Paid mods on Steam

[Scde2]

That is completely subjective. Many people, including myself, think for example that vanilla Skyrim is an ugly, buggy and shallow game. Mods do wonders for that. Of course many people would disagree, but not everyone buys or enjoys a game for the same reason. I wouldn't have bought most Bethesda developed games if they didn't have mod support, and a great mod community. Personally that applies to a couple Paradox games for me.

EDIT: Post quoted was deleted but I'm standing by what I said.

 

[Wulfburk]

How so? Whats the connection? Has a similar thing happened before? Whats to stop the people who made those mods from saying "I'd prefer to keep my content freely available for all"? A lot of people make this claim but no one has explained the connection so at best its some very vague and hazy slippery slope claim.

Because people would still their assets and ask for payment on the steam workshop, like what is already happening. Over night a thousand nexus mods were set to hidden because the devs feared they'd get stealed and have their mods being charged on the steam workshop.

And that is a major specifc problem to total conversions. Europa Barbarorum and Forgotten Hope 2 for example have had major issues with people stealing their assets, the first was a russian copy mod, though that was available for free, and was taken out major websites, and the 2nd was chinese p2p fake ww2 game. Though that was taken out as well.

Now when it comes to this, its going to be a real clusterfuck. And any modder who wants to do it for free is going to get discouraged for fear of doing it just so someone else can get a quick a buck, like many modders are already saying in the nexus and at the steam community.

So in the end its actually going to damage the modding community as a whole (and in fact it will STOP being a community).

Fallout 4 is going to be fucked.

 

[Chief of Staff]

Given all potential negative effects of paid mods discussed here, I must admit I am uncomfortable with the implications of this. It seem to be a rather slippery slope there.

I, for one, will always keep whatever mods I made free, including my Parliamentary Election Mod. I just simply have no interest in making extra money.

 

[AndrewT]

Any mention of piracy whatsoever is banned on these forums.

I've handed out warnings, and deleted or edited posts.

Please recall or re-read the rules you agreed to when you signed up here - we take them very seriously indeed, and would prefer not to have to issue warnings at all.

Thank you.

 

[Gamer_1745]

It depends. Are they professional developers who will support their work as long as Paradox is supporting the game that is being modded? Or is it someone doing it on their own free time? What if they are unable to support the mod for whatever reason? Will Paradox actually have some kind of quality assurance over this 3rd party DLC?

I see you have the HoI3 game. Paradox already no longer supports the Dies Irae DLCs and you can't even download the patches any more because the links went dead. Well not from an official source, only from players who have a copy and share the patch. So Paradox already sells (and stills sells) a DLC that cannot be played without a patch and they no long support the patch. They will be professional developers if they can sell their mods & I hope they fail if they do a bad job.


e

 

[Epicity]

"Steam" isn't making any money. "Steam" is just a piece of software. And I don't see what your point is, I was describing how things happen in real life there's not really anything for you to argue. We can discuss the merits of Valve wanting to profit from user-created content and what kind of share they deserve, but if the scenario I described is indicative of some sort of problem to you, then your problem isn't really with this specific instance of Valve wanting to make money off of modders. Its with people wanting to make money off of anything in general and I don't know what to tell you.

Semantics here come on.

People keep saying that Valve is doing something extra that warrants this money. I have yet to see where. So I gave an analogy saying that my store is Steam and then you went on to say other stores don't do that or compare it to real life stores which isn't the point.

Valve/Bethesda are not doing anything extra that warrants the money. Bethesda already has the money from their sales of the game. That is it. Ford doesn't get a cut of money if I resell my car when I modify it. My stores don't get a cut if I build something out of materials sold, Builders don't get a cut of house sales when the house is sold.

 

[Scde2]

I see you have the HoI3 game. Paradox already no longer supports the Dies Irae DLCs and you can't even download the patches any more because the links went dead. Well not from an official source, only from players who have a copy and share the patch. So Paradox already sells (and stills sells) a DLC that cannot be played without a patch and they no long support the patch. They will be professional developers if they can sell their mods & I hope they fail if they do a bad job.


e

And that's exactly why I am against "3rd party DLC." Paradox already has an embarrassing track record at this. That's why I am resigned to the possibility of Paradox utilizing them. There will be no QA if they do so. Hopefully the modders will be professional but the buyers may be screwed over while Paradox profits.

I am already frustrated with them, but I enjoy their games and the mods fans make. Unfortunately this is the last straw for me. I really want Paradox to respect the people who love and buys their games, and puts up with their occasional bs. Hopefully they make an official statement on the matter, but oh well if it is what I fear.

 

[Hanitora]

That is completely subjective. Many people, including myself, think for example that vanilla Skyrim is an ugly, buggy and shallow game. Mods do wonders for that. Of course many people would disagree, but not everyone buys or enjoys a game for the same reason. I wouldn't have bought most Bethesda developed games if they didn't have mod support, and a great mod community. Personally that applies to a couple Paradox games for me.

