Gabe Newell Speaks on The Whole Paid Skyrim Mods Debacle

[Darknacht]

Valve may make a few hundreds off this, but their reputation gets crippled, throwing themselves into a hole. Now they haven't doomed themselves obviously and can easily recover, but even considering this tactic will never be forgotten by people. It's this kind of method that eventually led EA to become what it was, and look at Nintendo. Youtube policies, copyright takedowns and taking all the $ away from uploaders who praised their games. Yeah Nintendo might be making buck, but it's eventually going to wreck their image into oblivion if they keep it up which can really hurt sales in the long run.

I bet Valve will make more than a few hundred off of Skyrim mods, they likely already have, and its likely to spread to other games as well. And there will likely be modders that only let their mod be hosted on Steam and will pull them down from other modding sites, helping to make Steam the only place where you can get some good mods. Also Steam has pissed their customers off before and very few of them ever leave, I doubt this will be any different. I will believe that this is bad for Value when I see people actually refusing to use Steam.

 

[runic knight]

Valve may make a few hundreds off this, but their reputation gets crippled, throwing themselves into a hole. Now they haven't doomed themselves obviously and can easily recover, but even considering this tactic will never be forgotten by people. It's this kind of method that eventually led EA to become what it was, and look at Nintendo. Youtube policies, copyright takedowns and taking all the $ away from uploaders who praised their games. Yeah Nintendo might be making buck, but it's eventually going to wreck their image into oblivion if they keep it up which can really hurt sales in the long run.

I bet Valve will make more than a few hundred off of Skyrim mods, they likely already have, and its likely to spread to other games as well. Also Steam has pissed their customers off before and very few of them ever leave, I doubt this will be any different. I will believe that this is bad for Value when I see people actually refusing to use Steam.

Competitors rise not when the current stock are running well, but when they begin to slip. Steam's success is very heavily influenced by the investment and trust in it from the audience. Too much damage to that will cause people to leave, and there are alternatives already that have arisen out of slip-ups in the past, either created by steam or created by other companies to hinder steam. EA removing new releases from coming onto steam in order to guarantee people have to install their product, for instance. Or the rise of GoG and other alternatives.

Just because steam is winning its race, never assume it can get lazy, especially when what earned it the place it holds starts to be eroded. Valve pushes too hard and people will leave, and with alternatives out there and the main selling point of steam being reputation suddenly going sour, they might get less new people to replace them.

Not that I see this going that way. Gabe seems to be cleaning things up, unbanning people and generally attempting to address issues, even if he doesn't quite get the source of the outrage (the content being money comment for instance). Still, he seems to be doing enough to quell the outrage and that will spare the reputation. Still, between this, the greenlight and a number of growing issues, steam is weaker reputation wise then it has been since the start of its boom. Sharks will start to swim and nip at them more for it.

 

[Darknacht]

Still, between this, the greenlight and a number of growing issues, steam is weaker reputation wise then it has been since the start of its boom. Sharks will start to swim and nip at them more for it.

Value has pissed everyone off before and there has always been competitors but Value is good enough at keeping it's sheep in their pens and that doesn't seem to be changing. In fact this will likely strengthen their hold as some modders will only want to mod for games on Steam so that they can get paid and more developer will produce steam exclusive games so that they can make money from the sale of mods.This will likely encourage more people to give up on other platforms not drive people to other platforms as they will have fewer games and less content available.
I don't like Steam's actions and they drove me away years ago, but it will take a lot more than paid mods to stop most consumers from using steam as their primary, if not only, digital distributer for PC games. And giving them piles of money certainly is not going to scare off content creators.

 

[runic knight]

Still, between this, the greenlight and a number of growing issues, steam is weaker reputation wise then it has been since the start of its boom. Sharks will start to swim and nip at them more for it.

Value has pissed everyone off before and there has always been competitors but Value is good enough at keeping it's sheep in their pens and that doesn't seem to be changing. In fact this will likely strengthen their hold as some modders will only want to mod for games on Steam so that they can get paid and more developer will produce steam exclusive games so that they can make money from the sale of mods.This will likely encourage more people to give up on other platforms not drive people to other platforms as they will have fewer games and less content available.
I don't like Steam's actions and they drove me away years ago, but it will take a lot more than paid mods to stop most consumers from using steam as their primary, if not only, digital distributer for PC games. And giving them piles of money certainly is not going to scare off content creators.

