STEAM paid for mods

[Ormorof]

Good or bad?

http://www.pcgamer.com/valve-allows-mod-makers-to-sell-their-creations-on-steam/

Im kinda torn, on the one hand i think its great for modders who pour their lives into projects that add so much life and scope to games

On the other i worry it will lead to a world like mobile apps, crappy free version trial or full paid mod

Also isnt the whole free mods part of the pc modding dynamic?

 

[Raven]

Depends how well moderated it is. I fear it will be flooded with absolute trash (like the mobile games mentioned) so will become hard to find something worth it.

 

[Gwadien]

There should be the ability for people to donate to the people that make mods, don't necessarily force them to buy a mod.

Mods are generally created people that enjoy making mods, probably because they're not in a work environment and it's something they can do whilst scratching their balls at half 2 in the morning.

Allow people to donate to it, they benefit out of it because it allows them to see if they're doing good at their mod.

 

[old.Tohtori]

There should be the ability for people to donate to the people that make mods, don't necessarily force them to buy a mod.

Some modders are already using the patreon system. Works rather well from what i hear.

On the topic; It's not going to stop other modders from making free mods if they wish(such as the nexus stuff) and it would seperate the moneygreed folk from the community contributors. Also reviews from gamers would quickly tell if a mod would actually be worth a dollar or two(some of the stuff is better then official dlc).

Donating option on steam would ofcourse be optimal, steam could grab something like 10% cut from it also, people wouldn't mind that most likely, and it would be a winwin.

 

[Gwadien]

Some modders are already using the patreon system. Works rather well from what i hear.

On the topic; It's not going to stop other modders from making free mods if they wish(such as the nexus stuff) and it would seperate the moneygreed folk from the community contributors. Also reviews from gamers would quickly tell if a mod would actually be worth a dollar or two(some of the stuff is better then official dlc).

Donating option on steam would ofcourse be optimal, steam could grab something like 10% cut from it also, people wouldn't mind that most likely, and it would be a winwin.

Paying upfront for a mod would also be counter productive, since mods are mods because people can give them a go, and drop them, people are very less likely to try something out if they have to pay for it up front, or (personally) play a trial version, THEN have to pay for something to play a 'full version' that would be very annoying.

I wouldn't mind if steam took a 10% but I haven't read the article, but i'd imagine, they'd take 10% and the game would also take 10%, I can imagine this getting very out of control for the likes of Total War games.

Want the full Total War experience? Pay £200!

 

[caLLous]

I think it's fair to say that this has not been well-received.

Lots of mods are being uploaded for sale by people who didn't create them. Valve have really fucked this up. (and the seller only gets 25% and they can't have any of their money until they make $100 so they have to sell $400 worth of mods to see anything)

 

[Gwadien]

https://www.change.org/p/valve-remove-the-paid-content-of-the-steam-workshop

 

[BloodOmen]

Lol, steam haven't really done their homework on this one, have they. I bet it doesn't take into account a lot of these mods require OTHER mods to run.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Oh well, it's great they're atleast trying to do something new. Now if they'd only think before leaping

 

[Raven]

A more prominent donation button would have been better.

 

[Ctuchik]

I think it's fair to say that this has not been well-received.

It certainly hasn't, but it's a being ill recieved for the wrong reason.

People want the mods to keep being free "because they always have been", but that's not a good enough argument.

The only reason mods have been free up till now is because the modders had no other choice, they were not legally allowed to charge money for their work.

Sure some mods deserve a pricetag more then others (like total conversions and stuff like that), but all mods have had work put into them so why can't they charge for it?

The only actual bad thing i see about what Valve did is that they have the gall to take 75% of the profit.... That's worse then Nintendos fucking brand deal on Youtube....

 

[Mabs]

can u trial them or what ? not read anything yet, but i tend ot try dozens of mods and use 1 or 2, dont want to pay to try

 

[Gwadien]

can u trial them or what ? not read anything yet, but i tend ot try dozens of mods and use 1 or 2, dont want to pay to try

You can get a refund in 24 hours I believe

 

[Raven]

Yeah 24h cooling off period.

Still shit though and will damage the modding scene.

 

[old.Tohtori]

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/news/12454/

Good read and gives the truth on how it affects stuff.

Funnily enough, you can find a variant of most mods that are on sale, on nexus.

