What to do about the TES mod community

This is 100% legal

I'm pretty sure this isn't.

The only way I see this working is if it goes to keeping up the servers and such. Paying people would be a mess as those in charge of everything have said several times.

JustSnilloc

The only way I see this working is if it goes to keeping up the servers and such. Paying people would be a mess as those in charge of everything have said several times.

No, it wouldn't. This is about something else than what has been talked about here. Please consider informing yourself properly before discussing this further.

Also, as it is for any mod (paid or not) it depends on Bethesda's good will for it to stay up. However, in the case Ashking is talking about there's nothing illegal happening.

$3000? If you are gonna be on solid legal ground, you will need more for it to be worth your time. By the looks of it, you're gonna be splitting it between 10 people at least (including voice actors).. for $300 each on average, I don't really see the point in asking for money at all, honestly.

You are welcome to do whatever you want, though.

edit: by solid legal ground i mean, you will want actual contracts written up by a legal professional - something that doesn't come cheap. Also, licenses for programs need to be paid for it to be legal as well - people are still getting money directly for work on the project.

Ashking Wulfharth

It is. This mod has been sitting on there for a while now:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/anebriate/tales-of-the-drunken-paladin-skyrim?ref=nav_search

If it weren't legal. That would have been gone a long time ago.

Hmmm. Not sure if 'getting away with it' equals legality; it might be legal or it might not (I won't pretend to know the ins and outs of the legal stuff) but I don't see how this example proves anything. Maybe they got away with it because it was 2012 and paid mods weren't such a hot topic back then?

Since it's donations for the artists and not profit from sale of a mod, it sidesteps a great deal of the legal complications.

The problem with Kickstarter is you are asking for a specific mod to be funded. It might say in the notes that you aren't doing so, but the Kickstarter is called 'Shadowcast - an expansion mod for Skyrim' and backers will be expecting their money goes directly towards this mod, not just for you guys in general to do some creative work.

Patreon might be a better (i.e. safer) route, as you're funding the person/team rather than a specific thing they're making. Like that chap has done for City Skylines, for example. Or even what Squally has done on Patreon.

I expect you'll be delighted to know this is already in the Skyrim mods subreddit, with relatively predictable results considering the timing...

I'm not particularly happy that you're using the Magus suit screenshot as a header for that project, I know it is a screenshot of your model, but it's based directly after my design, and that design I wish to only be associated with Skywind, and used only to Skywind's benefit.
Still, I'm not sure how much of it is my intellectual property and if I can force you legally to take it down since it's your model. At least credit me for design, and Batmanna for rigging the model and taking the actual screenshot. Or just use work that is 100% yours for promotion, instead of using Skywind's promotional material... Stop making money of someone else's work.

Contacting Bethesda will do nothing. It is Zenimax's legal team you should be worried about.

Would be nice to see something about plot/general_idea of mod. This is most vital to any success.

I'm just going to put a request out there to try to play nice and keep the adversarial tone to a minimum. No need to talk about "forcing" people to do anything :) . I'm sure people can be reasonable about each others concerns if we try to manage to remember we're generally reasonable people if approached with respect - and can become quite unreasonable if this breaks down. Obviously this is a controversial subject and it's important to try to keep things cordial when discussing this sensitive topic.

Ashking, I believe Dragomir is uncomfortable with you using the Magus Model in the campaign due to it's association with Skywind and I was slightly uncomfortable seeing it in the promo photo as well. I understand it's your model and all, but I think some of us would greatly appreciate if you could update the image with something more centric to your proposed project when you can to best show off what you guys are trying to achieve. Does this sound like a decent compromise? Drago, I don't think Ashking's intention is to make money off of your work (probably just trying to show the potential of the people involved) but I think it's valid you voice concern over potential cross-over issues and is something that should be kept in mind.

