Looks like the Ghostrunner developers also have an issue with paid mods running off their IP.
This guy is not doing any favors for the modding community.
Learn your lesson : Don’t sell mods.
Yeah, there’s enough enshitification already in the world with all sorts of monetization trying to turn everything into subscriptions.
If someone wants subscription revenue that much they should release their own game rather than turn mods into yet another subscription hell hole.
Sim racing is full of paid mods, and it’s working out fine. We acknowledge when someone puts effort into development, probably because majority of sim racers aren’t teens and have worked jobs.
If a mod marketplace works for some games, that’s cool, but I think CDPR has the right to not approve of that model when it comes to their IP. An open source model benefits everyone and can also be viable for mod developers :)
If someone puts their own free time and effort to make a mod, they should be allowed to sell it. If you want to spend your free time copying that mod, please do.
You’re not entitled to free labor, because you feel like it. It’s a game mod, it’s not a life necessity, playing games with out mods works as well. You are telling me that people that pay several hundred dollars for a VR headset can’t afford to give someone 10-20$ for their work.
If you want to make money for your effort, Dev a game. The idea that you should be able to piggyback off the work of another dev team and profit from it is BS. It’s like saying you should be allowed to walk into Starbucks and start selling custom mugs to their active customers; no way they would allow that
Why? If I’m a mechanic and upgrade a car that someone else made you wouldn’t care at all. I’ve always thought it was crazy that people act so entitled to software being free.
Hell cyberpunk itself wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for decades of work by Windows and console devs. Everything is built on top of someone else’s work so I don’t buy that as a reason for modders to go uncompensated.
You people live in a fantasy world, how the does one who can’t make a game make a game. That’s a lot of work, what is the issue with piggybacking from another ones work if it benefits both parties.
Give me a scenario where it hurts the original developers, a real scenario.
I don’t really care about the developers tbh, what I care about is the community, and paid mods hurt the community. Well-received mods have always been thanked by donations, and there’s nothing stopping that system from continuing today, but the idea of monetizing the community sandbox is toxic and should be wholly rejected.
In what way was it good for the community when they removed the mods that you had to pay for? It’s not like the developers of the mods will do it for free, and no is stopping you from making a free version of said mods.
You’re also not entitled to modify (which is what mod is short for) someone else’s work and sell it. If they allow you to then great, go for it if you want. However, you don’t get to complain when they say no. They can still ask for donations, which is what most modders do.
The argument for these VR mods not running afoul of copyright law as it currently exists is that they’re more like an emulator that supports a significant number of games and don’t really modify the game itself at all. Obviously game companies tend to hate emulators too and have even tried to go after them so you probably can’t trust their judgement on this.
You could even draw parallels here to something like Google’s recently announced autospatialization feature of Android XR that will make it possible to play any game (in theory, in practice some games will probably work better than others) with 3D visuals. Google certainly isn’t offering that for free since it only works on an Android device that they get paid for because it is using their software.
You should be, what’s the difference between selling modification to other things that people do all the time. Cars, instruments, music, phones, software and 5 million other things.
They are not selling their work, they are selling their own work, they are not selling the game with the mod, their are selling a mod to the game.
It’s just that gaming companies are dickheads and want to have exclusive rights to having a market around their products.
Of course you get to complain, why shouldn’t you complain if you don’t like something and think it’s unfair. Wether it’s legitimate or not you should complain, then if someone listens or not thats another question.
You don’t have to buy mods, dude there are plenty of mods that are free, but if someone wants to sell it why not. The only thing that will happen is that you will have more quality mods, paid or free. Then there’s the question if you have exclusive rights to a mod, I would say no, anyone should be able to copy your mod.
The difference is the game developers have put in extra work in order to make their games easily moddable. Your car didn’t. Developers don’t have to add mod support, but then it usually becomes incredibly difficult to modify.
They put extra effort in to allow people to create stuff using their game. It’s like using any other software as a tool; you need to follow their rules for using it. This could mean paying a licensing fee, or it could mean making it open source, or whatever else they may decide. You’re using their tools, so their rules have to be followed.
