Concerns and thoughts with where modding goes from here?

[Doom-X-Machina]

Hey all,

Just riffing some thoughts I've had while mapping this evening and in the wake of the new re-release and it's Mod upload/download platform...

So, I'm totally 100% for the console Doom audience to get mod support and it all looks very pretty with the 4K and the whole 'official' WAD set being made available all together in a single box, tick, tick, well done, awesome, gold medal!! No concerns...

Now I haven't picked it up myself as the only part of the package I don't have are RUST and NRFTL. The rest of the archival/soundtrack stuff etc. has already been plastered all over the net and I personally prefer GZDoom as my way to play so I haven't raced out to buy it yet... therefore, I haven't personally seen or experienced the Mod section but there has been a LOT of discussion on various forums/groups about the lack of moderation, misappropriation of IP, quickly becoming a junkyard of duplicate and fake posts, the potential for 'Terry' and offensive content etc. etc. etc.

So... what's crossed my mind this evening is... what are the potential implications and ramifications of a corporate entity now stepping into the modding space which was/is traditionally community owned and run, with it's own unspoken and (generally universally) agreed upon "rules" or "ettiquete"? I'm expecting for some sort of semblance of common-sense to intervene and the administrators implement some moderation strategies on the content... at what point, does the modding scene (and this new system's ability to go cross-platform) become sucked into this system and go from being a fan-community based and controlled environment to one that's overseen by a corporate entity like Bethesda/Zenimax etc. who can implement their own rules and potentially fuck with the status quo which has worked perfectly fine for so long?

I map and play GZDoom so my stuff is incompatible with Kex so it's not exactly a concern for me (I'm actually really glad about this) but for people who mod and map in Kex compatible formats, does this new system change the game moving forward? Cross-platform exposure is fucking awesome don't get me wrong... but at what possible cost moving forward?

Maybe I'm wrong? I dunno... just some random thoughts... everyone seems to be jumping for joy but over the years I've learnt to look under the rug when these sorts of "too awesome to be true" releases drop. There's always a fuckin' catch somewhere.

Any thoughts on this?

[Jayextee]

4 minutes ago, Doom-X-Machina said:

Any thoughts on this?

I map for vanilla mostly. As long as there's a way to get hold of the original IWADs (and I still have my old Depths of DOOM CDs from way back, for as long as they remain working), Chocolate DOOM, and Ultimate DOOM Builder, I can still make mods. Literally none of this affects my ability to make my own DOOM mods.

As for the other end of things; this opens up the ability to play mods on console and Steam Deck (minus the tinkering required to already do so, a hassle's a hassle alright?) so it's great, y'know? And should that break down, I can always go back to playing them on ye olde typewriter-plus-pointing-device combo as before because I sincerely doubt that sourceports are going anywhere soonish.

 

In fact it's a net win for me as a mapper because I'm currently polishing some of my older work in preparation to upload to the servers for the ND port; theoretically meaning that my work is opened up to a wider audience. Win all around.

You asked for thoughts.

[Kinsie]

16 minutes ago, Doom-X-Machina said:

what are the potential implications and ramifications of a corporate entity now stepping into the modding space which was/is traditionally community owned and run, with it's own unspoken and (generally universally) agreed upon "rules" or "ettiquete"?

Probably the same ramifications as when they stepped in back in... ooh, at least 2019. Probably earlier, TBH.

 

Point is, they historically haven't shown an enormous interest in smiting people.

[Uncle 80]

If my WAD gets rejected from "official uploader" because of my included stolen borrowed Shadow Warrior midis, then my audience will be those browsing /idgames - much like it has always been. My main audience is still myself, as it has been for the last 25 years I've been playing and editing content for this game. I also have a pretty decent collection of WADS made by other people, and that isn't going anywhere either. In short, nothing is going to change for me.

[bofu]

There isn't a thing Bethesda can do to stop the PC mod scene, as the Doom source code has been out for a very long time and we have the original IWADs floating around. I also don't think they want to stop it.

 

I fully expect people will continue modding primarily for the existing formats, and then they will add some compatibility patches to meet the requirements of the new standard while still making it accessible. It took until this year for MBF21, which has been out for three years, to really catch on in terms of modding, so I would fully expect to see a similar trickle of adoption for ID24, by which point it will have probably had its wrinkles ironed out and implementations aside from the source port.

