Paid-for Skyrim mod removed in a matter of hours

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

There's a difference between Donate and a Paid button, Valve chose the wrong button. 

Chesko's Fishing Mod is now the holder of a dubious record: it's the first paid-for Skyrim mod to be removed from sale.

 

An early test for Valve's unique policing methods, the removal came off the back of claims Chesko and aqqh, the fishing mod's creators were profiting from the work of fellow modder Fore without the latter's permisison.

See, the fishing mod used assets from Fore's New Idles in Skyrim fine in the world of free mods, but not something that's kosher in the world of for-profit modding.
 

Screengrabs were, of course, grabbed before things went quiet on the Workshop page:
 

 

 

 

And since then  well, see for yourself: the mod is gone, and there are just a few confused people milling around, wondering what this brave new world of paid mods holds for them.

Do you still open your legs for everything value does? the 5$ threshold was stupid as it was earlier this week, this is a whole new level of wolf in a sheep's cloth.

Source : http://kotaku.com/paid-skyrim-mod-turns-into-a-clusterfuck-1699913114

[minibois]

well that was pretty fast..

[pjm0925]

And this is probably only the beginning of the drama...

[Trik'Stari]

Let us all hope that this is the beginning of the end of the idea of paid for mods.

[Sauron]

I kind of feel this is doomed to crash in the ground and burn... nobody will want to buy mods. Even those willing to support the modder through donations will probably pass once the mod is behind a paywall.

[carolkarine]

Only mods worth paying for are falskaar and helgen reborn. Maybe moonpath.

Even then it should be optional.

[The_Strict_Nein]

Any mod that requires SKSE to function is also fair game to be removed, as the SKSE team demands anything that functions with SKSE be free.

 

They can really twist Valve's hand by taking SKSE down. See how they like thousands of complaints of non functional mods.

[ChineseChef]

Any mod that requires SKSE to function is also fair game to be removed, as the SKSE team demands anything that functions with SKSE be free.

 

They can really twist Valve's hand by taking SKSE down. See how they like thousands of complaints of non functional mods.

 

It would almost be best to wait a little bit, see how things play out, then take down anything and everything with SKSE in it.  Create so much headache that Valve doesn't think its worth it. 

 

I am also waiting for some other big company to go after Valve for profiting from copyright violations on licensed works. (think lord of the rings mods and such)

[Misanthrope]

I think Chesko shouldn't have said that he was under NDA (although it was kind of obvious several complex and extremely popular mods popped up right away) The fact that either Valve or Bethesda (Let's not derail this into another "fuck valve" shitfest please) contacted them and gave em NDA and such and had this approach about derivative and/or required additional mods it's quite telling: This system claims to try and support modders but actually has no respect for them.

[The_Strict_Nein]

I think Chesko shouldn't have said that he was under NDA (although it was kind of obvious several complex and extremely popular mods popped up right away) The fact that either Valve or Bethesda (Let's not derail this into another "fuck valve" shitfest please) contacted them and gave em NDA and such and had this approach about derivative and/or required additional mods it's quite telling: This system claims to try and support modders but actually has no respect for them.

 

Exactly, that's more of the scandle

[Misanthrope]

Nexus reacts: Incoming wall of text from Dark0ne,

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/news/12454/?

 

Before I get in to the minor updates we've made to the site in light of the major news yesterday I will quickly address the matter of our forums being slow and/or down.

Obviously this news has been a huge deal, and probably exploded far more than Valve and Bethesda realised it would (and not particularly positively, lets face it!). Some of the spotlight has been shined on the Nexus as a result of that. Some people have expressed concern we'll go the same way (they obviously don't read the site news) or that it'll affect us negatively some how. Everything you see here is completely free, and it's definitely staying that way. About 40 mods have been hidden in the Skyrim Nexus section since this announcement, most of which are people afraid their mods are going to be stolen and uploaded to Steam for profit. Our forums have also been struggling to keep up with the increase in traffic that's come from the spotlight being placed on us and so they've either been crawling along at a snails pace or they've been taken down by us while we try and tweak things as much as possible.

The forums are the only element of the site infrastructure that we didn't update in our big 16 month, $250,000 infrastructure update we did over this and last year. We wanted to keep the forums running on a separate system to the sites so that if one went down, the other would still (hopefully) be up, and vice-versa. Hence why the Nexus sites themselves are working fine and the forums aren't. We're working to rectify that so if the forums go down, that's us working on it. We wanted a bit of a rest from infrastructure upgrades after the soul crushing experience we had last year, but we'll look in to sorting out the forums now.

