Skyrim: Bethesda ditches Creation Club for Creations that pays modders for their work — concerns arise about free mods disappearing

Twelve years after The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim first launched, Bethesda Game Studios is releasing an update that reworks the Creation Club marketplace for community-generated content. Verified Creators that sell content in the new Creations shop earn a royalty for every purchase, but Bethesda has yet to share the exact revenue split.

The Creation shopfront launches in an update to the Skyrim Special Edition and Anniversary Edition, and will ship from the outset with a number of community-developed mods. Among others, the East Empire Expansion adds new quests and NPCs, Legendary Dungeons — Dwarven Delves adds two new dungeons to plunder, and Arquebus adds both a dungeon and a long gun to the game.

Credits from the previous Creation Club marketplace will also be transferred to the new system, and Creators will need to apply to be verified to sell items in the Creations shop. Verification isn't particularly complicated and doesn't even require previous modding experience, although Creators will need to submit a portfolio during the application.

Community members who choose to publish free mods and creations on the Creations don't need to apply for verification, but they will also not be allowed to charge for any creations until they are verified. Content that was previously freely available on the Creation Club will also be free in Creations.

While Creations will be available basically everywhere you can play Skyrim — PC via Epic Games Store, The Microsoft Store, and Steam, Xbox Series S/X, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 and 5 — the PlayStation version is more restrictive. Creators making PlayStation content will not be allowed to use external assets.

Bethesda also says that the Creations concept will make its way to "as many games as possible", but provides no indication of which games will get the feature or when it will expand outside of Skyrim. This comment makes it seem as though Bethesda is using Skyrim, which already has a very active, dedicated modding community, to test the waters for its Creations program.

Perhaps somewhat controversially, the Creations marketplace kind of goes against what Bethesda offered when it originally launched the Skyrim Anniversary Edition back in 2021, since the Anniversary Edition will not include the paid content coming to the Creations shop. 

There has been a not-unsubstantial amount of backlash about the return of paid mods, with some social media users complaining that the content isn't worth the money, and others chiming in that this incentivises modders to stop offering mods for free.

Presumably to pre-emptively address these concerns, Bethesda requires all content submitted through Creations to be vetted and approved, suggesting it needs to meet a certain quality standard before it can be sold, and those mods that do not meet the threshold for sale via Creations can still be offered for free without vetting. 

Bethesda seems to be trying to offer those creating content for its game a means to generate income with their creations while also keeping Skyrim alive with fresh content.

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