Valve Ends Steam's Controversial Paid Mod Program

[MonsterCrit]

So Youtube doesn't exist? Apple and Googles Ap stores do not exist? ITunes does not exist? franchises the world over do not exist? Wow I mustve been on some really good drugs this morning when I watched a Youtube video that the content creator made 70% of the proceeds from the ad revenue.

Yawn. My my, you took the time to look up all of those without pondering an important point. IN all the cases above what you say is mostly true, where the person posting the item owns at least 80% of the material used. Where anothers copyrighted material is used it's safe to say that the person selling must pay a royalty to the IP holder. The fact is in all the cases you listyed there probably are liucensing and copyright fees in play. They just haven't been disclosed. Say I make a game using an engine I've licensed from someone...from my sales revenue I'd be paying them a royalty. Technically I got 100% of the sales revenue but What I get to keep is another matter.

Also keep in mind youtube like all these other sites reserves to right to rescind payment of ad revenues in the case of copyright dispute. If it is found that you have illegally used someone else's copyrighted material your unpaid ad revenues will be remitted to the the claimant. They will also submit all previous payment information based upon the material to the claimant for use by them in further prosecution.

Yes 75/25 is accurate the mod author makes 25% of the proceeds, the 75% is split between Valve and Bethesda. It is the same as if I said 45/30/25 split. Trying to say that Valves take doesn't count to make the split seem more fair is a poor attempt to justify your stance that nobody believes.

Well if you insist on counting VAlve's take we must also count the federal and state taxes that must also be paid, as well as the various bank fees and surcharges paid by all three parties then mustn't we? Whether or not you believe is irrelevant. There are people who don't believe in evolution but that doesn't change the facts. DIscounting Valve's fee, for it really is that.. a fee. Much in the same way there are shipping fees incurred when you buy stuff and have them delivered.

Valves deal they have with the curated workshop is nothing similar to what they tried with the Skyrim one.

Valve sets their rules. Bethesda sets their rules. Your point being?

The curated workshop protects copyright holders

The only real copyright holder in these cases is the owner of the IP being modded.

and copyright issues has been a huge issue for years with Bethesda games mod authors and became even bigger over this debacle. Valve was giving mod authors NO guarantee that our copyrights would be protected.

That's not valve's right to give. Bethesda is the only one who can grant and make any promises.

Even worse they said if it's uploaded someplace else for free it is fair game. Chesko found out the hard way that Valve was wrong on that point and he knew better since he participated in discussion over copyrights! Only Bethesda and the original mod author can distribute rights to a .esp made with the creation kit, another user cannot. Then there's the issue of the thousands of models and textures that only the creator has the rights to.

All that talk about who has rights and what not and you fail to take into account 'Agents'.

Yes even Bethesda does not have a right to because the CK cannot make 3d models or textures and cannot get them ready to use in the game. Bethesda does not own the .nif file format or the .dds file format. They do not even own the .esp file format so a mod author can make an esp mod that Bethesda has no legal rights to nor anyone else but the creator Jaysus Swords as prime example of an esp Bethesda would have to pay to use.

Correct but by contrast the mod creator may not inject their item into Bethesda's works and distribute it without Bethesda's permission. The fact that it has been injected into their own work makes bethesda involved.. It's kind of why bethesda is under no liability for damage or corruption done to user data or hardware that occurs from the use of unlicensed mods.

Valve and Bethesda was telling mod authors to break copyright laws. The curated workshop for Valves games are checked for copyright violations and any that violate are not allowed up to and including banning the author from submitting another mod.

You're not very clear on copyright law are you? Copyright infringements meaning if they're too similar to an already existing curated item. I.e.e they make sure you're just not reskinning someone else's model which is pretty easy to do at a quick glance.

Not only did Bethesda and Valve tell mod authors to go ahead and break copyright law but the workshop store does not include legal defense. Authors were on their own. That's a big difference between.

And where are copyright laws being broken? You've said that twice but again you offer no proof. FOr copyright to be broken there has to be a copyright to begin with. If I create a model and publish it without an attached license...it's basically free game. In which case if someone else uses it and they can prove first publication I'm basically sunk. Have you ever noticed that with linux and open software projects those contributing iusually tack in a license sating certain terms and conditions for use?

Curated workshop mods are mods that can be made in one or 2 days and once they are allowed into the game Valve takes over support and marketing for them. Skyrims? They straight up said if a mod stops working then ask the author nicely to fix it.

Which is sort of how it works for all software that valve themselves doesn't develop. Your point being what? That you don't trust Modders to take the time to keep their software up to date after they've sold it to you?

Skyrim mods can take months or even years to make that's a difference right there, spend far more hours making a mod and then have to spend forever maintaining it even if it was Bethesda that broke it. Far more effort compared there.

Ask the maker of Gary's Mod or Counter Strike how long they spent working on either, I mean I've been tracking Dota's development for over 5 years and that was little more than a free mod to start with. Know your history before you make such statements.

Just as similar as flight sims games having mods for sale for over a decade now but that's a whole different ball of wax and that is the makers of those mods retain 100% of the profit to go along with the 100% liability.

Some flight sims games.. not all. ANd curiously enough.. there are licensing issues involved there as well but again.. you are just not aware of them. Which I think is the key point. In all your examples because the licensing agreement between the mod creator and the license holder is not disclosed you assume because the modder collects 100% of the cash they don't then have to turn around and hand a percentage over to the license holders.