Alright, I might've worded my request unnecessarily harshly, but I still stand by that this picture should be associated with Skywind only, and using it for anything else might bring ill consequences to both projects. It's only a header, I know, but it's good to clear this kind of cross-over probelms as soon as possible.

Wouldn't it be less controversial to do a patreon and work on your mod at the same time, instead of asking for money up front.

From what I can see you set yourself up for a failure. I could quote what others said so far but I've got another point as well. You don't really have anything to show off on your kickstarter. There's no presentations and the one name a few people are familiar with is a guy who received negative publicity lately. The only thing you really present is a generic banner and some ideas (good or bad it doesn't matter) that can't really stand on their own as a selling point. Big mod projects break up on a regular basis.

There were plenty of kickstarter projects for standalone games that failed due to the similar reasons even though known professionals were teaming up.

I'm not saying that your hypothetical modding work wouldn't deserve donations, but you sound rather bitter about the whole modding situation. A rushed idea no matter the intention and unrealistic expectations can only lead to more bitterness on your side.

 

Pioneering this territory in the wake of the payment debacle is interesting and quite different than before the steam/beth venture. Going to be a bit of a bumpy road but I think it's cool you're trying to feel out what works/doesn't work. And see what gets the end-users (donators) pumped about supporting and what leaves them feeling like a money-grab attempt is happening. All about how things are setup, and marketed and the psychological pov of the day. Big thing is I think users are willing to pay for content that wouldn't normally be created in the community (i.e. large complex projects) - but stuff like armor re-skins will leave half of them feeling ripped off because of their free distribution in the past.

You will also need to be very cautious about what software you use and if you have licenses for it, the big guys come after you as soon as money gets involved so yes, please watch out for that.

siiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.

Ashking, you don't get it. Bethesda will never ever stop you from doing anything because it is not within their power to do so. 

It is Zenimax that will come after you - a completely different company. It is against the EULA, which means you are straight up breaking the rules and so, they can give you a cease and desist whenever they find out about it. Saying it is against the EULA is not vague at all - it is saying that you are going against what you have agreed to - it is just that simple: You are not allowed to do it.

Since this is the situation, you are saying that you are going to go ahead and take people's money even though you might be asked to stop the project and I think that is straight-up a scumbag move.

Why are you talking about rights? It has nothing to do with rights. You don't have the right to earn money when you have agreed to not earn money - That's dumb. If you enter someone's house, you play by their rules, regardless of what you feel is right.

If you want to protest, then protest.. but going against what you have agreed to is dishonest behavior. 

When you say, "I don't know what they are thinking, but I'm going forward until they say something official and directly to me." Then I assume that you will be keeping your funding efforts up until you are told not to, not that you will take those funding efforts down.

When Skywind releases, I am outta here. It isn't going to affect me in any way at all.. 

Well I can't do bug fixing. I have nothing to do here once it is released. I am trying to set up a game studio (so far, so good) and hopefully, by the time Skywind is released, I can take a lot of people from here on as employees. 

mm, "not supported by the EULA" probably means it isn't talked about directly, which it true. Doesn't mean it is necessarily illegal but they're trying to make it clear they wouldn't be happy about it - without directly saying they can't do much more than issue C&D. Especially for the lawyer cost of actually trying to prosecute something this small/on grey legal grounds. This is a typical type of response in these cases. Give it a bit of time Ashking, it'll happen in some form again for a new game and be pre-ordained (and hopefully less messy) when it comes around and hopefully by then some of the talent here will be looking for a new direction once skywind is stable.

"I look through this whole thread and I realize that not one person who was on board to take some of that money so much as posted a word. Those are the people who's rights I was fighting for.

Notice I said was. I'll pull down my kickstarter. I'm not going to Patreon."

Ashking mate let me clarify a point, I was one of those " on board " people, and have not written a single word . 

Reason of that ? I prefer not writing about something I honestly don't know at all ( legal aspects and so on ) , and as I said you I would have been happy if some money would have come back after my efforts but neither I consider this mandatory neither i expect that kind of work ( neither the one I'm doing for Skywind ) to be helpfull for my future carreer. 