 

Bethesda's mod system will be the primary (if not only, outside of homebrew and such) method of playing Doom mods on console. But even Bethesda's attempts at regulating the mod space for Fallout and TES never really panned out beyond a few low-hanging fruit. Nexus Mods still exceeds all of their efforts, it's just that they provide a "more convenient" alternative incorporated into the product.

[Doom-X-Machina]

19 minutes ago, Jayextee said:

You asked for thoughts.

Absolutely. Thankyou.

As I said I map in GZDoom/UDMF so I'm not really affected by this either... like you, I have all the IWADs on original discs/backup and as long as GZ and UDB exist, I'm good...
 

 

22 minutes ago, Kinsie said:

Point is, they historically haven't shown an enormous interest in smiting people.

Oh I don't mean smiting individual people on a personal basis, I'm more talking from an over-reaching community-wide aspect... I'm looking at it from does the appearance of this new distro system whether moderated or unmoderated by a corporate giant within the community modding scene pose any potential negative aspects to the modding scene moving forward? Do they exert more control in the future? Do standards change?

 

18 minutes ago, Uncle 80 said:

If my WAD gets rejected from "official uploader" because of my included stolen borrowed Shadow Warrior midis, then my audience will be those browsing /idgames - much like it has always been. My main audience is still myself, as it has been for the last 25 years I've been playing and editing content for this game.

100%.

[holaareola]

More or less wherever it was heading before I'd think. I'm only on Doomworld so my view of the GZDoom scene is probably a bit limited, but it seems to me that the majority of maps released are still vanilla, limit-removing, Boom or MBF 2.1 -- all formats with a broad base of support, and the majority of mods are for GZDoom because of its practically unlimited possibilities and a greater appetite for gameplay mods in that community.

 

ID24 is mostly map focused, and if people really start mapping en masse for ID24, then I'm sure more ports will add support for it. But while the Doom community is in rude health, it's not exactly enormous and people are going to want to release something for as large a playerbase as they can get. For mods, having a bunch of extra console players and an official mod manager might shift the dial the tiniest bit from GZDoom towards MBF2.1. For maps, the situation will probably the same; GZDoom if your ambitions are to advance far beyond the base game, and a broad-base format otherwise.

 

Don't see any reason for things to wildly change from the status quo.

Edited August 14 by holaareola

[ICID]

I'm to some extent a pessimist - I fully believe that if iD/Bethesda ever has the opportunity to limit or end the spread of free mods, they will. I have the lowest possible faith in both of these companies and we have consistently seen game industry corporations stamp out free fan content anywhere they can, because they see it (wrongly) as a threat to their bottom line and their desire to always push the newest thing as the best thing.

The question is in that "if" - will they ever have that opportunity? Right now, there's no imaginable path to that. The Doom code is open source, the IWADs are incredibly easy to find through means legal and not, and the community has extremely robust development and distribution systems that don't belong to any company.

 

If iD/Bethesda put out a proprietary port or spec and if the community voluntarily chose to develop for it as the main target going forward, those mods would potentially be in danger of "smiting" at will, but given the extreme backlash to ID24 having even the tiniest whiff of that, widespread adoption of such a port or spec seems unlikely to the point of impossible. And even if it was, we'd still have 30 years of cool shit that would remain untouchable.

So the only real way the existing modding community could be in danger would be a change to US Copyright Law allowing iD/Bethesda to somehow revert something that was in the public domain back to corporate ownership. This is technically possible and has happened, but is very rare and requires Congressional approval. iD/Bethesda would have to be very stupid - even by corporation standards - to bother attempting such a complex legal maneuver that would only hurt the value of their brand, lead to a massive wave of negative PR, cost an unbelievable amount of money, and after all that still almost certainly fail (given that there's no precedent and given that the actual authors of the code are alive and pro-mod). Again, unlikely to the point of impossible.

As for the built-in Wad Uploader supplanting /idgames or other community forums as the main place to upload mods...I mean, have you seen it?

So while I'm all for being cynical and giving the maximum amount of skepticism to anything iD/Bethesda does with Doom, there's no need to actually worry.

