Look, it doesn't matter anymore. I'll take it if it helps reduce the controversy
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
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firewaterwordSatchitanandaPais Vasco to San FranciscoRegistered Userregular
While I'm definitely in the camp that expected, and appreciated, an about-face on this from valve, I have to say some of the discussions it has spurred around here have been pretty interesting. It'll be interesting to see how this concept is revisited down the road. Personally, paying for a mod as a product is a non-starter, but I can think of a few skyrim/fallout mods that I'd probably donate a buck or two for to show support.
I'm honestly surprised most by the fact that they deployed this system for skyrim, and not a new title or IP. It just seems so poorly thought out for a number of reasons.
I was away this weekend so, while I was aware this was happening soonish, I didn't know exactly when and missed the furor over the launch. I did realise something weird was afoot though as I suddenly got an influx of emails and my first ever donations for Cloaks of Skyrim. They caught me by surprise and were much appreciated! Especially as I somehow lost a train ticket on Sunday and had to splash the cash on a replacement. Eased the pain somewhat! Anyway, perhaps the donations were because I decided to opt out of sticking it up for sale on Steam.
Fascinating reading back over how it unfolded, and pleased Bethesda and Steam have reversed the idea. I was surprised when I first heard it was happening, for reasons that have already been covered a huge amount in various discussions. Hope it isn't something that will be there from day one for when Fallout 4 or the next TES game is released.
Heck, I'd be happy with a official acknowledgement from Bethesda to the modders - "thanks for fixing our game that was released incomplete and/or full of bugs" - but understand why they can't, as a matter of corporate policy, say that.
I think my problem is I'm not sure Valve was actually trying to solve the problem they claimed they were; "trying" being the key word in that sentence.
If this was motivated by a sincere desire to encourage mod development and the compensation thereof, the lack of planning that went into its implementation is more than a little troubling. Honestly, if this were any company except Valve, I'd be more suspicious of their motives. As mentioned, the likely outcome for anyone else is that the company would've dug their heels in for a lot longer, and would never have admitted they didn't know what they were doing.
In their haste to pave the way for the next Counterstrike or DayZ, Valve seem to have forgotten that Counterstrike and DayZ emerged from the modding scene as it is. Adding monetary incentives may encourage development - I emphasize may, as we might also just wind up with a different set of winners and losers - and wanting to compensate mod developers for their work is reasonable, but you can't halfass something like this. Valve needed a team of people whose sole responsibility was to smoothly introduce the idea, rather than dropping it like a live grenade on a largely unsuspecting user base. Their goals and their actions simply didn't square for me.
I appreciate the direct language, and honesty is a breath of fresh air in a situation like this, but I think Valve would do well to remember this incident the next time they have some big idea.
Yes, because I just re-read it and realized my initial interpretation of the post was wrong. I addressed that in my post even. It's not doing a 180 to correct yourself when you find out you were wrong.
I understand that you re-read it and believe your interpretation is wrong. The problem is that you took two completely opposite situations and interpreted them in ways that lead to the exact same conclusion. I seriously doubt that kind of mental gymnastics would occur unless you were actively out to make Valve look like, as you said, literal sharecroppers.
That's because we already knew the conclusion: they took the deal that they knew was bad. It's possible for the same conclusion to be reached from different directions. The root was to figure out why they were convinced to take a deal they readily acknowedged was bad. My initial reading was that they were isolated and thus convinced themselves it would be a good idea, likely with Valve and/or Bethesda pushing them along. After my re-read, I revised that to they were interacting as a group and thus convinced each other it would be a good idea, likely with Valve and/or Bethesda pushing them along.