No squabble over copyright? Go to The Nexus right now and pick a mod, any mod. Just under the download count there is a little button called "Perms" which is short for Permissions and Credits. That little tiny part of The Nexus is because of years of squabbling over copyright in the Mod makers private forums, thousands of hours discussing copyright issues, pointing out sites that reupload OUR content without permission, Hundreds of in house squabbles over copyright that obviously you do not see. Go through all the mods comment sections and count the number of times an author is asked if they have permission to use something. You will find the number isn't 0 by a long shot.

Don't even know what you're ranting about there.. you just proved my point. That there were always copyright squabbles .. only difference is that here.. the modder has a little more legal backup... that being.. bethesda. So long as they can prove first publication... bethesda can on their behalf request a take down of all reuploads.

Not everyone making mods is a greedy prick like you are trying to makes us out to be.

Name calling.. really?

 

[MonsterCrit]

*sigh*

So many words, so few points.

Really now... you're a modder, I'm a Modder. Thing is, the difference between us is I saw this as a good step forward, you saw it as bad step. Our differences coming from the scope of our experiences with copyright, business and industry knowledge. I suspect with a little more experience one might change one's tune. Or perhaps me. Point is Jet, from my POV, all the most of your examples are faulty because the only difference really being that the split of revenue between the creators and the license holders is undisclosed.

The content creator collects all the money but do they get to keep it? Not bloody likely. Even with youtube. It doesn't take much to put a content strike on a youtuber and basically get the video taken down. If the owner of the material used in the video raises objection.

 

[saluraropicrusa]

-snip-
DON'T TREAT THEM LIKE PROFESSIONALS JUST BECAUSE THEY'RE CONTENT CREATORS.
-snop-

applause

just this sentence really reflects how i feel about this whole thing and why it upset me--though i read your entire post and agree with all of it.

i'm not a modder but as an artist i AM a content creator. i do want to make a living off my art but that doesn't mean that i should be compensated for the work i currently create because it's NOT professional content and it's something i do because i ENJOY it, not because i hope that someone will pay me for it. sure, i could try and get commissions, i could set up a patreon if i was popular enough, but that doesn't change the fact that at this point in time i'm still an amateur--a hobbyist, really, and there's nothing wrong with that--when it comes to illustration.

i do draw fan art, in fact it's something i quite enjoy. it's a way for me to express my passion and love for a work, and to contribute in some way to the fandom of whatever it may be--TES series is one of my favorite worlds to explore as both a fan artist and a character designer. i would never ask the people who have viewed and enjoyed my fan works to pay for them. i create them as much for myself as for other people to view and enjoy, and because every time i so much as doodle it's a means to hone my skills.

mods have always been something i indulge in for QOL in games, especially Elder Scrolls games. as a role player and someone who goes way too in-depth with my TES characters, mods provide a way for me to really live out their stories. if i had to pay for mods i'd never have put even 100 hours into Skyrim--i would have stopped after one, maybe two vanilla playthroughs.

i have a hard time affording all the games i want to buy and all the ways i want to support the games i play, let alone giving micro-transactions for what could easily amount to hundreds of mods i may want to use or at least try.

 

[Lightknight]

Remember when DLC was just an optional thing for devs to do? Now it's become the norm and those who don't do DLC are said to be leaving money on the table.

I wonder how many people would have protested DLC years ago if they had known how things would go.

The problem we have with development studios is that DLC is potentially content they left out of the game they made us pay full price for already.

Mods side step that conflict of interest by not having been involved in the development process and not being employed by the publisher.

Protesting them having a new option to profit off of their work on someone else's IP is just protesting having to pay for content we enjoy. I mean, I get not wanting to pay money for something you consume but that's not fair to the modders any more than stealing a hot dog from a food stand is fair to the vendor.

Oh really? From what I saw, over the 4 days paid-mods were up (for ONE GAME) it was a living nightmare.
There was community infighting, copycat-theft, and the very predictable less-for-more bullshit that had some modders splitting their work into bits for higher resale.

You mean it didn't work perfectly on the first go?!! Let's kill it!

Hopefully my point can be found somewhere in all that sarcasm. This is a good idea but implementing it will take iterations to get right. It isn't going to start out perfect and saying that it wasn't is merely a red herring, not some sort of point against the practice itself. Just pointing out the bugs and flaws in the system as presented.

And who was losing the most? The players, as usual.

Yep, the players who got a full refund once the issue was discovered. Sooo much loss?

We're always the first to lose out on value when some suit decides to commodify us even further, just like it's been for the past decade (oh, but you don't DARE complain about it, or some pretentious asshole will call you "entitled").

Complaining about having to pay for a good or service you consume is correctly labled as entitlement. It means you think you are entitled to the fruits of labor of others without compensating them whether they like it or not.

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of "entitlement" claims being levied at gamers that are absolute bullshit. But this is one of the few correct ones.

Bethesda offered them a chance to profit and a rental space on their storefront which gave them access to a ton of traffic and a trusted purchasing provider. If the rent is too steep then that's up to the modders to decide if it's a deal they find equitable. Not us as raving mobs about the injustice of how they have one more option to use that could actually produce profit rather than the 0% option they've had for two decades.

Let me ask you something: Why do they NEED profit?

Steam? Because they are in the business of hosting games. If they don't make their monies, their families starve.
Bethesda? Because this is their IP and they own the storefront and went through the effort of publishing the game. If they don't make their monies, their families starve.
Modders? Because they provided a good or service and that deserves to be rewarded if they want it. If they don't make their monies, their families starve.

Need isn't in question here. It's deserved. Why do you NEED to get paid for the work you do at your job?

You claim money will attract talent, but I question why that is even necessary to begin with?

Fact is, it isn't. Mods are derivative works.
They're derivatives works because, AND PAY CLOSE ATTENTION HERE, they're based on existing games.
Meaning: Any modder is implicitly a part of that game's active audience already.

