TIL being pro consumer is a bad thing.
"how dare you charge for your work" isnt being pro consumer.
TIL being pro consumer is a bad thing.
This thread is embarrassing.
This thread is embarrassing.
If you have a good argument to make for it, please do. Because all I've seen is how exploitative it is for naive users and sucker mod creators.
Something besides the lazy "vote with your wallet" tripe.
i dont give a damn if you are happy or not. instead, i see a thread full of consumers throwing hissy fits because content creators want to be able to make money off the hundreds of hours of work they do.
the word entitled is used frequently these days, but it truly applies to this topic.
If you have a good argument to make for it, please do. Because all I've seen is how exploitative it is for naive users and sucker mod creators.
Something besides the lazy "vote with your wallet" tripe.
so some personal insight into HL2VR dev process for all those "this kills passion! You don't need that money to make a living!" crowd
our mod will be depreciated in about 3 months. As in, it will no longer work. OVR is dropping direct X 9 support, meaning our only option is to switch to an OpenGL renderer. This is tantamount to essentially a complete rewrite of a very significant portion of our mod.
Now, all 3 members of our team got together explicitly to try and start a career in VR development. Our artist, Jaz, lives in the UK, and, without violating his trust here, he is in dire times financially. For the past year and a half, one of the only things keeping him sane is looking ahead to potentially getting a paycheck by landing a job thanks to his mod work. To really drive the point home about how dire some of our finances are, two of us had to pitch in to buy one of us a $25 invite to a tech demo we needed to work with. That individual couldn't afford $25.
I am in the process of setting up my own development studio through private funding. I have reached out to Jaz to try and get him to relocate to the US to try and get him making some money here. Setting up my own studio, managing a project, then actually going through with development is a massive undertaking. Nate, our project lead, has a career in Austin now. We all have social lives and day jobs. We estimate the work it'll take to get HL2VR going without Direct X 9 will be hundreds of hours of coding for Nate and I. Any time I put into HL2VR comes at the expense of my day job, which I truly work around the clock.
We have had serious discussions about whether or not we can afford to personally keep HL2VR going. The knowledge that we could eventually sell the mod has been an enormous factor in keeping us going. Speaking of which - this has been known for a good year and a half now. I find it funny that those bemoaning what this means to the "community" apparently aren't apart of said community because they had an entire seminar about this at Dev Days. Black Mesa is releasing under this model. This has been known for so long.
So, about that talk of the death of free mods and all that shit - we could have started monetizing our mod with Valve's blessing a long time ago. We have discussed selling our mod for ages now. We haven't, though. Why? Well, as professionals, we take pride in our work, and we do not want to sell something that is still a work in progress. Thus, for almost 2 years, this mod that we could have sold, has been given away for free. We have hundreds of thousands of downloads of our mod, and haven't seen a dime from it. We don't even operate an ad server on our project website. Nate pays the fee.
The notion some of you guys have that we, who have done work for free for years, are somehow going to struggle to become motivated to keep our monitzation going is ridiculous. If we are selling a mod and an update breaks it, we have more motivation to fix it now because, so long as it's broken, we can't keep selling it. Don't you guys get it?
Thank you for taking this fight up on my behalf. Truly your contribution of $0 in principle is worth more than the pittance I would receive otherwise. I'm sure if content creators were making 75% of the profits off of this, your tune would change. Totally.
to all of you going on at 25% per sale, I am curious how much you think dev studios see per sale at retail? I had one friend who worked for a studio who told me their arrangement meant they made more money when they sold their game through steam at $11 because of the revenue split than they did off of a $60 sale at retail.
And many don't even see percentages of sales at all. Most, even.
This thread is embarrassing.
There are countless reasons provided in this thread that are legitimate cause for concern beyond "oh no, my mods wont be free no more". If Valve wanted to provide a marketplace for thoroughly vetted mods, that were guaranteed to provide update support and had zero questions over authorship, then you'd see far less vitriol. As it stands now, one single mod creator (SKSE) could wreak absolute havoc on their entire business plan. This feels like a rushed attempt to squeeze money out of an untapped revenue stream, not a positive shift towards creating a fair venue for mod developers to earn a living.
