Steam Charging Money for Mods

[Browning]

http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/aboutpaidcontent

Steam in association with some mod-makers has begun charging money for certain mods.

Perhaps some KSP mods will be on the payware list in the future. I very much hope not.

Edit2: Better link

Edited April 23, 2015 by Browning

[Starwhip]

http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/aboutpaidcontent

Steam in association with some mod-makers has begun charging money for certain mods.

Perhaps some KSP mods will be on the payware list in the future. I very much hope not.

Edit2: Better link

Ouch. I doubt that KSP modders will ever resort to charging money, because once they do, nobody will get their mod. Someone else will probably copy them too. (Not literally copying them, but publishing a similar mod)

[xcorps]

One more knife in the back from the video game industry.

[sal_vager]

Luckily KSP addons aren't on Workshop, so there's not much chance of Valve pulling a stunt like this on us

[nightingale]

Valve is giving the authors the *ability* to charge for their mods. That's all that's happening here, nothing nefarious.

[Kerbart]

The title of this thread is a bit misleading. It suggests that Steam would charge us for having access to (free) mods.

"Steam will allow mod creators to charge for their mods, if they want"

• It's not mandatory and the price is set by the mod creator, not by steam
  
• Depending on the game this might not be a bad thing
  
• People making money for the work they do is not always a bad thing

Would people only stick to free mods? Remember if you're going to charge for a mod it better be fiddling awesome. Look at the modding industry around Microsoft Flight Simulator; the high quality mods easily sell for twice to three times the price of the game alone. Of course these are mods with hundreds of hours if not more of development behind them. It also creates an ecosystem that is very much alive long after Microsoft abandoned FlightSimulator.

I don't see it as a bad thing. It doesn't mean the end of free mods. It does mean that the good mods we have now can become even better, with a very attractive incentive for continuous development and with less chances of mods being abandoned or even withdrawn.

Edited April 23, 2015 by Kerbart

[Spartwo]

Guess which mods I'm not downloading: D

Not just because they charge but because valve gets a fair bit of the income from it for doing very little.

[NovaSilisko]

You can get a refund within 24 hours, apparently. I wonder how that works? What's to stop you from paying for it, then refunding it after copying the files somewhere else? Looks like it's only if you can prove it doesn't work, which means dealing with support tickets and such.

But yes, I don't like the twisting of words in the thread title. It's very disingenuous, it implies the mod-makers are being forced to do this, when it's their own choice.

It would be nice to see it like bandcamp though. Set a minimum price, allow people to pay more if they want, and the minimum can be set to 0 - if people want to support the modder, they can.

Here's the full legalese agreement https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/workshoplegalagreement/?appid=72850 if anyone feels like reading it. It kind of burns my soul to look at legalese. Seems like valve gets a chunk, the game publisher gets a chunk, and the modder gets a far smaller chunk, though I think the game publisher can set the distribution?

Edited April 24, 2015 by NovaSilisko

[Randox]

While I can't say the idea of paying for mods has me hopping up and down with excitement, I can't say I oppose the idea. That said, I feel like everyone would be happier with a minimum price system, authors and users alike.

For the existing modding community, there is some really fantastic stuff out there that absolutely reaches a level of quality where asking for some money would be quite reasonable. A mod like Falskaar for Skyrim rivals the quality and scope of the official Dragonborn and Dawnguard DLC for example. That said, the existing modding community in general obviously isn't in it for the profit, which is why I think a minimum price system would be good. I think even if you set the minimum to zero, more people would bother to send money in the mod authors direction without limiting anyone from using the content.

My other thought is that there are probably more really talented people out there who could be willing to enter the modding community if they had more options to ensure some compensation.

[LordFerret]

Just one of the reasons I gave up on Steam back in 2004 (or so). Too much control.

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

I really don't see anything bad about it. If somebody makes a mod and wants to charge for it, then good for them. I might buy it or I might not, but it's their time, their effort, their mod, sell it if you want, give it for free if you want. At least that's the way I see it.

[OrbitusII]

Luckily KSP addons aren't on Workshop, so there's not much chance of Valve pulling a stunt like this on us

Another reason why I will stick with the KSP community to the end.

My 2 cents on the matter:

I see great potential in this system. Giving modders more control over how they recieve recognition is wonderful, as modders are amazing people with a lot of dedication, putting a lot of time into what they do. However, I also see great danger in making mods a paid commodity. Forcing the end users to pay for the mods they use is dangerously close to making 3rd-party DLC a regular occurrence in the gaming industry, something that I can only see ending poorly for modding as a whole.

If Steam were to make the system more like what is in use by Daybreak Games, where you have to have your work approved by the player studio team before it can be sold, I would be more supportive of the paid mod initiative. As I understand it, however, there is no such system in place for Steam.

If Steam were to provide more regulation (which, in this case, is much better than none) I could support their decision to make mods a paid commodity much more than I do now. However, due to the apparent lack of control implemented in the marketplace, I will not support it.

