Valve Hasn't Given up on Paid Mods

[Olas]

Maybe I live in a magic Lala land, but from where I'm standing what you're saying makes zero sense. You talk about trying to survive on this system with such slim profit margins when people are already somehow surviving with NO income from it whatsoever.

Stop right here.

The argument that was made by Stark in this very thread is the one i was talking about in my post.

Not whatever you cooked up right there.

People are "surviving" because they have regular jobs

Ya, no shit. Or they're living with someone who does, or some other situation. What matters is that they have another source of income AND STILL have time to work on mods. This would not necessarily change if they were allowed to make money off the mods, so any argument about it being too expensive is DOA.

Stark made it sound like if people would pay for his mods he could go back to modding and concentrate on making mods, wich suggests he would do it for a living instead of a regular full time job.

Okay, well that's one person's ambition. I'm trying to make a larger case here, not argue over a specific anecdote.

That argument as i showed is a complete and utter pipedream. Along with the argument that somehow being paid a miniscule sum of money only after you finish your project is somehow going to lead to bigger and better mods.. wich it doesnt. If you cant make a bigger and better mod with the resources you have available now a little pot of gold at the end of the rainbow isnt going to change any of that. Till the payday your circumstances are still very much the same.

It's called making an investment, you spend more money than you make up front in the knowledge that you'll recoup those loses further down the road. EVERY business does this to some extent, this is super basic stuff. Your argument only works if the modder in question has NO free money to spend, or ability to get a loan for it, which is more of a pipedream. I have to assume you're still in school or something because you seem to have no idea how finances work on the most basic level.

The only people that are going to profit from this system are not the people who make large intricate mods that change the game or add content to it in any meaningfull way. Its Valve and Bethesda ofcourse because they dont have to do jack shit.

modders will, by definition, profit from it, EVEN IF VALVE AND BETHESDA TAKE 99% off the top. People say that the mods will improve in quality if modders can earn money from them, and they almost certainly will, but that's not a guarantee or a requirement and they could just stay the exact same as well. It's up to the modder to decide if and how much additional investment they want to put into the mods now that the investment actually has a return.

And thats to say you can even make enough money with this system to sustain a living standard AND pay for legal AND pay for work expendures AND taxes AND wages if you have more then one person on the team. See where this is going?

How much do you want to sell your big mod for? 50 dollar a download? No ones gonna pay that. How about 10 dollars? Congratufuckinglations.. you make 2,50 per download.. before all the stuff i counted out above you have to pay for mind you.

Guess its ramen noodles and a wet cardboardbox on the sidewalk for our capitalist modder... i mean that is also a way of living.. but i doubt its the one modders who fall for this scheme have in mind when they hear the words "getting paid for your mods"

Just... stop. This is perhaps the stupidest argument against paid mods I've heard, and that's really REALLY saying something. Being able to charge money for mods won't make modders POORER than if they release them for free. I just.... why am I even....

[

However, since there are no details about Valve's implementation this time around, there's no justification for even that complaint. I guess people are just assuming Valve has learned absolutely nothing and won't try to address the concerns they clearly know people have with this system.

After greenlight and early access and the abysmal customer service they self admitted to but havent changed diddly squat about?

Yes.. yes that is a completly reasonable stance to take

But this is still just conjecture. I'm not going to complain about an M Night Shyamalan movie that hasn't come out yet, just because his previous ones sucked. I'll reserve my judgement until I see it, because otherwise I'd be discouraging him from even trying to turn things around.

Shhhh... my common sense is tingling.

Oh, is that what you call it?

Company that has a track record over the last couple of years of implementing half assed and abuse prone features to their market place AND not giving a shit about customer service dispite openly admitting that its customer service is utter shite will SUDDENLY, this time totaly not fuck up?

Well, usually when you make a mistake you don't just do the exact same thing again. Even if they do fuck it up again though, things get ironed out over time. Not everything is perfect right out of the gate on the first day, but IF YOU GIVE IT A CHANCE it will probably improve with time. This is true of all goods and services but it's especially true of software where creators actually can go back and fix things with software updates and the like.

And if they do screw it up, and never fix the problems, then just stay the hell away.

I have a bridge to sell you... or space ships if youre more into that.. that referal program isnt going to pick off on its own...

Well as we all know bridges and spaceships should be given away for free. The architects will be forced to live on Ramen if they're allowed to earn money from them. It's just common sense.

 

[Olas]

...

I don't even know what to say. I hope once you'll just stand there knowing that something you've been proud to be a small part of falls apart and some wise and logical guys will come and tell you: oh, don't be a bitter fool! Everything is the way it should! Noone takes nothing away from you!

If it falls apart, at least we'll have given it a try. I'm not worried about that. I think what most people are worried about is that it WON'T fall apart. That it'll actually work and take off, and they naively think this'll be bad for them in the long run.

Anyway, if you really think it'll fail, then just let it fail.

As for mod support - please, think before talking. How many indie devs actually do provide any kind of proper support for their games? And then you in your infinite wisdom think hobbyists will do at least that bit? What world do you live in?

Well the indie scene hasn't fallen apart, in fact it's thriving....
Nobody expects mod support to be as good as that of a triple A game. Or if you do, you shouldn't. Not all products are guaranteed to be risk free, and support is not always perfect. As long as customers aren't being scammed with false information when making a purchase, I think this is acceptable.

