Valve adds paid modding

Chanur_sl said:

There was literally nothing stopping modders from putting up a website and selling their mods before. In fact I would prefer something like that so the creators can get all the money.

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Not only was nothing stopping them from doing it, peopleweredoing it. Step away from the Nexus and look at (say) flight sims and there'salreadya mix of free and paid mods and have been for years.

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I think it's great. I think 25% is a little too low, but on the other hand, there's steams cut, the publisher/dev cut, and then the mod cut. I'm positive Valve will take 30% across the board like they do with everything else on steam which I'm okay with honestly.

Don't like the mods? Don't fuckin' buy 'em. But I honestly feel like this will lead to more games releasing dev tools which in turn will eventually lead to a much higher quality in modding games in general and people will have to step it up. It's a complete over-reaction to say this will destroy modding. Modding is going absolutely nowhere. Go donate on nexus if you really care about the creators getting paid, otherwise just shut the fuck up and don't buy mods? Like everything else in this world, vote with your money.

There is the current issue of people posting mods that they didn't make but I see that going away very fast. It's already happened, even.

Interesting read here from the author of the mod that got pulled:

The experiment has failed: My exit from the curated Workshop : skyrimmods

In the end, he says he pissed because Valve is still making the mod available to those who paid for it but I think you have an even bigger shitstorm if those who bought it can't access it anymore.

The biggest issue right now is how inter-connected most mods are now. Every major (and nearly all minor) mods are built using community produced resources and tools, and use assets, models, and code from other friendly modders. This problem is ripping apart the community, because all those people who freely shared those creations with other modders are now demanding that their part of the mods be removed from the paysite or else they will quit the modding scene. So Valve either removes whole sections of sold mods (and essentially removes stuff that people will have already paid for) or else keeps them in and obliterates the modding community.

Dr. Mario Speedwagon_sl said:

Turning modding from a hobby into a for profit venture will destroy it. Modding won't cease to exist but the current community will definitely be destroyed. As a gamer and consumer, I can't think of anything good about this.

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Counter-Strike was a hobby mod turned for profit venture. So were countless other games whose communities have only grew and in turn released much higher quality gameplay. I choose to look at it that way, though. I feel your point but free mods aren't going anywhere. I will be worried once the devs/valve themselves start doing shit like making modding a game for free illegal.

The issue is less with the concept but more the execution. Had Valve launched this with ONLY new games, then there wouldn't be a problem. Instead, they launched it with Skyrim and a four year old community with already established ground rules gets completely upended. From a legal perspective this is a nightmare because of the interconnectedness of Skyim's mods. At least if it were a new game the ground rules with regards to using others work would be apparent.

I'm feeling like that is the case though with Skyrim as a testing grounds and Source 2 set to release this year. For a long time they used TF2 as a testing grounds for the rest of their games, and with the announcement that Source 2 will be launching with complete modding capability and full engine code released to the public as well as professional AAA companies for the same price.. I'm going to imagine they are going to make a market for mods, just like every other competitor engine has right now.

So fuck it, they're taking a chance. So far it's completely backfiring but so did stupid as shit hats and free to play.

Radge_sl said:

So Valve either removes whole sections of sold mods (and essentially removes stuff that people will have already paid for) or else keeps them in and obliterates the modding community.

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One modder who signed up yesterday with the program has already tried to remove his mod because it uses FNIS, who stated they're not happy with mods using their stuff and charging for it. This guy decided to do the right thing and pull his mod and Valve told him they will stop selling it but not remove it from the market. In some ways I see their position on this because people have already paid for it and should keep access but the modder has just learned a lesson here, once he accepts money he stops having full control of his creation.

In other news Skyrim Nexus has said they're going to look at tweaking their donation support to make it more ovbious and flexible for the people who would rather rely on donations than put their stuff behind a paywall.

IMO the best/most useful mods to Bethesda games are the ones which fix the thousands of bugs they leave in their games long after release (often creating new ones with each new patch as well).

I can't think of a more bullshit situation than mods such as those showing up on Steam Workshop to be sold, and Bethesda receiving a 45% cut of the sales. Granted, it's unlikely to happen now due to the fact that the really big bugfix mods are a compilation of a vast number of individual mods all made by different people (myself included, but only for FNV not Skyrim), but there's always a chance of someone unscrupulous uploading the mod and claiming it as their own. It certainly could happen down the road with Fallout 4 or TES6 though.

I also think the people who believe this will actually improve the modding scene in any way are incredibly na?ve. Valve struggles to even manage the library of games they sell properly these days. The workshop is going to be pure chaos with zero support and very little oversight beyond a DMCA takedown form, which will likely be just as abuseable as every other automated DMCA form on the internet.

Paying for mods that add content is reasonable but it will be a sad day when we have to pay for mods that fix bugs or improve shitty console ports.

So what happens if someone buys a mod that later has a valid DCMA notice or is shown to be a copy of someone else's work? Does the mod get removed from the paying customers and they get refunded?

I've never played a pirate game before but if this continues I eagerly await pirated games with pirated mod packages at this point.