Charging for Skyrim Mods Was a Horrendous Idea

SirCannonFodder

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Hey Shamus, the $400 figure your friend gave you is already taking into account the 25%. The amount of cash you personally need to have earned before getting anything is $100. Probably should have checked the FAQ [https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/workshoppaymentinfofaq/#Payments].
 

Amir Kondori

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Lightknight said:
Caramel Frappe said:
2. 75%/25% isn't a bad split. As is, development studios only get 15% with the rest of the money going to the publisher, console maker, marketing, the retail store, and anything else. In this scenario, Steam is the console maker (since Steam is a platform) and serves as a kind of marketing and retail store while Bethesda's store front is itself also marketing and a retail store. Bethesda is also the publisher (They financially assisted the modders by backing the game engine and dev tools as well as providing the storefront). This isn't bad to rent space on this kind of highly visible storefront that is Bethesda's even though it's on Steam.

So 25% is good. It's especially sweet when you don't have to create your own assets or build your own engine components like real developers have to do. It also isn't obligatory. If they don't think it is worth the 75% then they can still go elsewhere.
A developer may get a relatively small cut, and many developers actually get closer to that 25% mark, they get paid to develop the content in the first place. The salaries and costs have been paid the entire time and THEN they cut their percentage. In this case nothing is getting paid for the content, so why should the split be the same?
 

Odbarc

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I think the ad for the 10 years-old mod (and probably outright stolen at this point) "Realistic Horse Genitals" for only $99.99 sums up this entire idea.

Most in-house made expansion packs sell for only $40 or what-not.
Everything else would be worth pennies on average, at least with the stuff I've used. Alternate colors, different designs, de-crap-ified UI removed start-up logo.
 

Shinkicker444

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I'm curious if Steam and Beth had to wait till a threshold to get their cut. I bet they didn't. What of the mods that don't reach that threshold? Beth and Steam keep the money? Or is in perpetual escrow.
 

Randomvirus

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I really never saw why any of this was bad. The complaint about "the money" was just asinine to me.

People are making things for a product they don't own, then selling it on a service using an infrastructure they didn't create.

If people didn't want it, they don't have to pay for it. I've downloaded tons of mods for Skyrim, I would seriously pay for none of them. Well, maybe Frostfall. Because they weren't significant in any way. But I'm pretty frugal on any DLC.

Maybe it's because gamers are seriously the dumbest demographic there is, and have to buy everything they see.
 

Karadalis

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Randomvirus said:
I really never saw why any of this was bad. The complaint about "the money" was just asinine to me.

People are making things for a product they don't own, then selling it on a service using an infrastructure they didn't create.

If people didn't want it, they don't have to pay for it. I've downloaded tons of mods for Skyrim, I would seriously pay for none of them. Well, maybe Frostfall. Because they weren't significant in any way. But I'm pretty frugal on any DLC.

Maybe it's because gamers are seriously the dumbest demographic there is, and have to buy everything they see.
Or maybe you should read the article and think about the arguments he brings up about there being no quality control, rampant stealing and bethesda and valve claiming money while doing jack shit instead of insulting everyone around you?

This scheme was a poorly implemented mess and shows that Valve does not understand modding culture, and aparantly some other people with capitalist boners in this very thread dont understand it either. Especially when they now get a steady paycheck at the end of the month instead of having to hope that no one steals their work with them having actually no legal protection to prevent it.

Valve doesnt take responsibility, Bethesda takes no responsibility... and good luck trying to get a dmca against a guy you only know as pwnzer348!!! who stole and uploaded your mod and claims that hes the original developer and you are the fraud. Steam has absolutely no copyright protection measures installed into their workshop, and unlike with their own games refuses to commit to any QA whatsofreaking ever, and even encourages people to steal mods that they found for free somewhere else!

Not only that but everyone keeps ignoring the "poisen the well" argument and instead keep stomping their feet on the ground and keep changing "if modders get paid they make better mods"

Without even having any arguments to back that up... as if repeating this statement makes it true.