Will there be problems? Yes
Will shitty assholes try to abuse the system? Yes
Will people demand refunds? Yes

This is going to happen, it already happens, it's an inevitable part of any marketplace that isn't regulated to an Orwellian degree. But it's no reason to shut down the marketplace wholesale.

There seems to be a lot of nirvana fallacy in these counterarguments. That since the system probably won't be perfect, we should just not be tried. It really comes across that you guys are grasping at straws to find reasons to be in opposition.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Spoiler

there was an interview months ago that said fallout 4 didn't have any plans to put paids mods into it, but I suppose that could change quickly...if it does, I'm gonna be pitchforking it up to get a refund on the game.


Still, if they actually do what they are saying and release paid mods "with a new/fresh game", then fuck that game, I wouldn't spend a dime on it just for that decision alone.

Your loss.

"your loss"

oh boy! that's quite the quote there, so much added to the discussion, let's just be confrontational for the sake of it!

Wait, I can do that.

I'm not against modders earning some money for a job well done, which is why I support patreons or donation buttons on pages (and have done that to a few already), but I'm completely against the way paid mods were implemented before, and it sounds like they want to implement them in a similar way so I'll be against them again, valve and bethesda were taking home huge amounts of the pie with literally nothing put into it, no customer service, no quality control, nadda, so yeah, damn right I have a problem with it.

To be honest, and I mentioned this earlier, 25% royalties are far better than you'd get anywhere else in the industry. I mean, I can't speak from personal experience with games, but generally speaking, in media, when you're working with someone else's IP? 25% is pretty good. The 35% with Amazon's Fanfic publishing is ludicrously good. But, outside of self-publishing usually you're looking at rates that are a lot worse.

What you get from Bethesda and Valve is a marketplace you have access to (which will drive sales), and finished tools that you didn't have to pay (extra) for. Also, you're getting hosting fees covered, which is peanuts, but it's still nice.

At that point, yeah, it could be better, but I wouldn't cry over 25%.

There were other things, like a $400 minimum (or something like that) when the program was first revealed, which would have been a lot more onerous. Basically, if the mod didn't make $1600 in sales, you wouldn't see anything. But, I think that got scaled back or removed entirely after backlash. I mean, this is a detail I didn't pay a lot of attention to at the time, once they said they were dropping it down to $25 or so.

oh back when this discussion first heated up (when paid mods were tried out) I heard this part of the discussion come up quite a few times, and I can DEFINITELY see the logic you're going with here, and to be honest that's fine, I just personally don't think it translates perfectly to the video games industry (digital) and I don't think bethesda and valve put enough work into it to be earning MORE than the modder (they literally have nothing to lose, they're like the mobsters that come around asking for "protection money" when they don't do jack shit in reality.) which is why I was so against paid mods in the first place.

As well, it gets REALLY muddy when required payments are involved since SO many (the good ones usually) mods are co-dependant on one another (script extender, among many other compatibilities) and we did see that happen last time, there was lots of mods "stealing" from each other and other modders having to throw up tons of copyright flags on stuff uploaded to steam, which was just a huge and avoidable mess.

so yeah, I just am vehemently against the system from last time for the most part.

Spoiler: thanks for the civility in the discussion

 

[Rastrelly]

Well the indie scene hasn't fallen apart, in fact it's thriving....
Nobody expects mod support to be as good as that of a triple A game. Or if you do, you shouldn't. Not all products are guaranteed to be risk free, and support is not always perfect. As long as customers aren't being scammed with false information when making a purchase, I think this is acceptable.

Will there be problems? Yes
Will shitty assholes try to abuse the system? Yes
Will people demand refunds? Yes

This is going to happen, it already happens, it's an inevitable part of any marketplace that isn't regulated to an Orwellian degree. But it's no reason to shut down the marketplace wholesale.

There seems to be a lot of nirvana fallacy in these counterarguments. That since the system probably won't be perfect, we should just not be tried. It really comes across that you guys are grasping at straws to find reasons to be in opposition.

This system will not be perfect. In fact, this system will slowly but steadily destroy current system. Why? Because there are obious mechanisms. Devs of the original game don't want to have troubles with mod refunds and other crap like that, neither they want any legal issues if modder will drop support for a mod.

Let's list things that WILL go wrong:
1) Devs will make modding tool more restrictive; paid mods are supposed to be integrated into console business via unified protocols, and extreme solutions like 30-GB total conversions are to be plain gone just because tools like TES CS and Q3Radiant or Hammer will be repalced with Super Mario Makers and that crap Beth is going to attach to Doom 4.
2) If devs will release a new version which breaks some or all mods (that happens) several or multiple or even all mods which are no longer supported will get unavailable permanently. I imagine being one of those dumbasses who actually bought one of those! (In modern community mods won't be closed (which inevitably will be the case with paid mods) and can be carried further by different community members)
3) Even if paid mod platforms will coexist with free ones, paid ones will be much better represented, thus making free modmaker's work futile.

Bottom line: if devs want to profit from community creations, commission community-made DLCs and make them part of actual game.
3)

 

[Lightknight]

HOW ABOUT... They just set up a donation system? How about that? Is that really too hard to put in?

Because, they do set up donation systems already and we do have numbers on this, no one donates. At least actual homeless people holding out cups for money make money or all the homeless would starve if treated the same way.

Modders are providing a service. They deserve the ability to ask for money for their service. We just don't have to buy from them if that service isn't worth the purchase. As long as the publisher is OK with them using their assets and tying into their games for profit then there's really no moral or legal issue here. In fact, to prevent them from even being able to ask for a fair wage for their work is where the immoral/legality issues come into play. Bethesda is basically a company that chops down wood and converts it into usable timber. Modders basically take said timber and convert it into a more desirable object. You would have them spend all that time and just hope someone drops a penny in the jar? That's depressing.

