Steam Workshop: Now get paid for your mod creations on Steam

[mmntech]

Here be Micro-transactions.

Yeah, I'm not paying for mods. Especially not for a 3 year old game. I'll just go to Nexus instead.

 

[xantub]

The trading card thing is another perfect example. Very little cost of entry and contributes nothing to the quality of games or the platform. I'd love to know how much they're making off of all that worthless stuff. I'm sure it's plenty.

Not sure what you mean there. Trading cards have given me a few free games. They just randomly show in my inventory when I play games, then I put them on sale for like $.10 each, after a while it adds up to like $5 which is enough to buy some game on sale.

 

[Lonyo]

Steam doesn't get 75% of the donation though.



It's already official, 75% cut for valve 25% for mod makers. Apparently taking 30% from all the PC game sales, which they have a monopoly on, was not enough.

I'm not going to be buying games on steam anymore. Most games can be found cheaper elsewhere (since other companies don't steal 30% from developers) and I don't want to support this greed. Steam will be where I go to do window shopping but then I'll buy elsewhere.

Even at 30% it's not that bad compared to things like retail, since there are retail markups, transport costs, physical production costs etc. 30% is less than you lose out on if you sold a boxed copy for the same price, but obviously because all those costs are lower.
The fact that prices are the same boxed vs digital is the real crime. 30% is somewhat reasonable, and basically the industry standard. It's not only Valve taking that much.

But I personally don't buy from Steam anyway, nor do I buy Steamworks games (the one exception in the last 5 or so years being Assetto Corsa due to the limited number of driving sims on the market, and I wished I could have got a refund on that, so lesson learned).

 

[Lonyo]

What if you purchased the mod much longer than 24 hours ago, and while it may have worked immediately after you purchased it, the devs of the original game push an update that break your paid-mod? Will you get a refund then? What if the modder decides to stop supporting his paid mods, or - in a more extreme scenario - dies/disappears? Who will fix it then?

Mods are a finicky thing, once people start paying for stuff they are going to feel entitled to a working version. Also help and support.

Lots of problems with this. It would make more sense to just have a donate button so people can give money (if they want) to modders they really like. A la Nexus.

It's the same with regular games though.
One issue with Steam is that as far as I know from talking to people, if you submit your first game, then Valve do an in depth piece on it to make sure it's releasable and not a horrible mess.
Once you've cleared that hurdle on your first game, they don't really bother so much with other games. That's how the Day-Z rip off got through AFAIK. That means unless it's someone's first game, there's no guarantee it won't be a buggy POS, just like any mod, and therefore you should also have a right of return on that basis.

Other stores are adopted such policies, e.g. Origin and GoG.
Origin gives you 7 days from date of purchase if you haven't played it, or 24 hours from first play.
GoG is GoG and have crazy (good crazy) policies anyway.

 

[norseamd]

Actually this is not just some spontaneous decision by Valve and Bethesda as there has been major push for this from businesses and crap.

I actually even made a discussion about an article that was suggesting that Bethesda start monetizing mods quite a while ago.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2424186&highlight=

 

[Whitestar127]

The thing that baffles me is that they are doing this for Skyrim.

Last time I checked installing mods from the Workshop was a no-no if I wanted a stable Skyrim game. I mean, consider 50+ mods with conflicts, deleted object references and whatnot. You absolutely need a mod manager, or your game WILL break eventually. Besides that, Skyrim is 3 years old and free mods have been available for ages. Really, it's censored mind baffling.

Edit: Aaaaand the petition is here: https://www.change.org/p/valve-remove-the-paid-content-of-the-steam-workshop

 

[tidy]

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[Gonad the Barbarian]

I don't like this move, but that revenue split is pure bullshit. Both consumers and modders should be outraged.

 

[Whitestar127]

Gopher airs his thoughts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pfLJwH0zc0
Quite a lot of good points there I have to say.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

They are taking 75%...yes...75%.

People are already stealing stuff from Nexus and putting it up as their own for sale on Steam.

This won't end well.

Yeah, what a mess. Valve should pull the plug on this whole thing asap.

 

[Newbian]

I am waiting for someone to make mods that violates a games tos and for the game to go after steam for taking the 75% cut.

 

[sandorski]

I am waiting for someone to make mods that violates a games tos and for the game to go after steam for taking the 75% cut.

The Game Makers are in on it. Gabe didn't just flip a switch and start doing it.

 

[Newbian]

The Game Makers are in on it. Gabe didn't just flip a switch and start doing it.