As for me, my mods will forever remain free, with naught but a donation link near the download (when I start taking them).

Edited April 24, 2015 by OrbitusII

[m4v]

I just wanna link this post from Nexus that was made a month ago, that basically saw it coming

Modding as a hobby versus modding as a career

Personally I don't have a strong opinion, Valve and Steam did some great things for gaming, but I'm not sure how this will change modding.

[RainDreamer]

Interesting...So now modders can actually make a living from their hobby. Kind of like a freelance programmer/artist. Probably not so different from fanfic writers that has whole books written and sold.

I am curious as how steam will pay misdeeds though. Would it be connected to their bank account or would it be paid to their steam wallet?

Edited April 24, 2015 by RainDreamer

[Brethern]

Interesting...So now modders can actually make a living from their hobby. Kind of like a freelance programmer/artist. Probably not so different from fanfic writers that has whole books written and sold.

I am curious as how steam will pay misdeeds though. Would it be connected to their bank account or would it be paid to their steam wallet?

Except that is not what will happen.

There's tons of mods out there that are well polished and renew the life of the game. But there's also tons of dirt to diamond and obsidian tools as well. That is what this is going to be spammed with. Tons of mods that add nothing to the game and clog search results.

[Nuke]

i always consider mod making to be the first step into game development. its more about building a portfolio than anything else (though i consider it more of a hobby to do for fun). monetizing mods is really just gravy on top, and can fund things like better software and equipment, but dont expect to make a living off of it. i for one wont be buying any mods though, i can always make my own.

Edited April 24, 2015 by Nuke

[magnemoe]

Another reason why I will stick with the KSP community to the end.

My 2 cents on the matter:

I see great potential in this system. Giving modders more control over how they recieve recognition is wonderful, as modders are amazing people with a lot of dedication, putting a lot of time into what they do. However, I also see great danger in making mods a paid commodity. Forcing the end users to pay for the mods they use is dangerously close to making 3rd-party DLC a regular occurrence in the gaming industry, something that I can only see ending poorly for modding as a whole.

If Steam were to make the system more like what is in use by Daybreak Games, where you have to have your work approved by the player studio team before it can be sold, I would be more supportive of the paid mod initiative. As I understand it, however, there is no such system in place for Steam.

If Steam were to provide more regulation (which, in this case, is much better than none) I could support their decision to make mods a paid commodity much more than I do now. However, due to the apparent lack of control implemented in the marketplace, I will not support it.

As for me, my mods will forever remain free, with naught but a donation link near the download (when I start taking them).

Note that you can not always demand payment for mods.

As I understood they will enable this for Skyrim, this require that Bethesda has approved it. Unlike KSP almost all mods in Skyrim is made with the official Skyrim mod editor, anything made with it is Bethesda property according to the user license. Then this was found most sensible believed the this was added too avoid 1) Moders suing Bethesda for them using ideas from mod, 2)Unofficial DLC, in short that other companies makes DLC or total conversions without agreement with Bethesda. No Bethesda could hardly steal your mod as models, textures and code you made would still be your but the mod file who is integrated into the mod would be Bethesda's.

See now that Bethesda get the 75% of the income of this, think its to much 40-50% would be more fair.

I have no issues against it, a good thing it was done for an mature game like Skyrim who has lots of quality mods already. I have no issues to pay for huge mods with lots of content, the only type of Skyrim mods who might make money. Had it been a new game it would be an lot of greedy fools who tried to make money of all sort of stupid stuff.

that is

[Aghanim]

The problem is that currently the paid mods are mostly low quality copyright infringing mods, I'm looking at you, Sange and Yasha sword

And KSP community is the most friendliest modding community ever. The discussion here are still really calm compared to massive outrages in Facepunch and PCMR, KSP 1.0 launch will still launch intact because it wouldn't and shouldn't be disturbed by this thing

[Technical Ben]

The title of this thread is a bit misleading. It suggests that Steam would charge us for having access to (free) mods.

"Steam will allow mod creators to charge for their mods, if they want"

• It's not mandatory and the price is set by the mod creator, not by steam
  
• Depending on the game this might not be a bad thing
  
• People making money for the work they do is not always a bad thing

Would people only stick to free mods? Remember if you're going to charge for a mod it better be fiddling awesome. Look at the modding industry around Microsoft Flight Simulator; the high quality mods easily sell for twice to three times the price of the game alone. Of course these are mods with hundreds of hours if not more of development behind them. It also creates an ecosystem that is very much alive long after Microsoft abandoned FlightSimulator.

I don't see it as a bad thing. It doesn't mean the end of free mods. It does mean that the good mods we have now can become even better, with a very attractive incentive for continuous development and with less chances of mods being abandoned or even withdrawn.

I might try selling gold rings for characters in games where the ring costs the same as it's real life counterpart (adjusted for modern day prices )...

[pxi]

It's an interesting idea. I would be more likely to donate towards a mod via steam credit than, say paypal, because I actually use steam.

