Steam Workshop: Now get paid for your mod creations on Steam

[werepossum]

Honestly, PC Gamers have done as much to kill modding as Valve has. Do I think Valve is taking more than their fair share? Yeah, probably. But as a modder, 30% of all the sales is more than the $0 I make for my efforts now.

As this thread shows, PC Gamers have some how adopted the attitude that they are entitled to high quality mods that work flawlessly in every scenario. I mean, seriously, do you guys realize what you're expecting? Let's look at it from the mod creators perspective for a second here. We'll use Skyrim as an example.

I decide I like Skyrim, but the UI just doesn't work for me. So I decide I'm going to see if I can fix it. I'm a code guy though, so I'm going to get my artist buddy to help. Obviously, there's no documentation on this sort of thing so we're flying by the seat of our pants. After two months worth of weekends, we got our new UI. We think it's awesome and have seen other people complaining the original UI sucks so we decide to upload our mod to Nexus. People like it, but complain it doesn't work with mod X or mod Y.

Well, we weren't using those but think it's cool that people like our mod so we download X and Y and spend weeks making it work with those. Then people ask if we can make it work with mod Z and maybe add feature A. You also have angry messages from people about the color choices of the UI and that it's not available in their language, etc.

This goes on until the end of time. Or at least until people stop playing the game. How much time would YOU invest into making your mod work for other people in every situation without any sort of compensation? Do you guys realize some of these mods have hundreds or even thousands of man hours into their development? A lot of these mods aren't things that people just sat down one night and knocked out. Then people have the audacity to complain that it doesn't meet their expectations?

Between the attitudes of gamer's and the game companies trend of making modding harder and harder to do, the community has been dying off all by itself. Right now, I give this 50/50 odds on either reviving the community or being the final straw.

And the "they could take donations then" idea is laughable. Many of the large scale mods have donations requests either in the installer or in the read me. I would love to know the actual percentage of mod users that donate. I'd guess 1%.

Well said, and that is certainly one issue with mods. Tons of them are abandoned because it's just too much work, especially if the mod already satisfies their own needs. If they were paid projects, surely some number of modders would continue supporting them because there is a reward beyond satisfaction, and perhaps other modders would work on compatibility issues. Lots of mods are started with lofty aspirations, but later cut back or abandoned unfinished because (A) it's far more work than they understood and (B) they must rely on others for some parts and often those pledges don't materialize. It's always easier to make time for something that pays.

And if a modder prefers being paid in laudatory emails leavened with petulant claims of system crashes and demands that everything be translated into Samarifornian Hebreloid, he can continue to make his offerings available for free.

Personally I've never been comfortable with donating for a work based without permission on a copyrighted property. This is Bethesda's tacit permission that it's okay, through Steam at least. Hopefully this agreement is written to allow places like the Nexxus to also charge and hopefully spend some of that money on evaluation and conflict resolution. We'll just have to see how it plays out.

The whole problem people are missing is that this will be worse for games that will deny mod support. The whole idea of mods being paid for has already been around forever..its called DLC. They are slowing killing mod support, and with this happening, you can bet that games will call DLC as mods or something like that to justify lots of micro purchases.

Why would a game dev accept mods on steam for %75 profit, when they can just make it DLC for%100 no matter how minor the change to game is.

But developers already do that. If that is Bethesda's intention, wouldn't they start by clamping down on modders?

I'm one of those people who believe that paid DLC, if it represents true value, is a good thing. Same with mods - if this gives me more good content, I'll happily pay for it. Certainly I'll be more discerning in what I load if I'm paying for it, but if my overall experience is increased proportionate to my added expense - which as always is my responsibility - then I'm ahead of the game. If I merely have the same choices but now with added expense then obviously I've lost, but I don't think we can just assume that will be the case. Let's wait to see if projects like A World of Pain or Project Brazil are resurrected now that there is some possible financial gain. Who knows, we may be surprised.

 

[norseamd]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMZaYuXGYSI

 

[werepossum]

I have multiple issues with the decision to go paid.

1.) I believe it will diminish the size of the mod community. Some huge mods may do fine. $1 for a massive overhaul sounds like it may be worth it. $1 for a no-weight limit mod kills the fun and effectively begins to charge people for cheats. However, as long as mods can still be free, then there may be those that will provide the community with mods without a paywall.

2.) It is another revenue stream for publishers. They are exploiting what was a free and open community driven by hobbyists and enthusiasts. A small cut to the publisher is expected, but they have the audacity to extract 75% of the revenue.

3.) To my last point, now that they've shifted what used to be open and free to a business model they can skim from, there will be a rush of college kids, programmers from other low-income countries, and hustlers trying to scrape money out of the system. The publishers have now turned a completely free and open hobbyist community into a sweat shop where they get to skim 75%. They effectively get free labor to extend their game while also taking a massive cut from the work.

