PSA: The best 2K25 PC mods won't be free

[biker_jim_uk]

Re: PSA: The best 2K25 PC mods won't be free

His name is a staple in PC modding for who knows how long.


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Unrelated to Lagoa but using others IP and assets and profiting off of it always gave me (as kids would say) an uneasy feeling. You are practically profiting off of LeBron's face, NBA's IP, 2K's IP and whoever/whatever else might be in the mods.

I'm a relative newbie to PC modding and just didn't recognise the name hence my apology for my ignorance.
I agree with the second point, I get annoyed when people want paying while at the same time using free mods to show off their work.

[8KB24]

Re: PSA: The best 2K25 PC mods won't be free

I'm a relative newbie to PC modding and just didn't recognise the name hence my apology for my ignorance.
I agree with the second point, I get annoyed when people want paying while at the same time using free mods to show off their work.

Nah it's fine


It's just that I've been modding 2k since 2010 when I got into playing the game after taking a hiatus from bball games and NBA LIVE 03.
I get highly irritated when people paywall the mods. I gave donations to modders and tool makers in the past and will always support those (especially from 3rd world countries...10 euros means nothing to me but probably a months worth of food for some).

[biker_jim_uk]

Re: PSA: The best 2K25 PC mods won't be free

Nah it's fine


It's just that I've been modding 2k since 2010 when I got into playing the game after taking a hiatus from bball games and NBA LIVE 03.
I get highly irritated when people paywall the mods. I gave donations to modders and tool makers in the past and will always support those (especially from 3rd world countries...10 euros means nothing to me but probably a months worth of food for some).

Nice, I've only been modding 2K the last 3 or 4 years myself. Did a bit here and there for other games before but nothing anyone would know about.

[JAY_D1]

Re: PSA: The best 2K25 PC mods won't be free

I've been creating content for NBA 2K on PC for 10 years, and I continue to share it for free with my entire community. I'm one of the few who still does this despite investing an insane amount of hours into my projects. But I can assure you that my rosters, cyberfaces, jerseys, and arenas are of top quality, so much so that they have even been featured in Forbes.

Shuajota is a GOAT man, he has helped me turn ideas into reality when it came to jersey concepts back in the day. Patient person as well

[biker_jim_uk]

Re: PSA: The best 2K25 PC mods won't be free

Shuajota is a GOAT man, he has helped me turn ideas into reality when it came to jersey concepts back in the day. Patient person as well

Yep, far more patient than I am

[muddiestduck]

Re: PSA: The best 2K25 PC mods won't be free

I'm assuming, based on this thread, that mod support has been confirmed for 25?

I know madden was being with modding 25 this year, but never saw anywhere that Said mods were officially coming to 2k25

Thanks.

Sent from my SM-G990U using Operation Sports mobile app

[8KB24]

Re: PSA: The best 2K25 PC mods won't be free

I'm assuming, based on this thread, that mod support has been confirmed for 25?

I know madden was being with modding 25 this year, but never saw anywhere that Said mods were officially coming to 2k25

Thanks.

Sent from my SM-G990U using Operation Sports mobile app

Mods have never been officially confirmed as supported but they have never bothered to block them.

[mlp111]

Re: PSA: The best 2K25 PC mods won't be free

I'm assuming, based on this thread, that mod support has been confirmed for 25?

I know madden was being with modding 25 this year, but never saw anywhere that Said mods were officially coming to 2k25

Thanks.

Sent from my SM-G990U using Operation Sports mobile app

It will just depend on when modding tools are released and if the file structure of nextgen is changed from current gen. We truly wont know until its released and how long it will take. But Looyh will figure it out for sure! Will just probably take some time at first to learn and develop new methods and etc. I personally dont expect modding to be available for a few weeks after the game is released though.

