Why do you think people invite the public to view their mods and then deny access to such mods?

[Slivicon]

Ran across a web site where someone was promoting their multiplayer server with screenshots of various mods.

Followed the link to the facebook page and saw a bunch of posts of pictures of various activities with various mods, with captions that they are all "private mods".

People posting comments, interested in the mods, replied to with "nope, private"

So, what is the deal with posting pictures and advertising pictures of mods only to reply to people with "nope, get lost, private" - does that make them feel cool or something?

Is it a big "look how cool these mods are, bet you wish you were us", because unless they're 10 year olds, that's pretty lame :/

[Smith Modding]

I follow a guy on Instagram who does that, it's really annoying cause the mods look awesome, but making them private doesn't make any since. It seems kind of rude to me, posting awesome pictures just to let us down like that. That's just my opinion anyways

[FordFarmer97]

Private mods? Sounds like some people being selfish to me. It seems pretty stupid to advertise them and then reply "Ha. Get lost. These are mine."

[Slivicon]

The only time I understood private mods were when someone modified a published mod and couldn't re-publish without the original mod author's permission, out of respect. However, this doesn't seem to be the case where I'm talking about. No mention of the original mod author or where to get the originals, just "hey come look at our screenshots" and then when people ask about where to get them, "nope", so yeah, I think it's pretty rude, too. If you're going to advertise, advertise the mods, or say "these are modified versions I can't share, but the original mods are at blahblah dot com", but don't be a "hey look at me", not cool.

[eric21]

Private mods are really to stop people stealing mods and uploading under thier name.

[redglasses]

Ya stealing mods really is affecting fs right now

[eric21]

Was a major problem in fs15

[Slivicon]

Private mods are really to stop people stealing mods and uploading under thier name.

That's an unfortunate phenomenon, although in the case of what I saw it doesn't seem like the case, but I could be wrong. I would imagine in the case of preventing others from stealing your work you would not be advertising saying "come check us out" with all kinds of screenshots and basically telling people too bad when they ask about the mods. I would imagine it would be people keeping to themselves, or saying on their web page "these mods are developed by us but we do not release them to the public so that they cannot be stolen" or something like that, not "haha too bad 4 u".

Hopefully more modders will start using the official mod hub. I wonder what Giants is able to do to figure out if someone is uploading a mod that "isn't theirs", and how often it happens... apart from that, what happens with other games? I play Xcom2 a lot and haven't seen this phenomenon talked about in the steam workshop about people stealing mods, why doesn't it happen there?

[Dogface]

There is a high burnout rate among modders. Most do not stop modding, they just stop publishing their mods. Some modders still want to show their work off to players and other modders.

[Slivicon]

There is a high burnout rate among modders. Most do not stop modding, they just stop publishing their mods. Some modders still want to show their work off to players and other modders.

Understandable if they put a blurb up where they're advertising their mods and asking people to check them out that explains that particular situation.

[redglasses]

its like saying "we have this awesome burger, but guess what...... you cant have it, hahahahhahahahahahahahahhahahahhahhahahahahahahah"

[Princeguardian]

What if for fs19 they had to upload to giants mod hub. Giants could build into the main game that if a mod comes in that doesnt come from mod hub then bam CTD. Only the original uploader can tinker with their mod. I mean giants has mod hub locked down right, no one has had a mod stolen from there. This way no mod stealing so modders are safe. Giants can check mods to make sure mods are safe. And gamers on all platforms benifit from haveing safe unstolen mods.

[bdbssb]

What if for fs19 they had to upload to giants mod hub. Giants could build into the main game that if a mod comes in that doesnt come from mod hub then bam CTD. Only the original uploader can tinker with their mod. I mean giants has mod hub locked down right, no one has had a mod stolen from there. This way no mod stealing so modders are safe. Giants can check mods to make sure mods are safe. And gamers on all platforms benifit from haveing safe unstolen mods.

People download mods from modhub then upload them to other mod sites and make money.

[Smith Modding]

Yeah they'll use file hosting sites that pay them money for it... it's really annoying and i hate that people do it cause they're making money off of someone else's work

[Hairy Bob]

ISTM it's not much different to modifying your car, pickup or whatever and posting pics of it online.
When people are proud of their work they want to show it off, that doesn't mean they want to share the results of their hard work, or have someone else passing it off as their own.
How many of the people who post screenshots on this forum have uploaded their save files for others to play?
Not to mention, have you seen the amount of hassle that modders like somethingonmyshoe2, bulletbill83 et al get from people demanding updates and changes to their mods? I'm not surprised some modders don't feel like uploading their creations to the community, given the way that some members (a minority, yes, but a vocal one) react.