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[Rabbit Lord]

I have no problem paying for user generated content, just has to be presented correctly. I have a number of CS:GO skins and a number of hats/items in TF2. That stuff though seems vetted at some level and offered under an official capacity. It's weird that they seemed blind sided by the reaction to the Skyrim stuff considering how they handle user generated content in their own games.

 

[FyreWulff]

The difference between a painter and someone who paints. This isn't just semantics.

Please explain what game development is to me, then, because both people are creating paintings in your example.

Right now I'm just seeing a wide misperception of what game development actually is or can entail. There are people that work on games that never see a line of code, but they're still game developers. Same with people that only work code and never make any levels. Same with the modelers that rig and make a sword for their game. Same with the testers that ensure the game plays correctly and so on.

Nobody has yet to be able to provide an example of how money supposedly corrupts mod making but at the same time it's okay to angle towards getting a job, which means you're modding for the hope of money anyway if you're angling for a job. The incentive is the same, only the timescale is different.

Nobody has yet to explain why still having the option to release your mod for free taints modding because the option of payment exists. If you don't want to get paid for modding, you can still not get paid for modding. Nobody is stopping free modders from free modding. People that wanted to get paid before were stopped by having no official way to sell their mod due to EULAs and/or copyright laws.

Nobody has yet to explain why supposedly Skyrim is broken and that it's fine to expect people to "fix" it for free, yet a developer opening up their game and allowing people to get paid for "fixing" it is somehow abusing them. Er, wouldn't it be more of a dick move to get work on updating your game that you charge money to play done for free and keep them from getting paid at all?


"It's not a real job"
Any work you are paid for is a job.

"It's traditionally been free"
Paid mods have been a thing since PC gaming existed.

"They should work for me for free until they've bootstrapped themselves into a real job"
www.gop.com is taking applications right now

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

I give all the gratitude I can. But since they don't want to do it any more it is clear we don't have a relationship with each other in the community as it stands. I don't demand anyone to work for free, if they refuse they can stop. I never begrudge anyone for that.

Except they do want to do it. They want to do it so much they want to quit their jobs and make a living off of making mods.

They're pissed that they don't even have a choice to begin with. Except this time they aren't being stopped by some bigwig up in corporation co., they are stopped by their own community. They are stopped by their own community that they served. They deserve the choice and the people who should be championing that are sending them death threats, spamming their mods, and trying to "ban" and "exile". They served the community and the community in response has been "well, fuck you then".

Zero gratitude given. Zero fucks given.

 

[Vallen Valiant]

If Bethesda want to be grateful to the modders who fix their buggy mess for them, they should just hire them as coders. Bethesda clear need all the help they can get. No point telling ME to be grateful, Bethesda should be thanking them for keeping the franchise alive despite the bugs.

 

[Corronchilejano]

If Bethesda want to be grateful to the modders who fix their buggy mess for them, they should just hire them as coders. Bethesda clear need all the help they can get. No point telling ME to be grateful, Bethesda should be thanking them for keeping the franchise alive despite the bugs.

It is pretty obvious the community at large seems to treat these modders with contempt, whatever Bethesdas stance may be.

 

[cdyhybrid]

It is pretty obvious the community at large seems to treat these modders with contempt, whatever Bethesdas stance may be.

Yes, we hate all modders and want them to get off their lazy asses and get a real job.

We finally cracked them after ten years, we did it guys!

 

[Savitar]

It is pretty obvious the community at large seems to treat these modders with contempt, whatever Bethesdas stance may be.

That prosecution complex.

 

[MUnited83]

That prosecution complex.

I think the thousands upon thousands of death threats and insults spoke for themselves.

 

[EmptySpace]

players want everything to be cheap or free.


then they want more and more content. for free or cheap.

 

[Vallen Valiant]

I think the thousands upon thousands of death threats and insults spoke for themselves.

Gabe was practically an invincible god until last week. If Gabe could get death threats, anyone can. Obviously it isn't nice, but it is what happens when people feel betrayed. The mod scene is basically a communist society, and to leave it can be very personal for those to stay.

then they want more and more content. for free or cheap.

Well of course. The same way game developers want as much money as possible while doing as little work as possible. Hence modders only getting 25%.