Well, then don't. It's your choice, after all. I'll only buy another AAA game next year, because I want to upgrade my PC first. I could play any game released this year if I wanted to, but I made a choice.
TIL being pro consumer is a bad thing.
this thread is a normal reaction anyone would have that are suddenly faced with paying for something that has always been freely available
People tell others not to buy it, surely. And Valve will delist it automatically.
His arguments are for charging for mods in general, which I'm down with if that floats your boat.He already made plenty of good arguments. Go read them.
only if that anyone lacked any actual experience at the profession at hand
Erm, what about "workshop-only" mods has to do about "free mods"? Workshop still has a crapload of free mods.
I'm as against what they're doing here as the next guy, but you guys really need to just give up on the whole "Bethesda games are unplayable without mods" thing.
It isn't true now, and hasn't ever been true. You may prefer the heavily-modded version to vanilla, but the games are 100% playable, enjoyable, and IMO, utterly fantastic even before mods. Mods simply make the already great game better.
Some of us care about this hobby beyond the amount of money we spend on it.
i dont give a damn if you are happy or not. instead, i see a thread full of consumers throwing hissy fits because content creators want to be able to make money off the hundreds of hours of work they do.
the word entitled is used frequently these days, but it truly applies to this topic.
in other words the vast majority of people you expect to pay you.
then you should care about the ability of those who actually create to be compensated.
your hobby ceases to be without people like me.
then you should care about the ability of those who actually create to be compensated.
your hobby ceases to be without people like me.
Consumers are upset that a move is being made that benefits the end consumer in absolutely no way.
only if that anyone lacked any actual experience at the profession at hand
you mean the same majority that already isnt paying me and pretending their threat of continuing to not pay me holds any weight at all?
Oh get over yourself, modders managed just fine without any compensation before - what's suddenly changed now?
i dont give a damn if you are happy or not. instead, i see a thread full of consumers throwing hissy fits because content creators want to be able to make money off the hundreds of hours of work they do.
the word entitled is used frequently these days, but it truly applies to this topic.
Serious question, because I'm unfamiliar with your work. Have you made any attempts to monetize what you do?because we have been demanding this for years.
the irony of being told to "get over myself" because i want to be compensated for my work.
because we have been demanding this for years.
the irony of being told to "get over myself" because i want to be compensated for my work.
Serious question, because I'm unfamiliar with your work. Have you made any attempts to monetize what you do?
Why haven't you attempted to monetize it?my mod is free. we have been talking about selling it for a long time now.
i do full time vr development. it is my career.
Who's the "we"? Some modders' union I wasn't aware of? Bigger names than you have already spoken against this whole thing.
...their benefit is that they get what they pay for.
I'm going to ask you again: what benefit does paid Steam Workshop mods have for consumers?
...their benefit is that they get what they pay for.
my mod is free. we have been talking about selling it for a long time now.
i do full time vr development. it is my career.
Which heretofore they've gotten for free.
they get the item they pay for. there doesnt need to be any further justification.
i have read this entire topic. dont give your doomsday conspiracy scenarios that much credit, they arent good points.
only if that anyone lacked any actual experience at the profession at hand
How many mods have you published for Bethesda titles? One of the key points of divergence in this discussion seems to be between those who view this as simply an opportunity for mod creators to earn money (beyond donations), and those who are actually somewhat familiar/involved with the Bethesda modding scene and are both aware of how it is a wretched hive of scum and villianry than cannot be compared to many other mod scenes and are wary of the many complications that could emerge because of it (and some already have).then you should care about the ability of those who actually create to be compensated.
your hobby ceases to be without people like me.
LOL says who?
I can't believe you're buying this shit hook, line, and sinker, dude.
So you're going to sell all that blood, sweat, and tears for $0.25 on the dollar? Sad.
Too bad. That's not good enough.
says the person selling the mod.
i cant believe you are so warped that goods in exchange for money isnt a proper values propositon. it is the basis of commerce.
You can sell those goods for money right now, and have been able to for years
well it isnt free any more. and whether or not something is free isnt up to the consumer.
then dont buy it. you arent entitled to jack shit.