What's your opinion on paid mods?

[NeatSquidYT]

Title says it all.

 

I see it as the fall of modding. Yes, creators should get money for their work, but I don't believe a forced pay wall is the way forward. This will lead people who aren't passionate about modding or even games into the modding community, making the community a business instead of a hobby.

 

 

[lutewan]

So far this is the best article I have seen on it.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/04/24/valves-paid-skyrim-mods-are-a-legal-ethical-and-creative-disaster/

[harrynowl]

I don't think it's forced, I expect a lot of developers will not go for paid mods and the ones that do will probably not get many people discovering their content. Although I do agree that it will attract people looking to make a quick penny- look how many crappy games exist (looking at you Air Control).

 

EDIT: 75%?!??! That does actually force the mods to be somewhat expensive.

[pomaranc]

All I want is donate button.

[SIGSEGV]

I think paid mods are a good idea, but I don't think Valve should be taking 75%, also, there needs to be some kind of verification process (like what Steam does for games) to make sure that people aren't uploading crappy stuff or someone else's work

[Klerk]

Although I understand that modders should be compensated for their work, but what Valve did is just wrong in so many levels.

[Sakkura]

If a mod is good enough, it's okay. But the main reason for me to dabble in mods is I can check out a ton of stuff without risking any money. A lot of it turns out to be not good enough that I'd pay for it. With a paywall in front of most mod content I just wouldn't want to risk it unless I really got a glowing recommendation for a particular mod.

[MeFakeScientist]

I'm not sure really, generally I think I lean against it because of the implications it could have in the future for what developers decide to do with mod-friendly games, it's an unknown and nobody likes that! I do think people who make things and put some time in should be paid for their efforts, the problem here is if you have to actually pay for something (as opposed to donating) then you expect a certain level of quality which many mods don't deliver.

Valve just seems to get around it by saying just go post a nice message but when you're paying for something with no actual guarantee of it working at all or for a specific length of time that's not really good enough.

Seems to me like this is only the beginning of this though, it remains to be seen how much this affects games in the future that have been historically mod friendly...

I suppose the simple answer is if you don't like it then don't buy the mods but then that might cause problems for the future of the modding community.

[orangecat]

I might as well buy a console.

[spenser_l]

I think in general it's a good idea to give modders a platform where they can earn money for their work. However, I don't like the way that Valve is going about it at all.

 

I think the spit should be closer to:

 

75% modder - 15% game dev - 10% Valve

 

And the modder has to pay Valve a yearly modder fee to be on the platform, in the same way that Apple has developer licences ($100/year to have apps on the App Store). 

[GuruMeditationError]

You can't really stand in the way of progress, but having said that the semi-professional programming community contains some of the worst kind of people I've ever experienced on the internet.

 

I could have just had a bad experience with that whole community and I guess my experience isn't statistically significant but it has coloured my perception of the scene.

 

It's a shame but until someone creates a program that can generate usable random worlds (e.g. "Speed-setting" as with for example No-man's Sky) that kind of outsourcing is the future for gaming. :0/

 

People who don't give a c**p about anything but themselves and aren't effected by emotional issues currently have the advantage in our current consumer society. :0/  Edit: Basically all of the "stars" at 'the top of their game' that people tend to worship if not just purely narcissistic are statistically very likely to be some of the worst kinds of people you could ever have the misfortune to meet. :0/

[Charger]

Im fine with it. I think it will take some time to stop being a fast money grab for some people and for modders to adjust prices to what the market values things at but should be good in the future. Im not really a fan for the money split that they are doing but I dont know how much is going to the games creators so it is a bit of an unknown as to why it is that way.

[CAKEwasTRUE]

[Admire]

Donations are fine. Salary is unacceptable. You are volunteering your services as a modder.

 

I have volunteered my time as a modder on a minor game, and the thanks of the community was enough.

[Sakkura]

Donations are fine. Salary is unacceptable. You are volunteering your services as a modder.

 

I have volunteered my time as a modder on a minor game, and the thanks of the community was enough.

 

Sometimes there's a fine line between making mods and making games. Look at things like Darkest Hour.

[Admire]

Sometimes there's a fine line between making mods and making games. Look at things like Darkest Hour.

 

 

Yes there is, but people are at times trying to make that line thinner than it is. Most mods are definently not the same as a new game. But a greedy modder could make that argument about most mods..."Well, its an entirely different way to play it"...."I made new textures!"

 

Two seconds later, and everybody thinks that they deserve to get paid for every minute they spend on a mod.

[zappian]

Untamed one on reddit explained it very well.

 

 

Valve really didn't think this through. There are lots of problems.

Modding is kinda like the wild west.

First, modders don't own the IP they are editing or might be selling.

• Many mods are simply tweaking the values of various systems built into the game. If I add +2 damage to a weapon, I don't all of a sudden own that change. For basic edits just about anyone could make the same change. They could even steal the mod I made, because how would anyone know the difference of 2 identical changes. I expect to see hundreds of nearly identical changes flooding the market because no one can truly claim a copyright.

