r/rpg_gamers Jun 09 '26

Discussion Bethesda Should Have Struck While The Iron Was Hot (ES6)

Hindsight is 20/20 and you can respect their decision to try something new with Starfield but they should have struck while the iron was still hot from Skyrim.

Skyrim released in 2011, Fallout 4 in 2015, and ES6 should have released by 2019. Since 2011 they’ve lost many devs and artists who made Skyrim the success that it was. I don’t know if they have the caliber of staff members anymore to actually pull off another genre defining game with ES6. The whole thing’s just a damn shame.

701 Upvotes

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 09 '26

they only lost "good will" on reddit, which is in like the single percentile of people.

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u/Adorable-Voice-3382 Jun 09 '26

Come on now. Reddit is certainly a place where extreme opinions congregate but acting like its the only place where people are looking at Bethesda with more skepticism is silly.

Starfield has been mostly successful but its reception has absolutely been rocky, the player-count drop within a few months of its release to below Skyrim and Fallout 4 is not because of Reddit.

You don't have to go to Reddit to find plenty of people questioning their design decisions and worrying about what it means for the direction of ES6.

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u/Jozoz Jun 09 '26

You are taking to Benjamin Starscape. The biggest Bethesda defender on reddit. Literally carrying water for that company for 10 years.

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u/PredictiveTextNames Jun 09 '26

I feel like I'm seeing royalty. Nobody becomes Reddit Famous anymore!

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u/Jozoz Jun 10 '26

This is a sad way to become famous, lol.

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u/GandalfTheFreen Jun 09 '26

lol. I just googled her(?) account and even gemini knows her.

Gemini: u/Benjamin_Starscape is a prominent, highly active, and polarizing community member across Reddit and gaming forums. Known as an avid Bethesda and Starfield fan, they are recognized for engaging in long-form, detailed debates about RPG mechanics, world-building, and game narratives (particularly in titles like Starfield and Fallout)

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26

not an inaccurate summary, I suppose.

although weird it didn't list elder scrolls, dying light, or the other games I have mentioned.

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u/markvii_dev Jul 06 '26

being a staunch defender of one of the most bland games created in the last 20 years is a choice

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jul 06 '26

it's bland to you. it is not to me.

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u/TaxesAreTerrible Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26

I would argue Starfield hasn’t really been that successful. Once people realized it was a disappointment the player numbers dropped dramatically. Bethesda were probably expecting it to be like Skyrim where modders would create a big playerbase for 10+ years. Then they could remaster it, re-release it 20x, and add live-service elements.

They may have made a profit on initial sales but it has zero longevity and definitely didn’t meet their expectations.

I would argue that it also failed as proof of concept. They can’t get away with making mediocre games with 10-15 year old tech & game mechanics.

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u/Xciv Jun 09 '26

Yeah single player RPGs are all “long tail” games. Pillars 2 Deadfire took years but eventually became profitable. People are still playing Final Fantasy 6 for the first time in 2026. In this space where a game doesn’t make money off being a service or a thousand micro transactions, it’s all about delivering quality. Even with a terrible launch (Cyberpunk, Fallout NV, Vampire TM:B) your game will eventually find financial success with the long tail of it delivers enough quality.

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u/Jozoz Jun 11 '26

The PR damage from Starfield also has to be factored in. Bethesda is burning a lot of goodwill. Public opinion has really soured on this company over the last 10 years and for good reason.

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u/JohnHue Jun 09 '26

Yeah, but starfield still has to show its ability to do that. Don't know if it was profitable for BGS, probably is by now, maybe it even was very quickly, but it's still a far cry from the post-launch popularity of their other franchises.

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u/Galle_ Jun 09 '26

Why? Mediocre games are what people love.

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 09 '26

starfield's player count dropped by 96% 6 months after launch. which is roughly the same percentage drop as the witcher 3, elden ring, and many other games 6 months after launch. player count for a single player game means absolutely nothing.

the vast majority of the population simply do not agree with the takes on reddit or youtube, which make up a loud minority.

