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UPDATE: Valve shuts down Paid Modding

Dark Drakan

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PC Gamers were left stunned yesterday as Steam announced that creators can now charge for modifications to pre-existing games on its Steam Workshop. Even having this option has caused uproar in the PC gaming community and made gamers wonder just what sort of effect it will have on the mod scene on PC.


Ironically I purchased the Skyrim Legendary Edition last night as it was on sale for just over £6 (my PC isnt even finished yet). Looking forward to seeing what the mod teams have done over the years as there are some great ones out there but seems lots might start to charge for them now and stop updating them on Nexus.

SOURCE
 

Gikoku

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Beat me when I was in the middle of posting this, but that's alright. I'm mad as hell and disappointed at Beth & Valve for doing this, they went full retard and it's wrong on so many levels, but there's A LOT of details missing about this situation here.

For clarification, it's Bethesda Softworks (publishing wing) involved in this, not Bethesda Game Studios (Todd Howard's team, but communities are crucifying them by company association anyway) as is usually the case.

Mods can now be paywalled and monetized on the Steam Workshop and Bethesda Softworks & Valve now get a cut of those mod profits... a very large cut. The profit split entitles Bethesda & Valve to 75% and the modder to only 25%. With that deal in place, if the mod revenue FAILS to reach $100 a month, all profits gained goes straight to Beth & Valve entirely, and the modder will then get nothing. Not a dollar, not a penny, nothing.

Several top modders have agreed and admitted publicly to doing this deal in private with Bethesda & Valve after Valve contacted them. They sold themselves out for pennies and in return only damaged/destroyed their reputation among the modding communities. Isoku is the standout for going head-on into this above the other guys (Arthmoor, Chesko, etc) and has now become an outcast with his reputation crucified on Youtube, Steam, Nexus, and Reddit. He went from being one of the most well-respected modders, to the posterboy of a corporate sellout and how not to be a modder. He's selling his immersion mod that makes NPCs wet and cold for $5, he also had a large team of users and modders help him with the mods, and they won't be seeing a dime.

He's getting eaten alive... :/
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/comments/429374670

But that's just for Skyrim... Valve has already confirmed that they plan to do this with many more games on Steam that support modding with their respective publishers/developers.

A chunk of modders from the Skyrim Nexus community have already left and locked their mod updates and even some of their mods entirely behind a paywall on Steam (yeah... didn't take long for people to start turning into EA/Activision, surprise). You thought Oblivion's Horse Armor was bad? Modders are already charging $2-3 a piece for armor & sword RE-TEXTURES. You can get Skyrim for $5 right now. Oh and by the way, if you purchased a mod and didn't like it, but failed to request your refund within 24hrs, you are then no longer entitled to a refund. This also blocks out taking mods for a test drive to see if you like it for free, something that has been absolutely crucial to the Bethesda modding community due to how their games work.

But hey, that's okay, because this has now encouraged modding piracy... People have already purchased these paywalled mods and uploaded them elsewhere for free, and got their 24hr refunds. Day-1 and they already broke and exploited the system, way to go Valve.

The users of the Workshop have exploded on the mod pages and in the forums attacking the modders etc., with Steam staff deleting posts and banning folks (naturally for those resorting to the most disgusting of attacks/insults). Valve is doing all they can to damage control the situation, but the damage has already been done and they ****ed up big time...

Vlu4wvi.gif

Screw Valve and screw Bethesda Softworks. I now fear for Fallout 4, future PC games, and the modding community as a whole if this succeeds. I've been a member of the Nexus for years (different username) and did a lot of testing for mods and even partnered with a fellow modder to help create one, but I would never support something like this. Go for optional donations, not forced paywalling.
 

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Man, things must be pretty tough over at Valve HQ. I bet they've had to start wiping their asses with $20 bills instead of $50. That's the only reasonable explanation for why they've suddenly decided to sh*t all over an entire community of PC gamers. Round of applause for Valve everyone...


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Dark Drakan

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Valve just seem happy to make cash with little effort wherever they can these days. They haven't developed their own in house stand alone product since around 2011 (Portal 2) and have relied on heavily monetised games in partner with other studios since then (Dota 2, Counter Strike GO). Incorporating more and more microtransactions and pushing Steam onto developers for distribution too. Some good views on this "issue" in the following videos...