On the contrary, they may be shooting themselves in the foot by trying to monetize mods like they have. For one, content creators wont be getting piles of money, they will be getting pennies on the dollar for every charged mod, mods which themselves will all be competing for a limited amount of money people will be willing to invest. And modders already see that, as many have come out opposed to the idea. After all, a modder can gain reputation and recognition with free mods because the audience it there. A pay-for system actually decreases the available audience (it decreases the longevity of a game at initial cost, which decreases the window of opportunity people have to get audience to try their mods, which translates to a smaller audience at any given time in a pay-for system.)

Yes you will get some that chase the money by publishing on steam alone, but if the audience for mods moves to the free sites instead, they wont make what they want, and certainly not enough to make it profitable save the only most extreme or polished cases. Add into that a sudden influx of cash-grab mods from either modders who made them or stolen from other mods, and it becomes a lot of trash floating in those waters, and the whole environment gets ignored by the audience.

Keep in mind the mod audience is not the same as the DLC audience, and there is both a different a reason the mod audience is so larger and a different expectation from them. Mods are forgiven for being buggy, incomplete, incompatible or theft of IP. Products are not. People pay upfront, they will demand far better then most mods can provide, especially at the prices some people ask.

In the end, this could nuke the steam mod community in a quickly bursting bubble that leaves no one but the developers and steam the richer, and the modding community as a whole far poorer and more divided. And the knowledge of alternatives elsewhere, and the drive to seek them out may be the last push people need to jump ship to other platforms. Laziness and familiarity are the main reason people stick with a service, if they have to leave the service to do other things, and actively have a grudge against that service for forcing their hands in the matter, who know.

 

[Olas]

I'm confused, why are people against this? Shouldn't people be able to get paid for their work if they want to? Wouldn't that encourage more people to create mods, and allow modders to do it full time allowing for higher quality and more frequent mods?

And it's not like releasing mods for free won't still be possible after this.

I don't get the outrage, like at all.

 

[Darknacht]

snip

We will see. I'd bet this works out fine for them. They are looking to make mods into 3rd party DLC and it will likely work.
Show me the corpse of Steam and I will dance a jig on it, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

 

[runic knight]

I'm confused, why are people against this? Shouldn't people be able to get paid for their work if they want to? Wouldn't that encourage more people to create mods, and allow modders to do it full time allowing for higher quality and more frequent mods?

And it's not like releasing mods for free won't still be possible after this.

I don't get the outrage, like at all.

Explain the Mobile Game App market if prior to it becoming what it is now, it was once a totally free service by people who just loved the hobby of making fun or useful apps. Seems as close an explanation to the resistance of turning a free community-driven mutually beneficially hobby into a profit-driven near-completely unregulated product service.

We will see. I'd bet this works out fine for them. They are looking to make mods into 3rd party DLC and it will likely work.
Show me the corpse of Steam and I will dance a jig on it, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

I don't wish to see steam die myself, but I see the current form of what they are trying to do as catastrophic to modding and their standing in the PC community. I hope they change things but as you said, I guess we will see.

 

[Lilani]

He looks like a sad Santa in that picture.

Anyway, I think it's an interesting move and I'd like to see what it does. Perhaps modders who put out lots of high-quality content can carve out careers for themselves like the way YouTubers have been able to carve out careers from their videos. I can't help but feel like there were similar grievances which came out when YouTube first came up with the partnership program and allowing users to benefit from the ad revenue generated from their videos. And from what I can tell, this has only improved the quality and quantity of content available on YouTube.

That doesn't mean the same will happen with modding, but nobody can predict the future. Either way I think it's worth a shot.

 

[Olas]

I'm confused, why are people against this? Shouldn't people be able to get paid for their work if they want to? Wouldn't that encourage more people to create mods, and allow modders to do it full time allowing for higher quality and more frequent mods?

And it's not like releasing mods for free won't still be possible after this.

I don't get the outrage, like at all.

Explain the Mobile Game App market if prior to it becoming what it is now, it was once a totally free service by people who just loved the hobby of making fun or useful apps. Seems as close an explanation to the resistance of turning a free community-driven mutually beneficially hobby into a profit-driven near-completely unregulated product service.

I'm not I understand what you're trying to say.

The Mobile Game App market exists largely because people can make money off it. Would you rather it disappear?

 

[RicoADF]

Let me go ahead and stop you right there, because unless you can prove that modders only mod out of the goodness of their heart and not - for instance - because there simply hasn't been any easy - and legal - way for them to get paid for their efforts, your argument is pointless.

As someone who has modded games for fun since around 2003 I can say that yes I have only modded for fun and would not accept payment for it. Beside the fact it would prevent me from using other IPs (as copyright holders would chase down people being paid for using their IP, being paid would require more responsibility on the product. Legal requirements and even tax would come into it and as others have said it would become a job, not fun. Fuck that, modding is a hobby to be enjoying not a job. If I want to work on games for fun I'd join a developer studio or go indie. Soooo.......*

Can someone explain to me how this is even legal?