That doesn’t really apply in the case of this particular type of mod though. They don’t go out of their way to support these VR mods in any special way.
What are you talking about, have you ever heard of after market products. There’s a reason why certain industries design there products to allow third party vendors to sell after market components, it makes them more popular by consumers.
Dude you are just making shit up as you go, what you are saying makes no sense.
I extend functionality of existing software products for B2B as a living, no one would buy their products if they didn’t allow them to be extended.
No one’s saying they’re entitled to free labour. But you can’t make money off somebody else’s work, that’s not fair to them, not if they haven’t already given agreement.
How is it not fair? Cyberpunk is the platform for their mod just like Windows or PlayStation is the platform for Cyberpunk. Everything we do is built on someone else’s work.
PlayStation is not a platform that you build on top of it’s the operating system runs the game it’s a totally different concept.
You don’t modify the operating system to make the game you make the game in such a way that the operating system can understand but you create your own code. Modine is literally modifying somebody else’s code.
there’s really no difference, a mod doesn’t necessarily mean modifying the game’s code or assets either, it can be just adding or replacing things with your own code and assets. The game functioning relies just as much on the operating system and the libraries it provides as such a mod does on the game.
In what way is it not fair? The game developer has full control over the game and the API it allows modders to use to make mods.
Is it that you are taking the money from the developers? Because you still need to buy the game, if anything the modding community makes the game more attractive to buy.
So what is the unfairness in the case of a modder wants to sell his mods?
Making money of someone else’s work is the whole economy, that’s not an argument. I can understand if it’s taking money from the original developers but is definitely not the case.
An open source model benefits everyone and can also be viable for mod developers
Sure, in the sense that you get fewer quality mods. Is that what you meant by “benefits everyone”?
Sim games are sorta their own beast when it comes to mods.
Oh really? Why can’t other games be the same beast when it comes to mods? Does the VR mod take sales away from CDPR?
In sim games you usually get the game and then get a vehicle you want to specialize in. You may put hundreds or thousands of hours into that vehicle and you know the ins and outs.
Mod development wise you may have to model the vehicle from the ground up. The vehicle has to have functioning gauges, be tuned to handle and behave like the vehicle in real life, fail like the real thing and basically BE the real thing. Take DCS for example. The game itself is actually free but the modules are paid. The detailed modules can go for around $70 or so dollars like the F16. You can use the real life flight manual for the F16 to learn how to use it in game. Train sims are similar. If you are real particular about a specific train you can find the module for it and expect probably pretty damn good detail down to nameplates and specifications
You arent going to get that sort of involvement in a game like Skyrim, Fallout, or Cyberpunk. You could maybe go down to that level of detail but that level of detail may not be able to be appreciated in a game that doesent simulate things like aerodynamics or how tire grip changes depending on temperature.
Mods are and should be a passion project. The moment you implement mods as income stream people and companies are going to exploit the shit out of it. See: Roblox, Skyrim, etc
@Nindelofocho@lemmy.world You seem to essentially be saying the sim mods take a lot of work so it is okay. But that can easily be the case and I would argue has been the case with this VR mod for Cyberpunk 2077 for example.
I think what’s really going on here is that the sim devs recognized even paid mods are in their interests and didn’t go after them. It may have played a factor that they’re generally not been these giant devs raking in endless money.
Curiously, in sim racing the most stable and profitable companies are iRacing Studios, which has their main game accessible by subscription and additional cars and tracks behind a one-time payment (but the game is very hardcore, and for example Max Verstappen uses it between actual races); and Kunos, who are very lax about mods and whose 2014 game is still among the most played in the genre thanks to literally thousands of mods, from which they derive no other profit other than the sales of the game itself (which costs a few bucks for the past five years at least).
In comparison, rFactor 2 is more modern than Assetto Corsa in every way, and has official cars and tracks as pricey DLCs — its dev Studio 397 was bought by Motosports Games, obviously not because of doing too great. MG promised a lot, got licenses to several real racing disciplines, delivered nothing except a buggy game on the side, lost the licenses, and its future is in question.