Getting something for free is fun but that's really not fair for the modders. We are essentially being unethical in demanding that these workers work for nothing or for only the charity of others rather than being able to ask a price.

We can complain about how much the modder gets (note that Steam took their regular cut for access to their storefront last time and Bethesda also took their own cut for access to their storefront on steam. These are not abnormal amounts). We can complain about how Steam handles IP theft. But those are the things to work on and not complaining that people are able to ask for money for their work. That's shameful.

 

[dragoongfa]

Since Valve is about to start its own downwards spiral of Greedy Doom...

What short of external HD would people recommend so I can backup a few Terrabytes of games?

 

[DayDark]

they should sell mods to the consoles. There's a market that hasn't had it for free, and probably would love to pay. (I'm a console gamer).

 

[Atmos Duality]

Still a supremely foolish idea, backed by even more foolish ideology (or some regressive sophistry about "gaming needs to grow up"). Cut out the only truly open hobbyist development space in gaming, and it WILL disintegrate.

 

[Lightknight]

Still a supremely foolish idea, backed by even more foolish ideology (or some regressive sophistry about "gaming needs to grow up"). Cut out the only truly open hobbyist development space in gaming, and it WILL disintegrate.

Then at least it will be on their terms and not because we refuse to allow them to ask for a fair wage.

One would instead argue that once they are able to make a living off of it or some kind of compensation that they would more likely redouble their efforts and maybe even invest real work on it. Hell, can you imagine another dev studio have a department that just creates mods for other games as a distinct source of revenue? What about that guy that added 1/3rd the landmass of skyrim complete with voice acting and quests? What if that guy made enough money on that to do more like that?

It is silly to think that once people can make money at something that they'll suddenly cease to exist. Being a hobbyist blacksmith paid my way through college.

 

[Starke]

The problem with this logic is that because I know I can't make money on something, I don't also know how to turn out professional grade work. Which, btw, I do.

Because of this incident, the modding scene is actually weaker for it. I'm not talking about myself; this was bringing long time, top quality modders out of the woodwork who'd abandoned Skyrim because of real life considerations. This could have lead to more attention for our hobby. It could have lead to higher quality standards for mods.

But, instead, we got people throwing a tantrum about how their "free mods" were being taken away. Bethesda and Valve leaving everyone directly involved out to hang. And, it showed a really ugly side of the community. I've always known there were people out there who were on the "you owe us everything" spectrum, but seeing it from Brodual really hammered home how widespread this behavior is in the community. And, yeah, it disgusted me. I'm sorry, but it did.

And, yes, Bethesda and Valve set this one up to fail because of the way the presented it, and selected their initial offerings. But, at the same time, a lot of this falls on the shoulders of people throwing an irrational tantrum, thinking we somehow owe them all our work for free.

I'm not going to stop modding Bethesda games, but I'm probably not going to post any of that stuff online after this. You want work from me? Pay me. Sorry if that sounds mercenary, but, this has seriously soured me on the leachers in the community.

I never said nor implied you couldn't produce professional grade work, only that if it was the money drawing you in it would be soulless. Refrain from putting words in my mouth.

This goes both ways. Also, you might want to refrain from what determines the merits of another's soul.

No one is demanding your work, sorry, your mods aint that important.

While I agree with you that my mods aren't important. I can tell you that, no, there have been people in the past demanding my mods. Or, more specifically, demanding specific tailored changes, including in cases where I actually, legally, couldn't put up what they wanted.

You wanna make em? Cool. You wanna put em up so others can enjoy em? Cool. You wanna sell em? Cool, you're gonna get plagiarized (probably on Steam even) and pirated, but cool.

Actually, if I want to sell them, I'm shit out of luck. There's is no real option to sell mods for any Bethesda game right now.

Yeah, I could say, "screw it", and go to another game that I have no fondness for, and make random drech for it, but that would be soulless.

So riddle me this Batman, if all you say is true and the majority of the mod creators feel as you do then why wasn't this spearheaded by the mod creators?

Bargaining power.

Why were many mod creators actively opposed to this?

Most of the mod makers I saw who were opposed to the situation, were responding to the implementation, or freaking out over possible apocalyptic outcomes.

From what I saw, more modmakers were pissed over seeing their stuff picked up by others and listed than the idea itself. Or that what was going up was horse armor addons.

Why should we be ok with two companies that did and will continue to do fuck all in regards to mod QA, support, and general oversight doing this just to produce another revenue stream?

Because, long term, it has the potential to actually get more attention to this hobby. Bring more people in. Grow it beyond what it is now. Encourage the acceptability of it among other publishers. Raise it's profile.

Or, you know, we could stay where we are, fighting with loads of releases that are a pain in the ass to modify because they're released by publishers who don't see any potential value in modding, so they shut it down hard.

With Valve's system it would be impossible for mod creators to NOT charge for mods because Bethesda and Valve would want their cut regardless.

That's actually shit, and you know it. There was no move to get rid of free mods. It was a straw man set up by the very same people that disgusted me with their reaction to this.

There was the guy who stuck ads for the paid version of his mod in the free version. That was shit. If you want to say the guy was scum, feel free, I'll agree with you.

Going forward there would have been some people that would have chosen to pull their free mods, and paywall them. That would have been shit. If you want to say they're scum, again, I'll agree with you.