EDIT: And if you're worried about Bethesda doing a "soft" approach where they don't delete community mods and spaces but simply make them less popular to the point that they become abandoned, Gez wrote this very good post explaining why that won't happen.

Edited August 14 by ICID

[mrthejoshmon]

Bethesda will not do anything as stupid as people are suggesting.

The brass balls and empty forehead on the hypothetical company, known for longevity through user made content, stamping down on said free publicity in return for some of the most hardcore negative press imaginable (apart from molesting co-workers, can't forget the Ubisoft strategy) for what exactly?

We went through this with Fallout 4, it was fine.

 

Skyrim re-release 755? Fine?

Paid mods? Barely anyone bought them, also mod authors in the Creation Club just sometimes deadass released their mods on Nexus (X-03 Hellfire armour comes to mind).

 

This hypothetical boogeyman hiding in the non-euclidean proverbial cupboard who is ready to shoot community content but also himself is an interesting villain to be sure, but one too arrogant to shoot both mods and itself so I sincerely doubt they will act and if they do it will be the single worst possible play in the book.

And I still have no idea what the gain would be? Someone explain the gain.

[Faceman2000]

I am much less worried with damage from Bethesda trying to interfere with Doom modding as a result of this release and much more concerned with the damage to the community from the vitriolic responses since then.

[Faceman2000]

54 minutes ago, ICID said:

we have consistently seen game industry corporations stamp out free fan content anywhere they can

I agree with a lot of your points, but need to point out that this isn’t entirely true. SOME corporations have done that, others haven’t. Everyone’s worried about Big Daddy Microsoft, but they’ve been extremely pro-modding with Halo as of late, including the official release of mod tools for MCC.

[Austrian Oak]

I don’t care. Idgames is old, not obsolete. 

[inkoalawetrust]

1 hour ago, bofu said:

There isn't a thing Bethesda can do to stop the PC mod scene, as the Doom source code has been out for a very long time and we have the original IWADs floating around. I also don't think they want to stop it.

 

Well, there sort of is. They can't touch the code because it's open source (And if Bethesda or Microsoft tried some shit like closed sourcing it again, it would probably a be a legal clusterfuck that immediately summons the EFF and FSF bare minimum). But they do still have the copyright to all the assets, world, plot, etc. So they could potentially try something with that. And while FreeDoom exists, it would still cause a lot of damage before mods switch to FreeDoom.

[GibFrag]

I don’t see anything changing. If all the fears people have turn out to be true it’ll just split the community into factions. It’s not like that isn’t already sort of the case, it would just become way more apparent and likely more hostile.

[mrthejoshmon]

44 minutes ago, inkoalawetrust said:

 

Well, there sort of is. They can't touch the code because it's open source (And if Bethesda or Microsoft tried some shit like closed sourcing it again, it would probably a be a legal clusterfuck that immediately summons the EFF and FSF bare minimum). But they do still have the copyright to all the assets, world, plot, etc. So they could potentially try something with that. And while FreeDoom exists, it would still cause a lot of damage before mods switch to FreeDoom.

I ask again, what does Bethesda gain from pulling such a maneuver?

 

What is gained? The resources and manpower required aren't free, the end result lacks much of value and ultimately it is almost entirely counterproductive to sales from the required purging and enforcement alone, what benefits would be established?

 

Would enforcement of purchasing a new port, released to previous owners for free (not once but TWICE now), for approximately £7.99 English pounds a sale whilst drowning in bad press (which is NOT needed after recent events with Bethesda and the increasing scrutiny of their dogwater games) really be a viable strategy?

 

I'm not saying Bethesda has your best interests in mind (absolutely not) but pulling a stunt like that has no positive profit or benefit for Bethesda outside of a monopoly on shit they don't actually care about.

 

I struggle to empathise with the fear.

[Jayextee]

Along the lines of "what does Bethesda gain", or follow the money thinking, it makes perfect sense that the big 'B' saw DOOM user content, one of the oldest videogame modding scenes still absolutely thriving and perhaps wanting a piece of it. Opening up the world of user-created content for both console owners and people who don't have the slightest idea what a source port is, seems a no-brainer; especially when DOOM is semi-regularly in the gaming press ("someone" made [x] in DOOM, et al) with things like Brutal DOOM, InstaDOOM, MyHouse.wad, et cetera.

