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

[mmntech]

Was only a matter of time. 😀
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDyXIXyAZq0

I love video games and Valve has done a lot to make PC gaming relevant again. I just can't stand this recent trend in the industry where they're nickel and diming everyone. Getting almost as bad as the bleeding airlines. :thumbsdown:

 

[norseamd]

Something bad is up.

I am not able to look at any of the discussions from the paid mods anymore.

This is quite odd as I have not said anything on any of them.

This just shows that Valve is controlling everything on purpose to prevent community input on anything that is going on.

 

[ImpulsE69]

You don't even have to. Just go to the Skyrim page there and see that the number of negative reviews has tripled in 24 hours. A wall of thumbs down stating the mod sales as the reason.

 

[JamesV]

Was only a matter of time. 😀
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDyXIXyAZq0

I love video games and Valve has done a lot to make PC gaming relevant again. I just can't stand this recent trend in the industry where they're nickel and diming everyone. Getting almost as bad as the bleeding airlines. :thumbsdown:

That is exponentially more funny the less teeth.

Somebody said something along the lines of "didn't think Valve would do that". Me too. I defend Steam all the time, but now I'm starting to wonder if Gabe died and some lackey is directing things...

 

[norseamd]

Funny because I got lambasted just a few days ago for bringing attention to the fact that Valve was probably interested in forcing users to pay more cash to Valve just to use certain features of the Steam platform.

 

[mmntech]

That is exponentially more funny the less teeth.

Somebody said something along the lines of "didn't think Valve would do that". Me too. I defend Steam all the time, but now I'm starting to wonder if Gabe died and some lackey is directing things...

It's a curious move, especially for a privately owned company. You usually only see these shenanigans when a business goes public and realizes they need to please the shareholders.

Payware mods have been around for a long time. They're fairly common in the flight simulator community. Though they're usually sold directly by the modder and not through some portal. Valve's 75% cut is certainly a raw deal as well. Are they trying to out BS Nintendo or something?

 

[Artorias]

Valve is getting shredded from a PR standpoint, like absolutely murdered by everyone.

Valve most of the times doesn't give a fuck about what their customers say, but I don't think they want the legacy of destroying the mod scene.

66,000+ signatures already against it.
https://www.change.org/p/valve-remove-the-paid-content-of-the-steam-workshop

 

[tidy]

.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Valve is getting shredded from a PR standpoint, like absolutely murdered by everyone.

Valve most of the times doesn't give a fuck about what their customers say, but I don't think they want the legacy of destroying the mod scene.

66,000+ signatures already against it.
https://www.change.org/p/valve-remove-the-paid-content-of-the-steam-workshop

Going to have to be a lot more than that..there's what..19million Steam users?

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

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...

No, that's not terrible, and it's why donating directly to the modders is a much better option (well, not better for Bethesda and Valve). The really insidious thing here, these modders in essence become contractual developers without any of the employment benefits and shouldering the entire liability for their work. For 25 cents on the dollar. Valve is at least handling promotion and distribution (but not policing, that remains an unpaid community effort, which is hugely ironic given the subject here). Bethesda just sits back and counts their extra money. This whole endeavor wrecks what makes modding work. Maybe that was the plan.

Going to have to be a lot more than that..there's what..19million Steam users?

I dunno, just looking at the Skyrim reviews this morning, this might have some legs.

 

[Skurge]

And this is why i spread my purchases across steam, origin and GOG.

Pretty odd move from valve. Not sure how they expected this to play out.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

They apparently expected some backlash:

This backlash was always, ALWAYS going to happen. I told Valve as much, and they said they knew. I'm not entirely sure they knew it would be THIS bad, however.

They (and I'm thinking less Valve and more Bethesda here) took a community that has existed over a decade around a spirit of collaboration and exchange and moved it towards competition and selfishness. The more I think about this the angrier I get just over principle.

And what it means for the plans for Fallout 4.

 

[ronbo613]

 

[BSim500]

And this is why i spread my purchases across steam, origin and GOG.

Same here. When the same game (Divinity Original Sin, Witcher 3, etc) is available on both I make a point of getting the GOG version. When one company dominates the entire distribution system, it's inevitable at some point it'll go to their heads...

I have to admit a certain grim satisfaction watching this unfold. Precious Valve who can do no wrong? Oh noes!

