Steam Allows Paid Mods

[Wittymations]

I didn't see a thread for this yet.

 

http://www.pcgamer.com/valve-allows-mod-makers-to-sell-their-creations-on-steam/

 

In a nutshell, Valve is beginning to allow users who create mods to sell them. The first game to support this is Skyrym. It seems that the developer of the game has to agree to allow this.

 

Items sold in the Workshop are unregulated and its up to the creators to set the price.

 

Obviously, this is a very debatable event.

On one hand, you have people saying it's good and that creators should be paid and that those who oppose it are feeling entitled to the creator's work.

 

On the other hand, people also say that part of the beauty of mods is that it's free (or was) and that the work was about the love, not the profit.

 

I lean closer to the latter. While I understand that modding takes a lot of effort (I don't mod, but I do animate and that, in itself, is a frustrating task, can only imagine modding) people who made mods beforehand never expected to be paid for it. It was something they did out of their passion for the game and wanted to freely share. I do think there should be an option to donate, however.

There's also the issue of the total free market that's going to happen. People releasing crappy mods for a quick buck. However, there IS thankfully a 24 hour refund period.

 

Your thoughts?

[Solkia]

It's not their game to make money off of.

 

I'm not paying $2.99 so Witches in L4D2 will say "Onii-chan"

[WhoWhatMan]

I found this to be a really dumb move. Unless they approve what mods should get money, I don't see this turning out well.

[Kaze no Klonoa]

Hey, one one hand, I'm willing to drop money for a mod that's well polished and has a lot of effort (And is actually worth that money). But with no regulation, it'll be hard to find something worth paying for under the 1000s of crappy mods people will be selling for money.

[JezMM]

The refund period honestly solves any issues I'd have with this to be honest.  If people want to make money they will quickly learn that consumers will only pay for stuff that is worth paying for.

 

 

I imagine there'll also be some way to report mods that use copyrighted content.  I doubt people will be allowed to charge for mods that just replace in-game assets like voiceovers with voiceovers of characters from other games etc.

 

 

Besides, Valve have already been doing this for years within their own testbed of TF2 and I didn't hear many complaints about that.

 

 

Basically what I see happening is:

Person makes good mod and charges for it - People who pay have a good time, people who don't pay will need to stop feeling entitled to the fruits of people's free time.  Comments and reviews on the mod will make it clear that it is worth paying for, at least in some people's opinion.

Person makes bad mod and charges for it - People will not want to continue using it and be quick to hit the refund button, comments and reviews on the mod will make it clear that it is to be avoided.

[Solkia]

I'm pretty sure TF2 only allows paid weapons and hats made by Steam users, most of which can be unlocked the normal way. Mods like the female crew are still free.

 

Though I haven't followed TF2 for years.

 

I doubt modders care about being paid for it, otherwise mods wouldn't exist to begin with.

[Kaze no Klonoa]

I'm pretty sure TF2 only allows paid weapons and hats made by Steam users, most of which can be unlocked the normal way. Mods like the female crew are still free.

 

Though I haven't followed TF2 for years.

What I believe Valve is trying to do is allow community content creators to earn money from the mods they work hard on. If you've seen anything from the TF2 community, you know that people have put a lot of effort in these weapons and hats (Hats), and I believe Valve wants to emulate some kind of similar situation for mods.

[Solkia]

Again, they wouldn't be doing these to begin with if they gave a crap about being compensated for it.

 

Modding is just a cool community effort from gamers who love gaming to expand the replay value of games.

 

Can you imagine if DSFix had a paywall? Would you pay more money for a mod that makes the game do what it should have done to begin with?

[Lisbon]

There definitely needs to be quality control here. So many people will charge money for broken, incomplete, and otherwise useless mods. If there's a transaction involving real money, the quality of the product should be ensured. Idealistic, especially in the world of videogames, but eh.

 

Furthermore, I don't know if they should be allowed to make money off of someone else's product in this sense - maybe if someone commissioned a mod from someone I wouldn't take issue with the idea of paying for a mod, but other than that I have to disagree with the idea. Even if the studio that made the game gets a cut, it isn't much different - that'll just cause people to charge more for mods. 

I swear, Valve seems to be making so many shitty moves lately. First there's the way they handled the Ruble fiasco and now this. 

[Nepenthe]

So long as there is quality control, reporting measures, and refund periods in place, I don't see the problem. The people who want to do good quality mods for free will still allow them to be free. However, this now gives certain modders the ability to be paid for their time and skill (and trust and believe the prices they will be able to set will be determined by word-of-mouth). It's expanding the choices that creators have, and overall I see that as a good thing.

 

This is also another case where I don't get the artistic integrity and "love" angle. What aspect of the modding community prevents the allowance of its modders to be compensated for specialized work? What is the connection between paid work and passion, and why is the assumption that being paid for your work means you're not in it all the way? I mean, my life is basically drawing and making costumes. My love for these things is infinite. But why does that mean I should do gift art and free costume repairs and refurbishments for the rest of my life?

[Solkia]

Comissions are an entirely different story.

 

It's the difference between art you personally wanted to make and art someone else wanted you to make. If you're making a mod specifically because someone asked you to you should be compensated for it.

[Nepenthe]

People will sell original non-commissioned work and prints of that work. People also sell pre-made costumes to test out ideas or designs, or they will make a personal costume that they just don't want anymore and put that up for sale.

 

Note that these items can be gifted and there are millions of examples in the general nerd community of this happening, sometimes to the detriment of people's bottom lines (mainly because artists who aren't under the payroll of a company are severely undervalued). I've personally done shitloads of artwork that I've just happened to give to people simply because I felt like it at the moment. Costume makers will also gift costumes to personal close friends. 

