Valve Ends Steam's Controversial Paid Mod Program

[Scars Unseen]

"stepping into an established, years old modding community in Skyrim was probably not the right place to start iterating."

This man is a master of understatement.

Well Gabe did say that Valve was a data driven company. I guess a 100k plus signed petition qualifies.

 

[Barbas]

Ohhh, that face. That face with that news. Jesus Christ!

OT: Good, very good. Quite satisfactory indeed. Zesty fresh.

 

[loa]

Lots of thing that use to be hobbies are now paying jobs, so something currently being a hobby is not a reason that it can't become a paid job.
Valve learned a valuable lesson this week:
Make it a launch 'feature.'
Their statement made it clear from their point of view this failed because Skyrim has been out for too long. This will become a thing that Steam users will have to accept.

If third party DLC will become a widespread thing, modding will no longer be community based and the content of mods will be policed for things to be "appropriate". It'll also be in their interest to somehow discourage/disable modders that don't mod through valves official steam workshop channel.

Modding as it is now will cease to exist.

 

[TallanKhan]

This announcement, while welcome, feels rather reminiscent of the Microsoft climbdown from the XBone announcement where they basically said "We aren't going to do it, but we weren't wrong to try"

 

[Lightspeaker]

- Paul Tassi over at Forbes did a very good article in which he suggested an "audition process" whereby you need to submit several free mods which are downloaded by significant numbers of people and/or are highly rated before you can submit paid mods.

now I did agree with most of your points, but this one in particular struck me..

what the hell is up with forbes this past year or so? it seems like they are pumping out some decent gaming articles, and they usually hit at it with consumer friendliness in mind rather than corporate interests. Idk, it's a bit surprising to me, but I do like it (and the idea of auditioning actually would help keep the spammers away and from people making multiple identities, so I do like that alot.)

I know. Sometime in the past year Forbes, of all places, has become one of my most highly favoured sites when I'm looking for insights into something in the industry. It feels strange. X-D

Between Paul Tassi and Erik Kain they've got a really good thing going on over there lately.

Must have been an absolute avalanche of criticism and anger in the inbox of Valve. No wonder it got pulled so fast.

According to that AMA that Gabe did it cost them 1 million USD in e-mail costs alone. And that probably doesn't include the costs of what I read that /v/ did on Sunday (apparently they sent massive amounts of faxes to Valve consisting largely of entirely black pieces of paper; even if that didn't print its going to be a nightmare to clear that fax queue and they'll have to check each and every one of them to make sure they don't miss any important legal things that were faxed).

Also, as anyone who has been paying attention to the storefront, Greenlight, or Early Access likely knows, curation isn't exactly a strong suit for Valve at this point in time, and while it might be unfair to preemptively attribute the same to a modification marketplace, I don't think it's outside the realm of reason to suggest that that would become a massive shitshow in short order as well.

I don't know why people keep saying that they're not sure if Valve would be able to curate it properly. Valve flat out said as part of their announcement that they had zero intention whatsoever of doing any curation of any description, stating that they'd leave that to "the community". They weren't going to do anything at all; it was going to have less restrictions than goddamn greenlight. That was perhaps one of the biggest part of the problem with all of this; they were effectively launching community DLC but taking no responsibility for any aspect of it.

We should have reacted this way when first DLC and microtransactions showed up. This is the evidence that we have the power. We just need the will.

In fairness I don't think you can really equate either of those with paid mods. DLC was a follow-on from the traditional expansion pack model. Funnily enough Bethseda is a great example of it done right these days with substantial additions available via DLC (compare Skyrim's DLCs with Oblivion's expansion packs, pretty similar). Microtransactions crept in through the back door, so to speak, via the route of completely free to play games with cash shops. I can't really begrudge games that are literally totally free to play offering extras as their business model; especially since if you don't care for how heavily monetised things are in one game you can always go play another.

The problem came when companies started abusing both of them. Firstly by creating games specifically FOR DLC and cutting bits from the base game to put them as DLC to get more money. And for microtransactions by putting them in paid-for games which is most definitely NOT what they should be used for.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

Just let it die, but always keep this affair in the back of your head.

those two things are pretty opposite, not exact opposite, but different ends of the forgive and forget or hold a grudge spectrum

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

I'm glad to hear this. It would have been better had it been nipped in the bud before it even went live for its ill-fated, four day lifespan, but the monetisation model was bad for games.

What nexus sites (and moddb) have done is create a platform for sharing mods, information on modding, tips and tricks and community. What Steam did was offer a sales platform. No controls to prevent content theft, a lopsided profit sharing model and turning something that should be (and always has been) "by gamers, for gamers" into something different. Corporate monetising of something that belongs to us, the gamers, was foolish.

