Valve monetizes mods (With Bethseda Launcher and Open Beta for Modding Released, Possible Return?)

[Organic Fapcup]

This is now the official thread theme.

 

[MerriedManJr]

I know this is the end of the world and all, but the protest mods being uploaded are pretty damn funny:

Spoiler

Edit: By the way, the bear mod is so expensive because he added a second bear in the first update and doubled the price accordingly.

 

[Conrix]

I unfortunately agree. I really hope this doesn't become a trend and people start turning free mods into paid mods.

gee, I can't wait to pay 5 bucks to play with someone's wierd waifu mod or a pony reskin
Edit: Or worse, 20 bucks for the script extender

Hasn't Valve already been monetizing mods? Ok but seriously it's just a dumb idea to monetize little waifu and pony mods, or little gameplay mods. I'd understand if it was like a total conversion that took a lot of effort to make, and some of the money is going to the content creators rather than just Valve, but I'm not keen on paying money just to play through the core Skyrim using Keyblades and deagles from little addons I could google for free.

 

[MiloWuCollusion]

Dunno what were Valve and Bethesda thinking. This is a disaster waiting to happen. They cannot brush it off and doing the minimum necessary like Greenlight...

 

[Linako 2.0]

Dunno what were Valve and Bethesda thinking. This is a disaster waiting to happen. They cannot brush it off and doing the minimum necessary like Greenlight...

It's all part of a bigger plan to cause a second crash, and like a phoenix, Gaben will revive from his ashes.
no longer fat as he ate the sins of video games.
his fresh smooth baby butt body than rises and from the sun, will release Half Life 3.

this is the only explanation

 

[Commodore B.S.]

So one of the SkyUI guys is trying his hardest to defend thier choice to put 5.0 behind a paywall when it comes out, and people are..... not exactly too keen on his views. Its getting quite humorous to watch them squirm, considering how many other mod devs have come out and said they will never make mods for sale.

EDIT: and now he goes and drops this little bomb:

There is no "community". The past 48h have shown this. There never was.

He mad.

 

[c-no]

Considering how this whole thing has gone, I should of remembered to of posted this.

To Valve, Bethesda, and modders like one of the SkyUI guys. They managed to leave a lot of people salty with the whole monetized mods thing.

 

[José Mourinho]

New from /v/:

 

[Commodore B.S.]

Yup. Mardoxx has pretty much burned down most of his bridges with the community as of now. Im just hoping that schlangster comes back tomorrow, see the absolute shit show that has occured and how Mardoxx has been acting, are realizes that maybe it is not in their best interest to go though with paywalling the newest versions of SkyUI.

 

[c-no]

In light of this fiasco, I went to the Nexus site to download one of the unofficial patches. As I downloaded one of them, they added a donate button for the mod makers, saying 100% goes to the mod makers. Judging by that, Nexus may as well be doing something that may as well in a way be better than Valve since it isn't saying "pay money to get this mod".

 

[Commodore B.S.]

In light of this fiasco, I went to the Nexus site to download one of the unofficial patches. As I downloaded one of them, they added a donate button for the mod makers, saying 100% goes to the mod makers. Judging by that, Nexus may as well be doing something that may as well in a way be better than Valve since it isn't saying "pay money to get this mod".

I noticed this as well. Hell, a few modders on reddit have said they made some money already from it, which is more then what dome of the paywall modders can say as of now.

 

[Luna]

This is the worst thing to happen to videogames all year.

Developers already get a lot out of the modding equation. They release their development tools to players and in return value is added to their products by the fans, creating a wealth of new content and extending the life of the game greatly. Developers also get valuable insight into how their fans play their games. They get to see what people change about their games and can then combine these features into future titles.

Mods have always been free and those who have attempted to profit from it in the past have been smacked down pretty fast. I'd say that close to 100% of people would agree fan-made content shouldn't be something you have to pay for. But now you can! And what a can of worms that opens.

Mod authors under Steam's scheme will supposedly get 25% of revenue from the sales of their mods, but this isn't the whole picture. They also need to make a monthly sales target (I've seen figures between $400US and $1600US) before they will even get this 25%, and if they don't, Steam keeps all profits and tough titties to the mod author. Putting aside that mods shouldn't even be something you have to pay for, this is already a very shitty deal. Only the largest, most popular mods could ever hope to reach targets like this.

