This is no different than Early Access, Kickstarter, or the Star Citizen ponzi scheme.
The customer has the choice whether they want to throw away their money.
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Steam Workshop now supports paid mods.
- Thread starter cageymaru
- Start date
This is no different than Early Access, Kickstarter, or the Star Citizen ponzi scheme.
The customer has the choice whether they want to throw away their money.
The bullshit has already started, modders removing mods from Nexus etc.
The only ones benefiting here are Valve and Bethesda, essentially mooching off of what hobby modders create (and in the case of Skyrim, modders fixed the whole game).
I've donated anywhere from $10-100 to modders on Nexus in the past, I've created some mods (large and small, Morrowind to Skyrim), so I have no issue with the fact that money is involved and am well aware of how much time can be spent on a mod. But the sheer shit attempt at monetizing the hard work others have invested in your shitty game (Bethesda) is a disgrace. A FUCKING DISGRACE.
I realize this won't be as big of an issue for most people, and in a couple of months it will all be "business as usual", but remember, the modding scene was built in places like Nexus, planetelderscrolls, etc- NOT some commercial garbage like Steam Workshop.
Also, lol @ support for mods. Valve can't even provide support for their own platform, what makes anyone think they will provide support for broken mods?
Recorded interview with Valve on selling mods. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDyXIXyAZq0
yes you can remove a mod, but that does not remove that mod from people that have already downloaded it, unless they also uninstall the mod.
limitedaccess
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Oh, I haven't used workshop much either from either side. I was under the impression it automatically pushes updates?
If the user "subscribes" to a mod (the normal way of getting it in the first place) updates will automatically be pushed when the creator makes them.
yep it pushes updates but only to that specific mod, which means if you unpublish it, and republish it, it is essentially a new mod, and anyone that currently has it would just not get updates but the mod will still work.
which means they can not charge you to get access to an already downloaded mod.
which means they can not charge you to get access to an already downloaded mod.
limitedaccess
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If you stay subscribed a mod could in theory be removed if the mod gets updated to some sort of "blank?"
yeah in theory the author could break the mod in an update, would be pretty shitty to do tho and doubtful they would get someones money to buy the mod if they did that.
TheOneKnownAsMe
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I come from a pretty extensive Warcraft 3 modding background, so I'm somewhat familiar with modding and some of the hurdles that come with it.
In the past, it was usually highly illegal for an individual to sell mods, as it wasn't a standalone product but relied heavily on the game's code/assets/etc. Blizzard toyed with the idea of paid mods for SC2, but ultimately dropped it. As PC gamers, we've become so accustomed to mods being free, but they were never free because all modders were these benevolent, selfless individuals willing to spend countless hours slaving away for free.
I personally can see why there would be incentive for a modder to sell their work (granted, it merits that price). Modding is time consuming, even more-so these days. back in Wc3, you could crank out quite a few models, use a slightly modified texture for it, and be done. Now, there's the high-poly, low-poly, baking normal maps, maybe lightmaps, creating shaders, etc. Far more complicated. The complexity of modding has scaled in the same way that the complexity of creating games has scaled. If the mod merits the price, I don't mind. Now, paying $2 for a sword? Yeah, I won't pay for that, and I doubt the market will either.
Right now, everyone is going crazy, selling their terrible mods for all they can get. Give it a few weeks, wait for the market to stabilize, and we'll have a more level view of how this might all work out.
Gorankar
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I will not pay for a mod. Either it is a stand alone product, or a fully sanctioned and supported expansion pack by the original developer, or it is a free mod.
Exactly, they want to allow people to thank mod devs, have a donation button. Not make modes into DLC. At least official DLC gets proper testing and is compatible with all official DLC. Mods are generally a crap shoot and there are almost always issues if you have multiple ones. People will end up being paying beta testers with this and clearly 24hr refund is not enough. If they are to keep this, it should be no purchase for 24hrs and then if it works and you like, you can purchase. Though I still think this is a terrible idea as if DLC wasn't bad enough already.
DarkStar_WNY
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In general this is how paid DLC started, originally generating map packs, and such, were considering a company supporting their game and paid DLC was limited to major expansions, think HL Blue Shift & Opposing forces (also keep in mind full expansions normally only cost $15.)