Did you catch that?
Talent and interest are drawn organically from the audience themselves.
There's literally no need for a money lure, and there never has been.

Why do you think more money will improve things? Because money motivates?
Fine, but what if that motivation is butting heads with 'something else'?

"Necessary" is a meaningless term. Why are games "necessary" at all? They aren't. They're entertainment. You logic is entirely irrelevant to the discussion because of that premise.

Instead, we would get higher quality mods and more entertainment from them. We may even begin to have professional mod companies that do elaborate work that surpasses first-party DLC by a fair margin. But this isn't something that modders really have the time and resources to do right now. With financial compensation, it could even be a full-time job for them.

You know what that 'else' is? What else motivates players/modders to engage in modding? Their dirt-cheap (free) cost.
Modders feel GOOD for making something that's appreciated and interesting to others. That's culture, a dying concept I know, but that's what's butting heads with business angle that's being introduced here.

I wouldn't know, I haven't asked them in any aggregate numbers enough to pretend to know their minds. Have you?

I get it, you don't want to pay money for things. You can maintain this sort of argument all you want but modders should be the ones who get to choose whether or not they give their work away for free, just like they can also decide whether or not they want to give their work away for 25% of the profits.

You and what you want? That's not really relevant to them or the equation. You don't get to enforce slave labor to be their only option if they want to build mods. I'm kinda shocked that our community is behaving this way. But if they charge for their work and you aren't willing to pay then you don't have to buy.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Hopefully my point can be found somewhere in all that sarcasm. This is a good idea but implementing it will take iterations to get right. It isn't going to start out perfect and saying that it wasn't is merely a red herring, not some sort of point against the practice itself. Just pointing out the bugs and flaws in the system as presented.

Red herring nothing. You're comparing what is to what might be.
It's your slippery slope, not mine.

Yep, the players who got a full refund once the issue was discovered. Sooo much loss?

Recovering from failure does not negate the fact it failed (disastrously) in the first place.
So spare me your sugar coating and sarcastic bullshit.

Complaining about having to pay for a good or service you consume is correctly labled as entitlement. It means you think you are entitled to the fruits of labor of others without compensating them whether they like it or not.

Except when those goods were offered for free, but I'm sure you're going to gloss over that in your misguided attempt at framing this as some new moral dilemma.

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of "entitlement" claims being levied at gamers that are absolute bullshit. But this is one of the few correct ones.

No, no it isn't. But you'll see why that's a dead-end argument by its very premise shortly.

Modders? Because they provided a good or service and that deserves to be rewarded if they want it.

And since I already showed the existence of a reward that's worked for 20 years, your point is utterly bunk here.
Unless you mean to imply that the only VALID reward is money.

Need isn't in question here. It's deserved. Why do you NEED to get paid for the work you do at your job?

Well if modding were a JOB, you might have a point. But it isn't, and never has been.

Meaning that the only way this works is if modding is redefined to be a job, which is just providing an artificial problem so you can push an artificial solution for that problem.

Yes, modding takes effort, but effort alone does not fulfill the requirements for a "job".

Sometimes people hold the door open for me. That obviously requires some effort, but curiously, nobody receives wages for it. Maybe we should redefine door-holding as a job to help all those oppressed slavering door-holders?

Or maybe we can accept the reality that holding the door to be nice has a different reward all to itself.

"Necessary" is a meaningless term. Why are games "necessary" at all? They aren't. They're entertainment. You logic is entirely irrelevant to the discussion because of that premise.

Well by that logic, why bother even discussing gaming at all? Why bother with its cultural aspect?
It's all just one big fucking money chase, so why even bother with modding if it doesn't make money?

Hey, all modders past and present!
This guy thinks you've been wasting your time and effort on meaningless bullshit!
And he's the one that claims to knows what's best for you.

HMM.

Instead, we would get higher quality mods and more entertainment from them. We may even begin to have professional mod companies that do elaborate work that surpasses first-party DLC by a fair margin. But this isn't something that modders really have the time and resources to do right now. With financial compensation, it could even be a full-time job for them.

Which completely defeats the purpose of modders because, WE HAVE DEVELOPERS FOR THAT ALREADY BY DEFINITION.

Once you mandate a price for mods, it just becomes DLC (not even unofficial DLC since it's being fronted on their market with the acceptance of the original producer) and the modder becomes another underling of the producer. They become a developer by adhesion.

I get it, you don't want to pay money for things. You can maintain this sort of argument all you want but modders should be the ones who get to choose whether or not they give their work away for free, just like they can also decide whether or not they want to give their work away for 25% of the profits.

So you think I just want free stuff? You think that's it?

If that's all I wanted I wouldn't bother paying for my games in the first place, nor would I bother arguing to you about it. I'd be out checking torrents for free shit like every other short-sighted asshole.

I've been modding games for over 15 years and it wasn't out of some misguided attempt to nab "free stuff" from anyone, so spare me your implications about my morals or intentions.

I'm here because I'm passionate about this, and very, VERY fucking angry.
I'm angry, because I'm sick of this endless cheapening of gaming culture.

I'm sick of gamers getting badgered in every conceivable way for the benefit of someone else, be it politicos or producers.

It speaks dimly of a hobby that is becoming more and more estranged from itself because we losing trust in each other, and we're losing that trust because we're endlessly preoccupied with finding new ways to jack each other.
In this case, like so many others, it's jacking players in the wallet yet some more for the benefit of the producer.

Yet when I challenge that, I'm met with half-wit retorts about "entitlement".

