Comments - GeminiJ13

Hello BaronVonChateau. I've read stories from two places that say you feel that Bethesda studios took heavy inspiration from your Mod of Fallout: New Vegas (Autumn Leaves) for their own DLC content in Fallout4: Far Harbor (Brain Dead). The solution to this is very simple but I need to set the scene first. Since Bethesda owns all rights to the content of the game, including but not limited to all of the games assets, you can only claim rights to the written story that you thought of. Even if Bethesda took your "idea" of "...a colorful cast of eccentric robots, in charge of a forgotten vault where a strange murder happened..." the way that they (Bethesda) produced their story is materially different than the way you produced your story. Your thoughts on a sort of plagiarism of sorts holds no water as you are using their game assets to make your own story. As I stated earlier, you can only claim rights to your story. Without Bethesda giving you the rights to use their game assets you could not have produced your story. You created no unique assets that Bethesda used in their game. Now for the solution. If you enjoy, like or love to create Mods on your own time for a game that you feel passionately about, that's great! And the community at large probably really appreciates all the work that has went in to your creation of Autumn Leaves. But, if you really think about it, Bethesda owes you nothing. So, you are making content of your own free will for the love of the game. On the other hand, if you expect to be compensated in any way, be it monetarily or congratulatory, you need to put your Mod behind a pay wall and charge for the content that you produce. Since you are using assets from Bethesda to create said content, you would need to work out some sort of financial consideration with Bethesda for charging people to download and play your Mod of the game. A 50/50 split would be fair as you need their assets which by all accounts is a majority of the Mod but you provide the dialog and architecture for the story within Bethesda's assets. If you choose the latter of these two solutions, it would be best if you contacted Bethesda first to get a contract in order so that there is no confusion later on down the road when you release your Mod. Either you could use a pay wall of Bethesda's making and they would cut you a check or you could build and use your own website (like this one I am writing to you on) and cut Bethesda a check for monies you receive on the sale of your Mod. In this case, whatever Bethesda feels is in their best interest. If you would like to respond to my comment, please feel free to contact me at: jeff.rickbearcat@yahoo.com