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Skyrim Workshop Now Supports Paid Mods
- Thread starter Sendou
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There is no copyright dispute as he explains it but yeah shitty business from Valve.
After this I'd really love for someone to crash Bethesda's presentation at E3 and make a fuss
would be very very funny.
Gormless Noodle
Member
And even if they did get a lawyer, Skyrim belongs to Bethesda and unless they changed it to an unrecognisable form, they're HIGHLY unlikely to be able to win (if the law is more or less the same on this as it with fan art for instance). Not to mention that even IF they somehow managed to get it taken down, the only thing the modder would gain is an emptier wallet.
Outside of fraud and theft issues, one of the more confusing ideas is doing this with a well established game and its mods retroactively, inherently proliferating many issues regarding compatibility and authorship / collaborations more than would likely have been the case if the mods functioned around this workshop model from the start, or the game and mods were well controlled and supported / curated by the developer. Its a weird situation
I'm guessing you have trouble with change, in general. I suggest stepping away from your keyboard and getting some fresh air. There will still be free mods and this is how free market price-setting works. People spend a shit load of time making those mods that you take for advantage.
superseohyun
Member
about nexus profiting from paid mods
It sounds like they are just not allowing him to take it away fr people that already own it right?
It just reminds of the Firearms mod for HL1 some team kicked the original devs off their forums and started up a sequel for HL2 called Firearms 2 and put it out without the original devs permission. Used their name, website and everything and there wasn't a damned thing they could do about it.
You would think given Valve's history with mods and them turning out to be extremely successful for them they would care more about the people making them and do all they can to make sure they aren't getting screwed over. It's an appalling attitude to have, I really expected better from a company like Valve.
Source?
For now. But ultimately it's his content.
LurkerPrime
Member
Oh, you know what that might be right. I read it the other way, where it would mean the mod stays up for sale in perpetuity.
I guess it's like delisted games. They can be removed from the store, but cannot be removed from the library.
I think the cut is up to the developer of the game, Valve is just asking for the traffic, store placing and transaction services.
Bethesda on the other hand 50% for licenses, use of their game engine, w/e. If other developers use this same model the % could be better for the Modder.
I can see other developers going for 25% Valve, 30% Developer and 45% modder.
It's up to the owner of the IP.
superseohyun
Member
lol valve really dont give a fuck do they
how can it not appear problematic to any sensible business man? well doesnt matter. Just throw the modders into the pit and it will sort it out itself.
NotoriousPUG
Member
Yeah I'm not sure what the uproar is. People paid for it and they aren't removing their access. No new people can purchase it. I'm not sure how that's the wrong way to handle it.
None of the item pages are loading for whats left, maybe Valve did decided to scrap the idea
I was able to load a couple of them a minute ago. Are they coming up with the no longer available text or the heavy traffic error?
Edit - yeah I see, even they are pulled now too. I wonder how long before that giant paid mod banner goes too, lol.
superseohyun
Member
refund?
NotoriousPUG
Member
Could you imagine paying for a game and the publisher just decides they aren't selling it and Valve rips that away from you? I doubt the response would be, ultimately it's their content.
The uproar is Valve's attitude towards it they've basically said that they don't care if people use other's work without permission so long as they don't file a legal complaint.
ab.aeterno
Member
How anyone couldn't see this result coming from a mile fucking away when this was first announced is beyond me.
Will people finally stop trying to give Valve the benefit of the doubt here and realize that, in pursuit of making money, they have foolishly mishandled this god damn mess? Even setting aside the whole debate over monetization of mods, it should be clear from the way this is unfolding that Valve doesn't give two shits about modders and will let them teist in the wind if it means more money for them.
Fucking disgraceful.
Still under the 24 hours refund policy so they can do exactly that automatically...
zephervack
Member
Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiikes
Valve: We are not lawyers but you will be fine using someone else's code, dont worry. ..... Whats that? you are having issues, better lawyer up, we are out.
That's not really what they're saying though right? It sounds to me it doesn't matter if mods depend on each other, not that you can straight up rip someone's mod and distribute it with yours.
balladofwindfishes
Member
Wait, the flip side of what valve said is ridiculous too, if free mod A relies on paid mod B, it's fine to release A for free with B for free inside of it as a dependency?
That... Doesn't make any sense
That... Doesn't make any sense
Dorsal Axe
Member
So this caught my eye.
Netherscourge
Banned
If a modder goes so far as to file their work with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, they could then SUE the modder using their intellectual property and possibly even VALVE themselves for facilitating/distributing the copyright infringement and profiting off it themselves, if Valve is issued a DMCA takedown notice and they refuse to remove/reimburse the offending mods.
Chances are, Valve will take stuff down if they get DMCA notices, to prevent lawsuits.
You don't need to file your work to just send a DMCA takedown notice to Valve, so expect notices from original Nexus modders to start mailing next week.
Good, hopefully they're reconsidering this whole clusterfuck.
Maybe it turned out to be more work than they thought, so today they're just sitting in a circle hitting a beach ball around or whatever the fuck that company does day to day.
It's fine for now since everything is hidden/down and we have no idea what's going on, but if they end up putting it up for sale again it'll be really gross.