[jk31]

Re: PSA: The best 2K25 PC mods won't be free

It will just depend on when modding tools are released and if the file structure of nextgen is changed from current gen. We truly wont know until its released and how long it will take. But Looyh will figure it out for sure! Will just probably take some time at first to learn and develop new methods and etc. I personally dont expect modding to be available for a few weeks after the game is released though.

when the jump from 2k14 to 2k15 happened they Changes the file structure and it took some time before modding Was possible again. the first mods Were available at the end of 2k15 i think and the "real" modding Tools that enabled Most of the great Stuff Took much more than a year.

[vetmin]

Re: PSA: The best 2K25 PC mods won't be free

Mods have never been officially confirmed as supported but they have never bothered to block them.

They were officially supported in 2K24, though 2K didn't announce it ahead of time.

when the jump from 2k14 to 2k15 happened they Changes the file structure and it took some time before modding Was possible again. the first mods Were available at the end of 2k15 i think and the "real" modding Tools that enabled Most of the great Stuff Took much more than a year.

It's just not likely to be as slow this time around, given the greater similarity between the two generations this time and the fact that 2K began officially supporting mods last year (which I suppose they could abandon, but I imagine they were doing it in anticipation of what they were planning for 2K25). It's quite possible that we'll be using mods in 2K25 tomorrow. (EDIT: Called it!)

It will probably take a little longer than usual for the community tools / utilities to be in place, but it will probably be closer to the modding transition from 2K20 to 2K21 than 2K14 to 2K15. Will 2K25 be a long-term keeper? Probably not, for the same reason that 2K22 was better than 2K21 (basically every mod for 21 worked for 22, plus we had all the stuff developed for 22 specifically), but it's unlikely to be the modding dead zone that 2K15 was.

[clutchcity34]

Re: PSA: The best 2K25 PC mods won't be free

A lot of the people that said they would not charge are now charging for mods. I guess they saw what others are now charging and jumped.

Some of the prices are getting up there. Is it almost as bad as the 2k micro transactions.

That's just my opinion. Not trying to make people mad.

[8KB24]

Re: PSA: The best 2K25 PC mods won't be free

A lot of the people that said they would not charge are now charging for mods. I guess they saw what others are now charging and jumped.

Some of the prices are getting up there. Is it almost as bad as the 2k micro transactions.

That's just my opinion. Not trying to make people mad.

Just another example of "en****tification" of the internet. What people used to do because they loved the game, community and just providing the best experience for everyone for the love of the game is destroyed because of the money. Not to mention they could get in big trouble if 2K/Take Two Interactive decide to go after them (which they could easily).

They're profiting off of others IP - players, NBA, 2K and can argue tattoo artists work. It's a poopy thing to charge for mods.

[Fake Empire]

Re: PSA: The best 2K25 PC mods won't be free

Just another example of "en****tification" of the internet. What people used to do because they loved the game, community and just providing the best experience for everyone for the love of the game is destroyed because of the money. Not to mention they could get in big trouble if 2K/Take Two Interactive decide to go after them (which they could easily).

They're profiting off of others IP - players, NBA, 2K and can argue tattoo artists work. It's a poopy thing to charge for mods.

Charging money for mods is disgusting and it should be illegal. Here's why:
For example NBA 2k25. The company which created the game has already paid to acquire the NBA license, player likenesses etc. As a modder I use the existing licensed dev files and modify them, extend them or fully expand them to create additional content. This content, either we like it or not, is copyrighted, someone else paid for it and worked on it by default.
The argument by some modders that they spend their precious free time for the community is laughable. Nobody ever forced me or other modders to do this work. It's our choice to contribute to the community and try to improve the gaming experience.
This is the fact for decades now. There are a few who want to ruin the modding scene with their greed. If they're so talented they should all gather around, start a company and make their own game.
Sorry for the rant but this is really outrageous for all of us which are quite old enough now and since the 90s we didn't even think to charge for these quite of things.
P.S I was even modding the College Hoops MS DOS game back in early 90s...

