They are getting rid of the sub fee upon Xbone/PS4 release, if they weren't I wouldn't even consider and would wait until ES:VI, which I've heard rumors of it being called "Argonia"? That doesn't even make sense bc lizard-freaks hail from Black Marsh but idk maybe Argonia is their capitol?
It's too bad corporations are too big and rich to hit with the books. Even if they are doing something illegal or their TOS/EULA isn't applicable to local laws. Can't we have a fresh start and eradicate current capitalist society and way of thinking?
Oh I wish it were like the movies where it was as simple as framing such top level greedhogs, hacking their bank accounts or espionage and takedown of evil corporate entities. Hey.. they are politically motivated in the fact that corporatist/capitalist America is the law or above it and bribe or threaten politicians and government regularly. We know how these corporations think and operate. They are delusional and conceited. Corporatism and capitalism will eventually rule the world if it doesn't already and proceed to destroy it.
As consumers and members of society under this corruption we essentially have no power or voice. We can only bend over and take it and complaining is a waste of time. We will continue to accept bold face PR lies as truths and maybe if we stomp enough we might get a lollipop.
So far, capitalism has been one of the best-working setups. Communism sounds great on paper, but is impossible to implement in real life, leading to things like the "communist" soviets. Other systems are very much the same.
Capitalism on the other hand has worked so far. Sure there are issues, but no system is perfect. With 7+ billion people and a global economy in the order of trillions of dollars, there are bound to be flaws in any system that is put in place to control the economy (including the lack of system), so it's really a matter of choosing the lesser evil.
Also I'm not an economist so everything I just said may be complete BS, but that's my understanding.
Volume breaks rules. Things become really messy when you add people, so political ideologies are kinda meh, and completely impractical on any kind of large scale.
I'm sure there could be some compromise or middle ground. At the least large corporations need regulation and being bound by the same laws as everyone else, pay taxes like everyone else. Not bailing them out. Not letting them bully government because they believe they are above the law. Not excluding potential, current and long time loyal consumers and trampling over them because of profits first mentalities. Do they really need all that money and more. If a few billion came up missing or was used towards something else like say improving service and customer satisfaction I doubt it would impact them or their bottom line much if at all.
Look at all the great things Capitalism brought such as pollution, waste, obesity, pride, sloth, greed, entitlement, conceit, systematic oppression of people and certain groups, people. To be fair capitalism did bring some good things but it brought a lot of bad with it as well and the bad usually outweighs the good. The idea and concept of capitalism was poorly thought out and executed. Sounds good only on paper. Imho in the USA it isn't capitalism it's corporatism. Corporations are the law of the land, government plays second fiddle and gives the illusion of structure, power and authority. Our government specifically gives the illusion of freedom i.e. American Dream misleading common, average folks into believing this is country was founded on democracy and is for the people.
It's disgusting how little consideration and respect consumers get. Without us there would be no corporations, they would go bankrupt and crumble to the ground. That said, what reason is there for Valve/Bethesda to do this? They are VERY popular and have more than enough money, do they really need more? What angers me even more than paid mods is this underhanded nonsense under the guise of supporting modders and them profiting for doing absolutely effing nothing taking a massive cut biased in their interests. From an established modding scene and community that was free and open. Done for the passion, not money and striving to become better. When money is involved, quality and productivity declines as does enthusiasm. Modders not modding as a hobby or out of passion, to share ideas and creations but solely for money.
I'm sure this was devised by Bethesda with the cooperation of Valve as a sneaky way of destroying the modding scene. They viewed it as competition and free money they could collect but weren't receiving. Therefore they crafted a scheme to control, break up the modding scene while raking in profits without needing to lift a finger. Wake up and realize what the hell is going on. Why would anyone stand for this? Valve is poison and their toxicity is tainting everything. Their lack of foresight and poor ideas, decisions and lack of concern or community collaboration is cancer. This is nuclear and needs to be diffused as soon as possible.
Even other noteworthy publishers didn't stoop as low as paid mods and if any did they quickly realized it was a bad idea. I'm not saying modders don't deserve some kind of monetary compensation, this just isn't the right way to go about it. For modders that wanted to go the paid route, what was already in place was sufficient and a subscription model as a service was likely already possible via a loophole if unable to directly charge for mods. Valve is doing nothing new or amazing let alone doing anything at all other than attempting to pull wool over everyone's eyes and swindle them.
Valve, like other corporations needs adequate competition. That is the only hope for consumers. Valve is no better than EA, Ubisoft etc.. they are just better at fooling everyone.
<disclaimer>I'm not familiar with Skyrim or Steam/Valve.</disclaimer>
I don't see how competition from other paid mod services will solve the problem. From what you said, there's already a free Nexus mod service which is being abandoned in favor of paid mods.
How exactly will competition help? Gamers boycott Steam for original paid games, because of their unethical mod policies? I don't think very many people care enough about mods to abandon a widely-used service for a smaller one with fewer games.
A lot of us do care that much. I'd actually said to three people that I'd buy them Skyrim in the next sale so they could help me implement some mod ideas I had, and now, because I'm cross at Valve and Bethesda, I haven't bought these.
As for what X2D said about Bethesda regarding mods as competition, I see that as unlikely - they know TES and Fallout are not amazing games at all as they come, and know they're buggy and missing features, and that it's the mods that drive sales and make the games great. They just saw that they could siphon yet more money out of a three year old game and decided that any backlash should probably have died down before their next game is released. One of the worst examples of how bad this is is that it's now in their interest to make, for example, a UI so bad that basically everyone replaces it with a mod like SkyUI. If this is a paid mod (which it is now) then they're more-or-less guaranteed a second chunk of money each time someone buys the game.
Nope. The people who make the rules are the people who have money, ergo the rules will conform to the whim of the people who have money. That is the way it is with all governments (including communism, the whole idea of it is that one person w/ money and power is monarch until they decide that society is good enough to rule without the supreme leader, so basically dictatorship).