"Blizzard did the right thing" After getting a sh*tload of profit from all that pimping and malpractice before...

Meanwhile I'm waiting for Activision-Blizzard, EA, Valve AND Ubisoft, to go bankrupt, so i can play their games DRM free... THQ getting bankrupt went smoothly, entire Darksiders franchise pack in one go, DRM-FREE and less than 20 euros.

In the official forums in Regarding Bethesda.net (a new topic in the Fallout 4 section was quickly looked and pointed towards this thread) we can show our concerns. Somehow I have the feeling, it may have a slightly better chance of Bethesda acknowledging them there as around here. Or use the comments on the official Bethblog.

So if you have concerns, tell them. Or keep ranting for naught. Your choice.

I'm afraid posting on the Bethsoft forums won't do much to sway the Bethesda higher ups one way or another. That forum is simply an echo chamber that tells Bethesda how great they are. When they went Steam Only there were a lot of upset forum members, myself among them. We would get our posts locked and deleted, I even got PM'ed warnings from the moderators to lay off the Steam bashing. It all ended when I had a PM discussion with a Bethesda employee, not just a forum moderator, and it became clear that Bethesda wasn't interested in opposing ideas. I quit the forums and left the Bethsoft modding community. I don't hate Bethesda, to the contrary I would love to buy and play some of their latest games, but by their own admission I am no longer their target audience for games.

I'm not living under the illusion that it will have much impact or that I manage to change anything with it. But compared with this thread here? Still a lot more.
At the very least I can claim that I tried. While others can claim that they ranted. And that coming from an (apparantly) irrational, gullible fanboy.... says a lot. :p

I agree 100%. That is the main reason why I haven't bought a game published by EA or Ubisoft in recent years.

This is a great point and similar to the concern I raised in the other thread on the topic.

I also agree with your later point as I would love to enjoy Bethesda's newer games, but I simply won't concede to these types of anti-consumer business practices. They will simply leave money on the table and give people more reason to pirate their games (who knows maybe FO4 is the next SimCity/Maxis debacle). Meanwhile I'll support the developers that are here on GoG. ;)

Meh, I'm not missing much. People will continue to buy from them regardless of the complaining (look at Origin, Steam and Uplay in regards to similar conversation). Unless something is done on a full scale, nothing will change with DRM.

You and me both :-(

We finally get some information what Bethesda.net is about:

From bethblog: BethesdaNet debuts with new content for Fallout, DOOM, and Dishonored
From Bethesda.net itself: What Is BethesdaNet?

So far we are talking about news and info only. The links to "Store" is the already existing Bethesda Store and "Get Updates" seems to be a newsletter.
They also mention "a new take on game hubs" and "innovative ways to connect with out games", specifically mentioning ESO and the Doom SnapMap feature.

How much this spells client or DRM for you, you decide for yourself.

It seems they spell it out for us:

"BethesdaNet is already being used to support The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited across all platforms, and will be at the heart of all our games going forward."

Bethesda's also been in the news recently to promote paid mods again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz92C4YZ2_U

I like how Hines says the split is "industry standard" given Bethesda are creating that "industry standard" by attempting to monetize mods to begin with.

Just another corporation putting a fence around a public good, making themselves the primary benefactors of it.

oy.....

Haven't given any money to Bethesda before, and if this shit keeps up, I probably never will.

I'm not an avid MMO or ESO player but I fail to see the Bethesda.net DRM or client within ESO. You have to create an account, which is pretty much MMO standard for different reasons but not because of Bethesda.net.

Sure they are. Youtubers are allowed to make money with "let's play" videos, modded or not. They can monetize video-series about mods. Any publication, digital or print, can create and monetize articles about mods, but the actual modder shouldn't be able to get money for his work? Thats something inherently wrong.
The available and propagated alternative is donations, which simply doesn't work - feel free to ask modders about it.

The "industry standard" isn't coming from Bethesda. It's coming from Valve with TF2 hats / DOTA / workshop items.
The split was one of the points most disagreed with (imho rightfully so, modders should get a much larger split) but yes, he's right when claiming that they had to start somewhere.

Feel free to download ESO and tell us how you played it without using the client. Thus the quote: "BethesdaNet is already being used to support The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited across all platforms, and will be at the heart of all our games going forward."

Sure but that's not the point.

The point is Bethesda is trying to privatize a public good and make themselves the largest benefactor while claiming adherence to an "industry standard" they themselves are creating. It's not a coincidence Bethesda is at the top of the pyramid and Modders are on the bottom.

The comparison you're making to TF2 hats is weak at best and largely irrelevant to the issue due to the scale and scope of mods encompassed in Skyrim or Fallout. Even if you want to insist on the comparison, these other examples simply by their existence don't validate any notion of fairness. If you need to continue to argue the point I'll start a separate thread, if there's not one already, as the issue is off topic here.

I did and as stated, I don't see anything pointing towards that Bethesda.net is an additional client, DRM or a Steam like platform. I don't see the link between Bethesda.net as a requirement and ESO at all, but since I'm not really playing it, you may want to rely on a more competent source then me. :)

If they wanted to privatize modding for their games, they could have done that already with the workshop. But they made it an option, not a requirement. I don't see an indication and therefor find it very unlikely that they dare taking even one step in that direction - not before and even less after the paid mods debacle.

IF Bethesda.net will become a hub to share / manage mods (likely, as there's nothing like that for consoles available) and IF they'll attempt any sort of payment for mods somewhere down the road again, modders are the most likely beneficiary as the middleman (Valve) is cut out, with the modders and Bethesda only remaining. Which split in such a case will be the right one, is something Bethesda likely will consider VERY carefully.

No need for another topic then, as every comparison would be weak and irrelevant due to the scale and scope of mods for Bethesda's games. Which is exactly their point - there is no way to know, which is the right starting point concerning the split. :)

I guess this is just going to be how grotesquely obfuscating your responses will be. Let's not play games with semantics.

ESO uses a client. That client is what is implicated by the quote: "BethesdaNet is already being used to support The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited across all platforms, and will be at the heart of all our games going forward." This is not dissimilar from http://us.battle.net/en/ or the battle.net client.

Privatizing is a point of fact. They explicitly state they will take a cut of modding in whatever scheme they eventually present.

There's already a thread for this topic - take further comments there.