 

[Trojan]

Has this been posted

http://steamed.kotaku.com/some-peop...-paid-mods-are-gone-1700837400/+nathangrayson

As poorly thought-out as Valve's execution was on this, I'm realizing this is pretty healthy to have this debate right now. Don't get me wrong - it is goddamn ugly to listen to the extremists on both sides of this issue - but it's clear after reading that article that not all was right in the modding kingdom. I did not realize how much shit modders put up with and essentially got nothing from voluntary donations.

I'm pretty sure we will be seeing support for paid mods soon, but there's got to be a way to clearly delineate mods that are "pay-worthy" from those that should be free...whether that be from community voting, up-front applications/commitments from modders, or some other solution. This seems to be the best way to avoid the "low-quality content deluge" (money-grab) problem that we're seeing with Steam Greenlight and mobile marketplaces.

 

[Vallen Valiant]

This seems to be the best way to avoid the "low-quality content deluge" (money-grab) problem that we're seeing with Steam Greenlight and mobile marketplaces.

Essentially this would involve Bethesda putting in resources to earn their cut of the pie.

 

[WanderingWind]

Well, honestly, the best thing for them at this point is to just go ahead and announce Fallout 4 and Elder Scrolls VI: Tamriel. Whatever pay-for-play scenario they cook up, they can just implement from day one.

 

[Trojan]

Essentially this would involve Bethesda putting in resources to earn their cut of the pie.

Yes, or Valve. Just like the government regulating business, one or both of the sponsoring companies would need to have a minimum level of involvement to help streamline the process. Something basic like the Apple app-store approval process would be a good start.

It's not the true modders I worry about, it's the bandwagon clowns who are looking for a quick buck and aren't above stealing others' work.

 

[Corronchilejano]

Yes, we hate all modders and want them to get off their lazy asses and get a real job.

We finally cracked them after ten years, we did it guys!

I need a Poe meter.

That prosecution complex.

You have people telling modders they shouldn't get paid for their hobby. The final users of the mods are telling the people that create them they shouldn't even have the chance to ask for money for what they have created. There are people in this very thread doing that.

How is that a prosecution complex?

 

[Nordicus]

Well, honestly, the best thing for them at this point is to just go ahead and announce Fallout 4 and Elder Scrolls VI: Tamriel. Whatever pay-for-play scenario they cook up, they can just implement from day one.

Implementing from Day 1 is not really smart, I don't think Bethesda nor Valve can handle the headache of official patches and DLC breaking mods every time.

They should announce well in advance that they're going to allow paid mods once official content and patches are finished so that modders can get their ducks in a row. The first paid mod wave will contain less mods made in an afternoon, free modders will know to keep a sharper eye out for code theft, "mod middleware" has a chance of being sorted out, and the more ambitious groups can have some time to prepare and get a team that agrees with the cut and business plan.

 

[Laughing Banana]

Probably people would be more comfortable by the idea of paid mods if there is no billionaire corporations involved, looking to get more profits.

I don't know whether this idea is feasible or not, however. I wonder if the amount of backlash would be equally big if, say, it's the Nexus that proposed the concept/idea with no involvement whatsoever from Valve and/or Bethesda.

 

[cdyhybrid]

I need a Poe meter.



You have people telling modders they shouldn't get paid for their hobby. The final users of the mods are telling the people that create them they shouldn't even have the chance to ask for money for what they have created. There are people in this very thread doing that.

How is that a prosecution complex?

There are modders that have come out against paid mods too, you know. Big time modders. It's not a black-and-white, mod-makers-vs.-mod-users issue, like many people in this thread seem to believe.

Spoiler

Also it's "persecution"

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Please explain what game development is to me, then, because both people are creating paintings in your example.

Right now I'm just seeing a wide misperception of what game development actually is or can entail. There are people that work on games that never see a line of code, but they're still game developers. Same with people that only work code and never make any levels. Same with the modelers that rig and make a sword for their game. Same with the testers that ensure the game plays correctly and so on.

Nobody has yet to be able to provide an example of how money supposedly corrupts mod making but at the same time it's okay to angle towards getting a job, which means you're modding for the hope of money anyway if you're angling for a job. The incentive is the same, only the timescale is different.

Nobody has yet to explain why still having the option to release your mod for free taints modding because the option of payment exists. If you don't want to get paid for modding, you can still not get paid for modding. Nobody is stopping free modders from free modding. People that wanted to get paid before were stopped by having no official way to sell their mod due to EULAs and/or copyright laws.

