Valve adds paid modding

Eidal

Eidal

Molten Core Raider
2,001
213
I dunno man; I like paying for things I like. If I played Skyrim, I'd appreciate seeing my favorite mod creators get paid for their time. If they really don't want money then they'll take their work off-platform and I'd just install the pirated version and use it.

I'd like to see some viewpoints from actual creators of popular mods; how this will impact them, etc etc. Clearly, all three parties need to evolve at this point -- in what direction, remains to be seen.
 
iannis

iannis

Musty Nester
31,351
17,656
Yeah, but it's gonna negatively impact the quality of the mods that are available to you. That's my only problem with this idea. Otherwise, whatever. Free market. Cry those tears of impotent rage. I feel ya.

What you're going to get out of this is nickle and dime reskin mods. Those big comprehensive mods are too much work for 1 person.

Youmightget a few professionals that do it in a pro-am fashion. Thismightbe an enticement for a few of those guys to form into smaller teams. But you're gonna have a problem with the money split. That's the best possible outcome. And, I dunno, there's a chance that -could- happen.
 
Vandyn

Vandyn

Blackwing Lair Raider
3,656
1,382
I've kind of thought about it a bit more and I agree that the implementation of it all just feels dirty. I do think there should be a middle ground. Apparently a mod creator can set up his mod in workshop for a 'donation' (pay what you want) but it's got to be an amount, there is no $0.00 option. Which doesn't make it a donation then if you are forcing payment no matter what you pay. I also found it interesting that the mod author apparently has a choice on how to allocate the 75% (the valve/publisher share) which apparently can go to other groups/organizations.

I don't think it's going to kill the mod community. I think it's going to make high end mods actually have a cost to them and of course not be completely free as they once were. I think the smaller shit will get weeded out because no one is going to buy that. The bigger concern is what has been brought up before, how to do you prevent someone from stealing someone else's work and putting it on sale in the workshop? We see how Valve has all but taken a hands off approach to greenlight, they are not going to get deep in the bullshit of trying to regulate the workshop on a day in, day out basis.
 
Tuco

Tuco

I got Tuco'd!
<Gold Donor>
45,499
73,589
In theory I've been hoping this would happen for a long time. If the incredible Skyrim-level mods are monetized such that the mod creators get the lion's share(80-90%), the original publisher gets a small cut(15-5%), and the host gets a sliver (5%) there's a few things that can happen:

1. Content creators for Skyrim like games can do it professionally. So instead of a bunch of nerds in high school/college getting together to make a Nehrim-level mod, or some old dude spending his free time working on a mod you have legitimate game developers working full time to do it. You also have money to hire people who generally don't give a shit about mods (voice actors) and can pay for time in a real recording studio instead of some dude's basement with blankets taped to the ceiling.

2. Developers like Bioware won't have to avoid mods because player-mods cut into their bullshit DLC cashflow. Instead they will copy what Bethesda has been doing for decades with publishing their tools to generate content so players can proliferate mods and devs like Bioware, CD Projekt etc can get that sweet sweet money for content they didn't make.

3. Monetization of mods will make a coherent testing, versioning and release system more important for mod producers. So if modder A is the very common: "I want to make this content for myself and for the fun of making it", he now has a reason to team up with a modder B type of, "Let's publish this, make a name for ourselves and make some money off the damn thing!". Additionally inter-mod compatibility will become increasingly important. I've used hundreds of different mods for Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim, and the kind of shit I have to deal with to get mods to work together is incredible. In my last playthrough of Skyrim I had go through a 10 step process using different tools to combine the content of mods together. If this is helped at all, it's a huge win for the players, especially the ones who get tired of that process.

4. Modders will have a real reason to continue to support their mods long after they care about the artistic fun of creating it.

5. This isn't really a problem right now, but I wonder if the Nexus business model will continue to be profitable as texture sizes get larger and larger.

All that being said, it sounds like Valve has fucked up the release of this feature so badly that they might have ruined it. If they wanted to do it right they need a process to determine ownership of the paid mod. How they do that efficiently I have no idea. Mods are uploaded to Nexus and re-uploaded by different people all the time, so even if you cross-referenced who currently is updating "Deadly Dragons" on Nexus, you're not guaranteed to get 3jiou.
 
Adebisi

Adebisi

Clump of Cells
<Silver Donator>
27,680
32,723
It's nice to know the game developer gets such a fat slice of the pie.
 
Lithose

Lithose

Buzzfeed Editor
25,946
113,035
Eidal_sl said:
Someone tell me again what I'm missing here, other than a game company trying to make money and a bunch of people rabbling about how its just greed. How dare corporations try to make X dollars!??! Y dollars is the only reasonable number -- rabble rabble rabble!!!
Click to expand...
You are missing how 90% of the community works? I mean, Iannis already went over it, but the larger "cooler" mods (The ones that will be sold) often have large lists of credits. That's how people are able to make this stuff in their "spare" time, because they often compile a bunch of people's work. And everyone does a little for free--this way no one feels cheated that "their work" got stolen. Now, this does give the potential for people to make mods more professionally--but the way it's handled is just fucked.