 

Zarkes

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EDIT: Just curious, how many of you all of a sudden are in favor of more ethics :troll:


Modding is the only reason I want a Pc. Everyone always said good about Valve, to the point of worshiping Gabe, but I always new someone cornering a market is bad news. The only reason Microsoft tried this stuff is because they saw how well it worked in Pc's. I've never done business with them but Valve sucks. So many companies put money into steam machines and they don't even release the functionality these things were optimized for. There are dozens of consoles now that are useless to everyone, all for nothing. I'm glad people are having none of it, hopefully if they have to they will burn it to the ground.

A donation system would have been much better. If you want to support the work people are doing and want to see more have in place a way to donate. I don't know why any reputable modder would go for this especially with 75% not even going to them. If I was an experienced modder with great mods under my belt I'd start a kickstarter or patreon and have people fund my projects. How do these people not realize they can do that?

Mods are the only reason to ascend honestly and now Valve doesn't have a console and they don't have a reason for people to sign up they are screwing themselves.

This is exactly what I said when the One was released I want to own my games Valve is destroying everything.
 
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Gikoku

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And it's only getting worse. One of the biggest fears which involves licensing infringement has already happened with the first paid-mod thanks to Valve's 30-day NDA, Chesko's now being branded a thief by news sites. His mods are removed now.

He made an open apology to the community, but the damage has already been done and for now, he's quit modding indefinitely. He attempted a full mass refund for everyone that paid for his mods, Valve refused, took his mods from him and now has their lawyer involved.

http://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/33qcaj/the_experiment_has_failed_my_exit_from_the/
http://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/33r880/we_have_lost_chesko/

With the 75% cut, Valve & Bethesda now own Chesko's mods and everyone else that has participated in this program and the modders no longer have the right to reclaim the mods how they see fit unless by Valve's terms. They chose to sign up for this deal, I don't know what the hell they expected.

Also, further clarification on the revenue split... if the mod fails to garner a total of over $400 regardless of time length, Valve & Beth receive everything, if it does pass that then the modder will only get %25 of that ($100). So far Beth & Valve have earned a minimum of $4,000 from total purchases, while majority of the mod authors have received $0.00... Only a few have gotten anything (divided at that) and their mods already pirated. What a joke.

Man, things must be pretty tough over at Valve HQ. I bet they've had to start wiping their asses with $20 bills instead of $50. That's the only reasonable explanation for why they've suddenly decided to sh*t all over an entire community of PC gamers. Round of applause for Valve everyone...


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I like to think that Gabe Newell went out for a vacation only for his evil twin Ebag Newell to swoop in and sabotage his brother's good work while maniacally twirling his mustache. Seriously, this whole ordeal feels like I'm watching an 80s B-movie, Valve managed to turn so comically evil in one fell sweep overnight. Bullshit this bad just writes itself. :lol:

Valve just seem happy to make cash with little effort wherever they can these days. They haven't developed their own in house stand alone product since around 2011 (Portal 2) and have relied on heavily monetised games in partner with other studios since then (Dota 2, Counter Strike GO). Incorporating more and more microtransactions and pushing Steam onto developers for distribution too. Some good views on this "issue" in the following videos...
It's so ironic too, the one company that has been regarded as a beacon of light in the industry, does this overnight. While the devil we know as EA has never done this with their modding communities... and The Sims has been doing this 14 years now! Paysites that paywall Sims mods for over a decade, violating EA's TOS/EULA, and being blacklisted from Maxis' modding conventions.

At this point, why bother making anything new at all when you can just sit back and let Steam and its daily sales do all the work? Making so much money has never been so easy.

Modding is the only reason I want a Pc. Everyone always said good about Valve, to the point of worshiping Gabe, but I always new someone cornering a market is bad news. The only reason Microsoft tried this stuff is because they saw how well it worked in Pc's. I've never done business with them but Valve sucks. So many companies put money into steam machines and they don't even release the functionality these things were optimized for. There are dozens of consoles now that are useless to everyone, all for nothing. I'm glad people are having none of it, hopefully if they have to they will burn it to the ground.

A donation system would have been much better. If you want to support the work people are doing and want to see more have in place a way to donate. I don't know why any reputable modder would go for this especially with 75% not even going to them. If I was an experienced modder with great mods under my belt I'd start a kickstarter or patreon and have people fund my projects. How do these people not realize they can do that?

