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[finley83]

This turns modding from a pure community driven scene into a shitty wild west app-store where everyone is ripping everyone else off to make a quick buck.

There was NOTHING wrong with the previous system! People could choose to donate to modders! People could create and share resources largely without worrying of exploitation! That's no longer the case.

I recently donated to a drive to fund a laptop for a guy adding controller support to the Mass Effect trilogy on PC. Thanks to that, he's now back to developing it and hopes to release fixes for the third and first games (2 was already done) in the near future. Without these donations it's unlikely this project would have continued.

The system put in place by Valve isn't ideal (certainly the cut taken by developers could do with further consideration) but it has a purpose that reaches beyond lowest demoninator cash-grabs that you allude to. For example, SkyUI wouldn't have seen further development without this and we would be stuck with the existing version. There's nothing to suggest that Skyrim won't be able to continue to load mods freely downloaded from the Nexus or elsewhere.

I agree with this idea and I think it's great; I think it's being handled and implemented poorly, as with each time Valve does new stuff at first

This.

 

[Dutcher]

Nah, I noticed the same thing too, almost an hour ago. Damage control, I guess.

Interesting to see how many people will actually pay for the mods now.

 

[Grief.exe]

Finally have time to sit down and watch the Total Biscuit video on this subject, let's see how he breaks down on this issue.

 

[GaimeGuy]

I recently donated to a drive to fund a laptop for a guy adding controller support to the Mass Effect trilogy on PC. Thanks to that, he's now back to developing it and hopes to release fixes for the third and first games (2 was already done) in the near future. Without these donations it's unlikely this project would have continued.

The system put in place by Valve isn't ideal (certainly the cut taken by developers could do with further consideration) but it has a purpose that reaches beyond lowest demoninator cash-grabs that you allude to. For example, SkyUI wouldn't have seen further development without this and we would be stuck with the existing version. There's nothing to suggest that Skyrim won't be able to continue to load mods freely downloaded from the Nexus or elsewhere.



This.

This isn't a donation system. That would be adding a donate button to every mod page, or making every mod "pay what you want" with 100% of any (optional) donation going to the modder.

This is bringing the cesspool of mobile app stores and steam greenlight to the PC modding community.

 

[Dwalls]

How is this going to affect tutorial content and the open sharing of just how something or another was achieved. I'm coming at this from a perspective of other monetized industries. People tend to be really secretive in some of them and treat their methods like the most hallowed of secrets because they know somebody else being capable of replicating what they're doing is going to cut into their profits. In the modding scene of old those secrets didn't exist and people freely shared that knowledge. Take for example chesko figuring out how to do multithreading in papyrus, if that gave his mods a distinct performance benefit to other mods on the workshop and he'd make money off of that how likely would he be willing to share that knowledge? I mean this thought is likely largely irrelevant for Skyrim modding because I doubt there's a whole lot left to figure out and all of that knowledge is out there. But for future iterations of the workshop I'd see this as a barrier to "great content" that currently isn't there. That collaborative effort and hunt for new tricks and techniques is going to be inadvertently hampered by this change. I'm sure a lot of current incredibly awesome mods wouldn't exist if someone else hadn't shared how they'd figured out to do something.

Take the music industry for example, people are beyond secretive in that and they treat plugins and tools they use to achieve a specific sound as if it was the holy grail of knowledge because they know that's what's earning them their money and as someone trying to figure all of it out it's kind of infuriating and it feels like you're spending 90% of your time reinventing the wheel because the guy that invented it is being an ass about sharing his secrets.

 

[GaimeGuy]

How is this going to affect tutorial content and the open sharing of just how something or another was achieved. I'm coming at this from a perspective of other monetized industries. People tend to be really secretive in some of them and treat their methods like the most hallowed of secrets because they know somebody else being capable of replicating what they're doing is going to cut into their profits. In the modding scene of old those secrets didn't exist and people freely shared that knowledge. Take for example chesko figuring out how to do multithreading in papyrus, if that gave his mods a distinct performance benefit to other mods on the workshop and he'd make money off of that how likely would he be willing to share that knowledge? I mean this thought is likely largely irrelevant for Skyrim modding because I doubt there's a whole lot left to figure out and all of that knowledge is out there. But for future iterations of the workshop I'd see this as a barrier to "great content" that currently isn't there. That collaborative effort and hunt for new tricks and techniques is going to be inadvertently hampered by this change. I'm sure a lot of current incredibly awesome mods wouldn't exist if someone else hadn't shared how they'd figured out to do something.