 

I personally have no doubt that Bethesda are doing what they're doing for the money; and in doing so, theoretically creating an infinite sales 'tail' to generate a guaranteed forever-trickle of income from the game. But I don't think they're doing what some paranoid cretins in this place think they're doing.

[inkoalawetrust]

12 minutes ago, mrthejoshmon said:

I ask again, what does Bethesda gain from pulling such a maneuver?

 

What is gained? The resources and manpower required aren't free, the end result lacks much of value and ultimately it is almost entirely counterproductive to sales from the required purging and enforcement alone, what benefits would be established?

 

Would enforcement of purchasing a new port, released to previous owners for free (not once but TWICE now), for approximately £7.99 English pounds a sale whilst drowning in bad press (which is NOT needed after recent events with Bethesda and the increasing scrutiny of their dogwater games) really be a viable strategy?

 

I'm not saying Bethesda has your best interests in mind (absolutely not) but pulling a stunt like that has no positive profit or benefit for Bethesda outside of a monopoly on shit they don't actually care about.

 

I struggle to empathise with the fear.

Nothing, and it wouldn't be the first time a company has done something stupid for effectively no reason besides "I can", Rockstar took down a project to properly port GTA IV's Liberty City to GTA V as if it somehow hurt their bottom line. Nintendo takes down ROMs and fan projects that again, don't hurt their bottom line, and fairly regularly too. Bethesda in particular also tried monetizing mods like twice didn't they? At least that one did have some line of reasoning (More $$$) than "fuck you".

 

As for difficulty of enforcement, they can just issue take down notices, and pretty much anyone would back down from their mod project at the sight of that because they don't want to pick a fight with the billion dollar company over a hobby project. That's usually what happens, not a costly court battle (Which the company almost always wins anyway). The rest can basically work out through intimidation.

 

Also, I'm not talking about Bethesda trying to force people to use official ports at all, I'm talking about Bethesda having the legal right to order mods and other Doom fan projects to be shut down or altered (Stop using Bethesda-owned stuff without explicit permission) because they can only legally exist with some form of permission to use their IP (Setting, sprites etc) like that. And because of the prior record of the gaming industry with mods, it's not entirely out of the question that some executive up the corporate pyramid who doesn't know what a Doomguy or a mod is will look at a bunch of nerds making mods for a 30 year old game and see it as copyright infringement that needs to be punished. After all, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what makes Nintendo dislike fan projects so much, that most of the people who call the shots are older on average, and aren't used to this sort of thing (Not saying that's the case with Bethesda like it seems to be with Japanese companies though).

 

Would it be stupid for them to do, and shower them in bad press and publicity? Absolutely. And others have done this with little long term impact. Nintendo again being an example. Little Timmy doesn't care how many Pokemon fan projects Miyamoto has personally slain (I'm joking) when he asks dad to get him the new buggy Pokemon game.

That being said, yes, Bethesda would probably get even more flak than companies normally do for pointless stunts like these, since Doom is the one franchise to which modding is the most integral part of it compared to every other game. But even if they cave and revert that decision if they ever do it (And yeah, they would probably backpedal hard), the damage would still be done.

 

3 minutes ago, Jayextee said:

But I don't think they're doing what some paranoid cretins in this place think they're doing.

Are you calling me a paranoid cretin for not thinking that the goodwill of Bethesda will last forever and that they might do something stupid eventually? Because I'm not scared of them taking over the community like the illuminati or something, I'm scared of them having a Rockstar or Nintendo moment because some executive found out about HDoom or something and got scared that it might hurt Doom's brand image or some shit.

[RHhe82]

I have hard time seeing much anything will happen to modding. Maybe ID24 will gain some popularity, but I think people will still keep on mapping for vanilla/limit-removing, and people who do Boom-mapping, are (as I view, might be wrong) only slowly migrating to MBF21 (or its direct descendant if there's any) because it will suffice and have least amount of compatibility issues with the variety of ports, the KEX port included. Surely there'll be some ID24 projects for certain, and that'll exclude some of the player base because they don't have the necessary resource wad -- much like some part of player base is excluded whenever a project requiring TNT.wad or Plutonia.wad (ie. complevel 4 wad) is released.

 

If anything, perhaps vanilla modding will increase, because at the moment the new port doesn't (I'm once again guessing) suffer from vanilla bugs, only Boom/MBF-related ones?