Like http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/26228/? which is better then the ineed on steam at nearly 4€.

 

[BloodOmen]

 

[Ormorof]

I think the two biggest problems are ownership and valves cut

It seems there are a lot of mods being uploaded (paid for mods) by people who did not create the mods, or they are simply repackaged under a different name - this is probably illegal in many countries but does valve want individual users to take it up in court or is there a way to prove the content provided is yours?

On the second part, 75% is a very large cut for such a small transaction, especially when Valve are not even creating the content!

So for the most part i seem to be against this implementation.

I am very much for the idea - take the Mount and blade pirate mod that has now been turned into a paid for stand alone game or the latest expansion which also came from a mod - but it needs to happen between the developers & the mod creators not the publisher

 

[Mabs]

i wouldnt mind if it was capped, i havent looked into it much but im seeing stuff from 75p up to nearly a fiver, so :/

 

[BloodOmen]

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/gabe-newell-says-valve-will-dump-paid-mods-if-they/1100-6426893/

"
Valve CEO Gabe Newell said that if the new Steam program that allows users to sell mods instead of just giving them away for free turns out to be bad for gamers, the company will ditch the idea.

"Our goal is to make modding better for the authors and gamers," Newell said in a Reddit Ask Me Anything thread. "If something doesn't help with that, it will get dumped. Right now I'm more optimistic that this will be a win for authors and gamers, but we are always going to be data driven."


Newell also took a question from Nexus, a free modding community that's been very concerned about Steam's paid mods feature. Newell guaranteed that Valve isn't asking developers to protect paid mods and make them available only through Steam, and that in general it's against the company's philosophy to tell developers they can't do something, like give mods away for free on Nexus. He added that Valve would also be happy to work with Nexus to better support the community.

"The goal [of paid mods] is to increase the total investment the community makes in extending its games," he said. "We thought we were missing some plumbing that was hampering that."



Valve's new modding program launched on Thursday only with Skyrim (other supported titles will be announced in the coming weeks), but it's already caused a great deal of controversy. Many players are saying that Valve is greedy for allowing modders to sell work that was previously free, and one mod's been removed after claims that it contained the work of another modder.

Newell didn't seem concerned about cases like that becoming too common. "This is a straight-forward problem," he said. "Between ours and the community's policing, I'm confident that the authors will have control over their creations, not someone trying to rip them off."

As for the current revenue split on paid Skyrim mods, which gives the creator of the mod only a 25 percent share of sales, Newell said: "The pay-outs are set by the owner of the game that is being modded. As I said elsewhere, if we are censoring, it's dumb, ineffective, and will stop."

 

[pikeh]

Really bad news

As if games aren't becoming more about micro transactions and DLCs anyway.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Well the more i've read about it, i don't mind. It's optional, they're implementing anti-theft measures(so people don't rip off other mod makers) and steam/etc aren't saying you can't have free mods.

So it's all down to the modding community if they want to cash-in or not. If they do, well, we'll have to blame ourselves(the gamers) don't we?

 

[caLLous]

Well it doesn't really matter (for now) because they've turned it off.

 

[BloodOmen]

They had no choice really, the feedback they were getting was majority basically going "This is shit"

 

[pikeh]

spectacular back-fire.

gutted.


*goes to play on Steam regardless*

 

[Mabs]

thats the thing with steam, it goes wrong they say "ok, our bad, moving on" rather than pushing on regardless

 

[Raven]

Hopefully they have a nice make-up sex steam sale.

 

[TdC]

tbh I *would* pay for a real quality mod, but who judges and who judges the judges eh? as it stood I took it to simply be an easy way to inject the micropayment system in to *everything* :-/

 

[Raven]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aavBAplp5A


Great listen if you have the time.

 

[Mabs]

tbh I *would* pay for a real quality mod, but who judges and who judges the judges eh? as it stood I took it to simply be an easy way to inject the micropayment system in to *everything* :-/

this is called "donating" though, optional shizzle, which in some cases already exists.

tbh they should of gone with the humble bundle route : "like this mod ? heres a 1-10 $ slider you can donate with "

 

[TdC]

tbh that would be much more fair. that said, CS was an HL mod, DOD was an HL mod, Team Fortress was another HL mod. iirc Killing Floor began it's life as a mod and so on, and so forth. I paid for a bunch of those.