this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025
244 points (99.2% liked)

Games

39217 readers
2180 users here now

Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.

Rules

1. Submissions have to be related to games

Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.

This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.

2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil

No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.

We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.

3. No excessive self-promotion

Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.

This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.

4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts

This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you're submitting before posting to see if it's already been posted.

We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.

5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW

Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.

No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.

6. No linking to piracy

Don't share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.

We don't want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.

Authorized Regular Threads

Related communities

PM a mod to add your own

Video games

Generic

Help and suggestions

By platform

By type

By games

Language specific

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 30 points 1 month ago (3 children)

If I recall correctly the team behind Skyblivion was (or still is) in contact with Bethesda throughout the development and had no problems with the latter in regards their work. Heck, Bethesda itself posted about the mod on their site in 2023.

They've been aware of Skyblivion for years and there's no indication they're interested in killing it.

[–] Carmakazi@lemmy.world 28 points 1 month ago (4 children)

That goodwill can change in an instant, especially if they are releasing a competing product, and especially if the legal team gets in the loop rather than the development staff.

[–] Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

Can it change? Sure. There's just no reason to expect that based on Bethesda's approach to modding until now. I'd rather base my expectations on their past actions rather than assume the worst just in case.

[–] TommySalami@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

skyblivion is great marketing, and it's free to let them keep going for now. Keep people excited about a new oblivion, and then kill the only other option besides yourself. I actually think it's more likely than not that there is a last minute reversal.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago

It can't if they've made legally binding agreements, which I would hope that they have.

[–] Enzy@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Well the "product" is a free overhaul mod.

[–] Carmakazi@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago (2 children)

That cuts into Bethesda's paid re-release.

[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It really really really doesn't.

We can already see it with stuff like the Beamdog remasters. People insist that it is totally better to play BG2 with these five mods, that launcher hack, etc. And everyone except for the usual suspects just say "Buy the Beamdog release. It has almost everything you want and is zero effort".

Also, the mere existence of a fan project (that will never release in a satisfactory manner...) shows that Bethesda is super mod friendly and blah blah blah.

[–] dan1101@lemm.ee 0 points 1 month ago

How does it not? It is the same game map, same missions, even the same character names. You just know the corporate bros would hate an alternative to their paid remaster that is basically the same thing.

[–] Enzy@lemm.ee 0 points 1 month ago

Yes but they definitely don't wanna piss off the fan base... Again.

[–] Enzy@lemm.ee 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Bethesda is pretty open about their support in modding.

[–] Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Exactly, which is why I don't expect them to do anything hostile towards this project - both remakes have their own goals and approaches after all.

[–] VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Also, Skyblivion will, at worst, only cut into their PC sales. The official remake will be the only option available on consoles due to the nature of the mod.

[–] lath@lemmy.world -1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Maybe they aren't, but what about the company that is doing the remake? They might argue it will hamper their ability to meet estimated sales and overall profit.

[–] Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

At the end of the day Virtuos are just a contractor - Bethesda are the ones with final say in the matter. Despite all their flaws they never really showed to be hostile towards these kind of projects (or at least I haven't seen them act that way) so there's no reason to automatically expect the worst. That's just my opinion though.

[–] radix@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

For all their faults, Bethesda may be the most mod-friendly AAA studio out there right now.

I can vaguely recall a single instance where they shut someone down, and that was over re-used audio assets from an older game. That was almost certainly about contractual licensing obligations to voice actors.

[–] Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Did they even shut them down back then? I might be thinking about a different situation but I remember one of the other remake mods (was it New Vegas on Fallout 4 engine?) where they simply told the team they can't use the original audio. The cancellation of that mod happened months later and didn't even have anything to with that issue, I believe.

Either way, this kind of scenario is something I skipped over in my initial question since banning reuse of assets in different engines is a legal thing. I mostly meant them blocking/killing projects for no "serious" reason.

Still, it was a good idea to mention these kind of issues as well.

[–] radix@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah, I don't remember all the details myself, so you're probably right. I was basically trying to support your thesis that Bethesda getting nasty over mods would be something entirely new and out of character. The only example someone could even try to point to had a bunch of other (better) explanations than "mod bad, Bethesda mad."

[–] Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

I actually thought about including this case in my original post but I have tendency to waffle way too much and in the end decided against it to keep things shorter. It is a useful example to mention so thanks for that.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

They don't have any rights to Oblivion as an IP. They've been contracted to make this game and that's where their rights end.

[–] lath@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's not about IP rights, but about contractual obligations. If the mod affects those in some way, the company might ask Bethesda to make it go away.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 month ago

That's true. It's still on Bethesda, but yeah they could have an agreement. Skyblivion has been in development longer than this though I'm sure, and Bethesda was aware of it and said it was OK, so I'm assuming there's no agreement like that. If there were then Bethesda would have done something that will make them look really bad, which they do tend to do so it is a possibility.