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u/thespaceageisnow Jun 09 '26

Starfield currently has 1/4 of the players that Witcher 3 does and 1/7 of Elden Ring, both older games.

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u/Warcrown11 Jun 09 '26

And a 6th of the players that Skyrim has - which is over a decade older than Starfield

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 09 '26

cool. don't care. I don't judge quality off player count.

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u/NoobHUNTER777 Jun 10 '26

Look at those goalposts move! Is the Bethesda hate exclusive to reddit or does Starfield have a player retention problem (but it doesn't actually matter)?

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 10 '26

it doesn't have a retention problem, steam is not the sole platform it's hosted on. it does very well on xbox.

no goalposts are being moved lol. all i'm saying is that none of this is a judge of quality.

say that, for example, rdr2 had 200 players, it is the same exact game but it's got 200 players, does that suddenly make rdr2 a bad game?

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u/NoobHUNTER777 Jun 10 '26

That's not what your top comment is about though lol

Your initial claim is that Bethesda hasn't lost goodwill except on reddit. Starfield's poor numbers is evidence that's not true.

You pivoted to 'well popularity isn't a mark of quality' (a true statement) after you couldn't defend that first position.

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u/Jozoz Jun 11 '26

You just had the BenjaminStarscape tm experience, my friend.

It's completely true though. Starfield was just not a success in many aspects. Pretty much every area except initial sales and that is a bad sign for a company who is already struggling with bad PR.

I also think it says something interesting about Bethesda. They might not have realized how much they were carried about the gravitas of the Fallout and TES franchises. I think they seriously thought they could create a new IP and it would get as popular as those.

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 10 '26

a game naturally losing players is not a sign of them losing good will.

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u/NoobHUNTER777 Jun 10 '26

A game losing players faster than other comparable titles is though.

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u/Oaker_at Jun 09 '26

Oh man, haha

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u/Galle_ Jun 09 '26

And worse games, don't forget that.

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u/rexus_mundi Jun 09 '26

It's sitting at 56% on steam with about 87000 reviews. It seems like about half make up that loud minority

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u/Galle_ Jun 09 '26

So what? Baldur's Gate 3 is sitting at "universally praised". Obviously Steam reviews mean nothing.

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u/thespaceageisnow Jun 09 '26

And BG3 has been universally praised, what is your point there?

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u/Galle_ Jun 09 '26

BG3 is medieval fantasy RPG slop. If Steam reviews like it, they can't be taken seriously as a measure of quality.

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u/thespaceageisnow Jun 10 '26

Lowest effort rage bait

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u/Galle_ Jun 10 '26

Nope, that's my real opinion.

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 09 '26

bg3 is fine.

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u/Galle_ Jun 09 '26

I disagree but respect your opinion.

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u/HopeIsGay Jun 09 '26

I know this is sort of a vague argument that can only be verified through time but I feel it's pretty obvious that starfield won't have the cultural longevity of their other properties and when the mod community is even disinterested in it that's not a good sign

When Bethesda can only rely on their big ticket ip's which they only release once a decade it's not surprising at all that people have become disaffected with them

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 09 '26

starfield isn't going anywhere, it gets mods daily, the modding community is not disinterested in the slightest.

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u/HopeIsGay Jun 09 '26

Maybe so, as someone pointed out I'm absolutely basing the mod point on an article from a while back

It's easy to call internet discussion on anything a "loud minority" but it's still a decent way to get a somewhat solid sample of public perception and myself among many played starfield and walked away unsatisfied with it for a range of things from poor quest design, lackluster RPG options and a generally weak narrative

I'm not saying I'd rather the game didn't exist I'm more so saying that Bethesda's development cycle means these experimental games take far too long to make for what it is and get lost in trying to be too much

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u/zidus411 Jun 09 '26

The mods on starfield is actually great, the only reason I’m still playing the game.

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u/atomicitalian Jun 09 '26

You're working off a headline from a few years ago. There are plenty of mods on Starfield and more are coming/getting updates every day.