But, this wasn't about killing off free mods. You'd never see the end of free mods in a system like the one Bethesda put forward because, ultimately, there are a lot of mods that just aren't worth paying for. And there are a lot of modders who would still throw up the small stuff for free because, again, it wouldn't be worth charging for.

What you should be worried about is that the lesson learned by publishers is that free mods cannot coexist with paid ones. That's not a product of what Bethesda and Valve set up. It's a product of how the game's community reacted.

 

[Starke]

And, yes, Bethesda and Valve set this one up to fail because of the way the presented it, and selected their initial offerings. But, at the same time, a lot of this falls on the shoulders of people throwing an irrational tantrum, thinking we somehow owe them all our work for free.

This is the worst part. It was already possible for modders to sell their work, but the process to reach that goal was long, arduous, and expensive. What Valve attempted was to stream line the process, but they royally cocked-up the implementation. Coupled with the 'oh muh gurd, muh free mods are going away!' response, it soured what could have been an amazing step forward for the industry in supporting its community.

It's such a shame.

I'd actually phrase that as "theoretically possible" rather than just as "possible." I mean, the systems do exist to allow it, but at the same time, the actual process is basically a non-start. You need a developer and publisher who are already on board with what you're doing, and are willing to let you sell what you turn out. In the case of Bethesda, that's not actually there.

I'm not going to stop modding Bethesda games, but I'm probably not going to post any of that stuff online after this. You want work from me? Pay me. Sorry if that sounds mercenary, but, this has seriously soured me on the leachers in the community.

This, too, is a shame. Maybe you can at least share what the mods are, if not the actual content. Then some of us can at least see what it was we might have gotten.

I already mentioned this stuff to Therumancer, but, I wasn't one of those guys that took everything off the Nexus after this happened and scrubbed my presence.

For Skyrim, you can still find the magic rebalance mod that tweaks the way spell perks work, so they also increase the effectiveness of their spells. What this does, effectively, is let you play a pure mage through endgame. Your spells will do more damage or last longer as their relevant skills raise.

The stuff you wont see are an unarmored perk set and a crosstraining perk mod I was working on.

The unarmored perks were an addition to the alteration tree which would actually give you damage resistance for not having armor equipped in a given slot. The first point would give you 20 for your chest, 5 for your hands, 5 for your feet, and 10 for your head, which comes out slightly lower than starting light armor. As you raised alteration you'd increase this. It was a five tiered perk, just like the basic armor and weapon proficiency trees. It also backdoored into some of the higher Alteration perks, like magical resistance. There was a perk that would further boost your equipped armor stat was at 0 (so no light or heavy armor equipped), similar to the matched armor type perks. There was also an acrobatics perk which reduced fall damage while wearing no armor, and a perk that would give you a slow time effect if you were targeted by a power attack while fully unarmored.

The significant thing about this is, unlike the mods you can actually find that implement unarmored, this worked without kludging the interface through dialog boxes. It would fit seamlessly into the game. It didn't scale the way I wanted. I was hoping to have a basic perk that would allow your armor value to scale with your alteration, but that ran into a hardcoded issue.

What wasn't finished were hand-to-hand boosting perks. There were 5 basic +20%/+40%/+60%/+80%/Double damage perks for it, implemented. I was looking at a power attack disarm proc, and some other possibilities, but never actually finished it.

The crosstraining mod was spiked very early on. The basic idea was to implement conditional perks that applied outside a given skill. Like sticking a perk in the Conjuration tree that allowed them to tap into unholy sources for additional power. The things I was playing with (and some of these do exist in an .esp on my system) were perks that would apply a -50% melee damage modifier, but then add a scaling damage buff based on your conjuration stats. There was one that would give your character a significant armor buff for wearing the vampire armors from Dawnguard if they were a vampire, and one in restoration that would significantly boost the effectiveness of the Dawnguard faction armor, but would turn into a nasty debuff if you were a Vampire. I'd have to check, but as I recall, at one point it was possible for Dawnguard armor to actually kill a stage 4 vampire, if they had that perk, and hadn't upgraded their health above 110 or 120.

At one point in the unarmored mod, there was a glitch where it would increase the effectiveness of your normal armor, the fewer pieces you wore. So, if you had one piece of light armor it would get a +75% buff. I was toying around with re-implementing that intentionally in the cross training mod, as an offshoot of Barbarian (the 2h damage up perk).

Basically, stuff that would turn specific skill lines into full build options, rather than, "well, I can do this one thing, but nothing else." To, "I'm this kind of an adventurer." But, like I said, I never got very far with that, because I was working on it when this went off.

To be fair, this stuff would have been going up for free. When you're asking people to pay for mods, it's a lot easier to stick actual gameplay in front of them. Quest and dungeon mods, rather than saying, "well, here, pay for this neat stuff." Also, from the way it was shaping up, the cross training mod would have really been "paying for power," which is another reason I probably wouldn't have ever sold it.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Then at least it will be on their terms and not because we refuse to allow them to ask for a fair wage.

I get where you're coming from, really I have nothing against fair wages for fair labor, but this utterly monstrous logic.

What you're saying, is it's imperative to DEFINITIVELY destroy one of gaming's greatest benefits just for the CHANCE to impose a "fair wage" on what was purely voluntary work.

I indulge in economic theory and free concepts, but I also realize that paid mods ISN'T a free-market scenario, because the labor (modders) is entirely at the mercy of the copyright holding publisher. (more on that later)

I don't mean to be condescending here, but this isn't nearly as simple a concept as you think this.
Frankly, it's inventing a problem for the sake of profiting from it's solution.