So let me spell this shit out to you, and why it's such a beyond-broken argument.

"Entitlement" DOESN'T CARRY MORAL IMPLICATIONS OR ANY GREATER MEANING HERE since both parties act entitled towards EACH OTHER in ANY given market.

And I can say that because each side has something the other covets. Presumably, there's a price both parties are willing to agree to for an exchange(which possibly includes FREE).

Meaning that even on an conceptual level, 'entitlement' as used here IS NOTHING MORE THAN A STUPID ASS STRAWMAN that seeks to place the needs of producers above ALL ELSE. That's how it's been used, that's how YOU are using it, and that's the ONLY way it can be used as a shame tactic.

Of course people are going to act entitled in a luxury market, it's very existence is predicated on entitlement; the arrogance required to spend spare time and resources on something that isn't required for survival.

But even if we ignore that aspect of it, demonizing someone with "entitlement" still makes no sense from the most basic premise of exchange.
Markets require Supply AND Demand. The economic creed of "Greed is Good" is based on the fact that BOTH SIDES are acting in self-interest to find the most efficient price they can agree on.

But that can't work when one side is universally DEMONIZED for acting in self-interest while the other is praised for it!

You know what that argument looks like IN CONTEXT?
This:

"Don't like the rising cost of gaming? Don't like DLC? Well FUCK YOU FOR ACTING ENTITLED, you greedy scumbag gamer.
If you don't like it, don't buy it BUT KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT WHILE YOU DO IT because I don't want to hear it!"

"...Oh hey, hear about this new awesome game and its DLC?"

That's what "Entitlement" means here; it's just a way to marginalize an issue rather than address it. Full games have been rising in price faster than the relative cost of production and I can say this because the quality of games are plateauing while their costs continue to rise.

And all that cost is being shouldered onto the player.

Mods have kept works more commutative and free to avoid that problem entirely; which is why introducing them as regular commodities destroys the reason they work and exist.

We don't need "paid mods" because those already exist as DLC. Just let the modders do their thing, and let the actual copyright holder (y'know, the BUSINESS) do theirs and everyone remains happier (as they have for decades).

The market was already oriented according to its needs. If someone wants to make money developing games (even for existing games) then let them work for the damn developers. That's already a viable business plan, and I can name several examples of that happening past and present.

But consider this: If their business is so inflexible that they won't accept offers, THEN MAYBE THAT OFFER ISN'T WORTH MONEY TO BEGIN WITH.

But oh no, we can't have that anymore.
Through this ridiculous condescending message of entitlement, the greater part of gaming has gone from a hobby to a relationship of growing abuses, and gamers let this happen to them far too often for far too long without questioning it.

Only now that abuse is being turned on modders for the sake of interlopers all looking to cash in on something that was previously unexploited; something that worked PRECISELY because it was unexploited.

You pretend this will help modders in the long run despite demonstrating NO understanding of modding or even practical evidence to support that claim. You treat modders as all other content creators despite the standards for modders being WILDLY different from that of developers.

It's ruining the few goods things that gaming culture has left, reducing it down to the mindless count of dollars and cents. At that point, gaming just becomes another fungible commodity, like an IKEA lineup.

And it's been happening since the start of the previous console generation, where seemingly EVERY SINGLE MEANINGFUL PLAYER BENEFIT is being stripped away for the sake of the producer (or hamfisted attempts at stripping such like the pre-180 Xbone)

Why can't there be literally ONE COMMON SPACE in gaming for those of us that want to share ideas and code freely without the baggage of business and market pressure? WHY? Don't tell because "It's only fair to the modders to be rewarded..." because that's just a fucking dodge and I've already shown why.

This is about keeping commerce out of just ONE PLACE, where "fairness" is evaluated on the willingness to try just for the sake of it, instead of who has the bigger bank account.

Mods will go underground if this horrible shit returns, and it will kill so many modding communities despite your misplaced optimism. Mostly because of greed being unleashed from Pandora's Box, but partly because modders will need the express grace of the copyright holder to attain any real degree of exposure; greatly slowing the spread of ideas and encouraging further monopoly, just as it happens in the real gaming business.

(what the do you think Copyright is for? It was a temporary monopoly to give the producer a grace period to recoup the costs of production; only now, it's not really "temporary" given that all new copyrights will likely outlast the lives of my fucking grandchildren.)

Even more broadly, there's tons of things I'd love to see from gaming now, even those that I would gladly pay well for (like a new Suikoden game, topically) and the thing that kills me is that it's never a lack of demand or ability that's preventing them from seeing fruition, but the rampant greed and incompetence of business getting in its way.

And you question why I want to keep that cancer out of modding?

You and what you want? That's not really relevant to them or the equation.

Hilariously this is where your entire argument collapses even from a fair business perspective.
If what I want as a player, as a CUSTOMER doesn't matter to them in the slightest, then why should I have even bother with them or what they offer?

Good luck supporting a business with no customers.

*mic drop*

 

[Atmos Duality]

FORWARD: My previous post is enormous, so for readability, I'm (potentially) doubling.
Apologies in advance.

i'm not a modder but as an artist i AM a content creator. i do want to make a living off my art but that doesn't mean that i should be compensated for the work i currently create because it's NOT professional content and it's something i do because i ENJOY it, not because i hope that someone will pay me for it.

You don't have to be a modder: You've found the fundamental difference between a hobbyist and a professional.
(and in fewer words than me; kudos)

But regardless of the specific market, hobbies have both because they need both.
If gaming becomes to much more of a business than a hobby, then what is it beyond a system of commodities for trade?