Then some evil asshole of a game company, maybe EA's precursor, thought "Hey you know all that stuff we do to support our games? Let's start charging for all of it." So know we are at the point where they charge you $60 for the game, then want another $60 to get the map packs and the smaller stuff that was free are now either tiny DLC packs are tied to microtranactions.
And yet people wonder why so many oppose Steam allowing people to start charging for mods?
Let's be honest, they aren't doing this to make the mod makers money, and instead it's simply another revenue stream for Gabe and company since they doesn't own the entire planet yet.
Then some evil asshole of a game company, maybe EA's precursor, thought "Hey you know all that stuff we do to support our games? Let's start charging for all of it." So know we are at the point where they charge you $60 for the game, then want another $60 to get the map packs and the smaller stuff that was free are now either tiny DLC packs are tied to microtranactions.
And yet people wonder why so many oppose Steam allowing people to start charging for mods?
Let's be honest, they aren't doing this to make the mod makers money, and instead it's simply another revenue stream for Gabe and company since they doesn't own the entire planet yet.
Here's a thought, developers get a kick-back from mods, are more likely to make their games accessible to modders, and modders have more incentive to create, polish and maintain their work.
Again, passing off someone else's mod as your own is another issue entirely, and not a pertinent argument for or against paid mods.
But the fact is, the vast majority of the countless mods out there are trash, and why shouldn't the stand-out ones, which require many hours of skilled work, get paid? As I think some developer tweeted, at least now they don't have to wait for Valve to buy them.
Again, passing off someone else's mod as your own is another issue entirely, and not a pertinent argument for or against paid mods.
But the fact is, the vast majority of the countless mods out there are trash, and why shouldn't the stand-out ones, which require many hours of skilled work, get paid? As I think some developer tweeted, at least now they don't have to wait for Valve to buy them.
I'm hesitant to ascribe that descriptive universally because it goes to nefarious intent but I have to say generally that I am leaning more in this "cynical" direction with a lot of this.
Ultimately this is exactly right. No one is being forced to buy into any of this.
TaintedSquirrel
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The mods were completely free before, so even if Valve sells only 1 mod from now until eternity then it's already been profitable.
Ashbringer
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The amount of work that goes into some mods deserves to be paid.
kbrickley
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I am sure the costs of programming the interface and managing the paid service will require more than 1 sale before it is profitable ... however, there is a potential profit area here ... in the Steam answers to the service they note that they might withhold payment to developers until the amount due is $100 (probably to reduce the bank transfer costs) ... if they are able to hold the developer funds for extended time periods they could earn some interest on them before they need to be paid
styckx
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If they deserved to be paid the developer would never have offered it for free in the first place and instead setup an online commerce sight to purchase it and with a much higher profit. It's not exactly hard and requires very little effort.
TheOneKnownAsMe
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Prior to this, it was highly illegal to do that. Do your research, the last 15 years is full of mods that were shut down because they were selling their work.
carnageX
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Good post by Skyrim Nexus on the issue, and what changes they're making: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/news/12454/?
DarkStar_WNY
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Yes, that's very good and covers the issue nicely.
Viper87227
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Yep, this. Selling a mod without the consent of the copyright holder would be a big no-no. This is the first opportunity I'm aware of for mod makes to legally sell their content.
I get the idea behind it. Some mods are truly impressive, and have a lot of work put into them. If creators can be paid, this inspires them to continue to work hard on improving their mod or inspire others to put more effort into their creations. It's a nice idea, but it's also incredibly flawed. Selling items that have absolutely no quality control that can break your game, that's no good. A 24-hour return window is nice, but it doesn't prevent this problem. Content creators can at any time change their mod as they see fit, which could add new things that break your game, or change elements that led you to buying it in the first place. While the same could be said for a game developer, it's unlikely based on the fact that they have a public reputation to protect. A mod developer that fucks people over can easily just disappear from Steam and start back up under a different username with little harm done.
Their system is far too easily abused. If they wanted to allow people to monetize their items, have an optional donation or something. That at least allows people to download mods, use them for some time, and they pay an appropriate amount of money once they are satisfied the mod has earned it. Far fewer people will, but its at least an honest system.
limitedaccess
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The second section about "Permission changes regarding paid mods" is the issue I was referring to earlier.
Something that might not be understood is this new situation doesn't just affect the end users but there are large potential implications on the mod creation side as well.
The modding scene has generally been more loose and open in terms of IP treatment (in many ways). Once money is involved this is going to be a much larger and serious issue.