I mean, it's obvious gamers are not above paying for mods--people have made millions off them. But those "mods" often have to pass through the legal and quality controls a game does. And while we can see Steam has allowed bogus, bullshit games on it's platform before (With stolen assets); the process is far, far better than just "steal what you want bros, and toss it up!" It's not that this was done--it's that it was done in such a shitty way. Everyone knew the gaming industry was going to have to take this shit eventually, the problem is they chose to take it right in the punch bowl, after choosing to eat Taco Bell. It was just such a slip shod, poorly thought out implementation.

As Iannis said, it's obvious whomever put this forward, knew nothing of how mods are actually made. I'm all for content makers getting money, I think it's a good thing, actually. It's just the logistics and framework behind this is so sloppy it's almost obscene. At the end of the day, given the cuts, you'd expect either a rigorous framework that really makes certain the creator 1.) Owns the mod 2.) Won't have any issues with credit so he makes all the money. OR you expect a more generous cut to the creatore so he can spend the time not only making great mods, but also dealing with shit. Right now, you essentially have profit sharing that won't give the creators enough money to do this full time, or more professionally. And a system which rewards behavior that will poison how the mods used to get made "for free".

I don't mind giving up free mods for a step into professionally done player expansions. But this isn't that step, it's the worst of both worlds.
 
Adebisi

Adebisi

Clump of Cells
<Silver Donator>
27,680
32,723
G0O2R0b.jpg
 
Chanur

Chanur

Shit Posting Professional
<Gold Donor>
26,784
39,238
Eidal_sl said:
I dunno man; I like paying for things I like. If I played Skyrim, I'd appreciate seeing my favorite mod creators get paid for their time. If they really don't want money then they'll take their work off-platform and I'd just install the pirated version and use it.

I'd like to see some viewpoints from actual creators of popular mods; how this will impact them, etc etc. Clearly, all three parties need to evolve at this point -- in what direction, remains to be seen.
Click to expand...
There was literally nothing stopping modders from putting up a website and selling their mods before. In fact I would prefer something like that so the creators can get all the money.
 
Eidal

Eidal

Molten Core Raider
2,001
213
Chanur_sl said:
There was literally nothing stopping modders from putting up a website and selling their mods before. In fact I would prefer something like that so the creators can get all the money.
Click to expand...
I would have assumed something like that would quickly draw down the wrath of lawyers.
 
Skanda

Skanda

I'm Amod too!
6,662
4,506

For the most part my view aligns with Boogies video. I remain unconvinced however that allowing modders to charge for mods will usher in some sort of golden age of modding or generally increase the quality of mods. I look at the mobile markets like iTunes or Google Play and the mountains of total shit, scams, blatant theft and rip off copies that happens and can't help but think the same thing will happen to the Steam Workshop if this took off. Just look at the shit that's been piled onto Steam over the past year or so with the opening up of Greenlight. Indies are a dime a dozen now and you're constantly buried under a deluge of 8 bit shitware these days.
 
Amzin

Amzin

Lord Nagafen Raider
2,917
361
I think a lot of the outrage is because Valve really doesn't have the manpower for administrating something like this. They don't even have the manpower for "normal" customer service issues. They are using a 12-year-old client that has dozens of easy to implement improvements that they refuse to do. When every big announcement is essentially "we found a way to make more money!" and not "hey here's some QoL improvements to our platform!" it starts to get old, fast. Marketplace, trading cards, emoticons, backgrounds, gems, and now paid mods. BPM is the only non-monetized revamp to Steam in ages and one could argue it IS monetized since they did it primarily in preparation for Steam boxes and Steam controllers.

The fact that Origin and Uplay are both pieces of crap almost universally disliked and they each still dosomethings better than Steam is a bit telling. There shouldn't be a need for Enhanced Steam. Some of the minor improvements over the past year have been copy+paste jobs of that Chrome extension that a web designer could do in less than a day but took months and months after Enhanced Steam became popular to see life, much less the fact they should have been done before Enhanced Steam even was developed.

I like Steam. I like the workshop, I like having easy access to my games and tracking achievements and all of that. But Valve, as a company, has not advanced enough since it was released over a decade ago.
 
Denaut

Denaut

Trump's Staff
2,739
1,279
The should have released with a new game. Part of the problem is that when you try to convert an existing mod scene like this, all sorts of shenanigans ensue. At least with a new game, knowing there would be aid mods going in, modders/contributors that have been ripped of would have been able to protect themselves better.
 
iannis

iannis

Musty Nester
31,351
17,656
Yeah, they really should have. It's just so obvious that you have to wonder why they didn't. Everything wrong with this is so obvious that you have to wonder.