 

EDIT: And then there's GZDoom/UDMF-mappers, who'll keep on mapping for GZDoom/UDMF because that's their thing and they can't do it on anything else. I don't see any reason at all for them to switch to the new port (= sacrifice everything that makes GZDoom modding a worthy pursuit) to gain some new audience.

Edited August 14 by RHhe82

[KenaiPhoenix]

Companies have been in the modding community for years now in forms like Steam Workshop. The fear of them screwing the mod scene is not unreasonable, it is Bethesda and Microsoft, the first one already tried to charge money for mods and the later have a record of ruining stuff. Still, these places existed because of communities like us, way before companies have a big online presence. They (or other platforms like Nexus, ModDB, Game Banana, etc) can try to censor/control/monetize all what they want, but we created this spaces from nothing and we can still do it again.

 

Now in the case of this recent DooM re-re-re-release (it this the 3rd time, right (of this specific port)?) is an entirely different scene from what we have here, is way more similar to the OG style of DooM, in comparison with mods that transform the game into Call OF Duty, Five Nights at Freddys, a tactical FPS, a random roulette game, Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil Mercenaries, even (i see it recently) a third person melee brawler!

 

But my overall feeling is positive: it can work as a first approach to many to the DooM modding community. No need to get a source port, extract the wad from your game, configurate the source port or install a mod launcher... Just select, download and play. So hopefully someone will make a killer of mod/TC that is compatible with this new port, it goes viral, and many people jump into DooM

 

[Cacodemon345]

1 hour ago, inkoalawetrust said:

Nothing, and it wouldn't be the first time a company has done something stupid for effectively no reason besides "I can", Rockstar took down a project to properly port GTA IV's Liberty City to GTA V as if it somehow hurt their bottom line. Nintendo takes down ROMs and fan projects that again, don't hurt their bottom line, and fairly regularly too. Bethesda in particular also tried monetizing mods like twice didn't they? At least that one did have some line of reasoning (More $$$) than "fuck you".

 

As for difficulty of enforcement, they can just issue take down notices, and pretty much anyone would back down from their mod project at the sight of that because they don't want to pick a fight with the billion dollar company over a hobby project. That's usually what happens, not a costly court battle (Which the company almost always wins anyway). The rest can basically work out through intimidation.

Microsoft and Bethesda doesn't have a history of actively stopping game modding; the PC release of the Halo Master Chief Collection had official modding tools for pretty much all pre-Halo 5 games (even if limited).

 

And it isn't usually just "I can"; it will always involve money. Doom, Skyrim and Fallout 4 has a vast modding scene that earns Bethesda (and ultimately Microsoft) money from the ensuing sales. While the attempt to port Liberty City to GTA V is going to be seen by Rockstar as an attempt to rob GTA IV sales and the ROMs and fan projects will always be seen as a net negative to sales. That's where the primary differences reside.

[Major Arlene]

Bethesda knows good and damn well that pissing off its mod scene will be the death of them. they've literally just given us unfettered access to idStudio (Doom Eternal's modding engine) so I highly doubt they'll just up and delete modding from the equation. They're making it easier, not harder.

 

edit: this isn't to say that stuff that includes frankensprites/copyrighted content may end up being removed but there's been provisions for that in other modding communities so even that feels fairly unlikely unless it's really egregious. but I frankly would not fault them for things like that, last thing I would want as Bethesda's CFO is having to budget for a lawsuit from Nintendo or something

[Reisal]

The only thing I can think if they try anything, there will be extensive backlash and likely will be much more intense as the game has been out for 30 years compared to 13 with Skyrim. It will be all over games media outlets for sure.

[The Final Event]

idk about anybody else but I'm grateful that Bethesda cares enough about a decades old game enough to keep it up to date in an official capacity, it would be all too easy to pull an epic games and take it down but they didn't

[inkoalawetrust]

12 minutes ago, Reisal said:

The only thing I can think if they try anything, there will be extensive backlash and likely will be much more intense as the game has been out for 30 years compared to 13 with Skyrim. It will be all over games media outlets for sure.

