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Skyrim Workshop Now Supports Paid Mods
- Thread starter Sendou
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You can't go back. You can only move forward and work through the labor pains. Honestly throwing the baby out with the bathwater isn't the way to go here but there are so many milestones that we're going to have to work through with this.
I'm waiting for the day someone who's save gets corrupted by a paid mod goes to reddit and the internet catches on fire. Or becomes slightly warm and clammy, whichever comes first.
I think that's threadworthy. First time I can remember Valve blatantly trying to suppress dissent.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
Look at some of the shit people are trying to get on the store:
Hearthfire mod that does nothing but make it so you can build your house for free without materials or anything. 3 dollars.
Free gold "You might be saying to yourself, why not use the console commands for money? Well that would be considered cheating. And that ruins the game. " 3 dollars
+ several of the same shit for like a dollar... ingredients... blacksmithing ingredients...
As someone who just recently spent 150+ hours in skyrim and all the DLC, this has absolutely no appeal. I wouldn't even pay for project nevada for fallout new vegas, let alone the stuff here.
Hearthfire mod that does nothing but make it so you can build your house for free without materials or anything. 3 dollars.
Free gold "You might be saying to yourself, why not use the console commands for money? Well that would be considered cheating. And that ruins the game. " 3 dollars
+ several of the same shit for like a dollar... ingredients... blacksmithing ingredients...
As someone who just recently spent 150+ hours in skyrim and all the DLC, this has absolutely no appeal. I wouldn't even pay for project nevada for fallout new vegas, let alone the stuff here.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
I personally can't wait for the day where a paid mod secretly installs a backdoor to your computer. By the time anyone notices, it'll be too late.
Valve has always had this tone-def autistic relationship with the community, is almost like if they were a company mainly run by software engineers... ohh wait
anyway, they probably have a GDC talk about governance with algorithms, data driven decision making or whatever... When that stuff works, its great.. when it doesn't... well.. shouldn't subestimate the human factor homie
I'm about to go to bed so I can't/won't, but go ahead.
Debunked... how? It's there. We have the cached version, so its not like it was photoshopped, if that's what you're implying.
Compsiox
Banned
The fact that they are hiding ratings is really bad. Valve is better than this. I know it wouldn't be the best idea to just throw it out but damn. Valve's reputation's going to die. (I don't consider it dead yet cause this how the internet always reacts to change).
They should scrub the non paid ratings and restore it if that's the case. Not just hide all ratings.
One of the more interesting things that's going to happen with these dumber cheat mods is that people will turn around and make clones of them for free. It's only day 3 and these kneejerk protest mods won't be around forever, but most of the entire mod marketplace on steam is going to get devalued almost instantly.
Indeed. And that'll probably happen.
I'd just chalk this one up to Friday.
Debunked by the fact that they said you'd need to purchase the mods to rate them and you've got 1500 one star reviews in a very short period. It was most likely due to a bug that allowed rating without a purchase and the star reviews were removed due to the bug.
Certainly everyone should be aware by now that working for Bethesda is pretty terrible, we have enough evidence.
Compsiox
Banned
The only evidence we need is the Humanhead studios scandal.
Admittedly I'm not familiar with the first claim (that you'd need to purchase to rate), but the second part I disagree with. They clearly had the reviews visible, then moved (or removed, but I'm not 100% sure) them. It's not hard to see what. But I really do need to get to bed so if you can find any proof for what happened I'll check it in the morning.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
From the OP "Q. Why can't I rate all the mods I see in the Steam Workshop?
A. For paid Workshop items, you need to have purchased the item before you can rate it."
Only way out is to make mods free and have donation options. If Valve had done this from the get-go there would have been little outcry. Give people emoticons and trading cards for donating or something.
Even if they clamp down people will finds ways to make paid stuff free.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
In a nutshell, Skyrim Unplugged was an addon that stopped Skyrim from updating through Steam. Well, someone explained it better than me-
The 'theory' stuff is his belief on it but....hrm.
http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/aboutpaidcontent
Now that this doesn't necessarily mean that Valve didn't supress 1500 dissatisfied purchasers that played 17 mods within hours of the paid mods going live but it seems more likely that it was astroturfed given the fact that Valve is not known for trying to suppress criticism.
One other possibility is that 1500 people purchased the package specifically to down vote it and then requested a refund.
Or maybe Valve actually became assholes what do I know
You cant take a piece of a donation though.
Bethesda getting paid for people fixing their broken shit.
Likely been posted, but the creator of Garry's Mod chimed in on the paid mods situation.
http://garry.tv/2015/04/24/paying-for-mods/
http://garry.tv/2015/04/24/paying-for-mods/
Find a way without pissing people off as much.