TheOneKnownAsMe
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Yeah, this is just piss-poor filtering on Valve/Bethesda's part. Did they even consider the possibility of stolen mods being sold? I feel like this was done without any input from the mod community at all.
DarkStar_WNY
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Why would they consult the mod community, this isn't about them and instead is simply Valve trying to generate a new income stream.
They make a fortune on people selling skins, cards and assorted other stuff in their market and now they hope to make even more by taking 75% of the price of every mod sold.
DarkStar_WNY
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Hey, that's the beauty of it, if you post your own mod and it costs $10, Valve gets $7.50 and eventuaully sends you $2.50 for each one they sell. But if you stole the mod Valve can take it down and refuse to pay you, and if they don't refund those who bought it they keep all $10 themselves.
TheOneKnownAsMe
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Ummm, it has everything to do with them. This move could have massive consequences, both negative and positive. I feel that a healthy conversation between Valve, Bethesda and at least some of the larger sites such as Nexus should have occurred before this change.
Yes, the motives on Valve's part appear to be purely financial. But to say that this "isn't about them [the mod community]" is ridiculous.
Welll... wouldn't the starcraft 2 thing be the first? I mean... they're all sort of mods of the game, even if it's more like their own game (as far as I hear of it).
That said, I'm fine with people being able to sell mods. But I think it does affect the field a bit. Like that nexus post had said or one of it's comments, it's gonna be about the bottom line now that it has moved into this... and that might not be a good thing.
Then again, theres also the guy doing cities skyline models... and he is making bank from what I can tell.
I'm sad to see some people in here supporting this and acting like it's the best thing to happen to mods since Half Life.
1 think most of us can agree, that it's nice to be able to support a modder if you feel the mod deserves it, and I'm sure the modder appreciates the donations.
Howeover this is not that.
1. From what I read, out of the money the modder gets just 25% on Steam workship. Valve takes 25%, Bethseda takes 50%. That is a SEVERE cut and it would likely zap the profit right out of the modders hands, it doesn't provide an incentive for modders and encourages high prices. This is even worse the the whole Nintendo youtube fiscao.
2. People stealing others works and the ripple effects. As the Nexus article pointed out, it's already started happening. You now have modders locking down their mods, for fear of others stealing work/making money on it.
3. Legality, many modders use tools that are free, but many of those tools come with a cavet that you can not use the things you make for-profit reasons. I can already see some famous mod that gets the attention of one of these companies and then they get sued into oblivion for selling their work that was made using the tool without a proper license.
4. The consumers get screwed the most. Mods were one of the last bastions of pc gaming that had remained untouched by greed and things. In this day and age where it seems the consumer is nickel and dimed at every corner (dlc, skins, season passes, etc) mods were the one thing that pc gaming could turn to that allowed manoy great things without feeling like you were getting jipped. Many modders found careers from it and many do it for the sheer fun of it, because they themselves are fans. I can see this entire thing leading to mods that are locked down behind paywalls, people that no longer use many mods and people getting screwed left and right
Whta happens when a mod you use (way past the 24 hour refund window)break? What happens when the mod author doesn't update teh mods for the newest game patches? What happens when a mod conflicts with another mod and is no longer useable? You, the customer, get screwed, that's what happens.
1 think most of us can agree, that it's nice to be able to support a modder if you feel the mod deserves it, and I'm sure the modder appreciates the donations.
Howeover this is not that.
1. From what I read, out of the money the modder gets just 25% on Steam workship. Valve takes 25%, Bethseda takes 50%. That is a SEVERE cut and it would likely zap the profit right out of the modders hands, it doesn't provide an incentive for modders and encourages high prices. This is even worse the the whole Nintendo youtube fiscao.
2. People stealing others works and the ripple effects. As the Nexus article pointed out, it's already started happening. You now have modders locking down their mods, for fear of others stealing work/making money on it.
3. Legality, many modders use tools that are free, but many of those tools come with a cavet that you can not use the things you make for-profit reasons. I can already see some famous mod that gets the attention of one of these companies and then they get sued into oblivion for selling their work that was made using the tool without a proper license.
