I've already watched hours of content about this whole paid mods debacle, and yet in 15 minutes you cover everything and do it better than everyone else. Once again, you've really hit it out of the park, George. Please never stop being the best.
I sure do wish we could bring back killing a scammers market in a single weekend
2:46 I got into one of my favorite youtuber's videos
Oh if only you knew of the microtransactions to come in the future
Thank you, you have made the best argument from the consumer's perspective. So glad I decided to stick around and kept the sub to your channel!
Great work George, as always.
You are my favourite youtuber, keep up the good work.
Probably the best video on this topic I've seen. We love paid community modding in TF2, Dota and CS:GO. Yours is the first video that even mentions this fact. And TF2 community modding even has gameplay changes! (it didn't at first, but has for years, something your video got wrong).