Nobody has yet to explain why supposedly Skyrim is broken and that it's fine to expect people to "fix" it for free, yet a developer opening up their game and allowing people to get paid for "fixing" it is somehow abusing them. Er, wouldn't it be more of a dick move to get work on updating your game that you charge money to play done for free and keep them from getting paid at all?


"It's not a real job"
Any work you are paid for is a job.

"It's traditionally been free"
Paid mods have been a thing since PC gaming existed.

"They should work for me for free until they've bootstrapped themselves into a real job"
www.gop.com is taking applications right now

Modding started out for hobbyists and amateurs (not meant to disparage skill level) and has always been this way. Sure, payments have happened in the form of donations and such, but mods have never been positioned as commercial products, which is exactly what a system like the one Valve tried to introduce does.

As soon as these things become commercial products, all bets are off. You've got all sorts of legal implications that previously weren't present. People stealing (or, forgetting to get permission, whatever) will happen left and right. Profiting off of other people's work, etc. The whole idea of asset sharing with the community and being open will fly right out the window if the goal of doing mods suddenly becomes making money.

Lastly, it's just unlikely that people are going to pay. A big part of modding for a lot of people is having people try their work, receiving feedback, and iterating. You lose this process as soon as you start paywalling your content. Means less exposure, less testing and feedback from the community. I imagine something like Counter-Strike would never have taken off if it cost money from the start. The thing was janky as fuck in those early betas.

Yes, this is all conjecture, but I think it's pretty easy to see how Valve's approach could have led to some very bad scenarios for people who like mods. Luckily, Valve saw that, too.

Except they do want to do it. They want to do it so much they want to quit their jobs and make a living off of making mods.

They're pissed that they don't even have a choice to begin with. Except this time they aren't being stopped by some bigwig up in corporation co., they are stopped by their own community. They are stopped by their own community that they served. They deserve the choice and the people who should be championing that are sending them death threats, spamming their mods, and trying to "ban" and "exile". They served the community and the community in response has been "well, fuck you then".

Zero gratitude given. Zero fucks given.

Not going to defend any death threats or equally ridiculous reactions, but is it really hard to see why "the community" would not give a toss about people who want to quit their jobs and make a living off of modding games? Mods are cool and all, but in the end, it requires another company's intellectual property. No one should go into modding with the expectation that they deserve to make money by piggybacking on someone else's game.

 

[GobFather]

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.

Joke post ?

 

[Gxgear]

If Valve wants to reintroduce paid mods in the future they need a system in place to police what gets monetized. Looking at Greenlight and the Steam market it should be pretty clear that the community, users and content creators alike, can't be counted on to make the appropriate decisions.

 

[Dynomutt]

I'm not the most familiar with the situation but I am quite interested.

I have a question?

What if the game developers just hired the top mod talent?
(Would the modders now be traitors and where is the line?)

or...

What if the most prominent modders got together and created a collective and leased ot their services?
(Would this be selfish and how do your reward talent?}

So is it bad to get paid a little bit or is it morally hurtful to the game community?

Thank you.

 

[Theanine3D]

Modding started out for hobbyists and amateurs (not meant to disparage skill level) and has always been this way. Sure, payments have happened in the form of donations and such, but mods have never been positioned as commercial products, which is exactly what a system like the one Valve tried to introduce does.

This is just factually wrong on every level.

Garry Newman would like a word with you.

Team Fortress was once just a mod. It became a full (and much, much better) game when it became a paid product.

Same goes for Counterstrike.

As soon as these things become commercial products, all bets are off. You've got all sorts of legal implications that previously weren't present. People stealing (or, forgetting to get permission, whatever) will happen left and right. Profiting off of other people's work, etc. The whole idea of asset sharing with the community and being open will fly right out the window if the goal of doing mods suddenly becomes making money.

The sky didn't fall on Garry Newman when his little mod became a commercial product. In fact, quite the opposite - it allowed him to start a company and hire more talent.

Lastly, it's just unlikely that people are going to pay. A big part of modding for a lot of people is having people try their work, receiving feedback, and iterating. You lose this process as soon as you start paywalling your content. Means less exposure, less testing and feedback from the community. I imagine something like Counter-Strike would never have taken off if it cost money from the start. The thing was janky as fuck in those early betas.