However, there is a massive elephant in the room insofar as Steam takes 75% of the transaction. That is a massive issue for me right off the bat. I'm fine with Valve taking their cut, but that's a ridiculous slice.

Next, having browsed the workshop, I'm seeing things like armor sets being sold for about €3.50 - that's a ridiculous price right there imho. There is simply no way I'm going to pay that kind of price for minor cosmetic content, it's like horse armor all over again.

I'm not drawing any conclusions at the moment, I really want to see how this pans out, but at the moment, in the early 'gold rush' stages, it's looking like a massive pile of do not want. As i said, I've no issues in theory with modders being financially compensated for their efforts, but the price really does need to be appropriate to the content being provided.

Edited April 24, 2015 by pxi

[Randazzo]

And KSP community is the most friendliest modding community ever. The discussion here are still really calm compared to massive outrages in Facepunch and PCMR, KSP 1.0 launch will still launch intact because it wouldn't and shouldn't be disturbed by this thing

To be perfectly mean about it, the KSP community is so great in comparison to other game/internet communities because the very nature of KSP drives idiots away.

This new idea of charging for mods (specifically referring to steam workshop) is only going to lower the quality of the workshop as a whole, not to imply it was high-quality to begin with. It will be no different than the greenlight "indie" game glut. There will be a flood of utter crap from people trying to make a buck that buries a few genuine gems that actually deserve their price tag.

Honestly, even with the tremendous quality of the mods available here, I wouldn't have any of them if they cost a dime. I don't mean to sound unappeciative, but mods are and should be a labor of love. If a sense of entitlement starts to creep in, you can kiss the whole scene goodbye.

[palker]

I really don't see anything bad about it. If somebody makes a mod and wants to charge for it, then good for them. I might buy it or I might not, but it's their time, their effort, their mod, sell it if you want, give it for free if you want. At least that's the way I see it.

Not quite simple as that, because now you will have unsavory characters scouring free mod databases and uploading them to steam workshop to make a quick buck. Some mods needs dlls and resources that their creators made available to other modders and what will they get if someone decides to get paid for mod that they do not hold full credit for. There are so many ways this system can be and probably already is abused its not even funny. Also most of the revenue will go to game publisher and seller that being Valve. For example Skyrim mod creators only get 25% cut.

[nightingale]

Honestly, even with the tremendous quality of the mods available here, I wouldn't have any of them if they cost a dime. I don't mean to sound unappeciative, but mods are and should be a labor of love. If a sense of entitlement starts to creep in, you can kiss the whole scene goodbye.

Totally agree, the whole scene would collapse if all us players had a sense of entitlement where we thought we could get hours and hours of entertainment of people's labours of love without ever even having to consider any kind of compensation towards them!

And please don't take this as a personal attack, I realize I'm completely twisting your words. It's just that the whole business model is broken. How many of us can say our cost per hour of KSP is less than 0.10 $/hr? Less than 0.01 $/hr?!? As players, we often pay very little. Developers get a small cut. Modders get nothing. Publishers get a big cut. I think that's the only issue I see with this whole thing - Valve's exorbitant 75% cut.

Of course the other extreme is even worse, which is everyone building Skinner boxes disguised as games (see Candy Crush). Jebediah is running out of snacks! Please pay $0.99 to get him more snacks so he can make it to Duna!

Edited April 24, 2015 by nightingale
Typo

[Randazzo]

Totally agree, the whole scene would collapse if all us players had a sense of entitlement where we thought we could get hours and hours of entertainment of people's labours of love without ever even having to consider any kind of compensation towards them!

And please don't take this as a personal attack, I realize I'm completely twisting your words. It's just that the whole business model is broken. How many of us can say our cost per hour of KSP is less than 0.10 $/hr? Less than 0.01 $/hr?!? As players, we often pay very little. Developers get a small cut. Modders get nothing. Publishers get a big cut. I think that's the only issue I see with this whole thing - Valve's exorbitant 75% cut.

Of courser the other extreme is even worse, which is everyone building Skinner boxes disguised as games (see Candy Crush). Jebediah is running out of snacks! Please pay $0.99 to get him more snacks so he can make it to Duna!

Nobody should ever expect to be compensated for doing something they enjoy as a hobby. That's no different than someone who writes a fanfic asking to be paid for it.

On the same token though, I think a mod developer asking up front for donations to cover resource costs or the like is different and perfectly understandble.

"Hey, I could use some cash to help offset the cost of my modeling software, would you mind donating a buck?" is far, far more likely to get something (from me) than "So I made this entirely derivative work that relies entirely on software developed by someone else to function, and you're gonna pay me if you wanna use it."

And that's what I mean by sense of entitlement.

[m4v]

However, there is a massive elephant in the room insofar as Steam takes 75% of the transaction. That is a massive issue for me right off the bat. I'm fine with Valve taking their cut, but that's a ridiculous slice.

75% is for Valve and the game developers, we don't know how much each get. I would argue that 25% for the modder is too low.