A lot of those large, popular mods may require other, large, popular mods. SkyUI, the most downloaded mod for Skyrim by a factor of nearly double, will be getting updated to version 5.0 and released on Steam Workshop (I'm hearing it'll start at $0.99US). Suppose a mod requires SkyUI for the MCM utility. Do you then need to go and buy SkyUI to access even the free content?

Then what if there are incompatabilities? When you buy a product you would expect it to work (in most cases). I would expect official DLC for a game to work with the vanilla game and with other DLC but this absolutely is not the case with mods. Modding is rife with incompatabilities and mod authors are extremely variable in supporting, updating and bugfixing their work.

To quote Flavo, "giving mod authors the ability to sell their shit is like giving a machinegun to a chimpanzee"

 

[Watcher]

A friend of mine posted this

Modding is and always has been, a work of love. It is not about money, or fame. Modding is about seeing a flaw or a place where there could be ‘more’ and filling it.

Mod makers work hard, and I respect them. I've made some custom weapons for my own use, and it is difficult. I can’t imagine doing heavy script or animation work. That being said, the mod maker should not be expecting to receive payment. You are not a member of the company who made the game, and shouldn't expect to be treated like one. People who really like your mod, can and often will donate, if the option is there. But the true spirit of modding, I believe, lies in the act of helping a community you are a part of to improve something that you all enjoy.

On another note, this also has the potential to stop modders from improving. Take this as an example: A first time modder makes a mod, let’s just say it adds a sword or something. He, being a first time modder, thinks it is excellent. He decides to put it on the market for 1 dollar. He gets some initial downloads, but, as is often the case, soon the downloads stop. He wonders why only a few people liked it. Even worse, a large number of buyers demand a refund shortly after they purchase the mod. He sees the comments telling him that the textures on the sword are atrocious, etc, but he's already had his confidence damaged because it seemed people thought badly of his modding. He decides maybe modding wasn't for him and stops modding altogether. Under free usage, he won’t have to deal with the actual sensation of loss he felt when the little money he did make was refunded, and the comments would be much more motivating than they would otherwise, since he is less upset. He could potentially go on to make even more mods, increasing in complexity, and using feedback provided by people who are more constructive than destructive. (People seem to be more upset when they post negative comments about paid things, since they feel scammed, I’d assume.). He may use the advice given to him by commenters to create something fantastically well done.

It's a situation that is clearly within the realm of possibilities.

I would like to reiterate: I am very, very supportive of modders, and I have personally donated to a few of them, but we have to be clear: When people expect payment for their services, and do something for money, the quality of said thing is different from something that is a labor of love.

One of the things I personally enjoy about mods is the sense of community I get from people, even mod authors, in that community. I cannot say that I feel the same way about large, for profit groups, which, are honestly inevitable with this system. The temptation to form a team of modders to boost the number of mods produced for the payment system is simply too large to reasonably doubt. At this point, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that I am not against cooperation, but I am against the scenario in which three or four people team up to flood the market with cheap, low quality mods to try to boost profit from those mods.

Further, we have the fact that many players use mods precisely BECAUSE they are free. I myself am a college student, and I know that I could not afford to pay for all the mods I have in my load order. The issue of money is actually what first attracted me to modding. I had thought to myself that since I was an avid gamer, but I was broke, I would be best served getting content based mods for myself. I told myself I would just use those mods as a bridge till I got the official DLC but I eventually forgot about them. By the time I remembered, I found it cheaper to just by a legendary edition of Skyrim. I found the DLC content and models on this fresh install a startling reminder of just how old Skyrim was. I was extremely thankful for mods from then on, as they provided me a way to actually enjoy the game and not have to pay anything, which came as a real boon for me, since I had a VERY tight budget at that time. The free nature of mods enabled me to enjoy the game much more than without. I am sure many others find themselves with a tight budget, and have found mods to be a real relief.

