Paid mods could be coming back?

[Pendy]

http://www.pcgamer.com/valve-modders-absolutely-need-to-be-paid/

Gabe, you know I like using steam, and I enjoy hat fortress 2, but please be reasonable here. After the first attempt, do you guys honestly think anyone here would be for paid mods?

[Sa†o]

Joe Cool님이 먼저 게시:

WhiteKnight77님이 먼저 게시:

Again, just because Valve wants to allow modders to sell mods, that does not mean that freeware mods will stop to exist or that anyone has to buy payware. To state that Valve should pay modders is the real strawman. It has been repeatedly shown that payware has worked side by side with freeware for around 26 years with no problems. It is only a handful of people here on these forums who object to it when thousands (maybe millions) of people have paid for and used said mods in games.

Object to the way Steam tried to do it before, but just that and not the fact that something that works does work, even if you keep wanting to state otherwise.

WhiteKnight there is a VAST difference between the so called "mods that have existed for 26 years" that you keep mentioning, and Valve's push to make paid mods a MAINSTREAM thing. (that's the key issue here, their push to make them mainstream)

For the past "26 years" the overwhelming vast majority of mods have been free, and the "paid for mods" you mention have been an extremely small, ultra tiny, so small they're almost non-existent, niche thing.

But as I've said already, there's too many naive people going "well they deserve to get paid" without even thinking for a split second about the reprecussions, and so modding as we know it is dead.

In 5-10 years games with large modding scenes like Skyrim, are going to be something that only the extremely rich can afford. (if they even have large modding scenes anymore!)

$60 for the game
$60 for "season pass" to get all the game's content the developers cut
$1 per mod (a laughably low estimate of what they will cost!) + 200 mods = $200+

Final cost for the next Elder Scrolls game = $320 absolute bare minimum

So $300+ just to make the game worth playing (because just like Skyrim it will be utter garbage without hundreds of mods to "fix" Bethesda's poor quality)


And of course since Bethseda will be getting a cut, they'll be able to slack off and do even less work than before, requiring more mods to "fix" their poor quality, thus earning them more money. Seriously it blows my mind that anyone could be foolish enough to support this.

imelman님이 먼저 게시:

Paid mods are going to be even more uncontrollable than Early Access and Greenlight combined, with people stealing mods from each other, Valve being unable to police each mod, people making threads everywhere, modders being crippled and discouraged in general and Valve will try to justify by but they need money! Except they are already rich enough, and people can't just pay then refund the mod to test it before keeping, as Valve doesn't regulate every refund nor the modder can't pay money back, which causes even more hassle for everyone.

This highlights another glaring problem with making paid mods mainstream. Those in support of this have no clue how often modders help each other out. Bringing money into the equation will rapidly put a stop to that. Modders will no longer seek help from more experienced modders, for fear of getting their mod idea stolen.

"And of course since Bethseda will be getting a cut, they'll be able to slack off and do even less work than before, requiring more mods to "fix" their poor quality, thus earning them more money. Seriously it blows my mind that anyone could be foolish enough to support this."

^This part here is so true it's scary. They will get more money for making the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ games in the future.

[Tito Shivan]

Joe Cool님이 먼저 게시:

For the past "26 years" the overwhelming vast majority of mods have been free, and the "paid for mods" you mention have been an extremely small, ultra tiny, so small they're almost non-existent, niche thing.

Because mods could not be legally monetised. Simple as that. That's why the only way to support mod makers was to 'donate to the guy who makes them'
Mods could never have a pricetag.

Joe Cool님이 먼저 게시:

$60 for the game
$60 for "season pass" to get all the game's content the developers cut
$1 per mod (a laughably low estimate of what they will cost!) + 200 mods = $200+

Final cost for the next Elder Scrolls game = $320 absolute bare minimum

You don't 'need' all those mods. And on the other hand, not every mod will become paid. As it has happened on every other similar platform (software, 3D assets, game assets) that have paid storefronts.

Joe Cool님이 먼저 게시:

So $300+ just to make the game worth playing (because just like Skyrim it will be utter garbage without hundreds of mods to "fix" Bethesda's poor quality)

That's an outreach of I've ever seen one.
I have Skyrim working with literally 2 mods.

Joe Cool님이 먼저 게시:

And of course since Bethseda will be getting a cut, they'll be able to slack off and do even less work than before, requiring more mods to "fix" their poor quality, thus earning them more money. Seriously it blows my mind that anyone could be foolish enough to support this.

Of course. That's how making money legally from a derivative work works on the real world. OTOH you can always make and release it for free. Just like now.

imelman님이 먼저 게시:

Paid mods are going to be even more uncontrollable than Early Access and Greenlight combined, with people stealing mods from each other, Valve being unable to police each mod, people making threads everywhere, modders being crippled and discouraged in general and Valve will try to justify by but they need money! Except they are already rich enough, and people can't just pay then refund the mod to test it before keeping, as Valve doesn't regulate every refund nor the modder can't pay money back, which causes even more hassle for everyone.