Not only do these wannabe hardcore capitalists completly ignore modding culture and what makes modding actually possible in the first place (the cooperation of modders due to mods being a free labor of love) but they somehow think that being promised a vague payout at the end of the day suddenly means that people will invest huge sums of money into developing mods... when recent history has shown us that the oposite is true.

Did early acess actually lead to better games? NO! Most games that come out of early access do so with promised features never implemented, the rest are complete garbage unity assets using cash grabs, and then you have one or two games that are actually worth it every now and then.

Or how about steam greenlight? Yeah that one surely helped bring out the best games indie devs can make right?

How can people be so naive and think that introducing corporate culture into a digital HOBBY can lead to any positive outcome? Especialy those that have depended on this hobby to get themselves a job with a steady paycheck?

Its just sad to see how eager these people are to get shafted and sell out their fellow gamers to big corporations whos only care is how to make the biggest amount of money with the least amount of investment.

For fucks sake the quality of games, even AAA games has DECREASED over the last 10 years with the introduction of microtransactions and DLC... and yet these people somehow believe that this time it will actually help improve things?

Have you spend your live under a rock? Take a look around! Pre order incentives, micro transactions in single player games with no replayability, nickle and diming "free to play" games that like to go whale hunting, DLC ondisk, heavily monetized multyplayer for full priced games and it goes on and on and on.

But modders... they are saints... they would never try to abuse the system to make a quick buck... no sir.. because now they are promised some sort of compensation they suddenly will all quit their jobs and start developing mods fulltime...

Ignoring the fact that theres no copyright protection for modders work.

That there is no incentive for them to finish their mods after they sold them (quite the contrary from an economic standpoint, why should you keep working on something that doesnt make you money anymore?)

That there is no incentive to actually maintain their mods when something breaks due to a game update (again, an economical stupid decision seeing that word of mouth is useless when you can just upload new mods with a new account)

That there is a bigger incentive for developing tons of smaller mods instead of one single big mod of high quality (selling 3 x 10k 1 dollar mods is more profitable then selling 1k 5 dollar mods)


But because people are such saints they would surely never exploit the system and the overall quality of mods would improve?
 

Shamanic Rhythm

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Pretty well put.

DrOswald said:
One of the big points he brings is that by making mods paid people will have an incentive to steal mod content and pass it off as their own. Well of course! The only reason this didn't happen before was because the content was inherently valueless. His solution to this problem is for the content to remain valueless. That is like saying that selling comic books is bad because someone might photocopy the art and sell it as their own. It is a pathetically bad anti-creator argument and I am shocked he would repeat it. We can't let creative content be sold! If it has value then people might try to steal it and sell it, so the creator wont get compensated! Far better to just prevent creators being compensated in the first place!
You're projecting a bit here. His point was that Steam's method of offering paid mods would incentivise stealing more than donation buttons would, because under their model you would have to actually part with money to download the mod if the mod's uploader opted into the system. People could (and do) still try and get payment for the mods made by others under a donation system, but because donations are optional it means people are more likely to do the research before they give money - whereupon they might discover the person they are about to donate to is a fraud.

And then, get this, he goes on to talk about how a donation button would be a more appropriate method. But donation buttons already exist, he even gives himself as an example of how it can support people. But his entire stolen content point rests on the assumption that mod content is valueless!
No it doesn't. As noted above, it's the difference between providing a storefront that makes it extremely easy to shift what is essentially stolen property and giving the property away and asking for a donation. There's no doubt which would attract more potential thieves.
 

RedDeadFred

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May 13, 2009
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Most of the stuff in this article I'd already brought up before and thought of. However, the one thing that really sticks out to me is the idea of Bethesda profiting off of things that they should have done themselves. Don't get me wrong, I loved the base game of Skyrim, but I don't think I ever actually got Blood on the Ice to work when I was playing the game on console. Mods fixed so many bugs and the idea that Bethesda could make extra money off of something that should have been their job is inexcusable. I know the bug fix mods didn't ever go onto the Workshop, but just the potential alone was awful.

