Play the definitive edition of Fallout 4. It’s been ten years since players first stepped out of Vault 111 and into the post-nuclear world. To mark the occa...
  • TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    12·
    8 days ago

    They want the benefits to popularity modding brings, but without them not being able to capitalize on it. The free modding scene far outstripping their paid mods hurts their ability to sell them, thus frequently updates to force the community to be on the backfoot keeps them in line.

    The same tactic is employed with Minecraft in their transition to frequent, small updates that break compatibility over larger, less frequent updates. They want to funnel people into their paid mod system on the “Bedrock” version of the game, but “Java” edition has a wealth of extensive mods that really put their efforts to shame. Breaking compatibility isn’t the only reason they do it; frequent updates create a hype cycle to keep the game relevant, but it is a factor for the money people.

    • Romkslrqusz@lemmy.zipEnglish
      1·
      8 days ago

      The only logical explanation

      It couldn’t possibly be that maintaining compatibility for 70+ thousand different mods that not every player is using would be a feat of impossible proportions

    • brucethemoose@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      8 days ago

      The free modding scene far outstripping their paid mods hurts their ability to sell them

      The majority (dare I say the vast majority) of the paying player base does not use mods to that extent.

      Same with Minecraft. Vanilla compatible server modding is massive, but the major client-side modding user base (eg Forge and Fabric) is microscopic in comparison.

      This isn’t a case of malice, I don’t think.

      Bethesda likes modding, but they’re kind of ignorant of the community intricacies, and just want their little MTX laden re-releases. Otherwise, they would have incorporated the sea of free fixes themselves and/or more actively attacked modding like Rockstar.

      Mojang is (or at least was) an extremely conservative developer. They move at an absolute snails pace compared to the client modding community, and almost totally ignore it outside of some MCP stuff. It’s unfortunate, but it also kept Minecraft from enshittifying too fast.