Take the music industry for example, people are beyond secretive in that and they treat plugins and tools they use to achieve a specific sound as if it was the holy grail of knowledge because they know that's what's earning them their money and as someone trying to figure all of it out it's kind of infuriating and it feels like you're spending 90% of your time reinventing the wheel because the guy that invented it is being an ass about sharing his secrets.

EXACTLY

 

[Spirit of Jazz]

Like I said earlier: I agree with this idea and I think it's great; I think it's being handled and implemented poorly, as with each time Valve does new stuff at first

I think this would be less concerning to me if Valve had a better track-record of cleaning up their messes.

If this was a way to support mod creators it would be great. To me it just seems like monetising a once free service so that the wealthy companies who already benefited from mods can drive home an even bigger profit.

 

[CookTrain]

what prevented people from 'ripping off' other mods in the past? and asking for donations based on a ripoff?

I'd say the biggest change is perception. Before, you'd face a whole lot of "You're a con artist thieving scumbag" whereas now, half the people would see it more like a Robin Hood situation. Modding from the rich to the poor

 

[HariKari]

1. https://steamcommunity.com/dmca/create/
2. ???
3. Profit

It's not rocket science.

I'm sure creators and content owners will enjoy sorting through every mod in the workshop to check for this sort of thing.

Valve needs to do their part, not just sit back and take a cut.

 

[sega4ever]

This turns modding from a pure community driven scene into a shitty wild west app-store where everyone is ripping everyone else off to make a quick buck.

There was NOTHING wrong with the previous system! People could choose to donate to modders! People could create and share resources largely without worrying of exploitation! That's no longer the case.

selling a mod is a business deal between the modder, valve and bethesda. why do you feel you deserve to be part of that?

 

[IcyRhythms]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=431426494

Over to the left, we have the Immersive Paywall.

DESCRIPTION

Immersive yourself in the experience of being locked out of something you've enjoyed for years and having a community you've grow to love being torn appart over night!

 

[The Llama]

I wonder how this system will work with games that are available on other services (or which don't require steam). If, for example, rockstar let's people sell gta5 mods, are you SOL if you don't have the steam version?

 

[MUnited83]

I'm sure creators and content owners will enjoy sorting through every mod in the workshop to check for this sort of thing.

Valve needs to do their part, not just sit back and take a cut.

No service provider does that though. Sony and Microsoft won't check if you have the rights to certain songs included on your game or not. Shit, just look at Nintendo. They had no issues letting Meme Run in and that had a shitton of copyrighted content.

 

[Enco]

If Steam had of done that (or close to it, a donate buttons with a lot more to the maker) i would be behind it 100%, i think this is fine (especially the last part).

Steam would never just put a 100% author donate button. What's in it for them?

A donate button would beat this though. Give modders 80% and Valve and Bethesda can fight over the remaining 10%.

But that would help the modders too much and Valve too little.

 

[Grief.exe]

No service provider does that though. Sony and Microsoft won't check if you have the rights to certain songs included on your game or not. Shit, just look at Nintendo. They had no issues letting Meme Run in and that had a shitton of copyrighted content.

The reality is hunting through every piece of content for copyright infringement would border on the impossible.

Steam would never just put a 100% author donate button. What's in it for them?

A donate button would beat this though. Give modders 80% and Valve and Bethesda can fight over the remaining 10%.

But that would help the modders too much and Valve too little.

I haven't verified this, but modders still have the ability to add a donation link to their store page on Steam or Nexus.

Keep in mind, as per Durante earlier today, this nets less than a half a percent pay rate.

 

[Compsiox]

 

[zombieshavebrains]

If you found your work being infringed on and sold on the marketplace, you'd submit a DMCA takedown request, prove you're the copyright holder, and it'd be taken down from the store.

To get money back from the sales of the product you'd presumably have to sue the modder. There is no cut and dry way of addressing that since a court or a private settlement would have to arrange what percentage of the revenue you'd be entitled to based on the value of the infringing content and any potential punitive damages. And Valve would only get into trouble legally if they were found to be negligent in enforcement of copyright as per DMCA regs or whatever on a comprehensive scale, which is unlikely.

