News from the lovely world of the Games Industry.

[The Minsky Moment]

My perception is that industry wide, there's a strong push to harness and monetize UGC.

My hunch is that it will suck the soul out of the modding scene, generally speaking.

Classic example of penny wise, pound foolish, and TES is the perfect case.  They are still earning money selling Super-Duper Mega Complete versions of Skyrim (with hyper-augmentable ultra reality) a decade down the line because the UGC keeps the game fresh.  Kill the scene, kill the golden goose.  Free labor is a gift in itself.

[Valmy]

I sure hope Bethesda takes note for TES6.

Part of me kind of hopes they don't make it. Every TES game since Morrowind has gotten a little worse. Just IMO.

Skyrim>Oblivion IMO.

>Morrowind.

Though I will say I've played skyrim a lot less than oblivion despite it being objectively better. I guess it's just less good for it's time.

Well good for you.

Morrowind had lots of interesting systems and an interesting setting and an interesting plot. Like I actually was curious about Dagoth Ur and actually interested in how the game played and actually wanted to at some point be tough enough to beat that big mean Daedra. And it was cool when I finally could. And you could do cool things like fly around and stuff (and fight cliff racers...).

I won the main game and Tribunal and eventually got bored on the island expansion where there were just too many monsters. Like at one point I entered a tunnel and there was a huge long line of monsters just waiting their turn to get killed by me. At that point I was like "ok I think I am done here".

But, you know, it was a good, interesting, and memorable time.

Oblivion had a lot of the same systems, which I liked, but seemed very determined to make them worse. Level scaling the monsters was so fucking stupid and lame and provided one of many incentives to just not level. It also meant if you leveled a certain way, you were fucked completely. Why did they do that? And then they limited the number of times you can train per level...why the fuck? Just because they took a really interesting leveling system from Morrowind and made it incredibly horrid and took the decent combat and made it very spongey and broken and then wanted to make sure you had to engage with it as much as possible.

Then you had the Daedra which seemed very intriguing in Morrowind and basically made it so "hey these guys are basically demons and Oblivion is basically hell" boring. I understand they fixed this a bit in the shivering Isles expansion but I never got that far. Then they took the jungle romans we were promised in Morrowind and just made Cyrodiil really boring and lame. The plot of Morrowind, which was intriguing and had all these interesting themes about tradition vs modernism, imperialism, religion, propaganda, and probably a few more I am forgetting. The plot of Oblivion has a cult which is evil for no reason, and a big bad who is just a big demon guy, blah blah.

I mean I gave it a shot. I played the shit out of it. But it just never got better and eventually I got bored and quit playing. Never actually finished the main plot.

Oh and the Dark Brotherhood, which the game clearly thought was the COOLEST SHIT EVER. Meh.

Skyrim did fix a lot of Oblivion's issues but did so by mostly just removing the system. So you barely had anything left. Everything was so...fucking...streamlined and dull. And the things that did seem cool at first would end up being kind of cringy and lame. The Civil War was almost comically silly. I did finish that and won it for the Imperials. I just remember thinking "wow that was bad". The Dragons were so lame and so easy to kill and because I knew a little bit about the Dragons in the lore of the series I felt kind of bad about that. And the magic system, which was so cool in Morrowind you could make your own spells and do interesting things, and in Skyrim it is so stripped down and lame and pathetic. If you try to play a mage character in Skyrim you are in for a bad time. The game hates you. And like the Civil War side plot the game disappointed me constantly with the main plot, everything that seemed kind of cool would turn out to be stupid. Oh and fuck that Vampire expansion. Laughable. I don't think I am some kind of snob, I played Dragon Age II a game most people felt was disappointing and I enjoyed it despite its flaws. I gave this game a chance. It just never lived up to its promises.

So yeah I played the shit out of it, always with the promise of something cool about to happen and then never happening.

But I understand that really both Oblivion and Skyrim are really just platforms for player made content and mods and that is great. Minecraft and Roblox are pretty fun according to my kids. I don't have time for that though. If I had finished either Oblivion or Skyrim and wanted to play more I would have tried out the mods, but I never got that far.

And based on what I understand about Fallout 3, Fallout 4, Fallout 76, and Starfield Bethesda is not getting better with the issues I did not like about Oblivion and Skyrim. They are getting worse.