At the same time, I always questioned Bethesda's stance on forbidding sales of mods made with their toolsets. The kid who made Falskaar for example...he put thousands of hours into the project; why couldn't he sell it for $3-5 or something? The financial motivator could allow for some outstanding mods, things with the polish and depth of professionally made content.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Is it just me, or has Valve been making some really weird/scummy decisions as of late? Greenlight has become a goddamned mess with no policing. Early Access is now an excuse for devs to halfass their efforts. And now we have an attempt at Valve trying to charge for mods only stopped because a HUGE population was threatening to revolt.

 

[Naqel]

"we" won, although I have no clue who we is at the moment

We are gamers.
Proclaimed dead by the corrupt media, we stood united, and are now stronger than ever.

 

[Silverbane7]

personaly, i dont mind mods beccoming paid DLC...if its done right.

imagine instead, you crete a mod like the falskar people did, or some of the other huge mods that are the size and quality of paid for DLC.... and then you get them submitted and sort of bought by the game makers. it could end up on consoles then aswell as PC.

thats the kind of community DLC or paid mod that i would prefer to see.
it would also rejuvenate the console version of many games (assuming they could patch them up to date for the mods themselves, but i also expect that the companies coders ect would look into them and how best to connect them together)imagine adding such as that to your old console skyrim?
even if the creators of the mods-that-are-DLC got 5% or 10% of a sale it would be worth it because there are so many copies of the console versions out there.

 

[Pax Romana]

Moments like this make me wonder how we expect people to fix things if we say that we hate something, then criticize the people for listening to us and changing their policy.

On a side note, damn, that was quick.

Because this is something that was clearly broken and the absolute vast majority of people wanted removed. This is not a subjective political social justice issue (which I assume is what you are referring to) about representation, or whatever, that is littered with opposing view points and the majority don't even care about.

And yes agreed, it was quick. Well done to Valve for listening quickly and not pulling something like that Xbone DRM shit and embarrassing themselves further down the line.

 

[shrekfan246]

I don't know why people keep saying that they're not sure if Valve would be able to curate it properly. Valve flat out said as part of their announcement that they had zero intention whatsoever of doing any curation of any description, stating that they'd leave that to "the community". They weren't going to do anything at all; it was going to have less restrictions than goddamn greenlight. That was perhaps one of the biggest part of the problem with all of this; they were effectively launching community DLC but taking no responsibility for any aspect of it.

Well, yes, I suppose I should have said "Steam" at that part rather than "Valve". I'll use the excuse that it was just before I went to bed.

 

[nekoali]

I'm glad that it was killed fast. The whole plan should have never got past the 'idea tossing' stage though. Unfortunately the idea of free money is to tempting to some people. Bethesda and Valve getting money for work mod developers do was to tempting.. especially since they set those ridiculous rates. But that's par for course when it comes to capitalism. The CEO may do less actual work than the ones making their product, but since they own the machines and the material, they get the lion share of the profit while the workers actually making it get the dregs. Pretty much exactly the situation here.

The thing I haven't seen brought up much though is that there are already donation systems in place where you can tip mod makers. That is something I fully support and have contributed to in the past. This sets up mod makers more in the place of an freelance artist... If you enjoy their work, you can help fund it so they can keep making more of it. But of course the existing donation/tip system does not feed money into Valve or Bethesda's coffers, so that idea was right out.

And then there is the fact that not all mods are created equal. Some mods are amazing works of art that well deserve praise and support to their makers. Others are... well bug ridden, slapped together cludges that you can't get off your system fast enough after trying. In some cases at least, you can't tell which is will be until you've given it a try. If you have to pay for the privilege of seeing if a mod is good or junk I think you'll find people less willing to try something out, and people less willing to just experiment with modding and getting feedback on their work.

 

[seris]

you guys need to stop worshipping gabe newell as a god. he has made it clear he doesnt give a shit about us anymore, only about the money we give him. Just because Valve removed the paid mods doesnt mean they are saints now.

Let this be a reminder to those of you who say "All Hail GabeN!" And never let valve do shit like this again. The only thing they care about it money, so vote with your wallet and spam them with emails if they ever try to pull this again, which they will.

 

[Shinkicker444]

While I agree if modders want money it should be through something like Patreon or Donations, I'm not sure Steam would implement such a system because they (and Beth) can't take a cut from donations. Or at least thats what I've seen mentioned. So if they can't get money out of it they won't do it. Also just because that mess they call a 'split' is industry standard doesn't mean it fits in this case.

