Modding the reason Oblivion was rated M, costing us millions of dollars. While others in the industry went away from it, we pushed more toward it.

[Wolfman-RIP]

http://www.bethblog.com/

We have a long history with modding, dating back to 2002 with The Elder Scrolls Construction Set. It’s our belief that our games become something much more with the promise of making it your own. Even if you never try a mod, the idea you could do anything is at the core of our game experiences. Over the years we have met much resistance to the time and attention we put into making our games heavily moddable. The time and costs involved, plus the legal hurdles, haven’t made it easy. Modding is one of the reasons Oblivion was re-rated from T to M, costing us millions of dollars. While others in the industry went away from it, we pushed more toward it.

__________________________________________________


Many developers over the last 15 years have taken actions to prevent modding in their most recent games despite fans of them games having a massive mod community.

Battlefield, Call of Duty, Company Of Heroes and many other games can no longer be modded.

[Least not without great difficulty of receiving a ban.]

Mod support is one of them features that many AAA games developers have moved away from or out right prevented because it costs them money.

They would rather sell map pack DLC of 4 maps then have a community of modders create a hundred maps. Such as what happened with Call of Duty. They would rather keep their games rating as T rather then be forced to set it to M due to nude mods costing them millions of dollars. This isn't getting into the support costs as people call/email support because a mod broke their game.

Now you have to ask yourself how PC gaming is going to evolve 10 years from now? Will all AAA developers just disable mod support to save them a lot of hassle and money? The games that disabled mod support still sold in their millions dispite removing it so what incentive do developers have in keeping it?

Skyrim might have sold more copys on the PC due to it supporting mods but the PC market for skyrim is only 14%. Is it going to be worth it to Bethesda to support mods for the next Elder Scrolls single player game when it costs them millions of dollars and only adds sales to a very small market?

http://www.statisticbrain.com/skyrim-the-elder-scrolls-v-statistics/

^ Sales figures and percentage of sales in the link above^

I don't agree with the shambles of a system they put in place for Skyrim. To add the option to sell mods on a game thats been out for years and has hundreds of mods out was asking for trouble.

Despite this the ability to sell mods is the only way big developers are ging to allow us to mod their games for free or for a fee. Without it it's clear mod support is going to get disabled in games moving forward. Smaller PC only developers might carry on supporting mods but the big guys who sell games across the entire market will end up removing it as they done many times over the years.

If you had the choice between the next Elder Scrolls game supporting both paid and free mods with a system in place that prevents ALL abuse and theft or mod support disabled completly with Bethesda only allowing their in house DLC. What would you choose?

What is the way forward to prevent mod support being destroyed?

[Mofuji]

Modding is the reason why Skyrim is rated AO, right? I mean SexLab and all. Just like Oblivion is also AO because of Lovers with PK, right?

Wait, they're not? You mean Bethesda is just being a bunch of liars?

[Midnight]

Gotta love suits and the imaginary millions they lose every day. No matter how much you get, no matter how much you make and stockpile you're always losing that money. Pirates, modders, customers, employees they are all robbing me! Where is my money dammit! IT'S MINE, GIVE IT BACK! WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME!! LET ME GO DAMMIT, I'M THE VICTIM!! NOOOOOOOO!!!!

[Wolfman-RIP]

引用自 Sparkly Sparkly Pokon：

Modding is the reason why Skyrim is rated AO, right? I mean SexLab and all. Just like Oblivion is also AO because of Lovers with PK, right?

Wait, they're not? You mean Bethesda is just being a bunch of liars?

The rating was changed AFTER it made national news that there was hidden nudity in the game if you modified a file. Before that Oblivion was rated T and would of remained so if it wasn't for the bad press the ESRB was getting for letting another video game onto the market with nudity in it.

This was at a time when video games were getting a lot of bad press. (hot coffee etc)

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/stories/2006-05-07/esrb-defends-oblivion-rating-change

We contacted ESRB President Patricia Vance today about the seemingly adverse reaction to the ratings change. Vance noted that Bethesda should have been more careful when submitting the final game for review.

"When we brought the topless female images to Bethesda Softworks' attention, they confirmed that the art file existed in a fully rendered form in the code on the game disc.