Now, I value tradecraft and have nothing against people providing such to make a living, but for hobby-oriented tradecraft I believe the business space should NEVER DEFINE the norm for a given tradecraft, because at that point the purpose is about making money more than practice of the craft, and there are an infinite number of ways to make money already.

Which isn't to say you can't make money while doing something you enjoy, but the standards and expectations between what you do on the job and what you do for yourself as a hobbyist need to be distinct. Otherwise, you risk burning out entirely.

mods have always been something i indulge in for QOL in games, especially Elder Scrolls games. as a role player and someone who goes way too in-depth with my TES characters, mods provide a way for me to really live out their stories. if i had to pay for mods i'd never have put even 100 hours into Skyrim--i would have stopped after one, maybe two vanilla playthroughs.

Agreed.

Bethesda should be on their hands and knees praising modders for keeping their games relevant on PC for the past 10 years.
I would have pitched my copy of Oblivion after the first playthrough if not for mods, because without them that game is just overproduced dumbed down rubbish.

i have a hard time affording all the games i want to buy and all the ways i want to support the games i play, let alone giving micro-transactions for what could easily amount to hundreds of mods i may want to use or at least try.

So do I; instead of spending my money on games like I used to, I spent it on getting a BoS degree at university while keeping myself out of debt. (no loans outstanding and I graduate in about a week)

In that time, modding and cheap/sale games were (still are) my bread and butter, and I just LOVE finding ways of extending their value for both myself and others. (currently following a sweet Metroid mod for Terraria; I'd offer to help more directly if I didn't have so much homework and exams as of late. Finals week is coming up.)

Also, I'm looking at the Metal Gear Solid mods for Civilization 5...and yet I fear that if those become marketed, they'll be taken down with C&D orders from Konami because, well, now they have real potential value and if Konami isn't a partner, they don't want any of that.
Their company may just decide that they don't want any of it anyway despite that.

So it's not just that I "don't want to pay for mods", it's that the mods may not be allowed to exist AT ALL under a new ecosystem.

 

[raankh]

"believe there's a useful feature some cash somewhere here,"

there, fixed it for him.

There were so many ways they could have done something like this "useful", but "profitable" seems to be the only agenda.

 

[Karadalis]

Looks like the modders won.
Now they can work tirelessly for free rather than receive personal compensation. I for one feel satisfied that big businesses continue to make all the money at the expense of the little guys.

Well done.

So do we take the Xbox One E3 route and hate/Boycott Steam as much as ever for trying to implement this (and actually going through with it)? Or are we allowed to like this company for responding to feedback?

I'm confused when it comes to the internet

You... you are aware that the "big businesses" would have made even more money ripping off their customers this way even more so then they allready do right?

Its the big companies who are loosing out on this deal the most...

Valve 30% Bethesda 45% Modders 25%

Who looses the most in this scenario? Sure as hell arent the modders.

This whole system was never intended to "help the modders make a living". It was meant to flush bethesdas and Valves bank accounts with fresh money they literally had nothing to do for and for wich they completly refused responsibility.

They wanted to make money AND circumvent consumer rights at the same time here.

NO SHIT SHERLOCK did the consumers revolt! In wich scenario was this scheme exactly benefitial for the CONSUMERS WHO WHERE EXPECTED TO PAY FOR THAT CRAP?

None.

the consumer is ALLREADY nickle and dimed for every piece of content that publishers can strip out of their products. Day one DLC, On disk DLC, microtransactions in single player games, monetized multyplayer modes in full price games, Season passes before the bloody game is even on the market and before anyone has any idea what DLC that pass will cover, pre order boni depending on where and how you pre order.

And now we where suposed to pay for 3rd party DLC with no quality control and no incentive for the developer to even support OR finish his product?

If you think that steams suggested implementation would have lead to a healthy and fair marketplace that would not have totaly ruined modding culture im afraid you have no clue about how business works.

Because that is what modding would become, a business. And a business only does as much as it needs to do to get the most money out of you. But i am somehow suposed to believe that even with paid mods in this horribly broken scheme the modders wouldnt try to scew me over? Because they are such good persons?

 

[saluraropicrusa]

snipsnop

agreed on pretty much all counts. i don't have much more to add, other than that now that i think about it i'd love to do concepts/art for a skyrim mod.

i loved Oblivion at the time (played it mainly on PC, and i make a habit of doing a vanilla playthrough first before modding unless the game is REALLY unplayable), but it certainly hasn't aged well.

also, congrats on being so close to done with school, esp without debt! good luck with your finals and such, i know how much of a ***** those can be (didn't stick with it all three years, but i was in a 3d animation program and even just the first year was really tough at the end).

 

[babinro]

Looks like the modders won.
Now they can work tirelessly for free rather than receive personal compensation. I for one feel satisfied that big businesses continue to make all the money at the expense of the little guys.

Well done.

So do we take the Xbox One E3 route and hate/Boycott Steam as much as ever for trying to implement this (and actually going through with it)? Or are we allowed to like this company for responding to feedback?

I'm confused when it comes to the internet

You... you are aware that the "big businesses" would have made even more money ripping off their customers this way even more so then they allready do right?

Its the big companies who are loosing out on this deal the most...

Valve 30% Bethesda 45% Modders 25%

Who looses the most in this scenario? Sure as hell arent the modders.

This whole system was never intended to "help the modders make a living". It was meant to flush bethesdas and Valves bank accounts with fresh money they literally had nothing to do for and for wich they completly refused responsibility.

They wanted to make money AND circumvent consumer rights at the same time here.

NO SHIT SHERLOCK did the consumers revolt! In wich scenario was this scheme exactly benefitial for the CONSUMERS WHO WHERE EXPECTED TO PAY FOR THAT CRAP?

