Bethesda seems determined to undermine the community of modders associated with their games.
Bethesda has discreetly updated Skyrim, introducing additional support for paid user created game mods with a 12GB update. The update features a new in-game store page named ‘Creations,’ replacing the ‘Creation Club’ community-driven page.
This consolidated platform brings together both mods and Creation Club content, offering a space for both free and paid DLC. Users note a mix of free and paid content in the Creations page, indicating a combination of player-created mods and official DLC.
This update also includes PC-specific features such as ultrawide monitor support and Steam Deck compatibility, but it has reportedly caused issues with existing Skyrim mods, particularly ‘SKSE’ (Skyrim Script Extender) which is a vital component of countless modifications.
Impressively enough, this update didn’t just bring in paid mods and the replacement of the Creation Club, but rather in includes a multitude of actual bug fixes as well, this is truly a genuine update.
An update to a 12 year old game, which is a lovely gesture if not for the fact that Bethesda have a brand new title that released quite literally this year with one of its main complaints being that it has barely any actual content inside of it, so rather than actually implementing content to their latest title which is seemingly void of it, they instead have gone back to Skyrim with a forced update.
Why update Starfield when you can instead fuck over those who continue to enjoy good Bethesda games by breaking compatibility with Skyrim for the umpteenth time.
You can maintain seamless compatibility by downgrading your instance from the new 1.6.1130 version with the unofficial downgrade patcher, with SKSE receiving an update to support the new version, though of course other game mods will likely be broken.
Bethesda have gone to such great lengths over the years to clamp down on its immense PC modding communities, having unleashed several large scale updates that break compatibility with user created game mods, recently with the introduction of the Anniversary Edition update which added in a bunch of creation club modifications into the main game, including Fishing.
This broke compatibility with some Skyrim SE modifications, with the release of Skyrim Special Edition having broken mod compatibility with Skyrim Legendary Edition, the original if you would. Though this is understandable given how the differences between the two is that one is essentially a 32-bit application while the Special Edition was 64-bit.
Though there is plus side to forced game updates bringing unwanted features and disrupting compatibility with players modded instances, if you were to perhaps pirate a video game you aren’t forced to update it.
Bethesda’s attempt to introduce paid game mods in Skyrim isn’t new.
A previous endeavor in 2015 faced significant criticism, primarily for the exorbitant prices of individual mods and the unfavorable distribution of proceeds among various entities.
The allocation of payments across multiple businesses, such as Valve and Bethesda, resulted in modders receiving a disproportionately low share. Bethesda eventually retreated from this approach, restoring harmony within the modding community for approximately five years, and now they’ve simply gone back to monetizing the work of others.
They would be thrilled if consumers simply couldn’t modify their own game instances and were forced to rely upon their Creation outfit filled with paid game mods, probably why Bethesda have been continually disrupting their community by breaking compatibility time and time again.
I doubt Bethesda will backdown from their monetized attempt like they did in the past, this new update for Skyrim has immense ramifications for Starfield as well, as it’s almost certain at this point that Bethesda will be trying to cripple their modding community to prioritize their own paid offerings when they unleash the Creation Kit for Starfield.
Given how the way to buy these mods are with “Credits”, Starfield was rated with in-game purchases in mind with aforementioned “creation credits” which have yet to make a formal appearance, at least until now.
It’s highly likely that this new fangled “creations” menu will likely be a one stop shop offering for game modifications of Bethesda’s titles, with the currency effectively being caried over and redeemable across various supported Bethesda games.
