With this new Fallout 4 achievement mod controversy, will modding slow down do you think? It seems that Bethesda has been attempting to establish a modding monopoly, first with paid mods for Skyrim last year, and now with Bethesda.net. I'm not sure why this decision was made but it certainly is not very user friendly.

personally i doubt it will slow modding. as was just said, im pretty sure theres a mod that fixes that achievement bullcrap. the tighter bethesda tries to grip the mod community, the more the modders will flock to places such as this, LL, and the nexus. i figure that beth will learn this eventually and loosen up a bit.

i dont think it will have any effect really, i have yet to meet a person who cares about achievements. And Bethesda.net is so that they can add mods to consoles, the nexus is still the main hub.

Yeah I see whay you guys are getting at. I think "slowing down" was the wrong term to use, but it is a real shame to see a company that was built upon the great modding communities it gives way turn its back in favor of monopolising modding.

2pacDre wrote:

Yeah I see whay you guys are getting at. I think "slowing down" was the wrong term to use, but it is a real shame to see a company that was built upon the great modding communities it gives way turn its back in favor of monopolising modding.

Hey man they tried paid mods ..... so there capabilities are beyond comprehension

I'm sure most makers will still upload to Nexus, but the mod menu in-game could be good with some tweaks.
Yeah and about achievements, there is a mod that enables them to work with mods

The purpose of bethesda.net is to expand modding community into consoles. By this expansion, it could potentially expand their popularity. Therefore, I doubt they are try to restrict mods especially when mods are what made them.

I think it's obvious Fallout 4 has suffered, at least on PC. The game itself and DLC already feel pretty shallow compared to older ones, and I think the attempt to control the Fallout 4 modding scene, along with the recent unpopular changes they've made to the game, has just turned a lot of players off to the game all together. It's surprising how much numbers have gone down on steam, especially when you compare the current numbers to that of skyrim's.

Bethesda are setting themselves up pretty perfectly to implement a paid modding system on consoles though. They want to build a consumer base, be the primary hub for modding, and reap the benefits. Console players will love it cause mods, but I personally hope authors won't start using money as their main motivation and flock to beth.net, leaving nexus in the dust. Money talks though. I think it will split the community though, and if beth.net became the main place for mods, hurt the game on PC even more.

I think you hit the nail on the head Gabet. It was very nice to see that the community stood up as one to decry the implementation of paid Skyrim mods. It was especially disgusting when you remember the stipulation for payment of mods was that Valve/Bethesda would recieve 75% of the amount paid to the author.

However money does talk, and creating a paid model for console mods makes sense greatly. Being the first to implement this ensures that you set the precedent for future companies to follow. Hopefully they dont, but the past does not bode well.

Yeah, I personally thought the amount they got was too high. I understand beth want a piece because they feel legally entitled to it since their game is literally the foundation for the whole scene. It just feels like they wanted too much, which to me conveyed that they undervalue mod authors and what they do for their games.

The model makes perfect sense though. You give a dog his favorite treat, that he's always had, with a new pill/medication it. He'll probably spit it out and refuse. Give another dog whose never had that treat the same thing, and they'll more than likely eat it up. Not directly calling players dogs lol; just an analogy. Only time will tell how their initiative will affect the modding as a whole though.

For me personally, I don't care about achievements and honestly I'm sure not many people do. So, I'm guessing the achievement thing won't be much of an issue. In fact like @FoVet20 said there probably will be a mod that eventually disables that. Modders are some of the smartest people I know. Wherever there is a gimmick in a game such as Fallout or the Elder Scrolls series, modders always manage to find a way to disable it.

Now with that said, I am worried that Bethesda is getting out of line. I talked about this briefly on my own post when I was having trouble with mods because they kept disabling when I tried to play the game (Don't worry the latest NMM fixed the problem.), but yeah I said that Bethesda looked like they were trying to restrict the usage of mods.

It's really sad too because they're games are almost the king of mods and now they're trying they're best to prevent mods unless it's under they're conditions. In fact I'm afraid they might try to bring back paid mods. And if that happens alot of modders will see this as an easy way to make money rather than just doing it because they love to mod.

I know I'm really gonna be in the minority here, but I would compare this to youtube. Originally youtube was meant as a place for people just to share videos. People did it because they wanted to show of a funny moment in their lives or show of how creative they were. Now? "Oh, I need the likes, man. I quit my job and this is my primary income". No one does it for the fun of it anymore, and I'm afraid modding may fall into a similar state if this keeps up.

Heck if I knew how to port or create models or just mod in general I would do it entirely for free. Why? Because I love it. I feel Bethesda is shooting themselves in the foot here. I'll admit I like Fallout 4 and I think it's alot of fun. However it is lacking in content and eventually things in the games become repetitive and slow down. Modding is the only thing keeping people coming back for more and if things change or it becomes fuel by greed, then Fallout 4 may end up as a dead game.

Well said ThompsonBoss. The overall quality of "mass market" mods begins to drop, just like with YT videos, as people simply flock to make the next "72 kill montage on BLOPS3 -WORLD RECORD". Meanwhile the quality producer of mods whom take time to create awesome content are pushed aside. It was always great to see AAA quality made mods simply handed out for free, just because the creators loved the community.

Will it slow down modding? No, Bethesda will take the steps to make sure all information is available for modders at their wiki. Not to mention all the modders that will start to post tutorials on Bethesda.net.