Valve provides a place for anyone to sell anything because they don't QC it. They then rely on the copyright holders to inform them when a copyright is being infringed and consumers to inform the mod maker when it is broken.

In the case of a copyright being used illegally they will take it down and then you are responsible for getting any money made.

In the case of a broken mod they will do nothing and you rely on the mod maker to fix it.

Sure Valve provides a way to monetize your work but in both cases someone is left high and dry by Valve.

 

[FyreWulff]

How is this going to affect tutorial content and the open sharing of just how something or another was achieved. I'm coming at this from a perspective of other monetized industries. People tend to be really secretive in some of them and treat their methods like the most hallowed of secrets because they know somebody else being capable of replicating what they're doing is going to cut into their profits. In the modding scene of old those secrets didn't exist and people freely shared that knowledge. Take for example chesko figuring out how to do multithreading in papyrus, if that gave his mods a distinct performance benefit to other mods on the workshop and he'd make money off of that how likely would he be willing to share that knowledge? I mean this thought is likely largely irrelevant for Skyrim modding because I doubt there's a whole lot left to figure out and all of that knowledge is out there. But for future iterations of the workshop I'd see this as a barrier to "great content" that currently isn't there. That collaborative effort and hunt for new tricks and techniques is going to be inadvertently hampered by this change. I'm sure a lot of current incredibly awesome mods wouldn't exist if someone else hadn't shared how they'd figured out to do something.

Take the music industry for example, people are beyond secretive in that and they treat plugins and tools they use to achieve a specific sound as if it was the holy grail of knowledge because they know that's what's earning them their money and as someone trying to figure all of it out it's kind of infuriating and it feels like you're spending 90% of your time reinventing the wheel because the guy that invented it is being an ass about sharing his secrets.

http://gamasutra.com/

People that share ideas and tech and strats have already been doing so in the game industry for decades. People that aren't share-minded and think everything they make should be secret haven't shared anything to this point and never will, and there's already been people like that in the mod community, so nothing really changes.

 

[Hero Prinny]

Didnt wet and cold used to be free?

 

[WarMacheen]

So whats the deal with mods that are already installed that have been changed to a pay model...just won't load or what?

EDIT: looks like it, out of 40 mods, 9 loaded...awesome, the subscribed feature is turned off I assume for the mods that have changed so, no more updates without paying...lol nope

 

[Grief.exe]

So whats the deal with mods that are already installed that have been changed to a pay model...just won't load or what?

They can't effect what is installed on your computer, but since I don't play Skyrim I'm not aware of how those things are updated. Theoretically, they should still function.

 

[jmga]

Debut Pack rating is back.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=429226887

 

[VandalD]

So whats the deal with mods that are already installed that have been changed to a pay model...just won't load or what?

Should load fine unless the game itself has a patch that breaks them. If you are subscribed to the mods on Steam Workshop, they might auto update to be broken, contain dumb popups, or might not update at all. Depends on what the mod author chooses to do.

 

[Hoo-doo]

One thing is for certain, having unbridled access to a huge community creating amazing free mods was always an important feather in the cap of PC gaming.

No matter how you slice it, that fact suffered big with this move by valve, regardless whether you think modders should earn money or not. And that is a pity.

 

[zombieshavebrains]

So whats the deal with mods that are already installed that have been changed to a pay model...just won't load or what?

EDIT: looks like it, out of 40 mods, 9 loaded...awesome

Is there any type of message saying they now require you to pay for them and where to go?

 

[Salsa]

I think this would be less concerning to me if Valve had a better track-record of cleaning up their messes.

they do tho

Greenlight just recently got a lot better, in part with eliminating voting bots from Steam by making accounts restricted until you purchase $5, stuff like that. They were even pretty clear on maybe scrapping it altogether if it continued to not work.

even Steam itself was a damn mess when it came out and everyone hated it

pretty good track record if you ask me.

 

[WarMacheen]

Is there any type of message saying they now require you to pay for them and where to go?

I think the pay mods have their subscriptions turned off so no more auto updates. You can still load them

 

[zombieshavebrains]

they do tho

Greenlight just recently got a lot better, in part with eliminating voting bots from Steam by making accounts restricted until you purchase $5, stuff like that. They were even pretty clear on maybe scrapping it altogether if it continued to not work.

even Steam itself was a damn mess when it came out and everyone hated it

pretty good track record if you ask me.

