Money for Mods: Valve Announces Paid Skyrim Mods
- Thread starter Steven Bogos
- Start date
The first mod on there has been deleted due to using another person assets. But more so other gamers pointed it out to Steam so if it goes unnoticed then i guess they will keep selling it.SadisticFire said:
http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2015/04/24/the-paid-for-mod-world-has-its-first-casualty
Just wanted to make sure this information gets some reposting since I couldn't find any confirmation either outside of a single Giant Bomb thing. I will note that all refunds from paid mods go into the user's Steam Wallet, which is still kind of uncool since A) You weren't trying to pay Valve in the first place and B) this means they get 100% of the money in the future.nickpy said:
OT: I fundamentally agree with the notion that modders should be able to collect money for their labor, but as others have mentioned this was a bad way to go about it. A Patreon system would have gone over much better, not only because it means mods are still "free", but also because it preserves the "Try Before You Buy" aspect, which is kind of critical in anything so finicky. Valve is also taking way too much from the entire enterprise considering how little they're actually doing. Even if, as others have indicated, it's to split with the game's original developer they're leaving only 25% for the person that made the content the consumers are paying for.
Lesser Discussed Issues:
You still must provide bank account information to Valve prior to publishing on the Steam workshop even if your mod is free.
You must earn 100USD before Valve will pay you anything at all.
I think this one will get sorted out by the market, but not before Valve takes a pretty thorough PR beating, which might be good for them all things considered.
It's adorable that people think Valve/Bethesda aren't already rewriting their agreements to freeze out Nexus Mods and any similar platforms. They're trying to turn mods into a revenue stream, and that's never going to happen if people are downloading the shit for free elsewhere.
My biggest concern with this is given Valves market dominance and the inability to gain some games on other platforms that they are going to start blocking mods that come from external sources like Nexus mods.
I mean the technology is already in place for them to do so (verifying file integrity) all they need to do is add a mandatory scanning for mods at start up and then any mods that aren't subscribed to via their workshop can be detected and removed without the users choice.
I mean the technology is already in place for them to do so (verifying file integrity) all they need to do is add a mandatory scanning for mods at start up and then any mods that aren't subscribed to via their workshop can be detected and removed without the users choice.
Can you tell me where you found/heard this? I couldn't find any confirmation, but you can refer to my previous post for my other complaints with the system.direkiller said:
It seems like the offerings they're testing all of this out with are pretty minimal, and so far none of it is copyrighted, well, except the Lambda Suit, which Valve made themselves, and makes me think they're doing this so they can get paid for making mods themselves...
EDIT: I'm specifically ignoring the mods listed in the "Under Review" section.
As I said before, (and you quoted me before) its 100% not true.shirkbot said:
The actual answer can be found on Valve's " Getting paid on Steam >> Payment info FAQ" page ([link]http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/workshoppaymentinfofaq/#Payments[/link]), the relevant text being:
For all the reasons I said in my original post on the matter, this is or could be very bad, but Valve are not quite so mad as to only give the mod authors steam wallet credit.
I notice that one of the paid-for mods has already been taken down due to copyright infingement - see http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2015/04/24/the-paid-for-mod-world-has-its-first-casualty - though in this case I think Chesko was actually in the clear: his mod didn't include nor require FNIS, it gave some instructions as to how FNIS, obtained seperately, could be used to improve the mod, he just accepted the DMCA in order to be diplomatic during the current shitstorm.
Mods are frequently made by amateurs.Silentpony said:
Oh ok fine, yes, sometimes Mods are much better or more hilarious but come on... adding money is just going to put dollar signs in people's eyes, causing more amateurs or people who don't know how to make stuff to come out and do just that while charging.
It's DLC by amateurs!
I didn't think so either, but thank you very much for pointing out the relevant text. I actually read through a lot of the FAQ, but for some reason I couldn't put two and two together for that. Any other misinformation we can work to disspell?nickpy said:
They seem to doing the whole thing pretty incompetently but at the same time I don't think people charging for a mod is an inherently bad idea. After all we have plenty of things which we buy and then pay for modifications such as cars. If people are smart with there wallets and the vendor (not necessarily valve) stays vigilant for rorts and potential lawsuit material I could see this working.
Valve are the guys who won so many "developer of the year" awards without making a single game in years. The Valvedrones are so blind at everything Valve does that even if Valve nuked half the world they would still find a way to make excuses. Valve stopped being good a long time ago.Adultratedhydra said:
Hell, they were never really good in a moral way. They were "good" in an economy way, they gave people what people want for cheap while also making a shitload of money. Now they are just greedy fucks who can't make anything themselves. Freaking Origin is sounding better and better with every news about Valve.
Just yesterday I started up Origin and Steam after a long time of playing games that don't need them. Origin opened up in like 10 seconds. Steam took a freaking minute to open. It's a bloated pile of shit and the only real advantage over Origin that it has is the screenshot button (Jesus effing Christ EA, get your shit together. You can at least put in a screenshot button on that shit if you can't put more games).