Not all games allow people to ask for donations for the mods they create much less something like steam is doing as they are going to have a hell of a time removing the amount of mod spam that's going to happen for awhile.

People have gotten sued for donation buttons on their sites before and if steam doesn't keep this under control it can cause issues.

 

[NickelPlate]

Not sure what you mean there. Trading cards have given me a few free games. They just randomly show in my inventory when I play games, then I put them on sale for like $.10 each, after a while it adds up to like $5 which is enough to buy some game on sale.

True that is an upside and I've done the same admittedly. Beyond that there's nothing else really positive about it. It's a marketplace for virtual items that have no real world value where people with more money than sense spend thousands to get a little number by their name. It's created an environment full of bot accounts trying to control pricing and phishing attempts with thousands of people getting their accounts hijacked and inventories stolen. All while filling Valve's coffers.

I'd much rather see Valve put some effort into say......better customer service, or making quality games again. But the former doesn't generate revenue and the latter requires too much effort. They've become greedy and lazy.

 

[sandorski]

Not all games allow people to ask for donations for the mods they create much less something like steam is doing as they are going to have a hell of a time removing the amount of mod spam that's going to happen for awhile.

People have gotten sued for donation buttons on their sites before and if steam doesn't keep this under control it can cause issues.

Like I said, the Game Makers(so far just Bethesda and only for Skyrim) are in on it. IOW, Valve and Bethesda will have considered these possibilities already and will have ways of dealing with it.

 

[JamesV]

People who steal Mods will be found out and dealt with. Could be messy at first, but I suspect in time no one will dare to do it.

You must not be a programmer, because I can tell you it is simple to take anyone else's code and change or modify it so it looks nothing like the original. This includes changing the logic, yet ending at the same result.

Why I asked in a previous post if Steam would deny similar, or even a mod that does the same thing as another mod. If yours doesn't come out first, are you screwed?

 

[norseamd]

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/27563/?

"Credits:

SparrowPrince for his original Get Wet implementation.
verteiron for the list of dialogue animation events.
trebtreb for information regarding possible snowy shader issues.
lorelai2009 for her fur cloaks.
Chesko just for his outstanding work on Frostfall.
Omesean for his snowshoes: Aesir Armor.
seanbonaker for his umbrellas: Umbrella.
drsoupiii for his knapsacks: Knapsack Backpacks.
Northborn for his fur hoods: Fur Hoods HD.
frankdema for his leather backpacks: FrankDema Travel Backpack.
TreasureChest, OG-Jay, tumbajamba, DVAted and Targaryen for their fur backpacks: Sabre Gear Backpack.
Arthmoor for his work on Run For Your Lives.
xlwarrior for help with Spanish localization.
Slavovitsh for help with German localization.
starfis for help with Czech localization.
JackLaVaporiera for help with Italian localization.
nakadi5963 for help with Japanese localization.
raphou112 for help with French localization.
Everyone else who has provided feedback and helped with the localization."​

 

[Zenoth]

I was not expecting Valve - of all video gaming companies out there - to be the one doing something like that. I will view them differently from this point on.

I guess that the only one I [we] have left is CD Projekt Red.

 

[Dankk]

I was not expecting Valve - of all video gaming companies out there - to be the one doing something like that. I will view them differently from this point on.

Valve likes money. No surprise there.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

I haven't played any of the Elder Scrolls series, but both of the latest Fallouts had their fair share of problems and bugs only fixed through mods. So now not only can Bethesda rely on others to fix their game issues, but they'll get paid to.

And honestly, maybe I'm not desperate enough, or maybe I'm just petty, but if someone only offered me 25 cents on the dollar for my work I'd give it away for free out of spite.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Good grief, what a mess already:
http://kotaku.com/paid-skyrim-mod-turns-into-a-clusterfuck-1699913114

https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/33qcaj/the_experiment_has_failed_my_exit_from_the/

 

[sandorski]

You must not be a programmer, because I can tell you it is simple to take anyone else's code and change or modify it so it looks nothing like the original. This includes changing the logic, yet ending at the same result.

Why I asked in a previous post if Steam would deny similar, or even a mod that does the same thing as another mod. If yours doesn't come out first, are you screwed?

That's not really stealing a Mod though. Maybe someones idea, but that occurs in all entertainment industry, even in Gaming now.

 

[norseamd]

That's not really stealing a Mod though. Maybe someones idea, but that occurs in all entertainment industry, even in Gaming now.