• Many mods borrow content from other IPs. They are mostly ignored, but on occasion companies will initiate legal action out of principle to protect their copyright. Once money becomes involved you can expect just about every mod that even has a hint of borrowed content to come under legal action.

• Many mods are compilations that may or may not have permission from the creators. How do you sort out which modder gets payed what? By man hours? By quality? By favoritism? By participation?

Second, paid modding fractures the community.

• With Steam being the market leader, they set an example to be followed. They are encouraging modders to pull mods off other sites to sell on Steamworks. So if paid modding becomes common I expect modders will simply all open their own marketplaces where they get 100% of the cut.

• Many mods have dependencies that rely on other mods they didn't create. Some mods are so critical that they could single-handedly bring down huge portions of other mods. Imagine if the script extender people started extorting smaller modders for money. Much of the amazing work done by the mod community depends on cooperating and sharing content freely.

• The prices people are setting are not reasonable for fans of mods. I know a few people that run hundreds of mods simultaneously. If they charge .50 cents each and I run 100 mods, that is already $50. So what is likely to happen is costs would make it prohibitive to get large quantities of good mods for multiple games. This would split the community into swarms of mediocre freebie mods and few higher quality mods for money. It is almost like Steam/IP holders are trying to poach the good mods and make money they don't deserve.

Third, paid modding isn't the same as DLC.

• There is no way to check if the mod files are legitimately purchased. People could simply share files. The executable isn't logging into some central server to see if your mod key is legit. This scheme is simply unenforceable as it is now.

• You don't get the same kinda of protections buying from a modder as from a company. You expect a product to work when you buy it, but if you buy from a modder it is entirely up to them if they want to fix any bugs or not. The game company could even release a patch that makes it nearly impossible to fix a bug and you would simply be a victim of robbery.

Last, paid modding as it is on Steam is unfair to modders.

• If a modder wants to create legitimate new content not tangled in any legal grey areas, Steam and the original game company don't deserve such a large cut.

• Effectively it is functioning like a black market where the IP owner and the distributor will look the other way if you pay them off. The consumer then is sold a product with no guarantees other than the 24hr refund window. The modder isn't getting any tech support from the game devs and Steam just makes it downloadable.

Those are just some of the problems off the top of my head. I'm sure there many more.

Valve ignored the fact that most modders don't start to make money.

• Modding mostly starts off as a hobby to improve a product they already like or to use an engine as a sandbox to build their own game in.

• For those that want to make money they either create content as a portfolio to enter a real game dev studio or they work on a commission/donation basis.

Edit: Just wanted to add one last thing. If Valve wanted to do this the right way they would have created a community generated DLC platform.

• Steam and the IP holders would be expected to vet the content before it went on the market.
• Once vetted the IP holder would be expected to provide some tech support/mod tool assistance to the creator.
• If the creator abandons the content with serious game breaking bugs, the IP holder would be expected to take over and fix the bugs or a issue partial refund in the steam wallet (like a limited warranty).
• Steam would generate keys like any other DLC to protect the content.

The point being if the IP holder and Steam want a huge cut, they need to be taking responsibility to improve the quality and maintain customer service while adding value for the creator.

[Sakkura]

Yes there is, but people are at times trying to make that line thinner than it is. Most mods are definently not the same as a new game. But a greedy modder could make that argument about most mods..."Well, its an entirely different way to play it"...."I made new textures!"

 

Two seconds later, and everybody thinks that they deserve to get paid for every minute they spend on a mod.

 

Paradox showed that it's really possible for modders to make "real" games. They licensed their game engines to teams of modders, and released the resulting games with Paradox QA and support, in addition to further patches and content made by the modder-devs. It's a pretty neat system, and personally I think Darkest Hour (based on Hearts of Iron 2) was a better game than Paradox's internally developed Hearts of Iron 3. Of course, there were also some projects that didn't work out so well.

[Misanthrope]

What TB said almost verbatim:

 

[Admire]

Paradox showed that it's really possible for modders to make "real" games. They licensed their game engines to teams of modders, and released the resulting games with Paradox QA and support, in addition to further patches and content made by the modder-devs. It's a pretty neat system, and personally I think Darkest Hour (based on Hearts of Iron 2) was a better game than Paradox's internally developed Hearts of Iron 3. Of course, there were also some projects that didn't work out so well.

 

I think the last post that @zappian posted perfectly explained some of the problems.

 

There might be exceptions where it might be fair to pay modders but its just a case of where you just can't open pandoras box. Modding will be reduced to what we already see with endless DLCs for a few bucks.

 

I worked on mods for a manager game...We created thousands of characters, profiles, bios etc etc......That mod is better than the original game, but I don't see how that means that I should get paid.

[Unlockingcube]

This is absurd, modding has always been pay if you want mentality, there is no need to change something that is worked well up to this point. The even more teeth grinding bone cracking issue is the fact that for some reason valve is under the impression that they deserve money for something they had nothing to do with. They even seem to be under the impression that the company themselves should get a cut of the money that they did nothing for.. whats next... are the makers of applications that use c++ or some other language going to have to pay the creators of such to make their games? no its stupid, valve just stop.