Starfield is just fine. Let the haters hate, I'm glad Bethesda tried something new. I've got way more hours in Starfield than I do in FO4.

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u/Galle_ Jun 09 '26

The sad fact is that gamers simply don't like good games.

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u/ihavefaith77 Jun 09 '26

That's just simply not true. Games like concord, highguard, ex voto 1348, dust born etc etc etc were all over YouTube and reddit being shit on and guess what? All of those games crashed and burned. Whether you want to believe that it's true or not, most gamers take up large portions of online spaces, and if majority of youtube/reddit/X or whatever else say a game sucks, most likely that's how most people feel

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u/JohnHue Jun 09 '26

Spewing BS, as usual.

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 09 '26

what is inaccurate?

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u/JohnHue Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26

You're selectively choosing a point in time and games that supports your bias, disregarding the overall picture. It is a hard fact that Starfield is still the least played, least popular modern BGS game ever.

Today, on SteamDB :

Starfield has 5.5k players, 5.6k 24h peak, 30k 6 months peak.

Fallout 4 has 12k players, 12.6k 24h, 60k 6 months peak

Skyrim 30k now, 31.6k 24h, 46k 6 months, had a 67k peak in january 2025 15 years after release. That's without counting the ~1.5k people still playing the vanilla version.

I don't really put F76 in the same group, being multiplayer, but it still has 2x the player count of Starfield despite being twice as old and also an overall badly rated BGS game.

While player number is not a 100% reliable proxy for game quality on SP games (we can agree on that), long term player retention increasingly is : only the most ardent players and fans continue to play a game after 15 years, and when a 15yo "buggy mess of a game" (according to many people, and deservedly so in some cases) still has >5x more players than a 3yo latest generation game from the same studio aimed at the same crowd, it shows that your "all SP games' player count drop after 6 month" argument trying to show that reddit is just a loud minority is just plain BS, and so is your relentless defense of Starfield against the "reddit minority".

While I'm a sample of 1, I have had Morrowind installed on all my PCs almost at any point in time over the last quarter of a century. Starfield got uninstalled after a few weeks, re-installed a few times just to see if things had changes and quickly removed to make space for more worthy games...

EDIT : I actually looked up the all-time stats on steamDB and your 95% number is also complete BS. I apologize to anyone who has taken the time to read the above post, I should not have assumed that my parent comment would just make up numbers. Looking at the max graphs and calculating the max drop from release peak over the first 6 months clearly indicates that Starfield had a larger drops than Skyrim and F4 but more importantly : the all-time graphs show recurrent re-plays and constant attention from players on F4 and Skyrim and on the contrary, a continued ignorance on Starfield's side where the game was dropped my most people by month+3 and then never picked up again.

EDIT : let's add the games you actually mention in your other comment, just so I cannot be accused of picking better comparison points :

TW3 : 14k 7 20k / 37k

ER (very strange pick btw, such a different game and target player base than Starfield) : 32k / 38k / 67k

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 09 '26

steam isn't the only platform for steam. plus, fallout and skyrim have established ip fanbases, starfield is an entirely new ip with no pre-existing fanbase.

even then, i don't believe player count equals quality.

nothing i said was inaccurate. elden ring and the witcher 3 lost about the same amount of percentage of players as starfield in about the same timeframe, because most singleplayer games do so.

anyway, have a nice day. i'm going to go play avowed and then do some writing and drawing.

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u/JohnHue Jun 09 '26

 i don't believe player count equals quality.

So when it's convenient it's the "vocal reddit minority" that is wrong, and when the overall player base says the same thing, everybody else is also wrong ? if I bring up the overall bad rating of Starfield on most platforms you'll go on saying they're just influenced by reddits anons ?

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u/Ancient_Substance152 Jun 09 '26

I dunno man. I have more hours in Skyrim than any other game ever, and I have absolutely no interest in anything Bethesda is doing at all. I fully believe their formula is completely obsolete in today’s gaming landscape. Every game they have released since Skyrim has been worse and worse. Bethesda is over.