That was the problem of trying it with a game with an existing mod volume as big as skyrim. This is also a problem that's been already solved by every asset store out there (actually it's easier to pursue these problems on a paid platform, as there's an existing legal ground)

imelman님이 먼저 게시:

This highlights another glaring problem with making paid mods mainstream. Those in support of this have no clue how often modders help each other out. Bringing money into the equation will rapidly put a stop to that. Modders will no longer seek help from more experienced modders, for fear of getting their mod idea stolen.

Or not, again there's lot of sinergies between asset makers on every existing paid asset store. Well never know unless we try.

[Joe Cool]

Tito Shivan님이 먼저 게시:

Because mods could not be legally monetised. Simple as that.

Except the fact that there have been paid mods for 26 years proves that they can. Simple as that.

Tito Shivan님이 먼저 게시:

You don't 'need' all those mods. I have Skyrim working with literally 2 mods.

So what? Skyrim "works" with zero mods.

Sorry but all that means is that you have extremely low standards for quality. Just like console players. They play vanilla Skyrim with zero mods and are happy. I play on PC specifically for the better quality, which in the case of a game like Skyrim can only be attained with extensive modding.

Just because one person is happy with a turd, doesn't mean everyone will be. We don't "need" community servers with a browser to play online games either, we have matchmaking. That doesn't mean everyone can stand suffering through the torture of playing a matchmaking based title.

If Skyrim had no modding scene, I would have never bought it. Same goes with Fallout 4. Neither game is worth a **** without extensive modding.

Tito Shivan님이 먼저 게시:

Joe Cool님이 먼저 게시:

And of course since Bethseda will be getting a cut, they'll be able to slack off and do even less work than before, requiring more mods to "fix" their poor quality, thus earning them more money. Seriously it blows my mind that anyone could be foolish enough to support this.

Of course. That's how making money legally from a derivative work works on the real world. OTOH you can always make and release it for free. Just like now.

So you're perfectly ok with developers completely slacking off and releasing utter crap quality titles on purpose so that more mods will need to be made... I....just....yeah. There's no hope of reasoning with that kind of "big business is our friend" mentality.

You must also be perfectly ok with companies that intentionally design things so that they will break and the customer will need to buy replacement parts.

Tito Shivan님이 먼저 게시:

Well never know unless we try.

Except once we try, we will never be able to go back to the way it was before.

[Dimebag]

Tito Shivan님이 먼저 게시:

Well never know unless we try.

"We" already have and like last time it will be a ♥♥♥♥ show . Keep pushing the nickel and diming ...... there are plenty of other options out there .

[WhiteKnight77]

Alien님이 먼저 게시:

WhiteKnight77님이 먼저 게시:

Care to explain how payware mods have been sold on Steam for more than 6 years already without issues?

Please explain. Because last I checked DayZ, Black Mesa and Counter-Strike aren't mods anymore.

Check these out: Game 1, all 3rd party payware; Game 2, the vast majority is 3rd party, and while these have been on Steam for 2 or 3 years now, game 3was originally released in 2009 and has been on Steam since then and has over $6000 worth of official and 3rd party DLC and payware mods. I bought this in 2010 shortly after I purchased the game.

Joe Cool님이 먼저 게시:

WhiteKnight77님이 먼저 게시:

Again, just because Valve wants to allow modders to sell mods, that does not mean that freeware mods will stop to exist or that anyone has to buy payware. To state that Valve should pay modders is the real strawman. It has been repeatedly shown that payware has worked side by side with freeware for around 26 years with no problems. It is only a handful of people here on these forums who object to it when thousands (maybe millions) of people have paid for and used said mods in games.

Object to the way Steam tried to do it before, but just that and not the fact that something that works does work, even if you keep wanting to state otherwise.

WhiteKnight there is a VAST difference between the so called "mods that have existed for 26 years" that you keep mentioning, and Valve's push to make paid mods a MAINSTREAM thing. (that's the key issue here, their push to make them mainstream)

For the past "26 years" the overwhelming vast majority of mods have been free, and the "paid for mods" you mention have been an extremely small, ultra tiny, so small they're almost non-existent, niche thing.

But as I've said already, there's too many naive people going "well they deserve to get paid" without even thinking for a split second about the reprecussions, and so modding as we know it is dead.

In 5-10 years games with large modding scenes like Skyrim, are going to be something that only the extremely rich can afford. (if they even have large modding scenes anymore!)