One would instead argue that once they are able to make a living off of it or some kind of compensation that they would more likely redouble their efforts and maybe even invest real work on it.

*takes a look at the fully-financed market giants*
Sorry, but I'm not terribly convinced that more money equates to greater creativity.

Hell, can you imagine another dev studio have a department that just creates mods for other games as a distinct source of revenue? What about that guy that added 1/3rd the landmass of skyrim complete with voice acting and quests? What if that guy made enough money on that to do more like that?

Yes, and for every one of him, I can imagine a hundred others who are forced out of modding because of community infighting and/or the need for the publisher's approval.

I'm guessing you envision a creative utopia of modders providing a spectrum of paid and free mods.

I don't see that happening at all. Rather, I see a tiny handful of wildly successful modders (being pushed ahead of others by the publisher) and thousands of others who won't make it (legitimately) because of turf wars created by the new competitive model.

I see creativity in modding decreasing sharply in the short and long run, because the grey area that allowed modding to exist as is, will be replaced with the same market model the rest of the market uses. (I've seen what this did to the TF2 community; it's not nearly as peachy as Valve wants us to think)

In that scenario, at absolute best mods will become indistinguishable from DLC.
(And it's the grotesque abuse of DLC why I try to avoid it as is)

Ultimately, I think gamers will be left with fewer choices and the best to hope for is the difference in quality between those choices will be so extreme that one of them might actually be worth the money.

As for the rest of us that enjoy making content we like? We get screwed.
You can insist we can coexist, but I have no reason to believe that.

We won't get any help or collaboration due to the force of competition, and we won't get the support of the publisher since we aren't making money for them. At best, we become a black market equivalent.

It is silly to think that once people can make money at something that they'll suddenly cease to exist. Being a hobbyist blacksmith paid my way through college.

Once the publisher is involved directly in the modding scene, (and they are, with them garnishing the modder's sales) there are now toes to be stepped on.

1) Since mods are now market space, they have no incentive to support or permit mods that aren't making them money.
That is basic business logic. Furthermore, there are no consequences for them because they aren't putting any money or effort into the content being sold.

If they decide a baseline price for mods should match the gains by their official DLC, they have that power.
The most a modder can do is agree to their terms, or be evicted from the market by the publisher's whim (again, their game, their rules).

2) Smaller toes: The other modders, now engaged in infighting and coding turf wars due to the new competitive model.

The end result is that there are lots of small toes to be crushed, whether by the bigger foot of the publisher, or the stampede of smaller modders trying to outmaneuver each other.

Tell me, did your blacksmithing step on anyone's toes in this manner?
Did your work rely on collaboration with a financially detached third party?
No? Then it's a moot point.

 

[Starke]

Spoiler

there was an interview months ago that said fallout 4 didn't have any plans to put paids mods into it, but I suppose that could change quickly...if it does, I'm gonna be pitchforking it up to get a refund on the game.


Still, if they actually do what they are saying and release paid mods "with a new/fresh game", then fuck that game, I wouldn't spend a dime on it just for that decision alone.

Your loss.

"your loss"

oh boy! that's quite the quote there, so much added to the discussion, let's just be confrontational for the sake of it!

Wait, I can do that.

I'm not against modders earning some money for a job well done, which is why I support patreons or donation buttons on pages (and have done that to a few already), but I'm completely against the way paid mods were implemented before, and it sounds like they want to implement them in a similar way so I'll be against them again, valve and bethesda were taking home huge amounts of the pie with literally nothing put into it, no customer service, no quality control, nadda, so yeah, damn right I have a problem with it.

To be honest, and I mentioned this earlier, 25% royalties are far better than you'd get anywhere else in the industry. I mean, I can't speak from personal experience with games, but generally speaking, in media, when you're working with someone else's IP? 25% is pretty good. The 35% with Amazon's Fanfic publishing is ludicrously good. But, outside of self-publishing usually you're looking at rates that are a lot worse.

What you get from Bethesda and Valve is a marketplace you have access to (which will drive sales), and finished tools that you didn't have to pay (extra) for. Also, you're getting hosting fees covered, which is peanuts, but it's still nice.

At that point, yeah, it could be better, but I wouldn't cry over 25%.

There were other things, like a $400 minimum (or something like that) when the program was first revealed, which would have been a lot more onerous. Basically, if the mod didn't make $1600 in sales, you wouldn't see anything. But, I think that got scaled back or removed entirely after backlash. I mean, this is a detail I didn't pay a lot of attention to at the time, once they said they were dropping it down to $25 or so.

oh back when this discussion first heated up (when paid mods were tried out) I heard this part of the discussion come up quite a few times, and I can DEFINITELY see the logic you're going with here, and to be honest that's fine, I just personally don't think it translates perfectly to the video games industry (digital) and I don't think bethesda and valve put enough work into it to be earning MORE than the modder (they literally have nothing to lose, they're like the mobsters that come around asking for "protection money" when they don't do jack shit in reality.) which is why I was so against paid mods in the first place.

Yeah, I'd say equating it to protection money is a little hyperbolic. They do provide the tools. Create a ready made market of potential customers. Provide an actual venue to sell in. Cover the associated costs of running that venue.

At that point, taking 75% is a bit steep, but it's not like they aren't offering anything. Granted, as a private developer, you can create all of those things yourself, but actually creating a game from scratch, getting the word out, maintaining a storefront, and actually driving sales is a lot of work, if you take it on.