Based on the post it would have definitely been easier for Valve if they kept them completely isolated from each other since some didn't even realize the bad deal until others pointed it out, meaning Valve would only have had to deal with a couple of modders rather than the entire group. In that isolation case Valve was in such a powerful position that pulling out the "industry standard" line as a matter-of-fact would likely have been enough to appease anyone who complained. Trying to puzzle out why the group as a whole decided to go with it is much trickier than doing the same with an isolated person. As I mentioned earlier, I'm not going to give Valve the benefit of the doubt whatsoever due to their previous practices which is why I assume they're a bad actor in some form. With that bias I assume that Valve and Bethesda pulled out the stops to ensure their project didn't collapse under this discovery by making assurances, pumping up the modders with how exclusive the project was/how awesome they all are, introducing sunk cost into the conversation by asking questions like "you wouldn't want to go so far only to quit at the finish line, right?", and handwaving issues as much as they could. Then they'd rely on peer pressure driven by any modders who didn't think it was a bad deal in the first place coupled with however many managed to switch over to push the rest into accepting.
That said, them being allowed to converse as a group is definitely not anywhere as scummy as keeping them isolated from each other and it's possible the group managed to convince themselves to go with the bad deal with limited or no intervention from Valve at all. Regardless, I still blame Valve for putting people with no contract negotiation experience into a situation like that and effectively taking advantage of their inexperience and naivete for theirs and Bethesda's gain.
Look, it doesn't matter anymore. I'll take it if it helps reduce the controversy
One thing I take away from this entire debacle is that I feel much less lonely in my intolerance of Bethesda's practices. I feel secure knowing I'm not the only person aware and angry of how lazy Bethesda's patching efforts are, how broken their Gamebryo engine is, and how much contempt they seem to have for the very modding community that helps sell their games by giving them a modicum of stability.
I bought Fallout 3 and New Vegas on the PS3, and neither I could finish because of the save bug that causes the game to freeze if you play it longer than 20 minutes, and Skyrim still has the same issue. How Bethesda has any goodwill left with gamers after some of the shit it's pulled I find one of the great mysteries of video game history.
Look, it doesn't matter anymore. I'll take it if it helps reduce the controversy
One thing I take away from this entire debacle is that I feel much less lonely in my intolerance of Bethesda's practices. I feel secure knowing I'm not the only person aware and angry of how lazy Bethesda's patching efforts are, how broken their Gamebryo engine is, and how much contempt they seem to have for the very modding community that helps sell their games by giving them a modicum of stability.
I bought Fallout 3 and New Vegas on the PS3, and neither I could finish because of the save bug that causes the game to freeze if you play it longer than 20 minutes, and Skyrim still has the same issue. How Bethesda has any goodwill left with gamers after some of the shit it's pulled I find one of the great mysteries of video game history.
Bethesda and Mojang I find to be the two mysteries when it comes to PC gaming. Both games are renowned for the mods, but I feel that the mods are despite of rather than because of the support given to them in that regards. Contrary to popular belief, Minecraft is rather hostile to modding as the obfuscation being used changes with major updates and the much promised 'modding API' is still in its infancy if not gestation period after being promised for more than 2-3 years.
The buggy broken messes Bethesda produces are in my view, expected and the lack of any meaningful patching is also the norm. It's actually my hope that this followed by any inevitable locked off modding capability will cause the fall of the king and the search for a new franchise or IP to take up the mantle.
Look, it doesn't matter anymore. I'll take it if it helps reduce the controversy
One thing I take away from this entire debacle is that I feel much less lonely in my intolerance of Bethesda's practices. I feel secure knowing I'm not the only person aware and angry of how lazy Bethesda's patching efforts are, how broken their Gamebryo engine is, and how much contempt they seem to have for the very modding community that helps sell their games by giving them a modicum of stability.
I bought Fallout 3 and New Vegas on the PS3, and neither I could finish because of the save bug that causes the game to freeze if you play it longer than 20 minutes, and Skyrim still has the same issue. How Bethesda has any goodwill left with gamers after some of the shit it's pulled I find one of the great mysteries of video game history.
I still have nightmares about the PS3 version of Fallout 3.
Posts
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I'm honestly surprised most by the fact that they deployed this system for skyrim, and not a new title or IP. It just seems so poorly thought out for a number of reasons.
Fascinating reading back over how it unfolded, and pleased Bethesda and Steam have reversed the idea. I was surprised when I first heard it was happening, for reasons that have already been covered a huge amount in various discussions. Hope it isn't something that will be there from day one for when Fallout 4 or the next TES game is released.