I mean...sure, but there AREN'T anymore skyrim updates. I'm not even sure why you'd want to use something lower than the most recent version if you're modding at this point.
Like, there's NEVER going to be a Skyrim 2.0. Bethesda is DONE with Skyrim. They have been for quite some time.
They did.
Well, I guess they sure did.
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
Likely been posted, but the creator of Garry's Mod chimed in on the paid mods situation.
http://garry.tv/2015/04/24/paying-for-mods/
The cognitive dissonance is bleeding off that fucking writeup.
Likely been posted, but the creator of Garry's Mod chimed in on the paid mods situation.
http://garry.tv/2015/04/24/paying-for-mods/
Solid sane words...
This is the one time in my life where it seems like the elites of the gaming industry seem to actually have much more sense about things than the gaming community at large.
Still can't help but feel that a lot of this is people afraid that they might actually have to start paying a fair market price for how awesome modding is...
If it's awesome now, wait until people actually have a reason to do it beyond it being a hobby....
Garrus Vakarian
Member
I'd like to see some indication of how many people have paid for the mod, and even a display of how many people refunded.
It'd be a good gauge of the quality of a mod to know whether people consider it worthwhile paying for after trying, and inversely, refunding it if it's a dud.
It'd be a good gauge of the quality of a mod to know whether people consider it worthwhile paying for after trying, and inversely, refunding it if it's a dud.
I think the question is, "What is the fair market price?" Its something that has to be created because it doesn't exist right now.
There have always been paid mods. The difference between those previous and what we're looking at now is that those paid mods were usually either full conversions or major expansion packs, things that added huge amounts of content to an existing package.
They certainly weren't cheat mods or comedy mods.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
Are they going to allow this for other games soon. I guess that is a safe assumption. But will it just be for very select few or a wider variety?
I would be concerned if your memory didn't last past a few days ago
I would be concerned if your memory didn't last past a few days ago
Metroidvania
People called Romanes they go the house?
It's somewhat growing pains, but it's also quite easy for me to see it leading to bad things, especially with some of the directions Valve, and moreso Bethesda, have taken in regards to payment breakdown, as well as lack of 'guaranteed support' for mod breakage and whatnot, and the inability to get a refund after 24 hours, even if the mod itself suddenly breaks, doesn't get updated, etc...
Not necessarily a direction I'd like to see continued in Fallout 4, though that's likely the plan.
Not necessarily a direction I'd like to see continued in Fallout 4, though that's likely the plan.
How in the world does Steam both become the de facto "DRM for mods" and only serve paid mods? Is Steam now going to stop you from using free mods outside of Workshop? Surely those people that wanted to make free mods before now won't all die, right? Such huge (il)logical leaps to get from here to any scenario where this dooms modding in PC gaming.
And you actually think we've seen far worse in the gaming industry than the complete destruction of modding within PC gaming? That seems unbelieveably hyperbolic. Please cite even one example that is that catastrophic...
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
Nothing he wrote is sane.
He promotes pirating. Then laments at how Pirating almost killed PC Gaming. His inane ramble actually calls Valve and Bethesda assholes unintentionally.
"Stuff is going to happen. There was a time where they’d almost completely stopped making PC games because of piracy. Should we really let the fact that sometimes people are assholes dictate what we do? Or should we just deal with it when it happens?"
To him even if these assholes dictate what we do, we should just deal with it.
This guy is not an unbias 3rd party, he's made A LOT of money from Garry's Mod.
He also thinks the market is going to correct itself, but even according to a post you made "Valve can do that because what are modders' alternatives?"
there's a lot of people overreacting about the whole situation. There's certainly problems to iron out, and yeah 25% is a hard pill to swallow and will hopefully be reevaluated, but to say this is going to kill modding.. what? ...wat? No. sorry, but no. It might feel really greedy and wrong in the short term but the truth is adding an element of monetization to mods WILL bring more people to the scene and encourage more effort/better mods in the long run. We might not see it for a bit unfortunately because good mods usually take a lot of effort and time.
It really comes down to giving the contributor the options. As of now, they can still set things as free. If they choose not to, then that's their prerogative, but it's good that they have a choice and a marketplace that lets fans directly support them in an easy and integrated way.
The big clusterfucks seem pretty skyrim specific right now, considering all the interdependent mods and how poorly steam configures them compared to the other available options.
There's a lot of stuff to iron out, absolutely. Will this kill mods? Not a chance in hell. The only thing that will kill mods is if people suddenly lost all desire to make mods. I wouldn't get mad at the developer of a game if a modder decided to put a price on their own work.. that doesn't make any sense. Other games will most likely benefit very heavily from this as long as the initiative isn't scrapped, and it giving modders/hobbyists/etc more opportunities to make and share their work is only a good thing.
