Skyrim modders were not happy with the paid mods + petition against it

[minibois]

 

Now the drink and fries are mods.

Well nowadays the top part of the bread would be empty and the seeds would be micro DLC's.

 

As I said, I don't think they should just get away with it, but DAMN... if anything is going to go away for consumer pressure, it's probably this. Plus, if nobody buys them modders will just go back to free hobby modding, this only works if they can make a living off of it.

One of the problems I have not heard many people about is the fact that now that you can sell mods for money, you can't always use some other mods.

One creator took down his mod from the paid section, since it used something from FNIS (a mod that helps with making/handling character animation) and FNIS did not want to have their stuff in paid mods.

What if FNIS was okay with paid mods, but wanted a share of the revenue? That would mean they have to set up a contract and stuff like that.

That is because this is not about a free system or whatever, but now something paid.

 

That is something that worries me too.

[MoonSpot]

As I said, I don't think they should just get away with it, but DAMN... if anything is going to go away for consumer pressure, it's probably this. Plus, if nobody buys them modders will just go back to free hobby modding, this only works if they can make a living off of it.

 

That's the thing though.  Consumers would like for modders to make a living from it, but with such a huge amounts always going to valve & beth it makes the burden on the community a much heavier cross to bare. 

And I still feel framework/resource mods need to be handled and rewarded differently for this to actually take off.  After all, why would anyone do those types of things again?  Just to be someone elses chump when they could make money themselves instead?

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

Some of Skywind's modders discuss about the whole fiasco, I think they bring up many good points.

 

[minibois]

-snip-

1 and a half hours D:

Well, will watch later tonight probably. Watched Gopher's 50 minute video on it already.

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

1 and a half hours D:

Well, will watch later tonight probably. Watched Gopher's 50 minute video on it already.

 

They talked about why they will not be monetizing on Skywind as well, very interesting discussion.  

[Briggsy]

https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33uplp/mods_and_steam/?sort=qa 

 

Gabe held his ground for a while, I think he's in hiding. I seriously can't fathom the amount of bad granola a person needs to smoke, in order to think this was a good idea to implement. All this time we thought the steam workshop was valve helping foster the growth of the modding community...

[Victorious Secret]

https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33uplp/mods_and_steam/?sort=qa 

 

Gabe held his ground for a while, I think he's in hiding. I seriously can't fathom the amount of bad granola a person needs to smoke, in order to think this was a good idea to implement. All this time we thought the steam workshop was valve helping foster the growth of the modding community...

 

He spent more time engaging in corporate double speak and PR crowd control. He didn't answer anything, nor does he really care. He spent more time trying to convince people that paid mods are a great idea. 

[Zero_Cool]

I think this sets a dangerous precedent for pc gaming in general, as what is the motivation for companies to implement patches to fix bugs where they make no money on, or just wait for people to get fed up and buy a mod that fixes the bugs ,and turn a profit.

[Zero_Cool]

Be a part of the change push back

 

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

[minibois]

Be a part of the change push back

 

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

I included this link in my OP already.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

idc, this is funny as hell 

[MoonSpot]

Some of Skywind's modders discuss about the whole fiasco, I think they bring up many good points.

 

Okay, watched it and well...I've gained a new appreciation for LMG's efforts in preparing doc's for the WAN show(shills though they may lambo..err be ).  It was good to hear what people involved in such a big project think, but it seemed like they were just as in the dark as we all were when they had the live stream.  Hope they do another one with some more detailed thoughts that get nitty gritty about the issues and not limit their discussion to nutshells that might scratch the surface.  But then again they're doing this for fun too so. :shrugs:

[Commander Llama]

He spent more time engaging in corporate double speak and PR crowd control. He didn't answer anything, nor does he really care. He spent more time trying to convince people that paid mods are a great idea. 

 

I'm inclined to agree.  At the very least, he seemed interested in watching this continue to go forward as an experiment.  I know from previous interviews and so on and he's pretty obsessed with quantitative analysis (and that he sees money as data, a billionaire's luxury), but I think that will also turn out to be a good thing.  If everyone keeps up the resistance, he will realize this probably isn't worth the backlash.  But people need to KEEP IT UP.

 

I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that a more official response will come in the weekdays to come.  Given Valve's pseudo-anarchistic model, he probably does value his weekends off.  In any case, it was a miracle that a CEO took time to do a mini-AMA during a shitstorm during his off time.

 

But let me reiterate that I was also mostly dissatisfied with his responses too.    

