Valve has denied users access to discussion boards on paid mods

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

On Thursday I was flying back from LA. When I landed, I had 3,500 new messages. Hmmm. Looks like we did something to piss off the Internet.

Yesterday I was distracted as I had to see my surgeon about a blister in my eye (#FuchsDystrophySucks), but I got some background on the paid mods issues.

So here I am, probably a day late, to make sure that if people are pissed off, they are at least pissed off for the right reasons.

 

Gabe Newell responds : https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33uplp/mods_and_steam/
 

This would what we call pseudo monopoly.  

Taking away the peoples right to discuss about the paid mods or the mods which you just paid that is now potentially buggy , but not allowing you to discuss over it is a pretty stupid move.

Has valve gone full blown crazy this time ? 

Go to any paid mods
 

And now go to discussions...



and you are now not allowed to talk anything about the paid mods. Great 




Source :  https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33sxmu/valve_has_denied_users_access_to_discussion/

[niofalpha]

Pretty sure this was on one of the other 100 threads about Paid mods in Tech News...

[minibois]

Yep! This is amazing =)))

Enable some stupid feature to pay for mods that will probably have bugs and make it so you can't have public discussion over them.

Just gonna say this:

Valve/Bethesda, you screwed up. The Steam Workshop mods are not even good with Skyrim (the integration, not saying anything about the quality of the mods) and this all does not help.

Should have added a donation system

[Firearm2112]

Chesko, a big time skyrim modder, was approached to be apart of this, but he was called out for bullshit copy right and other dumbshit. I'm glad he backed out in the end.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

Pretty sure this was on one of the other 100 threads about Paid mods in Tech News...

if you read all 100 of them, may be, but i'm fairly certain there wasn't.

[ObscureMammal]

Pretty sure this was on one of the other 100 threads about Paid mods in Tech News...

 

 

So now Valve has denied users access to discussion boards on paid mods - https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33sxmu/valve_has_denied_users_access_to_discussion/

 

https://imgur.com/a/nn47B

  

 

 

 

I posted this in another thread just a little bit ago. I think we need something like a mega thread for this subject.

Too many threads on one subject right now

[landon418]

Why are people surprised?  <_<

[Misanthrope]

Chesko, a big time skyrim modder, was approached to be apart of this, but he was called out for bullshit copy right and other dumbshit. I'm glad he backed out in the end.

 

I'm not glad he backed out of modding altogether. I was just playing and using his new campfire mod, it's pretty nice and quite a bitter sweet moment to know he probably never improve on it again.

[Misanthrope]

Pretty sure this was on one of the other 100 threads about Paid mods in Tech News...

 

Make sure you let admins know they should probably merge several of this. However let's remember that

 

1) It's the weekend, it's gonna be ultra fucking slow news days today and tomorrow anyway

 

2) People love Skyrim

 

3) People either love Valve or love to hate Valve.

[Firearm2112]

I'm not glad he backed out of modding altogether. I was just playing and using his new campfire mod, it's pretty nice and quite a bitter sweet moment to know he probably never improve on it again.

I dont think he backed out of modding, he backed out of the community. Im sure he'll be back sometime. People gotta stop sending him death threats and shit, just because he pulled down his mod on the steam workshop

[Misanthrope]

I dont think he backed out of modding, he backed out of the community. Im sure he'll be back sometime. People gotta stop sending him death threats and shit, just because he pulled down his mod on the steam workshop

 

That's what he said but I honestly don't think he'll return. By the time this all blows over we're going to be due for another Elder Scrolls anyway

[MoonSpot]

I dont think he backed out of modding, he backed out of the community. Im sure he'll be back sometime. People gotta stop sending him death threats and shit, just because he pulled down his mod on the steam workshop

 

Well lets not fan the flames with the whole death threats thing, because it's stupid and people that take them seriously are either drama queens or not particularly tied to reality.

However, the flood of correspondence and a need to step back, close doors and consider next steps or just for a break is more than understandable.  Chesko knows who to talk to within the modding communities to sort things out, if he even wants to right now.

The legal aspects, I assume from his post, are probably the most intimidating and paralyzing to him.  He's probably focusing attention there to see what can be done.

[marldorthegreat]

This would what we call pseudo monopoly.  

Taking away the peoples right to discuss about the paid mods or the mods which you just paid that is now potentially buggy , but not allowing you to discuss over it is a pretty stupid move.

Has valve gone full blown crazy this time ? 

Go to any paid mods

 

And now go to discussions...

and you are now not allowed to talk anything about the paid mods. Great 

Source :  https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33sxmu/valve_has_denied_users_access_to_discussion/

 

Thats me never going back to steam ....

[aduman]

Chesko, a big time skyrim modder, was approached to be apart of this, but he was called out for bullshit copy right and other dumbshit. I'm glad he backed out in the end.