$60 for the game
$60 for "season pass" to get all the game's content the developers cut
$1 per mod (a laughably low estimate of what they will cost!) + 200 mods = $200+

Final cost for the next Elder Scrolls game = $320 absolute bare minimum

So $300+ just to make the game worth playing (because just like Skyrim it will be utter garbage without hundreds of mods to "fix" Bethesda's poor quality)


And of course since Bethseda will be getting a cut, they'll be able to slack off and do even less work than before, requiring more mods to "fix" their poor quality, thus earning them more money. Seriously it blows my mind that anyone could be foolish enough to support this.

What you call so called mods are from modders who wanted to sell such. In fact, those mods are big business. I play a variety of games and bookmark websites for those games to include fansites, if there are any, or to guides or to mods. The biggest folder of bookmarks I have for any game is that game franchise due to the vast number of modders for both free and payware mods. Those payware mods are a multi-million dollar business in multiple countries around the world. Said game franchise even has a dedicated hardware business in instrument panels, flight controls and other necessary accouterments. While CSGO might be popular with certain gamers, flight sims are popular with people who have large sums of disposable income and lots of time.

http://www.incaland.com/pirana/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/article_dsc02052.jpg

http://www.avsim.com/pages/1013/Horton17/B737NG-75.jpg

Ask yourself why a game first released in 2006 is still popular today and that this[www.prepar3d.com] from Lockheed Martin has all these developers[www.prepar3d.com] selling mods as well?

[RedLightning]

I will point out that where fsx and its brothers are concerned.. there is not a lot of 'freeware' that comes out for the sim these days..

Before FS9 and FSX payware got big there were tons of freeware.

[BlackSpawn]

When you have a captive audience in a niche environment, you can get away with nickeling and diming them up the arse, as there are no real alternatives. There is no competition.

In the case of Valve / Steam, limited competition in the PC gaming marketplace at large is allowing them to escalate the monetization and the underlying business practices, to the point where they deem shoehorning an unregulated unvetted paid community mod marketplace into paid games a reasonable option.

[WhiteKnight77]

RedLightning님이 먼저 게시:

I will point out that where fsx and its brothers are concerned.. there is not a lot of 'freeware' that comes out for the sim these days..

Before FS9 and FSX payware got big there were tons of freeware.

There are places one can still get freeware, AVSIM and FlightSim.com are the two biggest places to get freeware. As far as it still getting made? I can't say as I haven't downloaded any in a while. My FS9 folder is almost 100GB in size, most of it AI aircraft and it is all freeware.

[Joe Cool]

WhiteKnight77님이 먼저 게시:

What you call so called mods are from modders who wanted to sell such. In fact, those mods are big business. I play a variety of games and bookmark websites for those games to include fansites, if there are any, or to guides or to mods. The biggest folder of bookmarks I have for any game is that game franchise due to the vast number of modders for both free and payware mods. Those payware mods are a multi-million dollar business in multiple countries around the world. Said game franchise even has a dedicated hardware business in instrument panels, flight controls and other necessary accouterments. While CSGO might be popular with certain gamers, flight sims are popular with people who have large sums of disposable income and lots of time.

http://www.incaland.com/pirana/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/article_dsc02052.jpg

http://www.avsim.com/pages/1013/Horton17/B737NG-75.jpg

Ask yourself why a game first released in 2006 is still popular today and that this[www.prepar3d.com] from Lockheed Martin has all these developers[www.prepar3d.com] selling mods as well?

All you are doing is further proving that we do not need paid mods on Steam.

Modders who want to get paid clearly already have multiple avenues to pursue.


I say again we do not need to destroy modding forever by monetizing it and making paid mods mainstream.

But like I've also said before, there's too many naive people going "herp derp they need to be paid herp derp" without giving any thought about the consequences.

Valve isn't going to let this go, sooner or later they will push paid modding through in an attempt to make them a mainstream thing.

All we can do is hope that the overwhelming majority of mod makers tell Steam to **** off, and people stop buying moddable games on Steam in protest. It would be sweet as hell if they push this through and sales on all moddable games drop like a rock.

[Amarok]

Joe Cool님이 먼저 게시:

Valve isn't going to let this go, sooner or later they will push paid modding through in an attempt to make them a mainstream thing.

All we can do is hope that the overwhelming majority of mod makers tell Steam to **** off, and people stop buying moddable games on Steam in protest. It would be sweet as hell if they push this through and sales on all moddable games drop like a rock.

I agree with you on this... Valve is not going to let this go and will simply keep pushing it again and again until the issue becomes tired enough that people can't be bothered to repeat the same arguments for the upteenth time, and that 'exhausted silence' will be translated as the community being complicit in the (mainstream) monetization of mods.

From there, I can only hope that sufficient numbers of us will have the tenacity, focus and motivation to spread the word and hopefully realise that 'sweet as hell' scenario where their greed backfires sufficiently that the issue can finally be put out of its misery.

For me, this is like Valve spitting in the eye of the gamers and modders who have supported them with their patronage over the years since Steam came about and is indicative of a company that has sadly lost sight of what earned it the virtual monopoly it has on the PC gaming market.