I should mention that I am completely for modders getting compensated for their hard work. I've personally donated to several mods that I thought were worth money in more games than just Skyrim. Mount and Blade Warband has mods that easily surpass the main game and the official DLC that it has come out with.
 

Steve the Pocket

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I'm not opposed to some mods being sold for money, on principle. Some of them are huge and had a lot of work put into them, and are essentially fan-made DLC. Nor am I opposed to Valve getting 30% because that's what they get from actual games already. But I would have treated it the way Valve treats the Half-Life 2 mods they put on Steam: Cherry-pick the ones that they (or Bethesda) feel are worthy to be showcased on the Steam store; everyone else is on their own. And as far as the copyright thing goes... OK, story time: You know the Team Fortress 2 map Mann Manor [https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Mann_Manor]? That map had a different tractor model when it was in development, but the person who had drawn the concept art for it (just the concept art!) couldn't be reached in time for Valve to buy the rights, even though it had been freely contributed to the TF2Maps resource pool [http://forums.tf2maps.net/downloads.php?do=file&id=3072]. So Valve asked the co-creator of the map to design and model a new one from scratch at the eleventh hour. That's the level of diligence that needs to be exercised here. Not the fucking honor system.

As far as Bethesda getting a cut... there are only two cases I can think of where this would be justified: The mods that recreated Morrowind and Oblivion in the Skyrim engine. Since it's Bethesda's games that are being poached. And that's only assuming that the mod makers want to charge money for them and all the rights can be cleared as I mentioned above.
 

Somekindofgold

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This Valve paid mod things is just like DLC, microtransactions, pre order bonuses or the Xbone's bullshit, yeah on paper it might be a good idea but as we've seen this industry and good ideas dont mix, especially when money is involved. Always be cynical, dont just buy into what they're saying because its Valve saying it, or Rockstar saying it, or your favorite dev/company saying it.

As soon as I hear some new way in which game companies will make money I'm always negative because we've had a decade long track record of this stuff blowing up in our faces and being abused.
 

LetalisK

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This is the first time Valve has done something that completely pissed me off. Usually if they do something off, it's a "Okay, I see what they're trying to do here. Even if I don't particularly like the method, I get it." Not this. They can completely fuck off with this idea.
 

pearcinator

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I haven't even mod games before and this still made me angry. It's the greed that really pisses me off. Valve are possibly the wealthiest developers (if you can still call them that) out there and they try to release a new way to monetize from Steam before fixing the many other problems that Steam has such as Greenlight and Early Access (which this 'paid mods' scheme would have become and completely tarnished the reputation of the modding community).

As far as I am concerned this is a victory for the gamers. The big companies don't seem to realise that when we smell something shitty we don't accept it! Valve now have had to backpedal on their scheme because we probably flooded their inboxes with hate. This whole idea was not thought out and terribly implemented. People will take advantage of anything and you could see from the first MINUTE the paid mods scheme was introduced there were already weapon skins costing $1 or people taking the piss with the 'extra apple' mod (which was pretty funny). People will try to make money off anything.

It probably sounded good in theory by allowing creators to actually make modding into an occupation rather than a hobby but you know what else sounds good in theory? Communism; and we all know how flawed that is when put into practice. As soon as the human element is involved, things go to shit.
 

CommanderZx2

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So much ignorance on this topic. Valve game the modders the option to sell their mods if they wanted to. They gave them a fair percentage of the profits of 25%, which by the way is the same rates that Dota 2 and TF 2 modders get for their items. This 25% is also far greater than what you would be getting if you were doing development as a real job.

This results in completely clueless people flipping their shit thinking it's the end of modding, never mind the fact that many popular games started as mods before turning into retail products. I guess I shouldn't be surprised at how childish the response to this has been, but it has made me stop visiting several sites due to the outright stupidity on display in the overreaction.
 

