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[Hot Coldman]

I hope they don't back off the idea completely. There were issues with how this was implemented, but if Valve back off the idea of allowing content creators sell their content on Steam altogether.. then that's stupid.

Their statement pinpoints their failure being in execution, and in messing with an established fanbase, so yes, I think this is far from the last we've seen of this.

They'll probably bring it back with one of their own future releases. So Left 4 Dead 3.

 

[LyleLanley]

I'm confused, why is the idea of paid mods such an awful idea?

 

[Confidence Man]

Good.

They can directly compensate for the most popular mods if they care that much.

 

[Cess007]

Hooray, people can't get paid for their time and effort anymore!

Nice edit there. Also, nothing it'stopping them to accept donations.

 

[Spyder_Monkey]

Well that Jimquisition was a waste. Should've done that Konami video.

On a serious note, paid mods are stupid unless it's a drastic overhaul of the main game. If people want to pay for a better UI they should put a donate button. It was mistake and I'm glad Valve owned up to it.

 

[Newblade]

I hope they're not dissuaded from trying again with better execution. The whole thing was really half-assed but that doesn't make it an inherently bad idea.

They'll most certainly try again.

 

[Maffis]

I guess Valve should be applauded for actually listening to the community so fast,

 

[hamchan]

Good move.

 

[Xizk]

"Optional donation systems" are useless. No one actually donates. There's nothing inherently wrong with people being paid for their time and effort and work if the copyright holder agrees to allow them to do so and anyone who thinks there is can fuck right off.

Yeah I would be really disappointed if they scrap it all together. Content creators deserve getting paid for their work if they make high quality content.

 

[Stone Ocean]

Not this time

Not this fucking time

 

[sindbadthesailor]

Good.

 

[dugdug]

Wow. Valve just got Microsoft'd.

This is how you make it right, though. Hopefully MS is taking notes.

 

[legacyzero]

To help you understand why we thought this was a good idea, our main goals were to allow mod makers the opportunity to work on their mods full time if they wanted to, and to encourage developers to provide better support to their mod communities. We thought this would result in better mods for everyone, both free & paid. We wanted more great mods becoming great products, like Dota, Counter-strike, DayZ, and Killing Floor, and we wanted that to happen organically for any mod maker who wanted to take a shot at it.

This is hard for me to argue, and an idea I fully support. Just not the best way to start it. Dont launch shit like this with little context, knowing just how terrible it sounds.

Something good can come from this, but from the approach that was taken, this wasn't it.

 

[ZombieSupaStar]

This is going to come back for Fallout 4 I bet though (fresh game / community). If they want to try it for Fallout 4, even via a donation scheme or something I wouldn't object. I would have loved a FWE or OOO that had years of polish and more money behind it.

ot: Its sad I thought of gaf when I had amc on in the background this weekend and this scene would play lol.

 

[Par Score]

Valve tries a lot of cool/dumb experimental stuff, with more hits than misses over the years, but this was a pretty huge miss.

Good to see they're pulling back and re-evaluating, I'm sure the concept will come back in a more workable form down the line.

 

[Fantastapotamus]

Well, I'll be damned. I had hopes this would happen but never thought it'll be this fast. I expected a month at the very least. Good on ya Valve.

 

[EviLore]

It's a viable concept, but it should never have been retroactively implemented in Skyrim years after the fact in a massive disruption of a stable, healthy mod community. It should also probably be curated in some way and not a free for all of "*shrug*, send a DMCA takedown if someone steals your stuff" in a community where everyone's using everyone else's stuff since it had not been for profit. And the revenue split itself, while justifiable in a broad sense, just did not leave a good taste in anyone's mouth when it came to Bethesda in particular taking 50% away from the modders who fixed and kept relevant an otherwise broken game.

 

[HomerSimpson-Man]

Hot damn, that's quite a turnaround.

The idea of paid mods from such a long standing community of TES series and in regards to Skyrim, which has been out for years, and a part of it's success of continuing sales due to vast modding community, was so apparently mixed, it's hard not to see how it was going to be received as quite poisonous from the get go. That's tricky after the fact with how interconnected so many mods can be and everything being free.

 

[Lingitiz]

Hooray, people can't get paid for their time and effort anymore!

I liked the old system of people making shit as a hobby or because they think it would be cool. I appreciate the idea that Valve was going for with expanding the scope of mods and perhaps encouraging more devs to provide robust mod tools, but the cost might be too high.

 

[davepoobond]

I feel like the only issue to me was the profit cut. The modder should get 51% at the very least.

I think people should be able to make a living from modding. Why the hell not?

 

[The Llama]

I'm really, really shocked that they actually made this change, wow. Consumers win, for once.

 

[Hrothgar]

Fallout IV will have paid mods from the start.

 

[Blobbers]

Good. Good good good.

 

[Ploid 3.0]

Should have given the creators the lion share of the cut and game creator + valve the 30% split. Modders would have been working for pennies, and still it would screw things up with people stealing, and things not working well without other establish mods.