Now, on to the changes we've made today.

Donations

The donation system on the Nexus has been brought up and talked about a lot over the past few months in our private mod author forums (mod authors with 1,000 or more unique downloads gain access). Way before this announcement by Valve and Bethesda it was agreed that the donation system needed to be made more prominent because a lot of users still weren't aware the system even existed on the sites.

We are going to look in to loosening up our donation rules slightly. One of my main issues, to this day, with mod pages is how awful some file page descriptions are. Some mod descriptions are buried underneath change logs, latest news, FAQs, information about the author's dog in the vets and so on and so forth. Sometimes it can be a real struggle just to find the freaking description of what the mod actually does. I have not, and do not ever want a mod description tab to contain information about (or begging for) endorsements, votes or donations. However, something I will explore is adding a donation box below the main content area of a file page. So if you reach the bottom of the file description, there'll be a new box underneath that where an author can talk about donations with a donation link. A good use of that area might be to list and thank the people who've already donated and to explain what the donation money, if there is any, will go towards. That way, there's a specific place for authors to talk about donations that, most importantly for me, doesn't detract from the importance of talking about what the mod actually does. As I said, that's just something we're looking in to right now and, if feedback is positive on this idea, we could have something out next week. But until then our rules have not changed on specifically asking for donations in your file descriptions. It's still a big no-no.

On to updates we've actually made today: we were busy working on an update to the image uploading system to be far more efficient based on mod author feedback, but we've sidelined that in the mean-time to focus on these quick updates before the weekend hits.

We've made a quick, preliminary update to the sites that allows mod authors to show a donation information box before a user downloads their file. The box looks and acts the same way as the "required files" box before downloads. If you've used the site enough you'll have come across mods that require other mods in order to work. Some mod authors have turned on the functionality that will inform users who go to download their files of these required files. Now, as a mod author, you can turn on a donation box which uses the same system. When a user clicks to download one of your files an information box will come up explaining the donation system with a direct button link users can click to donate. If the user does not want to donate all they need to do is click the "Continue with my download button" and the download will begin as per before.

This adds another click to a user's downloading process but we think, in light of these major, sweeping changes we're seeing in our modding community, it's a very small price to pay to get the word out there a bit more about donations.

Many mod authors have expressed that they don't want to make a living from their modding hobby, but a free cup of coffee or pint of beer every now and again goes a long way to making them happy and content with the tens, hundreds and even thousands of hours they put into modding. And happy mod authors are often better mod authors in my book. Most of all, it doesn't hurt anyone. Unless one extra click hurts you (if so, you might want to see a doctor about that).

This new functionality is opt-in for all mod authors right now. In order to opt-in, you need to fill in your donation preferences on the site and turn on the options in all the files that you want to turn donations on for. If you'd previously turned on donations for all your files then all your files will continue to have donations on by default, but the donation box is not on by default. Which leads us to the next quick update.

Donations are no longer global across all your file pages. Originally, you either turned donations on for all your files or none of your files. This led to a few issues because many mod authors collaborate with other authors, which resulted in a donation button showing for one mod author but not another. Which is not ideal. So now you can cherry pick the exact files you want to show a donation button for and what files you don't. The option to turn on the pre-download donation box is another option on top of that which, once again, you can specify on a per-file basis.

We still have a glaring issue of how, or even if, we can split donations between mod teams. The problem is that I really, really, do not want to touch any donation money. I don't want to act as a middle-man between a user and a mod author when it comes to donations, I'd just rather a user donated to a mod author directly. The inherent problem with that is, because there's no way of knowing what file a donation was for, there's no way of being able to differentiate between a donation for a file that an author made on their own and a donation for a file an author made with a team. It's something we're going to have to think about, because the only way I can think of getting around that particular issue is having some sort of Steam Wallet style system in place on the Nexus that records all the donations sent for all files and mod authors. And I absolutely loathe that idea.

Permission changes regarding paid mods

The modding community, especially with Bethesda games, is built on mods that use assets from other mods. Many mods are stand-alone and use completely unique or vanilla assets, but many also use assets from other mods. On top of that, many modders release their mods as "modders resources", essentially saying to people "take whatever you want from my mod and use it in yours". The introduction of paid for mods changes that. Some mod authors have already taken their mods down because they're afraid their assets or even their entire mods will be stolen and added to the new Steam Workshop without their permission. Many more have said they are now unsure if they'll ever release another modder's resource again.