Nope. But because the Chinese do that in addition to stealing military and government secrets and also counterfeiting suddenly everything the Chinese do is nothing but counterfeits? Honestly Western Business is starting to shift into some very dangerous ideologies as just producing competing products is now somehow considered as breaking IP laws. Not only that but most companies tried to get patents and copyrights for everything even the color or shape of any of their products. For example Sargento seems to have a trademark on even using the color magenta despite the color magenta being in existence for a very long time now and well used by most everyone.

http://www.businessinsider.com/colors-that-are-trademarked-2012-9

 

[ImpulsE69]

OMG the last paragraph in that reddit post...

Real-time update - I was just contacted by Valve's lawyer. He stated that they will not remove the content unless "legally compelled to do so", and that they will make the file visible only to currently paid users. I am beside myself with anger right now as they try to tell me what I can do with my own content. The copyright situation with Art of the Catch is shades of grey, but in Arissa 2.0's case, it's black and white; that's 100% mine and Griefmyst's work, and I should be able to dictate its distribution if I so choose. Unbelievable.

I can't wait for someone to sue over this. One has to wonder if this really wasn't some half baked scheme to just destroy the modding community.

 

[darkswordsman17]

I'm mixed on this, as I don't think it's terrible that people should get to profit some from mods if they so choose, but there's definitely a lot of issues that need to be resolved. Hopefully Valve will work to improve this (much as they did for Greenlight, which had similar major issues and was improved).

Weirdly, I'm not the biggest Valve fan to begin with (and that extends to their games themselves), and I certainly don't like everything they've done with Steam, but overall I think they've done a pretty decent job of handling quite a few issues (although there's still plenty they could and I think need to improve), so I'm not really agreeing that this is just greedy money-grabbing on their part. There's quite a few people who seem to see every change to Steam as a step in the conspiracy for them to take total control over PC gaming, although there are issues with the amount of control they do have.

At this point, and I'm not saying people shouldn't be highly critical (in fact I think they should, just as I've felt people have every right to be critical in general, which has led to ridiculous attitudes in the console forum anytime a game gets criticized), but gaming in general you just have to know that its going to have issues upon release. Good companies work to fix the issues, and in my opinion Valve has done a reasonably acceptable job of doing that, and I'm hoping they continue to do so.

Definitely the revenue share needs to be adjusted, 25% is way too low. I could maybe see it if companies were doing a lot to help the modding community, which I don't think Bethesda has (they've pretty much just made it reasonably easy to mod, which sadly is a big improvement over most games now where companies are more actively trying to limit if not outright ban mods).

I'm also a little baffled why people are surprised over Skyrim being the start of this. It's a very popular and fairly cheap game that is both known nearly as much for the mods as the game itself, and the mods have kept it (and other Elder Scrolls games) interesting far past their release dates. Seems like the perfect game to try this.

I think Valve just didn't think this through properly. My guess is Bethesda contacted them about it and Valve figured they had most of what is needed to make it happen in place, and figured it would actually be positive for people as modders get paid, and it would give people extra incentive to mod (and try to improve mods) which would then benefit people playing the games. But they didn't do due diligence on all the issues. We'll see how it turns out and if they're willing or even can mitigate some of the bigger ones enough to make this positive.

OMG the last paragraph in that reddit post...

Real-time update - I was just contacted by Valve's lawyer. He stated that they will not remove the content unless "legally compelled to do so", and that they will make the file visible only to currently paid users. I am beside myself with anger right now as they try to tell me what I can do with my own content. The copyright situation with Art of the Catch is shades of grey, but in Arissa 2.0's case, it's black and white; that's 100% mine and Griefmyst's work, and I should be able to dictate its distribution if I so choose. Unbelievable.

I can't wait for someone to sue over this. One has to wonder if this really wasn't some half baked scheme to just destroy the modding community.

While that sounds bad, you have to understand Valve likely is just aping the policies of most sites that host content created by other people and that their policies are actually there to try to keep content from being taken down for frivolous reasons (although if it's a large business able to threaten lawsuits then they have more power to get content taken down). But it does present major problems as a lot of people make content and then people steal it and post elsewhere. But maybe it is different as generally other sites do take things down without official legal representation when provided with enough proof.

I think the issue here is the weird area in that people paid money for that content so from Valve's point of view they're trying to protect them (wasn't there a big fuss about a company pulling their game and it getting removed from people's accounts, that could have setup a policy about similar that's being applied here), hence them requiring legal compulsion.