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Valve Starts Charging Money for User Made Mods

Jedizora

:right:
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Feb 25, 2010
Link to Source: http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/aboutpaidcontent/

For those too lazy to read the article, Valve is now allowing users to start charging money for mods that they create on the steam workshop, starting with the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Users are allowed to set the price at their own discretion, and they only recieve 25% of profits made. Presumably, Valve pockets the rest.

As it stands, they currently have a bundle for 17 mods, for the price of $28.25. And that's a discount. Normally, it'd be $38.35. Compare this to the actual price of Skyrim, $20, or the price it's currently at, (On sale) $5. Now, every mod listed in the bundle used to be free. There is no changes between the free version you could download yesterday, and the paid version up today. In fact, I guarantee you could find every single mod in the bundle, for free, in a place where the creator originally uploaded it.

So, thoughts on this?
 

Mercedes

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It's great! Something that's been long overdue and I'm happy to see finally make it in. For ages now modders have been creating high quality content, some of which can rival, even exceed, DLC the developers later release. DLC which we have to pay for. So I don't personally see an issue with someone charging for a mod they made if they believe it's worth the money. If it's over-priced or not worth it, we don't buy it, just like we don't buy DLC or full games if they're over-priced or not worth it. Simple!

Valve have always charged us for user-made content, too; the only difference is they 'officially' add in the content. User-made content is added into the game via a patch, and the creator receives money just as they would doing this if somebody purchases it. All this does is cut out the middle man. Time will tell what'll happen, but, on the face of it I see this as a positive thing overall.
 
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This allows people to earn a profit from their work and creations. Yes valve finds way's to penny you but it's never in an entirely unfair or forced method. The game can still be enjoyed without the use of mods.

This may also encourage modders to take on bigger projects knowing that they may receive more payoff to their work than praise.
 

Terminus

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I mean, sure it allows for people to make money off of what they make, but this screws anyone unlucky enough to get in on the whole "using mods" train this late AND it rips off the creators (Steam does NOT need 75 percent, that's a money grab).
 

Mercedes

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I mean, sure it allows for people to make money off of what they make, but this screws anyone unlucky enough to get in on the whole "using mods" train this late AND it rips off the creators (Steam does NOT need 75 percent, that's a money grab).

If that's true I definitely don't agree with that, the cut which Valve is taking. And it's odd, too, sort of comes from nowhere; in CS:GO and Dota 2, the cut is 70:30 in favour of the content creator. It seems odd this would be flipped around for the Workshop.

But with that said, I trust Valve. I don't think they'd screw people over. So, whether this is fangirling or not, or just Valve not giving me reason to doubt them, I don't believe this will be down to greed.
 

Kylo Ken

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This isn't good news for PC owners. Part of the allure to have a PC is that you can create and share mods to games freely with others, something that isn't easily done with consoles. Now, it's just like console DLC.
 
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Jedizora

:right:
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Feb 25, 2010
So, as it turns out, Modders don't even get paid until they (the modder) receives a payout of $100. Meaning, the modders won't make a penny unless they sell $400.
Source: http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/workshoppaymentinfofaq/#Payments

Also, some of the Modders who have flagged their work for sale seem to be profiting off other's resources. From /u/avatarair on reddit, "Perms? Ha, that hasn't seemed to stop Isoku with his use of SKSE, or Chesko with his use of FNIS assets".
Several modders resource makers over on the skyrim nexus have announced that they won't be making anymore resources available to the general public, due to fear of it others profiting on them.
 

Jamie

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It's great! Something that's been long overdue and I'm happy to see finally make it in. For ages now modders have been creating high quality content, some of which can rival, even exceed, DLC the developers later release. DLC which we have to pay for. So I don't personally see an issue with someone charging for a mod they made if they believe it's worth the money. If it's over-priced or not worth it, we don't buy it, just like we don't buy DLC or full games if they're over-priced or not worth it. Simple!

Valve have always charged us for user-made content, too; the only difference is they 'officially' add in the content. User-made content is added into the game via a patch, and the creator receives money just as they would doing this if somebody purchases it. All this does is cut out the middle man. Time will tell what'll happen, but, on the face of it I see this as a positive thing overall.
Huh. Didn't know these patches would cause a price increase of nearly $40, making a $20 game cost $60. Good ol Valve, allowing us to save money at every turn.
 

Justac00lguy

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Huh. Didn't know these patches would cause a price increase of nearly $40, making a $20 game cost $60. Good ol Valve, allowing us to save money at every turn.
Yea I definitely agree with this. Making money off something which has been free since forever and isn't even made by themselves is an obvious cash grab in my opinion. It might benefit a few content creators, but it does not benefit 99% of the other gamers who will now have to pay well over the asking price for content that is usually free. Custom made mods is a huge selling point for PC gaming and a big part of that is because it is solely the community making it available and accessible free of charge. Now though, you could have multiple companies leeching of its success, which I think is awful.
 