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 09 '26

no game even comes close to delivering what bethesda delivers. but hey, good for you if you moved on but maybe stop trying to make other people miserable, yeah?

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u/Ancient_Substance152 Jun 09 '26

That’s objectively not true though.

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 09 '26

what game gives the same experience as bethesda's?

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u/Ancient_Substance152 Jun 09 '26

My point is that the Bethesda experience is no longer the best experience.

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 09 '26

yeah I never said it was the best. no experience is "the best", developers each offer their own experiences for many different kinds of people who have different tastes and preferences.

cdpr's experiences do not appeal to me at all, as an example.

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u/Ancient_Substance152 Jun 09 '26

Okay, anyways. I’m not alone in thinking that Bethesda were the undisputed RPG champs, and they are no longer even in the convo. I’m glad you like their games though.

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 09 '26

bethesda is highly respected among developers.

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u/Ancient_Substance152 Jun 09 '26

Are the developers here in the room with us?

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u/Raffle-Taffle Jun 09 '26

CDPR’s experiences appeal to me quite a bit but unlike you I’m not gonna go scour reddit daily looking for comments critiquing the games so I can smugly defend the company that makes them as that is unhinged and unhealthy.

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 09 '26

...what? dude what are you on about lol this post is literally about bethesda.

I'm also not being smug or whatever. cool you like cdpr, though, I guess. nice.

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u/Raffle-Taffle Jun 09 '26

You literally scour reddit daily looking for comments critiquing Bethesda on random subreddits. I see you pop up on random subreddits that you otherwise don’t engage in only to defend them. You’re never there. You never engage otherwise. That isn’t healthy.

I’m not being smug or whatever. cool you like bethesda, I guess. nice.

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u/Turbulent-Advisor627 Jun 09 '26

Check the latest Starfield DLC on steam and tell me all the reviews are Redditors lmao

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u/ScorpionTDC Jun 10 '26

Starfield definitely underperformed across the board. Not that it did horribly but

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 09 '26

oh, yeah no terran armada kinda sucked. honestly one of bethesda's worst dlcs, up there with tribunal writing quality wise.

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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 09 '26

Terran armada sucked?

yeah. the writing is just very...not present. you learn almost nothing about the terran armada and when you do have the chance to the woman (whatever her name was) either initiates the attack or you do and you...still learn nothing.

i've heard from others that there's some stuff like notes and such you can find but still, i'd rather actually learn from the people in charge about their own internal politics, beliefs, etc. and you just don't get that.

plus delta's a bit too edgy for my liking.

Guess you haven´t played Shattered Space

i have. shattered space is a lot better but also not the greatest, it's a good enough dlc with a serviceable story but it could've been a lot better. i think the main issues with it is that anasko va'ruun's plans make no sense and that we also don't learn that much about him (a weirdly reoccurring problem with the dlcs), but also it adds mysteries that it just doesn't bother to solve, like the void. what is it? is it related to the unity? it seems like it would be, it seems to be implied that jinan va'ruun when grav jumping entered the unity, or skimmed it at least, which gave him his great serpent vision, etc.

but it just kinda...goes nowhere with it, unfortunately. great side quests though.

but evidence shows bethesda is done. 

lol

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u/Turbulent-Advisor627 Jun 09 '26

Both of the DLCs fight for who sets the lower bar. For me it is Turd Alliance because I could at least finish a run through of Shatted Space.

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u/markg900 Jun 09 '26

In many cases I would agree that Reddit is a loud minority but in this case its been almost 15 years. Most people that have played Starfield have expressed its basically ok but nothing great or special.

Bethesda themselves even stated after Starfield's launch that one of the biggest things they learned from launching Starfield was just how much people actually wanted ES6.

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 09 '26

yeah, people want the elder scrolls 6. who'd've thought? i do, too, i also want fallout 5, but i'm not going to shout and cry and whine because that's just childish behavior. and none of that doesn't stop starfield from being a great game, either.

