Steam starting charge money for certain mods Thread

Look at this: Steamcommunity.com
Some mods what were previously free now behind paywall. Some of them still avaible on Nexus, but they are not up-to-date.

Do you think its good idea and will encourage higher quality assets and help artists?
Or its bad idea what will corrupt whole idea of modding and give even more control over mods to publishers?
Or simply even more people will avoid workshop and use specialized websites?

Edited by: fructdw

As long as pay is an alternative to downloading it to free.

Why the hell they didn't pursue a donation option to the author, I don't know. This doesn't feel right, but that's just my opinion.

Edited by: flyawaynow

Pay is mandatory, there no longer is a free options for mods which the developer chooses to charge for.

A donation system would be a lot better but it would seem worse if steam took a cut. In charging money for the mods steam can take its usual 33% cut of market transactions in addition to bethesda, and any other companies who opt into this, taking a cut as well. At the end of the day, the actual maker of the mod would be lucky to see 40% of the sale which is significantly less than what they could expect from most donations on other sites. The absence of a donation button still implies that this is one of the main reasons.

Still, I'm not worried about this. The massive backlash steam is seeing right now (the moderators have given up on the steam forums after trying to close every "paid mods: omfg" thread) is likely to calm down and I don't think steam will backpedal on this - they'd lose too much face - but the legal issues with monetizing a lot of mods are likely to prevent this. A lot of the most popular steam games with mods, Garry's mod as a prime example, have a lot of mods with assets from other games which i sincerely doubt can be monetized legally. Besides this, the steam workshop is only available for relatively few games, a lot of modders probably wont chose to monetize their mods and the steam workshop, due to limitations with file sizes etc, has never had the best mods.

Edited by: UltimateHobo

This has been coming for some time, Attempted with the sims and causing massive rifts in the community, it now seems to the natural evolution of development, that all content creators should be given the chance to earn money for doing what they do. Epic will be giving developers and option to charge for Unreal Tournament mods, and there's already 3 for sale.

This sounds great in theory, with many modders that have taken the time to develop their skills, but never having being picked up by a studio, to earn some money on the side, or even work full time creating content for the games they love.
I fully support freelancers getting their due, they work hard and make amazing content and deserve to be monetarily rewarded if they choose that option.

The issue with modding, is there's far more collaboration with many mods having teams rather than sole developers.
So Workshop will work well for artists selling weapon models and skins, however for larger projects & collaborations, there may be many issues, who gets the funds, how are they split, how do the developers that have not had direct work on the mod but their code dependency's have been used get their cut? What if the developer stops work on the mod and leaves it broken?

This opens the floodgates to abuse.
Just like models being taken from games and sold on the unity store, Who is curating this, who will stop the theives getting money by selling the hard work of unsuspecting modders?
What if you pay for a mod that uses a dependency that has not been updated and your 10$ mod now no longer works and the developer of the dependency is no longer updating their project. No refunds, no accountability?

More talk about this subject here also.
Moddb.com

Edited by: TKAzA

This is complete and utter bullshit. Sorry, for this harsh language, but there's no other way of putting it.

• Modders get something back for their work

That's a true no-brainer. Especially the developers behind total conversions like Underhell, Nightmare House 2 or Black Mesa deserve to get paid, given that they have spend hundreds of hours working on their mods. If Underhell was to be released as a standalone indie game, I'd gladly pay 50 bucks for it.

• There's the possibility that the modding community will be strengthened by this move

The #1 reason for mods to never see the light of day is the developers running out of motivation. And let's face it, an established store where they could safely sell their work could help prevent that.

• The modders get completely ripped off

They only get 25%. You only get paid staring from 100$, which means that unless your mod makes 400$, only Valve and Bethesda earn money.

• The modders get ripped off even more

Apparently you can even monetize content from other free mods. What more is there to say? You either monetize your mod or someone else will. (Left part)

• The players get completely ripped off

Everyone here should know that compatibility with future versions of the base game is often a problem. Updates simply tend to break mods. Don't worry though; Valve has got you covered:

Valve wrote: Q. What happens if a mod I bought breaks?
A. Sometimes one mod may modify the same files as another mod, or a particular combination of mods may cause unexpected outcomes. If you find that mod has broken or is behaving unexpectedly, it is best to post politely on the Workshop item's page and let the mod author know the details of what you are seeing.

If the mod breaks, tell the developer! You don't say. But what if the developer (like so many) isn't active anymore? That's your problem. You only get your money back within 30 minutes of the initial download.

