Bethesda’s Todd Howard responds to Starfield paid mods controversy

Bethesda Game Studios director Todd Howard has addressed recent concerns about Starfield‘s paid mods, which echo long-standing issues between the company and its modding community.

This debacle began with the launch of the Creation Kit, which dropped on Steam following the Xbox Games Showcase last week. This allows people to make new additions to the game — including Bethesda, which used it to market some new Trackers Alliance bounty-hunting missions. While the first one in the pack was offered for free, many fans expressed disappointment that the second mission was locked behind a $7 paywall in Creations.

In a video interview with YouTuber MrMattyPlays, Howard says that the company has heard the community feedback and will adjust how it does these paid mods in the future.

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“First of all I’ll say that stuff gets priced based on things that we’ve done before both in Creation Club and then Fallout 76, and we’re always trying to be looking at what else is out there, really make sure we’re giving value to everybody and where we’re not, hey you know, we definitely will adjust,” Howard says.

“The one thing I want to say on The Trackers Alliance, that was really an attempt to something we did in Creation Club where we’d say, hey you get this special outfit and you get this special weapon, we wanted to put them together, and then thought, let’s go the extra mile and wrap those around a quest,” he continues. “But now we definitely see the feedback right? And that’s not what we want at all in terms of, oh no, this looks like a faction that we’re chopping up and then selling for 700 credits at a time. And so I do think we are going to take a look at that and how we deliver content like that, and whether we’re changing pricing or breaking it up or what we should do there.”

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