• @paultimate14
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    -523 hours ago

    I still don’t understand why people have so much hate for Bethesda for… Paying independent creators to make better mods for their games and charging for those mods.

    I can understand criticizing the execution: the quality and price of each mod, the grey legal area where these weren’t included in Season Passes that were supposed to include all DLC, etc. And I certainly wouldn’t call the results a success.

    But nothing about it ever seemed particularly greedy or “unfair” to me. It solved a lot of problems that the modding community has. It protected the creators from having. Their content stolen and re-used or re-distributed. Mods (especially for-profit) were always kind of a grey area legally because… It’s Bethesda’s platform and IP. Bethesda may not be as great with modders as other companies, but they’re a lot better than the worst offenders like Nintendo. The Creation Club has better quality control. And it’s better for the end users- easier to install, usable on consoles, no need to go to sketchy 3rd party websites or mess with the installation. I know people complain on the Internet anytime Bethesda updates one of their games because it breaks their mods- I could be wrong but I’ve never heard of that happening with CC mods.

    Seems to me like most of the hate for CC comes from people just wanting more content without paying for it.

    • warm
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      1123 hours ago

      Creation Club goes against modding values, which is why people hate it. It’s Bethesda’s attempt at profiting from ‘mods’, they don’t actually give a shit about modders being paid. But honestly, CC shouldn’t even be compared to mods, it’s content Bethesda contracted people for and then they sell it on CC and keep the money.

      Nobody is asking for free content from modders, most create mods out of passion and the players enjoy that, they can always open donation links that people can use (I have donated to many mod creators in the past, have you?). The best mods are created this way and without the player freedom, the quality of content would be a lot worse overall or simply not exist.

      • @paultimate14
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        -1422 hours ago

        What the fuck are “modding values”? Women with ridiculous anime proportions and almost non-existent armor? Adding Shrek and Thomas the Tank to Skyrim? Gatekeeping mods to a small community of individuals who play on PC and have the technical skills to do that? Slaving away while the rent and bills like up out of some sense of obligation to a community? Hoping people donate? Putting all the time and effort into creating something and taking on all of the risk? Being. Subject to the whims of Bethesda’s management and hoping management doesn’t change their tune to be more like Nintendo?

        How can you calin that Bethesda doesn’t give a shit about modders getting paid, when they pioneered the first real legitimate attempt at paying modders? That’s some serious cognitive dissonance. And perhaps the most important piece of the equation is the financial security it provides. The Creation Club paying modders up-front greatly mitigates the business risks of investing that much time and effort. It is not the best fit for everyone, but that allows a lot of mods to be made that never would have been possible otherwise. And it doesn’t remove any of the mods that already existed or prevent anyone from making free non-CC mods.

        As for donations to modders- those companies like Patreon are taking their own cut as well. And that’s a legal grey area because modders are profitting off of Bethesda’s platform. Then you have the issue where Bethesda updates their game and provides an improvement for literally millions of people while a couple hundred PC players flame them on Twitter for breaking the mod they paid or donated for.

        Personally, I’ve never donated or paid for any mods because I don’t use them. I’ve messed around with mods and the vast, vast majority of them suck. They feel completely out of place and ruin the vibe of the game. It’s not worth all of the hassle of installing a mod manager and working through all of the issues just to add memes to the game. The ones that add more quest lines are usually just way worse versions of the radiant quests that already exist. Maybe if I had a more powerful computer back in like 2012 or 2013 then graphics mods might have made sense, but with the updates in the Special and Anniversary editions there’s not much point. If I wanted to go back to Fallout 3 then maybe there’s an argument there, but I’m not really interested in going back there in general.

        The “best” mods can be created In a variety of ways. I’d argue that the Hearthfire, Dawngard, and Dragonborn DLC’s are better than any free mod I’ve ever seen. The vast, vast majority of free mods are shitposts or school projects that no one cares about.

        • @ChicoSuave
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          20 hours ago

          Mods have always been free, a labor of love from the community for the community. Fuck paying for mods. I don’t give a fuck if the modders get paid - they mod because they love the game and want to participate in their own way. Modding has ALWAYS been this way and requiring a financial transaction to be a part of the community is scummy. Whatever your beliefs are, they belong only to you and Todd.

          • @misterdoctor
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            421 hours ago

            Feels like this guy overheard a conversation about what mods are at a crowded buffalo wild wings in cleveland eight years ago and never researched the topic further, assuming they know everything they could possibly need to know

            • warm
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              219 hours ago

              Mentions lack of mods on consoles in both posts, maybe a console player a bit angry their platform is locked down? Either way, yep, they clearly don’t participate in the mod space much, so should probably spare their opinion on the matter.