Donations for mods does NOT work

[Astartes]

I am proof donations for mods do not work.

Also, the guy who uploaded wet and cold (plus ineeds) saw over 10x more money than he ever got in donations in his mods life time.

But, I put up a gofundme for my skyrim wasteland mod (I'm not here to advertise for it, go google it if you want a link)...and its gotten so far 3k views on workshop and over 20k views already on moddb. Last I looked 800 something subscribers on steam, and over 500 downloads on moddb.

My gofundme however, only has 77 views...only my two real life friends donated and it wasn't even for the mod it was cause they are good friends. No one has shared on facebook (one of my friends did, the one who didn't pay) and no one has twittered about it. And those are FREE things to do.

However, if I had the opportunity to charge for it on workshop, I'd already have enough to get a new GPU and even maybe a new CPU+ram. Heck, eventually I would have enough to buy a whole new PC as mine is getting old.

However, no one donates...they only want free mods. That is why everyone got so angry is people are cheap these days, and my mod is proof of that.

That does NOT mean no one donates...but the vast majority are like free MMO players...take useless space and won't ever pay for anything and take up bandwidth. They won't even facebook about the mod, won't do anything to help you...download and leave. Thats it.

I was really disappointed steam took out paid mods. Even if they put a donation button... so? No one is going to donate. Like I said, I'd have enough to buy a new GPU by now.

There needs to be a system that is NOT free, and a donation system doesn't work at all. People asking for a donate button, the vast majority (majority, NOT everyone) of those just want a free mod and won't ever donate.

[supertrooper225]

I saw that coming. To be fair, not everyone will be able to donate to all mods. But I hear where you are coming from. I have a feeling that is why many people wanted donations, so they had the choice to opt out of paying. Steam may reintroduce the paid mods plan in the future under a revised plan, until then, things are going to continue the way they normally have.

[charliedrex]

I'm sorry to hear that you based your livelihood on modding, and I'll point out that either a.) you made the decision to try modding for money, rendering the Workshop issue moot (as you knew, going in, that modding was a largely thankless tasking); or, you just came up with this idea when premium mods debuted, and so you were likely VERY far from releasing a product worthy of the kinds of income you were apparently expecting.

[Astartes]

Originally posted by supertrooper225:

I saw that coming. To be fair, not everyone will be able to donate to all mods. But I hear where you are coming from. I have a feeling that is why many people wanted donations, so they had the choice to opt out of paying. Steam may reintroduce the paid mods plan in the future under a revised plan, until then, things are going to continue the way they normally have.

Yeah, and to be honest...I saw the income was earning modders more than a minimum wage job and so I quit my sucky walmart job (they are brutal over there to their employees) expecting to make a living doing something I actually liked.

I really like modding, and so I thought for the first time...I could do something I really enjoy doing in real life and support myself with it. But, guess the whiners and freeloaders won :(

Now I am out of a job and no one donates lol.

[Bad_Conduct]

No one can profit from mods.

If people want to profit from mods, they need to come up with design ideas, submit it to the company for approval. Gain approval, create the mod, submit it to the comany for evaluation, then be released.

If people just design and upload mods at whim, we'll never know who created what and it will turn into a giant legal hole where Steam wins and modders lose.

If you make a mod, the game gets patched and you never fix it, then we all wasted our money. There's a thousand reasons why no one should get paid for mods.

[shoopy]

I'm gonna tell you what everyone kept telling us basically:

You're not forced to make mods.

How does that feel?

[GameGeeks]

Originally posted by Bad_Conduct:

No one can profit from mods.

If people want to profit from mods, they need to come up with design ideas, submit it to the company for approval. Gain approval, create the mod, submit it to the comany for evaluation, then be released.

If people just design and upload mods at whim, we'll never know who created what and it will turn into a giant legal hole where Steam wins and modders lose.

If you make a mod, the game gets patched and you never fix it, then we all wasted our money. There's a thousand reasons why no one should get paid for mods.

That's not quite true, there's a Cities Skyline modder who has a patreon account and is currently making $815 per building he puts out. So it can work. As for the TC, Nexus has been doing a terrible job of letting people know you can donate. They've made changes about that recently so I'd see how things go going forward. Still, I wouldn't expect to make a living off of it and it was foolish to quit your job before seeing how things turned out.