• The players get ripped off even more

Ever since Greenlight and Early Access are a thing, Steam is full of crap. Now, pretty much anyone can sell things on Steam. I guarantee you that people will try to make a quick buck by flooding the workshop with crap. While the 400$ limit will prevent some of these assholes from making any money, Valve and Bethesda will profit regardless.

• There's the possibility that this will lead to players being ripped of even far, far worse in future

With consoles getting online services, the quality of releases went downhill fast. When you released a game on the PS2, it was pressed on the disc and absolutely had to run. Nowadays, you just release a completely broken game and fix it after launch using gigabytes of day-one patches. Then there are DLCs that often feel like the developers took something that should be part of the 60 bucks base-game, to sell it separately.Especially when thinking about Bethesda, I can see how they will abuse this shamelessly. As good as their games are, when it comes to execution, they are absolutely terrible. The amount of bugs an unpatched Bethesda game has always makes me wonder whether they test at all. I can already picture them getting even lazier because people can buy mods to fix stuff that bothers them.
They'll cash up like there's no tomorrow. Base-game, DLCs and eventually a season pass and mods.
The trend is clear: (somehow even) less content for more money

• There's the possibility that the modding community will take a severe hit because of this

Look at this list. It's a situation where both the modders and the players get completely fucked over. Modders would honestly be better off going indie. However, this path requires far more time and skill. Do you see yourself building a WRPG like Skyrim from the ground up?

Oh, and what do you think about how Valve removes donation links to force modders to monetize through Steam?
I seriously wonder how far the big name companies of the gaming world will go. The current state of the gaming industry is...sad, to they the least. Modding is what I regard the last bastion of creativity after the world of indies was apparently flooded with untalented, pretentious dipshit hipstes. Now those greedy companies try to destroy this by going out of their way to make money off of other people's work.
I so hope this blows up in their face...

Be good to get some feedback on this via the site poll. Moddb.com , There seems to be a vocal backlash on this, however what is not being said?

Edited by: TKAzA

The whole thing with valve removing donation pages is...unsettling. Does this mean there's a chance Valve/whatever involved companies will try to remove mods from DB as well to make sure they can only be accessed through payment on the workshop?

I know it goes under the guise of it's still under the modders control...but I dunno.

If a "mod" is official because the game dev gets paid, and it costs the player money, then I'm calling it an add-on.

Edited by: woodsmoke

SonofX51 wrote: Does this mean there's a chance Valve/whatever involved companies will try to remove mods from DB as well to make sure they can only be accessed through payment on the workshop?

In some cases yes, but overall its better for them to retain their profiles if they want to drive customers to their content. We have always worked alongside workshop and will continue to promote content regardless of a developers chosen distribution platform.

Edited by: TKAzA

I have mixed feelings on this. Giving mod authors the option to charge for their content isn't inherently evil, but Valve's model is horribly implemented.
The big problem is that they're introducing a paid model to a community that's already existed for a few years on an anarchistic level that suddenly has to factor in the complexities of licensing, permissions and support. There's a huge amount of mods that depend on the foundations of other mods that may suddenly become paid premiums, which means that if you want to buy that awesome new armor mod, you first have to buy the male mesh rebuild and the better armor texture pack it depends on. Another big problem I see is a "gold rush" of sorts where mod authors pull their mods from free sites like MODDB and Nexus en masse to put them on the marketplace, which I'm already seeing happen. I also worry that game publishers will now have a vested interest to shut down free modding sites if they stand to make money off percentages from paid modders.

Valve should have waited to experiment with this on a brand-new release. There are definitely pros to paid mods, but the cons could seriously hurt Skyrim as a test market.

I should ask my friend about this. He is big TES Skyrim fan and mods are big part of the game now (game alone without mods sucks lol)

I seriously....SERIOUSLY hope this just goes back to how it was before. Even if the skyrim Modding scene wasnt so great, with many clonic, re-skins and the likes..the paid content? Its not even that good AT ALL. They have to curate it..which means, you have to pass through the door. If you dont, you stay in the Non-curated purgatory where you have to browse through a million of just..awfull things.