 

That's not how that happened. The author of FNIS (Skyrim's most famous animation mod, base for all the others.), which is the base for Chesko's fishing mod just stated his rights and Chesko's mod got taken out. It was bound to happen.

[alicskysareblue]

Chesko, a big time skyrim modder, was approached to be apart of this, but he was called out for bullshit copy right and other dumbshit. I'm glad he backed out in the end.

not true chesko did nothing wrong read the actual story

[MoonSpot]

That's not how that happened. The author of FNIS (Skyrim's most famous animation mod, base for all the others.), which is the base for Chesko's fishing mod just stated his rights and Chesko's mod got taken out. It was bound to happen.

According to Chesko's post he spoke with Fores and took the fishing mod down himself.  It appears to me to be more of a coming to an understanding then forcing anything.  Not that what you said is wrong or very well could have been the end result, but tone is increasingly important.  Pushing a wedge by painting a different picture doesn't help.

 

not true chesko did nothing wrong read the actual story

That's not true either.  He made a mistake, or realized an oversight, and like a good human being did what he could to correct it.

 

Or that's my understanding thus far.

 

"To Err is human; to forgive, divine; to persist devilish" - Benjamin Franklin

[ObscureMammal]

Gabe Newell responds on the situation with MODs and Steam

 

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33uplp/mods_and_steam/

 

On Thursday I was flying back from LA. When I landed, I had 3,500 new messages. Hmmm. Looks like we did something to piss off the Internet.

Yesterday I was distracted as I had to see my surgeon about a blister in my eye (#FuchsDystrophySucks), but I got some background on the paid mods issues.

So here I am, probably a day late, to make sure that if people are pissed off, they are at least pissed off for the right reasons.

 

Reasoning

Our view of Steam is that it's a collection of useful tools for customers and content developers.

With the Steam workshop, we've already reached the point where the community is paying their favorite contributors more than they would make if they worked at a traditional game developer. We see this as a really good step.

The option of MOD developers getting paid seemed like a good extension of that.

 

 

Some Q&A from the thread:

 

Q: What do you think about a donate button for mods?

 

A:We are adding a pay what you want button where the mod author can set the starting amount wherever they want.

 

 

Q: What's up with all the banning and censoring of people complaining about this feature? How can you consider this to be 'open'?

 

A: Well, if we are censoring people, that's stupid. I'll get that to stop. On top of it being stupid, it doesn't work (see Top Gear forums on Jeremy Clarkson).

 

 

Q: Considering valve is a company that owes many of its early games to mods, do you think that if you had to pay 5 dollars for the original Counter Strike, or Dota mod, would they have ever taken off?

 

A: No, they wouldn't. Which is one of the reasons that we didn't charge for them after they stopped being MODs (at least part of the time).

Free to play is an extension of that and is based on the aggregate incremental value of another player to all the other players.

 

 

Q: What was the thought behind monetizing mods? Was to help the mod creators or to get a bit more money for things that used to be free?

 

A: The goal is to increase the total investment the community makes in extending its games. We thought we were missing some plumbing that was hampering that.

 

 

 

Q: I think that this whole debacle has created a split in the Skyrim community with modders angry at each other for "selling out" and the players mad at the modders because we see it as a cash grab, and everybody's pissed at you and Bethesda. The community plus the mods have kept this game alive for four years and now we're all mad at each other and I feel this will be a clusterfuck to the end. Whenever that will be. However you end this, I hope you do it for the right reasons.

 

A: Sky rim is a great example of a game that has benefitted enormously from the MODs. The option for paid MODs is supposed to increase the investment in quality modding, not hurt it.

About half of Valve came straight out of the MOD world. John Cook and Robin Walker made Team Fortress as a Quake mod. Ice frog made DOTA as a Warcraft 3 mod. Dave Riller and Dario Casali we Doom and Quake mappers. John Guthrie and Steve Bond came to Valve because John Carmack thought they were doing the best Quake C development. All of them were liberated to just do game development once they started getting paid. Working at Waffle House does not help you make a better game.

 

 

 

Q: Hi Gabe, Robin, owner of Nexus Mods here. Sorry to hear about the issue with your eye.

Can you make a pledge that Valve are going to do everything to prevent, and never allow, the "DRMification" of modding, either by Valve or developers using Steam's tools, and prevent the concept of mods ONLY being allowed to be uploaded to Steam Workshop and no where else, like ModDB, Nexus, etc.?

Edit, for clarity in the question: For example, if Bethesda wanted to make modding for Fallout 4/TES 6 limited to just Steam Workshop, or even worse, just the paid Workshop, would Valve veto this and prevent it from happening?