[fortysw4rm]

I've donated quite a bit via Nexus when it comes to mods I really thought deserved it. When it comes to the statistics being thrown around, is anyone breaking it down by minors, people in similar situations as you when it comes to work, and other factors? I guess we're just going to assume everyone is 20+ years old with well paying jobs that simply refuse to donate.

As far as your job situation, you made a premature decision in retrospect based off research for something that only lasted for four days. I really hope you the best in finding a new job.

[Zetachron]

It would work:

Steam sets up a donate-through-Steam-wallet service taking a small share from donations.

Simply test it with charity projects and see it working.

It works because its simple and easy and people are lazy.

Steam earns millions from selling 1-click through wallet with micromoney everyone can afford.

What stops it:

Game company greed like Skyrim with Bethesda.

If Steam earns a million by taking a small share of Skyrim mod donations, Bethesda would want a share from donations or withdraws its products from Steam. Even when a company has no right to take shares from donations spent on a mods work.

[yawning angel]

Originally posted by Vendayn:

Originally posted by supertrooper225:

I saw that coming. To be fair, not everyone will be able to donate to all mods. But I hear where you are coming from. I have a feeling that is why many people wanted donations, so they had the choice to opt out of paying. Steam may reintroduce the paid mods plan in the future under a revised plan, until then, things are going to continue the way they normally have.

Yeah, and to be honest...I saw the income was earning modders more than a minimum wage job and so I quit my sucky walmart job (they are brutal over there to their employees) expecting to make a living doing something I actually liked.

I really like modding, and so I thought for the first time...I could do something I really enjoy doing in real life and support myself with it. But, guess the whiners and freeloaders won :(

Now I am out of a job and no one donates lol.

Though i feel a little bad for you,i have to say quitting your job with the intention of living off modding was pretty damn stupid..

people may play with hundreds of mods stacked while they are free ,but if every mod had a price i guarantee you that only the best and highest rated would get any love..

so that brings me to "well my mod is good enough to be amongst the top 30 on the front pages of the workshop" and if that is truly the case you need to ask yourself why the hell you are nickel and diming for 20% instead of going out and getting a real job making your own games?

Edit..

The mod you submitted seems to run off the back of ENB

Does that mean you would give a percenatge to that author?

[Erebus]

Originally posted by Vendayn:

Yeah, and to be honest...I saw the income was earning modders more than a minimum wage job and so I quit my sucky walmart job (they are brutal over there to their employees) expecting to make a living doing something I actually liked.

I really like modding, and so I thought for the first time...I could do something I really enjoy doing in real life and support myself with it. But, guess the whiners and freeloaders won :(

Now I am out of a job and no one donates lol.

That was a really pre-mature decision. It wasn't that hard to guess that the first foray into this realm would turn into a massive ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

And even if the system didn't go down in flames there is really no guarantee that you'd get anything beyond the few initial sales. There isn't much if any evidence that there is much money to be had from this demographic. (In all honesty how many people that are downloading mods and playing Skyrim all the time do you think truly have decent incomes?)

Never ever "go all in" on an unproven system/scenario.

[意味のない人生]

Originally posted by Vendayn:

Originally posted by supertrooper225:

I saw that coming. To be fair, not everyone will be able to donate to all mods. But I hear where you are coming from. I have a feeling that is why many people wanted donations, so they had the choice to opt out of paying. Steam may reintroduce the paid mods plan in the future under a revised plan, until then, things are going to continue the way they normally have.

Yeah, and to be honest...I saw the income was earning modders more than a minimum wage job and so I quit my sucky walmart job (they are brutal over there to their employees) expecting to make a living doing something I actually liked.

I really like modding, and so I thought for the first time...I could do something I really enjoy doing in real life and support myself with it. But, guess the whiners and freeloaders won :(

Now I am out of a job and no one donates lol.

I had sympathy until that comment about whiners and freeloaders, as I happen to one of the many who voted against paid mods. Thanks for insulting us who were trying to defend one of the last great PC gaming traditions that hasn't been completely poisoned by corporate greed. Douchebag.