It's his content to distribute yeah but for those customers they've already paid for it. They won't let him take it for the same reason they won't let them take Deadpool away from you if you already have it. you paid for it so you keep it is their policy.
He can take it off the store but he can't take back what has been sold.
Yep. It's kind of sacrificing Skyrim's established mod scene on the altar of Valve economic experimentation. I'm sure they'll work the kinks out eventually and figure out a good model, but there are immediate and significant repercussions in the interim.
afternoon delight
Member
I'll agree with that.
Mods were some of the first things I did in PC gaming. Custom Sims objects and scripts, Quake II, Starcraft, and C&C maps... I've never thought modding fans or creators would have the audacity to charge for custom content created for the enjoyment of one game... Blows my mind. Fans charging the fans now, it's perfect, they're their own customers with a sanctioned distribution channel now.
LurkerPrime
Member
I wonder if that's how Valve justifies the "it's free, go for it" attitude towards the paid mods' usage of free mod content.
If all mods are paid from the start, the whole modding culture around Skyrim would be significantly smaller. It would be even worse for future games as the proliferation of free modders of varying experience levels helps to make modding flourish. Elder Scrolls games in pairtcular have a rich history of exteneisve mods, but for other games (or future ES games) this may not necessarily be the case.
SC2 is an easy example - (at least at the start) without paid mods screwing everything up - to see how quickly a modding community can die from one game to the next.
Gormless Noodle
Member
But what are you going to copyright exactly? Content created from Skyrim's assets and whatnot? Unless you somehow manage to create your own thing entirely from all that, I cannot for the life of me see how you could ever copyright this stuff.
balladofwindfishes
Member
It's art assets and code, it can easily be seen as intellectual property. Just because you put your code into someone else's engine doesn't mean it's not your code.
ForsakenLotus
Member
If I could trust that these mods go through appropriate Q&A, and won't brick my PC or mess with the game the mod is for, then I'm okay with this. I still think Valve's cut is too high unless they are helping with the Q&A. Unfortunately, I'm just not sure I can trust Valve's quality curation considering Early Access and Steam Greenlight.
But the fundamental idea that a modder can charge for their addon as long as the original game's publisher allows mods officially is one that I agree with.
But the fundamental idea that a modder can charge for their addon as long as the original game's publisher allows mods officially is one that I agree with.
Sounds good. It could allow people more time and resources to work on popular mods if they can make money. I've noticed some mod developers start patreon accounts so they dedicate more time to the project and I'm all for it. I don't really care about Skyrim though so I hope this expands to other games.
shit gets hella muddy when Valve tries out a new thing
I feel like they could always handle it better from the get go but they don't
some of this retroactive stuff is a super weird decision. hope they work the kinks out soon enough cause fundamentally I still think this is a good thing
I feel like they could always handle it better from the get go but they don't
some of this retroactive stuff is a super weird decision. hope they work the kinks out soon enough cause fundamentally I still think this is a good thing
I've seen mods like that, where there are interdependences. I had a realism mod, and a cloak mod, and if you have the cloak mode, the realism mod creates exposure level values for the cloak.
The fishing mod was 100% functional, but if you had another mod, it would integrate the animations of that mod.
So there are a lot of these mods that are 100% their own code, but they have parts of code that perform new functions if they detect the presence of another mod.
No one cares if everything is free, but now something like an animation or a cloak is adding *value* to other mods.
Even after going through careful Q&A absolutely no two mod can guarantee you that they will 100% work together, all it takes is for them to touch up the same area/mechanic of the game to create a conflict and cause trouble.
Right... how many free DLC can you get since publishers are able to ask money for it?
Valve just turned mods into user-made paid DLC. I don't think that's a good thing
'I don't understand how Valve is going to avoid an impending legal nightmare... If I upload a mod to Steam, there could literally be 4 parties trying to claim ownership of the same line of code:
Part of why modding has done so well is that line of code has no value. When it's free, no one really cares who owns it. As soon as money is introduced, however, people will start to care deeply about who specifically owns it.
Lastly, I know there's a lot of "shame on Valve" sentiment here, but where's the "shame on Bethesda"? Bethesda's games have thrived due to their modding scene, and now they're trying to make a quick buck in there?
- The Mod Creator
- The Mod Distributor (often will be the same as the creator, but not always)
- The game developer
- Valve
Part of why modding has done so well is that line of code has no value. When it's free, no one really cares who owns it. As soon as money is introduced, however, people will start to care deeply about who specifically owns it.
Lastly, I know there's a lot of "shame on Valve" sentiment here, but where's the "shame on Bethesda"? Bethesda's games have thrived due to their modding scene, and now they're trying to make a quick buck in there?
Gormless Noodle
Member
But then, let's take this here from the copyright article:
So all of these mods use Skyrim, not just the engine it was created in. This is not the same as say: "I'm using the Unreal 3 engine to make a new game" no, this is essentially saying "I'm using Gears of War and altering things in that". Now I can see if your work is so transformative that it becomes its own thing (DotA for example), that you have a leg to stand on, but otherwise I'm still not seeing it.
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