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User migles gave me a tip about an interesting development on Steam. Valve was always relatively open-minded in terms of game mods - in fact, some of their biggest franchises like Counter Strike and Team Fortress started off as user-created mods. The Steam Workshop was Valve's way of distributing such game mods via their Steam platform and now it also allows mod creators to sell their creations online.​

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Revenue from selling these modifications is split between Valve, the developers of the original games and the mod developers, the latter getting 25% of the proceeds.​

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As of right now you can only sell mods for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, but the new distribution platform shows promise to aspiring mod developers and puts the limelight on an activity that used to be relegated to the fringe of the gamingverse.​

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Source (Steam Workshop) ​

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Update: Valve removed paid mods from the Workshop. Here's a statement from an employee:

"We underestimated the differences between our previously successful revenue sharing models, and the addition of paid mods to Skyrim's workshop. We understand our own game's communities pretty well, but stepping into an established, years old modding community in Skyrim was probably not the right place to start iterating. We think this made us miss the mark pretty badly, even though we believe there's a useful feature somewhere here.
"Now that you've backed a dump truck of feedback onto our inboxes, we'll be chewing through that, but if you have any further thoughts let us know."

Source​

 

[Bladexdsl]

What is the matter with paid mods if the modder and the game devs have a setup for it?

imagine everyone stealing each others mods and profiting from them with not a damn thing being done.

 

[stanleyopar2000]

good.. I knew when people uploaded joke mods like "Extra Apple" and "Gabe Newel's Genitals" would kill it

25% was fucking bullshit

 

[FAST6191]

imagine everyone stealing each others mods and profiting from them with not a damn thing being done.

That indeed would be something worth worrying about, not sure how that applies to the general concept of paid mods though.

 

[Bladexdsl]

because that's what would have happened. and than it would have spread to other games ruining them

 

[RolfXCIV]

Valve and Bethesda know how their costumers are. They want to implement this feature and they want it to become standard, and Skyrim was a great opportunity to try it; this way they know which problems arised from what they've done, both technical and in marketing. The best case scenario would be for everything happening smoothly and users accepting it, but they were already expecting this uproar and that plenty of objective problems would surface. Now they have a better blueprint on how to do it in the future. I don't have an opinion on whether this is good or bad, but gaming is flooded with larger problems and many never provoked this kind of upsetting.

 

[FAST6191]

I truly hope the concept does spread. It could prove very interesting in how this whole modding stuff plays out.

As for "everyone stealing each others mods and profiting from them is] what would have happened" I disagree. We see countless paid for items in all fields and they more or less manage OK.

 

[G0R3Z]

IT is a problem worth worrying about as well as modders just trying to cash in on any mod they have made previously, even if it's terrible. One modder actually did upload an old version of his work, a mod known as mida's magick. It was well known for being a buggy mess that genuinely destroyed the integrity of the game and corrupted saves. The most current version was on steam at about £3 or so, an older version on the nexus with an ad to buy the mod. Both versions are buggy and game ruining.

Quality control would've been a definite problem.

 

[Arras]

I truly hope the concept does spread. It could prove very interesting in how this whole modding stuff plays out.

As for "everyone stealing each others mods and profiting from them is] what would have happened" I disagree. We see countless paid for items in all fields and they more or less manage OK.

It was very easy to just grab an existing free mod, make a very minor change (something you wouldn't even notice), rename it and upload it for a few dollar though, and there was nothing that could be done to stop it basically.

 

[FAST6191]

It was very easy to just grab an existing free mod, make a very minor change (something you wouldn't even notice), rename it and upload it for a few dollar though, and there was nothing that could be done to stop it basically.

It is very easy for me to make a "remix" of a song, a video, a book and just publish it on the cheap.... I fail to see the difference here.

 

[Foxi4]

This is why we can't have nice things - because decisions are not made by developers and businessmen/women, but a bunch of keyboard warriors who have no idea how the revenue split works in the industry. This is a big loss for all modders who put up quality content which they now cannot monetize on Steam. Good job.

 

[Ashtonx]

This is why we can't have nice things - because decisions are not made by developers and businessmen/women, but a bunch of keyboard warriors who have no idea how the revenue split works in the industry. This is a big loss for all modders who put up quality content which they now cannot monetize on Steam. Good job.