4.) Mods and publishers/developers used to go hand in hand. Mods increased the life of the game and games developed long lasting communities around them. Game developers had incentive to support mods because of it. It was one of the last areas that you'd see an "open source" like community that was driven purely for the love of the craft in gaming. That symbiotic, hobbyist connection will be severed or diminished.

5.) Modders will have a harder time with the community. Some people expect usable and unbroken free mods, but what happens when they plunked down cash for the mod? That all of a sudden raises the expectations sky high. Its no longer a hobbyist, fun exchange of mods and is now a business transaction with all the weight of commercial expectations. I think some modders may be in for a rude awakening.

6.) Lastly, as a side note, I think Valve may have opened up room for massive scams and hacking. Hackers only need to create a bogus $50 mod, hack an account, and then buy the mod, repeat. That is much, much easier to do than trying to get a game on steam to run the same scheme.

I am very cautious of this because I love the modding community as it is now. Some of my best gaming memories are from mods. I don't think it needs fixing and I don't care to see it turned into a highly polished side business. I'd love to find a way for modders to be compensated, but without all the negatives that goes along with Valve's model.

You have some good points there, particularly about some modders being in for a rude awakening. I'd suggest though that other modders may find that this makes it worth their while to once again do some coding, even if they don't play that particular game anymore. How many modders have grand ideas in the backs of their heads that they never tried to bring to fruition? Maybe even projects which were begun, but the author(s) simply got tired of herding cats and relying on offers of assistance that never pan out?

Very cautious optimism should be the most anyone feels thus far, but the same applies to predictions of doom.

 

[Martimus]

Here is a doozy for you, the creator gets 25% and the rest go to Valve and which ever developer of the game.

Modder's only get paid once they make $100, and I bet you that's 25% of the $400 they must make to get a payout.

I think its been apparent for a while now that Valve has shifted toward focusing on maximizing revenue, they're no better now than your average run of the mill corporation. Valve is no longer the great saint of the gaming community.

Valve was never the great saint of the gaming community. They have always been about maximizing profit. They just did it in a way that had outward benefits to the consumer. I don't remember them doing anything that didn't attempt to make them stronger as a company. They just take long term profits into account, rather than just short term profits like most publicly traded companies.

 

[cmdrdredd]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h2XL-vDfRc

Those videos are pretty close to how I feel sometimes.

They go after the sites that host the free versions with legal threats as they have the ability to.

So if some guy makes a small mod that adds something he wanted to see and posts it around for others to play with they are going to go after him because he isn't using the steam workshop to publish it and charging money? What if he doesn't want to charge money? There are people who might not want to put it as a paid download because it limits the number of people who would use it and give feedback.

And people wonder why I have expressed hate toward some of the stuff Valve does?


The big problem with this is mods that require another mod to work, but the mod required is now a paid version. You don't get the update now cause you didn't buy it. Mods you remember were free are now paid and you can say what you want about "people are cheap and just want free shit" but you try getting a service for free and then one day find out it's not free when you wanted to make use of it. See how you feel.

 

[norseamd]

Those videos are pretty close to how I feel sometimes.

Mr. Altman is a real ------- piece of [any word possible] and a soulless lowlife.

 

[gothamhunter]

Those videos are pretty close to how I feel sometimes.



So if some guy makes a small mod that adds something he wanted to see and posts it around for others to play with they are going to go after him because he isn't using the steam workshop to publish it and charging money? What if he doesn't want to charge money? There are people who might not want to put it as a paid download because it limits the number of people who would use it and give feedback.

And people wonder why I have expressed hate toward some of the stuff Valve does?


The big problem with this is mods that require another mod to work, but the mod required is now a paid version. You don't get the update now cause you didn't buy it. Mods you remember were free are now paid and you can say what you want about "people are cheap and just want free shit" but you try getting a service for free and then one day find out it's not free when you wanted to make use of it. See how you feel.

You act as if this already has and will happen. Calm down.

All of you.

 

[cmdrdredd]

You act as if this already has and will happen. Calm down.

All of you.

No, I think the idea sucks and this is the appropriate thread to express opinions on it.

 

[gothamhunter]

No, I think the idea sucks and this is the appropriate thread to express opinions on it.

"And people wonder why I have expressed hate toward some of the stuff Valve does?"

Except they're not doing it. So calm down.

 

[norseamd]

For now my guess is with the current position Paradox Interactive, CDPR, and Stardock are in they will support nonsteam mods and will make it known if Zenimax and / or Valve are ever going to start controlling where mods can be distributed or even made.

