Valve introduces paid mods into the Steam Workshop (starting with Skyrim)

[Darth_Giorgi]

Well, it’s not the main problem that the mods are now paid ( which still is imo) , but the main problem is that it isn’t regulated at all There is NO quality control, meaning you are risking money buying something and that 24 hours refund is too damn small time, at least in TF2 and Dota 2 workshop items which get to the game you know the damned thing will work properly if you buy it, but not here… Also, stealing mods from others and selling them as yours is a thing now… A BIG THING! And most mods live of other mods and so on… Not to mention the fact that MOST mods right now are SEVERLY overpriced ( 5$ for blurry vission then a rain drop get’s in your eye!!! or 1$ for a freaking sword?!). Also, the cut that modder gets is too low… But you can clearly see because of this why Valve and Bethesda did this instead of donations button/link To get more money from Players and customers at their expense, they wouldn’t have gotten ANYTHING from donation link 24 hours refund is A BIG testament to that, as customer who has been lied to won’t get their money back and both companies are happy as ever… And if the product you bought isn’t of advertised quality, then good luck! Bethesda and Valve pretty much get their cut for doing NOTHING! If Valve had quality control and Bethesda released an improved SDK for modders who make paid stuff, and it would make Mods easier and safer to install and you knew 100% they would work, and make the mods easier manageable by Steam, then I can see why those companies would get that kind of cut, but this is idiotic! Valve has been riding it’s monopolistic Steam bandwagon for a long time and now they started to fully exploit it! First we get unregulated Fraud/Scam filled Early Access , there WE pay the developers for ALPHA/BETA testing their games! ( althought i support the idea for indies, but big companies shouldn’t get anything! and if the game doesn’t get released, we should get a refund, but that’s a different story). Not to mention the fact that Valve basically lives off other people’s work nowadays

Do I think that modder should be paid for their work ? Yes, if that work is worth to be paid for ( Heck, I’m writing this on such a mod’s forum). This might potentially bring better quality to modding scene… But Right now this system looks like microtransactions to me -_- We didn’t react enough on paid DLC-s now look what has happened? Instead of good quality products we get AFTER games development ends and it’s released, we get Day 1 paid DLC that was taken out of the game to be sold to us separately for more money! Isn’t the base price I paid enough? And most DLC-s are Overpriced because there is no quality control And now we get less and less content in our games… it’s sad And this paid modding is basically the same - perversion of a good idea In the long run, it will ruin the modding scene for such games.

I’m sorry for a long rant, but I had to say ( Type ) this… This, and, in general, the WHOLE gaming industry, require a good regulation, or it will start to collapse, there is so much customers are going to take

[Crypt]

Looks like they’re backin’ the hell up.
https://steamcommunity.com/games/SteamWorkshop/announcements/detail/208632365253244218

The idea has potential, and this wasn’t really the best approach, but pulling it completely? Hopefully they’re just considering other methods.

[Chickenprotector]

I hope so too. Seeing as I’d LIKE to see content creators consider being paid for quality mods and the like.

My primary problem with it besides the obvious flaws in the system (the unfair financial split, among other things) is that there’s just too many mods that rely on third party content already. While a good idea in theory, it was just poorly executed by Valve (per usual when it comes to these things).

I do hope they reconsider and give more favorable conditions for the modmakers, among other things.

Another thing that also occurred to me is that if this does get off the ground in the right way, mods can be introduced to consoles for some games, which would open the platform. Microsoft and Sony would be stupid to not take advantage of such a system to be frank… Oh wait.

[Crypt]

I think it would be more successful with games that have mods that generally aren’t so reliant on others. For example, comparing say, HL2 (which really barely even requires the game) to something like Fallout or Skyrim. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a HL2 mod worthy of my time that had something along the lines of “requires silly animation pack!” yet Fallout I’m pretty sure every Fallout mod I liked required sometimes an assortment of other mods.

There could be some sort of “Dependency” flag or something that would either disallow sale or some other solution. Both mods have to be on Steam, and that author takes a cut? I dunno. This is a mess I wouldn’t want to try to figure out, the rabbit hole goes deeper the more I think about.

The system would benefit from a Donate feature as well to help blur the line between making money and releasing for free. I know that would be my preferred method.

[Chickenprotector]

Hence why I said it’s a legal hornet’s nest. Not to mention as soon as you start charging, you become a business, and that’s a whole 'nother can of worms.

Personally, I think a hybrid system would be best, make it up to the author as to how much they want to charge, or make it suggested (e.g. donate).

As for the pay cut; that’s a whole other matter entirely. You have to remember: Valve and Bethsoft have things to pay for, and at the end of the day they’re a business, money is the bottom line in this instance. Valve needs to host the content on servers that are accessible 24/7, they handle the marketing of the paid mods, and a whole slew of other things. Bethsoft doesn’t do much other than sit on their hands and fart on them in the process. I don’t disagree that the pay gap was unfair, but making it 60-40 (60 for the content creator; 40 for the businesses) doesn’t seem fair to me to be frank, if it was reversed, maybe, but this is just my opinion. From my point of view, Valve is handling all of the leg work for you to host the content, market it, and get it to a consumer for you. It’s the same with Indie games.

This is a controversial opinion, I get that, but it’s just what I understand of the whole debacle. In most instances, it’s a 100% profit for the mod creator even if they sunk hundreds or even thousands of hours into creating their new toys (this is for small mods). DLC-sized mods such as Falskaar often have hundreds of people involved from things like voice work, scripting, writing, and a whole slew of other things, it’d be a logistical nightmare to charge for it, because then you’d have to figure out who gets what cut of the money involved.