Let me ask you, have you ever moded skyrim ?
Do you know how dependand shit is on each other, how many mods have stuff from other mods, how many mods are created by many people who just worked together on a certain thing, despite having different approach to modding ?
DO you know how much time a person has to spend to make sure skyrim will even work after modding ? It's like a godzilla patched up on spit. You make something wrong and whole thing falls apart.
Do you use steam reguularly, do you know how sometimes it takes months for them to make a simple fix ? How they don't really sift through ?

It's not like dota when someone reskins a weapon and sells it for a bunch of fanbois. This shit is way more complicated and wasn't made with support for paid modding.
And wtf with bethesda's cut they already made loads of money on a goddamn game, they made it because it was supported by mods. If they really wanted to support modders they'd add tip jar, ignore the cut or at least bethesda would. Hell they'd give pay what you want from the begining not with low limit.
People tend to have hundreds of mods, many of them cooperating with each other, other requiring modifications or 3rd party patches to work together. Imagine how much a person would have to pay extra for each of those mods. And only 25% would actually reach the modder.
It also doesn't necessarily make good mods make money, people are more likely to pay for a flashy sword than for awesome mechanic fix. Most modders would simply jump on making flashier mods rather than good mods just to make more money.

There's also a gamers side... many people bought skyrim expecting to use mods, mods that were free, suddenly become paid. It's one thing when you buy a game or get a f2p knowing about paid mods, it's another thing when someone tries to milk a dying game.
I think this guy makes a good point:



Sure idea of making mods on games ain't bad. But the way it was implemented was prolly worst possible way, they turned free mods into paid dlc without any kind of support.

 

[WiiCube_2013]

Think it's for the best like this. If you liked it and want to support it then donate money and that's that.

Much like supporting a creator on Patreon you give whatever you want.

 

[Foxi4]

*Snip!*

I totally get what you're saying, but I've addressed the concerns you're raising earlier in this thread a bunch of times. 25% is a respectable cut in this industry and an incentive for bigger, better, more original mods. Now modders will get 100% of nothing thanks to keyboard warriors - good job, guys. Dependency on other people's content would slowly fade away in a market where you'd have to share proceeds with other developers, people would quickly start creating their own original content since it would allow them to maximize their profits, but of course this good initiative had to be nipped in the bud before it could flourish. All the problems you're raising could be easily mitigated with simple moderation of monetized content.

Think it's for the best like this. If you liked it and want to support it then donate money and that's that. Much like supporting a creator on Patreon you give whatever you want.

You're a supporter of begging for donations rather than earning, and no, it's not the same thing even if the end result is the same.

 

[RolfXCIV]

Let me ask you, have you ever moded skyrim ?
I think this guy makes a good point:
Sure idea of making mods on games ain't bad. But the way it was implemented was prolly worst possible way, they turned free mods into paid dlc without any kind of support.

Despite all the rambling and gibberish, there are arguments to consider. The one about Valve not having much contact with its consumer base, I didn't know. Steam is a huge online platform, Gabe Newell is a popular figure in the community and Half-Life is mentioned everywhere. Francis said Valve doesn't offer refunds, "police" their catalogue, nor interact with the community: do you agree with him, and to what extent?

 

[G0R3Z]

The core of the whole thing here is simply this:

Paid mods aren't a terrible idea, modders who give us great mods for dozens, sometimes hundreds of hours are like any developer or artist, they want to be paid for their work that gets used and played by many.

Steam wasn't completely wrong in implementing this.

The WAY it was implemented was just terrible. They did no real research into skyrim or modding in general, they knew nothing about the community they were changing; they didn't censor or control the mods they didn't even look at selling and they just did all of this without consulting anyone, no coming soon, no q&a with developers or users. It wasn't a bad idea, but just terribly implemented. It's going to be a while before people trust Valve into trying anything like this again. It will happen obviously though, just with a new game with no established modding base and community behind it.

 

[Ashtonx]

I totally get what you're saying, but I've addressed the concerns you're raising earlier in this thread a bunch of times. 25% is a respectable cut in this industry and an incentive for bigger, better, more original mods. Now modders will get 100% of nothing thanks to keyboard warriors - good job, guys. Dependency on other people's content would slowly fade away in a market where you'd have to share proceeds with other developers, people would quickly start creating their own original content since it would allow them to maximize their profits, but of course this good initiative had to be nipped in the bud before it could flourish. All the problems you're raising could be easily mitigated with simple moderation of monetized content.
You're a supporter of begging for donations rather than earning, and no, it's not the same thing even if the end result is the same.