Mods are the only reason to ascend honestly and now Valve doesn't have a console and they don't have a reason for people to sign up they are screwing themselves.

This is exactly what I said when the One was released I want to own my games Valve is destroying everything.

Well said and fully agreed.

The thing that upsets me the most out of this, is that no matter how you slice it the modders walk away the losers from this deal. Valve can easily recover by canceling the system and offer a Steam sale, all is forgiven Gaben smiles to all. Bethesda announces Fallout 4, no mod monetization, smiles for everyone! Various modders get nothing and are branded as sellouts and must then humble themselves to the communities that built them.

Thankfully a large portion of the modding community are standing up against this program across Reddit, The Nexus, etc. http://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/

Funny enough, 4chan & Tumblr are also joining in against this program.
 

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From what I can gander, this is the worst system ever. From a legal standpoint this makes anyone participating into Thieves. Stuff like this is why it's so hard to get modding support in the first place. That mod at the top of this thread looks like JoB x_x
 

Dark Drakan

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From what I can gander, this is the worst system ever. From a legal standpoint this makes anyone participating into Thieves. Stuff like this is why it's so hard to get modding support in the first place. That mod at the top of this thread looks like JoB x_x

There are just so many legal issues and infringement problems and Valve are staying hands off and letting modders take and distribute what they want and then something like the issue with Chesko happens on Day 1. How did they not see that coming? Can see it happening to countless other modders too and then lots of them walk away from the communities they have been a part of for many years AND they lose the rights to their own work as Valve take ownership of it. It all sounds like too much risk for far to little reward for me as most dont end up getting paid in the end anyway as Scott said. So not only do they receive nothing for their work, they lose it and Valve get 100% of earnings from sales and the modders get their reputation ruined.
 

Gikoku

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Looks like I called it even though I was only joking about his evil twin Ebag Newell...

Gabe Newell was away in L.A. during this whole meltdown and he didn't find out about the backlash until he landed from his flight to find 3,500 unread messages. Since then, he's been on reddit trying to sort everything out and fix this whole situation... and it's not going so well (of course).

Here's his topic on it, followed by a link to all of his posts within it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33uplp/mods_and_steam/
https://www.reddit.com/user/GabeNewellBellevue (his posts, sorted by latest)

Turns out, the rampant censorship and banning of people voicing their disagreement for the system shouldn't have been happening (duh) and Gabe's mad about it, so he's undoing all of that. However he's defending the pay system, but wants to find a middle ground for everyone. His solution: A "pay what you want" button, instead of the fixed paywall system.

It's a little bit better, but the community is still lashing out as it doesn't solve the forced and unfair cut percentages. Instead, the community has unanimously suggested "IF IT MUST BE DONE" to instead follow a system similar to the Humble Bundle, where users can either pay nothing, or do pay and choose who the money goes to (Modder, Bethesda, Valve, or all).

Unsurprisingly Bethesda's been all hush hush about it and all I can do is imagine them hiding away in their locked offices from the cannibalistic mobs in the streets.

oZ5NpdO.gif


From what I can gander, this is the worst system ever. From a legal standpoint this makes anyone participating into Thieves. Stuff like this is why it's so hard to get modding support in the first place. That mod at the top of this thread looks like JoB x_x
Yeah, really. This is the worst possible way Valve & BethSoft could've concocted this situation. All they had to do was implement a donation system like the Nexus does if they cared that much, and it would've been water under the bridge. But Valve & Beth wanted a cut of the action. The communities were tight and loyal with each other, since this, modders have screwed each other over for pocket change, friends lost, and reputations damaged/destroyed... and it hasn't proven to be worth it.

As one modder (Apollodown) put it: Make mods for the love. Not for Valve's table scraps.

There are just so many legal issues and infringement problems and Valve are staying hands off and letting modders take and distribute what they want and then something like the issue with Chesko happens on Day 1. How did they not see that coming? Can see it happening to countless other modders too and then lots of them walk away from the communities they have been a part of for many years AND they lose the rights to their own work as Valve take ownership of it. It all sounds like too much risk for far to little reward for me as most dont end up getting paid in the end anyway as Scott said. So not only do they receive nothing for their work, they lose it and Valve get 100% of earnings from sales and the modders get their reputation ruined.