4. The consumers get screwed the most. Mods were one of the last bastions of pc gaming that had remained untouched by greed and things. In this day and age where it seems the consumer is nickel and dimed at every corner (dlc, skins, season passes, etc) mods were the one thing that pc gaming could turn to that allowed manoy great things without feeling like you were getting jipped. Many modders found careers from it and many do it for the sheer fun of it, because they themselves are fans. I can see this entire thing leading to mods that are locked down behind paywalls, people that no longer use many mods and people getting screwed left and right
Whta happens when a mod you use (way past the 24 hour refund window)break? What happens when the mod author doesn't update teh mods for the newest game patches? What happens when a mod conflicts with another mod and is no longer useable? You, the customer, get screwed, that's what happens.
Flogger23m
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Obviously this is the underlying motive for Valve, but I don't think anyone was debating that before. Unlike EA or Ubisoft, whose products are games, Valve's product is a free service/platform. Similar to Google; their products are "free" but they get their money from advertisements and selling information. You can expect more things like card trading, micro transactions (which ruin games; take CS:GO and Payday 2 as an example) coming to Steam in the future. It is their business model.
So if my content gets stolen Valve removes it but keeps their money. What recourse does the content creator have? We should get all the revenue (100%) due to inefficiencies in Valve's content verification system. Its a win-win for Valve, and a loose-loose for the content creator.
These are some valid concerns. As people joked about Gearbox, if we have to buy expensive software to make mods, we want a bigger cut because the small amount of revenue just isn't worth the time. They'd rather quit their day job and get a job in the game industry than became a source of underpaid labor. And Valve isn't the only one who wants to change modding. I do think in the next few years traditional modding will be a thing of the past. Which is a shame, because it was one of the things that set PC gaming apart from console gaming.
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Viper87227
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I've never played SC, don't know a thing about it. Are there developer/publisher sanctioned paid mods for it?
As far as Cities goes, Gula is the guy that's getting paid for models, but it's a little different. Consider it a donation. All his content is free on the workshop. I believe the way patreon works is that people can pledge a dollar amount for every time he publishes something new. There are multiple tiers (think kickstarter-ish), and every time he processes a payment for something new, I believe backers have until the end of the money to review and cancel and not be charged. Think of it as almost like a donation subscription.
I don't know where the law would stand in regards to selling an item for someone else's copyright work versus receiving donations to release free modifications to it. It's certainly different than outright selling items though.
InternationalHat
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This really sucks a lot.
TheOneKnownAsMe
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3. How many mods rely on SKSE? A TON. What happens when the creators of SKSE are like, "Nah, I don't want people to use my libraries for paid projects". All of a sudden, you have hundreds, possibly thousands of mods that are in violation of that. It's a huge mess, and I don't feel that Valve took this into consideration.
Look at this image, a comment from a Modder who doesn't want his assets used in a paid mod:
He asked Valve, and their response was basically "Hey, if it's a separate download, it's fine."
That's wrong. Blatantly wrong.
Good post except for the fact that in the process of looking down his nose at Valve/Bethesda for monetizing mods, conveniently failed to disclose how he too is monetizing mods, through ad revenue and premium account revenue. So from his POV, Valve/Bethesda = evil for giving mod creators 25%, but he's good for giving them 0%. The hypocrisy is more than a little absurd. More significantly, Nexus receives up to 5% of the total sale of each mod sold - subtracted from Valve's part of the split - if the mod author has listed the Nexus as a "service provider." This is something Nexus agreed to. In other words, Nexus has signed a contract with Valve and is supporting the new economy around mods.
"But Nexus is all about love and the community and does it out of the kindness of his heart". No, if DarkOne is throwing 6 figures into "infrastructure upgrades" then its a little more than just grass roots community kumbaya. Its a for-profit business for him.