So what is the difference between making a non-commissioned artwork that you just happen to put up for sale (because you think it's worth it), making a test costume for no one that you just happen to put up for sale (because you think it's worth it), and a modder who makes a custom Skyrim story mode that decides to now put it up for sale under Steam's new rules (because they think it's worth it)?

[Kuzu]

Well, I do see it as a good opportunity for modders to actually be compensated for their work, which is nice that Valve has acknowledged. 

 

I don't feel it really forces anything on the consumer honestly, if you want decent mods, you'll just have to pay for them is all. 

[Solkia]

 

Total Biscuit's thoughts on it.

[Nepenthe]

Despite me not actually liking TB a whole lot anymore, he's spot on with the issue of giving compensation. Modders, if they elect to, deserve money for the months and years they spend learning and creating this content, and people ideally should be more willing to support them.

[Moppsy]

I don't understand why they couldn't have just made donating to modders easier instead of putting some mods behind pay-walls.  Also, this leaves me nervous about what happens to the Nexus site and the precedent this sets.  They said they won't monetize and instead make donating easier, but the future is a bit unclear as to what happens to them now that one competitor is allowing authors to charge for their content.

[Lisbon]

I don't understand why they couldn't have just made donating to modders easier instead of putting some mods behind pay-walls.

Because it's what would make Valve the most money, to put it bluntly.

 

They'll probably take a cut of all the mods sold on Steam for themselves, and while it may not be a whole lot, that would begin to pile up and they'd make a good profit based on that alone. It would also give them more control over the modding community by trying to wrestle away creators from places like Nexus to make a buck selling their stuff on Steam to gain further control of the PC gaming market, which they have an iron grasp on as is. People want mods. Controlling the mod market and using it in a way that's really only applicable with games sold on their website would make people buy even more stuff on Steam than they do from the competitors like GoG and Origin.

 

Donating to modders would be the better of the choices for the consumer while still managing to benefit the creator to a good degree, but the new system would honestly benefit both Valve (and the creator) more. They're still a corporation, and at the end of the day, the only thing that really matters is profit. The idea is probably just to profit off of the modding community while simultaneously giving modders more incentive to use Steam Workshop over other outputs to give them even more control over the PC Gaming market than they already have.

 

So, it's a win-win for them, basically.

[Moppsy]

I guess so yeah.  The only silver lining so far is that it's getting mixed results from modders themselves, and there is a large handful of them who'd rather not want their stuff monetized and instead opt for the donation route and/or prefer nexus over steam regardless.

[Lisbon]

 

They'll probably take a cut of all the mods sold on Steam for themselves, and while it may not be a whole lot, that would begin to pile up and they'd make a good profit based on that alone.

 

So, apparently I was pretty damn wrong about it being a small cut, because the creators of the mod only receive 1/4 of what its being sold for.

[Cobalt_Bolt]

I've been using mods for a long time as a nice way to expand the replay value of a game without having to shell out additional funds to do so.  Having said that this is an absolutely idiotic idea that should not have been discussed in the boardrooms of Valve and Bethesda and ranks right up there with "Horse Armor" and "On-disk" DLC as worst idea in "AAA" gaming.  Locking mods behind a paywall is a surefire way to piss off the community that was built up over the years.

[Nepenthe]

In theory, it's really only going to piss off the people who feel they are, for some reason, entitled to years of people's hard work, education, specialized skills, and passion for free, and personally I feel those people can be pissed off. If these gamers care so much about good artists they hold up as champions so often, actually pay them for their work instead of demanding they slave away for your benefit.

 

In practice however, TB raised some interesting issues on the legalization of the matter, Valve's general implementation of it, and artist protection. Mainly I think there's something to be said about them taking so much of the cut, although the issue of properly splitting revenue over something as collaborative as the creation and hosting of a mod for a game seems a bit difficult to pin down.

[Clewis]

So what exactly is keeping me from changing up a few lines of the game's code and selling it off as a gameplay mod.

 

I agree with the idea that this should have been set up with a more donation-based/Patreon-like structure, but then I guess Valve wouldn't have been able to make bank off of the 75% cut they take while the mod's creator gets barely anything at all.

 

Looking at some of the trash that is being allowed to sell on Steam nowadays, I fear for how this whole "paying for mods" thing will evolve in the future.

[JezMM]

So what exactly is keeping me from changing up a few lines of the game's code and selling it off as a gameplay mod.

 

The fact that no-one would buy it?

[Clewis]

The fact that no-one would buy it?

 

That's not keeping me from selling it though.

 

My point was that I wonder if Valve is going to establish some sort of standard when it comes down to what kind of mods can and cannot be sold to other users.

 

Although I don't get my mods off of the steam workshop, in a way I'm kinda glad Valve decided to go through with this. It will be interesting to see how this concept unfurls within the modding community in the future.

[JezMM]

That's not keeping me from selling it though.

 

My point was that I wonder if Valve is going to establish some sort of standard when it comes down to what kind of mods can and cannot be sold to other users.

 

Okay I'm with you now.  I guess since mods are only meant to add to the main game, they would have certain standards of what would be allowed?  I mean no-one is going to use your mod unless they own the game to download it to and you can't upload an entire game's code as a mod with tiny changes - just the files that are changed.

 

Unless your concern is "could someone just upload the whole of Skyrim with one tiny change and call it a mod, then people will just download that mod instead of buying the game" I imagine there is no way to "launch" mods that you don't own the game for.