Not to mention all of Valve's other monetization endeavors haven't been going so well or just flat out failed, from Steam Greenlight (ugh) to Steam Early Access. Now this, you'd think they'd take a hint. But it seems like they live by the motto of "Better to have tried and failed, than to never have done so at all."

Oh it's already happening as we speak, more small-time modders have already stolen and uncredited the resources of other modders that were intended to only be used under "free" distribution. The small modders are now being counted up and blacklisted by other communities. Not surprising really, this is exactly what happened with the Sims community, and history is going to repeat itself now.

This will also revive another big issue from the Sims modding community and that's the saturation of the marketplace with multiple cheap mods like textures, weapons, armor, hairs, objects, etc. So modders can rack up their purchase count to be qualified for their 25% cut. Essentially killing much desire to create anything big and instead opt for the quick and easy route.
 

Gikoku

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Sorry to double post guys, but felt it was necessary.

It's over and the community won! Valve has shut down the paid-modding program and everyone that purchased a mod on the Workshop has each been fully refunded. Bethesda & Valve both made separate statements a bit ago after the whole fiasco finally reached its tipping point. Bethesda shared an entry on their blog post about it (it's pretty long), but here's the short quote of them pulling the plug on this program:

"After discussion with Valve, and listening to our community, paid mods are being removed from Steam Workshop. Even though we had the best intentions, the feedback has been clear – this is not a feature you want. Your support means everything to us, and we hear you." - Bethesda

Full post: Click here.

Followed by Valve's response here:

"We're going to remove the payment feature from the Skyrim workshop. For anyone who spent money on a mod, we'll be refunding you the complete amount. We talked to the team at Bethesda and they agree. We've done this because it's clear we didn't understand exactly what we were doing. We've been shipping many features over the years aimed at allowing community creators to receive a share of the rewards, and in the past, they've been received well. It's obvious now that this case is different." - Valve

Full post: Click here.

:/ Sadly, and as I expected. Many have already forgiven Valve & Bethesda for this, especially with another lovely Steam sale and Fallout 4 potentially around the corner. But the modders involved that sold themselves out, stole assets from others for a quick buck, and ignored their supporters aren't being forgiven as easily. Understandable. But if there's one thing this whole ordeal ended up doing, was showing a lot of people's true colors within the community and already some of the modders that got involved in this are too proud/ashamed to show their faces around the Nexus now.

I support modders getting paid optionally for their hard work, but not forcefully like this. Valve & Beth went about this whole thing the worst way possible and it benefited nobody in the end. I just hope other publishing companies out there were also able to witness this and learn to not repeat, regardless of how tempting that quick buck is.
 

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Good to hear they finally came to their senses. A bittersweet victory over a situation that could have been completely avoided. Valve couldn't organise a p*ss-up in a brewery at this rate. They handled this whole thing horribly and it was all their, and Bethesda's fault. The modders who succumbed to their greed have had their reputations ruined, and the modding community has lost some talented modders. What a complete and utter farce.
 

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Good to hear they finally came to their senses. A bittersweet victory over a situation that could have been completely avoided. Valve couldn't organise a p*ss-up in a brewery at this rate. They handled this whole thing horribly and it was all their, and Bethesda's fault. The modders who succumbed to their greed have had their reputations ruined, and the modding community has lost some talented modders. What a complete and utter farce.
Yep.

Chesko made a 2nd apology on the Nexus to everyone and the staff for what had happened, but he's still leaving indefinitely and his new modding projects are now on hold. This also won't look good for his developer resume he's been building up. On the upside the community understood and forgave him for everything, which is good as the guy is highly talented. He simply just got starry-eyed at what seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity after being contacted by his idols, and like everyone involved was blinded by the short-term gains, and couldn't see the long-term consequences.

I feel really bad for him though, the poor guy was actually receiving threats, death threats, and some users were even trying to get his family involved which were lines way beyond crossed.
 

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Hopefully those modders can rebuild their reputations and come out of the other side having learned something from this experience. Also I hope Valve and Bethesda have learned that implementing such a game changing mechanic so quickly and without thinking it through properly can have disastrous repercussions. This might be the wake up call Valve needed to show that their business model just isnt working and they really need to start being more hands on with their systems. Overall a lesson for all involved and glad common sense prevailed in the end, modders deserve to get something for their work but it should all be based on choice. Pushing them to want to lock things behind paywalls & implement similar systems to the hated micro-transaction and DLC trend simply isnt the answer.
 