[Dabombinable]

75% is ridiculous. This has not been handled well at all. Was there even any 'real' market research for this? As TotalBiscuit mentions CSGO and TF are valve products so in that instance it seems fair to me.

If any copyright issues rise from this I don't see valve taking responsibility for this somehow.

Modders should receive money for their work but it should be by donation IMO.

And some modders seem to forget that if people genuinely like a mod they'll donate. I've got a friend who creates realism mods (though some people appear to whine about how'difficult' they make the game) and he gets loads of donations-and his mod is actually worth them with what it actually adds to minecraft.

[Humbug]

I sort of feel this is getting blown a little out of proportion... it's fine to complain and voice your opinion, but all the insults and "greedy bastards" cries seem a bit too much. Other companies do a lot worse, and (almost) never get hit so hard for it. It was a mistake, fine, complain, but quit acting like valve was just a coverup for a child porn black market.

Some of the over-aggression is because a lot of the community believes that valve is taking 75%. Total biscuit also propagated that. Whereas i believe they are taking 30% and Bethesda 45%.

But despite that is still leaves the mod creator with only 25%. Which is far too small for the content creator. I would go as far as saying that it is insulting to the content creator. For a normal game valve's cut of 30% leaves the dev with 70% which works. Here it's a problem because the remainder needs to be split with the game creator and the mod creator. I believe that both Valve and Bethesda should compromise here. E.g. Valve 20%, Bethesda 30%, mod creator 50%.

Also the $400 threshold before money goes to the mod maker is a problem. I don't know if this is Valve and Bethesda being greedy or whether it's a technique to prevent mod makers from uploading nonsense in order to make a quick buck (hoping negative user reviews will kill a bad mod before they hit 400). If bethesda/valve want to prove that they are not greedy they can change that threshold to a certain reasonable number of units sold rather than $400. 400 seems unreasonable.

Allowing mod makers to sell mods is a very good objective. On the long term it can create some professional quality work from the community and generate a source of income for talented/dedicated people. The fact that mod makers were not allowed to sell mods in the past doesn't give gamers the right to feel entitled. On the long term the market will self regulate and people will not buy bullshit.

Also how was Valve/Bethesda stupid enough to believe that they could turn the thriving skyrim mod-market upside down overnight and get away with it? It's one thing launching it slowly for a new game but for an existing game the community already has a set of expectations re how things work. Let alone one as massive as skyrim... Not intelligent behavior from Valve/Bethesda. What did they expect?

As that is not the case, what Bethesda is really doing is taking the lion's share of the profit for no involvement whatsoever, only that they are getting a piece of the pie because the own the property rights. Which in my opinion is the most disrespectful thing to do, as the whole reason Elder Scrolls Skyrim has had continued success way after its release is because of the passionate modding community.

No involvement whatsoever apart from creating the base game... They deserve a good chunk of revenue if mods are going to be sold. IMO lions share should go to mod maker for obvious reasons. 2nd highest to Bethesda for making skyrim. This will also encourage devs to support modding as Linus explained with a recurring revenue source from even their single player games. It can offset some development risk for big AAA titles. And smallest percentage should go to valve for the steam infrastructure, hosting, bandwidth, store etc.

[Dabombinable]

Some of the over-aggression is because a lot of the community believes that valve is taking 75%. Total biscuit also propagated that. Whereas i believe they are taking 30% and Bethesda 45%.

But despite that is still leaves the mod creator with only 25%. Which is far too small for the content creator. For a normal game valve's cut of 30% leaves the dev with 70% which works. Here it's a problem because the remainder needs to be split with the game creator and the mod creator. I believe that both Valve and Bethesda should compromise here. E.g. Valve 20%, Bethesda 30%, mod creator 50%.

Also the $400 threshold before money goes to the mod maker is a problem. I don't know if this is Valve and Bethesda being greedy or whether it's a technique to prevent mod makers from uploading nonsense in order to make a quick buck (hoping negative user reviews will kill a bad mod before they hit 400). If bethesda/valve want to prove that they are not greedy they can change that threshold to a certain reasonable number of units sold rather than $400. 400 seems unreasonable.

Allowing mod makers to sell mods is a very good objective. On the long term it can create some professional quality work from the community and generate a source of income for talented/dedicated people. The fact that mod makers were not allowed to sell mods in the past doesn't give gamers the right to feel entitled. On the long term the market will self regulate and people will not buy bullshit.

Also how was Valve/Bethesda stupid enough to believe that they could turn the thriving skyrim mod-market upside down overnight and get away with it? It's one thing launching it slowly for a new game but for an existing game the community already has a set of expectations re how things work. Let alone one as massive as skyrim... Not intelligent behavior from Valve/Bethesda. What did they expect?

