Steam starts selling paid mods

[Zenophilious]

Proof

 

Thoughts?

[ExtraMana]

There goes one of the top 3 reasons to play PC over consoles.

And skyrim of all things T__T

[atorq]

Fuck this. This barley any better than all the shitty DLC.

[Mr Poltroon]

Hmm...

Modders usually have a choice on whether to make their mods free or paid. It's just that making it paid is a good way to make your mod die and nobody would ever play it.

Now with Steam... maybe they'll get a fighting chance and maybe they'll start charging for mods more often.

From a consumer's point of view I certainly hope not, but oh, well. Here's hoping modders keep choosing to work for free like the slave scum they are.

[Nosebleed]

Don't see this being any different than paid DLC aside from the fact they're from third parties.

Kinda sucks but if the mod is actually well put together then i see no reason a person shouldn't earn something for their work.

On the other hand I can see this being received just as negative as paid DLC and that's not so good.

[ExtraMana]

Fuck this. This barley any better than all the shitty DLC.

[Turnip Sensei]

It's nice to support mods of course, but in reality the story will be flooded with crap. I guess the refund police is nice move, so that you won't get absolutely scammed, but then again if I can't even trust publishers I don't know how much I'm going to trust money hungry modders. 

 

I just feel like this encourages wrong kind of modding scene. The people how did mods for basically free, did it because they cared about the game. Now that you can get money out of mods easily, mods that are made in hopes of profit will surface, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing.

[Nosebleed]

THIS ^^^

Less people will play their mods and the store page will be full of even more crap. Modders typically used their mods as proof of their skills to gain jobs in the game industry, as the jobs dried up due to competition some modders went to a donation model. I think they should stick with that so as to not penalize those who can't pay for every mod they play, the very same hardcore Pc crowd they are trying to get to play their amateur mods in the first place.

[InvictusCobra]

What will Steam do regarding the fact that most Skyrim mods are on Nexus and not on the Workshop?

 

I think this is will probably backfire and make the Skyrim Modding community (using it as an example) dwindle down to the biggest mods, e.g. Overhauls like Requiem and SkyRe/PerMa and quest mods that offer good replayability and all that. Most other categories would probably be heavily reduced, as I can't imagine that many people paying like 2€ for better graphics (ENBs)... Well, maybe for the nude mods  

Additionaly, only large scale mods would make a hit, even if they weren't Overhauls or Quest mods. Character mods wouldn't be that popular unless they were as ambitious as Inigo and/or Immersive NPCs, since paying for about one or two characters is heavily frowned upon. This can be applied for weapons as well: GET THE BLAZEFIRE SABER FROM FFXIII FOR ONLY 1€!!! Yeah, right... the only mods people MIGHT want to pay for would be Immersive Weapons/Armors.

 

In short, only the most ambitious and biggest mods would turn a reasonable profit, while the rest would be drowned in "You want me to pay for that?!"

[Deep Blue]

I don't know, I mean is steam forcing them to put a price into their mods? If they want to sell it then why not? I don't like it and it goes against everything I believe about pc mods *cough* assholes *cough* but if someone wants to profit from their work so be it *cough* assholes *cough*

[Flutterz]

I don't think this will matter much, most modders that are worth a damn will still release their mods for free, otherwise very few people will use it past the trial period. Speaking of which, has Steam gone insane and actually decided to provide semi-decent customer service? Because a 24 hour refund policy on mods is great.

As for the people that make huge, amazing mods, this might serve as a good platform to monetize the countless hours of work they'd need have to put into it to make it huge and amazing, I honestly don't see anything wrong with that. And if it turns out that even amazing mods get almost no sales, those mods will (probably) continue being released for free instead.

Will there be a bunch of shit mods flooding in for a quick buck? Of course, but thanks to Steam's amazing game quality control everyone is already used to shoveling through shit to get to something decent, plus the refund policy means those shit mods won't earn the modder much of anything except player ire.

[Suzu Fanatic]

I don't mind donating to modders - esp. the better ones - but pure selling? Not my thing.

 

Not to mention, I'm surprised it doesn't breach all kinds of copyright laws with most of the game developers.

[ExtraMana]

And if you think modders are so righteous about their work then why would they change their formula? It's obvious people prefer free stuff so if the modders don't change then there's nothing much to worry about since they'll get the most downloads.

Unless these mods are actually big relevant modifications to the respective game then i don't think most people will put a price tag on their mods.

Although i've been proven wrong before so maybe everyone will start selling out, but i don't really believe they will, they had the option to sell the mods before, just not on Steam, so really this is not going to change much..

The only negative side effect i see for this is, once again, it opens the flood gates for the more shady people and that could turn into a problem

 

It's nice to support mods of course, but in reality the story will be flooded with crap. I guess the refund police is nice move, so that you won't get absolutely scammed, but then again if I can't even trust publishers I don't know how much I'm going to trust money hungry modders. 

 

I just feel like this encourages wrong kind of modding scene. The people how did mods for basically free, did it because they cared about the game. Now that you can get money out of mods easily, mods that are made in hopes of profit will surface, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing.

Pantsu mod 0.69p - Available for every game on Steam

No seriously this is gonna be such a problem Steam will need to do something about it.

[Flutterz]

No seriously this is gonna be such a problem Steam will need to do something about it.

lol Steam doing something about worthless tat on their storefront

That'll be the day

[InvictusCobra]

The day Steam starts cleaning and guard duty on their storefront is the day EA will give up their atrocious DLC policies and company destroying shenanigans...

[Flutterz]

The day Steam starts cleaning and guard duty on their storefront is the day EA will give up their atrocious DLC policies and company destroying shenanigans...

Coincidentally I've heard that the first snowfall in hell in 4000 years will happen on that same day.