What will we see? Bethesda slowly strangling the nexus financially. The nexus makes enough money to employ full time staff for the mod manager, and for the one running it to take off to countries for vacation when time permits. After all operational cost, staff cost they are pulling in about 500k+ USD plus each year mind you that is after everything is paid for including staff. This is just done with mass add revenue, and those that get a premium nexus account.

When I say there are millions if not billions of untapped revenue potential in the modding community you do not have to believe me. But let me tell you this off of .25 micro transactions in other games studios make more money off of those than they do selling their AAA games. Bethesda knows this, their share holders know this, their CEO knows this. Thus we had the little experiment on Valves Steam to see what would happen, do you know how many hundreds of thousands of dollars got generated in that short time span? Even with the modding community holding torches and pichforks... I agree if a modder wishes to make money they should be allowed to as long as its their work or those involved all get paid and they all agree upon it. What I do not agree with is they got such a small percentage, their work was no longer theirs, Bethesda didn't provide in house importing/exporting tools and did not offer legal protection since they were claiming the work like it was done in house.
If Bethesda gives a modder say 30-40% we know a modder will not get 60-70% that's just not how things work, but to get it to kick off they will have to give a modder 30-40% for the system to be better received. Even during the little steam experiment modders where exited to see thousands of dollars coming their way in just mere days. Imagine upping that % how many will be swayed. Then the argument of donations comes up, hate to break it to you most do not see donations for their work. I have been modding since the 90's to present day shorty after the whole mod experiment I saw my first donation on the nexus ever. Most people do not donate, they feel they deserve to get things for free because that is the mentality that has been put out for so long. But most do not think about the hundred of thousands and into the millions those running the nexus are making off of the backs of talented people that never have seen a penny.

You have to remember a modder even though many do it for fun. Some fall down dire straights that's life. What if they are desperate to put some food on the table? Keep the lights on? Keep the water on? Or have seen say those that run the nexus living the good life, going on vacations, owning nice things all on the backs of others as they have received zero percent of the rewards? They want that dream pc? They want to better their life? They could use the extra money? Being paid for their work and they do it well is starting to look better and better.

So I see Bethesda cutting out the nexus fully, its their game and property after all. I see them working with the guys who do the script extender, as seen on steam the beta for that is already happening. Then they make a platform where they control the modding community but how so? Already Happening though Bethesda.net. They will eventually pull the rights for the nexus to house Bethesda game mods. So we will see the financial strain happen, other companies will follow Bethesda's example. The nexus will cease to exist since they refused to play ball when Valve then Bethesda came to them with an offer to buy them out. Didn't happen, ok do not play ball you will get shut down. Sites like GUNetwork will become more popular. So over time expect more people to show up. Some time will go buy paid mods will open back up but this time on Bethesda.net with the click of a button. It will not matter how many negative reviews are given, how much hate mail they are spammed with. They will see an influx of $$$ and it will all be cross platform.

Bethesda taking over the mod scene at least for TES games is coming, Paid mods again will follow, the nexus will be strangled financially over time and eventually get a stop and desist letter. Once Bethesda is successful expect a ton of other publishers to follow their example.

Gonna be some dark times ..... @donta1979

Unfortunately, we live in the world where almost everything is for sale, people will pay for it, would often fix errors with Vanilla game for which they pay a considerable money. Would understand even if these mods were paid and income flow into wallets creators of the mods, not eager for profit corporation, which is Bethesda. But such is life, unfortunately ...

gabet347 wrote:

I think it's obvious Fallout 4 has suffered, at least on PC. The game itself and DLC already feel pretty shallow compared to older ones, and I think the attempt to control the Fallout 4 modding scene, along with the recent unpopular changes they've made to the game, has just turned a lot of players off to the game all together. It's surprising how much numbers have gone down on steam, especially when you compare the current numbers to that of skyrim's.

Bethesda are setting themselves up pretty perfectly to implement a paid modding system on consoles though. They want to build a consumer base, be the primary hub for modding, and reap the benefits. Console players will love it cause mods, but I personally hope authors won't start using money as their main motivation and flock to beth.net, leaving nexus in the dust. Money talks though. I think it will split the community though, and if beth.net became the main place for mods, hurt the game on PC even more.

I don't think that that would be very popular i mean when they tried it with skyrim mods on the workshop some modders wanter money however alot did not and some people boycotted said modders content for a while i think it would be a similar scenario with very few mods getting uploaded to bethesda.net and instead being uploaded elsewhere

Err, I'll reserve judgement on conspiracy theories (you seem to love them!), but about the donations part: dunno about you, but I actually received a lot more than I expected. As in, a lot.

dazzerfong wrote:

Err, I'll reserve judgement on conspiracy theories (you seem to love them!), but about the donations part: dunno about you, but I actually received a lot more than I expected. As in, a lot.

Haha. But you get to keep everything that you get from donations, whereas the point I was trying to get (I admit my question was worded very badly) was that should Bethesda have their way, they get to profit off of your hard work, despite the fact that you spent the time to make the mods. I just dont want Bethesda.net to become the new Skyrim Paid Mods.

dazzerfong wrote:

Err, I'll reserve judgement on conspiracy theories (you seem to love them!), but about the donations part: dunno about you, but I actually received a lot more than I expected. As in, a lot.

come on conspiracy theories are fun and you have to see it is a possibility that they will wall some mods off behind a paywall given recent history