My basic interest in the Elder Scrolls series and the fun I remember having with Morrowind will probably compel me to at least give ES 6 a chance. So we'll see. Maybe they will do something interesting.

Or maybe I won't, I never felt any desire to play ES Online. But a MMORPG is a whole different level of commitment than putting in a few hundred hours in a single player game.

[Jacob]

Yes, I agree on your take, Minsky.

Rather than trying to add a transaction cost on every mod and then taking a slice, they should upgrade the base game in a way that doesn't undermine mods. I'd happily pay full game price for a new release of Skyrim if it upgraded my game in a significant way while leaving my mods (mostly) intact.

Of course, that requires more investment - and risk taking - than "let's try to turn the modding community into a source of rents for us."

[Valmy]

than "let's try to turn the modding community into a source of rents for us."

But...but...shareholder value

[frunk]

My perception is that industry wide, there's a strong push to harness and monetize UGC.

My hunch is that it will suck the soul out of the modding scene, generally speaking.

Definitely something I'm worried about.  I'm disappointed there was so much push back on the monetization for mods.  I think if it could have been set up as another potential revenue stream while letting the modders choose if they want to charge (and the company only getting a cut if the modder asked for money), companies would be more receptive to keeping their architectures open.

Personally I like high quality mods, and seeing what some can do I'd like to give them money directly through the mod infrastructure rather than the Patreon end around.

[Jacob]

I don't know if monetization of mods is going to result in higher quality mods, though.

Will there be an increase in shovelware mods as hucksters chase perceived easy money by putting crap out for unsuspecting fools to buy?

Will we see an increase in people stealing content from other mod authors, pretending it's theirs so they can get free money?

There are large mods that are the result of collaboration between many people pursuing a common goal? How will the potential of revenue influence people's willingness to contribute to mods where they're not the beneficiary?

Similarly, there are mods that have been handed from one author to another over time as individuals burn out but others step up to carry the torch. If there's money on the line, how willing will authors be to pick up their work to continue it?

If you have to pay for mods, how willing will people be to download weird or interesting new mods for a laugh or just to try them out? Lowering uptake in general will potnetially impact the range of mods being made.

What about compatibility? If I pay for a mod and it doesn't play nice with other mods (that I've also paid for), I'll be pretty disappointed - definitely more so than if it was something I downloaded for free. What if the mod is buggy, then what? However this is handled will impact the ecosystem.

I too like high quality mods, and I'm not against rewarding the people who make them. The question is, will monetizing mods incentivize making more of them? All the high quality mods we have now (and the low quality ones too) were made without explicit monetization as an incentive. Is it reasonable to expect that monetizing is going to result in an increase or a decrease?

[Josquius]

I sure hope Bethesda takes note for TES6.

Part of me kind of hopes they don't make it. Every TES game since Morrowind has gotten a little worse. Just IMO.

Skyrim>Oblivion IMO.

>Morrowind.

Though I will say I've played skyrim a lot less than oblivion despite it being objectively better. I guess it's just less good for it's time.

Well good for you.

Morrowind had lots of interesting systems and an interesting setting and an interesting plot. Like I actually was curious about Dagoth Ur and actually interested in how the game played and actually wanted to at some point be tough enough to beat that big mean Daedra. And it was cool when I finally could. And you could do cool things like fly around and stuff (and fight cliff racers...).

I won the main game and Tribunal and eventually got bored on the island expansion where there were just too many monsters. Like at one point I entered a tunnel and there was a huge long line of monsters just waiting their turn to get killed by me. At that point I was like "ok I think I am done here".

But, you know, it was a good, interesting, and memorable time.

Oblivion had a lot of the same systems, which I liked, but seemed very determined to make them worse. Level scaling the monsters was so fucking stupid and lame and provided one of many incentives to just not level. It also meant if you leveled a certain way, you were fucked completely. Why did they do that? And then they limited the number of times you can train per level...why the fuck? Just because they took a really interesting leveling system from Morrowind and made it incredibly horrid and took the decent combat and made it very spongey and broken and then wanted to make sure you had to engage with it as much as possible.