So, there is value offered. That said, it's not like they're having to engage in all of that work themselves, so there is an economy of scale issue. But, I wouldn't call it extortionate.

As well, it gets REALLY muddy when required payments are involved since SO many (the good ones usually) mods are co-dependant on one another (script extender, among many other compatibilities) and we did see that happen last time, there was lots of mods "stealing" from each other and other modders having to throw up tons of copyright flags on stuff uploaded to steam, which was just a huge and avoidable mess.

so yeah, I just am vehemently against the system from last time for the most part.

Yeah, there are issues with how mod development, particularly with Bethesda titles, have evolved. There is a lot of interconnected stuff, and having paid mods does call a lot of that into question.

That said... this isn't actually that insurmountable. There are a lot of mods out there that don't require anyone else's work. The Script Extender stuff is fantastic, and opens the door for a lot of really great work. So, in the context of selling mods, some special case probably should have been worked out, (like giving that team a royalty from any mod that used their work, pulling from the 75% share), but in general, mods that show up everywhere are the exception to the rule. The only two I can think of are SkyUI and SKSE. I know SkyUI was on board with this. Not sure about SKSE. But, in either case, that could have been addressed.

Spoiler: thanks for the civility in the discussion

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Yeah, I'd say equating it to protection money is a little hyperbolic. They do provide the tools. Create a ready made market of potential customers. Provide an actual venue to sell in. Cover the associated costs of running that venue.

At that point, taking 75% is a bit steep, but it's not like they aren't offering anything. Granted, as a private developer, you can create all of those things yourself, but actually creating a game from scratch, getting the word out, maintaining a storefront, and actually driving sales is a lot of work, if you take it on.

So, there is value offered. That said, it's not like they're having to engage in all of that work themselves, so there is an economy of scale issue. But, I wouldn't call it extortionate.

those tools and ready made market and venue are all ALREADY there though,have been for years/decades and they are still there, and there are other markets too on top of that, they aren't "providing" anything that justifies getting such large slices of the pie, steam workshop was a SHITSTORM when paid mods first came out, so implemented in that same way again, but just with a new game..I don't see the results really changing on that.

Yeah, there are issues with how mod development, particularly with Bethesda titles, have evolved. There is a lot of interconnected stuff, and having paid mods does call a lot of that into question.

That said... this isn't actually that insurmountable. There are a lot of mods out there that don't require anyone else's work. The Script Extender stuff is fantastic, and opens the door for a lot of really great work. So, in the context of selling mods, some special case probably should have been worked out, (like giving that team a royalty from any mod that used their work, pulling from the 75% share), but in general, mods that show up everywhere are the exception to the rule. The only two I can think of are SkyUI and SKSE. I know SkyUI was on board with this. Not sure about SKSE. But, in either case, that could have been addressed.

SKSE doesn't want any payment for their stuff and have no problem with anyone else using it for free or paid mods, but the creator did wish for most mods to stay free, if you want a source I can go find it.

other problems I have with it are:

game updates, the amount of times that games have broken mods or fucked up saves is a laughably high amount, this wasn't a problem so much before when you weren't paying for the 200 mods that you had loaded up in the game. (which this can be circumvented by not updating your game and hoping the mods update soon so you can eventually update with them)

^so once you've paid for the mod, you're pretty much SOL when the modder decides to just say "meh, I've done enough, just don't update your game past this point if you want it to work." And that's when the customer is getting ripped off, because they have all these paid mods now that they can't use unless they are using old versions of the game to make them all work together right.

accountability...this will be stupidly easy to circumvent, modders are anonymous for the most part so that if they fuck up or "get greedy" or just drop their projects, they can just register under a new name and start over, the only person screwed in this situation is the customers. Once again, not a problem with free mods, if someone leaves the modding scene, then someone else either usually picks it up and updates it via an earlier version of the source code or they just upload the files themselves in a clean version of it since the author left.

 

[Lightknight]

Then at least it will be on their terms and not because we refuse to allow them to ask for a fair wage.

I get where you're coming from, really I have nothing against fair wages for fair labor, but this utterly monstrous logic.

What you're saying, is it's imperative to DEFINITIVELY destroy one of gaming's greatest benefits just for the CHANCE to impose a "fair wage" on what was purely voluntary work.

You're assuming that it will definitively destroy something. I disagree. Unless you think "free" is the primary thing that is one of gaming's greatest benefits. Which I disagree. The mods that they produce are the benefit and that should only improve.

I indulge in economic theory and free concepts, but I also realize that paid mods ISN'T a free-market scenario, because the labor (modders) is entirely at the mercy of the copyright holding publisher. (more on that later)

I don't mean to be condescending here, but this isn't nearly as simple a concept as you think this.
Frankly, it's inventing a problem for the sake of profiting from it's solution.

Putting my actual degree in economics and business administration aside, what I'm saying is that these people are producing a product/service that people want.

They are expending time and energy with a non-zero opportunity cost that could otherwise be spent elsewhere.

Therefore, it is unfair and to demand that they give this away for free. I get that you like the culture and of course we as consumers like getting things that are free to us. But I'm sorry, it just isn't morally acceptable to prevent them from having the ability to make any money off of what they're doing because you want X. Whether or not they should charge should be up to the individual and the IP holder.

One would instead argue that once they are able to make a living off of it or some kind of compensation that they would more likely redouble their efforts and maybe even invest real work on it.