In games you usually get the game and then get a mod that you want to play. You may put hundreds or thousands of hours into that mod.
Mod development wise you may have to create models from the ground up. A mod has to have functioning logic, be fit to the game but modify it in a significant way, feel like a change to the game.
You are seriously trying to say that a VR mod doesn’t take effort to build?
You can use the real life flight manual for the F16 to learn how to use it in game. If you are real particular about a specific train you can find the module for it and expect probably pretty damn good detail down to nameplates and specifications
Irrelevant. The only relevant thing regarding the quality-price consideration is whether a player is ready to pay for a particular mod.
The moment you implement mods as income stream people and companies are going to exploit the shit out of it. See: Roblox, Skyrim, etc
Arbitrary nothingburger claims. You just described how paid mods work in sims, so why don’t people ‘exploit the shit’ out of mods in sims?
When will people learn to do these kinds of things anonymously?
This guy wanted to make money from this mod and put it behind a paywall, that’s the only reason it got taken down.
now you’re making me think of a future with a “Silk Road” for game mods. Very cyberpunk.
So does anyone have a version of this we can download still?
There’s at least the freely available VorpX release only for Cyberpunk 2077. I do hope the VorpX dev doesn’t get spooked by this like he did when the RDR2 takedown happened as he’s doing somewhat similar things in the paid software.
I don’t get why modders shouldn’t be allowed to ask for money. Do players just want people to work for free? Why should the game developers get to set the rules when mods often contain no content/IP from the game devs?
I don’t get why the game publishers don’t just fucking employ the guy to do it officially if they’re going to get pissy about it.
End corporate personhood. IP laws have become malign corporate distortions of reasonable artist protections. No company should be allowed to ‘own’ anything, but certainly not IP. A company has no intellect, thus cannot have intellectual property.
As for this case in particular, selling a mod is absolutely not infringing on the IP of the game it is attached to any more than selling a clip on bookmark/magnifying glass/book light (a tool attached to a piece of media to grant the user a useful extra functionality/greater ease of use when interacting with that piece of media) infringes on the IP of the author.
No copyright
In a considerably more ideal world than the one we live in, all games, not just mods, would be free and everyone could just donate to developers of games they found worth the money.
It’ll probably take a long time for that world to materialize, since it’d require all corporations and billionaires to disappear forever first.
In the meantime, either make free mods with an option to donate, or make your own games. Personally I think it’s a waste of time and effort to spend so much of your life on mods for AAA games. I could understand if it was just for fun, but this guy seems to treat this way more seriously.
It’ll probably take a long time for that world to materialize, since it’d require all corporations and billionaires to disappear forever first.
It’d require universal basic income first because game devs would have to work unpaid and may only make some money if they’re lucky. We know from open source software that 99% of people don’t donate shit.
I mean, yeah. Maybe not exactly UBI, but my ‘considerably more ideal’ scenario assumes we don’t have to spend most of our lives just to make a living.
it wasn’t a waste of time and effort because he got paid a living wage doing it at least until now though.
In a considerably more ideal world than the one we live in, all games, not just mods, would be free and everyone could just donate to developers of games they found worth the money.
Great idea so now corporations are going to think they can get away with not paying me as well because I should just donate my labour. It’s a nice idea but it doesn’t work unless we have robots to do all the work, and then of course I still wouldn’t have any money in that scenario so the government would have to give me some. And I just know people would start complaining about freeloaders.
He made a VR mod for the game and they are suing him? Kiss my ass. He is the true cyberpunk.
Idk the real cyberpunk move would have been putting it up and taking donations which if I understand correctly CD Projekt was going to allow him to still do.
They just didn’t want him straight selling it. Which is pretty fair honestly. He should have just made it up for donations and I bet if he had done that he would have gotten a pretty decent amount of donations all at once because it was getting so much publicity.