The ESRB's investigation found that the mod allowed users to change the filename for the female character mesh in order to access the art file that was created by Bethesda. While true that a modification was required to access this file, the changes we implemented last year - expanding our disclosure rules to include locked-out content - were made to prevent these kinds of situations,"

"It is obviously unfortunate for everyone involved that no one at Bethesda deleted this file before the game went Gold, contributing to our changing the rating after the game was released,"

ESRB President Patricia Vance

_________________

Stright from the President of the ESRB.

[Mo0on]

Would still rather free mods everywhere instead of paid mods everywhere.

[Mofuji]

The whole point was they're saying mods were at fault. Yet there are sex frameworks that should have pushed it to AO.

But hey, may as well just blame modders for crap they left on the disc.

[Superior_Firepower]

Also I am going to go ahead and say sorry about how you were just called out on Youtube by someone who didnt bother to read your post. It was rather undeserved to be lumped in with something you dont actually support.

[Midnight]

King's bounty has a nude mod (game rating 12+). Legend of Korra has a nude mod (rating E).

Just Google it. Please do, it's actually very surprising just how many games have nude mods (Dead Space? WTF!).

Important distinction here is that files were on-disc from bethesda itself which got them the rating. It's their fault by all accounts.

EDIT: Command and Conquer: Renegade has one too! Eve Online? Wut?! The Witcher... what is the point? This thing is pretty hilarious actually xD

[Navarre]

引用自 Midnight：

King's bounty has a nude mod (game rating 12+). Legend of Korra has a nude mod (rating E).

Just Google it. Please do, it's actually very surprising just how many games have nude mods (Dead Space? WTF!).

Important distinction here is that files were on-disc from bethesda itself which got them the rating. It's their fault by all accounts.

I've seen a sex mod for Crusader Kings II, a grand strategy game where all you see is a map and numbers. Nothing surprises me anymore.

[suksas]

引用自 Wolfman-RIP：

引用自 Sparkly Sparkly Pokon：

Modding is the reason why Skyrim is rated AO, right? I mean SexLab and all. Just like Oblivion is also AO because of Lovers with PK, right?

Wait, they're not? You mean Bethesda is just being a bunch of liars?

The rating was changed AFTER it made national news that there was hidden nudity in the game if you modified a file. Before that Oblivion was rated T and would of remained so if it wasn't for the bad press the ESRB was getting for letting another video game onto the market with nudity in it.

This was at a time when video games were getting a lot of bad press. (hot coffee etc)

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/stories/2006-05-07/esrb-defends-oblivion-rating-change

We contacted ESRB President Patricia Vance today about the seemingly adverse reaction to the ratings change. Vance noted that Bethesda should have been more careful when submitting the final game for review.

"When we brought the topless female images to Bethesda Softworks' attention, they confirmed that the art file existed in a fully rendered form in the code on the game disc.

The ESRB's investigation found that the mod allowed users to change the filename for the female character mesh in order to access the art file that was created by Bethesda. While true that a modification was required to access this file, the changes we implemented last year - expanding our disclosure rules to include locked-out content - were made to prevent these kinds of situations,"

"It is obviously unfortunate for everyone involved that no one at Bethesda deleted this file before the game went Gold, contributing to our changing the rating after the game was released,"

ESRB President Patricia Vance

_________________

Stright from the President of the ESRB.

Once again. This is not modders fault. Bethesda left that content in the game.
Had they not left it in the game then the game would still be T rated even wth all digital boobies going around.

[Midnight]

引用自 Navarre：

引用自 Midnight：

King's bounty has a nude mod (game rating 12+). Legend of Korra has a nude mod (rating E).

Just Google it. Please do, it's actually very surprising just how many games have nude mods (Dead Space? WTF!).

Important distinction here is that files were on-disc from bethesda itself which got them the rating. It's their fault by all accounts.

I've seen a sex mod for Crusader Kings II, a grand strategy game where all you see is a map and numbers. Nothing surprises me anymore.

NVIDIA A New Down Demo, NVIDIA Medusa Demo.... wow, people are really dedicated to nude mods.