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kbrickley
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I am sure Steam/Valve had two interests at play here:
1. Money - they are always searching for new revenue streams like most companies ... they compete with other stores so they are always looking for ways to attract more developers to sell games and features to attract new users
2. Expanding the acceptance of mods in the developer community ... the integration of Mods into the Steam workshop is a feature that they feel makes them more desirable to users ... however, most developers find mods to be undesirable and illegal and do everything they can to prevent them ... the paid mod option (where the developer gets a cut) is designed to make mods attractive for all developers
We'll just have to see if it is a bad idea and how it pans out ... if I remember rightly, when DLC and IAP first came out many reviled them and pushed for their failure but they are well established now (and whether you like them or not, they do work and meet many users needs) ... preorders have been reviled for decades (but they still appear to be going strong) ... if this is something that the users on Steam want and are willing to support then it is a good thing ... if this is not something they want then it won't last long and we can wait for Valve to come up with the next new feature
1. Money - they are always searching for new revenue streams like most companies ... they compete with other stores so they are always looking for ways to attract more developers to sell games and features to attract new users
2. Expanding the acceptance of mods in the developer community ... the integration of Mods into the Steam workshop is a feature that they feel makes them more desirable to users ... however, most developers find mods to be undesirable and illegal and do everything they can to prevent them ... the paid mod option (where the developer gets a cut) is designed to make mods attractive for all developers
We'll just have to see if it is a bad idea and how it pans out ... if I remember rightly, when DLC and IAP first came out many reviled them and pushed for their failure but they are well established now (and whether you like them or not, they do work and meet many users needs) ... preorders have been reviled for decades (but they still appear to be going strong) ... if this is something that the users on Steam want and are willing to support then it is a good thing ... if this is not something they want then it won't last long and we can wait for Valve to come up with the next new feature
Define "mod community". The blind masses clicking the download button on a free mod? Or the people that actually create the mods? In my view the "mod community" is the mod creators, and Valve in fact did solicit that input more than a month ago when contacting the authors of some of the most popular and highly rated mods and asked them "what if we gave you the option to sell your mod?" And enough of them obviously said "YES!" to make this experiment possible. They could've just said "No, all mods must forever remain free". Why didn't they? And why is no one pointing any fingers at them for opting into this? Instead all the whining is focused on Valve/Bethesda when the whole thing hinged on the mod authors..
I haven't seen a single post here suggesting that. At the same time, I think we should be capable of looking at both sides of an issue and considering the bigger picture rather than just immediately kneejerking or jumping on the Reddit hivemind bandwagon. Its not an all-or-nothing issue.
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Except that Nexus has been pretty transparent about what the donations sent to the site itself are for (they're even more transparent on donations sent to content creators - the money goes to the creator after fees) and what they use the ad revenue to do. Sure, there is the occasional modder who objects to this and doesn't want their mod on Nexus (which is fine) but comparing that to what Valve is doing is ridiculous. Nexus would have died years ago without revenue from donations and ads. Valve would still be printing money even without monetizing mods this way.
Hornet
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The problem with this argument is that you are saying mods must be free (legal issues aside). There's no reason why content creators are obligated to give away their content for free. If a mod creator feels that his content should be locked behind paywall, who has the rights to say that it is wrong and they should not do it? It is their work at the end of the day.
Other video game content creators such as Youtube reviewers or Twitch streams have their own stable source of revenue from advertising, this is something that modders do not enjoy. Why is Angry Joe mad at Nintendo for taking a cut out of his video's revenue? Because these revenue are important, it's what allow these content creators to do what they do full time. Can we say Kripp is greedy because he only stream Heartstone for the large number of viewers it brings? No, because revenue is important and he has every right to gear his stream towards generating revenue.
The difference between this and DLC is that, these modders to not make any money from game sales. And they have been creating great contents that make a game better without any compensation. Fine if a modder wishes to continue doing so, no one is forced to put their contents behind paywall. But it is unfair to say modders should always give their contents away for free and they should not be allowed to sell it for a price instead.
Really
So what happened with DLC ... all the PC gamers fell in love with it and that is why almost every AAA title comes with DLC
Write me off as part of the 1% ... I don't care one way or the other on this ... Skyrim and Oblivion are the only games I have ever downloaded mods for (and I have purchased DLC for both of them as well as a dozen or so other games) ... I don't plan to buy any mods for Skyrim but I don't consider it the end of the universe either
This shows you are of the console generation and have no clue what you are talking about. Free mods is what makes PC gaming so great, and if it is truly a great mod the modder usually gets paid albiet not always directly.
Easiest example for the kiddies (assuming you are of the generation from your posts), CS. I remember posting on ICQ to Gooseman when the mod first dropped alpha/beta. Counter-Strike was a free mod to a VALVE game. It matured and eventually become a commercial product. Fat boy milked every penny of it too with the garbage that CS has become.
How about the kid that spent an entire summer developing an Oblivion mod. Presented it to the internet and Bethesda hired him.
The money is besides the point. People do it because they like to. They can get donations, but it was the freedom to make a bad game decent, a good game better or a great game unique that has always made PC's superior.
No go buy your hats or whatever the fuck Valve is shoveling down your throat these days. Leave the bitching about paid mods to the adults.