I mean I thought mods were only allowed to be done in the first place because the modder is doing it for free, and to sell the work would be to profit off of a studio's work, since the mod will no doubt be built off of the assets of that studio.

With this in mind, I'm surprised there isn't a lawsuit brewing.

It's done with the publisher/developer's(see: Bethesda) approval, and (in this case) Bethesda has full control over how much money they get to pocket out of the modder's revenue before the modder even sees a dime. (see: Supplemental Workshop Terms [http://i.imgur.com/VdHg4dG.png])

If anything, since Bethesda is well known as being a pretty litigious company(see: scrolls, fortress fallout, morroblivion), we'll probably start to see the free mod sites start getting C&D'd over the paid mods.

Bethesda can only allow their game to be nodded, they cannot allow a LotR mod (for example) to be sold as they don't own the rights it, something I'm worried will become a big issue in future. Mods like that for the most part have been ignored because their too small and not earning anything meant that chasing them for money was pointless, now there's financial exchanges going on you can bet alot more C&D on total conversions, even free ones, as big companies will cracked down on mods with blind fire shots. This could destroy mods completely all because some people wanted to get paid for their hobby.


Continuing from above * ......... Thanks Valve for destroying my hobby as your going to attract the wrong attention you greedy idiots!

 

[runic knight]

I'm confused, why are people against this? Shouldn't people be able to get paid for their work if they want to? Wouldn't that encourage more people to create mods, and allow modders to do it full time allowing for higher quality and more frequent mods?

And it's not like releasing mods for free won't still be possible after this.

I don't get the outrage, like at all.

Explain the Mobile Game App market if prior to it becoming what it is now, it was once a totally free service by people who just loved the hobby of making fun or useful apps. Seems as close an explanation to the resistance of turning a free community-driven mutually beneficially hobby into a profit-driven near-completely unregulated product service.

I'm not I understand what you're trying to say.

The Mobile Game App market exists largely because people can make money off it. Would you rather it disappear?

No, I am saying the change is trying to turn an established, functional, beneficial and free form of online community into a system like the mobile apps currently have. It is a reaction to taking something not broken and breaking it in the pursuit of money. Considering the quality, respectability and community of the mobile market, to say nothing of the lack of trust in the very nature of that, and the frequently reported abuses, I certainly don't blame people pissed that steam is trying to reduce modding to that.

Modding does not exist because people can make money off it, but you have people looking upon it and trying to force it to make them money. That's sort of the problem.

 

[EHKOS]

So, firstly, what's stopping people from manually installing the mod from the modder's site? Does Steam block that?

Secondly, you're charging money for something that was made without permission, with assets of another company, and integrating that into a product? Isn't that basically why they don't allow music on Youtube and burned DVDs?

 

[Olas]

I'm confused, why are people against this? Shouldn't people be able to get paid for their work if they want to? Wouldn't that encourage more people to create mods, and allow modders to do it full time allowing for higher quality and more frequent mods?

And it's not like releasing mods for free won't still be possible after this.

I don't get the outrage, like at all.

Explain the Mobile Game App market if prior to it becoming what it is now, it was once a totally free service by people who just loved the hobby of making fun or useful apps. Seems as close an explanation to the resistance of turning a free community-driven mutually beneficially hobby into a profit-driven near-completely unregulated product service.

I'm not I understand what you're trying to say.

The Mobile Game App market exists largely because people can make money off it. Would you rather it disappear?

No, I am saying the change is trying to turn an established, functional, beneficial and free form of online community into a system like the mobile apps currently have. It is a reaction to taking something not broken and breaking it in the pursuit of money.

I don't see how introducing a monetary option "breaks" the community. If people want to create mods for free I don't see how this would impede them.

People sell movies, yet that doesn't keep people from making youtube videos with high production value freely available.

Ya, sure it's a different product, but you have to convince me that allowing mod creators to charge for mods will somehow dismantle the market, which nobody has yet done. In my experience, allowing producers to make money universally increases both the quantity and quality of the products they supply.

Considering the quality, respectability and community of the mobile market, to say nothing of the lack of trust in the very nature of that, and the frequently reported abuses, I certainly don't blame people pissed that steam is trying to reduce modding to that.

First of all, what specific problems do you have with the mobile market that you think will occur to the MODS market if it allows revenue?

I use the android market and I don't really have any issues with it, but I can't respond properly if I don't know what we're talking about here.