With Microsoft gearing up to challenge companies like Steam's dominance in that market, perhaps issues like this will represent the beginnings of the end for PC gaming's status quo...

[PR 36]

Lamont님이 먼저 게시:

Tito Shivan님이 먼저 게시:

Which ironically is what the paid mods look to offer. A platform between modders and devs/publishers so they can do exactly that.

You are forcing the mod maker to go single-handed to the publisher to make a deal. You sure know how much of a business oportunity they're going to get individually.


Why Isn't Adobe reaching into THEIR big deep MULTI-BILLIONAIRE pockets and coughing up then to all the makers of photoshop plugins?
Why doesn't Adobe release all those plugins as official under their brand.
Why doesn't Autodesk do the same... And those are programs and plugins that cost a metric ton more money than a AAA game.
Another example of paid software mods that's been working for decades. Why can't the same work for games, again?

That logic is so flawed that hasn't made any sense since the first time you used it. And it isn't making more sense now. Valve doesn't need to pay modders from their own pockets for the same reason Adobe doesn't for plugin makers. That business is between the plugin/mod maker and the final customer.

That's perhaps a question for Adobe to answer on an Adobe forum Tito, besides, we for the most part aren't 'customers' of modders, but Valve seen keen to make us just that and take a big slice for themselves, maybe that's the real reason behind this sham of altruism from Valve then, don't you agree?

That's flawed logic anyway because Adobe actually does provide something for the money payed. Steam, devs in case of mods - does not. And they'd want to take the bigger cut, heh.

Further more, legal questions (sides the obvious and already written down), do you intend to charge for past downloads as well? Say, Skyrim, I have around 60 mods, new ppl will be charged, how about me? Will you suddenly change the agreement between me and the modder as soon as I hit the 'subscribe' (kinda shady since there is no such warning "terms can change")? Will we be just getting a two weeks notice? What if I am not online for a year, will I suddenly owe Steam hundreds of dollars?

How about - mods break, are not compatible between themselves, need to be updated 24/7, who's gonna make sure of that? You can't charge for a thing, then run for the hills, saying you signed the contract lol. Say modder did not update, when will I be getting my money back, who will return it to me? Maybe mod changed so much, it's not the same/why I actually sub'd for? Or lets say I want two incompatible mods, I sub'd both with intention (yup, legally, that matters) they will work together, they don't but also there's no way of knowing it sides trying... See where I'm going? Those are all very legit concerns and legal questions that need to be answered before action.

Care about modders? Donate button, it will solve every concern for the modders but negate all those negative ones I (and others) have written before. I know who I'd donate to already. But the moment such thing happens (payed mods) I'm out of here simply for the disgust. There are plenty of ways to spend free time, gaming is not the only one.

[Delta Farce]

Let's clear this up right now. Nobody forces mod makers to put in the time and effort they do. They do it because they love the game, they believe in the mod they are making and they want to share that mod with other people so that they can enjoy it as much as they do. If you make mods with the expectation that you should be getting paid for your work, then you are NOT making mods for the right reason and I urge you to stop because that is not what the mod community is about.

If Valve wants mod makers to earn some money, then they should pay them. Forcing gamers to pay mod makers also puts an unrecognized burden on the mod maker. How? Its simple, once a mod maker gets paid for their work, then they are obligated for the rest of time to ensure that their mods are compatible with the latest version of the game. Them failing to update mod could get them sued by angry users.

Gus the Crocodile님이 먼저 게시:

Pendleton님이 먼저 게시:

do you guys honestly think anyone here would be for paid mods?

Hi, I'm a person here, and I am entirely in favour of people being able to charge for their work, regardless of what that work is. If you make cakes and want to sell your cakes, cool, go ahead. If you make mods and want to sell your mods, cool, go ahead. If you want to give your work away for free, cool, go ahead. If you want to charge, and people decide they don't think your work is worth buying, they can go without it, that's fine.

Albcatmastercat님이 먼저 게시:

It would probably spawn duplicates of popular mods for easy money...

By the same logic, being able to charge for videogames means spawning duplicates of popular videogames for easy money, so let's outlaw charging money for videogames.

[Madjake]

Why don't steam pay the modders based on how many downloads they have like Youtube. Where that extra money comes from would have to be discussed but that would be better than just making the workshop paid content.

[Lamont]

Zig07님이 먼저 게시:

Why don't steam pay the modders based on how many downloads they have like Youtube. Where that extra money comes from would have to be discussed but that would be better than just making the workshop paid content.

Because they don't get to charge a large fee for themselves first and foremost perhaps?

[PR 36]

Wasn't directed at you Lamont, but the guy you were quoting (who also stated it is the same thing, but it isn't - whole point of first paragraph), I just nodded in your direction.

Anyways, have a nice day!