None.

the consumer is ALLREADY nickle and dimed for every piece of content that publishers can strip out of their products. Day one DLC, On disk DLC, microtransactions in single player games, monetized multyplayer modes in full price games, Season passes before the bloody game is even on the market and before anyone has any idea what DLC that pass will cover, pre order boni depending on where and how you pre order.

And now we where suposed to pay for 3rd party DLC with no quality control and no incentive for the developer to even support OR finish his product?

If you think that steams suggested implementation would have lead to a healthy and fair marketplace that would not have totaly ruined modding culture im afraid you have no clue about how business works.

Because that is what modding would become, a business. And a business only does as much as it needs to do to get the most money out of you. But i am somehow suposed to believe that even with paid mods in this horribly broken scheme the modders wouldnt try to scew me over? Because they are such good persons?

I feel that the modders are the ones who got screwed but otherwise I agree with everything you said. This would have turned modding into a business because people are naturally self-serving and they would no longer put all their effort into delivering free mods deliberately.

For what it's worth I feel the pricing/payment model was completely reasonable. People scoffed at 25% payout to the content creator but they have to realize all the liberties that mod creator gets in the process. They don't have to pay rights or fees on any in game content used...they get their stuff marketed on the most popular gaming platform in the world without any charges...they don't have to create assets, worry about copywrite infringement, etc. The things you can get away with and the costs you bypass just for being a 'mod creator' is staggering vs what you'd have to deal with being a real game developer.

Ultimately, we are on the same page but just view things differently.

Companies win big because they continue to get free mods which act as free promotion and never have to give a dime to those who work hard to keep them relevant. Skyrim has has made off like a bandit on the shoulders of it's modding community and have all but guaranteed future product sales by virtue of any future product release being bug fixed and enhanced tenfold by complete strangers.

Modders lose big time because a potential revenue stream or even career has been completely stripped from them. This could have made great changes in some peoples lives but now it's back to being a passtime.

Gamers as a whole win because of course we'd rather have things for free.

 

[Lightknight]

Hopefully my point can be found somewhere in all that sarcasm. This is a good idea but implementing it will take iterations to get right. It isn't going to start out perfect and saying that it wasn't is merely a red herring, not some sort of point against the practice itself. Just pointing out the bugs and flaws in the system as presented.

Red herring nothing. You're comparing what is to what might be.
It's your slippery slope, not mine.

The red herring is in claiming that because the initial launch wasn't perfect that it means the idea is therefore bad. That's not necessarily the case so proving that the launch was bad doesn't relate to the topic at hand regarding whether or not the idea is good.

Yep, the players who got a full refund once the issue was discovered. Sooo much loss?

Recovering from failure does not negate the fact it failed (disastrously) in the first place.
So spare me your sugar coating and sarcastic bullshit.

Let's see, the players got the asset they paid for and then got a refund when it turned out to not have been sold legally... so they got to play it for free and you seem to think that they lost something? Ok... do we also get to know what they lost or are we taking your word for it?

Except when those goods were offered for free, but I'm sure you're going to gloss over that in your misguided attempt at framing this as some new moral dilemma.

The goods were only being offered for free because there was no other option.

Let's apply your logic to services.

"Slave offered labor for free, therefore you are not obligated to pay them for their services since a job well done is it's own reward?!"

Your logic doesn't follow moral guidelines.

And since I already showed the existence of a reward that's worked for 20 years, your point is utterly bunk here.
Unless you mean to imply that the only VALID reward is money.

What does money being the only valid reward have to do with anything? If your boss decided to give you gratitude for your job on Mondays and Thursdays instead of money you'd throw a fit and rightly so.

Why do you feel like you should get to be the arbitrator of what kind of payment/reward someone can get for their work?

This is you: "Please give me a hotdog and I'll thank you for it as payment"
This is modders: "No, this hotdog cost me money and time. I need to have a fair payment as compensation."

You are basically forcing everyone to be charitable just so that you don't have to pay for goods. That's not how the world works and we're missing out on more detailed mods just because there's no incentive program for the professionals who would do this for compensation but not for charity. There's even mods who are doing this for charity but can't afford to contribute enough time to polish it because of the lack of compensation.

Sorry if you think they don't "need" money. But what kind of reward/compensation they get really isn't up to you. It's up to them and if they want money then so be it.

Well if modding were a JOB, you might have a point. But it isn't, and never has been.

When modding is a job, it's called developing. And yes, it's a fairly lucrative job.

Meaning that the only way this works is if modding is redefined to be a job, which is just providing an artificial problem so you can push an artificial solution for that problem.

No, all it takes is for modders to get money and then it becomes a job. Being paid for your work is the only requirement of something being a job. Not the definition of what your work is. If you get paid $10/hour for every hour you sleep in a day then that's a job. Is sleeping currently defined as a job? No. Does it matter? No.

Yes, modding takes effort, but effort alone does not fulfill the requirements for a "job".

Right, because they're not being paid and do not have access to a widespread market to sell their goods. You're using circular logic here. If modding were a job then they'd be making money and they're not making money so they're not performing a job which means we shouldn't give them money. Circular logic. It's erroneous.

Sometimes people hold the door open for me. That obviously requires some effort, but curiously, nobody receives wages for it. Maybe we should redefine door-holding as a job to help all those oppressed slavering door-holders?

Are you joking with me here? ... you do realize that hotels regularly employ doormen, right? People who are employed to open doors.

http://www.travel-studies.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-size/doorman5.jpg

Or maybe we can accept the reality that holding the door to be nice has a different reward all to itself.