Also, to the people saying mods should always be free, and that 'modders' should find a real job if they want to get paid, etc: you're an idiot. It's their time and up to them how they want to distribute their work. You have the choice not to buy it or support them. Just because there hasn't been an en-masse infrastructure to support ways to help modders profit from their work doesn't mean there shouldn't be. It's all about choice and options. If the modder wants to release their work as free, there is nothing stopping them.
Luckily we have a pretty robust system for determining the fair market price for just about anything...
I am pretty much a down the line liberal in life, but the level of skepticism in the power of the free market to determine pricing in this is sort of breathtaking.
All these posts about how these terrible mods have huge prices on them as if people don't know how to react to things that are sold at a bad value
don't buy them
Make sure to never go onto eBay or Craigslist, because there's tons of worthless junk there being offered at ludicrous prices
that will never be sold
Likely been posted, but the creator of Garry's Mod chimed in on the paid mods situation.
http://garry.tv/2015/04/24/paying-for-mods/
I've not been following the drama but I pretty much agree with him.
One thing I don't get is people going after Valve and Bethesda for taking cuts. Valve are providing the store front so that the mod gets seen and Bethesda created the game people are making mods for in the first place. Maybe the percentages need to be tweaked a bit to like 33% each way but I think it's acceptable.
Well...we WILL, but if anything, the robust nature of the marketplace seems to be under question at the moment.
If anything, SkyUI being priced at 1 dollar is going to torpedo the price of every mod currently available for sale.
At 25%? Good luck.
A $2 sword isn't going to pay the bills. Its all going to be about reducing overhead and maximizing the amount of products. Hence the minor cheat mods showing up.
Garry's mod had no fucking competition either.
That fair market price is going mostly to Valve and Bethesda.
I think 25% is low, but I think the person who said that there is a lot of value in getting to mod for a hugely popular game like elder scrolls is worth a lot, and I think that makes a lot of sense.
Making a very popular mod for Skyrim can probably reach a lot more people for a lot less work than making your own RPG from the ground up. That's because Bethesda has done some of the hard work of selling XX million copies of Skyrim already, and so leveraging that should come at a cost.
I still think 25% is low, but I am not as opposed to it as I was initially.
But I think the free market is much more important on the sales side. Modders can put their stuff up for sale for whatever price, but no one is forced to buy it, and just like with the indie game scene, there will be many incentives to price aggressively to get more people using your mod so that you get sales through word of mouth.
And yes, as much as I love Valve and Steam, I would also love EA or CDPR or someone to come along and offer their own similar SteamWorkshop equivalent as real competition to Steam's. I am not holding my breath though.
"Let's trust the market to decide" gave us: DLC, paid online, games as a service, homogenized gameplay meant to appeal to the lowest common denominator, day 1 patches, draconian EULAs and now paid mods that will inevitably eat away at the modding community and divide it.
I don't trust the market and don't trust interloper corporations to do what's right. They're just going to fuck up the community and you're going to fuck it up too if you contribute to this farce with your dollars.
I don't trust the market and don't trust interloper corporations to do what's right. They're just going to fuck up the community and you're going to fuck it up too if you contribute to this farce with your dollars.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
I found this pretty funny.
CarbonatedFalcon
Member
Totally agree.
People will pay $10 for a well-done, multi-hour playthrough mod like Falskaar. I'm sure many of us here would pay $10 for Skywind, Skyblivion, Beyond Skyrim, etc - just to make sure they actually get released.
But giving the content creator (mod author) just 25%....? That's a hell of a license fee.
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
Bethesda sold that many copies partly because modding. I would not have fucking bought the PC version at launch if I knew they would pull this shit at some point. The vanilla game isn't very interesting. They are doing this four years after the game has been out selling a lot of copies BECAUSE of the modding scene. There is an implicit value to the product that you could continue improve it through outside means. I absolutely believe Skyrim wouldn't have sold anywhere near the numbers it has had with Mods being hidden behind a paywall.
Well, I think patience is a virtue here. Maybe we give this relatively new concept and system more than a day before we pass final judgment...
Specific examples like this aren't very helpful. A $2 sword may not pay the bills for some people, but maybe it's awesome movie money for an aspiring teenager. Or maybe it's an enormous sum for people in the developing world. Or maybe it is so great that it sells 1 million of them and it is real money for just about anyone.
Bunch of weird comments here. You realize that even before this the market was dictating how many mods were made right? People still have to eat no matter what, so if mods don't pay for food, less mods can be made. Now some people might be able to eat by making awesome mods rather than by doing something that doesn't make my life better. That's a win-win in my book.
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