Gikoku

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Hopefully those modders can rebuild their reputations and come out of the other side having learned something from this experience. Also I hope Valve and Bethesda have learned that implementing such a game changing mechanic so quickly and without thinking it through properly can have disastrous repercussions. This might be the wake up call Valve needed to show that their business model just isnt working and they really need to start being more hands on with their systems. Overall a lesson for all involved and glad common sense prevailed in the end, modders deserve to get something for their work but it should all be based on choice. Pushing them to want to lock things behind paywalls & implement similar systems to the hated micro-transaction and DLC trend simply isnt the answer.
Exactly. And that's Valve's main problem with programs like these, they're never hands-on enough, there's no quality control and most importantly there's no Steam customer support. I really don't think I wanna know where all the money they've been making has been going all these years.

For the modders, it's been mixed. Some of the modders have been welcomed back and forgiven really easily and lessons were definitely learned. Apologies were made from both sides (which is awesome). Others though, have chosen to never come back though, be it due to the harassment they've received or just too ashamed/proud to open back up to the community... and in a couple cases, the community just outright refused them (one of the members of SkyUI for example). So, it is what it is.

I get the feeling they'll try it again though, just.. ya know, less stupid. As well with a game that doesn't already have an established community, i.e. Fallout 4. Especially given this snippet of dialogue from Valve: "but stepping into an established, years old modding community in Skyrim was probably not the right place to start iterating." Many saw it as well and plan to be prepared for anymore surprises upon the horizon, so we'll see what happens. But for now, let's party!
 

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I'm a capitalist, I believe wholeheartedly people should be compensated for their work. Especially when their efforts are well received.

But I know two things.
1.Customer isn't always right, customer is King.
2. Some things in life are still sacred.
 

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I was happy for them lowering the price of Skyrim Legendary Edition just before all this kicked off as I got a bargain and now I won't have to pay for the best mods either so win win. They will without a doubt revive this idea at a later date and think it through a little more before they implement it.
 

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They'll definitely try it again, there's way too much money to be made here as is evident with the success of TF2 and Dota. As long as they make the payments optional with $0.00 as a base, then they really don't have anything to fear. But some of the modders involved had stated they won't be accepting anymore wondrous and exciting offers from Valve or Bethesda in the future. Fool 'em once, shame on them. Fool 'em twice, well...
 

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I ain't payin' for mods. If it weren't for Valve I'd never buy another game again in my life.

It's called 0% Marginal cost. It is the paradox of Capitalism. The idea is this, make something for as cheap as possible while selling it for us much as possible. This all goes down the drain as the whole of the internet is not a market place, but a social commons. If it costs you zero dollars to produce something, unavoidably it will cost nothing to buy it.

This is what has happened to the music industry. Costs practically nothing to make a hit song. Streaming apps destroy competition, however their competition made billions whereas they make millions, if that. This is why you see alot of Artists simply not making their music accessible.

This is also why corporations are putting the clamp on 3d printers. People are sharing their models for free online. You by the dust or what have you and suddenly every nic-knack and trinket in your house can be created, often times at a much higher quality then what you see made by a surf. What if you could make food? Now imagine when they start making 3d printers the size of your garage. The whole market crashes. It destroys competition.

This is where Valve comes in and why they are truly Evil. It's called Planned Obsolesce. The first light bulbs ever made lasted for 100's of years. If you bought one, you might never need one again. That's horrifically a customer for life. Light bulbs are a vacuum. That's why the filament does not catch flame inside. So what they do is add a miniscule amount of of contamination. This way the light bulb burns out over a long time and then must be replaced. My mom's old fridge was from her mother, it lasted 30 years. Anything in the store now will only last about 5 years or so.


What's happening here, I believe, is that Bethesda cannot compete with it's own community. Their games have been getting more mediocre each installment. There will be a point when their next title will longer be better than the one content creators have made, and then they start losing money.

They want to wall everything up so no one can steal their 'potential' profit. But if something is virtually free, how can it be theft then?
 

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Very good points being hit there, Zarkes.
I ain't payin' for mods. If it weren't for Valve I'd never buy another game again in my life.