How many people opening doors for you do so with the same or greater gusto as a professional doorman? Do they stand in front of a professional establishment all day and welcome you into their doors with a friendly face? Maybe the establishment should consider paying them. The doorman should at least be able to request payment and decide not to do it if the establishment refuses.

What would you think of a person who dressed up in a doorman's uniform and stood in front of a hotel all day to perform this task but wasn't being paid to do so? That they're nice? Sure. But can they really afford to do that all day if they aren't getting paid? Probably not.

Well by that logic, why bother even discussing gaming at all? Why bother with its cultural aspect?
It's all just one big fucking money chase, so why even bother with modding if it doesn't make money?

Some modders (people with the skills to mod) don't mod games because of that reason.

Hey, all modders past and present!
This guy thinks you've been wasting your time and effort on meaningless bullshit!
And he's the one that claims to knows what's best for you.

You're confusing necessity with meaningfulness. The two are not synonymous. Necessity is something that must happen or be obtained or something bad will happen. Meaningfulness just means you get something out of the experience.

Games are meaningful. They aren't necessary.

What's more is that jobs can also be meaningful and don't have to be necessary. A doorman would tell you that he makes people's day a little bit better every time they see him and that makes him feel good. He also wouldn't be doing it if he weren't being paid.

Which completely defeats the purpose of modders because, WE HAVE DEVELOPERS FOR THAT ALREADY BY DEFINITION.

Once you mandate a price for mods, it just becomes DLC (not even unofficial DLC since it's being fronted on their market with the acceptance of the original producer) and the modder becomes another underling of the producer. They become a developer by adhesion.

A mod is done by a third party. DLC is released by the development studio. Some DLC is free. Some mods are not. So being charged for them doesn't change the identity.

Also, development studios do not have the resources to do what hundreds of modders can accomplish. Look at the DLC that Bethesda put out for Skyrim. Nice but nothing in comparison for the mountain of mods. Individually though, most mods don't hold a candle to main expansions.

Were there a profitable option, we would have seen a lot more high quality mods rivaling Bethesda's DLC adding significant content to the game.

So you think I just want free stuff? You think that's it?

Yes, that's what I said. If you don't think that modders should even be able to ask for compensation then the only conclusion I can come to is that you don't want to pay for their work.

If that's all I wanted I wouldn't bother paying for my games in the first place, nor would I bother arguing to you about it. I'd be out checking torrents for free shit like every other short-sighted asshole.

If you don't think people who design mods should be able to ask for compensation, why would you think that development studios could? It's kind of a double standard.

I've been modding games for over 15 years and it wasn't out of some misguided attempt to nab "free stuff" from anyone, so spare me your implications about my morals or intentions.

I'm here because I'm passionate about this, and very, VERY fucking angry.
I'm angry, because I'm sick of this endless cheapening of gaming culture.

And you believe that modders being able to get a profit for their work somehow destroys gaming culture? I'd find it remarkably sad if gaming culture were dependent on slave mod labor.

I'm sick of gamers getting badgered in every conceivable way for the benefit of someone else, be it politicos or producers.

Buying a zucchini does not entitle you to getting a carrot for free unless specifically stated. DLC is not any different than mods. Sometimes, DLC is inferior even. So let's keep in mind that your logic should also apply to developers not deserving compensation for their DLC either.

It speaks dimly of a hobby that is becoming more and more estranged from itself because we losing trust in each other, and we're losing that trust because we're endlessly preoccupied with finding new ways to jack each other.
In this case, like so many others, it's jacking players in the wallet yet some more for the benefit of the producer.

Yep, we're becoming a big boy industry.

"Entitlement" DOESN'T CARRY MORAL IMPLICATIONS OR ANY GREATER MEANING HERE since both parties act entitled towards EACH OTHER in ANY given market.

I didn't say otherwise. However, one is more right than the other. You are entitled to what you've paid for, as a consumer. If you do not pay anything, you are not entitled to anything. A modder saying that they are entitled to compensation is right as long as you don't think slave labor is ethical.

Here's the deal. As a consumer, you can say no. You can decide not to pay for something because you don't believe it is worth it. Then that's the end of the story. You hold the power. They're just asking for a price.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Were there a profitable option, we would have seen a lot more high quality mods rivaling Bethesda's DLC adding significant content to the game.

For a tiny minority of efforts, perhaps.

I've already seen the "moar money" scheme in gaming, and so far, it's pretty fucking awful.

In professional circles (AAA), it's the endless chase or the lowest common denominator; An endless parade of self-derivative dross and an ever-SHRINKING sphere of design space.

For indies and early access games, it has pressured the market to only make half-finished dross and perpetual "betas", and that's being GENEROUS; AFTER you filter out all the more blunt examples of rampant lies, broken promises and exploitation.

More broadly, it has only promoted developers to lop more and more content out of their base games until you're paying the same amount for even LESS of what you used to get, not more.
Because business dictates that any advantage you have, you should exploit ruthlessly.
In this case, it's psychological behavior. (People are more likely to buy multiple small things than one big thing; even if the multiple small things cost several times as much as the core game)

Modding was LITERALLY the last space where that bullshit wasn't being pushed, but I guess any amount of short-sighted nonsense can be spun to SOUND good when it isn't your problem.

So you think I just want free stuff? You think that's it?

Yes, that's what I said. If you don't think that modders should even be able to ask for compensation then the only conclusion I can come to is that you don't want to pay for their work.[/quote][/quote]

And who was asking for compensation prior to this? A tiny minority of modders perhaps?
Modders who were arrogant enough to demand payment, but not professional enough to enter the space as real developers.

I don't respect them for their talent and work, I call them cowards for not taking the next logical step.