*takes a look at the fully-financed market giants*
Sorry, but I'm not terribly convinced that more money equates to greater creativity.

It doesn't need to. But the ability to profit does equate to lower opportunity costs to do something else and can encourage greater investment in the project at hand rather than relegating it to a hobby project status.

Yes, and for every one of him, I can imagine a hundred others who are forced out of modding because of community infighting and/or the need for the publisher's approval.

You can imagine a lot but that's where it ends, in your imagination.

We already have a need for the publisher's approval unless you get it elsewhere. If publisher's approval ends up squashing certain creative areas (like nudity, for example) then you're just going to see them bolster the numbers of modders catering to the unmet needs in that tertiary market.

I'm guessing you envision a creative utopia of modders providing a spectrum of paid and free mods.

I'm imagining a scenario where someone is producing a good/service and getting paid for it. Whether it's better or worse later on is kind of irrelevant to whether or not a group of people is being unfairly taken advantage of.

I don't see that happening at all. Rather, I see a tiny handful of wildly successful modders (being pushed ahead of others by the publisher) and thousands of others who won't make it (legitimately) because of turf wars created by the new competitive model.

So they're going to be making less money than the $0 they're making now?

I see creativity in modding decreasing sharply in the short and long run, because the grey area that allowed modding to exist as is, will be replaced with the same market model the rest of the market uses. (I've seen what this did to the TF2 community; it's not nearly as peachy as Valve wants us to think)

Are you saying we consumers would stop wanting the mods we wanted before? Where there is demand we often see supply. If you saw an area dwindle then you were likely seeing it get exposed to market conditions and finding it wanting on the demand side.

In that scenario, at absolute best mods will become indistinguishable from DLC.
(And it's the grotesque abuse of DLC why I try to avoid it as is)

I love good DLC, hate bad DLC. I'd have to evaluate it on a case by case basis. Shit in a can may look like Coke but you know the difference.

Ultimately, I think gamers will be left with fewer choices and the best to hope for is the difference in quality between those choices will be so extreme that one of them might actually be worth the money.

This isn't about gamers. This is about laborers. This isn't so terrifying as actual slave labor but only allowing someone to give away their service for free still kinda has the taint of it.

As for the rest of us that enjoy making content we like? We get screwed.
You can insist we can coexist, but I have no reason to believe that.

You also have no reason not to believe it. In fact, what do you think could prevent you from producing anything you want? Do you imagine some sort of DRM will keep us from being able to mod our games. Haha, DRM can't do shit against anyone except those who can't even mod their games anyways because they aren't savvy enough.

We won't get any help or collaboration due to the force of competition, and we won't get the support of the publisher since we aren't making money for them. At best, we become a black market equivalent.

That's not likely to be true. Indie devs get help and collaboration and they clearly want to profit. I've seen collaboration and help across all kinds of markets and industries as long as they aren't in absolute direct competition.

Once the publisher is involved directly in the modding scene, (and they are, with them garnishing the modder's sales) there are now toes to be stepped on.

1) Since mods are now market space, they have no incentive to support or permit mods that aren't making them money.
That is basic business logic. Furthermore, there are no consequences for them because they aren't putting any money or effort into the content being sold.

If they decide a baseline price for mods should match the gains by their official DLC, they have that power.
The most a modder can do is agree to their terms, or be evicted from the market by the publisher's whim (again, their game, their rules).

Steam is taking their cut as the platform, the publisher is taking their cut as the store front. They also have a right to profit for the service they're providing and have curated through their own investment/work. Remember, a modder could go to Nexus and demand people pay them a million dollars for their mod. But not only are fewer people going to see their mod/request but more people are going to be unwilling to pay for an uncurated item or trust a non-defended site with their financial transactions. Steam and Bethesda's storefronts are huge and reliable resources for a mod vendor.

2) Smaller toes: The other modders, now engaged in infighting and coding turf wars due to the new competitive model.

The end result is that there are lots of small toes to be crushed, whether by the bigger foot of the publisher, or the stampede of smaller modders trying to outmaneuver each other.

The current result is Bethesda and Consumers all getting a free lunch off the backs of the little guys (modders).

I should mention, I am sympathetic to you preferring to maintain the status quo and being afraid of change. I get that this could make things worse. But not only do we not know that yet, but what is currently going on is just opportunistic if not downright exploitative of people who are passionate about these games. Why not give them the ability to ask for money? Either trust that the modding community you love are still going to have good eggs or realize that the modding community exists as a falsehood solely there because their most preferred option isn't available.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

HOW ABOUT... They just set up a donation system? How about that? Is that really too hard to put in?

Because, they do set up donation systems already and we do have numbers on this, no one donates. At least actual homeless people holding out cups for money make money or all the homeless would starve if treated the same way.

Modders are providing a service. They deserve the ability to ask for money for their service. We just don't have to buy from them if that service isn't worth the purchase. As long as the publisher is OK with them using their assets and tying into their games for profit then there's really no moral or legal issue here. In fact, to prevent them from even being able to ask for a fair wage for their work is where the immoral/legality issues come into play. Bethesda is basically a company that chops down wood and converts it into usable timber. Modders basically take said timber and convert it into a more desirable object. You would have them spend all that time and just hope someone drops a penny in the jar? That's depressing.

Getting something for free is fun but that's really not fair for the modders. We are essentially being unethical in demanding that these workers work for nothing or for only the charity of others rather than being able to ask a price.

