Some players' reactions to the paywall have been unfavorable; they think that charging for mods is unethical and goes against the spirit of community modification

Everyone needs to make bread. Someone asking for money from their mod or map or whatever isn’t against any spirit. It’s just a human being asking to make bread. Now some don’t agree with the price tag and that’s fine.

But we all need to recognize humans asking for some dough for their hard work is in the spirit of existing. Some folk do it for free just for the feelings and we love ‘em for it. But those asking for some cash are no different.

This world is already full of dog eat dog. Let’s not hate on someone just trying to get through it. You don’t have to pay the ask, but let’s not go making enemies just cause we don’t agree on that number on the price tag.

[–] Mini_Moonpie@startrek.website 35 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I am not disagreeing with the premise that it's fair for someone to be paid for their work. However, during the Skyrim paid mod controversy (on Steam), I learned that there a lot of situations where having paid mods did hurt the modding community and created ethical concerns.

Mods were being stolen and sold by people that were not the actual mod authors.
Mods were being sold that depended on larger, more complicated mods to function, but the payment was not shared with the larger mod.
Mods that had multiple contributors were being sold by an individual who was not sharing the money with the other contributors.
Players were concerned about being asked to pay for bug fix mods when the developer should be fixing their own game. This is of course, was not the modders fault and does not mean their bug fix mod wasn't valuable or deserving of pay, but many felt the developer should pay for it, not users.

I would also point out that it wasn't just greedy players that complained about paid mods - a lot of modders thought it went against the spirit of modding because of how it harmed collaboration in the community. Suddenly, they couldn't trust that others would not steal their work or profit from it unfairly. And, that seems like a reasonable take to me, given all the abuses that modders claimed happened in the short time that paid modding was a thing for Skyrim on Steam.

[–] mojo@lemm.ee 20 points 1 year ago (3 children)

You don't go into modding for the money. It's like making a non profit for the money. That's why they're getting backlash, they're asking money where money's not supposed to be involved.

[–] Lols@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

it's like theyre making a non profit for the money, except the without the making a non profit part

[–] ShittyRedditWasBetter@lemmy.world -4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

This is such a shitty attitude 🤣

God forbid we pay for a fucking cup of coffee because that person should want to work for free. This is the same bullshit as "work hard play hard" and "we are family here". Might as well start telling modders it's not about the pay, it's the people and experience we're paying you in. Rent what's that?

You are all on a lemmy instance after 2 months of non stop bitching about non paid reddit moderators. Make up your damn mind.

[–] mojo@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yes, again you don't mod for the money. If you're looking for that, you can create your own software. Other people in this thread made other good points, and this guy was trying to make a dlss mod subscription based, so fuck that guy. It's literally better if the mod doesn't exist in that case. Like I said with my analogy, it's like trying to create a non-profit for the profit. There's a million other avenues available to them if they want money. Especially because they are basing their work off of other's work whom are not getting paid, yet they are?

Also idk what you're talking about with the mod stuff but I do think it's dumb internet janitors do work for free lol, and they do it for power. I don't think they should be paid either.

[–] FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Remember, the patreon sub is $5/MONTH. This means if you buy 1 month at $5 to download the mod, and the author "conveniently" comes out with an update one month later, you need to subscibe for another $5. So basically it's a fucking subscription for a god damn dlss 3 mod. You know the author is milking this bullshit to keep subscibers and keep his income flowing. Marty mcfly does the same fucking dogshit with his stupid ass RTGI reshade shaders. Fuck that shit. Those people can go get fucked.

If you want to charge $5 or $10 for your time spent making the mod, fine, whatever. But if you are trying to make it a subscription model then I have ZERO sympathy for you.

[–] wahming@monyet.cc -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ultimately, the guy is being upfront with his pricing and what he's asking for. What's the reason to hate on him? Either it's worth it at that price or it's not.

[–] FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org -3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

So you're invalidating the feeling of being upset when something that used to be free (modding games) is no longer free. Modding has always been a free hobby that was run by good-willed pc gamers. Now monetization is fragmenting and ruining the modding experience.

You're also justifying paying a subsciption on top of a fucking $70 game. Do you rip up a $5 bill every time you take a shit? Try it out. You may enjoy it.

[–] wahming@monyet.cc 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

No, I'd just choose not to use it and move on. Or if I'm broke and really wanted it, sure, pirate it. Not act like an entitled brat and whine and moan and it

[–] FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org -4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You must be one of those whales that buys $4k worth of micro transactions. You do you man.

[–] Lols@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

they cant invalidate the feeling of being upset when something that used to be free (modding games) is no longer free

modding games is still free, so your feeling of being upset wasnt valid in the first place

[–] UlrikHD@programming.dev 7 points 1 year ago

The game has just launched and the mod had been released and cracked already. This isn't about making bread, it's clearly a trivial hack for him to do, not something that requires full time job maintenence.

People spend hundreds of hours modding free of charge, what he does is a joke in comparison if we are talking about lost time that could have been spent earning money. The groundwork was made by Bethesda, AMD and Nvidia.

[–] avonarret1@programming.dev 6 points 1 year ago

The reason why he charges does not matter at all. Anyone wanting a service for free is not in the position to demand anything. Would it be nice to get stuff for free? Sure! But demanding free service and badmouthing if you don't get it? Fuck off.

[+] Puzzle_Sluts_4Ever@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

[removed by mod]

[–] CaptainEffort@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Wtf are you talking about, Skyrim has dozens of amazing quest mods, and hundreds of quest mods overall.

It has major gameplay overhauls, it has custom skeletons for animation, it literally has mods that rework the animation system entirely. Modders added a survival system almost a full decade before Bethesda did.

There are mods that add new continents ffs, what’re you talking about? One of the quest mods was so good it literally got turned into its own game.

Edit: There are currently 60k mods for Skyrim Special Edition, and about 70k for the original Skyrim. Meanwhile Morrowind has 11k. Wtf are you talking about??