[TexasDice]

I can't wait for the glorious age of Skyrim Mod torrents. Which would be really easy to do, since Nexus every Mod Manager allows you to install every kind of .zip and .bsa archived mod. You could even re-name everything to avoid bans.

 

Now the question is, can I really sell out by uploading my lazy mods into the workshop and scam pocket change out of some idiots? Because that sounds awesome. 

[Zenophilious]

I don't mind donating to modders - esp. the better ones - but pure selling? Not my thing.

 

Not to mention, I'm surprised it doesn't breach all kinds of copyright laws with most of the game developers.

From the QA:

Q. Can I sell the mods I’ve made for other games in the Steam Workshop?

A. It is up to the developers or publisher of each game to decide if paid Workshop mods are appropriate for their game. You will only be able to sell mods for a game in the Steam Workshop if the developers have enabled that functionality.

 

Of course, Bethesda only approved it so they could wet their beaks.

 

Honestly, I'm 100% against it in its current form.  Paid mods should, in my opinion, be in a separate section from free mods, since they're basically DLC, and have the same rating and reviewing systems as games, with the modders also able to be rated based on their submissions.  I also don't like the fact that they're trying to monetize content that was, until now, completely free.  Even if it flops, I will still hate the idea behind it.

[Nosebleed]

Pantsu mod 0.69p - Available for every game on Steam

No seriously this is gonna be such a problem Steam will need to do something about it.

Coming right up with Half Life 3

There is nothing wrong with this in essence, Steam isn't pricing things, Steam is allowing creators to price things if they want to, which is reasonable.

The only problem here arises when people misuse the platform, but if you're smart you won't support such people. It's the same thing with Steam Greenlight and Early Access.

[InvictusCobra]

There is nothing wrong with this in essence, Steam isn't pricing things, Steam is allowing creators to price things if they want to, which is reasonable.

The only problem here arises when people misuse the platform, but if you're smart you won't support such people.

 

That's what was said about Greenlight (if it wasn't, it can be applied to it) and look at what we have. A sea of filth with some good bits coming ashore after much triage. It will all be in the hands of the consumer, although after things like Bloodbath Kavkaz and many things I've seen Jim Sterling play on his "Squirty Plays" and Steam Greenlight game trailers, the consumer is sometimes not that trustworthy.

[Nosebleed]

Also it seems this is only for Skyrim for now, which suggests only selected games get this policy, so the flood gates aren't exactly open unlike Greenlight and Early Access.

I'll just let TB handle it:

That's what was said about Greenlight (if it wasn't, it can be applied to it) and look at what we have. A sea of filth with some good bits coming ashore after much triage. It will all be in the hands of the consumer, although after things like Bloodbath Kavkaz and many things I've seen Jim Sterling play on his "Squirty Plays" and Steam Greenlight game trailers, the consumer is sometimes not that trustworthy.

Yeah sure there's a lot of shit, but that's pretty much like everything in life, I don't think Steam will open the flood gates on this like they did with the rest of the platform, and even if they did, again it's in the hands of the consumer to not make it shit, so just don't buy mods you don't believe are worthy.

Again this is still a limited policy for now so let's not jump the gun yet.

[Zenophilious]

Apparently the mod creators for the paid Skyrim mods will only get 25% of the profits, with the other 75% split between Valve and Bethesda.

 

 

From the Steam Supplemental Workshop Terms - Revenue Sharing (Section 1): The percentage of Adjusted Gross Revenue that you are entitled to receive will be determined by the developer/publisher of the Application associated with the Workshop to which you have submitted your Contribution (“Publisher”), and will be described on the applicable Workshop page.

 

Apparently there are already early access paid mods.

[LiquidShu]

https://twitter.com/RevolverUnit/status/591401796612009984

 

For anyone who is against Valve's new mod policy there is a petition to remove it: https://www.change.org/p/valve-remove-the-paid-content-of-the-steam-workshop?just_created=true

[mbl]

At first sight I thought it might be an interesting concept that might lead to increased quality in mods, but then I checked the page and saw them listing unchanged, old mods for higher prices than what the game itself is available for right now. We accept instability, poor/lazy design, or simple lack of polish from mods because they are free projects, but these unpolished mods (Which I've used before) that add more spells or one NPC to a 3.5 year old game being priced higher than many indie games or even the game they are modding is just idiotic.  

[Tawm]

Having taken part in the Bethesda modding scene since Morrowind, this is an incredibly sad day. Remember when we touted free modding as one of PC gaming's biggest features? Yeaaaaaaah. I'll never pay or charge for mods. This is cancer. What's next? Will modders set up Patreons? The Nexus sites will have no legitimate way of competing with this. Traffic for affected games will plummet, as modders pull their content in favor of monetizing it on the Steam Workshop.

 

This sums it up just perfectly.

 

Those 600+ mod setups will now cost you hundreds of dollars.

 

 

Also it seems this is only for Skyrim for now, which suggests only selected games get this policy, so the flood gates aren't exactly open unlike Greenlight and Early Access.
I'll just let TB handle it:

Yeah sure there's a lot of shit, but that's pretty much like everything in life, I don't think Steam will open the flood gates on this like they did with the rest of the platform, and even if they did, again it's in the hands of the consumer to not make it shit, so just don't buy mods you don't believe are worthy.
Again this is still a limited policy for now so let's not jump the gun yet.

TB is inherently biased in this regard, as he works an uncommon job; a job which most people will say does not warrant wealth beyond what master's degrees and advanced craft certificates will ever get you. I believe he pulls in around 400k yearly from all his sources. Of course he's going to advocate all work as being legitimate work. He'd likely even endorse fan translation projects becoming monetized.