We obviously do not want that to happen, and the fact it has happened already leaves a sour taste in my mouth. The taste of one side of what money is bringing to modding. We've even had our first mod taken down from the paywall section of Skyrim Workshop related to this issue, less than 24 hours in. And these were the mods vetted by Valve and Bethesda themselves! Gooooood start. Big sarcastic thumbs up.

While I'm talking about this fear of mods or assets being stolen, I feel I need to point out a massive, glaring issue with this new Workshop implementation, because right now people are focusing on "Oh my god, you mean I might need to pay for some mods?" while I think an even more horrific thing is "Oh my god, you mean I will have to pay to check and make sure if someone has stolen my work!?". Let me explain. The new implementation is set up so that there's a 7-day grace period after an author uploads a file with a pricetag. During these 7 days users can view the file page, look at the pictures and read the description, but they cannot download the file. The idea of this grace period is to get the community to police new uploads before they're added to make sure that nothing bad is added to the paid section of the site. Seems like a good idea. Except if a mod author is using stolen assets from other people's mods.

Unless the thief is pants on head stupid they're not going to talk about stealing assets from other mods or put up pictures that would suggest assets have been stolen. The only way the authors of the assets that have been stolen will know it's happened is if someone buys the mod and then tells the author. At which point the author is either going to have to engage in the new world of mod piracy (which began yesterday in earnest) or they're going to have to buy the mod for themselves. So you want to say, "But Dark0ne, the author can buy the mod, investigate, then ask for a refund, as there's a refund system!". Yes, there's a refund system. A refund system that refunds you in Steam Wallet money that you can never take out of Steam. So once you've bought that mod, that money will always be Valve's from that point on. Refund or not. That, I'm sorry to say, is batshit. Freaking. Crazy. Add to that the fact that the mod may have made substantial sums of money before it's spotted, some of which may have already been paid to the thief, or alternatively has been removed from the thief's account before they could get the payout and, guess where the money goes then? That's right. Valve's coffers.

So if you're wondering why some mod authors have pulled their mods already, if you think it's silly or a daft knee-jerk reaction, you might want to rethink your position. I'm most definitely not trying to encourage more mod authors to do that, but I won't begrudge them doing it, and I'm also not going to bury my head in the sand and pretend like it isn't happening just so some mod authors don't find out the ugly truth and stick around. I think everyone should know everything there is to know about this. What I'd rather people did was put some pressure on Valve to find a way around this awful idea of profiting off stolen mods. Even if it's a way of refunding money properly instead of it being Steam Wallet money, that'd be a good start. My other idea would be for Valve to offer to donate any money that came from proven stolen mods that have been taken down to charity. That would be an awesome gesture.

In light of this issue, and because I know a lot of mod authors have either come out on one side or the other on the issue, we've added a new permissions check box to file page settings (found under "Edit Attributes", towards the bottom). The setting reads "Users can not use my assets in any mods/files that are being sold, for money, on Steam Workshop or other platforms". You can either tick it or untick it, and that information will be displayed under the Permissions and Credits link as per usual.

It's important that's there to ensure that users can still provide a blanket "Yes, you can use my work in your mods" statement while also clarifying "except if you're going to charge for it", or "even if you charge for it", depending on where you stand. This box is ticked by default. You will need to untick it if you want to allow mod authors to profit off your work.

Time will only tell how well Valve and Bethesda are going to handle these issues, and I'd say stolen assets being used in paid mods is one of, if not the biggest issue right now. Some of the rumours going around are not nice to hear, but we've got to let the dust settle and see what comes of all of this. It's too early to tell. I appreciate it's ironic to say that after I just had a little rant, but my god, it's already freaking happened, less than a day in, and I've smashed my head in to my desk on more than one occasion today in disbelief because of it. So not a great start from Valve and Bethesda, but yes, it's still to early to tell.

TL:DR version: They're relaxing the donation rules, giving the option to request donations when you're downloading a file and also giving the option for mod authors to say "You can use this assets except if you plan on selling them on steam" which is quite honestly, the beginning of a shit maelstrom.

[Misanthrope]

Also there are some new free mods for you to enjoy:

 

Latest FilesNew today
> Kill Lord Gaben
> Falcata Sword
> Give Me Money For No Reason
> Death Hound HD
> Elly Tran Ha Enhanced Character Edit Slot Preset or CME SAVE

[The_Strict_Nein]

Nexus reacts: Incoming wall of text from Dark0ne,

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/news/12454/?