Second, why do you assume the MODS market will resemble the mobile market specifically?

Modding does not exist because people can make money off it,

Obviously, since they can't.

but you have people looking upon it and trying to force it to make them money. That's sort of the problem.

I don't see how Valve is trying to force anyone to do anything. It seems pretty clear that this is an optional service people can try. And frankly, I think the fact that people don't want modders to be able to earn money for the work they put into mods is absurd. Not only does it benefit modders, but it benefits the consumer too because the supply of such goods will inevitably increase.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

He had to realize that introducing a payment system to something that was previously 100% free is going to piss people off.

You know what's funny? Not only are the people upset, but modders themselves are upset. Take a look:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=431467621&searchtext=protest+sign
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=431426494&searchtext=immersive+paywall
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=432039604&searchtext=Extra+Apple+LITE
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=432028937&searchtext=petition
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=431100423&searchtext=immersive+dirt

That's not even me having to dig for them ... there's a ton of these mods making fun / calling out bullcrap on the paying mods deal.

Gabe really screwed up, or Valve did at least. If they can't see why this is clearly corruption that makes EA turn the other cheek, then something's up. I don't hardly play Skyrim and even my jimmies are rustled quite hard.

That's funny.

I wouldn't go as far as to say that this puts Valve on the same level as EA, but pretty damn close. Then again Valve is the company that brought us Early Access and Greenlight so maybe there are no more companies worth believing in anymore.

 

[JET1971]

He looks like a sad Santa in that picture.

Anyway, I think it's an interesting move and I'd like to see what it does. Perhaps modders who put out lots of high-quality content can carve out careers for themselves like the way YouTubers have been able to carve out careers from their videos. I can't help but feel like there were similar grievances which came out when YouTube first came up with the partnership program and allowing users to benefit from the ad revenue generated from their videos. And from what I can tell, this has only improved the quality and quantity of content available on YouTube.

That doesn't mean the same will happen with modding, but nobody can predict the future. Either way I think it's worth a shot.

I have over a dozen Skyrim mods published and I am against this. There was nothing wrong with the donation system and even better use the Humble Bundle technique of pay what you want from $0.00 to billions. The reason is the competition destroys the mod community. There are tutorials available to do a great many things not explained on the CK's website and competition for money will make those a thing of the past. If a mod author needs help with a script or something he wont get that help if money is involved because he will be competition.

Then you have mod resources like a 300+ building kit set I published so mod authors can make new buildings both inside and out that didn't come with Skyrim or a DLC. Paid modding will make those a thing of the past because there is no way I am going to allow those items to be used in a mod that's for sale and any other resource creator will do the same thing. Valve and Bethesda has not made a resource section where we can license the stuff out either as a share of the profit or a one time and mod fee so we either sell it once and they get to use it for hundreds or even thousands of mods and us that made those resources get shafted.

I have changed my use permission to not include Steam paid mods and now I am forced to check there for them causing me to lose free time just to ensure none of my resources are being used to make a profit without compensation. There are hundreds of other authors who are now forced into this situation of checking to see if a resource was used. That has nothing at all to do with taking a complete mod someone else made and selling it. If I wanted to make money I would've posted them on TurboSquid with a single use license and I do have that option but I am for damn sure not going to let someone make a profit off my many months of work without getting any of it myself.

The Youtube analogy doesn't work, The money from Youtube videos comes from advertising and they get the lions share of the money. I believe its %70 to the author and %30 to Youtube I may be incorrect on the exact numbers but it is the opposite of what Valve and Bethesda are doing. But the reason they can make money doing videos is the videos are free to the people watching. If they had to pay .50 to watch a video Youtube would go bankrupt because nobody would watch them. Then to actually make a living on Youtube you have to constantly put out new videos that can take 30 minutes to make. A high quality mod can take months to make so quality mods cannot be pumped out daily or weekly and keep making money, once it leaves the new files downloads die just like once a video is no longer new on a channel views die off. For mods this will be worse simply because you cannot push out enough to make it worthwhile and you only earn %25 from every sale.

*Edit
To everyone talking about donations. Valve and Bethesda allow mod authors to put a Paypal donation link on the mod pages. When they did that Robin at The Nexus had contacted Bethesda and got approval to allow donations at The Nexus. Once Valve implemented paid mods they then removed all the donation links from all the free mods on the workshop. There was donations already and now only at The Nexus can you have donations.

Think about that dirty underhanded greedy bullshit! You want a donation? Great put your mod up for sale and get %25 of that donation while we take the rest! That is seriously fucked in and of itself.

 

[SadisticFire]

What about Steam streaming, whens the last time you watched one of those?

