Steam Charging Money for Mods

[r4pt0r]

Boogie2988 has some good insight on the pros/cons.

[OrbitusII]

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.

This is exactly my issue with paid mods. There's next to no regulation of what can and can't get approved for monetization, all I'd need to do is input my tax and bank info and I can start charging money for my mods. I understand that Steam is trying to encourage the community to work hard and create new content, but what we don't need is an uncontrolled market.

Daybreak Games' Player Studio has the right idea by having player-made content go through an approval process before it can be monetized, and if Steam were to apply at least some of that process to the workshop's monetization system then the modders who do amazing work can still get paid for their work, while the people who make tiny, poorly-done mods (or steal them from other mod hosting sites) either have a cap to what they can charge or don't get to charge at all.

Edit:

Boogie2988 has some good insight on the pros/cons.

Thanks for the video, he seems to have a good handle on the pros and cons of the matter, especially the "Hands-Off" policy Steam has (I didn't even realize that they did that). It does indeed seem like they're indirectly supporting the DLC-ification of mods and the growth of the DLC plague on gaming.

Over-regulation is terrible, but so is under-regulation. Until Steam gets its act together and starts managing things rather than letting them run off on their own, I will not support their decision to allow modders to monetize their content.

Edited April 24, 2015 by OrbitusII

[r4pt0r]

Also, there are full development teams working on total conversion mods like

, Europa Barbarorum 2, Third Age: Total War, and so many others I dont even know about. These Teams can consist of just one man, or can rival actual developers in size. All working on a mod, pouring thousands of manhours into their project.

Right now they walk a fine line even having a donate button to cover server costs, the threat of a cease and desist letter hanging over their heads. If teams like that could eventually start charging for their work I would have no problem with that. What Valve has done is an ok trend by my book.

[pxi]

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.

It appears that Valve take 30% and Bethesda take 45%.

Furthermore, a mod has to generate $400 in sales before the modder is paid, which seems ludicrous to me.

[StrandedonEarth]

It appears that Valve take 30% and Bethesda take 45%.

Furthermore, a mod has to generate $400 in sales before the modder is paid, which seems ludicrous to me.

It also seems ludicrous that Valve takes more than the modder gets.

[m4v]

http://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/33qcaj/the_experiment_has_failed_my_exit_from_the/

Kinda disappointed to where this is going.

[Commissioner Tadpole]

...Wow. I'm surprised Valve would do that. Yep, EA's becomming the gaming industry's role model now.

Edited April 25, 2015 by Commissioner Tadpole

[brienne]

Moders may deserve money.

But I'm a bit annoyed Steam, main actor of game industry, define rules by himself.

So Steam assume money goes from players to editors, himslef and a bit to moders.

But... mods improve game experience. Example: DayZ mod drag so many customers to Arma 2.

Of course, game industry don't want to consider this kind of moders could get part of this money^^

Main rule: "money goes in our pocket, don't bother."

[DaMichel]

What if someone starts selling free mods made by someone else? Basically just doing marketing / minor changes for better visibility to customers. I bet most mods don't have a proper license, and even then many are probably unrestrictive. This could very well discourage modders to give their mods away for free.

Also taking 75% of the revenue is a rippoff. Even the money grabbers from Apple only take 30% of the app store revenue.

Well played Valve.

Edited April 25, 2015 by DaMichel

[ghostbuzzer7]

Yikes, good thing GMOD doesnt have paid for mods. . Or may'be I got the mods before they got monetized

[RainDreamer]

I guess next we will have pirated mods along with pirated games. What a world.

[Kerbart]

I'm always amused by the entitlement of the gaming community that everything should be free. Because somehow, people getting compensated for the effort they put into things makes them dirty. Those of you who feel that way, please PM me, we're looking for tons of people at our office to do all kinds of job, and we love having you on board as you think money is dirty and you don't want any of it!

These monetizing schemes have a tendency to sort themselves out. You will see quality publishers who have a stellar reputation. Then you'll see the rest who produce crap. My prediction is that the quality producers who want money for their mods will put out free versions with limited functionality or limited parts, to get a feel for what you'd be paying for, and after getting burned two or three times by paying good money for a bad mod the consumers will quickly "demand" (or not buy) trial versions of new publishers.

I've seen this before with FS9. The vast majority of the mods would be free and varying in quality. And then there would be the airplanes and scenery you'd buy for $25-$30 (with FS9 selling for $20), and boy are they worth it.

And don't you think the forum would get a review section for mods if this model persists?

[m4v]

These monetizing schemes have a tendency to sort themselves out. You will see quality publishers who have a stellar reputation. Then you'll see the rest who produce crap. My prediction is that the quality producers who want money for their mods will put out free versions with limited functionality or limited parts, to get a feel for what you'd be paying for, and after getting burned two or three times by paying good money for a bad mod the consumers will quickly "demand" (or not buy) trial versions of new publishers.

The thing is that with a 25% cut there isn't a big incentive to do great things, sure I mod for fun and get money as a bonus, but will I get out of my way for implement user's requests, maintain the mod and fix it when it breaks even after I moved on? screw that.