[vetmin]

Re: PSA: The best 2K25 PC mods won't be free

Just another example of "en****tification" of the internet. What people used to do because they loved the game, community and just providing the best experience for everyone for the love of the game is destroyed because of the money. Not to mention they could get in big trouble if 2K/Take Two Interactive decide to go after them (which they could easily).

They're profiting off of others IP - players, NBA, 2K and can argue tattoo artists work. It's a poopy thing to charge for mods.

Charging money for mods is disgusting and it should be illegal. Here's why:
For example NBA 2k25. The company which created the game has already paid to acquire the NBA license, player likenesses etc. As a modder I use the existing licensed dev files and modify them, extend them or fully expand them to create additional content. This content, either we like it or not, is copyrighted, someone else paid for it and worked on it by default.
The argument by some modders that they spend their precious free time for the community is laughable. Nobody ever forced me or other modders to do this work. It's our choice to contribute to the community and try to improve the gaming experience.
This is the fact for decades now. There are a few who want to ruin the modding scene with their greed. If they're so talented they should all gather around, start a company and make their own game.
Sorry for the rant but this is really outrageous for all of us which are quite old enough now and since the 90s we didn't even think to charge for these quite of things.
P.S I was even modding the College Hoops MS DOS game back in early 90s...

It's a common myth that whether or not something is distributed for free vs. commercially has some bearing on whether it constitutes fair use. It doesn't.**

If what you are doing constitutes fair use, then whether or not you sell it or give it away for free, you are in the clear. If what you are doing does NOT constitute fair use, then you are in violation whether you are distributing it for free or selling it. I should know as I experienced having my free mods copyright-stricken and taken down by Take Two a couple years ago. In other words, there's no reason to make "charging money for mods" "illegal" when even distributing those mods for free is already technically in violation. It's at the rights holder's discretion whether they want to take action against such mods, whether free or paid.

Maybe you could argue that—even if a free Warriors jersey mod is as much in violation as a paid one—charging for it is more likely to annoy 2K and thus incite them into cracking down on modding, but we can only speculate about which violations they're OK with and which violations will set them off. Clearly they have no problem with a certain degree of unlicensed IP use since they built customer-facing mod support into the game themselves (they're not naive; they know that 99% of mods for a pro sports game are going to involve unlicensed use of photos, logos, etc.). So where do they draw the line? It doesn't seem to be a free vs. paid thing, since my perfectly free mods were targeted a couple years ago while the many modders who were charging for their mods at that time had no encounters with 2K.

In short, we just don't really know where 2K draws the line, but the fact is that almost all mods of NBA 2K games—free or paid—involve unlicensed use of materials that their rights holders could take action against. Taking a high-and-mighty tone against paid mods is a bit hypocritical while advocating for free mods that are every bit as much in violation.

**The exception might be if the rights holder has explicitly licensed it to the public for noncommercial use, as with certain Creative Commons designations, but real companies like Take Two and the NBA don't do that kind of stuff.

[zizoux]

Re: PSA: The best 2K25 PC mods won't be free

Let alone them charging money for the mods, the prices are getting out of hand.
Not disrespecting the work they do but They charge 8 bucks for an already scanned face with a couple of touches. If I wanted to purchase 5 players' faces for every team for 5 bucks in average, that would be a whooping 750dollars in total. Lol. Not even including the stadiums, portraits, shoe mods etc.

I think there are 2 reasons why they charge money.
Back in the old days they didn't have any convenient platforms to sell their items on such as ko-hi, patreon etc.
Second reason is there are people who are willing to pay albeit a small number of. If there is demand, there is supply.

Tbh, If I was a modder I would face a dilemma. Releasing mods free, reaching say thousands of people who loves the game, or charging money, reaching a small number of people.

For Which one of these option would I feel most rewarded?

I think we won't see any free mods in a couple of years. But at least we should demand lower prices because charging 8 bucks for an objectively bad face mod is just absurd. And half of CF mods are not even premium