It's called 0% Marginal cost. It is the paradox of Capitalism. The idea is this, make something for as cheap as possible while selling it for us much as possible. This all goes down the drain as the whole of the internet is not a market place, but a social commons. If it costs you zero dollars to produce something, unavoidably it will cost nothing to buy it.

This is what has happened to the music industry. Costs practically nothing to make a hit song. Streaming apps destroy competition, however their competition made billions whereas they make millions, if that. This is why you see alot of Artists simply not making their music accessible.

This is what's hurting the video game industry the most right now. Xbox, Playstation, and Nintendo controllers cost around $7-12 to produce each, yet they're sold for over $40. Same with games and consoles which costs a fraction to produce of the price they're sold at. There is literally no logical and justifiable reason for why digitally distributed games should ever be sold for $50 or $60 anymore, yet they continue to do so and are getting away with it because the prices have become conditioned and is now the norm. That and not enough people vote with their wallets. Digitally, prices should be getting cheaper and cheaper, not more expensive as it no longer costs anything to distribute said goods.
Zarkes said:
This is also why corporations are putting the clamp on 3d printers. People are sharing their models for free online. You by the dust or what have you and suddenly every nic-knack and trinket in your house can be created, often times at a much higher quality then what you see made by a surf. What if you could make food? Now imagine when they start making 3d printers the size of your garage. The whole market crashes. It destroys competition.
I don't think 3D printers will be that bad, this same corporate uproar happened when 2D printers were sold to the public and when sewing machines were also sold (causing a mass scare within the clothing industry). Why go out and buy a screw driver or a box of tools, when you can just print your own? Print your own statues, sex toys, action figures, kitchen wares, weapons, phone cases, game console cases, shoes, furniture, and so on.

Corporations have always found a way to bite back at these inventions, with 2D printers we have very expensive ink cartridges that are prone to fail. With sewing machines we have expensive craft supplies and it requires actual skill to make anything. With 3D printers, just jack the price up on supplies coupled with the fact it takes a very long time to print anything, and companies can also paywall the dimensions for their objects to be printed (the joys of copyright).
Zarkes said:
This is where Valve comes in and why they are truly Evil. It's called Planned Obsolesce. The first light bulbs ever made lasted for 100's of years. If you bought one, you might never need one again. That's horrifically a customer for life. Light bulbs are a vacuum. That's why the filament does not catch flame inside. So what they do is add a miniscule amount of of contamination. This way the light bulb burns out over a long time and then must be replaced. My mom's old fridge was from her mother, it lasted 30 years. Anything in the store now will only last about 5 years or so.
Basically consoles and other electronics of today. My aunt handed down her Sega Genesis to me after mine was sold behind my back, back in 1999. That Genesis is over 20 years old and still works like it's brand new, consoles back then were built to last, they're tanks. Consoles today? Fragile little ****s made with the cheapest of parts to save on production costs. Same with cars, TVs, and so on. It's sad.
Zarkes said:
What's happening here, I believe, is that Bethesda cannot compete with it's own community. Their games have been getting more mediocre each installment. There will be a point when their next title will longer be better than the one content creators have made, and then they start losing money.

They want to wall everything up so no one can steal their 'potential' profit. But if something is virtually free, how can it be theft then?
Funny, Valve had mentioned in a developer press conference a while back (might've been at a GDC) where they stated as things are right now, the only force in the industry that they cannot financially compete with is the modding community (thanks to the Dota 2 & TF2 paid modding). Not EA, not Activision, and not Ubisoft. The massive Dota 2 & TF2 modding communities are generating more revenue than Valve has ever made with their games & Steam, and they're getting a cut of it as well. So it's no wonder they saw huge dollar signs with the Bethesda modding communities which has been the brightest since the DOOM era.

That's a good point, there are no stolen profits because there was never any made in the first place. This is simply a straight black & white action of greed with profits gained simply by use of IP rights. Beth would've earned a great deal of money, without ever having lifted a finger and taking huge cuts from the people that did all the work in the first place. I doubt Beth would ever lose money on copies sold due to better mods in the future, people still have to buy the game to enjoy said mods and the game gets cheaper as time passes (Skyrim sans DLC is $4.99 right now). Deals like that just make it more enticing.
 
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