Lightknight

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Amir Kondori said:
Lightknight said:
Caramel Frappe said:
2. 75%/25% isn't a bad split. As is, development studios only get 15% with the rest of the money going to the publisher, console maker, marketing, the retail store, and anything else. In this scenario, Steam is the console maker (since Steam is a platform) and serves as a kind of marketing and retail store while Bethesda's store front is itself also marketing and a retail store. Bethesda is also the publisher (They financially assisted the modders by backing the game engine and dev tools as well as providing the storefront). This isn't bad to rent space on this kind of highly visible storefront that is Bethesda's even though it's on Steam.

So 25% is good. It's especially sweet when you don't have to create your own assets or build your own engine components like real developers have to do. It also isn't obligatory. If they don't think it is worth the 75% then they can still go elsewhere.
A developer may get a relatively small cut, and many developers actually get closer to that 25% mark, they get paid to develop the content in the first place. The salaries and costs have been paid the entire time and THEN they cut their percentage. In this case nothing is getting paid for the content, so why should the split be the same?
The game, the game engine, the development tools they're using, the marketing that went into the game they're modding, all of these are costs the publisher and core game developers incurred.

This is as silly as someone adding a chapter to Harry Potter and claiming they got no help from J.K. Rowling in the creation of it when all of the tools and setup were there. Heck, this is even more extreme as Bethesda even created the mod tools.

Beyond that, there's also the fact that they're renting space on Bethesda's storefront and in Valve's platform.

So.... you're extremely wrong here.
 

Kargathia

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Randomvirus said:
People are making things for a product they don't own, then selling it on a service using an infrastructure they didn't create.
While generally true, things get a bit more nuanced when applied to Skyrim.

This is a very mature community, creating content for a game that is widely regarded as heavily dependent on mods. Not "featuring mods", "enhanced by mods", but outright depending on them for its popularity. It may be true modders do not own Skyrim, but in monetary terms the value they have added far outweighs any investments on Bethesda's part to enable them.

Adding paid mods to a new game could certainly be done, and possibly indeed create net benefits for everyone. The lack of customer support, the bonanza of bad incentives, and the absolute disregard for chained dependencies can all be ironed out, but doing so takes time - and is exponentially harder to do if a decade's worth of work needs to be revisited.
 

Lightknight

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shirkbot said:
Lightknight said:
2. 75%/25% isn't a bad split.
A bad split is a bad split, even if it is better than the industry average. Not to mention that those companies are not splitting the sale directly with all other parties. They make contracts ahead of time, they have terms and timetables which decide who is paid what, when and for what duration of time. Contracts that the companies in question negotiated for themselves, as opposed to being dictated to them from on high.

We killed this because, even if the core idea of compensating modders for services rendered is a good one, the execution was poor at best.
Oh, I'm sorry, I missed the part where modders were being forced against their will to charge anything for their game or even having to put it on Steam itself...

Seems to me that the ONLY option they have now is 0%.
 

DrOswald

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Shamanic Rhythm said:
Pretty well put.

DrOswald said:
One of the big points he brings is that by making mods paid people will have an incentive to steal mod content and pass it off as their own. Well of course! The only reason this didn't happen before was because the content was inherently valueless. His solution to this problem is for the content to remain valueless. That is like saying that selling comic books is bad because someone might photocopy the art and sell it as their own. It is a pathetically bad anti-creator argument and I am shocked he would repeat it. We can't let creative content be sold! If it has value then people might try to steal it and sell it, so the creator wont get compensated! Far better to just prevent creators being compensated in the first place!
You're projecting a bit here. His point was that Steam's method of offering paid mods would incentivise stealing more than donation buttons would, because under their model you would have to actually part with money to download the mod if the mod's uploader opted into the system. People could (and do) still try and get payment for the mods made by others under a donation system, but because donations are optional it means people are more likely to do the research before they give money - whereupon they might discover the person they are about to donate to is a fraud.