Agreed. Given the ongoing "people issues" Valve's customer service has over refunds / region locking policy (for those genuinely emigrating across regions), or how Bethesda have become a little too 'comfortable' with modders fixing the thousands upon thousands of post official patch bugs (some game breaking) and bad consolized UI for them for free to the extent of developing an entitlement mindset to that mod content, the only thing that really surprises me is that it's taken something like this to snap many out of rose-tinted "Valve can do no wrong. Ever. When Gabe farts, the room is filled with rainbows, fairy dust and scent of rose-petals...." almost cult-like fanboyism. :whiste:

And what it means for the plans for Fallout 4.

It means if you buy FO4, then have to pay again for a SkyUI / DarnifiedUI style UI pack to make the game half-playable up close with a keyb+mouse (or even outright bug fixes) with glorified micro-transactions masquerading as "Steam modding", then it'll be one game I'll be completely skipping over along with every future Bethesda title...

 

[JamesV]

And what it means for the plans for Fallout 4.

There is a conflict of interest, that will be exploited just like DLC is.

I foresee games like Fallout having bad design issues like the UI that are intentionally left that way, with the idea that they will profit off of modders fixing the mess. They have zero incentive to make everything the best it could be (because people will buy Fallout anything), and a lot of incentive to leave things half-done or confusing, so when someone fixes it, they make more money.

 

[waggy]

lol bad bad idea. I think this can kill the modding scene. One of the reasons these games have been popular has been the mods. the game itself is so-so. you add in mods and its great.

the backlash is funny though. Gabe was sitting so high on a pedastall I didn't think anything would knock him down. I browsed a few forums and the hate directed at him is insane.

it's rather amusing when a greedy idea backfires.

 

[Artorias]

Well it seem Gabe him self is now responding to the issue.

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33uplp/mods_and_steam/

http://www.reddit.com/user/GabeNewellBellevue?count=26&before=t1_cqojzpq

Some excerpts.

Let's assume for a second that we are stupidly greedy. So far the paid mods have generated $10K total. That's like 1% of the cost of the incremental email the program has generated for Valve employees (yes, I mean pissing off the Internet costs you a million bucks in just a couple of days). That's not stupidly greedy, that's stupidly stupid.
You need a more robust Valve-is-evil hypothesis.

If you are going to ascribe everything we do to being greedy, at least give us credit for being greedy long (value creation) and not greedy short (screwing over customers).

Sky rim is a great example of a game that has benefitted enormously from the MODs. The option for paid MODs is supposed to increase the investment in quality modding, not hurt it.
About half of Valve came straight out of the MOD world. John Cook and Robin Walker made Team Fortress as a Quake mod. Ice frog made DOTA as a Warcraft 3 mod. Dave Riller and Dario Casali we Doom and Quake mappers. John Guthrie and Steve Bond came to Valve because John Carmack thought they were doing the best Quake C development. All of them were liberated to just do game development once they started getting paid. Working at Waffle House does not help you make a better game.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Reading through some I found this too:

[–]NexusDark0ne 4690 points 2 hours ago*x2
Hi Gabe, Robin, owner of Nexus Mods here. Sorry to hear about the issue with your eye.
Can you make a pledge that Valve are going to do everything to prevent, and never allow, the "DRMification" of modding, either by Valve or developers using Steam's tools, and prevent the concept of mods ONLY being allowed to be uploaded to Steam Workshop and no where else, like ModDB, Nexus, etc.?
Edit, for clarity in the question:
For example, if Bethesda wanted to make modding for Fallout 4/TES 6 limited to just Steam Workshop, or even worse, just the paid Workshop, would Valve veto this and prevent it from happening?


Honestly, they will try to spin this however they want, but if it were truly to 'help' the community, taking 75% would never have happened. We'll probably never know the true intentions, and I am one who thinks that there is no issue with donating to mod creators, but where my biggest issue lies is with the incomplete/buggy messes that modders fix in lieu of developer support (Dark Souls for instance). Or all the bug fixes alone in Skyrim. Why should developers (and Valve) get any cut at all for something that the original devs should have fixed in the first place? I get the monetizing MODS requires some sort of kickback to the developer since the original content is still thiers, but it really does seem disproportionate considering they have to do zero work here. To take this to the extreme, just give a shell of a game, and let everyone else write it. You just sit back and reap 75% of the reward. Profit! This is a very misguided approach to something that was never a problem to begin with. The only thing left is money. It's about money.

