https://steamcommunity.com/games/SteamWorkshop/announcements/detail/208632365237576574
https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/aboutpaidcontent
Discuss.
While I see their argument for it (“It’s a win-win! The modder gets money, we get a cut, and the workshop gets more content!”) I’m very leery of this. I know I’m old fashioned, but to me, mods should be by fans, for fans, for free, made out of a passion for the game and its community, (and as an opportunity to work on your portfolio if you choose to work towards the industry) rather than to just get money.
I’m going to go ahead and predict a massive surge of really shitty “my furst mud!!1” mods being charged for; Removing the barrier between creator and player can be a good thing if done properly, but it’s a double-edged sword, and I’m not so sure it’s being wielded “safely” here.
I’d also like to point out that Bethesda tried a similar thing with Oblivion. Time will tell if paying for Horse Armor is viewed as acceptable if it’s a “paid mod” instead of “DLC”
This is… I don’t know what to say about this. On one hand, I really like Valve to the point where I’ll readily admit I get overly defensive of them, but this…
To be honest what bugs me more than anything is the pay split. 75/25 in Valve’s favour? Really? I know that’s the split they have for the TF2 store too, but seeing as most of the TF2 workshop is cosmetics, I don’t think it’s all that comparable here.
Seeing the fire storm from this, it is a good concept only problem is most of steams users are loud mouth kids that don’t understand anything.
seeing the only 25% goes to the mod DEV I doubt all of that 75% goes to valve bet most of it goes to the games maker with valve getting some as a middle man fee.
This is good and bad. Good in that content creators are getting more opportunities to get on the map, bad in that it’s a legal hornet’s nest.
We’ll see how it goes, I know I’m old fashioned as well (I like my mods free too), but it’s a good thing from a business prospective imo, provided you have the right legal and policies.
Edit:
I’ve since heard that the 75%/25% revenue split was decided on by Bethesda, as opposed to Valve. My apologies for that.
To be honest, I’m not entirely against the idea. Some modders (i.e. our very own Black Mesa devs) put an exceptional amount of love and effort into their work, and I’m 100% for supporting them monetarily.
The thing is, there are way too many pitfalls or questionable policies going on here for me to be comfortable with. Refunds only within the first 24 hours? What if a mod only starts breaking things late in the game? If modders need to have full legal rights to set a price for their mods, what happens to mods relying on things like the SKSE or SkyUI? For that matter, while it’s true that some people feel flat-out entitled to a modder’s work, doesn’t throwing money into the mix change everything? I’m not well-versed in American legalese, but surely there’s some protection of some sort to make sure customers get what they paid for, right?
On top of that, there’s the issue of quality control. I’d certainly hope Valve has something in mind to prevent an influx of paid mods that change all of one texture or some such.
For that matter, there’s the fact that the Workshop just doesn’t handle mods for Skyrim very well. With modders (potentially) moving strictly to the Workshop, that opens up a whole new batch of problems when it comes to compatibility.
Overall, I have to say I just feel like adding a donation pop-up of some sort when you install something would work better than this.
I think most modmakers that don’t care about money made from their work will just stick to uploading their mods to NexusMods, with a simple donation link on the page.
The only thing I’m really upset at is that those in similar financial situations as I am will simply be missing out on a lot of great mods because of this. But the authors are entitled to the sweat of their brow, as Andrew Ryan would say.
As well, personally, most of the mods I install are simply to spice up the main game, or minor tweaks that should have been in the game in the first place (cough-USKP-cough). I don’t get into the new lands mods like Falskaar or Wyrmstooth.
So basically I’d be paying to slightly enhance, or even FIX a game that I’ve already purchased.
That would be like if Mojang charged their players all over again for every new version of Minecraft. It’s kind of absurd.