And then, get this, he goes on to talk about how a donation button would be a more appropriate method. But donation buttons already exist, he even gives himself as an example of how it can support people. But his entire stolen content point rests on the assumption that mod content is valueless!
No it doesn't. As noted above, it's the difference between providing a storefront that makes it extremely easy to shift what is essentially stolen property and giving the property away and asking for a donation. There's no doubt which would attract more potential thieves.
It actually does. The reason donation buttons are not an effective method of shifting stolen property is because PEOPLE DON'T READILY DONATE. They might donate later, after they try the mod, if they really liked it and they remember to do it and if they can remember where they got it from and if they feel like going out of their way to go and find the mod page again and they have some money to burn and if they don't find some excuse to deny the money while researching the modder and if this mod in particular is the best mod they downloaded and is therefore where they are willing to spend the modest sum they are willing to donate.

Of course people are more prone to steal the mod and put it up on the storefront, because people on a store front are looking to spend money now, not vaguely maybe possibly willing to spend some money in the future, but only if they decide they like the content creator. The pay upfront in a storefront model adds a significant amount of value to the mod.

No matter how you look at it, the argument is that we should deny value to content in order to mitigate stealing of that content. It is an insane anti-creator argument that people only support because the purposed "solution" is "everything should remain free for consumers forever."
 

Petromir

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Amir Kondori said:
Lightknight said:
Caramel Frappe said:
2. 75%/25% isn't a bad split. As is, development studios only get 15% with the rest of the money going to the publisher, console maker, marketing, the retail store, and anything else. In this scenario, Steam is the console maker (since Steam is a platform) and serves as a kind of marketing and retail store while Bethesda's store front is itself also marketing and a retail store. Bethesda is also the publisher (They financially assisted the modders by backing the game engine and dev tools as well as providing the storefront). This isn't bad to rent space on this kind of highly visible storefront that is Bethesda's even though it's on Steam.

So 25% is good. It's especially sweet when you don't have to create your own assets or build your own engine components like real developers have to do. It also isn't obligatory. If they don't think it is worth the 75% then they can still go elsewhere.
A developer may get a relatively small cut, and many developers actually get closer to that 25% mark, they get paid to develop the content in the first place. The salaries and costs have been paid the entire time and THEN they cut their percentage. In this case nothing is getting paid for the content, so why should the split be the same?
Their salaries are paid out of the 15%/25%/whatever% (or 15%/25%/whatever% of all the games dev makes, with publishers using their cut to pay advances for future products.)

While there were plenty of problems with this implimentation, 25% without having to fork out for engine licences etc out of that is actually compared to what selling a game retail would work out as a great deal.

Now a pay what you want scheme with a steam administered free trial period would be better, especially if there is say a 'you have to have this level of rep or similar from free mod work to monitise' barrier to entry.

Now of course things like GoT or Star Wars TCs and the like would likely have to remain free unless the relevant licences holders agreed.

Steam also needs to find some happy medium between no curation by them and too much. Though an actual refund policy would go a long way to alleviate this.
 

Amir Kondori

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Lightknight said:
Amir Kondori said:
Lightknight said:
Caramel Frappe said:
2. 75%/25% isn't a bad split. As is, development studios only get 15% with the rest of the money going to the publisher, console maker, marketing, the retail store, and anything else. In this scenario, Steam is the console maker (since Steam is a platform) and serves as a kind of marketing and retail store while Bethesda's store front is itself also marketing and a retail store. Bethesda is also the publisher (They financially assisted the modders by backing the game engine and dev tools as well as providing the storefront). This isn't bad to rent space on this kind of highly visible storefront that is Bethesda's even though it's on Steam.

So 25% is good. It's especially sweet when you don't have to create your own assets or build your own engine components like real developers have to do. It also isn't obligatory. If they don't think it is worth the 75% then they can still go elsewhere.
A developer may get a relatively small cut, and many developers actually get closer to that 25% mark, they get paid to develop the content in the first place. The salaries and costs have been paid the entire time and THEN they cut their percentage. In this case nothing is getting paid for the content, so why should the split be the same?
The game, the game engine, the development tools they're using, the marketing that went into the game they're modding, all of these are costs the publisher and core game developers incurred.

This is as silly as someone adding a chapter to Harry Potter and claiming they got no help from J.K. Rowling in the creation of it when all of the tools and setup were there. Heck, this is even more extreme as Bethesda even created the mod tools.