Salem

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2 questions
  • From what I understand, the mod creator has the OPTION to charge a price or not, correct?
  • How will this affect copyright? Or how will COPYRIGHT affect this?
 

Jedizora

:right:
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2 questions
  • From what I understand, the mod creator has the OPTION to charge a price or not, correct?
  • How will this affect copyright? Or how will COPYRIGHT affect this?
1. Correct. They set a 'recommended price', as well as a minimum price.
2. Hard to say. I don't believe any mods are copyrighted; however, there are already cases of resources from other mods being put into paid mods, which is, imo, totally unacceptable.

Anyway, yesterday, 19 mods were put up. Today, 17 remain, as mod maker Chesko, who put up FNIS (A fishing mod, I believe) and 'Arissa; The Wondering Rogue' as paid content, has withdrawn support from the Workshop, and has attempted to take his files off the workshop altogether. However, although the files are now shown as not downloadable, they still appear on the workshop despite his best effort to remove them. He has recieved a letter from Valve's lawyers, basically telling him to **** off, and they refuse to remove the content unless 'legally obligated to do so'. Sadly, Chesko appears to have left the skyrim modding community altogether over the drama this has created. Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/33qcaj/the_experiment_has_failed_my_exit_from_the/

Sadly, not every modder is against Valve. Snakster, maker of SkyUI, which is essentially the most important mod made for skyrim, has decided to discontinue support for the free version found on the Nexus, and plan all future updates on the paid Steam Workshop. The reaction to this has not been pleasant, to say the least.

So yeah, thank you Valve, for trying to ruin the best modding scene I've ever seen. EA and Origin are looking better and better.
 
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Another ****ty company destroying a community? How shocking! It's not like the fundamentally backwards, incompetent and ******** corporate ad producers gaming industry has ever done anything like this before.

I hope this severely hurts Valve. I also hope that they never release another game and that all other companies follow suit and die. Gaming is just interactive movies interspersed with ads from their sponsors, the sooner the gaming industry dies, the better for gaming. Almost as bad as the record industry, no innovation or creativity allowed, everything must be the same and be as dumbed down as possible.

Sadly, not every modder is against Valve. Snakster, maker of SkyUI, which is essentially the most important mod made for skyrim, has decided to discontinue support for the free version found on the Nexus, and plan all future updates on the paid Steam Workshop. The reaction to this has not been pleasant, to say the least.

That really sucks. I expect this alone will kill off a large portion of Skyrim modding. I've seen lots of people leave modding communities when **** like this started happening, it's going to be a disaster. I don't understand people's blind worship of Valve, they've been ****ty for a long time and this is just another instance in a long history of bull****. Burn it all.
 

Emma

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Anyway, yesterday, 19 mods were put up. Today, 17 remain, as mod maker Chesko, who put up FNIS (A fishing mod, I believe) and 'Arissa; The Wondering Rogue' as paid content, has withdrawn support from the Workshop, and has attempted to take his files off the workshop altogether. However, although the files are now shown as not downloadable, they still appear on the workshop despite his best effort to remove them. He has recieved a letter from Valve's lawyers, basically telling him to **** off, and they refuse to remove the content unless 'legally obligated to do so'. Sadly, Chesko appears to have left the skyrim modding community altogether over the drama this has created. Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/33qcaj/the_experiment_has_failed_my_exit_from_the/
The first mod was called Art of the Catch. It uses custom animations. Custom animations used to be impossible in Skyrim and the only platform that makes it possible is FNIS, Fores New Idles In Skyrim by Fore. So, any mod in Skyrim that adds new animations requires the use of FNIS. Fore already made it clear that distrubuting parts of his mod to be sold for profit was not allowed, and he just clarified it more recently. Here is Fore commenting that he did not give permission to use his mod commerically:
1223191462736287561.jpg

This effectively bars the Steam Workshop from having ANY paid mods that include new animations. The fact that Valve didn't seem to care about using another mod's assets is a very bad sign of exactly how well they thought this through (not at all). They said it was fair game. And that... is very bad. A first year law student could tell you that absolutely is wrong. Common sense tells you that is wrong!
 
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Jedizora

:right:
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Feb 25, 2010
The first mod was called Art of the Catch. It uses custom animations. Custom animations used to be impossible in Skyrim and the only platform that makes it possible is FNIS, Fores New Idles In Skyrim by Fore.
Ah, thanks for the correction. I knew that a mod called FNIS was involved in someway, although couldn't remember how.

Anyway, some people over at Reddit have collected a series of statements from large mod makers on the subject of monetization. I didn't get the chance to read through all of them, but the general verdict? Not looking good for Valve. You read the statements at the following link.http://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/33puev/official_sw_monetization_discussion_thread_pt_2/.
The list is being updated, so if you know of any other large mod makers who made an announcement on this that isn't on the list, be sure to send the thread maker over at reddit a PM.
 

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