Bethesda Game Studios recently split the Skyrim community down the middle by (once again) introducing paid mods through the ‘Creations’ platform. Several years ago, Bethesda tried stacking Skyrim’s mods behind paywalls, and it went down like a lead balloon – but now, the company is trying it out again, bringing about ‘Skyrim Creations’ in a surprise update.
Here We Go Again
It was yesterday that the news broke regarding the Creations platform in Skyrim, and immediately, some players started getting a little niggling feeling that it was Bethesda gearing up to pave the way for some bad news. There are expectations that BGS will start to put paywalls around mod content in Starfield when the Creation Kit is made available to modders next year.
That’s how Skyrim’s Creations platform works – you need to spend Creation credits to unlock certain community-created pieces of content in Skyrim, and in return, the modder receives royalties. It means that modders will receive a little cut of the profits for their creations, which is great, but it’s not very user-friendly overall, as operating models go.
However, some concerns are circulating regarding one of the new rules regarding mods being listed on Creations. It was stressed by Bethesda Game Studios that ‘Creations cannot contain anything produced with generative AI.’
As generative AI become increasingly powerful, developers are finding new ways to make use of the technology. That extends to modders, who will likely make use of AI to alleviate some of the strains of creating what can often be gargantuan mods. But, as per Bethesda’s ruling, if you use gen AI to make your mods, you’re not earning a penny.
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