Beyond that, there's also the fact that they're renting space on Bethesda's storefront and in Valve's platform.

So.... you're extremely wrong here.
I would completely disagree and say that you are considerably and extremely wrong here. Obsidian got all the same tools and more but they were paid for their time building the content, which is why the small cut of sales makes sense. You are trying to pretend that just being given the platform is equivalent to being paid for creating the content. If developers didn't get paid to create the content they would never agree to the small cut of sales.

If you are creating a mod, whether an armor mod or something like Falskaar, you are a developer. Mods are already adding value to Bethesda's game and those increased sales, as there are lots of people who would never buy a Bethesda game if they didn't have all the amazing mods they have, also put some extra money in Valve's pocket. If they are not going to pay modders to develop the content in the first place as any other developer could expect why should they expect them to take the same small cut of the sales?

To clarify, this is NOT Bethesda's storefront, it is Valve's. Bethesda does nothing other than OK the monetization. They do not host any files or take care of any payment processing.
 

DrOswald

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Amir Kondori said:
Lightknight said:
Amir Kondori said:
Lightknight said:
Caramel Frappe said:
2. 75%/25% isn't a bad split. As is, development studios only get 15% with the rest of the money going to the publisher, console maker, marketing, the retail store, and anything else. In this scenario, Steam is the console maker (since Steam is a platform) and serves as a kind of marketing and retail store while Bethesda's store front is itself also marketing and a retail store. Bethesda is also the publisher (They financially assisted the modders by backing the game engine and dev tools as well as providing the storefront). This isn't bad to rent space on this kind of highly visible storefront that is Bethesda's even though it's on Steam.

So 25% is good. It's especially sweet when you don't have to create your own assets or build your own engine components like real developers have to do. It also isn't obligatory. If they don't think it is worth the 75% then they can still go elsewhere.
A developer may get a relatively small cut, and many developers actually get closer to that 25% mark, they get paid to develop the content in the first place. The salaries and costs have been paid the entire time and THEN they cut their percentage. In this case nothing is getting paid for the content, so why should the split be the same?
The game, the game engine, the development tools they're using, the marketing that went into the game they're modding, all of these are costs the publisher and core game developers incurred.

This is as silly as someone adding a chapter to Harry Potter and claiming they got no help from J.K. Rowling in the creation of it when all of the tools and setup were there. Heck, this is even more extreme as Bethesda even created the mod tools.

Beyond that, there's also the fact that they're renting space on Bethesda's storefront and in Valve's platform.

So.... you're extremely wrong here.
I would completely disagree and say that you are considerably and extremely wrong here. Obsidian got all the same tools and more but they were paid for their time building the content, which is why the small cut of sales makes sense. You are trying to pretend that just being given the platform is equivalent to being paid for creating the content. If developers didn't get paid to create the content they would never agree to the small cut of sales.

If you are creating a mod, whether an armor mod or something like Falskaar, you are a developer. Mods are already adding value to Bethesda's game and those increased sales, as there are lots of people who would never buy a Bethesda game if they didn't have all the amazing mods they have, also put some extra money in Valve's pocket. If they are not going to pay modders to develop the content in the first place as any other developer could expect why should they expect them to take the same small cut of the sales?

To clarify, this is NOT Bethesda's storefront, it is Valve's. Bethesda does nothing other than OK the monetization. They do not host any files or take care of any payment processing.
Obsidian got a flat chunk of money for developing New Vegas (probably in the form of X dollars in advance and X dollars on completion of the product, with bonuses in place for certain achievements such as the famous 85 meta critic bonus condition) and a 0% cut of the revenue. Had they negotiated for a 25% cut they most likely would have received no advance, no product completion payout, and no bonus conditions. And while we don't know the exact amount of compensation Obsidian received, we can say for sure that it was no where near 25% of the revenue of the product.

You can talk about morals all you want, but from a standpoint of how things actually work in reality 25% with none of the regular fees and conditions attached to such contracts is a screaming deal.