Hopefully the donation button on the Nexus actually stays around and doesn't disappear off into the nethers of the site wherever the fuck it was before. Seriously I have no idea where it was but it apparently existed, now it's right there on the mod main page.

 

[Erttheking]

Moments like this make me wonder how we expect people to fix things if we say that we hate something, then criticize the people for listening to us and changing their policy.

On a side note, damn, that was quick.

Because this is something that was clearly broken and the absolute vast majority of people wanted removed. This is not a subjective political social justice issue (which I assume is what you are referring to) about representation, or whatever, that is littered with opposing view points and the majority don't even care about.

And yes agreed, it was quick. Well done to Valve for listening quickly and not pulling something like that Xbone DRM shit and embarrassing themselves further down the line.

No I'm talking about everything. Every time a person fixes something people mock them for backpeddling. And frankly I don't see how any positives come out of it. Oh don't get me wrong, sometimes it's funny when it's something like the Xbone when they were cramming it down our throats for months on end, but really if we keep hammering this in people are gonna start thinking "If we don't do what they want, they'll hate us. If we do what they want, they'll hate us. No point in doing what they want then."

 

[WeepingAngels]

No doubt Valve and Bethesda are thinking up a new, more acceptable way to make money (the lions share) off of the work of modders. Don't jump back on the Valve/Steam bandwagon again thinking this is over.

 

[fix-the-spade]

bitching and moaning does work, we need to do more bitching and moaning

To be truly honest, I think the bitching and moaning meant for nothing next to the crushing weight of DMCA claims heading Valve's way.

I saw a whole bunch of people's mods thrown up by randoms who did nothing but steal them off Nexus and even more mods that contained things like 'totally not Frostmourne' on the storefront. If even a tenth of them had some kind of legal claim attached Valve will have looked at them after a week and realised what a giant gaping hole they'd just dug.

 

[Lillowh]

At the same time, I always questioned Bethesda's stance on forbidding sales of mods made with their toolsets. The kid who made Falskaar for example...he put thousands of hours into the project; why couldn't he sell it for $3-5 or something? The financial motivator could allow for some outstanding mods, things with the polish and depth of professionally made content.

Then you'd run into the same problem as this. Sure, that's probably worth a 10 bucks, but then the same slew of questions come up.
-Its Bethesdas toolkit and game, what should their cut be?
- If he's allowed to sell that then I can sell this peice of armor for the same price, right?
-Shouldnt people who assisted someone when they had questions making a mod get a cut as well?
-Why share techniques if it just allows more saturation of the "market" meaning less chance a person's mod will get noticed?
-Who will pay for the manpower required to make a quality control team that would be required to make sure mods that are dead on arrival or straight up copies don't appear?
-If the modder is not getting paid a salary to develop the mods they're going to sell, why would someone like the Falskarr dev take the days to add in more sidequests that nobody would miss if it was released without them?
-Does that previous scenario promote quality?
-Wouldnt it also be more economically sound to put out Falskarr in that situation to start making money and then release those extra quests or features as an "add-on" branch to the mod that you could ALSO sell? (See: how the iNeed mod was split into multiple parts, both being paid mods)
-Does that previous scenario work out better for the consumer?
-What level of accountability should therefore be on the mod creators part to make sure a mod is kept working?
-If there isn't much, why would a non salaried worker take up valuable time that could be used toward their next project fixing an old one that already got sold to x number of people?

And the list goes on. Its a tough situation and Valves approach was clearly not the best solution decided on by someone who probably didn't understand or fully think through the ramifications.

Sure mod creators being entitled to nothing seems like a shifty situation, but that's also thinking about it wrong. Time spent making a mod is time spent gaining experience. Honing your craft to a level that may lead to getting involved in actual development, be it at a corporation or indie studio. Quality work and good community interaction will bring in people who will want to donate, be it money, time, or experience. That's the real income from modding, and its a self sustaining machine. After all, it's still a copyrighted piece of code at the base, but that knowledge gained can be used to create your own game to sell.

 

[Skeleon]

That's the only good thing they could've done. Good to see the shitstorm forced them to retreat on this. Also, I'll actually agree with them here, somewhat: If you introduce a game with a system like that, one that allows for monetized fan-made content, that's a world of difference to taking an old game with a well-established modding scene and suddenly imposing this upon the existing structures. The former is at least open from the start and doesn't feel like a bait-and-switch or intrusion. I wouldn't be happy to see the former become the norm for any and all new titles, certainly, but I could accept that model to a degree, I suppose. Assuming there was some fucking quality control of the content on sale, which Valve isn't particularly good with (think Greenlight, think early access games, think publishers vomiting trash en masse onto the platform). What they tried to do here, though, no, that's not acceptable.