This is true, and it is why all those conspiracy loonies claiming that free mods were going to disappear forever are off the mark. Any modder with experience knows that if you want to reach the largest possible audience, making your mod free is still the #1 way to do it. There would always have been free mods for this reason - many modders out there will always want attention and glory much more than they want $$$.

Not going to defend any death threats or equally ridiculous reactions, but is it really hard to see why "the community" would not give a toss about people who want to quit their jobs and make a living off of modding games? Mods are cool and all, but in the end, it requires another company's intellectual property. No one should go into modding with the expectation that they deserve to make money by piggybacking on someone else's game.

IGN should shut down and all paid game writers should quit their jobs then, because all of their content piggybacks on other people's games.

 

[Renekton]

Off the top of my head, just thinking about some of the LittleBigPlanet modders who got jobs to work on LBP2, or the folks who made Counterstrike (a mod) and then got careers out of it (not every single one of them, I'm sure).

And what % of those people who landed this type of job out of the population of modders? The site you linked has no statistics of how many are in Waffle House and how many were employed fruitfully. We have no data.

What I'm arguing against is a system where the mod community is in the gaming company's back pocket. You seem to feel that there's some social injustice being finally rectified here. On this point we disagree.

But in another respect, I do agree: It is narrow-minded, selfish, and presumptious to place a monetary power over the modding community and put that in the hands of gaming corporations.***

It's obvious what you are trying to do here, using the "evil corporation" to color your side as the side of good. Take away corporate agenda, the issue remains if modders have the choice to charge for their work. For that, you have sided with that decision to not give modders a choice, you're siding with taking away from people another avenue to earn a living, with your disdainful "get a job".

What happens when certain modders - paid ones - get preferential treatment on the sites that host the content? Oh, say goodbye to third-party modding sites, by the way (at least, for any games that support this). But what happens? Does that mod just magically happen to find its way to the top of "most popular mods" lists? Does the company promote it? Does "SkyUI" come out in Elder Scrolls 6, right at launch, as a Bethesda-sponsored mod for $4.99? Sounds about right to me. Certain modders benefit but the majority will be pushed into obscurity. It's just a way to further monetize the mod scene. Valve Corporation has already been doing it for years so I guess it's all good...

Paid mods would not get preferential treatment if community voting and curation drive the best mods to the top. There is no stopping another modder from making a SkyUI replacement which is better and free and gets voted to the top. Your whole premise would require corporations sinisterly rigging the entire user voting thing so badly and somehow not getting called out by the community. The system could well be gamed and exploited at early stages, but community feedback and reiteration can solve that.

You actually have this completely backwards. Money comes from customers. Customers buy the things they want.

And there are producers, who have the option to sell the fruits of their work. Customer chooses freely if the product is worth buying.

This is refusing the producer to the chance to sell in the first place.

This is pro bono. Free. For fun. For the pleasure of doing it. Take your pick, but there's no product in there. Each and every modder has the choice to make the mod or to do something else. Maybe go to the park and meet a new friend, or learn chess, or whatever. There's nothing at all that is forcing modders to pick apart a game and change it.

That is forcefully classifying modding as free voluntary work.

 

[raphier]

That is forcefully classifying modding as free voluntary work.

When you apply for a job, you don't get to choose your employment. You're talking about freelancing.You want modding to become freelance. But When you get money from paid mods you made, you are still considered unemployed and there's a good reason for that.

 

[Visualante2]

I'm not against them returning to the idea in the future. But it needs to be on fairer terms. Respect to Valve and Bethesda for turning it around.

 

[fanboi]

I still don't get the uproar over Steam enabling modders to take cash for their mods (I can see discussions being made regarding the percentage of the cuts).

So please enlighten me, why is it even a discussion regarding modders taking money for their work?

 

[Cave Johnson]

The whole thing has been disastrous from the start; when dealing with transactions - especially in a form of modding and its ambiguous term - will only produce the result we have witnessed these past few days.

Something so simple as enhancing a game experience has become a fierce battleground between gamers and mod makers. That alone should indicate how sensitive this area has become especially in light of DLC's and micro-transactions, which in essence, can be described as mods depending on which side of the development you are on. Bridging these factors together has no doubt become part of core debate why the line between paid developers and modders becomes thinner when the Paid Mod Feature was introduced.

I am, with every respect, not against modders trying to earn a living for what they do. But I'm also against the fact that some of these modders paint this particular feature as the "one true way" to live their dream doing what they love while being support. I understand where they are coming from but their cries of desperation only makes me more cynical to their motives to begin with, that, they can easily crumble with the mere possibility of gaining some funds to support them.