He’s selling a VR mode for the game.
How much VR does the mod even give? Like is it just being able to look around in complete 3D or do you also have the ability to manipulate the world with your hands? I have found many options to do the former and they don’t cost a dime, but I have yet to see anyone mod in the capabilities of being able to do more than simply move your head around to look at the game world.
I don’t know. I don’t have the mod.
I haven’t even seen any actual game play using the mod.
Just wanted to point out that the bone of contention as far as the dev is concerned isn’t that he made mods, but that he was actively charging money for them/using the name of their product to advertise the mod.
Joining in on subscription based monetization is being Cyberpunk? I think that applies more to the anonymous person who released Link’s Awakening DX HD.
Luke Ross and his mods suck.
Probably, but that doesn’t really matter to the discussion of whether it should be allowed
CDPR really likes to shoot themselves in the leg, meanwhile Dota and DayZ 🤑
Neither of those was a paid mod though.
Fuck all the DMCA trolls, that guy isn’t hurting any of their profits. He made dozens of games work in VR that never had a VR option, which nobody else has done for those games. It’s not unfair for him to make money from his unique work when the demand is there.
If he had a generic mod that happened to support Cyberpunk 2077 / that other game that got him DMCA’d, I’d agree. But he’s using that IP, name, etc. to market his product and sell it - the publisher is well within their right to not want to be associated with that.
A DMCA (copyright) troll has a much different connotation than what these two publishers are doing.
He kind of does, doesn’t he? His software supports 40+ games, it’s not just Cyberpunk. There’s no Cyberpunk content in his mod, it’s just software that manipulates other software. It seems insane that people are supporting this as a legit DMCA takedown, and that the response has been to pirate his software like that is somehow now justified by him allegedly violating CDPR IP. I don’t get it at all. If he was distributing a modified version of their game that would be one thing but it’s software that allows users to modify a variety of different games they have a license for, which is obviously something else entirely.
He did violate their IP, just not with the mod itself but the advertising / his posts - at least in my uneducated opinion.
Take these examples:
https://archive.is/xKCtk https://archive.is/bfg53
He’s using their IP to advertise his commercial product - a paid mod that supports their game. This use of IP generally isn’t considered fair use. It’s not the fact that it supports the game that’s a violation, it was the advertising that was more my point.
And then as DMCAs generally go, companies overreact (like Patreon) and overreach. I don’t think CD Project Red could reasonably have done anything if all this was was a footnote that his mod supports CP2077 and the advertising was happening via content creators plugging it - or otherwise off Patreon. But because he happens to use their IP to advertise directly, this was the outcome.
I’m not a lawyer though, there is probably more at play here.
I can’t load those links so I’m not sure what you are referring to but broadly speaking, I don’t see the issue with using a trademark in the context of advertising that your product is compatible with another product. It’s not fundamentally different than an advertisement for an iPhone case using Apple trademarks to convey that it’s a compatible product when it’s not made by Apple. Additionally, this seems incorrect because from everything I have seen they specifically refer to the software as being in violation of their IP. I haven’t seen anything where they suggest his use of their trademarks in advertising is the issue.
“Using the name” would be a trademark violation, not copyright, and that’s not a claim I’ve heard made. It sounds like he’s very clear that it’s his project.
This is exactly DMCA trolling. If he is not using or sharing any IP (game assets, logos, images, characters, code, etc.) in his mods, then he’s not violating their copyright. Making a program that interacts with their IP is not a copyright violation, because he did not distribute any of their IP.
Unless I’m missing something. I haven’t been following this, but it does seem like a perfect example of DMCA abuse.
Even if he’s sharing video footage of the mod working with their game, that’s likely protected. (I think it’s called “Fair Use” in the US?) Nintendo is a massive DMCA troll about that, claiming anyone sharing Let’s Play footage of their games is copyright violation, and throwing out DMCAs like Halloween candy.
