Posted April 25, 2015
You can actually create textures and models which are 100% yours, in which case, the issue is very clearly cut - you made it, you can sell. It doesn't matter that it's just digital data, we're talking on discussion boards belonging to a website focused on selling digital data.
Then there are paid mods which use assets from freely availible ones - personally, I don't see an issue with this behaviour, as long as the paid mod builds on top of free assets from other mods and doesn't just resell them. Creator of the free mod has put his content out there for free, and while it's common courtesy to ask him whether you can use his stuff, it's always been like that.
But then there's the third possibility - use of paid content in your paid/free mod. Now I suspect things get a bit more complicated here, just as they do for the same thing in any other branch of software development. As far as I'm concerned, it's still down to common human interaction - just ask if you can do it, and if you're not allowed, you can actually get hit by copyright suit.
Now, for the most part, I can't see an issue with any of this - after all, it is how software development has worked globally for years and I only see it rapidly evolving and improving, not the other way around. I can't see why it should be any different for mods.
And that brings me to the collaborative part, to how modders share what they have made amongst themselves. It all comes down to how modders themselves handle this. From developing software on daily basis, I can see that even tho there's tons of software which requires payment before you can get it, programmers understand that collaborating and sharing their work is essential to further develop their jobs globally. Some of the biggest advancements in software industry came from need to further commercial usage and options. After all of this mess stabilizes, I can't see why mods could not end up the same way.
Oh, and as for my wife having 100% original work - no, she does not. She stands on shoulders of generations and generations of artists who were here before her and developed techniques, styles and various approaches. It's not just development of software, every human endavour gets furthered by sharing and cooperation - and while copyright laws don't exactly help, we move forward step by step every day anyhow.
At the end of the day tho, this is an innovation. Regardless of motivation behind it, it's a neutral change and I'm not smart enough to see where it'll lead. Perhaps you're correct and it'll ruin modding, or perhaps it'll lead to second gold age of it. Time will tell, but it's too soon to judge yet.
Of course you're right in some places and I agree with you. But the case of 100% original work quickly becomes irrelevant, since it's being shared and used almost immediately. It would be really hard to identify people responsible for the best ideas of mods, scrypts, etc. now.
I would also disagree on comparing share-ware assets in Skyrim modding to "She stands on shoulders of generations and generations of artists who were here before her and developed techniques, styles and various approaches". This seems like pulling the string to hard. There's a difference between ctrl+c ctrl+v and learning the craft of painting from the scratch, trying to make an inspired piece of art. Artists don't cut pieces of classic painting to glue it into their own work.
Other than that, as I said, I can see your point, but I still stand by mine. I would really want to believe it will benefit the quality of gaming, but I've really strong evidences to think otherwise. Other ideas Valve implemented to "support indies" or "improve gaming quality and community control over games" turned out to be obvious frauds. Greenlight didn't improve Steam library's quality. It did the exact opposite. Same with Early Access. Steam is riddled with developers releasing beta versions of their unfinished games mostly to earn a quick buck. Rarely they will finish their game, and when they decide to "end" early access, the game is still mostly an unfinished mess (War of the Underworld). But mostly it won't be released. Instead, "developers" are encouraged to release DLC to their early access games or even said paid mods (space engineers).
The same situation will, unfortunately, happen with paid mods. The market will be flooded with 3rd party DLC of poor quality, but on the top of that: the characteristic of this hobby will cause a massive amount of hatred, ethical issues and possible lawsuits. Heck, it's already happening. The Skyrim modding community was murdered over one night and nothing will repair that.
As I said, the only option to "support modding" would be to leave the old state of affairs. It worked perfectly and enabled such great things like Morrowind Overhauls, MSKE, MGE, SKSE, SkyRe, etc. Nobody demanded to be paid. The simple introduction of paychecks from one of the biggest companies this market has seen ruined all that in 24 hours.
As much as I would be optimistic, I simply can't. It's 2006 Hourse Armour all over again, but even worse. There were people who stated that's not a big deal, it won't affect PC gaming on the long run.
Now it's obvious that the amount and quality of games is simply worse that it was before 2006. You pay more to get less, and even are mugged to pay microtransactions in a stand alone, 60€ game.
The most extreme example I saw is Risen 2. There were 3 day 1 DLC. It was blocked for everyone with online purchase. I got a retail version and had enabled 2 of them. 3rd was supposed to come out like month after the release.
And guess what. There was no DLC. All the content was already done way before the development process ended. All files were on my retail discs. I could access them all via a simple console command in-game. Trying to charge people to unlock release content was a straightforward crime, but guess what? I had gone to Deep Silver forums and put it out. I got no response at all, and my account was blocked.
Of course Risen 2 was rightfully bashed to the ground for that, and for being a terrible game itself, but there were people ok with such a crime Deep Silver decided to take. That was the moment I lost all my hope in playerbase as consumers. I knew it will be worse and worse, and even more people will be ok with paying more for less, even if there's no single reason to demand money from them.
I blame educational process, but it can't be just that. Is humanity degenerating so fast and hard? Or is it just 1983 all over again?
I hope for latter. The PC gaming, and video gaming overall, needs a fresh start, in my opinion.
Neverwinter Nights, Grimrock, Mount and Blade, Doom (yeah it's old, but I wouldn't be surprised for someone trying to monetize WADS on Steam now), Dragon Age, all them Farming and shit Simulators, ARMA of course! etc.
Post edited April 25, 2015 by Imachuemanch