Both sides on the extreme ends try to operate within a vacuum upon observation and quite frankly, put me off trying to side one of the other in this debate. The destructive nature of the "mob" like community against the "apathetic" modders only contributes the already stained reputation of this industry dragging it down even further than before.

It surprises me, above all else, that Valve had to use Bethesda as some sort of proxy to this particular feature when many other mod successes like TF, Counter-strike, and DoTa as well as 3rd party releases such as Dear Esther and Garry's Mod has brought to the table with their own proprietary Source engine. Not only can this be more controlled, it directly works in tandem with Valve's infrastructure, nevermind the fact that this reinforces their framework to support such a system when you have relative successes like these games as solid backing. The possibility of expanding that to an even wider community of equally talented modders to achieve the same could not be understated.

However, such potential is but wasted on a questionable developer, questionable payment returns and an array of mods that may or may not be compatible with each other makes it seem more like a scam than anything else. It's no surprise why they've got that kind of reaction. Poorly thought out, implemented and done so without any consultation to the community.

 

[raphier]

I think your attitude shows zero gratitude to the individuals who put in the work for you to enjoy. And that disgusts me. But at least you're being honest.



No, you're being ridiculous. Someone who works on mods for a living is a game developer as much as a developer for a full standalone product. There are degrees of professionalism from amateur to professional that separate the hobby modder from someone who takes it a lot more seriously and is a lot more experienced.

I have programmed on big personal projects for years, it does not make me any more employed by my work.
Someone who works on mods is not a game developer. You may consider yourself freelancer, but you have no obligations, no contracts (accepting eula is a job contract). Your sole 'employee' is somebody you've never met. All you do is hope that clients download your third party modifications of a published game and pay for it. Modding at best is a legal grey area.

 

[Calabi]

The trouble with modding is you do need some kind of curation, because there's little to no barrier to entry. For the cost of less than 30 dollars, you could potentially earn a lot of money.

There's a huge can of worms opened when you have an unregulated market where anything is easily stolen copied and created. The potential for abuse is huge. With Skyrim it's a goldmine. I expect companies in China and other countries would have started scouring for existing mod's they can change just enough and start selling them on Steam.

And you cant just have consumers pay for them and a 24 hour return policy. People need to have some confidence and reliability that they wont just expire after the 24 hours is up or do something bad to their game or computer.

 

[Principate]

To honest using money as an incentive isn't actually always that great at produce the most high quality creative results, it's a great motivator but there's a reason why Encarta the Microsoft funded online encyclopaedia that paid people of their article submissions, completely lost in popularity to Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia, where you get paid jack shit for your contributions.

Introducing a pay structure introduces, stress, deadlines and can stifles creativity, whereas if someone is making an Wikipedia article, or mod in this case because their actually passionate about it, and enjoy it, there's a lot more freedom for creativity, and a lot less pressure, consequence for failure or poor work.

People will do and create what they want to and are passionate about rather than what they feel the need to.

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

I have programmed on big personal projects for years, it does not make me any more employed by my work.
Someone who works on mods is not a game developer. You may consider yourself freelancer, but you have no obligations, no contracts (accepting eula is a job contract). Your sole 'employee' is somebody you've never met. All you do is hope that clients download your third party modifications of a published game and pay for it. Modding at best is a legal grey area.

Whether you or anyone else identifies as a game developer is not as objective as you make it seem. A modder can be considered a game developer, and that to me is enough to rightly call modders game developers in general.

Freelancer... irrelevant towards whether someone is a game developer or not. Employer/employee relationship with a studio... also irrelevant.

I really don't see why you bring up modding as a "legal grey area" in regards to this topic since it has no bearing.

This is all semantics but in the end the act of game development is using tools to work towards some end goal of making gaming content. Whether that is art work, animation, quest design, maps, UI... all these broad ranges of roles that go into making a video game are open to game modders as well. They are often doing the same craft, and almost as often at an amateur level.

Do we drop the label of modder in favor of calling modders game developers? I don't think that is relevant. Just like esports are sports, we prefer to call them esports because of tradition or other factors.

 

[_machine]

To honest using money as an incentive isn't actually always that great at produce the most high quality creative results, it's a great motivator but there's a reason why Encarta the Microsoft funded online encyclopaedia that paid people of their article submissions, completely lost in popularity to Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia, where you get paid jack shit for your contributions.