Which is why the DMCA is bad legislation; there are no penalties for abuse by copyright holders, and the cost to fight a DMCA takedown notice in the courts is prohibitive. There need to be harsh penalties for companies abusing the system to target content that a reasonable person would say is clearly protected use. Without that, the end result of the DMCA laws were clear, right from the start.
We need digital sovereignty so creators can host their content on local-law abiding servers that ignore America’s corrupt, bullshit DMCA takedown system, and whose monetization can’t be shut down by American payment processors.
He made a mod that uses the IPs name and assets packaged and sold. In violation of the licence agreement of the games assets.
He’s in violation of IP and copyright. It’s really cut and dry here.
He did not make a stand alone product that is fully self sufficient that just happens to support the game. No, he made a direct modification of someone else’s code/product and is selling it with out permission.
no fuck off paid modders, if you want money go make your own software or follow the rules
why should we follow the rules set out by game developers? The mods contain no copyrighted content, so legally the game devs don’t get a say, and nor should they. Should the creator of the gameboy screen light have made it for free? Should electricians have to check if the original construction crew for a house approves before changing the wiring?
The existence of modding communities is predicated in being communities first and foremost, not jobs or money making schemes. This behavior poisons the well, creating a toxic community that makes the mods inaccessible to those not willing to be nickel and dimed after already purchasing the game.
only because capitalism is toxic overall. But why apply this as a double standard for modders? Fan artists can do commissions. And communities which are not fandoms rarely have a stigma against money trading hands.
He was literally given the option to take donations or commissions instead.
So what? Why is the business model of charging for access specifically a problem only for modders? It’s such a double standard.
Don’t rely on making money off of paid mods that require use others IP and then throw a giant tantrum garnering more Streisand attention to yourself that you’re making money off of paid mods using other people’s IP by publicly throwing a tantrum disrespecting the wishes of a reasonable request by the developer that says “Don’t make a paid mod for our game but here’s an alternative so you can still make money but still respect our developers’ desire to keep mods free.”
Just a thought.
The RealVR mod does not include any files from the copyrighted games, therefore does not use anyone else’s IP. It obviously makes reference to the games’ copyrighted content, in order to inform the public of what games it works with. Basically the same concept as an aftermarket addon to a device that is not licensed by the original equipment manufacturer, similar to something like a non-Apple accessory for an iPhone.
Here’s the thing, he and the other modders that are doing this are very much so running a fine line here. They’re modifying the game’s code, sure it’s in memory, but it’s their code they’re modifying to get things to work. It’s not just relying on using existing API calls that are open for them to use. Just because they’re not modifying the files on disk vs modifying in-memory doesn’t mean they’re not using their IP, they certainly are and there’s precedent that this type of action falls under the DMCA.
Take in point that Riot and Bungie and many other companies have DMCA’ed and sued cheat makers and hey those guys were also just selling mods for their games. They also weren’t selling any files from their copyrighted games either they were just selling a framework to inject their software into their games. So question is are you also saying that Riot and Bungie are also DMCA sue-happy people who are Debbie downers that are preventing coders from making money?
Your simplistic, it’s just a phone case, isn’t analogous here.
Don’t get me wrong, IP law is tricky and IANAL but again, when a company politely asks you to respect their ToS and not sell a mod using their IP and you throw a tantrum and manage to piss off your community, well good luck buddy.
I’m not a fan of paid mods personally and would probably never buy them, but I also think these copyright claims are crappy and seem baseless to me. What he sold was his own original code. He should be free to sell it and let people decide if they want to spend money on it. That may break the ToS of these companies, but ToS are not laws.
Agreed.
I understand the IP issues around marketing but not the entitlement of people who think it’s okay to demand that they be given it for free.
The developer still has to eat and live. If they choose to work for money that’s literally one of the most universal things that people do on this planet. It’s ridiculous and immature to demand otherwise.
Why on god’s green earth would you use this kind of skills, as a volunteer, on IP that doesn’t belong to you? Why would you take out the gun, load it, and point it directly at your own foot.
Now the guy claims he’s being attacked, which kind of answers my question. The reason is probably poor mental health.