I feel sorry if you considered yourself unsupported while " fighting for my rights " but I really can't help you on a field I'm totally unexpert about.

Really don't know the difference from kickstarter to Patreon, if you are more comfortable going with it I'm fine with it.

Hello everyone, just throwing my two cents here, since I'm a law student and maybe I could shed some light on the more technical aspects of the matter.

Legally speaking, the EULA is a contract between the user and the developers of a software, which details terms and conditions of use (I suppose you all know that). Now, if they say something is not supported by EULA, they're in fact saying you're committing a breach of contract (they're just saying it nicely), the fact they're not going to stop you doesn't mean they couldn't. They could send you a C&D (most likely, if the project starts to gain popularity), or even sue you (which I suppose will never happen, unless raising funds for mods becomes a general habit). Now if your goal in all of this is to make a statement in favor of modders rights, go ahead, it's your choice, but in all fairness (and to avoid more trouble), you should clearly state on the project page that it breaches the EULA, so potential donors know what risk they're taking.

This is a super interesting topic. Keep clear open minds.

Skywind is full of potential professional game developers. If you were looking at the time spent by individuals this would cost millions of dollars to build for a development studio. I personally have put about 5,000 hrs of my time into it. I get paid about NZ $60 (US $45) an hour doing software development work, so in theory it would have cost NZ $300k (US $222k) for my time up till now.

Now the developers on here can go into some other development platform where funding seems to be clear and legal, or see if there is potential to stay within the Elder Scroll framework and get funding for development say in future titles like ES6.

With the plan of selling mods on Steam, Bethesda had a vision probably for awhile of making money off mods. So any type of development funding would have sent alarm bells, maybe it still does.

I won't pretend to know much about the legal aspects, but I think as long as you don't sell a mod, that its always free to the public, you can have donations for development of the mod itself. Now Skywind is a different story, we are using a lot of intellectual property, and we even contacted Bethesda and they were NOT keen on the idea of getting funded for development. Oh well, pays to be more original I guess :P

But future development needs to be steered by modders, like us. If Bethesda/Zenimax wanted to kill any type of professional development then we need to see where this type of stance is. Stay with us or not. If not, then so be it, onto the next platform we will go. Our talent can easily go elsewhere.

Oh, that would be great to make new game/universe free from TES limitations (both in lore and authorship).
(But it must inherit good general things and ideas)
Situation with pay-for-mod is not looking great.

@GrumpyCat Don't get me wrong, I think that projects like this should be allowed, but I don't make the rules, Bethesda does, and the CK EULA clearly states " You may not cause or permit the sale or other commercial distribution, of any New Materials without the express prior written consent of an authorized representative of Bethesda Softworks". The meaning of this is that you cannot make money in any way (be it through proper sales, donations, or any other means) from content made using the CK. The only thing that could work, would be to ask donations only to cover expenses, but that would not include paying the modders, so I guess it wouldn't make much sense from your point of view.

Lovely avatar btw :)

EDIT: This part was outdated since the project has been taken down, so I deleted it.

 

 

Falyse

@GrumpyCat Don't get me wrong, I think that projects like this should be allowed, but I don't make the rules, Bethesda does, and the CK EULA clearly states " You may not cause or permit the sale or other commercial distribution, of any New Materials without the express prior written consent of an authorized representative of Bethesda Softworks".

Don't try to be a lawyer when you're not. "Commercial distribution" does - for obvious reasons - not include projects where the distribution of the mods does not lead to the exchange of money. Any project where you pay the modders for doing their work independently of actually obtaining the work is not part of this agreement.

I'm not saying there's no problem with this whole thing, I'm saying we should stop talking about legal details if we're no experts in this.


Also, the second half of your post is kind of off-topic since the kickstarter has been taken down.