Well I did mention that, but that also happens when other companies try to kill off mods. And while Doom is a special case where mods are so integral to it and its' identity that it would make Bethesda backpedal hard, as opposed to just continuing on like Rockstar, Nintendo, or just earlier today, Mojang (In Bedrock Edition) do. They could still do serious damage, like by making people incredibly weary of making mods for engines like GZDoom or DSDA using Doom assets.

 

17 minutes ago, Major Arlene said:

Bethesda knows good and damn well that pissing off its mod scene will be the death of them. they've literally just given us unfettered access to idStudio (Doom Eternal's modding engine)

Wait what? They did? You can make mods on the new id Tech engines now?

 

34 minutes ago, Cacodemon345 said:

Microsoft and Bethesda doesn't have a history of actively stopping game modding; the PC release of the Halo Master Chief Collection had official modding tools for pretty much all pre-Halo 5 games (even if limited).

 

And it isn't usually just "I can"; it will always involve money. Doom, Skyrim and Fallout 4 has a vast modding scene that earns Bethesda (and ultimately Microsoft) money from the ensuing sales. While the attempt to port Liberty City to GTA V is going to be seen by Rockstar as an attempt to rob GTA IV sales and the ROMs and fan projects will always be seen as a net negative to sales. That's where the primary differences reside.

Yes, I'm aware the reason is money, but it's only a PERCEIVED threat. In practice for example, Pokemon sells like 20+ million units regardless of how bad the game in question is. No amount of Pokemon fangames left unchecked can hurt Nintendo's bottom line, especially in their case where their primary audience learned to walk last month. And even if it can in theory be a net negative to sales, it's still sacrificing good will to stop a sales loss (Lol, GTA V would've definitely tanked if I could run around Liberty City in it right now) that is miniscule at best.

 

Just now, The Final Event said:

Microsoft and Bethesda doesn't have a history of actively stopping game modding; the PC release of the Halo Master Chief Collection had official modding tools for pretty much all pre-Halo 5 games (even if limited).

 

And it isn't usually just "I can"; it will always involve money. Doom, Skyrim and Fallout 4 has a vast modding scene that earns Bethesda (and ultimately Microsoft) money from the ensuing sales. While the attempt to port Liberty City to GTA V is going to be seen by Rockstar as an attempt to rob GTA IV sales and the ROMs and fan projects will always be seen as a net negative to sales. That's where the primary differences reside.

Well yeah, I think it's at least pretty unlikely that they'll stoop as low as Epic Games, so there's that. Though keeping it up today is pretty redundant outside of consoles.

[Cacodemon345]

6 minutes ago, inkoalawetrust said:

or just earlier today, Mojang (In Bedrock Edition) do.

Minecraft Bedrock Edition will always remain a disaster. And they won't be able to easily kill off the Java Edition.

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

Like bofu and others have said, doom modding isn't going anywhere. I'll be using "They" because I don't know who's in charge nightdive/id/bethesda/microsoft. They have no power to stop people making mods. The engine is free and open, and so are all the tools we use. Better yet, based on the discussion in the cursed id24 thread, the reserved dsdhacked indexes are meant to limit where potential new commercial things/actions would go so they don't interfere with our mods. Thanks for that, that's very nice future-proofing. If They make any new content, it'll be in the id24 format, and in the designated index ranges, and following the spec. We can also use the spec for community creations, which seem to be an extension of the mbf21 stuff. Whether we as community members embrace it or ignore it is up to each of us. And that is the only thing They seem to control, is my understanding. And the engine source port and the mod uploader.

 

The uploader is utterly broken right now as Scuba Steve and Redneckerz could tell you. Seems like you can upload anything you want and it'll just go. Safe to say that won't last. I would assume it'll get nuked entirely, and there will be some sort of verification system in place. Or the one that is there already will get fixed. Hopefully we'll have clear conditions on uploading, hopefully with more control in the hands of creators. If/How you wish your work to be distributed, modified, credited etc with automated process to follow those rules.

 

All that boils down to a pretty disastrous starting point to something that could be very good for the community. I remain very skeptical of any sign of corporate encroachment, bethesda and microsoft have questionable track record but we'll see. Despite my deep seated screechy lefty anti-capitalist tendencies, this isn't all that bad. If They try to pull off something funny, we can just tell them to fuck off with the id24 standard and their fancy port, and we keep on going as we were up till now. They can't do anything, the community is in control either way. Console people can play cool wads, there's official multiplayer, it's a win-win. Don't make me regret saying that.