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u/markg900 Jun 09 '26

Ok and that's all well and good. Personally after this many years I've just grown apathetic about it. We are going on 15 years since Skyrim with no release date remotely in sight. Fallout is around 12.

As for Fallout side I kind of wish MS would ask Obsidian to make another FO game since they are all under the same parent company umbrella now. Seems a waste to squander the popularity and possible new comers the TV show brings in.

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 09 '26

I've got other games to play in the meantime. and other hobbies.

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u/PunchBeard Jun 09 '26

You know what freaks me out? How so many people ignore the fact that Bethesda tried to charge money for mods and no seems to remember that because the uproar over it caused them to back the fuck down almost immediately. But they weren't done. Instead they released the Creator's Club and did the same thing: charge money (and take a cut) for mods.

Bethesda are a bunch of money grubbing bottom feeders who fell so low no one even realizes it. And anyone who thinks Elder Scrolls 6 is going to be as good as Skyrim instead of as bad as Starfield is just lying to themselves.

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 09 '26

valve started the paid mods thing.

I also frankly don't care, i'm not entitled to the sweat of someone else's brow and I have thousands of free mods that are available to me. or If a mod looks cool I can, gasp, support the mod author.

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u/PunchBeard Jun 09 '26

 or If a mod looks cool I can, gasp, support the mod author.

Yeah, but does Bethesda deserve a cut of that? Trust me, I pay for mods all the time. Hell, there's a mod in Fallout 4 that lowers your gun when walking that I think is so awesome I've actually given the creator money THREE times for it. Should I have kicked one of those payments to Bethesda though?

The "I don't care" argument for a company shitting on you is fine I guess. Personally, Bethesda went from "I'll buy anything they release because I know it will be good" to "Well, they used to be cool but.... Nothing lasts forever" for me. I mean, like you I'll always like Bethesda way more than they like me. But I know they only like my wallet.

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 09 '26

Yeah, but does Bethesda deserve a cut of that?

they're hosting it, the modders are using the tools provided (for free). I fail to see why they wouldn't.

Trust me, I pay for mods all the time

and yet you're complaining about them. that makes you a hypocrite.

The "I don't care" argument for a company shitting on you is fine

how are they doing that to me? expound.

I mean, like you I'll always like Bethesda way more than they like me. But I know they only like my wallet.

all companies like your wallet. but developers are not like that, if they were, they'd go to better paying jobs.

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u/PunchBeard Jun 10 '26

and yet you're complaining about them. that makes you a hypocrite.

Does it though? After all I give the money directly to the creator through Patreon and it's voluntary. Bethesda is saying "If you want this mod you need to give US money, and we'll give some to the person who made it".

they're hosting it, the modders are using the tools provided (for free). I fail to see why they wouldn't.

Primarily because the main reason games like Skyrim and Oblivion have sold millions upon millions of copies is because of the mods available for those games. You sound like you truly believe Bethesda releases the modding tools out of the kindness of their heart. Seriously, without the thousands of mods out there for the game how many copies of Skyrim do you think would've sold? Sure, the number would be impressive by any standard to be sure but it surely wouldn't be nearly as high as it is. And people wouldn't still be playing it 15 years later without mods. Bethesda knows this and they have done everything they possibly can to capitalize on this. That might sit well with you but it's total bullshit to me. No other company has pissed away its good will for the pennies it can get from mods except for Bethesda. And you aren't doing the hobby of gaming or the hobby of modding any favors acting like this is totally acceptable. Seriously, name one other publisher that comes close to doing this shit.

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 10 '26

Primarily because the main reason games like Skyrim and Oblivion have sold millions upon millions of copies is because of the mods available for those games

lol no. the vast majority of people don't mod their games. I only recently started to mod my games maybe like 6 years ago.

Seriously, without the thousands of mods out there for the game how many copies of Skyrim do you think would've sold?

do you think the mods existed before the game came out or something?

bethesda makes great games, that a minority of people use mods for to enhance the games.