Your post is pretty much spot-on with what I’m thinking (same with Total Biscuit). You also brought up the legal hornet’s nest I was thinking of (copywright of mods using SKSE/FNIS/SkyUI/Etc). Personally I think Chesko’s model (TL;DR: You pay for Early Access to his mods - they will then be free later down the line) would be best for content creators in this instance. And the “pay what you want” option needs to have a “free” option as well. In other words it’s suggested, but not needed.
I really don’t see what is so bad about paid mods. There are still free mods, and no ones being forced to buy paid mods. Also Bethesda gets most of the 75% IIRC, while valve gets around 40%.
Normally if you tried to have a mod that people have to pay for, the company that owns the game would make you take it down, sue you, or something of that nature.
Another thing is that one argument I have seen going around the internet is “Modders must only make mods for free”, which, in my opinion, is one of the stupidest things that I have heard. If someone puts a shitton of work into a mod, then they should be able to chose if people have to pay for the mod. I also realize that there will be a lot of “my first mod!!1111!” mods that cost money. You just have to sift through all the crappy mods until you find the good ones, just like you do now. Again, no ones forcing you to buy anything.
So Overall, The decsion to add paid mods to steam is a good thing for the modding community. I do not belive that this has “ruined mods” or that valve is “evil” or greedy. They could force you to pay to download steam, or remove the option for free mods, or even remove the steam workshop all together. Again, this is all just my opinion on the matter. feel free to correct me if I made any mistakes or forgot about Valve saying X,Y or Z about the paid mods or anything of the sort.
This all reminds me of grade school.
Epic: “I’m gonna make a cool game and it’s gonna be free and people are going to buy mods instead of the game!”
Valve: “Nu uh, I can do that too!”
Valve then gets all of his friends to help and turns in an A+ homework assignment a day before Epic who gets a C for being unoriginal.
“Don’t mind him. But here’s something to think about for the next time–”
“You and your sugar-coated erstaz are absolutely full of it!”
“Creativity is the art of hiding your influence.”
FYI: This is the legal shit I was referring to…
context Arissa the Wandering Rogue uses third party assets (I think - don’t hold me to that). These two are some authors of those assets.
POORLY executed, per usual by Valve and by some mod creators it seems. The ONLY time you should be able to monetize something is if the work is 100% your own and completely standalone.
So SkyUI 5.0 has gone behind a paywall. One of the team members (Mardoxx) is not only completely unapologetic for it, they’re acting… well, look:
And just like that, one of those potential “worst-case scenarios” is coming true. This is exactly what I was worried about.
I really wish this had been implemented as some kind of tip-jar system.
I think being able to donate some scratch to a mod/creator you feel deserves it should be an option, but I really don’t think payment should be compulsory - Modding should be a hobby done out of passion, not a business done for money.
That’s what breaking into the games industry is for.
Why can’t they just put a big 'ol “donate” button next to the “download” button?
Because modders would want a more consistent stream of revenue than an optional donation button?
Even so, this Skyrim modding base thing is terrifying.
SkyUI is behind a paywall now? Are you fucking kidding me?
Only the new version, which (to the best of my knowledge) isn’t officially out yet. 4.1 is still available for free (though I’d grab it pretty soon to be safe).
Plus… Well, let’s just say mod piracy’s a thing now. Not posting any links for obvious reasons.
Given the 75/25% proportion of profit, I doubt modding would be considered a consistent stream of revenue, especially since you have to make 100 dollars to even star making money off the damn things. That’s 100 dollars of the modders money, so in reality you have to sell 400$ of your mod.
We do? 
Last I checked quite a large number of us did it because we wanted to, and would rather keep modding/use of mods open to everyone who owns the game in question than have a consistent stream from something that’s not even our full time job.
I wouldn’t say no to some loose pocket change every once in a while if people insisted on giving donations, and if I made a total conversion I guess I wouldn’t mind being contacted by the original IP owner about a job and maybe making a commercial version afterwards like they did with CS, but I’d feel guilty charging any amount of money for small tweaks to a game.