Creation Club Is Paid Mods
In the midst of a handful of game announcements and reveals, Bethesda used its time during the studio’s E3 2017 press conference to announce Creation Club. Essentially, Creation Club will be a storefront where players can purchase add-on content for Skyrim and Fallout 4. Yes, we said purchase.
Bethesda insist Creation Club isn’t paid mods or mini-DLC and they’re “trying something new”. It’s caused quite a lot of controversy since it was announced, as many people think Bethesda shouldn’t be charging for small additional content like cosmetics and items that can easily be provided for free.
It’s a detail that Bethesda may have tried to slip in casually, but fans caught on pretty quickly. In order to use Creation Club, players will need to purchase credits from their respective digital marketplaces (Steam, PSN, Xbox Live, etc.) and then spend those credits on Creation Club content.
That content can come in many forms, but Bethesda outlined six areas that it expects players to experiment. They are:
- WEAPONS: New weapons, material skins, parts, etc.
- APPAREL: New outfits, armor, and items for your character.
- WORLD: New locations, decorations, foliage, etc.
- CHARACTERS: New abilities, characters, companions, etc.
- CREATURES: New enemies, mounts, pets, etc.
- GAMEPLAY: New types of gameplay like survival mode, etc.
At a glance, the new system sounds like a revamped version of paid mods for Skyrim and Fallout 4, but Bethesda knew such assumptions would be made. The studio came prepared with a response that definitively says Creation Club is not paid mods.
No. Mods will remain a free and open system where anyone can create and share what they’d like. Also, we won’t allow any existing mods to be retrofitted into Creation Club, it must all be original content. Most of the Creation Club content is created internally, some with external partners who have worked on our games, and some by external Creators. All the content is approved, curated, and taken through the full internal dev cycle; including localization, polishing, and testing. This also guarantees that all content works together. We’ve looked at many ways to do “paid mods”, and the problems outweigh the benefits. We’ve encountered many of those issues before. But, there’s a constant demand from our fans to add more official high quality content to our games, and while we are able to create a lot of it, we think many in our community have the talent to work directly with us and create some amazing new things.
When Bethesda first attempted to allow creators to charge for their mods, it was met with strong resistance. Because there was no real curation system in place, anyone could charge any price for a mod, and creators of popular mods (like the Macho Man dragon mod) could exploit that popularity and gain a massive profit.
But the biggest concern was plagiarism, since anyone could steal someone else’s mod, put it on the store, and gain money for it. The other issues with the paid mod system were potential drawbacks, but this was a huge flaw. And once Bethesda saw situations like that start to appear, the company shut down paid mods altogether.
With Creation Club, though, it sounds as though Bethesda will be handpicking the content that is put on its store and potentially even setting the prices for different forms of content (the bigger the scope, the higher the price). This will still be a way for people to earn money off their creations – presumably in a percentage split with Bethesda – but it doesn’t sound as though everyone can participate.
Creation Club Is Paid Mods Free
There are still plenty of details for Bethesda to cover where Creation Club is concerned, but it apparently was important for the studio to make sure fans knew this wasn’t a second attempt at paid mods. The system does have people paying for mods, but the scope is smaller, the curation process is more involved, and it will not impact any mods that players are currently using.
Creation Club will be available this summer for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. It will support content on Fallout 4 and Skyrim: Special Edition.
Bethesda's Creation Club FAQ asks itself 'Is Creation Club paid mods?' It also answers itself: No. In related news, today I paid for $15 worth of mods from the not-paid-mods Creation Club store to try them out.
Okay, fine, I know what Bethesda is trying to say. They have hired modders to be creators of new content, and since they don't call the creations mods, they don't have to cop to being a paid mods system. Either way, I'm mostly okay with it: modders are getting paid, and there's not a fusion gun being held to anyone's head forcing them to buy anything. I still think the mods—er, creations—should be free for players, since new content (such as free mods) extends the life of games, thus keeping older games relevant, thus leading to future sales.
Moving on. My first little gripe is that you can only shop in the Club store while in-game, which I sort of don't like, especially since when you buy something, you need to restart the game to update the data file anyway. Call me old fashioned, but when I shop for futuristic guns for my virtual character to shoot mutants in the face with, I prefer to do it in a web browser.
Another gripe, and this one is substantially bigger: I don't see a way for customers to rate the Creation Club mods—sorry, content—they've purchased. Bethesda's free mod library allows for ratings from 1 to 5 stars. Creation Club, as far as I can tell, does not. That feature needs to be added post-haste. Call them mods, don't call them mods, but let players tell each other if they like them or not.
There's currently not much to choose from in Fallout 4's Creation Club. There are two guns, a couple sets of power armor, a nice-looking customizable backpack, some Pip-Boy skins, a little cross-promotion action with a Morgan Yu outfit from Prey, and a pretty big set of modern furniture you can use in your settlements.
Bethesda has given everyone 100 credits to use in the Club, but there are no items that cost 100 credits. Pip-Boy skins cost 50 a pop, and everything else starts at more than a hundred Bethbux, so you can either buy two skins or kick in some real cash for something more. I threw down $15 on Steam, which gave me 1,500 credits. You can also buy 750 for $8, 3,000 for $25, or 5,500 for $40.
While browsing, I read that some of the items are acquired not just by paying for them but by completing a quest. I kind of hate when you download a mod or pay for an item and your character doesn't just materialize in the game holding it (unless the new content is a quest itself). In this case, the item having a quest attached feels like a bonus: you're not just getting a new item, but an adventure that leads to the new item.
Thing is, what Bethesda is calling a quest isn't really a quest, at least in terms of new content or a selling point. I bought the gauss rifle from the store, and the 'quest' was just a Pipboy notification that the rifle was located inside an existing building filled with Gunners. I followed the marker on the map, killed a bunch of jerks, took their big-ass gun, and used it to kill the rest of them.
On the plus side, it's a nice big-ass gun, and the handmade shotgun I purchased is also decent, though I already have a really nasty shotgun that it will never replace. The power armor I bought is also pretty attractive, and its 'quest' was similar: follow a map marker to the angry man wearing the armor (he wasn't even in a building, just standing around waiting to die) and kill him to death.
The backpack is really cool, with the added bonus of not having to fast-travel somewhere to kill someone for it. It's customizable at a crafting station, and has several different styles that can be crafted and applied to it, each which give you a different type of buff. Below I'm modeling some urban camo, a Nuka-Cola emblem, and a survivor style (gas mask, knife, cooking pot) with a bedroll hanging from it.
Digital Emotion - E)Go Go Yellow Screen (1:03). Digital emotion outside in the dark (1985).
The furniture pack looks pretty attractive too, though I didn't buy it, instead opting for some Pip-Boy skins which I sort of regret because they're not that great. Everything else I like—none of it is especially thrilling, but I enjoy collecting power armor sets, I'll definitely take the backpack with me from now on, and the gauss rifle is nice addition to my arsenal.
Creation Club Is Paid Mods For Mac
Is it worth the $15 I spent? I'm going to have to say no. I've just been spoiled by all the wonderful and creative free Fallout 4 mods (that everyone can comfortably call mods). I'm happy Bethesda is paying modders directly, and they're making some nice stuff, but at the moment the Creation Club isn't offering a heck of a lot worth paying for.