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Starfield Fans Denounce 'Excessive' Pricing of Paid Mods - Bethesda's third attempt to monetise fan made mods, review bombing on Steam has commenced

GHG

Member
A vocal segment of the Starfield fandom is unhappy with the game's Creation Club, having said as much following the platform's debut. The ongoing criticism is largely centered on the pricing of the newly introduced Starfield mods, though some players have also shared other grievances.

Now called Creations, the latest version of the Creation Club launched as part of a surprise Starfield update on June 9. Its release marks Bethesda's third attempt to systemically monetize community-made mods. The developer previously implemented the Creation Club into The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim and Fallout 4, both of which received it in 2017.

And while the Starfield version of the storefront is not even 24 hours old yet, the platform is already receiving some pushback from the player base. E.g., there is currently no shortage of social media reactions denouncing the storefront's prices, which a number of fans have labeled as "excessive." The newly introduced Tracker's Alliance quest called "The Vulture" attracted a lot of that ongoing barrage of criticism; "$7 is too much for a quest," says one widely shared Reddit post, concluding that even half that price would be a tough ask given how short the mission is.





Fans Criticize Attempt to Sell Chopped-Up Starfield Questlines Mission by Mission

Meanwhile, some other players have taken issue with the fact that Bethesda has seemingly prioritized putting out paid quests over the Shattered Space expansion that they already paid for as part of Starfield's $100 Digital Premium Edition. For clarity, while The Vulture is sold alongside community-made mods, this particular add-on was actually made by Bethesda itself. Whether the premium quest was actually developed by the same team in charge of Shattered Space, thus possibly slowing down the expansion's development, is currently unclear.

But charging $7 for such a brief quest "sets a dangerous precedent," argued Reddit user The_IrishTurtle in another popular post criticizing the platform, concluding that something like The Vulture should have been part of the game from the beginning. The fan also rhetorically wondered what's next for the space-faring RPG, and whether Bethesda will perhaps attempt to sell more chopped-up Starfield questlines mission by mission, like it seemingly plans to do with the Tracker's Alliance content.



The fundamental concept of the mod storefront has also incurred some criticism, largely due to the platform's use of virtual currency. E.g., even those willing to pay $7 for The Vulture first need to purchase $10 worth of in-game currency. Some Starfield players have labeled this "Bethesda bucks" system as predatory. The good news for those who share this sentiment is that the June 9 update was accompanied by the first public release of Creation Kit 2. With Starfield's official modding tools finally being out, it shouldn't be long before players have a wealth of free mods to download.




Bonus article with more info:


  • Starfield's Creation Kit update introduces paid mods, sparking controversy over expensive prices and required real-money purchases for content.

  • Fans are upset by the creation credits system, expressing dissatisfaction with the cost of mods and calling for lower pricing.

  • The negative reviews on Steam about Starfield's paid mods reflect disappointment in having to pay for content that feels like it should have been included in the original game.

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GHG

Member
Sucks for the mod community. I personally don't like the game enough to bother modding it.

Personally I just think it's scummy practice, especially since it will be preying on the console only and gamepass PC players who will have no choice but to go via the club (the latter group for any more complex mods).

It's just because Bethesda want a cut and would rather players didn't donate directly to their favourite mod authors.

Going to be the same old song and dance, just a different year since there will inevitably be a group of people defending this crap. All it does is fuck up the mod community.
 
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RiccochetJ

Gold Member
I'm just going to give it time. The free mods are coming and the quality will shoot up as people become comfortable with the tools.
 

feynoob

Banned
Why cry about this when there is a free mod?
Just get the goddamn mods.

Only thing to get mad about is the locked quest via paywall.
 

Atrus

Gold Member
They handed out $10 in credits to con people into buying things and I still haven’t used it because nothing they’ve shown is worth buying at the prices listed.

$7 for a quick quest, $10 for a ship hab, it all sound ridiculous.

It does set up a bad precedent for the next Elder Scrolls though. There’s a suspicion that Bethesda might crack down on mods that compete with their monetized mods so we’ll see how this plays out.

Imagine paying $10 for each Dark Brotherhood assassination target.
 
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Laptop1991

Member
Yep, doesn't surprise me with Bethesda now, i'm glad the fans are calling them out on this type of crap, Bethesda are now an online mmo company with the focus on MTX instead of the singleplayer company who cared about their fans and work of the past, i will get Starfield when it's cheaper and after everything is out for it, but it's not a Fallout or TES high quality SP game, thank god for the full mod conversion's and the free mods on the nexus, that's where the old BGS style games are being created, they will only keep raising the prices in the future.
 
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Not sure how much of a difference a review bomb will even make. The game has already been mixed since like a month after release. Not sure they'll have enough pull to bring it into negative.
 

Bungie

Member
The content that cost is optional content that was made for this the sole purpose of being bought. NOT a free mod being that you are being charged for. 99% of the community mods are free however, The paid one's were made by BGS or content makers in mind they are paid from the start...If this was DLC in the microsoft store, no one would even say a thing. It's just people mixing the idea mods & money = Bad. When the creaton club is where BGS put's its optional small DLC there as well.

They did this in Fallout 4 as well, got some awesome houses in the game world later in the life span. Everything I also got from there was achievement friendly & had a equal quality of the base game.
 
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