Which makes sense why you'd scrap this for Skyrim and look towards something new where you'd have the system in place from jump.
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Paid Skyrim mods being removed from Steam
- Thread starter Archie
- Start date
Which makes sense why you'd scrap this for Skyrim and look towards something new where you'd have the system in place from jump.
Steve Youngblood
Member
Ok, for the sake of argument, let's agree that they got into it for the wrong reasons. The community is free to get that point across by simply opting not to buy the mod. If that happens, it doesn't mean that there was anything inherently wrong with the mere existence of this mod being released with the expectation of monetary compensation.
I understand some concerns about certain details of this shift. If people are questioning specific aspects of the implantation, that may or may not be fair. But I really can't get on board with the idea that mods should always be free 100% of the time just by citing tradition.
"work your ass off for free to improve our experience, or GTFO"
Vallen Valiant
Banned
This is likely because Valve instigated it and thus is in the position to pull it. If it was Zenimax's idea, I suspect it would have dragged on much longer.
We've been trying to blow out fallacies since this initiatives launched. Proved to be an impossible nut to crack.
Nobody asked for that hard work, or forced them to work on what was up until days ago a hobby. I don't go volunteer my time somewhere and then get pissed when I'm not compensated. I volunteered. I didn't have to, but I did, for whatever personal reason. There was no expectation of monetary gain. The experience and the appreciation is the reward.
There are ways to make money modding, right now, that don't involve Skyrim. If you really need to make money from modding, do that. Otherwise you are at the mercy of the IP holder, as you were for the prior decade. Nothing has changed.
SuperDowns
Banned
For real, can we gamers stop being entitled (also racist, sexist and every other ugly thing)!
I think it was more the death threats, inbox spamming and constant harassment to anyone involved in the iniative that made the decision being reversed. Not the legitimate concerns.
Jumping into an already established eco-system with something new like this that could throw everything up in the air was never a good idea. Hopefully the idea of something like this can happen with a new game, but not an already old one that people have already played and modded the hell out of.
On that note, kudos for the turnaround on this. Something like this makes me respect a company a whole hell of a lot more than blindly forging through with an idea.
Guy LeDouche
Banned
If it's any consolation, you can at least be glad we did it with a terrible game like Skyrim.
No mod, no master.
LurkerPrime
Member
It would be nice if they did, certainly. I don't know how many of the mods I normally use I'd personally buy if they had a price attached to them, but their hard work should be repaid.
The question that strikes me with Valve's attempt to monetise mods is, "What is a mod?" Because what Valve & Bethesda tried to warp it into was simply community-sourced DLC. And let's face it, a lot of Skyrim's "essential mods" are to fix the game or personalise it. Now the latter is just fine, but the former, mainly paying Bethesda for fixes? It's a ridiculous, farcical attempt at monetisation.
"Make mods if you enjoy it, and even share them if you like, otherwise you may be wasting your time if you're expecting a profit"
That's it. People love to argue that modders owe nothing to mod users, but the reverse is true as well. I don't have to use your mod (well, unless the game is broken without it, but that's another discussion), and you don't have to make it. No one forced these modders to make mods for ten years previous. That was a decision they made for themselves, with the knowledge that they weren't going to make money off of it.
If you don't like the way modding works currently, don't do it. That's fine. No one is going to miss you.
Complain to Bethesda that they won't let you legally sell your mods, or wait until FO4/TES6 when paid mods launch properly. Hope you didn't quit your day job to make mods.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
Well, this is not a win in my eyes. First off, you had modders working with the expectation of having a chance at being paid for their work, not even including the ones that already put in the work.
Second, this is going to happen eventually anyway. I think skyrim is a fine spot to start as any. Granted, reception will likely be better when they launch TES-next or Fallout 4 with paid mod support from the get go.
Even if for some reason they don't do paid mods for TES5/Fallout 4, we're looking at UT4/UE4 marketplace for mods, although I am not acutely aware of how that is going to be or if I am being accurate.
Also, I just want to remark that people are against paying for skyrim mods, but steam trading cards, tf2 hats, etc., they are all okay.
This decision doesn't directly affect me. I would likely never pay for a mod. Nor do I know how to make mods (although was considering it tbh, but not for skyrim). I guess in a way it does affect even me, although indirectly, because I was seriously considering making fallout mods if a fallout game was supported. I don't think there is anything wrong with selling mods.