Thing is robert downey jr didn't make the movie all by himself. There were many other people working on it.
You've also didn't say wether you actually moded skyrim, seen the mods from the inside or all your knowledge comes from crappy zines and few people whining they want money.
As i've said, problem isn't with paying with paying for mods. Problem is with the way it was implemented.
People already paid for the product with certain expectations, now steam and bethesda decided they have to pay again.

That's bullshit.

And honestly there are ton's of ways to make money on mods, and many other games that allow it. Games that have been created with that in mind from the begining.

Maybe i should make an comparison. Imagine suddenly linus torvalds decides he wants money from all people who use linux. Even thought it used to be free, now every hardware, every user suddenly has to pay fee for it, hell every cellphone user with android has to pay for it. Sounds unreasonable ?
This is what valve and bethesda did.

 

[Ashtonx]

Despite all the rambling and gibberish, there are arguments to consider. The one about Valve not having much contact with its consumer base, I didn't know. Steam is a huge online platform, Gabe Newell is a popular figure in the community and Half-Life is mentioned everywhere. Francis said Valve doesn't offer refunds, "police" their catalogue, nor interact with the community: do you agree with him, and to what extent?

Valve doesnt even post a notice when they servers go down. They don't say anything about shit they do etc. Gabe usually responds when valve pissess off users so much they start to boycott them. The only contact valve has with it's clients is modders banning people or copy&paste responses if they're required. Basically im still amazed it holds itself with this level of interaction. As for no policy - there's a lot of controversy with people getting fucked by early access etc. Valve doesn't really do much of that. I remember it was mentioned quite a lot when valve decided to ban hatred from greenlight as a censorship and people kept reminding them about crap they've let in.

The core of the whole thing here is simply this:

Paid mods aren't a terrible idea, modders who give us great mods for dozens, sometimes hundreds of hours are like any developer or artist, they want to be paid for their work that gets used and played by many.

Steam wasn't completely wrong in implementing this.

The WAY it was implemented was just terrible. They did no real research into skyrim or modding in general, they knew nothing about the community they were changing; they didn't censor or control the mods they didn't even look at selling and they just did all of this without consulting anyone, no coming soon, no q&a with developers or users. It wasn't a bad idea, but just terribly implemented. It's going to be a while before people trust Valve into trying anything like this again. It will happen obviously though, just with a new game with no established modding base and community behind it.

Actually there are couple of games that do it, counter strike, dota, tf2. It's just that those games are completely different, hell dota2 is f2p designed to make money on mods and other crap like this.
When tf2 became f2p it stung because i was one of those who bought it but i understood it was needed to prolong the life of the game. Also it's a completely different monster than skyrim.

 

[Foxi4]

Thing is robert downey jr didn't make the movie all by himself. There were many other people working on it. You've also didn't say wether you actually moded skyrim, seen the mods from the inside or all your knowledge comes from crappy zines and few people whining they want money. As i've said, problem isn't with paying with paying for mods. Problem is with the way it was implemented. People already paid for the product with certain expectations, now steam and bethesda decided they have to pay again. That's bullshit.

You don't seem to understand how the money is sliced here. Players already paid for the game, this much is correct, but since the inherent nature of mods is that they utilize the game proper and its resources, they have to be distributed with that fact accounted for. Since it's unreasonable to make a modder pay a licensing fee to use official assets from a multi-million dollar game, it's substantially easier to simply share the proceeds with Bethesda themselves and thus have a mutually beneficial business relationship instead. Valve will also take a cut since they're hosting the files, they're distributing them in their ecosystem and thus drive discoverability, they deal with most of the licensing and so on. As I've said previously, this is a business relationship that's mutually beneficial for all the parties involved, from modders through the game developers to Valve themselves - everyone stands to gain from it thus everyone is motivated to co-operate, that's how the real world works. As for the Avengers analogy, it's just one of the many you could draw - licensing books works along similar lines and writers get similar cuts even though they contribute 95% of the actual end-product.

And honestly there are ton's of ways to make money on mods, and many other games that allow it. Games that have been created with that in mind from the begining.

You would have more of those games if game developers stood to gain something from implementing mod-friendly features in their games. Read my previous replies.

Maybe i should make an comparison. Imagine suddenly linus torvalds decides he wants money from all people who use linux. Even thought it used to be free, now every hardware, every user suddenly has to pay fee for it, hell every cellphone user with android has to pay for it. Sounds unreasonable ? This is what valve and bethesda did.