We can complain about how much the modder gets (note that Steam took their regular cut for access to their storefront last time and Bethesda also took their own cut for access to their storefront on steam. These are not abnormal amounts). We can complain about how Steam handles IP theft. But those are the things to work on and not complaining that people are able to ask for money for their work. That's shameful.

Please watch this:

(Actual relevant part starts at the 2 minute mark exactly.)

Jim here really lays it out pretty darn nicely. I'm not sure where you're getting those numbers but he, and many others on Patron and the Extra Credit guys would beg to differ when it comes to donating.

 

[Atmos Duality]

This isn't about gamers. This is about laborers. This isn't so terrifying as actual slave labor but only allowing someone to give away their service for free still kinda has the taint of it.

I had written a point by point reply, but this is the place where you go completely off the rails and into projecting crazytown. Apparently, in your mind "gamer" or more accurately "modder = slave". The fact you're even comparing the two blows my fucking mind.

MODDERS CANNOT BE SLAVES.

It is literally IMPOSSIBLE because slavery is by definition "COMPULSORY LABOR FOR NO PAY".
See that first word? "Compulsory"? That's the part you continuously ignore, and that ignorance undermines your entire argument. The mechanical argument, the semantic argument, and especially the moral argument.

If nobody is being forced to mod games, then the motivating value of their labor (why they choose to mod games in the first place) must stem from themselves first; and one cannot be a slave to their own person.

I'm a modder. Have been for nearly 18 years now.
So by your logic, *I'm* a slave! Ignoring how insulting I find that for a moment, lets consider: A slave to whom?
The community? The culture? The Publisher?
No, no, and no. I am beholden to none of those, and participate entirely on my own volition.

I don't represent all modders, but I represent one that will not tolerate your projection.

EDIT: As for the rest of your argument, it boils down to an attitude that screams "If it cannot be allowed to make money, it is not fair/good."

When the value of endeavor can only be "morally justified" by its ability to generate dollars and cents, then morality itself is worthless. Money is just a placeholder estimate for value, but even it fails to properly encapsulate true value, in human perspective.

 

[Starke]

Please watch this:

(Actual relevant part starts at the 2 minute mark exactly.)

Jim here really lays it out pretty darn nicely. I'm not sure where you're getting those numbers but he, and many others on Patron and the Extra Credit guys would beg to differ when it comes to donating.

I did, actually. When it aired and since then. It boils down to two things, steam's got problems, because we couldn't figure that out on our own. And, "content creators deserve to get paid for what they do."

Which, donations don't actually work. From Jim's perspective he might think they do. But in that regard he's in a very fortunate position. With 20k followers, you can expect to get about 40 bucks in donations. Now, that might not sound like a lot, after all, Jim's got 280k, but, unless you're coming to something with a fanbase preestablished? That's not an unreasonable number for a couple years of work. People don't donate. It's not that they're malicious about it, it's just, what Jim said, if you're getting something for free, you won't pay for it.

Patreon's a little different. That is "pay me, and I'll do a thing for you." But, at the same time, because you're stomping on someone else's IP, at any time a lawyer could come up, tap you on the shoulder and take you for everything you own, because you were profiting off their client's IP. You can hide behind, "that'll never happen," at which point all I need to do is point at NOA.

The Steam workshop had a real chance to change things up, and give modders a safe venue to sell their work. Without that, it's still not a safe thing to try making a living doing, because of the legal issues.

The rest, about Steam? That's still true today. It would still be true if paid mods were never a thing. And, again, what Jim is worrying about there, EA, Ubisoft, others getting into this more aggressively? That's the legacy that Bethesda left us with when they chickened out. Other publishers are going to try far more aggressive and exploitative ways to do this because the friendly approach did not work.

Steam needs to clean house. They don't want to. That's fine. But it will destroy their platform if they just keep letting shit like Digital Homicide's garbage all over their platform. It turns it from a respectable Redmond storefront into a pawnshop in Federal Way. Selling mods wouldn't have changed that at all. Same problem, different day. And they need to get serious about it. But saying that was somehow a special problem with mods is just flat out untrue. It's a problem with Steam, and they need to get serious about it.

 

[Kailow Krow]

I'll put it this way.
I'll pay for a mod, when there is a mod worth paying for.
That's the short of it, this is the long.
And yes, they're out there already. However it's worth noting, that most every mod available for purchase was either shit, or had better version for free, made with the intent of being free. And they do set the bar high, but they should. It's good for competition and it's good quality control. It ensures that no money will be spent unless the product is of high enough quality to be worth the money in comparison. That way they don't devalue the product.
Something games in general could use a good kick in reminder. It's hard to want to buy a new game with a $50 season pass or $40 DLC.

 

[Olas]

I've said it before. If they want money for it then they're no longer mods. They're just third party dlc sellers.

Okay, then they're 3rd party DlC sellers. So what?

Words have meaning and power. With that comes many expectations(reasonable and unreasonable). Calling it paid mods is part of the reason why people became so infuriated in the first place and the way the whole thing was set up was a bit of a farce. Had they done this properly, and given it an appropriate term like Third Party DLC, before going public then all of it could've avoided, but suspect the idea of actually having to do something on their end is why they took the lazy way out.

Words have meaning and power because they represent a thing or idea, changing the word doesn't change what it refers to though. Hence, semantics shouldn't really be a factor in any serious discussion. You could be right that "Third Party DLC" has better marketing potential than "Paid Mods", I'm no expert on rhetoric so I won't challenge that; but I'm more interesting in defending the merits of the idea, not the label.