 

[Zane]

Games aren't supposed to be about money. If people are upset they can't make art and get compensated for it, there are plenty of non-artistic jobs they can go work instead.

Yeah I don't think people should be paid for their work either.

 

[strafer]

Woah

 

[Gruso]

Now don't try that again.

It'll be back. But it'll likely be implemented from day one in new games. Trying to shoehorn it into an already mature mod ecosystem was the disaster, IMO.

 

[Vibranium]

Just put a donation system and give rewards for paying modders. I hope Valve doesn't make it payment when they try this the second time around.

 

[libregkd]

I hope they don't back off the idea completely. There were issues with how this was implemented, but if Valve back off the idea of allowing content creators sell their content on Steam altogether.. then that's stupid.

Agreed. The implementation was heavily, heavily flawed, but there is nothing awful about the core idea of modders being able to start making money off the work they do (if they choose to charge for their work of course).

 

[Stone Ocean]

I hope they don't back off the idea completely. There were issues with how this was implemented, but if Valve back off the idea of allowing content creators sell their content on Steam altogether.. then that's stupid.

The idea of giving a platform for modders to be rewarded for their work is commendable

Leaving it open for publishers to abuse is just fucking stupid. Bethesda doesn't deserve most of the money for doing fuck all

 

[mephixto]

Yay! now we gonna see the ourtage of the modders who wanted to get paid! the rollecoster never ends!

 

[TwoDurans]

This is why we can't have nice things.

 

[Nzyme32]

"We understand our own game's communities pretty well, but stepping into an established, years old modding community in Skyrim was probably not the right place to start iterating. We think this made us miss the mark pretty badly, even though we believe there's a useful feature somewhere here."

HA brilliant; exactly my main complaint.

They will definitely give this a go again, but hopefully it is in a much much more thought out way, curated and supported in some form by the original developer to ensure people get something that both works long term and is actually valuable.

Yay! now we gonna see the ourtage of the modders who wanted to get paid! the rollecoster never ends!

There are still games that are allowing modders to get paid, but it is currated and done by community voting - See valve games, Chivalry and Dungeon Defenders 2. That seems to have gone reasonably well, but has limited scope so far.

 

[Rajang]

Fantastic news.

 

[Krakn3Dfx]

"See you again when we try this for Fallout 4 out of the gate."

 

[Zareka]

Ahahaha, what? That was fast.

On the one hand, uh...yay? On the other hand, people won't get paid for their work.

There are so many problems on both sides of this.

 

[dave is ok]

Hooray, people can't get paid for their time and effort anymore!

Hopefully the talented modders will move into making hats, since that's allowed to be a job but making mods isn't.

 

[CountAntonius]

Fallout IV will have paid mods from the start.

Yep. Expect the shitstorm to rise again.

 

[Skux]

Power to the people.

The spirit of modding shall live on.

 

[HariKari]

This is why we can't have nice things.

What? Consumers resoundingly rejected this model. It can always come back with better implementation. This is a win for everybody except profit margins.

 

[_woLf]

Good. Something like this is acceptable when it's done right. Not with awful profit sharing ratios inserted into a 3 and a half year old game with an established mod community.

 

[AaronMT86]

Probably by Gabe’s orders. Thank you Gabe.

 

[Zane]

Nice edit there. Also, nothing it'stopping them to accept donations.

You're wrong, actually. Bethesda doesn't allow donations for mods of their games.

 

[SteveWinwood]

valve always listens I don't know why people are talking about that

they give you their email addresses to mail them directly

they rarely talk back and that's probably why people don't think that I guess

unfortunate it happened this way, it's a great idea and will certainly help video games and creators in the future

just too bad skyrim wasn't the place to start and didn't work out

 

[cdyhybrid]

Don't party too hard, they're just going to wait for Fallout 4/Elder Scrolls 6 to implement it now, since it would be free from the headaches that arose when trying to introduce it into an established, vibrant modding scene.

 

[CarbonFire]

I'm confused, why is the idea of paid mods such an awful idea?

It's not, but who should get paid when "your" mod contains work from 12 other mods? Who polices that? Who makes sure that each mod has original and not stolen content? Duplicate mods?

It's a mess dropping it into an existing mod community that operated on a collaborative sharing model. Valve realized this and corrected the problem.

Fully expect the eventual Fallout 4 mod scene to support paid mods from the start though.

 

[Slowdive]

Good.

 

[Slermy]

Games aren't supposed to be about money. If people are upset they can't make art and get compensated for it, there are plenty of non-artistic jobs they can go work instead.

Lol, what?

With that logic, should all books, movies, and music be free too?

 

[Saturday]

They listened, but as other people have said, they'll probably try this again in the future; so by then it'll be interesting to know if they actually learned.

 

[DOBERMAN INC]

Just like the XBONE always online I was onboard with this and disappointed they buckled.