If this was motivated by a sincere desire to encourage mod development and the compensation thereof, the lack of planning that went into its implementation is more than a little troubling. Honestly, if this were any company except Valve, I'd be more suspicious of their motives. As mentioned, the likely outcome for anyone else is that the company would've dug their heels in for a lot longer, and would never have admitted they didn't know what they were doing.
In their haste to pave the way for the next Counterstrike or DayZ, Valve seem to have forgotten that Counterstrike and DayZ emerged from the modding scene as it is. Adding monetary incentives may encourage development - I emphasize may, as we might also just wind up with a different set of winners and losers - and wanting to compensate mod developers for their work is reasonable, but you can't halfass something like this. Valve needed a team of people whose sole responsibility was to smoothly introduce the idea, rather than dropping it like a live grenade on a largely unsuspecting user base. Their goals and their actions simply didn't square for me.
I appreciate the direct language, and honesty is a breath of fresh air in a situation like this, but I think Valve would do well to remember this incident the next time they have some big idea.
Now playing: Teardown and Baldur's Gate 3 (co-op)
Sunday Spotlight: Horror Tales: The Wine
That's because we already knew the conclusion: they took the deal that they knew was bad. It's possible for the same conclusion to be reached from different directions. The root was to figure out why they were convinced to take a deal they readily acknowedged was bad. My initial reading was that they were isolated and thus convinced themselves it would be a good idea, likely with Valve and/or Bethesda pushing them along. After my re-read, I revised that to they were interacting as a group and thus convinced each other it would be a good idea, likely with Valve and/or Bethesda pushing them along.
Based on the post it would have definitely been easier for Valve if they kept them completely isolated from each other since some didn't even realize the bad deal until others pointed it out, meaning Valve would only have had to deal with a couple of modders rather than the entire group. In that isolation case Valve was in such a powerful position that pulling out the "industry standard" line as a matter-of-fact would likely have been enough to appease anyone who complained. Trying to puzzle out why the group as a whole decided to go with it is much trickier than doing the same with an isolated person. As I mentioned earlier, I'm not going to give Valve the benefit of the doubt whatsoever due to their previous practices which is why I assume they're a bad actor in some form. With that bias I assume that Valve and Bethesda pulled out the stops to ensure their project didn't collapse under this discovery by making assurances, pumping up the modders with how exclusive the project was/how awesome they all are, introducing sunk cost into the conversation by asking questions like "you wouldn't want to go so far only to quit at the finish line, right?", and handwaving issues as much as they could. Then they'd rely on peer pressure driven by any modders who didn't think it was a bad deal in the first place coupled with however many managed to switch over to push the rest into accepting.
That said, them being allowed to converse as a group is definitely not anywhere as scummy as keeping them isolated from each other and it's possible the group managed to convince themselves to go with the bad deal with limited or no intervention from Valve at all. Regardless, I still blame Valve for putting people with no contract negotiation experience into a situation like that and effectively taking advantage of their inexperience and naivete for theirs and Bethesda's gain.
One thing I take away from this entire debacle is that I feel much less lonely in my intolerance of Bethesda's practices. I feel secure knowing I'm not the only person aware and angry of how lazy Bethesda's patching efforts are, how broken their Gamebryo engine is, and how much contempt they seem to have for the very modding community that helps sell their games by giving them a modicum of stability.
I bought Fallout 3 and New Vegas on the PS3, and neither I could finish because of the save bug that causes the game to freeze if you play it longer than 20 minutes, and Skyrim still has the same issue. How Bethesda has any goodwill left with gamers after some of the shit it's pulled I find one of the great mysteries of video game history.
Bethesda and Mojang I find to be the two mysteries when it comes to PC gaming. Both games are renowned for the mods, but I feel that the mods are despite of rather than because of the support given to them in that regards. Contrary to popular belief, Minecraft is rather hostile to modding as the obfuscation being used changes with major updates and the much promised 'modding API' is still in its infancy if not gestation period after being promised for more than 2-3 years.
The buggy broken messes Bethesda produces are in my view, expected and the lack of any meaningful patching is also the norm. It's actually my hope that this followed by any inevitable locked off modding capability will cause the fall of the king and the search for a new franchise or IP to take up the mantle.