Valve's New Paid-for Mods

[calgoblin]

Valve recently unveiled a new scheme for modders of certain games to monetise their mods. It isn't Steam-wide, and requires individual publishers to activate it in their games, and is only available so far for Skyrim, a game that has a large modding community that is actively supported by Bethesda. Read about here...

https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/about/?appid=72850

It seems to be completely against all of what modding should be. It is also worth pointing out that in the current setup the modder who lists the mod only receives 25% of the sale, which seems incredibly low. So is it a good move by Valve? Should we boycott them now?

 

[General Naga]

Honestly I'm not sure right now. It does feel like a massive commercial intrusion into what has been until now (almost) a completely open and free community.

That being said you could argue that Steam is just one platform and allowing modders to generate even a small income will help encourage the development of more "serious" mods which are practical professional in their quality.

I'll probably come back once I've digested the news a bit further but I was interested to see that Falskaar which is probably the biggest/best mod for Skyrim has already declared that it will remain free. I wonder which way some of the other popular mods will break?

 

[Mars]

I haven't made my mind up as well, but one way you could look at it is that developers may be more willing to create mod tools for their games if there's a high possibility of a financial return.

 

[General Naga]

Apparently it's not Steam who determine the amount modders get paid but rather the developer/publisher.

 

[Feldmeijer]

Ohhh... Traction Wars pink startscreen logo mod anyone? Only 15$!

 

[Pjosip]

Just forwarding this from Reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33uplp/mods_and_steam/

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

Exclusivity is a bad idea for everyone. It's basically a financial leveraging strategy that creates short term market distortion and long term crying.

Our goal is to make modding better for the authors and gamers. 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.

-GabeNewellBellevue

 

[Aniallator]

What! Mods should be and remain free! If a mod is payed, I won't bother with it. This is a low/odd move coming from Valve.

 

[Colonel__Klink]

Consider how many of valve's employees are former modders. Counterstrike? Once a mod. Team fortress? The "original" mod. Day of defeat? Mod. Natural Selection? Yup, was a mod as well. How many of those games original creators wound up working for valve?

Valve is a company that really was built upon creating an environment that vigorously encourages mods(I cant think of a game before them that released a full SDK) then when an exceptional mod comes out they monetized it. This whole move makes a great deal of sense given that history. After half life 2 steam essentially made the indie game indsutry, all this flowering of unique small developer games is due in no small part to steam and valve.

I'm waiting to see how this works out. I'm worried about a scenario where every mod costs money(most mods are not something I'd pay for honestly) or excessive pricing. Yet it also promises to reward the vast amount of talent that produces great mods like this:
Fallout - Project Brazil at Fallout New Vegas - mods and community

[video=youtube;1HtgYMj_p_M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HtgYMj_p_M[/video]
(project brazil was an amazingly done mod complete with new thoughts on how to develop the player's character in the game. Such as the choice "nerd" or "athelete" at the start of the game helping determine not only stats but how people view the player character.)

Hopefully it will all work out well.

 

[General Naga]

off topic but that mod looks very well put together (or at least well promoted). I really should get Fallout: New Vegas...

 

[Colonel__Klink]

off topic but that mod looks very well put together (or at least well promoted). I really should get Fallout: New Vegas...

As a fan of fallout 1 and 2 I HATED fallout 3 which felt lazy, poorly thought out and poorly assembled. New Vegas however in its own right was well constructed game with very dynamic mechanics, and a story that is compelling and actually creates real results from the player actions as well as real reasons to undertake those actions.

Project Brazil was done so well its like an indie stand alone title. Here's a video of someone playing it:

On topic I'm hoping that the whole steam workshop change will help more projects like this get made. With some games like space engineers the steam workshop has been such a wonderful way to find mods for the game. In the future encouraging more total conversions for games or complete campaign add ons in the workshop can really help the creative community I think.

 

[calgoblin]

Gabe Newell took to Reddit after the fallout from their paid-for-mods announcement... Who'd have thought he'd ever get downvoted so many times.



Full Reddit thread here.

Valve is a company that really was built upon creating an environment that vigorously encourages mods(I cant think of a game before them that released a full SDK) then when an exceptional mod comes out they monetized it.

Not only did they encourage modding, Valve was originally mostly formed of people who made mods. I can see that they want to try it, to encourage more of the best mods to get made, and they will be adding a pay-what-you-want button that modders can enable. But as Valve don't set the pay-split, maybe the beef here is with Bethesda? 25% is low. I know it's all their artwork and game and whatnot, but surely the modder should get the most payment?

I don't know, its a dodgy area that people are rightly and appropriately concerned about. It is the same issue here at Traction Wars if we decided to charge money for the game. We don't develop for the money, and I'm sure most modders don't do it for the money either.

 

[Colonel__Klink]

My biggest concern is developers demanding that EVERY mod cost money. That would be unacceptable. What I hope for is 99% of the stuff is free and done for the joy of it but when something really really really nice comes out there is the option to reward the developers.

One thing I think about though is that developers get enough profit out of good mods for their games. People bought half life 1 for counter strike and team fortress, people bought arma 2 for dayz. Mods actually generate sales because they require the original content. So I agree that the 25% is a VERY VERY low profit sharing percentage.

 

[General Naga]

We can only blame the publisher for the 25% share - steam don't decide that apparently.

I would agree if this is reserved for the high end mods then all well and good. Our best hope is the initial chaos dies down quickly and the stupid items stop being made as they're not selling. The good ones will survive and still be popular.

 

[Colonel__Klink]

We can only blame the publisher for the 25% share - steam don't decide that apparently.

I would agree if this is reserved for the high end mods then all well and good. Our best hope is the initial chaos dies down quickly and the stupid items stop being made as they're not selling. The good ones will survive and still be popular.

My worry is that there will be a view that every project should be monetized or not available. I dl a great many mods for new vegas for example to help correct silly game defects or whatnot. They generally are not even big mods, but they are worth downloading. It would be downright silly for example to have to pay 99 cents to download the mod that fixes the grunt perk allowing it to effect the "gun runners" dlc weapons as well as the stock weapons in the game.

 

[th_battleaxe]

My biggest concern is developers demanding that EVERY mod cost money.

Indeed, imagine the horrors EA would inflict, given their reputation.

 

[Simon]

Lord Gaben (Gabe Newell) Said that if this paid mods don't go as plan, they will remove it

 

[LuckyOne]

As far as I'm concerned modders for me were always hobbyists, artists and creators. They had complete and total freedom in their creativity and thus expected very little financial compensation in return. Because what you want to make is not necessarily what the market wants. Sure, the few very successful mods that were made by very talented people or teams of people who turned into development studios might have succeeded and gone commercial but the average modder was always a somewhat mysterious creature with absolutely no obligations to his creation.

This might change everything. And I don't think I will like the change... I'm all for supporting modders but I think platforms like Patreon that are based on donations are a much better fit for the modding community...

 

[Pjosip]

Lord Gaben (Gabe Newell) Said that if this paid mods don't go as plan, they will remove it

And it seems he delivered.

 

[Colonel__Klink]

?

 

[Pjosip]

Paid mods are removed from steam.