Then you had the Daedra which seemed very intriguing in Morrowind and basically made it so "hey these guys are basically demons and Oblivion is basically hell" boring. I understand they fixed this a bit in the shivering Isles expansion but I never got that far. Then they took the jungle romans we were promised in Morrowind and just made Cyrodiil really boring and lame. The plot of Morrowind, which was intriguing and had all these interesting themes about tradition vs modernism, imperialism, religion, propaganda, and probably a few more I am forgetting. The plot of Oblivion has a cult which is evil for no reason, and a big bad who is just a big demon guy, blah blah.

I mean I gave it a shot. I played the shit out of it. But it just never got better and eventually I got bored and quit playing. Never actually finished the main plot.

Oh and the Dark Brotherhood, which the game clearly thought was the COOLEST SHIT EVER. Meh.

Skyrim did fix a lot of Oblivion's issues but did so by mostly just removing the system. So you barely had anything left. Everything was so...fucking...streamlined and dull. And the things that did seem cool at first would end up being kind of cringy and lame. The Civil War was almost comically silly. I did finish that and won it for the Imperials. I just remember thinking "wow that was bad". The Dragons were so lame and so easy to kill and because I knew a little bit about the Dragons in the lore of the series I felt kind of bad about that. And the magic system, which was so cool in Morrowind you could make your own spells and do interesting things, and in Skyrim it is so stripped down and lame and pathetic. If you try to play a mage character in Skyrim you are in for a bad time. The game hates you. And like the Civil War side plot the game disappointed me constantly with the main plot, everything that seemed kind of cool would turn out to be stupid. Oh and fuck that Vampire expansion. Laughable. I don't think I am some kind of snob, I played Dragon Age II a game most people felt was disappointing and I enjoyed it despite its flaws. I gave this game a chance. It just never lived up to its promises.

So yeah I played the shit out of it, always with the promise of something cool about to happen and then never happening.

But I understand that really both Oblivion and Skyrim are really just platforms for player made content and mods and that is great. Minecraft and Roblox are pretty fun according to my kids. I don't have time for that though. If I had finished either Oblivion or Skyrim and wanted to play more I would have tried out the mods, but I never got that far.

And based on what I understand about Fallout 3, Fallout 4, Fallout 76, and Starfield Bethesda is not getting better with the issues I did not like about Oblivion and Skyrim. They are getting worse.

My basic interest in the Elder Scrolls series and the fun I remember having with Morrowind will probably compel me to at least give ES 6 a chance. So we'll see. Maybe they will do something interesting.

Or maybe I won't, I never felt any desire to play ES Online. But a MMORPG is a whole different level of commitment than putting in a few hundred hours in a single player game.

I know Morrowind has its fans and I've heard this argument of it being a special and unique world vs. Oblivion's generic fantasy many times, but it just doesn't sit with me.

1: Oblivion being a generic fantasy world is a GOOD thing. Generic fantasy is something many people (like me) grew up with. We know its rules and standards. In Oblivion you had an amazing immersive version of these. There was nothing like it. An open world fantasy setting. This was brilliant.
Morrowind being different and special...maybe that would be good now after we've had so many generic fantasy open worlds but at its time it just didn't add anything.

2: No matter how great Morrowinds story may have been (I really don't know), I wonder how many people are like me and just never saw it. The gameplay is just...rubbish. Even for its time I'd perhaps say- though I think I played it a few years later. The whole right click menu, left click action, in an action game.... I just couldn't get on with it.
I tried it several times but never got more than an hour or two of play, maybe attempting a basic initial quest or two.


Oblivion was by no means perfect. The level scaling was terrible. The jank was strong. Way too many generic copy and pastola assets and quests.


I remember when I was very young at a cousins' house playing a demo of a game that I now believe to have been Dagerfall and finding it awesome. I wish I had played it when it was fresh. I'd have loved it. But looking at TES these days anything pre Oblivion (at least? Not tried Oblivion lately...) is just too dated to enjoy.

[grumbler]

When Open Morrowind came out, I checked out Morrowind again for the first time in many years.  It was a nice nostalgia trip, but also a reminder of how far we have come since its release.  Combat was ridiculous, character leveling was ludicrous, guild quests were boring, and the looks have not aged well.

For anyone interested in a nostalgia trip, Open Morrowind does get rid of the bugginess/crashiness of the original game.