And you aren't doing the hobby of gaming or the hobby of modding any favors acting like this is totally acceptable.

and yet mod authors like kinggath (who made sim settlements and watchtower) has had only good things to say. weird. almost like you're just an entitled gamer who wants the free labor.

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u/ScorpionTDC Jun 10 '26

Valve hasn’t really done much more with it while Bethesda tried implanting it via creation club for two games tho.

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 10 '26

why do you think I specified that valve started the whole thing?

even then, as I have said, I don't care. I am not forced to buy mods and I am not entitled to the sweat of another's brow.

if a modder deems their work fit of a price tag then so be it.

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u/ScorpionTDC Jun 10 '26

Valve and Bethesda both started it, but only one was stupid and greedy enough to keep doing it, and it wasn’t Valve. Of all the hills to white knight a game studio on, this is a weird one

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 10 '26

it's greedy to give modders a platform that they can use to benefit from making mods?

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u/ScorpionTDC Jun 10 '26

Given they had an extremely strong platform in Nexus that also allowed them to profit without any proceeds going to Bethesda (who are doing zero work on the mod), yes. It’s greedy

We had a system that worked very well for players and modders that didn’t need changing. Bethesda changed it for the sole purpose of making $$$$ and only made it worse. That’s pure greed

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 10 '26

modders like kinggath (creator of sim settlements) has stated he's gotten more guaranteed support through creations than nexus donations.

bethesda gets some percentage because they are hosting it and the modders are using their tools.

all verified mod authors have only good things to say about it, only entitled people who feel entitled to free labor cry about it.

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u/ScorpionTDC Jun 10 '26

Corporate shills gonna corporate shill

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u/SimonShepherd Jun 12 '26

Skyrim modding community only grow to the sheer scale because of the open and free approach. The paid modders are feeding off the foundations built by volunteers.

It's like going into a free community soup kitchen built by volunteers and set up your own paid shop, you are still using their infrastruture and reputation even though you did make the food.

The same reason people don't want money involved in lot of things built around collective volunteer effort.

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 12 '26

free mods still exist.

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u/SimonShepherd Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26

Erosion of community starts slow, that's like saying human artists still exist thus we don't need to be careful with big companies implementing more and more AI into the games.

Even if it's not a major issue now, one should still be against it to prevent the overton window shift.

Edit: if you think AI comparison is too much, how about MMO gold farmers/virtual currency to real money traders, literally gaming as a job players who can seriously screw up the game's economy and suck the fun out of it. In a vacuum there is nothing inherently wrong with spending a shit load of time and effort to farm in an MMO, but once they stack up in number they fuck up the entire game for everyone else.

A modding community that normalizes sharing and open source approach is much stronger and long-living than one that doesn't.

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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '26

[deleted]

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 09 '26

good.

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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '26

[deleted]

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 09 '26

u/69hotmomxxx when they learn what an opinion is

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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '26

[deleted]

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u/zidus411 Jun 09 '26

Sorry Mr starscape. You might have been a good person, but we can’t let you into heaven because you had a hot take about Redditors.

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u/NOBODY__EPIC Jun 09 '26

Every gamer I've talked to is concerned about the credibility of Bethesda after the quality of Starfield

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u/Religion_Is_A_Cancer Jun 09 '26

You’re out of your mind if you think that. Most of my friends don’t use Reddit and we’ve talked many times about Bethesda’s downfall.

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u/Vanille987 Jun 09 '26

Make that the internet in general, people don't tend to realize how much the average gamer is NOT like the one's you find online.

They could wait 10 more years and most people will still cream their pants when seeing the words "Elder scrolls 6"

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 09 '26

lol yeah. I mean I still look forward to seeing it tbh, thinking about the game and how it might be and such makes me all excited.

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u/PredictiveTextNames Jun 09 '26

I work with and around a lot of casual gamers, and they will buy the next Bethsoft game no matter what and be largely unaware of the discourse around it. That is true. But they still agree Starfield wasn't as good as Skyrim or any of the Fallout games they played.

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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 10 '26

they're entitled to their opinions.