If ESRB took this into account pretty much no game ever would be left without M rating. Neither would tech demos interestingly enough!

[Rocket]

Any detail on what that file actually was? If there were nude uncovered meshes left lying there then fine Beth screwed up but if they weren't and the modder had to remove the underwear attachment I'd say the community shares some of the responsability.

[Midnight]

引用自 Jolly Godfrey：

Any detail on what that file actually was? If there were nude uncovered meshes left lying there then fine Beth screwed up but if they weren't and the modder had to remove the underwear attachment I'd say the community shares some of the responsability.

The texture was in the game's files. The modder just switched the path of the textures so the game would display the nude ones. That's it, just filepath switch.

[fatbeer85]

editted

引用自 Wolfman-RIP：

http://www.bethblog.com/
Modding is one of the reasons Oblivion was re-rated from T to M, costing us millions of dollars.

Wrong. From the ESRB.[www.esrb.org]

The pertinent content causing the change in the ESRB rating involves more detailed
depictions of blood and gore than were considered in the original rating of the game (the
game already carried a Blood and Gore content descriptor), as well as the presence in
the PC version of the game of a locked-out art file that, if accessed by using an
apparently unauthorized third party tool, allows the user to play the game with topless
versions of female characters. The locked-out topless skin was found by ESRB to exist
in a fully rendered form on the game disc, but is not accessible in the Xbox 360™
version of the game.

The game shipped with nude skins. Modders were not the problem. If modders made a topless skin, that would not have changed the rating. The change was due the fact that it was already there

[Wolfman-RIP]

引用自 suksas：

引用自 Wolfman-RIP：

The rating was changed AFTER it made national news that there was hidden nudity in the game if you modified a file. Before that Oblivion was rated T and would of remained so if it wasn't for the bad press the ESRB was getting for letting another video game onto the market with nudity in it.

This was at a time when video games were getting a lot of bad press. (hot coffee etc)

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/stories/2006-05-07/esrb-defends-oblivion-rating-change

We contacted ESRB President Patricia Vance today about the seemingly adverse reaction to the ratings change. Vance noted that Bethesda should have been more careful when submitting the final game for review.

"When we brought the topless female images to Bethesda Softworks' attention, they confirmed that the art file existed in a fully rendered form in the code on the game disc.

The ESRB's investigation found that the mod allowed users to change the filename for the female character mesh in order to access the art file that was created by Bethesda. While true that a modification was required to access this file, the changes we implemented last year - expanding our disclosure rules to include locked-out content - were made to prevent these kinds of situations,"

"It is obviously unfortunate for everyone involved that no one at Bethesda deleted this file before the game went Gold, contributing to our changing the rating after the game was released,"

ESRB President Patricia Vance

_________________

Stright from the President of the ESRB.

Once again. This is not modders fault. Bethesda left that content in the game.
Had they not left it in the game then the game would still be T rated even will all digital boobies going around.

When it happened gamers were mad at the ESRB because they had effectivly rated a game based on modded content.

The ESRB are not suppose rate any game based on modded content.

It was clear at the time that the ESRB made a exception because the mainstream media were blaming the ESRB over the modded nudity in Oblivion. It was a knee jerk reaction.

The hidden file in question wasn't even a fully formed boob. There were no nipples.

[Midnight]

引用自 Wolfman-RIP：

引用自 suksas：

Once again. This is not modders fault. Bethesda left that content in the game.
Had they not left it in the game then the game would still be T rated even will all digital boobies going around.

When it happened gamers were mad at the ESRB because they had effectivly rated a game based on modded content.

The ESRB are not suppose rate any game based on modded content.

It was clear at the time that the ESRB made a exception because the mainstream media were blaming the ESRB over the modded nudity in Oblivion. It was a knee jerk reaction.

No it got rated based on the on-disc content. If the files weren't there it wouldn't happen.

Modder had nothing to do with it, he was very much just the whistleblower. He didn't put the files there and if they weren't there it would be fine. Once again, corporation blames the messenger/reporter instead of admitting it ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up. News at eleven!

Kinda like blaming the guy that found the on-disc DLC for ♥♥♥♥♥♥ corporate DLC practices don't you think?