Actually I use the streaming feature quite a bit! It's nice if you just wanna watch your friends, it's quick and easy. Occasional issue, but for the most part I am happy it exists, even if it's not used very often.(I felt like I've been ragging on Valve too much that I need to atleast say something nice about them. Easy to criticize, and all that) It's nothing compared to Twitch if you need to branch to lots of audience though. But that's all I needed to say so now I need to fluff my post out with something vaguely ontopic.
Vaguely ontopic:
Gabe really did disappoint me here, I went to the AMA thread and I was disappointed on how many responses he gave. It mostly seemed to be trying to prevent further collateral damage, and the moment I found out he wasn't actually doing anything, I just became more upset. Like, this was a pretty blatant attempt at manipulating the consumer. Wasn't there some quote that Gabe said? Don't try lying to the internet, because they will see through it and unravel and not forget?
Something like that.

 

[DrOswald]

He looks like a sad Santa in that picture.

Anyway, I think it's an interesting move and I'd like to see what it does. Perhaps modders who put out lots of high-quality content can carve out careers for themselves like the way YouTubers have been able to carve out careers from their videos. I can't help but feel like there were similar grievances which came out when YouTube first came up with the partnership program and allowing users to benefit from the ad revenue generated from their videos. And from what I can tell, this has only improved the quality and quantity of content available on YouTube.

That doesn't mean the same will happen with modding, but nobody can predict the future. Either way I think it's worth a shot.

I have over a dozen Skyrim mods published and I am against this. There was nothing wrong with the donation system and even better use the Humble Bundle technique of pay what you want from $0.00 to billions. The reason is the competition destroys the mod community. There are tutorials available to do a great many things not explained on the CK's website and competition for money will make those a thing of the past. If a mod author needs help with a script or something he wont get that help if money is involved because he will be competition.

I am not sure why you think this. Programmers and artists, who are in a defacto state of competition just the modders will be now, are constantly helping each other out. In fact, as the potential for financial gain has increased these sorts of resources and collaborations have only become more common.

Unless modders are just uniquely shitty and unreasonable people. I guess that is a possibility.

 

[DrOswald]

I disagree because modders haven't been modding as a job, or a duty. They've been modding as a hobby and something they do primarily to fun, not as a service for other people. Turning a simple mod into a product throws up a whole load of issues regarding consumer rights, and for a lot of people it will turn a fun hobby into something far more serious a stressful. Fans using mods will now have higher expectations, and modders will be required to deliver a level of customer service to their customers. It destroys the fun dynamic and as you can see is immediately causing problems just due to the outrage. 3 days ago modders weren't some oppressed underclass who did a thankless and payless job and died alone in starvation. Extra money for them is a benefit of course, but it is not a necessity.

It kind of is? I used to be a modder, but then I got good enough to be a professional software developer and I was done modding. Because I could not get meaningful financial compensation for my hard work it was not worth it. You can only work so much, even if it is for something you love. When I started having to support a family modding was no longer viable.

Mods are abandoned constantly because they are unprofitable and their developers can't continue putting hundreds of hours into something for which they will never get a return. Modders exit the scene all the time because they can't afford to continue putting so much effort towards a work of passion.

Until now modding has generally been a work of passion. This is largely because there has been no good way to be financially compensated for your mods. And modding has suffered greatly for it. Look at even the best mods out there, mods like X-Com: Long War and Stalker: Misery. Even these greats bear the marks of being a project the developer can never hope to be compensated for, full of bugs that will never be fixed, slip shot work that prevents the mod ever reaching it's true potential, corners cut all over the place, poorly tested and virtually never optimized. And this is not the mod developers fault - they simply do not have the resources or the time to do it properly.

This system potentially changes this. I know I am extremely interested in what is happening here, for the first time in years it looks like modding might actually be worth it to me again. Hell, if it was a different game, say X-Com, I would probably already be drawing up plans to create a mod of my own and attempt to sell it for supplemental income.

As far as the extra expectations and all that, you do still have the option of not charging for the mod. That is still a thing. If you want to create your fan project for your own enjoyment you can.

And pricing structure and all that will need to be worked out, yes. But it is unrealistic to expect all the problems to be solved on day 1. These are things that need to be discussed and figured out.

This is how games become a mature art form. We figure this sort of shit out.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

Second, why do you assume the MODS market will resemble the mobile market specifically?

Because they already are.

IIRC, the guy who does MidasMagic is already placing pop-ups in the free version of his mod encouraging people to buy it.

He also set his mod on Nexus to hidden, so you have to go through the Workshop to do it.