 

[Dranoche]

Read a few articles earlier today summarizing some of Gabe's responses. One of them I believe quoted Gabe as saying that the 75% is split between Valve and the original game developer, another just mentioned it was split between Valve and Bethesda, and that Bethesda set the 75%. Wasn't clear if that's the developer (Bethesda Game Studios) or the publisher (Bethesda Softworks). I would imagine that both would be involved if money is exchanging hands.

Take some of the $60 new game breakdowns from a few years back and knock out the console royalty, marketing, etc. and just take the retailer, developer, and publisher cuts - now the mod maker is the dev, Valve is still the retailer, original dev and publisher take the publisher cut. Ballpark estimate the mod maker looks to be doing about the same, maybe slightly better. I suppose it's more like licensing an IP, but that can vary a ton, and I would imagine it breaks down somewhat similar in the end in terms of what the creator of the new content gets.

Not really sure how I feel about selling mods. An older game with a huge, established modding community probably wasn't the right place to start this.

 

[Artorias]

Steam is now removing the payment feature and issuing refunds. Though they are still open to the idea in the future, but they acknowledge the problem of putting this sort of feature into an already well established modding scene.

http://steamcommunity.com/games/SteamWorkshop/announcements/detail/208632365253244218

Maybe if we all try hard enough they might say something about HL3.

 

[sandorski]

Steam is now removing the payment feature and issuing refunds. Though they are still open to the idea in the future, but they acknowledge the problem of putting this sort of feature into an already well established modding scene.

http://steamcommunity.com/games/SteamWorkshop/announcements/detail/208632365253244218

Maybe if we all try hard enough they might say something about HL3.

That's the end of that. I'd rather have waited awhile to see how it panned out. At some point in the future Valve or someone else will try this again and we'll get to see what the results could be from it.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Except they're not doing it. So calm down.

They were but look at that...the consumer wins one.

The right way to do it is allowing direct donations to the mod creator. No skimming the top of 75%. We already paid for the game and valve got their cut from that. DLC we purchase from the original publisher too. Add a button "If you like it consider donating", but I want the donations to go right to the mod dev, not Bethesda or Valve. They've gotten enough of my money.

They avoid saying it but I bet the idea of skimming off 75% from the payment made them look greedy and there was enough backlash to make them notice it.

We're going to remove the payment feature from the Skyrim workshop. For anyone who spent money on a mod, we'll be refunding you the complete amount. We talked to the team at Bethesda and they agree.

We've done this because it's clear we didn't understand exactly what we were doing.

 

[mmntech]

We've done this because it's clear we didn't understand exactly what we were doing.

That's the understatement of the year.

 

[norseamd]

That's the understatement of the year.

lulz

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Glad to see it, but I'm 100% sure this was because lawyers were starting to get involved. Probably their own saying WTF are you doing?

 

[cmdrdredd]

Some of the comments on steam forums are great. An armor pack for $10, and people grabbing mods of Nexus and posting them up. I think there was one mod that was posted at $50 or something lol

 

[mmntech]

Glad to see it, but I'm 100% sure this was because lawyers were starting to get involved. Probably their own saying WTF are you doing?

Yep, rampant copyright infringement will do that. They had no system in place for vetting mods to ensure quality, and that they actually belonged to the uploader.

 

[norseamd]

Some of the comments on steam forums are great. An armor pack for $10, and people grabbing mods of Nexus and posting them up. I think there was one mod that was posted at $50 or something lol

Horse genitals for $99.99 was one of the mods.

 

[Riceninja]

its gone for now, but paid modding is clearly the direction valve wishes to pursue (as seen by their success with tf2, dota, csgo) so it will come back one way or another. i won't be surprised to see it play a large role from the start of fallout 4, TES 6, etc.

what's really important is realizing valve/steam simply has too much of the market and control and that's not really good for us in the long term.

 

[werepossum]

That's the end of that. I'd rather have waited awhile to see how it panned out. At some point in the future Valve or someone else will try this again and we'll get to see what the results could be from it.

Agreed, but preferably with a brand new game.

One positive thing here - Bethesda has agreed that it's okay to pay modders. Load it, play it, and reward its creators.

 

[werepossum]

Horse genitals for $99.99 was one of the mods.

Well, who wouldn't drop a hundred bucks for that?

Oh yeah, that would be everybody.

 

[waggy]

That's the understatement of the year.

LOL not to surprised. I don't think they would get so much backlash over this. Gabe was set pretty high on a pedestal. getting knocked off had to hurt.


It's going to take a lot to get back the good will they had.

 

[norseamd]

Read the featured comment. Looks like the astroturfing Wumao campaign in in full swing after this scandal.

http://www.pcgamer.com/valve-has-removed-paid-mods-functionality-from-steam-workshop/