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Comment by venomsnake | Hacker News Reader

Hmm ... the problem is that Bethesda were getting 45% ... which is absurd. I already paid for the game, the publisher should get at most 5-6% ... if the scheme was 10% valve, 10% bethesda, 80% mod creator - it would have been a different reaction.

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Why should Bethesda get anything at all? Unless they're going to the trouble of making sure their official patches don't interfere with popular mods or something like that, they aren't providing additional value beyond providing the game that was already paid for. I think one of the issues in this wasn't just that mod creators would have gotten a small fraction of profit, but because Bethesda's behavior was somewhat rent-seeking -- attempting to normalize publishers getting a cut of sales that they hadn't gotten before, for doing no extra work.

They provide a platform with fine support for mods. That's some extra work and cost in the development of the platform which allows modders to spend less time and money to finish their mod.

I agree the percentage is ludicrous, but I don't find a small fee unreasonable at all. Developing a customizable system is hard. We may argue that they may sell extra copies based on that feature, but we'd never have objective data to back up or refute that claim.

But they already provided the platform and didn't require a cut before. That's the whole point, that this would be a net negative change from what was before. If we lived in a world where there wasn't a previous modding community and mods weren't a thing, and this was a new option to allow fans to make "non-official DLC" and sell it, then it may be more acceptable.

But given the state of the existing mod communities, doing these things for free or donations and usually out of a love of the game, normalizing an environment where Bethesda gets money for doing no additional work is going to be understandably resisted.

This is like the John Deere article posted about last week. Bethesda must see the game as "rented" from them rather than purchased.

Example:

  If you rent a house and you have a party and make a meal, you are allowed to use the house to your fullest extent and eat as many meals as possible etc but the house is still owned by the landlord.

  If you purchase a house and you have a party and make a meal, you have complete freedom and own the house outright.

Your meal is your mod and your house is Skyrim. They built the house and apparently think that they're just renting it to you even though you flat out purchased it from them.

Bethesda already get financial returns in the form of increased sales due to modability.

I can see why they should get a cut - they provide not only a very moddable game but also pretty good tools. I would be ok if Bethesda has an incentive to design their future games with modding capabilities in mind.

But they should not get more than the actual modder, imo.

One of the reasons their games sell so well is because of the mod support. People are willing to pay lots of money for Bethesda games because they know they can have fun with them for years, on account of all the mods.

Bethesda was already benefiting from the mods in the form of increased sales.

Lots of money for Bethesda games? Are their games more expensive then competition that does not provide modding? Are their games expensive at all? Giving how much gameplay game like Skyrim gives, price seems fair.

Anecdotal, but still relevant. They have typically ended up more expensive than most games for me due to the time it takes for the price to drop down to the same level as a lot of other games, even during steam sales. Even without a price discrepancy though, the reputation of moddability has certainly influenced my decision on bethesda games in the past, as well as other people I know. It's tough for a long time fan of their games to not see this as a way to squeeze extra cash out of their game, especially with the cut they offered modders.

Well I think that there should be incentive for publishers to release mod tools and quality mod tool require effort and support (and modding is somewhat gray legal area)

Would it? A better cut for the mod publisher does not solve the problem of people taking publicly available mods that they did not make, and submitting them into Valve's system to get paid for work they didn't do.

That is copyright infringement ... a whole different case ...

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