Next is what is asked above. Imagine them locking down the format that basically auto deletes any 'out of service' mods not downloaded from the workshop?

Saying you will no longer purchase games on Steam really is not an option since 95% of them require Steam.

 

[BSim500]

Well it seem Gabe him self is now responding to the issue.

The more he posts the more patronizing he comes across. I think they've "jumped the shark" on this one. His trademark "you think we're THAT stupid?" dodge-the-issue-whilst-making-it-look-like-the-need-to-respond-to-specific-points-is-below-him act is getting very old.

Next is what is asked above. Imagine them locking down the format that basically auto deletes any 'out of service' mods not downloaded from the workshop?

^ This. As 'innocent' as their "think of the poor starving modders" move seems to be, I think they know full well their end-game is basically to turn platform neutral modding into Steam-only 3rd party DLC (not for existing games like Skyrim, but future ones where Bethesda, etc, may decide to first show a preference for, and then later gradually accept only Steam mods DLC / micro-transactions).

 

[norseamd]

http://uk.pc.gamespy.com/pc/minecraft/1220898p1.html

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

DMCA take down of Cold and Wet:
https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/33tmru/it_appears_more_legal_issues_are_slowly_comming/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/611704730319363608/?insideModal=1
Why this was in fact stupidly stupid.

Edit: Corrected mod title and added better links. And it's still being sold despite the notice?

 

[BFG10K]

I have to admit a certain grim satisfaction watching this unfold. Precious Valve who can do no wrong? Oh noes!

Yep, it's amazing how far people bend over for this company because "Half-Life 2" is great" and "Steam gives me trading cards".

I predict the next step is DRM'ing the mods and the mod system itself. Otherwise it would be too easy for people to extract the necessary files from the paid mods, and just distribute them for free.

Imagine that: DRM in mods. This is what it's going to come to. Now go back to 2004 when the Steam abomination was first released and see who could've predicted it.

This the problem with monopolies, and at this stage Valve has virtually a monopoly on gaming digital distribution. It's time for some anti-trust action.

As for Skyrim, it's already slipped from overwhelmingly positive to very positive. Assuming Valve don't censor things, the game will be downvoted to oblivion (pardon the pun).

 

[TidusZ]

There is a conflict of interest, that will be exploited just like DLC is.

I foresee games like Fallout having bad design issues like the UI that are intentionally left that way, with the idea that they will profit off of modders fixing the mess. They have zero incentive to make everything the best it could be (because people will buy Fallout anything), and a lot of incentive to leave things half-done or confusing, so when someone fixes it, they make more money.

Care for a side of day 1 paid mods with your day 1 DLC ?

Whole thing reminds me of the quote by activision CEO bobby kotick about how he wishes he could sell games for more than $60. Certainly they've all come up with some ideas since then

 

[Lonyo]

Yep, it's amazing how far people bend over for this company because "Half-Life 2" is great" and "Steam gives me trading cards".

I predict the next step is DRM'ing the mods and the mod system itself. Otherwise it would be too easy for people to extract the necessary files from the paid mods, and just distribute them for free.

Imagine that: DRM in mods. This is what it's going to come to. Now go back to 2004 when the Steam abomination was first released and see who could've predicted it.

This the problem with monopolies, and at this stage Valve has virtually a monopoly on gaming digital distribution. It's time for some anti-trust action.

As for Skyrim, it's already slipped from overwhelmingly positive to very positive. Assuming Valve don't censor things, the game will be downvoted to oblivion (pardon the pun).

Some people (on this forum indeed) basically refuse to buy a game unless it's through Steam, and want 100% of their gaming locked up by Steam. It's insane how stupid people are even with just general common sense of not having all your eggs in one basket.

Everyone *SHOULD* know that a monopoly or defacto monopoly tends to be a bad thing. Hell, a certain person who started a certain game developer which opened its own store came from... Microsoft.

What did people expect?

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

I felt like stabbing my eyes out every time I saw "no steam no sale" even before this mess. I love the sales, but steam by nature is DRM and pretty intrusive. And I'm still pissed I had to download a 5GB file full of languages I don't speak to play Bioshock Infinite.