I realized that it's impossible to make a slippery slope fallacy when talking about Valve. If you can think of something terrible to happen, Valve already thought about that and is working on it.
In theory I am for modders being able to get some cash for their work. However, I cannot support the developer being involved in that in any way. Once they are, they inevitably want some form of authorial control over what is created and that defeats the entire point of an independent modding community. I really am sorry to say it, but I hope this fails on every level.
Horrible horrible thing.
Modders only get 25%
People stealing mods and uploading them as their own
Paid for mods using parts or resources made by other community members that until now put their resources up for free
Copyright issues
No customer support
No assurance that the mods will even work if a new patch for a game comes out (the mod creator is aparantly in no way forced to make sure his mod works with the latest version of the game... youre suggested to "ask nicely" for them to fix an issue... despite you having bought a fucking product at that point)
This will either horribly backfire for Steam just like Greenlight did... or it will ruin the modder scene...
All i see here is a Early access 2.0
Lots and lots of crap... with the rare gem burried under piles of bullshit and projects that will never be finished or feature complete but still asking a hefty sum for it.
Patreon is a much better medium of support for modders... they get all the cash and they actually get to engage with the people that support them.
Modders only get 25%
People stealing mods and uploading them as their own
Paid for mods using parts or resources made by other community members that until now put their resources up for free
Copyright issues
No customer support
No assurance that the mods will even work if a new patch for a game comes out (the mod creator is aparantly in no way forced to make sure his mod works with the latest version of the game... youre suggested to "ask nicely" for them to fix an issue... despite you having bought a fucking product at that point)
This will either horribly backfire for Steam just like Greenlight did... or it will ruin the modder scene...
All i see here is a Early access 2.0
Lots and lots of crap... with the rare gem burried under piles of bullshit and projects that will never be finished or feature complete but still asking a hefty sum for it.
Patreon is a much better medium of support for modders... they get all the cash and they actually get to engage with the people that support them.
Brilliant.RatGouf said:
Good God what were they thinking? the only reason people even play Elder Scrolls games is for the modding. You start charging for that, even indirectly and there will be blood.
i'd like to think that nexus will stay afloat and do well, but it already looks like leeches are going in there downloading and reverse engineering other people's mod scripts to "create" and sell them on Steam. the community will wther and die under this shit.
Seriously, the only thing that's going to happen is cause a downhill trend of having to start pirating "obligatory" paid mods.
The solution was so fucking simple, have a "Pay-what-you-want" service on each mod and to each their own.
That way all mods will stay free but the actual modders could legally make money off their work.
Also 75% cut? I don't care if Valve is only getting 25% and Bethesda, it's fucking greed and exploiting modders for free cash, end of story. If they really cared about the modders and community they would have it a lot less.
I'm hoping all this shit backfires on them if it hasn't already for other services to take note (Origin this is your fucking chance!) and do this system right. If you want to charge for mods make it non-obligatory, a tip-jar will be more than enough for good mods.
Welp, I hope this was worth whatever measly mammon Valve and Besthesda manage to squeeze out of it before the whole thing collapses.
The modding community is already FILLED with drama and the Steam Workshop is already filled with people stealing other people's work and uploading it for themselves.
This WILL kill modding, it is ALREADY [http://i.imgur.com/Zz2GuR8.png] killing modding. Mods are getting pulled left and right on the Nexus, modders and resource creators are leaving probably never to return.
This move is stupid on a level I didn't think possible, no amount of Simcity's or Diablo 3s could even dream of doing the kind of damage that Valve has inflicted on the PC platform in one fell swoop.
The modding community is already FILLED with drama and the Steam Workshop is already filled with people stealing other people's work and uploading it for themselves.
This WILL kill modding, it is ALREADY [http://i.imgur.com/Zz2GuR8.png] killing modding. Mods are getting pulled left and right on the Nexus, modders and resource creators are leaving probably never to return.
This move is stupid on a level I didn't think possible, no amount of Simcity's or Diablo 3s could even dream of doing the kind of damage that Valve has inflicted on the PC platform in one fell swoop.
I don't think Bethesda would survive that shitstorm. TES and Fallout both thrive on their mods, and pissing off the entire modding community at once is a good way to lose their support. And I think Bethesda knows that. So I'm pretty sure the Nexus isn't going anywhere.FieryTrainwreck said:
With all the trouble abandoned mods on Workshop already cause, this looks like a very bad idea. I'll stick to Nexus, thanks.
The shit storm going on in regards to this might as well be called #moddergate
Its going to get ugly and eventually its going to get out that this was done in collusion with a small handful of mod developers that were pre-recruited by Bethesda themselves.
I find it amazing that people as talented as some of the developers buying into this ponzi scheme are willing to sell themselves for so little. If someone offered me a 25/75 split for simply handing something I made to someone else, I'd die laughing.
Its going to get ugly and eventually its going to get out that this was done in collusion with a small handful of mod developers that were pre-recruited by Bethesda themselves.
I find it amazing that people as talented as some of the developers buying into this ponzi scheme are willing to sell themselves for so little. If someone offered me a 25/75 split for simply handing something I made to someone else, I'd die laughing.