Completely incorrect. It's more like as if Linus Torvalds released a modification for Linux that's completely optional, users would have to buy it to implement it in their systems and the proceeds from that modification would be split between Linus, authors of the particular forks of Linux in question and whoever publishes the modification. That's more accurate and also entirely reasonable. You're not "paying for Linux" twice nor are you "paying for Skyrim" twice in either scenario.

 

[RolfXCIV]

Valve doesnt even post a notice when they servers go down. They don't say anything about shit they do etc. Gabe usually responds when valve pissess off users so much they start to boycott them. The only contact valve has with it's clients is modders banning people or copy&paste responses if they're required. Basically im still amazed it holds itself with this level of interaction. As for no policy - there's a lot of controversy with people getting fucked by early access etc. Valve doesn't really do much of that. I remember it was mentioned quite a lot when valve decided to ban hatred from greenlight as a censorship and people kept reminding them about crap they've let in.

I thought they were the best company in this regard, but from what is said they're seriously lacking. So this paid mods stunt could not have been much of a test, but more of implementing an idea without proper information or feedback, which is wrong.

 

[Ashtonx]

You don't seem to understand how the money is sliced here. Players already paid for the game, this much is correct, but since the inherent nature of mods is that they utilize the game proper and its resources, they have to be distributed with that fact accounted for. Since it's unreasonable to make a modder pay a licensing fee to use official assets from a multi-million dollar game, it's substantially easier to simply share the proceeds with Bethesda themselves and thus have a mutually beneficial business relationship instead. Valve will also take a cut since they're hosting the files, they're distributing them in their ecosystem and thus drive discoverability, they deal with most of the licensing and so on. As I've said previously, this is a business relationship that's mutually beneficial for all the parties involved, from modders through the game developers to Valve themselves - everyone stands to gain from it thus everyone is motivated to co-operate, that's how the real world works. As for the Avengers analogy, it's just one of the many you could draw - licensing books works along similar lines and writers get similar cuts even though they contribute 95% of the actual end-product.

You don't seem to understand we're talking about 4 year old game that still sells only because it has incredible mod base. Bethesda already took it's cut by selling the damn game. Taking any more than that is just being greedy fucks. The best they could've taken is 5-10% especially since they didn't do anything on the game in years, hell there's a bunch of mods that are basically patches that do shit bethesda should've done itself. If anything they should be paying modders from their own wallet not take the cut.
I can understand Steam taking cut being the ones who sale. But bethesda already had it's own cut biggest of them all, the game selling cut.

You would have more of those games if game developers stood to gain something from implementing mod-friendly features in their games. Read my previous replies.

Why do you assume i want those games ? i accept them as a fair way of making money. However most of those games are f2p. They're like microtransaction except good.
I don't like microtransactions i prefer pay full price rather than keep on paying for parts. And let's be honest some games work with that kind of setup, others dont.

Completely incorrect. It's more like as if Linus Torvalds released a modification for Linux that's completely optional, users would have to buy it to implement it in their systems and the proceeds from that modification would be split between Linus, authors of the particular forks of Linux in question and whoever publishes the modification. That's more accurate and also entirely reasonable. You're not "paying for Linux" twice nor are you "paying for Skyrim" twice in either scenario.

I'd say it's quite correct, linux is a whole eco system and what linus torvalds did is a damn small part of it. He also started whole thing free, bethesda took cut which was price of the game, however assumption was you don't pay for the damn mods. That's why people bought it. Bethesda didn't do anything for skyrim for years now they want extra cut because bunch of dedicated people kept the game alive ? That's just fucking hilarious and cheap. If they wanted to make paid mods they should've implemented it from the begining.

Edit: once again, i ask. Did you actually mod skyrim ? because what i see is same uninformed thinking as the guys who tried to implement the feature. Maybe you should try to do it.
Go to skyrimnexus download a hundred of mods, if you don't know which i recommend gopher's videos on youtube. Once you spent a couple of days understanding the ecosystem of the whole thing you'll realize just what a bad idea it was.

I thought they were the best company in this regard, but from what is said they're seriously lacking. So this paid mods stunt could not have been much of a test, but more of implementing an idea without proper information or feedback, which is wrong.

The whole gaben worship started as a joke, but bunch of people took it seriously and the joke created an army of blind religious fanbois. It's seriously scary when you think about it.