[Razgovory]

I really liked Skyrim.  I'm glad they ditched the awful leveling system.  I liked Morrowind. alright, but was disappointed by the AI.  The way the monsters often just paced back and forth.  Arx Fatalis came out the same time and I liked it better.  Oblivion was mediocre.  I hated the speech system and the lock picking.  Graphically it was very impressive, but yeah, generic.

[viper37]

I don't know if monetization of mods is going to result in higher quality mods, though.

Will there be an increase in shovelware mods as hucksters chase perceived easy money by putting crap out for unsuspecting fools to buy?

Will we see an increase in people stealing content from other mod authors, pretending it's theirs so they can get free money?

These two scenarios are much more likely to happen.

It's already happening with Patreon, where some mod authors sometime try to steal work from someone else and put it behind a paywall.

Or just a DLSS mod for Starfield that gets put behind a Patreon and the author asks for money after every game patch.

I'm not against the concept of paid mods, but it should be up to the mod author to decide if he wants money or not, and that's why like the donation system on NexusMods.  Granted, they won't survive on that.  Nor on the advertising revenue cut.  But it might help the more popular mods.

I'm more concerned about game devs closing their system (Rockstar) or simply not caring at all like EA where it's a nightmare to get a mod running (thanks EA App!).

I understand why they had to ban mods from online play, but let me play sp however I want dammit.

[Josquius]

So. What do we make of the Palworld controversy?

This game has seemingly come out of nowhere and is dominating Steam charts, on course to be one of the best selling games ever.
Its basically yet another open world survival game.... but with Pokemon little monster friends that you carry around with you named Pals. "Pokemon with guns" is another description I've heard.

Looking at it, the designs do indeed look extremely like Pokemon.
The Pokemon Company has took note of this and legal action is brewing.

I'm very curious to see how it works out. Seems very convenient the Pokemon Company would suddenly be so upset at this game becoming super succesful when we've had imitators as long as Pokemon has existed- hell, Pokemon itself copied a tonne of stuff in many aspects.

[Tamas]

So. What do we make of the Palworld controversy?

This game has seemingly come out of nowhere and is dominating Steam charts, on course to be one of the best selling games ever.
Its basically yet another open world survival game.... but with Pokemon little monster friends that you carry around with you named Pals. "Pokemon with guns" is another description I've heard.

Looking at it, the designs do indeed look extremely like Pokemon.
The Pokemon Company has took note of this and legal action is brewing.

I'm very curious to see how it works out. Seems very convenient the Pokemon Company would suddenly be so upset at this game becoming super succesful when we've had imitators as long as Pokemon has existed- hell, Pokemon itself copied a tonne of stuff in many aspects.

I am not sure what the controversy is. Unsuccessful Pokemon ripoffs do not worth the legal cost to chase, I am sure. Here Pokemon could get some meaningful compensation if the game takes off.

[Josquius]

So. What do we make of the Palworld controversy?

This game has seemingly come out of nowhere and is dominating Steam charts, on course to be one of the best selling games ever.
Its basically yet another open world survival game.... but with Pokemon little monster friends that you carry around with you named Pals. "Pokemon with guns" is another description I've heard.

Looking at it, the designs do indeed look extremely like Pokemon.
The Pokemon Company has took note of this and legal action is brewing.

I'm very curious to see how it works out. Seems very convenient the Pokemon Company would suddenly be so upset at this game becoming super succesful when we've had imitators as long as Pokemon has existed- hell, Pokemon itself copied a tonne of stuff in many aspects.

I am not sure what the controversy is. Unsuccessful Pokemon ripoffs do not worth the legal cost to chase, I am sure. Here Pokemon could get some meaningful compensation if the game takes off.

Wouldn't this affect their case however? That there's so many of these games out there stretching back decades and suddenly they become interested because one is succesful?

[Tamas]

Sure, but I don't think its a controversy, per se. The Whatsitsname game's creators if they lose I can't feel too sorry because it seems they were clearly going for a Pokemon vibe. If Pokemon loses, well, whatever.

Especially since I am sure Pokemon will be looking for a slice of the pie, not a cease and desist.

[The Minsky Moment]

You can't patent or copyright a concept for a game that has companion animals that you train and fight, Pokemon style.  As long as they aren't using actual Pokemon creatures, I don't see the case here.