[JeffMOD]

I’m just glad that Valve is still… you know, Valve. I was really worried there for a few days, because I couldn’t figure out what their actual motivations were, but it looked like they were bad.

Responding to the community, removing this, and admitting that it was a mistake means that, well, it was an honest mistake, rather than an EA-style money-grab. Hopefully if they think the idea is still worthwhile they’ll repurpose it into a big ol’ donation button. I think we’re more or less all agreed that that would be a fair way for modders to make income without getting in the way of people’s abilities to, you know, actually play the mod in question.

[Kairouseki]

Good, it’s dead. For now at least.

[Crypt]

I honest think they had good intentions, but underestimated how angry the community would get over the whole “now they’ll have to pay” bit. Valve, game developers and mod developers all making a profit, sounds like a win. I’ll wait patiently to see if they have anything in store, hopefully a much better plan.

[Kairouseki]

Not all mods are the same and mods in general should not be made for profit. All that does is introduce shittons of issues that I feel hurts the modding community. Having an optional donation button is the best way of monetizing mods. Allowing modders to set their own prices entirely destroys the desire to take mods and improve on them or have your mod require another mod to function and modders working together and sharing ideas. Not to mention that mods can break other mods and updates to the game can break them as well so unless Valve is going to have testers making sure this doesn’t happen this entire thing is never going to work without being shit. And least of all, Valve and the game company getting the majority of the share of the money for stuff other people make, even if it is with the finished game. It reeks of Valve (and Bethesda) trying to rake in money from anything that they can at the expense of the community.

[Jake_R]

Money towards mod developers: more people more likely to create mods. Good for players (replay value++), good for devs (good mods sell games, see CS and Minecraft). Obviously good for modders; aspiring game devs, or just people doing it for fun, could earn some money to compensate for their spent time, reducing the likelyhood of them having to stop modding when they start lacking free time.

Money towards Valve (30% cut): more mods sold = more money, so big incentive to increase and improve the mod store. Also: customer support, Steam infrastructure, etc. cost money. A lot of it.

Money towards the game’s developers / publishers: let’s get real here. Publishers don’t care about replay value. They care about cold, hard cash. If they cared about the quality of games, we wouldn’t have crunch time and insane deadlines in this industry. But nope, time is money. As such, any time spent on developing modding tools (to be released to the public) need to be validated towards the publishers. Giving them a cut of the profit is the perfect way to do so. In short: long-term, giving the devs / publishers a cut will actually make things better for the modding community.

Legal issues? What, because as long as you don’t earn money from other people’s work, it’s okay to steal? Or, as long as it’s just donations, as it has been for years? You should always get permission. Valve opening up the option to sell stuff for money did not change this. In fact, nothing that was already there changed. You could still share mods for free. This was just another option.

Paid mods will tear the community apart? No, people acting like a bunch of … not nice people will do that. Such as people developing something, making lots of people depend on it, then suddenly asking money for updated versions. But hey, guess what? You can do that even without Steam! And don’t get me started on how “mods should always be and stay free”. Half of Valve’s games started out as mods. BLACK MESA (or at least, the updated version) will be sold for money. Yes, I agree, crappy little swords and such shouldn’t cost money, but nobody’s forcing you to pay for those. They were going to add a “pay what you want” feature on Steam, too, so even those with tight budgets (that’s including me, btw) would’ve probably been able to enjoy mods and support their developers.

Additionally, the people who claim mod developers should just make the mods for free until they break into the real game development industry; I’ve got some links for you. Sure, you can do free work, if you want to. But don’t believe for a second that you shouldn’t dare asking for money for the fruits of all your hard work. Shame on all those who tell you otherwise.

Donation buttons: LOL. Yeah, I’m sure all those people talking about how that’s the best way to support modders have donated to the creators of all the good mods they’ve been using all these years. Also, here’s a fire extinguisher for those pants of yours. Give me a break.

TL;DR: kneejerk reactions everywhere. More power to mod devs = good. Put the freaking pitchforks down. Valve’s execution was done very poorly, but the basic idea makes sense, and I really hope they’ll pick it back up again later.

[geekofalltrades]

Consider a mod like the Unofficial Skyrim Patch. This is a mod that exists because Bethesda released a buggy, half-finished product.

Imagine that the Unofficial Skyrim Patch becomes a paid mod. Not only do you have to pay an extra premium to play the game in a functional state, but Bethesda takes a 40% cut of the sales of the Unofficial Skyrim Patch. It’s that old Bethesda stereotype, “Bethesda releases half-finished games and just lets the community finish them,” with the added, “and also, Bethesda gets paid for the community to finish their games for them.”

Modders certainly deserve compensation for their hard work. It’s also true that the publisher and Valve both deserve a cut: the publisher because they own the IP and because they built the toolset the modder used, and Valve because they’re providing a storefront and marketing through the Workshop and distribution via their CDNs, which doesn’t cost nothing. But lord, does this get sticky fast, and not just because gamers are entitled and want shit for free.

[Jake_R]

If this Unofficial Skyrim Patch indeed does become paid, rather than starting out as paid, then people can still use the previous (free) version.

If it starts out paid, another team will step up and do it for free, if people feel the need for such a patch exists.

If no team is making such a patch, the game might not sell as well, which means the developer might finally take the time to finish the game properly themselves (or rather, the publisher might give them the time and resources they need to do so).

Again: paid mods do not remove options. They add new ones. If the old options are no longer used when new options arise, this implies there was something wrong with the old options.