@Maxnosense Sorry for the OT, I had not noticed the kickstarter had been taken down, I've edited the comment accordingly.

I never said I was a lawyer, but I am a law student and I have some knowledge of the matter. I had to copy that part of the EULA manually because for some reason I could not copy-paste, and I'm afraid I forgot to write a part that was essential to understand my reasoning. (link,if you wish to verify the text: http://store.steampowered.com/eula/eula_202480) The EULA forbids commercial distribution and commercial exploitation of any kind, and you don't need to sell a product to exploit it commercially, it is enough to gain money from it. My interpretation could be wrong of course, and I'm not asking anyone to treat my words as the gospel, I'm merely participating in a discussion with what I know. I hope this clarifies my previous post.

Falyse

I never said I was a lawyer, but I am a law student and I have some knowledge of the matter. I had to copy that part of the EULA manually because for some reason I could not copy-paste, and I'm afraid I forgot to write a part that was essential to understand my reasoning. (link,if you wish to verify the text: http://store.steampowered.com/eula/eula_202480) The EULA forbids commercial distribution and commercial exploitation of any kind, and you don't need to sell a product to exploit it commercially, it is enough to gain money from it.

Well, that part probably changes things. It would be up to a jury to decide this, but you're probably right. Thanks for clearing it up.

No problem really, the whole thing was caused by my mistake in the first place. Next time I'll have to reread my comments more carefully before posting them.

Hi All

With your talent, if you want to help fund your efforts you can sell your stuff on Unity Asset Store and Unreal Engine Market before you enter them into a mod. (Not sure, but from what I read from my Skyrim licence any mod becomes property of bethesda ).

Problem is, once the money comes in the fun goes out (unless it's like $1M money - now that's fun!)

This is part of my lawyer's write-up concerning the EULA's of Skyrim and the Creation Kit:

"The End User License Agreement for Skyrim contains different provisions for different countries. For
residents of North and South America, the EULA indicates that “you agree not to . . . commercially
exploit the Software.” It does allow you to use the modding tool to make modifications to the game,
but states that “you will not use or permit third parties to use the Software Utilities [the modding tool]
and the Customized Game Materials [the mod] created by you for any commercial purpose, including
but not limited to distributing, leasing, licensing, renting, selling, or otherwise exploiting, transferring
or assigning the ownership of such Customized Game Materials.”

^^ yep.  I looked at this issue extensively when researching ways to cover the costs for running this site.  That's why we do donations, and only for server costs.

If you want to make video games and get paid for it, this is not the way.  There are lots of possibilities, but this is not one of them.

Here is a pretty sure-fire way - note that it involves a lot of hard work.  Get a legit 4-year degree, from a legit school, where you double major a hard science (comp sci, programming, etc.) and an relevant art (game design, 3d modeling, graphic design, etc.).  Study hard and keep a high GPA.  Do internships during your college, and make your own games for phones, linux, windows, xbox live, whatever you want.  Build a portfolio.  Once you graduate hit the streets with your portfolio and resume that's loaded with relevant experience and education.  Get a job making video games and get paid for it.

Another way, if you're antisocial and/or don't want to go down the traditional route of getting a degree and relevant expierience, is just to build a portfolio.  But it's got to be a LOT better - you've got to build something that IS - not just can be - *commercially successful*.  Build a game all by yourself, market it, market it, etc.  See the documentary "Indie Game" or read up on the development of similar games like Dust for example.

But building mods?  There's no real money in that; the economics just don't work unless you can sell a LOT of copies of the mod, and sell it for a $10-20 a pop, DLC prices.  $3000?  Even if you did that project by yourself, in a year, and "forgot" to pay the IRS taxes on that income, you're still in abject poverty. The median income in the U.S. is around $45,000 gross of taxes, or about $30,000 net of taxes.  Even if you commit tax fraud, you're still only making 1/10th of what you could make at a decent $20/hour job.  Think bigger.