 

TL:DR version: They're relaxing the donation rules, giving the option to request donations when you're downloading a file and also giving the option for mod authors to say "You can use this assets except if you plan on selling them on steam" which is quite honestly, the beginning of a shit maelstrom.

 

Because words mean so much and people will definitely not continue to plan to sell the mods because they read those words.

[The_Strict_Nein]

Also there are some new free mods for you to enjoy:

 

Latest FilesNew today

> Kill Lord Gaben

> Falcata Sword

> Give Me Money For No Reason

> Death Hound HD

> Elly Tran Ha Enhanced Character Edit Slot Preset or CME SAVE

 

I am tempted to create a mod that changes the name of an item just slightly and charge $100,000 for it.

[Misanthrope]

I am tempted to create a mod that changes the name of an item just slightly and charge $100,000 for it.

[MoonSpot]

I am tempted to create a mod that changes the name of an item just slightly and charge $100,000 for it.

 

Shit man.  I have 2 or 3 mods that did that inadvertently for free already

[alicskysareblue]

Any mod that requires SKSE to function is also fair game to be removed, as the SKSE team demands anything that functions with SKSE be free.

 

They can really twist Valve's hand by taking SKSE down. See how they like thousands of complaints of non functional mods.

No skse is fine with people using it for payed mods.

 

guys lets no over plow this, Chesko is an excellent mod creator and has always been fair about the content he created, also alot of these authors are getting flamed which is wrong, and does more harm then the mods being payed for.

 

also lets not forget that you can pay for what you think it is worth

[TheGamingBarrel]

I am tempted to create a mod that changes the name of an item just slightly and charge $100,000 for it.

What if the user already has the item you are changing?

[Briggsy]

Its a double edged sword. Paid Mods give the really good modders the ability to do full time modding if its profitable enough, improving the overall quality of mods. the downside is two-fold though... few publishers/developers want a 3rd party making money off of "DLC" for their IP, which leads me to believe that bethesda is also taking a small cut from Mod Sales, not just steam. The other problem is that every aspiring modder will search for the highest grossing mods, and try to copy instead of being creative. So, if a hair mod is doing really well in sales, suddenly every tom dick and harry is uploading their own hair mods instead of creating something they might be better at, not to mention that quite a number of skyrim/oblivion mod assets are ripped straight out of other Games completely unrelated to Bethesda. Modders asking for money are stepping into a legal ****storm if they even dare to use copyrighted assets from other games or other modders. 

 

Will be interesting to see if the whole concept pans out. Bethesda loves making mod-able games, so I doubt they will want to see this concept do a faceplant. Mods that do really well will give Bethesda and other companies an idea of the kinds of official DLC people are willing to pay for.

[The_Strict_Nein]

What if the user already has the item you are changing?

 

Then I'll change it by script to be different enough.

[MoonSpot]

No skse is fine with people using it for payed mods.

 

guys lets no over plow this, Chesko is an excellent mod creator and has always been fair about the content he created, also alot of these authors are getting flamed which is wrong, and does more harm then the mods being payed for.

 

also lets not forget that you can pay for what you think it is worth

 

May cooler heads prevail.  I hope and for the moment assume that chesko chose to take down the mod after speaking with others.  But there's little to no facts at the moment, just the tabloids.

[The_Strict_Nein]

No skse is fine with people using it for payed mods.

 

guys lets no over plow this, Chesko is an excellent mod creator and has always been fair about the content he created, also alot of these authors are getting flamed which is wrong, and does more harm then the mods being payed for.

 

also lets not forget that you can pay for what you think it is worth

 

The only way to go is overboard. We need to burn down the houses and destroy everything.

 

This is not okay. No way is this okay. If modders are shouted out in the process blame Valve. If I sold my mods through this program I'd accept the fact I sold my soul and take the hate.

[drwiggles]

Figures that this happens right when GTAV comes out. 

[CyanideInsanity]

Figures that this happens right when GTAV comes out. 

 

And thats supposed to mean what exactly, that gta 5's pc release influenced valve, bethesda, and some modders to try and "steal" money?

[Victorious Secret]

And thats supposed to mean what exactly, that gta 5's pc release influenced valve, bethesda, and some modders to try and "steal" money?

 

GTA V will have mods too. 

 

Just have to pay for them.