[Amarok]

Originally posted by Vendayn:

Originally posted by supertrooper225:

I saw that coming. To be fair, not everyone will be able to donate to all mods. But I hear where you are coming from. I have a feeling that is why many people wanted donations, so they had the choice to opt out of paying. Steam may reintroduce the paid mods plan in the future under a revised plan, until then, things are going to continue the way they normally have.

Yeah, and to be honest...I saw the income was earning modders more than a minimum wage job and so I quit my sucky walmart job (they are brutal over there to their employees) expecting to make a living doing something I actually liked.

I really like modding, and so I thought for the first time...I could do something I really enjoy doing in real life and support myself with it. But, guess the whiners and freeloaders won :(

Now I am out of a job and no one donates lol.

Sorry to add my voice to the others saying similar stuff, but if you really quit your job within hours of the 'paid mods' debacle starting then that was an immature and ill thought out move.

As someone who has donated to modders and who did pay for premium membership on Nexus, I never felt 'entitled' to mods and do truly believe that it is important to recognise gifted work with more than simple praise on occasion, BUT...

...it must remain optional for many reasons...

[To name a few...]

-Modding your game is a trial & error process often involving dozens/hundreds of mods
many of which you will ultimately remove within days of download because they aren't right
for you
-Some simply can't afford the additional expense
-Some are minors with no income stream, and some of these WILL BE the next gen of
modders, directly because they were inspired by the mods they used themselves
-Some are new to modding and 'trial & error' becomes expensive when you pay for every 'error'
-If 'paid mods' is introduced, the entire motivation behind modding changes
-New issues emerge, such as plagarism, theft of intellectual property etc
-The costs to a modder 'should' legal issues such as these arise could be staggering

and, I'm sorry to say...

-Nobody 'asked' you to do it...

Don't misunderstand me, I'm enormously grateful to all the modders out there that have given their time and expertise to enhance and extend the lives of games I've loved, BUT...

If someone put food in front of me and says 'help yourself'... me choosing to eat is not 'entitled' behaviour.
I may choose to offer money to recognise their generosity, I may choose simply to say 'thankyou' and tell others of that persons altruistic act... but that choice must be mine.

If that same person put food in front of me and said, if you eat that, it'll cost you £2... I'd simply do without, particularly if I had no way of knowing how it would taste..!

I respect that fact that others may disagree with my point of view, but the voices that joined together in a deafening chorus when paid mods were introduced were all against the idea.

I saw almost no 'chorus' of approval FOR paid mods, only a few who claimed they represented the 'silent majority', but who couldn't for some reason get the 'silent majority' to make their voices heard.

There was no 8000+ thread SUPPORTING paid mods.. was there?

[|ICH| Der Typ mit der Wumme]

The problem here is: basically people don't "want" free mods, I would go so far to say: they don't even want (in terms of need) mods at all! If it's there: nice, why not give it a go, try out and maybe they improve their experience of an already paid game! If it's not there: why bother? Game's good as it is! In times where a lot of people, espacially of the older generation gamers, are really not seeing bright times (speaking of Season Pass, DLC and Microtransaction policy's) the LAST THING they want to do is pay EVEN MORE (allthough it would be just small amounts, the psychological effect is what counts!) for some extra content!!! It just won't work that way, it never has!

[Twisted]

If you are passionate about your hobby, you will do what ever you need to become an actual developer in the gaming industry. Its a hard road but don't ever blame others for your lack of willing to put an effort in.

Calling people names for wanting something to stay how it has always been shows a lack of character, quite possibly you dont put the full effort into your every day job as you deem it below your worth, a common misplaced atitude in people today, your worth is only deemed by your work attitude and willingness to do what is needed.

How many mods have you tried in the past and did you donate to each one of them?

[misato_katzuragi1987]

interesting thing to say donations for mods do not work, while in steam workshop there is NO OPTION of donations! and ofc they dont work if pple have to go round round to that site then that site and then choose a payment method they dont support, its like making some1 jump through looops just to make him do some thank you with what they can afford. The truth is there will never be donation button on steam cause neither valve nor bethesda want that donation work.