 

appendix1: okay, I gotta let all this bounce around in the ol' skull meat for a while. I have became more concerned since writing this at first, and even though I didn't get the full thoughts developed, I don't wanna have misleading opinions here. I'll be fair, I did have concerns but then calmed them down a lot, and now it's raising again. So give me a while and I'll add another edit when it's settled..

Edited August 16 by Sneezy McGlassFace : appendix

[Gez]

2 hours ago, Jayextee said:

Along the lines of "what does Bethesda gain", or follow the money thinking, it makes perfect sense that the big 'B' saw DOOM user content, one of the oldest videogame modding scenes still absolutely thriving and perhaps wanting a piece of it. Opening up the world of user-created content for both console owners and people who don't have the slightest idea what a source port is, seems a no-brainer; especially when DOOM is semi-regularly in the gaming press ("someone" made [x] in DOOM, et al) with things like Brutal DOOM, InstaDOOM, MyHouse.wad, et cetera.

 

I personally have no doubt that Bethesda are doing what they're doing for the money; and in doing so, theoretically creating an infinite sales 'tail' to generate a guaranteed forever-trickle of income from the game. But I don't think they're doing what some paranoid cretins in this place think they're doing.

Yes, exactly.

 

Bethesda has attempted to monetize mods before. But the scheme, to work, requires free mods to exist. People will not buy mods unless they trust that the author makes quality work, and the way to know that is to have access to free mods from that author.

 

The Creation Club and now the Verified Creations is how they're going about it. The common point is that mod authors who've proved their skills as creators of free mods get to sell newer works (not existing ones, mind) and Beth gets a cut. What happens if free mods disappear? The whole system stops growing. No more free mods => no more authors to recruit in the program => paid mods gradually disappear as the existing paid mod authors move on to other things.

 

Another thing is that some of the people that got in the CC or VC programs have also since been hired by Bethesda as full-time employees for their games. Because the free modding scene is where people will voluntarily learn how to use the tools that Beth employees use to make their games. When you hire a modder, you hire someone that you do not need to spend time and resources training.

 

To give just one example, the author Elianora was popular for her house mods for Skyrim, she was invited to join Creation Club where she made some more houses (while still releasing other new houses for free on Nexus), and then was hired to do interior design for Starfield.

 

To give another example, recently there was a high-profile mod released, Fallout: London. You've got not just one but two Doctors Who in it! Made a lot of buzz, enough for even Wikipedia to consider it notable. I can guarantee you that the suits at Bethesda are very pleased by this kind of things. They spent zero money to get this expansion made. They have zero liability about it, if there are quality issues, licensing right issues, etc. it's not Bethesda's responsibility but Team FOLON's. But people who want to play Fallout London will still need to own Fallout 4. Oh, and perhaps they'll need to buy it from GOG because they may already have the game on Steam but the installation there is a bit of a hurdle; luckily GOG had the game on sale during F:L's launch week, what a coincidence.

 

 

So, yes. Corporations are for-profit and so they seek to get more money. But many game companies have understood that mods, or "user-generated content", are a good thing for them. After all, user-generated content is content added to your games for free -- you didn't need to pay an employee to make that mod, a user made it! And all the extra content increases the value of your game, and therefore the longevity of its sales.

[fishy]

in short: bethesda needs to keep it's port curated by them and not touch anything that could possibly affect the development of other sourceports.

i think if this simple guideline is followed, it's a good deal for everyone.

new sourceports are always cool, and new modding potentials specially for consoles is always great to see.

now if only we had a way to map on console hmmmmm

[Obsidian Plague]

14 minutes ago, fishy said:

now if only we had a way to map on console hmmmmm 

they really did drop the ball with that, tho tbf i guess it'd be more effort than its worth if you can just upload from your pc

[Deadwing]

It's split in two fronts, I guess.

 

One is the core community we all know with the tools we all use. Other is the more "casual" landscape with bethesda source port and its own mod management, with a more casual public.

 

So I think it'll be expanded, but a lot of things can happen, and one will definitely influence the other. Hopefully Bethesda does good and let things flourish more instead of difficulting it. (Although the communjty has survived 30 years so it's going to be fine anyway)