Lastly, an already overstated issue: Intellectual property. IP is a bit thorny in my opinion, but the problem lies with the modding community and its tendency to use assets that already exist. And while that is legal for profitless usage (to my knowledge, I am not, nor will I profess to be a lawyer, or involved in the law), it can, from what I understand, become a big issue when payments are involved.

Again I would like to say to any mod authors who may be reading this, this is not an attack on you. I honestly admire many of the authors on the Nexus, as they create fantastic works out of a desire to foster a more enjoyable game. I do not, and will not ever, support the idea of “Blacklisting” an author simply because he or she chooses to move their mods to paid form. I understand the draw, and I honestly think that a great deal of authors deserve much more praise than they receive, I just disagree on the methods being put into action. I am also aware that as a person who has only created simple, casual mods, I cannot understand the amount of work that goes into your creations, and I will not claim to. What I am saying is this: A good mod can be made for profit, but a truly great mod is made out of compassion.

At the end of the day, for me, this is a matter of the integrity and purpose of the modding community, a community which I have seen do things fix bugs left by developers, to changing the entire climate of a game, to adding a whole new landmass. Modding is about exploring the limits of what we paid for, stretching every cent we have to the maximum. It’s about taking something good, and making it great, and taking something great, and making it even better. The hard work put in by mod authors makes many of my modded games worth playing, and I find myself, at times, more grateful to them than Bethesda, because while they may not have made the house, they really made it feel like home.
- Riley Stoller

 

[Yog-Sothoth]

 

[Organic Fapcup]

View attachment 24531

Well that guy's an insufferable cunt.

"Some money's better than no money."

Can't argue with that, but if you're a decent modmaker, it's a lot easier to just set up a Patreon. You won't piss as many people off and you'll make more and more consistent amounts of money.


"Why would modders from the Nexus be jumping to steam if the tips were so great?"

Simply because the ones who would profit from tip jars/Patreons/whatever don't use them. Either that or they do use them and they're just that greedy/stupid. In addition to greed, modders jumped to Steam in order to protect their own mods from getting stolen and sold by someone else (although anyone who buys a free mod deserves to lose their money).


"If they monetize their mods through steam they protect themselves. The only ones at risk are those releasing small free mods."

They protect their mods from getting sold by someone else, which shows a massive flaw in the system implemented by Valve. A flaw deliberately designed to force people to monetize their mods in fear of having them stolen. This flaw should not be an incentive to monetize a mod, but instead a reason as to why paid mods are a bad thing. Also, small free mods are at very little risk because many lack popularity or recognition. The mods at risk of being stolen are the larger gameplay altering and quest mods.

EDIT: Forgot to add, if you can prove you're the original creator of a mod and you add a disclaimer in the Nexus saying that it can't be monetized, you should be able to get the mod pulled off, so there's really no justification other than being a greedy twat.

"If you were going to spend it on a game once, you will probably spend it on something in Steam anyways. This does not bother me. Try a new mod."

If a person wants to spend money on a specific thing, it means they want to buy that specific thing. The "refund" will likely cost money to the person who buys the mod, because they likely end up with money they won't be able to spend on, say, a game, because of how cheap mods are. Also, cunt.


Don't feel like doing the rest of these. Apologies for the autism, but people who think paid mods should be a thing rustle the hell out of my jimmies.

 

[Naamaleipuri]

Bah.. Just when I was thinking of reinstalling Skyrim and giving it another chance.
This whole paid mod thing actually annoys me greatly. If future games get crap pc ports and you need to pay for a mod to fix that, I'm going to be a very sad person. Imagine if you had to pay for all the mods you need to actually play Dark Souls without losing your sanity. It's almost like the developers are being encouraged to publish their games half baked, so they can get that sweet cut from the mod sales.
.... Brb, downloading backups of the DS mods.

 

[SpessCaptain]

For you guys.

 

[KingGeedorah]

Killing it with the Suicide Silence yo.

RIP Mitch and Skyrim Mods.

 

[LiquidCooledGonads]

There is no "community". The past 48h have shown this. There never was.

Reminds me of Gamergate where the journalists proclaimed that the word "Gamer" is dead.

 

[Yog-Sothoth]

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

This is how steam is handling the situation.