 

A: Hi, Robin. In general we are pretty reluctant to tell any developer that they have to do something or they can't do something. It just goes against our philosophy to be dictatorial. With that caveat, we'd be happy to tell developers that we think they are being dumb, and that will sometimes help them reflect on it a bit. In the case of Nexus, we'd be happy to work with you to figure out how we can do a better job of supporting you. Clearly you are providing a valuable service to the community. Have you been talking to anyone at Valve previously?

 

Response: Hi Gabe, Interesting answer, it's a shame you wouldn't put your foot down in support of the modding community in this case, but I appreciate your candour on the topic. Alden got in contact about a month ago RE: the Nexus being listed as a Steam Service Provider. For any users following this closely, you can read my opinions on the topic in a 5,000 word news post I made today at http://www.nexusmods.com/games/news/12459/? (I appreciate you probably don't have the time to read my banal twitterings on the topic, Gabe!). He has my email address if anyone needs to contact me. I built the Nexus from the ground up, 14 years ago, to be completely free of outside investment or influence from third-parties and to be completely self-sustaining, but there's no reason why we can't talk.

 

GN: I went and read it. I thought it was good. The one thing I'd ask you to think about is your request to put our foot down. We would be reluctant to force a game developer to do "x" for the same reason we would be reluctant to force a mod developer to do "x." It's just not a good idea. For example we get a lot of pressure to police the content on Steam. Shouldn't there be a rule? How can any decent person approve of naked trees/stabbing defenseless shrubberies? It turns out that everything outrages somebody, and there is no set of possible rules that satisfies everyone. Those conversations always turn into enumerated lists of outrageous things. It's a lot more tractable, and customer/creator friendly to focus on building systems that connect customers to the right content for them personally (and, unfortunately, a lot more work).

So, yes, we want to provide tools for mod authors and to Nexus while avoiding coercing other creators/gamers as much as possible.

 

 

 

 

 

Gabe Newell:

As a baseline, Valve loves MODs (see Team Fortress, Counter-Strike, and DOTA). The open nature of PC gaming is why Valve exists, and is critical to the current and future success of PC gaming.

User comment: 

You just cannot be for real. You talk about an 'open nature', but you want to monetize this? It's absolutely disgusting. Why not just add a donate button to mods? It would solve everything. This system is just the beginning of the end.

To add a little: The crux of the issue is that modding has always been this free thing on the side that has enhanced games, authorized or not. It being authorized is not the magical green light to profit land everyone thinks it is. When you've got major stakeholders suddenly involved in what was largely a passion hobby, shit is going to go sideways real fast. They are the gatekeepers in a paid system. They can pick the winners and losers. They can decide who even gets to play.

Everyone should be asking why this seems equitable, not searching for some sort of silver lining. The premise is bullshit. Valve and companies that take part in this are going to spin some serious yarn about it being good for creators, while they lop off 75% of every transaction. It's really about profit for them, not enhancing the community.

We're already seeing stolen mods, early access mods, all sorts of crap. This is a poorly implemented feature system that is meant to generate revenue for Valve and its partners, nothing more. If they cared, they'd curate and moderate the store rigorously, and they'd also not be removing donation links. There'd be a "pay what you want" option. There are many ways to do this better, and in a way that's more beneficial for the modders and the consumers.

Instead, we get another IV drip of money hooked up to Valve and we're all supposed to smile about it.

GN Response:

Let's assume for a second that we are stupidly greedy. So far the paid mods have generated $10K total. That's like 1% of the cost of the incremental email the program has generated for Valve employees (yes, I mean pissing off the Internet costs you a million bucks in just a couple of days). That's not stupidly greedy, that's stupidly stupid.

You need a more robust Valve-is-evil hypothesis.

[Misanthrope]

A smartass response that dodges the issue of them taking 30% and beth 45% I hope someone replied with "Don't change the subject, answer the fucking question you fat fuck"

[ObscureMammal]

A smartass response that dodges the issue of them taking 30% and beth 45% I hope someone replied with "Don't change the subject, answer the fucking question you fat fuck"

Valve has always taken 30% - http://www.pcgamer.com/notch-on-why-minecraft-still-isnt-on-steam/

Bethesda has the choice to take less $$$ - https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/workshoplegalagreement/?appid=72850

[Pomfinator]

The answer where Gaben says that "half of Valve came out of mods" is sort of not true in this sense.  So far the paid mods have been small things, they just add items into the game, put skins over things, change textures etc.

 

I'd say the likes of Team Fortress and DOTA stopped being mods in the traditional sense a long time ago.  Sure their origins were in using mod tools to create things, and a lot of their systems are based off the regular game, but the actual gameplay is different. Team Fortress is a different game from Quake, just like how DOTA is a different game from WC3.  Stop kidding yourself that every mod is going to be like that.  Because that is the kind of mod that requires complex things like balancing and level design. 

[Exty]

the thing is dota 2 also has mods so if they introduce paid model , they will be taking the whole 75% just because they can