Introducing a pay structure introduces, stress, deadlines and can stifles creativity, whereas if someone is making an Wikipedia article, or mod in this case because their actually passionate about it, and enjoy it, there's a lot more freedom for creativity, and a lot less pressure, consequence for failure or poor work.

People will do and create what they want to and are passionate about rather than what they feel the need to.

Absolutely, but as an indie it can (and for me in the case of the UT marketplace) create the opportunity to be able to work at all for something that you are passionate about. It also provides great motivation to then support something as at least I and most developers I know are extremely proud of the work we do and try our best to support it. It doesn't necessary create the main motivation, but opportunity and some bits of extra motivation, just like it was in the case of SkyUI which would've been continued under the paid mod programme after being shelved for nearly 2 years.

 

[Trickster]

I still don't get the uproar over Steam enabling modders to take cash for their mods (I can see discussions being made regarding the percentage of the cuts).

So please enlighten me, why is it even a discussion regarding modders taking money for their work?

Jim Sterlings video about it is very much on point imo, if you haven't seen it you should

 

[Dolor]

If I was a Skyrim modder and saw the way the community reacted to the possibility of modders getting paid some for the value they create, I'd pull my mods, burn the whole place down.

I feel sorry for them....

 

[dragonfart28]

They should have left it in and just adjusted the rates to better compensate the modders that make better products.

This could have become a trend to replace cookie cutter DLC like 'seasons passes'.

Jim Sterlings video about it is very much on point imo, if you haven't seen it you should

I'm curious about this too, but no access to video right now.

What was the rationale?

 

[Kater]

If I was a Skyrim modder and saw the way the community reacted to the possibility of modders getting paid some for the value they create, I'd pull my mods, burn the whole place down.

I feel sorry for them....

Most of them just make mods for the fun they have creating them.

Plus paying hundreds of Dollars/Euros for a mod collection is a really shitty prospect for the consumer to be honest.

 

[Wolfgunblood Garopa]

If I was a Skyrim modder and saw the way the community reacted to the possibility of modders getting paid some for the value they create, I'd pull my mods, burn the whole place down.

I feel sorry for them....

Why were they making mods in the first place?

 

[Dolor]

Most of them just make mods for the fun they have creating them.

Plus paying hundreds of Dollars/Euros for a mod collection is a really shitty prospect for the consumer to be honest.

...then don't buy it?

Why were they making mods in the first place?

That's the point. They probably started for the fun, but work is work, and if someone told me that I couldn't get paid for my work if I ever decided to - regardless of my initial motivations, I'd be pissed.

 

[_machine]

Why were they making mods in the first place?

Because the want to do it? It's not for money or for passion, it can be both.

They why of it is irrelevant to question if they feel like their content might be worth something. It also creates opportunity, just like in the case of SkyUI where Mardoxx and others stopped the development because it was no longer viable for them and with the paid mod system they were able to continue on the work. It's the reason why many professionals or semiprofessionals have joined the Unreal Tournament marketplace initiative at the same 25% rate and why I feel that I am able to work on that and actually pay my rent or in the worst case not have to increase my loans by a huge amount (I've already taken some loans to develop our game).

 

[Kater]

...then don't buy it?

That's the fun of modding and how many people use the Nexus tho, installing and trying out many new mods with interesting ideas (that might be really buggy, etc) and you rob the people of that if you expect them to pay for all these potentially buggy mods.

Few would risk money on a quest mod that might have buggy scripts for example, even if the rest of the mod is great.

 

[Wolfgunblood Garopa]

That's the point. They probably started for the fun, but work is work, and if someone told me that I couldn't get paid for my work if I ever decided to - regardless of my initial motivations, I'd be pissed.

Everyone wants the fun thing they do to be a source of income, I get it.

 

[TarNaru33]

Not going to defend any death threats or equally ridiculous reactions, but is it really hard to see why "the community" would not give a toss about people who want to quit their jobs and make a living off of modding games? Mods are cool and all, but in the end, it requires another company's intellectual property. No one should go into modding with the expectation that they deserve to make money by piggybacking on someone else's game.

I can not believe you said this! Do you know how many jobs/positions "piggyback" off of other's work!? Seriously? This is a terrible argument, you basically just proved the guy right with this backwards thinking.