Anyways... I guess the majority of people want to tell modders how to distribute their work and valve has chosen to let them. Majority oppressing a minority is nothing new.
Second, this is going to happen eventually anyway. I think skyrim is a fine spot to start as any. Granted, reception will likely be better when they launch TES-next or Fallout 4 with paid mod support from the get go.
Even if for some reason they don't do paid mods for TES5/Fallout 4, we're looking at UT4/UE4 marketplace for mods, although I am not acutely aware of how that is going to be or if I am being accurate.
Also, I just want to remark that people are against paying for skyrim mods, but steam trading cards, tf2 hats, etc., they are all okay.
This decision doesn't directly affect me. I would likely never pay for a mod. Nor do I know how to make mods (although was considering it tbh, but not for skyrim). I guess in a way it does affect even me, although indirectly, because I was seriously considering making fallout mods if a fallout game was supported. I don't think there is anything wrong with selling mods.
Anyways... I guess the majority of people want to tell modders how to distribute their work and valve has chosen to let them. Majority oppressing a minority is nothing new.
All of the sources we have seen have pointed to near negligible levels of donations.
Exactly. Everyone wants everyone else to pay for things while it is free for them.
If I was making mods, I would be pissed at how presumptuous gamers have shown themselves to be by dictating whether or not I can charge for my own work.
Willy Wanka
my god this avatar owns
Not really a surprise. The idea of modders getting compensated for their time and effort is a good one but Valve and Bethesda got the execution all wrong here.
Steve Youngblood
Member
I feel like I'm missing something here. The option to charge doesn't need to go away for you to voice your disapproval of charging for the mod. The community can collectively do that by not buying it as well. If others disagree and are willing to pay, who are you to say that they don't deserve the compensation?
Implement a pay-what-you want, optional donation button to mods whose modders have filled out the necessary paperwork. Then work out a more reasonable earnings distribution (I think most people would be fine with 30% Valve, 30% Bethesda, 40% mod maker) and I think most reasonable people (people that aren't entitled assholes) would be elated at the idea of supporting deserving mods.
The legal duties of Valve with respect to copyright infringement would be largely the same with free or paid mods. You can infringe copyright without profiting.
Guy LeDouche
Banned
RipperGrim
Member
Modders can still charge for their own work if they want to. They don't need steam to do it.
Not sure why it's hard to grasp that people aren't willing to pay for something that has never been paid for before. The idea of user made DLC sounds horrible to me.
I never said they didn't deserve compensation, in fact I'm for it - I'm saying that if the choice is between paying mod makers some money on the side that didn't exist for ten years before, and saving the modding scene of a game that's been alive and healthy for four years, I'm choosing the latter.
There are too many dependencies currently existing in mods to make splitting everything into "paid-mod-dependent" and "non-paid-mod-dependent" realistic if you want to keep the modding scene intact. When they launch it from the start in FO4/TES6 this problem will basically vanish and everyone will be relatively happy.
Edited for clarity.
von Stroheim
Member
It wasn't toxic until Valve and Bethesda tried to charge for mods. And now we know who the greedy ones are, the ones who don't mod for the love of the game.
Before this blew up, I would have been ecstatic if they added a donate button to the mods. At this point though, I think I really would prefer that some of these things (that merited it) were behind a paywall because I think an awful lot of this outrage is just people being cheap and wanting their free ride to stay free.
I would (and hopefully will some day still) happily pay for mods that I think are worth it, but I don't know how excited I am at the idea of donating my own money so that a bunch of entitled free-loaders can benefit from my generosity.
von Stroheim
Member
As fun as non-alcoholic beer!
TouchMyBox
Member
So they're totally going to tweak the program a bit and then reintroduce it with Dota 2 when they roll out mods with the Source 2 update.
The free market is based on money not on "voiced concerns". If this idea was costing Valve more money than it was making than that would be what the free market is based on.
Show me how a modder can charge for their work at anything near the scale of what Valve was offering. The cut wasn't awesome, but Steam has >100M active users. That is worth a damn lot to people looking to sell things to PC gamers and is too often ignored when Steam's cut is discussed.
LurkerPrime
Member
WarCraft 3 made DotA what it is. I can only imagine how different things would be for the gaming industry if Blizzard had monetised the custom maps for that game. (Blizzard did eventually try this with SC2's Arcade.)