[Airlock]

Why do the modders need to go through Valve to sell their mods?

[icecreamberni]

This is just a rippoff. It would be nice to add a donate button for the Steam workshop, with maybe 5% of the money going to valve. But buying mods and modders only get 25% of it is just insane.

[Pixel of Life]

I'm not sure what to think of this. It might work, or it might not.. I'd probably be fine with them costing anywhere from a few dozen cents/pence for the small mods, to a couple bucks/euro/quid for the really big and complex ones, so setting up a big modpack on KSP or Minecraft would only cost a bit more than the game itself. You could then shell out a few more bucks every now and then if you find some new and interesting mod releases.

The main problem with this is that every single mod needs to be 100% compatible with all the other ones.

[Motokid600]

And what about the people who download the mods hundreds of times? Are mods going to freaking need serial keys nows? That's ridiculous.

[Daveroski]

I have made donations for mods many times over the years. Even though the writer would have written that mod and others from their own appreciation of the original software and perhaps some feel-good from seeing the number of downloads. And perhaps reading how others have enjoyed their efforts inspires them to continue.

If mods become retail items, all of this will change. People will write for money, with no understanding of the software/user relationship.

The best modders are community minded and will continue in the way they always have, however, their efforts will become small islands of beauty in a sea of dross.

Pertinent items can be hard to find. As I write this, I am aware of how few people will actually read it. as they skip through the thread.

So for you few genuine modders who read this, and the even fewer who care enough to have an opinion of my post, let me just say that I will continue support the modding community

and will NEVER pay even one penny for any mod that I have not tried, enjoyed and appreciated.

It has always been my choice.

It will remain so.

Daveroski.

[Flashblade]

Everybody here who says they see no problem with this and that this is a good thing is just unbelievable naive. How about rampant mod theft which is already happening and which causes people who are afraid to loose their mods to pull them from the Nexus as I make this post. How are you going to prove that you are the mods developer? Anything on Steam that somebody has paid for can't be taken down by the modder. How about modding teams? How are they going to distribute the "profits" fairly which most likely will end up in one Steam wallet? How about mods depending on other mods? Will all the mods that use it have to pay a licensing fee for firespitter.dll?

Modding is a community effort. A lot of people besides the modder himself actually contribute to improve on a mod be it through feedback on the mod or through providing ideas for new features which could be included in the mod or outright helping in making things work in the mod. We all know how much ferram has helped other people making their mod a reality or compatible with FAR. All of a sudden ferram has an incentive now in the future to do none of that. Instead he will have good reasons to guard his secrets instead of sharing them with the community to make things better. We are not seeing the glimpse of a golden age of modding here we are entering a true nightmare realm where the exchange on modding will die because there will be money to be made and there will be the fear that somebody else might profit from your work. Awesome!!! I wish that the modding community would be smart as a whole and reject this scam outright but it is already shattering over this. This is not to be welcomed. It is to be rejected with all the force that can be mustered.

Edit: Or how about this great thing. The mod Midas Magic keeps a free version on the Nexus. When you cast a spell with this version the author has now included a 4% chance per cast that a message is being displayed which advertises the pay version on Steamworkshop. Is anyone here REALLY looking forward to this kind of development?

Edited April 26, 2015 by Flashblade

[Special Agent Sigvan]

There is a subreddit dedicated to mod piracy.

Well crap then.

[Godot]

I for my part am not opposed to this ... there are some mods for Steam games that have a lot of work put into them

for example the BlackIce-Mod for Hearts of Iron 3 ... or Twallans Mod Colletion for Sims 3.

There are dangers IMHO ...

like the abovementioned mod theft

or a commercialization boom for mods (where every mod creator for every tiny Workshop-Mod thinks it would be a good idea to charge money)

but all in all I see it more of a chance (for gifted people to get a little bit of money out of it) than a danger

[longbyte1]

This just in... Valve scraps the paid mod system!

Celebrate??

[musicpenguin]

Mission complete, Paid mods removed.

[m4v]

Dunno, although the system that Valve put forth wasn't good, the impression I got was that players fought against it not because it was bad but because they didn't want to lose their free stuff.

[Camacha]

Dunno, although the system that Valve put forth wasn't good, the impression I got was that players fought against it not because it was bad but because they didn't want to lose their free stuff.

You can hardly blame a community that has been asked to buy DLCs and expansion packs that should have been in the game in the first place for years to be careful with these kinds of things. Plus that mod makers seemed to get the short straw: the 25% is almost insultingly little compensation. Valve talks about the concept of modders living off their work, yet the reality is that jobs in the gaming industry are hard to come by anyway, and that this system would essentially have talent work for peanuts without any contract or benefits, with publishers and developers still making a nice buck. That hardly seems fair at all.

Valve almost seems to be forgetting that modding is a two way street. Yes, people make money off of someone else's games, but these games also dramatically increase in value because of these mods. Oblivion and Skyrim are only good for a handful of hours of gameplay without them to most people. Because of mods, they are still being sold and played in quantity.