A person has the right to make money off of the work they done, whether it already had a base to stand on or not, so long as the creator is fine with it.

 

[johntown]

The majority of the community has spoken and said they don't want paid mods. There is small groups that actually support paid mods for some reason.

I am not against some modders charging for their work. If someone wants to make money from a mod their is no reason they cannot create a simple website and put it behind a paywall.

What Valve implemented was terrible and only encouraged anyone with a mod to charge for it. Sure there are a few self righteous people would keep their mod open and free but if someone can make some money for something they did why wouldn't they (especially if it is popular). Sure it may stay open at first but eventually all the good mods would end up being behind a paywall (that is my opinion on what I think would happen if paid mods continued).

I pay enough for DLC and I don't want to have to start paying more for mods. Am I cheap (you damn right).

 

[_machine]

Everyone wants the fun thing they do to be a source of income, I get it.

Well how about putting friggin food on the table? I'm honestly a bit pissed about this kind of attitude as someone who is making indie games and wanting to do a paid mod for Unreal Tournament with a friend after finishing our game (and all of it's support). I really wouldn't have the opportunity to do it if wasn't for the Marketplace programme and I still expect that it would be likely that I might gather some losses, but I want to do it. That doesn't mean I wouldn't create mods for free too if I had the chance, but I really couldn't afford to work over 400 hrs on something that I wouldn't at least see some money at the moment and I think that would have some value for all parties involved too.

Also, making mods or developing games isn't always fun, it's really fucking tough work.

 

[Pizza]

I think it would have been helpful if the dev's cut was 50%, and valve put in a system that helps mod makers find a good value for their work.


I'm against paid mods though, since the sharing aspect of them is really neat. I don't think big publishers need to make a 75% cut on work someone did in their free time for fun (or just outright stole)


I do some Smash Bros Brawl modding, and I put a ton of time into it. But, if I ever released my stuff (like I plan to do this summer) I'd *never* charge for it. I've had such a blast with user-created content without paying anything for it, and I'd just be happy giving back to the modding community.

 

[Woorloog]

If someone wants to make money from a mod their is no reason they cannot create a simple website and put it behind a paywall.

Actually, there is. AFAIK, terms of use for editors, etc. forbid selling your work, and even if they didn't, you're selling a derivative work that wasn't made under, say, GPL (which does allow for selling, provided you allow anyone to modify your work and sell it as well, or something like that).
What you could do is to create assets (3d models, sounds, etc.) and sell those, but mere assets are not a mod.

 

[domlolz]

I think it would have been helpful if the dev's cut was 50%, and valve put in a system that helps mod makers find a good value for their work.


I'm against paid mods though, since the sharing aspect of them is really neat. I don't think big publishers need to make a 75% cut on work someone did in their free time for fun (or just outright stole)


I do some Smash Bros Brawl modding, and I put a ton of time into it. But, if I ever released my stuff (like I plan to do this summer) I'd *never* charge for it. I've had such a blast with user-created content without paying anything for it, and I'd just be happy giving back to the modding community.

the devs shouldn't get anything (do you mean the developer of the mod or the developers of the game here i'm not sure, i'm talking about bethesda here)

 

[_machine]

Actually, there is. AFAIK, terms of use for editors, etc. forbid selling your work, and even if they didn't, you're selling a derivative work that wasn't made under, say, GPL (which does allow for selling, provided you allow anyone to modify your work and sell it as well, or something like that).
What you could do is to create assets (3d models, sounds, etc.) and sell those, but mere assets are not a mod.

Yeah, the IP holder has rights to control how and where the derivative work is sold, meaning that they can limit the paid mods just to Workshop. Now it's not an inherently bad thing since that provides them means to also protects modders and customers, but at the same time Workshop itself is a bit limited and I for example would much prefer to use Nexus. It definitely depends as Valve and Epic are limiting their paid mods to Steam and Unreal Marketplace, but for example flight sim and racing sim mods are sold freely. The lack of at least one centralized system does discourage modders as building the infrastructure and marketing your products would be much harder without the likes of Marketplace and Workshop.

 

[Krauser Kat]

I totally welcome paid mods when, the next TES and Fallout happen. So many people who pour hundreds of hours to make something they love better and make money from it.

Going against this is akin to being greedy and entitled to everything like a large part of the internet is in regards to pirating movies and games and music.