Majukun
Member
and if the system was still in place,i would be mad at modders and valve/bethesda because they are trying to sell me something that might actually not work if certain criteria are not met.
hell,I'm currently playing modded skyrim..and had to use and entire evening to just PREPARE my game to be mo friendly and learning the basics
and skyrim is also a game that is not updated anymore...do you know what would happen with newer games and steam tendenncy to auto update them?
nobody is saying modders shouldn't get paid for their work if they so desire..but the system was poorly implemented,in pretty much all of its parts...there are certain expectations for something you have to pay for,higher standards from what people can accept from a free mod from a guy that does it as a hobby
Which is fine. Do it from the start, do it with a more equitable split, do it with better implementation than "fuck it, you're on your own after 24 hours." When Valve relaunches the program, it will almost assuredly be better off because of lessons learned from this incident. Not a bad thing in the slightest.
The workshop is provided for free because it boosts sales. To go from free to 30% just because is a giant leap.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
Why is it greedy to charge for the work you've done? And charging a fair price to people willing to pay that price? How is that greed? Do you work for free? I am guessing not.
Even if you somehow think it is still greedy to make a living or get paid a fair wage for the work you put in, why is that wrong?
Trying to make money off mods is not greedy. It doesn't mean they love to mod less than people who don't charge. It doesn't mean they aren't doing it for the love of the game either.
That is kinda like saying, "well... these game developers they charge money. They aren't doing it because they love making video games. They haven't chosen to make video games because they want to make a living while doing something they love. They are doing it just cause they see dollar signs at the end of the road."
Maybe for some that is true. But for others, and probably most people, they are doing it for the love of the game and modding. If they simply wanted money they could do other things. I'd imagine most people aren't super rich because of selling mods. But I'd also imagine that many can do it and support themselves comfortably. Nothing greedy about that.
Orochinagis
Member
So it woud be repercutions or something? What a twist of events
Cave Johnson
Member
Sorry mod makers
I don't get the last point. If they wanted to make new games, wouldn't they use UE4 or Unity as they are now free?
RipperGrim
Member
I'm not gonna Google around for people charging for mods but to say that there's no way for them to charge for it is ridiculous, they can set up their own site and charge whatever they want, nobody is stopping them, just the fact that they know nobody would buy from them.
It has been done before. This is not a new fucking thing. And yes, they need somekind of agreement to do it, otherwise they would be sued by the IP owner. Is this that hard to understand. Legally speaking, modders cannot charge for their work unless the IP owner approves.
The fucking law is stopping them.
Yes, because someone doing something for money means they can't love. Literally everyone in the world hates their job I heard. Literally fucking everyone.
And the Sky UI guy did it for the love of the game for a long fucking while, making one of the best mods of Skyrim, one that is essential for many others and to have a good gameplay experience. He left the development of it because he couldn't bear to do it any longer. But now that he could get paid, further development could be made and he could make his mod even better. This wouldn't happen without paid mods. And the guy left the old version, which works perfectly, completely free. People who whine about him and claim he is greedy(because of FUCKING 1$ mod) are nothing more than entitled dicks that never gave one shit about modding or modders. The only thing they want is free shit.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
Maybe he was trying to say that mod developers would eventually become game developers or found entirely new game studios? It has happened before. Studios starting with a lot of ex-modders.
If you aren't sure you should get a mod or pay for a mod, how about you just don't get it? But no, instead you'd rather make it so that almost no one can ever be paid for any mod ever...
Why does Valve or anyone have to protect you from buying bad things? Do you expect the grocery store to stop you from buying food that tastes bad?
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
Mods are a bit easier to make generally for beginning coders.
I expect them to protect me from buying food that's going to give me food poisoning.
von Stroheim
Member
Indeed, "Capitalism sows the seeds of its own destruction." as one of the Marx Brothers said. (I think it was Karlo.)
Nor were you forced to pay for mods you didn't want to pay for
A whole entire game has a whole lot more lead time, risk, labor, work, dev time, etc etc.
It's like telling someone that makes spoilers for cars that they should go build an entire car from scratch themselves to sell with their custom spoiler if they like working on cars that much.
water_wendi
Water is not wet!
It was nice to be in the Twilight Zone for a week. Back to business as usual.
Unless that mod fixed a broken aspect of the game that never should have existed in the first place, sure.