In the other side, Yeah, It is good to pay people for their hardwork when you enjoy what they made. Yep. They dont offer you a demo. You buy it or you dont get a chance...Wow Valve. Im feeling its just a move Bethesda pulled to get a higher cut but just Wow. I've seen the mods from the Paid parts...and i remember seeing one about Needs. I played it when it was free. It wasnt that great at all. There was anotehr one who needed SKSE who would literally do what that mod did, Better and even less glitchy.... Oh and also you have the whole dilema of people not doing this just becuase they like doing mods. Self fullfillment/Learning ( A la EA)
Now its gonna be "Okay boys, what is the thing thats hot now? Elf body shapes? GREAT! MAKE A MILLION OF THEM!" ...Just no. No. The Modding scene is great because of random people, with different minds, making many different kinds of things since its for themselves. To pander to themselves..not every mod is made to pander to the masses. So, if you put money in the middle, its gonna change from the works of people who are passionate about their work ( EVEN if sometimes they get screwed over the community) who did amazing things like Oblivion's better cities, To just guys who are trying to get a quick buck and run off with the money.

...Just no. Dont let this become a fad. Just dont. Im done if it goes through and sips into another games.

Lots of "if"s about this. I want to see what happens. Remember, Valve has charged for mods for over a decade now. Team Fortress Classic, Classic Deathmatch, Counter Strike. All free in the 90's early 00's, now pay. Could people want their free stuff removed from Desura (and others) so they could make $$? There's no issue with issuing Steam keys for Desura purchases, so does that matter? Steam was the intended download platform to start with.

So far most of what I've read negative is no different then any other digital download. Could people get screwed over? Sure. People get screwed over all the time. Rather quickly upstanding content creators will be weeded out from the bad ones just like game developers.

However, selling content has helped modders in the past. Doom 1/2 and Quake 1/2 both had non-official content released. Could that content of been subpar to the origional? Sure. If word got out it was then it wouldn't sell. I can't say for sure, but lots of games in the mid-late 90's that were moddable had 3rd party unlicensed content and that didn't hurt those games a bit.

A lot of panic here of something minor compared to when Valve required internet connections to play games, when Valve eliminated the used PC game market and when Valve used lies to create hype.

On a side note, if I released a game I wouldn't stop people from selling content for my game. Why? Because I sold the game, transaction done, I don't want to run around playing cyper-cop to slap people's hand & worry they'll create better stuff then me.

I think a lot of the panic stems from the assumption that this model will quickly take off with other publishers and become the standard before we know it.
That's not an unreasonable fear. Look what happened with subscription models, always-on connectivity and season passes.

This is the beginning of the end of modding...

Denker wrote: This is the beginning of the end of modding...

I doubt it will have that much effect, modding will always exist.

Sure, it will still exist but never as it was befor. Money will destroy the creativity and freedom of the modding community in no time.

But i hope we can turn this mess still around, the next weeks will tell i guess.

Valve's never been better than EA/Gamestop. We just like to root for a change in the status quo, but that only replaces the tyrant.

Does get Moddb.com a cut from Valves money like Nexus does (5%)?
Would be good to know if this is the case.

Edited by: Denker

"Does get Moddb.com a cut from Valves money like Nexus does (5%)?"
The Nexus only gets a cut if the mod authors wants it.It's more like a donation.

TKAzA wrote:

Denker wrote: This is the beginning of the end of modding...

I doubt it will have that much effect, modding will always exist.

Modding will always exist, yes, but how many modders do you would abandon other websites in favor of the steam workshop? There's no invisible hand that will save us, for example, if Valve does add the paid mods to the rest of the games that have a steam workshop, do you really think that ModDB would be unharmed? Do you really think that new modders would still upload their mods here or on Dezura if the steam workshop "guarantees" them cash, different from a 'donation' or a 'support' button on their page outside of the workshop? Do you really think that some scumbags wouldn't steal work from other modders and re-upload on the workshop? It's already being done.

How about mods that end up breaking your game? Did everyone forget that mods are unstable by nature? They can break your game very easily, would you start paying to have your game broken? Paying to have your game fixed? Were the 60 dollars you paid at launch not enough to cover for tech support? And if you ask for a refund for a mod you bought, you are banned from the steam market, as in, you can't buy, trade, or sell anything for 7 days. Does that sound fair?

Let's not forget about how this can turn the modding scene into the mess that the video game industry is today, mods will not be made because a modder wants to, or because it's his passion, they'll be trying to turn a profit, creativity and freedom won't really be a thing since 'straying from the pack' doesn't really gets your product sold.

If this continues, it will cause great harm to the modding community in the long run, it's already happening to the Skyrim modding community, it will spread, and it will spread to the games you play now that use the steam workshop, and the games you will play in the future.

Valves changed it's mind.
Polygon.com

Edited by: TKAzA

Thank goodness.

Now we only need to change the other million shitty things that are wrong with the industry.

Thought i'd weigh in with some analysis about the topic and an official statement from ModDB: Moddb.com

Really love how ModDB managed all this mess, very professional.
INtense

Edited by: Denker