It just takes them a long time. There was also the drop system in Dota 2 included with trade restrictions on items.

 

[HariKari]

One thing is for certain, having unbridled access to a huge community creating amazing free mods was always an important feather in the cap of PC gaming.

No matter how you slice it, that fact suffered big with this move by valve, regardless whether you think modders should earn money or not. And that is a pity.

You lose a lot of things when you inject money and corporate stakeholders into something. This sort of thing required delicate treatment and a gradual plan of sorts, while consulting with the community.

Instead, they invited a handful of people to work on this under NDA, then sprang it on the entire community.

 

[draetenth]

Didnt wet and cold used to be free?

Yes, now if you want the new version (and supposedly it's a big upgrade) you need to buy it (minimum $.99).

Debut Pack rating is back.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=429226887

It's at ~ 2000 ratings. Didn't it have ~ 15,000 or something before? Still 1 star, but I think they removed ratings of people that haven't purchased it...

 

[The Llama]

Yes, now if you want the new version (and supposedly it's a big upgrade) you need to buy it (minimum $.99).



It's at ~ 2000 ratings. Didn't it have ~ 15,000 or something before? Still 1 star, but I think they removed ratings of people that haven't purchased it...

I think it was 1500 before, not 15000.

 

[Dwalls]

http://gamasutra.com/

People that share ideas and tech and strats have already been doing so in the game industry for decades. People that aren't share-minded and think everything they make should be secret haven't shared anything to this point and never will, and there's already been people like that in the mod community, so nothing really changes.

You seem dismissive of my logic, but can you atleast admit there is an extra impetus on not sharing when money is on the line? Sure people have been reticent to share previously but would you disagree when I say that it's far more likely to occur when sharing ideas/methods/techniques would cut into their bottom line? I'm aware of gamasutra and the nice people that share the inner technical workings of their game there but it's a small subset of a much larger community that is in actuality already quite secretive. A lot of the sharing also happens far past the point where the product they made was profitable so the impetus on not sharing has been lowered quite significantly.

 

[jmga]

I don't know if it was removed by accident because they were touching something, but things like this doesn't do any favor to Valve.

 

[balladofwindfishes]

Steam would never just put a 100% author donate button. What's in it for them?

A donate button would beat this though. Give modders 80% and Valve and Bethesda can fight over the remaining 10%.

But that would help the modders too much and Valve too little.

TF2 has a 100% donation system for maps

 

[HariKari]

I think it was 1500 before, not 15000.

A quick glance shows that the paid mods are not very popular, with most of them under 500 subscribers. Free mods have 5,000+

edit: Falskaar has 30,000 and will remain free

 

[Mace_Dragon]

Gabe Newell is polling for questions on Reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33uplp/mods_and_steam/?sort=new

 

[zeroroute]

I wonder how this system will work with games that are available on other services (or which don't require steam). If, for example, rockstar let's people sell gta5 mods, are you SOL if you don't have the steam version?

Maybe they'll think of some method that allows to bind it to your steam account.

 

[CountAntonius]

Kind of a drag as a gamer and definitely a slippery slope but I can't be mad at modders being able to get paid for all their hard work. Skyrim stays in the top ten because of the moddrrs not bethesda and these guys deserve a cut.

 

[Vik]

Kind of a drag as a gamer and definitely a slippery slope but I can't be mad at modders being able to get paid for all their hard work. Skyrim stays in the top ten because of the moddrrs not bethesda and these guys deserve a cut.

They do deserve, but they are getting scraps, not a cut.

 

[elelunicy]

Debut Pack rating is back.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=429226887

I haven't played Skyrim in years, but I'm kinda tempted to buy it just to support paid mods.

 

[Nocturno999]

This is the first time I feel threatened by Steam's dominance. It makes me consider avoiding the platform for purchases when possible.

 

[HariKari]

Kind of a drag as a gamer and definitely a slippery slope but I can't be mad at modders being able to get paid for all their hard work. Skyrim stays in the top ten because of the moddrrs not bethesda and these guys deserve a cut.

I think most people are happy with the idea of modders getting some compensation.

The hangup for me, and I imagine others, is having modders essentially create paid DLC for developers via their large cut (45%). The defense of this is the usual "take it or leave it" but that's bullshit. There's nothing written in stone that says it has to be that way. Valve can and should dictate the terms a bit more, and set a healthy minimum percentage for the modder.