No involvement whatsoever apart from creating the base game... They deserve a good chunk of revenue if mods are going to be sold. IMO lions share should go to mod maker for obvious reasons. 2nd highest to Bethesda for making skyrim. This will also encourage devs to support nodding as Linus explained with a recurring revune source from even their single player games. It can offset some development risk for big AAA titles. And smallest percentage should go to valve for the steam infrastructure, hosting, bandwidth, store etc.

Gabe doesn't have your logic unluckily for the modders.

[Roddy189]

And some modders seem to forget that if people genuinely like a mod they'll donate. I've got a friend who creates realism mods (though some people appear to whine about how'difficult' they make the game) and he gets loads of donations-and his mod is actually worth them with what it actually adds to minecraft.

I think the reason why they think nobody will donate is because there are so many mods that are game breaking or just complete rubbish, which makes it seem that nobody donates even though they do, but only to the half decent ones. If I buy a game on steam on sale for like £5 when it should be more I've no issue spending that extra amount on donating to mods I find worth my time because they increase the value of the game imo. Does everybody else agree?

Please stop the pay walls! It probably wouldn't of been too bad if these things weren't free for so long but now playing a game that was cheap, but then have to pay steam for a mod you already donated to is frustrating... Meh I just won't buy any then... I already find dlc frustrating on day 1 releases but I guess that's not so bad anymore lol

[MoonSpot]

I think that I am actually okay with the $100net limit, I do not think that the split is reasonable mind you.  It depends on if valve is doing other things or not really.  For example if that $400gross/$100net isn't met by an individual that releases a single mod, but valve does allow them to use the money that they've generated within the steam store...I'd think that that would be rather fair.  It does cost money to conduct financial transactions, not much compared to the cuts that are being fleeced, but it is a cost that any and every company will try to manage and limit.  Nobody is friends with bankers, especially when their backs are turned and they're out of earshot.

Now, my opinion here is not particularly well informed.  I've no flipping idea what the expected revenue could be like X volume at Y price points for Z type of mod, and that could be pretty important data to have if I were involved and wanted to make a more informed decision.

 

The limit, if it's just in order to pull cashy money but otherwise allows for use/credit (after proper withholding period) is actually a measure that discourages crappy mods or fistfuls of expensive skins in my mind.  No?

[ObscureMammal]

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/33zupv/refunding_a_mod_purchase_will_without_warning_ban/

 

If you refund a MOD you will not be allowed to use the Steam Community Market for 7 days

 

[DeViLzzz]

I don't mind modders getting paid but I don't like the people that have chosen to take just 25% from Valve and Bethesda.  It is pittance.  Heck they don't even get 25% to start as they have to sell a certain amount to then get paid.  Another issue is also the problem with support for mods by modders.  A patch can easily break a mod and whereas with DLC a company gets that updated a modder might not be so inclined to getting it done if they are being paid pennies when selling these mods.  Basically what Valve is allowing on their Steam Community Market is easily broken DLC and I am concerned about that.  Eh anyway I have enjoyed watching the whole story unfold on the Steam message boards and elsewhere and honestly for me yesterday was the first time ever I installed The Nexus Mod Manager as I never have bothered with mods.  I never needed them.  I wanted to play games as they were intended to play.  Now, however, I want to see what the big fuss is all about and see if any of these mods are worth it. 

[Victorious Secret]

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/33zupv/refunding_a_mod_purchase_will_without_warning_ban/

 

If you refund a MOD you will not be allowed to use the Steam Community Market for 7 days

 

awx5vPE.png

 

Valve logic:

Person buys two mods, finds that both conflict with existing mods, they need to return them. But they can only return one. And its not even a real return, since Valve only gives store credit. 

 

Gabe must really want some more donuts if he's this desperate for money. 

[Dabombinable]

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/33zupv/refunding_a_mod_purchase_will_without_warning_ban/

 

If you refund a MOD you will not be allowed to use the Steam Community Market for 7 days

 

awx5vPE.png

Gabe is officially smoking something.

[minibois]

Gabe is officially smoking something.

Probably all the money he earned with Steam, now that all that stuff is gone he needs some more.

[Dabombinable]

Probably all the money he earned with Steam, now that all that stuff is gone he needs some more.

Seems like it.

[TopWargamer]

@Minibois

 

Valve canned paid mods.

 

https://www.polygon.com/2015/4/27/8505883/valve-removing-paid-mods-from-steam