And you believe that modders being able to get a profit for their work somehow destroys gaming culture? I'd find it remarkably sad if gaming culture were dependent on slave mod labor.

This is one of the most ridiculous, insane, pretentious loads of bullshit I have -EVER- seen.

FACT: Modding is and has always been PURELY VOLUNTARY. Absolutely NOBODY WAS FORCING MODDERS TO WORK.
NOBODY. SLAVERY CANNOT EXIST WHERE NOBODY CAN FORCE OTHERS TO WORK AND YOU HAVE -NO- FORCE OF COERCION.

Your entire premise is based on creating a problem that didn't previously exist and solving it with a solution that isn't necessary. And I can say that because if that problem existed THEN MODDING WOULD HAVE COLLAPSED YEARS AGO.

You throw all of your bullshit fallacies at me, but the fact is your premise is all just one huge game of shifting the goalposts.

You generalizing the purpose of effort and motivations of modders until they are directly interchangeable with developers, when they SHOULDN'T BE.

And they shouldn't be not just because I say so or circular logic, but because by practical necessity modders are just games enthusiasts that happen to create content of their own volition. Not all artists charge money for their work, but by your own logic they fucking should because IF MONEY CAN BE EXCHANGED, THEN IT'S A JOB BY DEFINITION.

When all modders are developers, then modders cease to exist, BECAUSE THERE IS NO MORE NEED TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN THEM.
Everyone benefits except the gamers, because they have to pay more money for shit that they used to collaborate on freely, and the value of their games plummets even further into the shitter.

They were treated differently because they had different needs, different standards, and motivations.

You assert that we're demanding free stuff and in that there's a moral quandary.

By your own analogy, the developer sells their zucchini, and we demand their carrot.
But the fact you're glossing over is that WE PRODUCED THE FUCKING CARROTS.

Under this new system, the carrot implicitly belongs to the zucchini producer now. Why? Not ethics or morality or any of your strawman bullshit, but because of copyright.

Under that new system, we have no damn choice in the matter, even when the zucchini producer does NOTHING to help grow our carrots.

You aren't freeing any slaves; you're recruiting amateurs as cheap labor, and making the rest of us pay the middleman for the pleasure. That isn't "growing up", that's called "getting taken advantage of".

And the rest of us that want to buck the system and just enjoy ourselves, with our own work?
We're getting fucked, because now we're either going to be bullied out of the arena by market forces, or by copyright holder themselves if they don't like us for not producing free revenue for them.

If you think they won't, then I suggest you open your eyes, because I've seen the avarice of these assholes.
Just like with DLC, Early Access, and online services, they won't stop until it's an all-or-nothing affair.

We had a great thing going, for DECADES, and people like you want to ruin it for the privilege of an elite few.
So please, keep insisting you're doing this for our benefit and have nothing but good intentions.

Because the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

 

[DerangedHobo]

Truth be told, this system could of had potential. I'm saddened by the shit that got thrown at it, despite the poor execution. This had some legitimate points but I feel that it was drowned out by the mountains of fucking autism and circle jerking (as well as the outright cunts that said MODDING IS A HOBBY THAT YOU SHOULDN'T GET PAID FOR!). So.. good job? I guess?

 

[Saulkar]

Once they charge for the mod it seizes to be a mod. Then it simply becomes third party DLC instead.

Which is an odd thing people keep arguing about, arguing that this deal is the bee's knees (compared to what the average game company can negotiate) but modders are not developers, they are hobbyist and should be treated as such. They do not have the same resources, motivations, legal support, or financial backings. Third party DLC, like you said, has potential as there will be different systems governing, protecting, and supporting it in addition to what I would hope would be some quality control. The Steam system as it was setup was not in either the customer or modder's favour.

I definitely believe modders should be able to make money from their work but with legality of third-party assets and models being an issue, interdependent mods and who owns what, quality control, and theft were all issues that could not be easily sorted out. In all honesty, I believe that the system (though flawed) would have probably received less flack if it was exclusively a donation system that reminded you unobtrusively every couple of days that you had not donated (barring a negative review which would deny you further access to the mod until it was updated and you could critique it again). That would have solved the problems of paying for a mod only to find out a few days later that it was not compatible with another or if the developer showed gross incompetence or theft of assets that were not theirs to distribute.

Sorry if it sounds like I am in anyway harping on you, just giving into my own train of thought as I agree with you.

mountains of fucking autism

What does that mean?

 

[Saulkar]

Look on this side of it, if Valve managed to fuck this up so bad, one has to wonder what sort primates are running their business since this is the kinda stuff they should've seen the moment they aired the idea.

Maybe they had some community annalist determine the frequent (but not always) all bark and no bite responses of the general community towards many nefarious practices in the videogame industry was a trend that would continue and so the least amount of effort for a minimally viable service was seen as a safe bet.

A very human mindset that I fear would quickly leak into and hurt the modding community as to make a buck the least amount of effort would be employed along the lines of the most safe bets and homogeneous designs, stifling both the creativity and innovation we love mods for.

 

[Saulkar]

Look at the various app markets, look at steams own greenlight and early access. -That- is what we had in store if this had remained. Sure a gold nugget might emerge every now and then, but they'd be swimming in an ocean of liquid dirt. So yeah like you said, it'd end up stifling the good parts.

This made me think of something, would there be youtuber bate mods and what would they look like? Would they be any better than the normal crud that appears on steam or would the established game engine and assets allow for some much more complex and novel ideas and concepts to come to fruition? Or would it follow the current trend to a T?

I dunno but this is all making me depressed, I need some Cr1TiKaL to cheer me up.