 

[Salsa]

well this response fits with my previous post

say what you want about Valve but it's cool to get something direct and someone own up and be aware of why people are unhappy

granted, it's a shame this only seems to happen whenever Gabe Newell shows up somewhere

 

[Etnos]

I'm all down for supporting content creators, but as the current revenue model stand right now I feel like I would be supporting Bethesda greed.

They need to fix those numbers.

 

[FyreWulff]

You seem dismissive of my logic, but can you atleast admit there is an extra impetus on not sharing when money is on the line? Sure people have been reticent to share previously but would you disagree when I say that it's far more likely to occur when sharing ideas/methods/techniques would cut into their bottom line? I'm aware of gamasutra and the nice people that share the inner technical workings of their game there but it's a small subset of a much larger community that is in actuality already quite secretive. A lot of the sharing also happens far past the point where the product they made was profitable so the impetus on not sharing has been lowered quite significantly.

I'm not trying to be dismissive of your logic, sorry if it seemed that way. There is probably going to be a couple of people that might get paranoid about sharing techniques, but I think it'll have very little impact and they were likely on the borderline anyway. Most of the "muh trade secrets" has been at the corporate level of huge companies. There's quite a few companies that sell their software or game but then give you all the code. There are entire companies built off giving away the vast majority of their actual code and techniques for free, and selling services and other things instead.

As a developer myself I try to release everything I can. Usually when I don't release something it's due to me not having the rights to share that code snippet.

And I'll restate again I expect free mods and games to continue to exist and people should be able to release them for free. And you should always retain the right to modify a game yourself that you own. I think this could lead to some neat job opportunties and super interesting idea of aftermarket third party content. Imagine if I was a big company, i had a bunch of people coming idle off a game shipping and I could say "hey, all 20 of you love Skyrim, go make a campaign for it while you wait to work on our next game". We wouldn't have to make a demo or pitch to Bethesda, we'd just make it ourselves and use the automated pipeline to release it. I've always been pretty big about long term legacy sustain and it'd be cool if a company could make a living off being geared as a legacy sustain provider. It's making less barriers to releasing content.

There are of course a lot of bits and pieces I don't like about this current situation. If you're trying to make a single sword for Skyrim and selling it for 20$, don't cry to anyone that you didn't get any sales.

 

[Grief.exe]

I'm all down for supporting content creators, but as fee cuts stand right now I feel like I would be supporting Bethesda greed.

They need to fix those numbers.

It doesn't sound very good, but it is actually a very good deal. Considering that this type of deal was literally impossible before and generally deals of this type in the industry would be significantly worse for the content creator.

Bethesda's cut seems a bit high however. Of course, Valve currently does take 75% of revenue from TF2/Dota/CS:GO content, where there are numerous developers taking in 6 figure incomes.

 

[HariKari]

It doesn't sound very good, but it is actually a very good deal. Considering that this type of deal was literally impossible before and generally deals of this type in the industry would be significantly worse for the content creator.

Yes, three fourths of every dollar earned by what you created evaporating is a very good deal. C'mon now. There's no reason it needs to be this way. Valve should take a very minor cut as a facilitator, and the publisher/modder split should be far more equitable.

Bethesda's cut seems a bit high however. Of course, Valve currently does take 75% of revenue from TF2/Dota/CS:GO content, where there are numerous developers taking in 6 figure incomes.

Putting something in your game store =/= profiting off unsupported, free for all, non curated mod 'shop'

 

[jmga]

Interesting:

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33uplp/mods_and_steam/cqojx8y

 

[Spirit of Jazz]

It doesn't sound very good, but it is actually a very good deal. Considering that this type of deal was literally impossible before and generally deals of this type in the industry would be significantly worse for the content creator.

Just out of curiosity what are the similar types of deals in this industry?

 

[Suikoguy]

It doesn't sound very good, but it is actually a very good deal. Considering that this type of deal was literally impossible before and generally deals of this type in the industry would be significantly worse for the content creator.

Bethesda's cut seems a bit high however. Of course, Valve currently does take 75% of revenue from TF2/Dota/CS:GO content, where there are numerous developers taking in 6 figure incomes.

I'd agree if they actually DID STUFF, but as it stands they basically do nothing, no QA, Quality Control, Compatibility Checking, etc etc. And they expect 75% for doing nothing.
The current model, they deserve no more then 50%, ideally closer to 25%.