This is the list that I've come up with:

1) Bethesda is straight the fuck up out of ideas
2) Bethesda actually does not realize that the popularity of their company is based, perhaps not entirely but significantly, on the modding community which they used to foster. But now spurn.
3) Bethesda is full of frightened and desperate idiots.
4) Gaben does not turn down free jew gold.
 
spronk

spronk

FPS noob
22,720
25,894
all valve needs to do is introduce steam+ with faster online play, better cloud saves, and 1 "free" indie game per month and charge $40/year for it and the pcmasterrace journey to the dark side will be complete
 
ronne

ronne

Nǐ hǎo, yǒu jīn zi ma?
7,955
7,156
Iannis_sl said:
Yeah, they really should have. It's just so obvious that you have to wonder why they didn't. Everything wrong with this is so obvious that you have to wonder.

This is the list that I've come up with:

1) Bethesda is straight the fuck up out of ideas
2) Bethesda actually does not realize that the popularity of their company is based, perhaps not entirely but significantly, on the modding community which they used to foster. But now spurn.
3) Bethesda is full of frightened and desperate idiots.
4) Gaben does not turn down free jew gold.
Click to expand...
Elder Scrolls Online cost a shit ton to make and is basically dead in the water, gotta recoup those losses someplace. Even that doesn't really add up though, as didn't they not even really have anything to do with it?
 
Argarth

Argarth

On the verandah
1,213
1,056
Boogie's video seems to cover the main concerns really well, even ignoring the part about a possible "golden era" for game-modding.

Imagine a parallel universe for a minute, where Paid Steam Workshop already exists, and Skyrim was released only a couple of months ago in its fully patched vanilla state (as it is now). The UI for a dedicated PC gamer is still a complete fucking abomination (just like in the real universe) and interested gamer >>> "me" says to himself... "fuck this shit, what a joke, I ain't buying it until they show some respect to the PC fan-base and fix the damn UI". (sound familiar?)

Clever modder comes along and creates SKYUI, and is the hero of the gaming world. He releases it to the Steam Workshop exclusively, since he wants to be paid for his brilliant work; the work that Bethesda was too fucking lazy to do themselves. I love the look of his mod so much, I would be happy to pay him $2 or maaaaybe even $4, because I can't even entertain the thought of playing the game without it.

However, for this brilliant creator to get paid (inmymind) fairly for his mod, he has to charge somewhere between $8 and $16 for it. It's a UI mod, not an official DLC, and there areno guaranteeswith it.

NO FUCKING WAY. Even more so because Bethesda will also be getting paid for someone else to fix their fucking interface.

Now, back in the real universe, is there a PC gamer alive that doesn't find something like SKYUI mandatory? 9 million Nexus downloads says... unlikely. Fast forward to Fallout 4, another dog-shit PC interface/port, and I wait for all their new game(s) to hit the bargain bins...
 
Vandyn

Vandyn

Blackwing Lair Raider
3,656
1,382
Iannis_sl said:
Yeah, they really should have. It's just so obvious that you have to wonder why they didn't. Everything wrong with this is so obvious that you have to wonder.

This is the list that I've come up with:

1) Bethesda is straight the fuck up out of ideas
2) Bethesda actually does not realize that the popularity of their company is based, perhaps not entirely but significantly, on the modding community which they used to foster. But now spurn.
3) Bethesda is full of frightened and desperate idiots.
4) Gaben does not turn down free jew gold.
Click to expand...
You are missing the 5th point, Bethesda sees how much money Valve games make with mods (TF2, DOTA, CS) and looks at their mod scene with dollar signs in their eyes. Valve is more than happy to be the middle man in this.

Argarth_sl said:
Boogie's video seems to cover the main concerns really well, even ignoring the part about a possible "golden era" for game-modding.

Imagine a parallel universe for a minute, where Paid Steam Workshop already exists, and Skyrim was released only a couple of months ago in its fully patched vanilla state (as it is now). The UI for a dedicated PC gamer is still a complete fucking abomination (just like in the real universe) and interested gamer >>> "me" says to himself... "fuck this shit, what a joke, I ain't buying it until they show some respect to the PC fan-base and fix the damn UI". (sound familiar?)

Clever modder comes along and creates SKYUI, and is the hero of the gaming world. He releases it to the Steam Workshop exclusively, since he wants to be paid for his brilliant work; the work that Bethesda was too fucking lazy to do themselves. I love the look of his mod so much, I would be happy to pay him $2 or maaaaybe even $4, because I can't even entertain the thought of playing the game without it.

However, for this brilliant creator to get paid (inmymind) fairly for his mod, he has to charge somewhere between $8 and $16 for it. It's a UI mod, not an official DLC, and there areno guaranteeswith it.

NO FUCKING WAY. Even more so because Bethesda will also be getting paid for someone else to fix their fucking interface.

Now, back in the real universe, is there a PC gamer alive that doesn't find something like SKYUI mandatory? 9 million Nexus downloads says... unlikely. Fast forward to Fallout 4, another dog-shit PC interface/port, and I wait for all their new game(s) to hit the bargain bins...
Click to expand...
But you see, that's the thing though. It's not mandatory, no matter how much you think it is. For every player that downloads SKYUI, there are probably 4 or 5 that did not and probably don't use mods at all. The average Steam user could probably give a damn about workshop or marketplace. They just want to buy cheap games and play them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.