EDIT: Post quoted was deleted but I'm standing by what I said.

You're probably replying to me - I agree that Skyrim is a buggy and shallow game. In fact, I think it's quite an awful game, personally. I don't disagree with what you're saying there. But you're not really in disagreement with anything I said either.

To be honest, I don't think Bethesda deserves any customers at all. All they do is release broken games for modders to fix.

 

[Epicity]

Here's an idea for Paradox if they really want modders to get money from mods.

Open up your own mod database for the games you have like Nexusmodding. Organise your games' modded assets into properly sorted sections. Now people can just go to paradox to download mods which prompts an ad and a "pay what you want" option. And 100% of revenue from ads and payment will go to the modders.

And because of the backlash to Steam, you can be sure that the modders will get paid quite a lot just to stick it to Steam and show this method works.

 

[0m4ll3y]

Just throwing my voice into this mess: the only reason I bought the Paradox games I have is because of mods. The only reason I got my friends to buy these games is because of mods. I would not purchase a game from Paradox if it had "Third Party DLC", and I would not mod those games because of the legal mess that could follow. Not to mention how toxic it could turn the community as people start stealing from others, avoiding giving credit to others, ripping off others ideas to sell for cheaper. It would kill the heart and soul of modding.

And the fact that sites like Game Banana can exist for years off nothing but ad revenue shows that Valve's 30% cut and Bethesda's 45% cut is just money grubbing and 25% to the actual content creator is insulting.

If the system was a "Donate what you want" with Valve and Paradox Interactive getting a small cut, I would happily throw some money at the mods I enjoy.

 

[Andrelvis]

Paradox doesn´t own the mod, nor does the modder in fact since it´s not distinctive software it cannot be patented or copyrighted (the latter is true, it will begin on creation, but requires it to be an original work). Moddifications of a patented and copyrigthed software cannot be original work but are an deriviate from the original. For it to be under copyright, it would have to be something entirely different and while using the PDX engine and coding that are released, nothing original is created you just use the engine in another way than intended, which may or may not be illegal due to PDX disclaimer.

None of that really applies to event text, and concepts though. Only to the code. If you remove the parts that are derivative, then what remains is owned by you, so that you can use i.e. the same event text for another project.

 

[ByLeven]

Not to mention that the most comprehensive Skyrim mods, those actually worth paying for, are often completely incompatible with one another. Getting a nice stable build of Skyrim up and running these days takes about a week. Often several mods attempt to do the same thing, but with different flavor. They will be incompatible with one another. Are we expected to buy all of them to see which one we like better?!

I don't like this at all. I guess I've played my last Bethesda game, because modding is the only reason why I play them... This does not bode well for Fallout 4

 

[CCESportsNetwork]

Zero work?

If someone truly feels its zero work, then why dont you set up your own market and maintain it? I was one of the original owners of Gamersgate, so I actually have a clue or two about what havinga digital marketplace entails..

Steams cut on sales on its market is FAR less than any distributor took before they entered the market. And for those that say 25% to the developer is low is entirely new to how gamedevelopment works. Thats far higher percentage of gross price than we ever saw when we were pure developers, and then we actually owned the brands we developed on.

Where I come from its such a great deal, that if i hadnt been in my current position, i'd have jumped on it immediately if it had bern a game I liked to mod..

OTOH, i'm not adressing other concerns about support, legal aspects, impact on scale of modfing etc, as I dont think ayone knows how it would work out...

With all due respect, the Steam workshop became a feature in early 2012 and has been running for the better part of 3 years. While the original poster's comment of "zero work" may be a bit off - its not without a little truth behind it. The truth is Steam has probably already seen a return on this initial investment. And the percentage of revenue needed to cover the expense of the workshop, I'm sure, has already been allocated for this fiscal year. There certainly is an expense to running and maintaining digital distribution and the backbone of the steam workshop. I hardly doubt the implementation of this new idea was designed to maintain the workshop's financial health.

Let's call a spade a spade - this will be an incremental revenue source for any publisher who elects to adopt it. And in the end, a publisher is only beholden to their stockholders and/or the bottom line. "Monitoring the discussion" or "we are looking into the possibilities" or any of the standard corporate talking points is just an euphemism for "how much is this going to a be a market disruption," "how long will the current reaction last and are the concerns valid," and is there a long-term revenue strategy that can be gained from this." That's fine and totally understandable. It's your business and you run it how you see fit.

But I would encourage you to look at it from this standpoint. The PC modding community has enjoyed a special, symbiotic relationship with gamers for decades. This relationship has been extended to developers/publishers on tentative/tolerable grounds. You own the IP, you know best how to use the IP and you allow non-professional programmers to go in and enhance the game and add future value to it. Future value means (in our current climate) - future DLC purchases, future expansion pack purchases and new sales to new customers. This insures you, the publisher, have a revenue stream long past your ROI goals for the product. It is a model that has been very successful.

Now you are asking non-professional programmers to amend the game for future value and the publishers & Valve get paid far in excess of what the original creator put in time and effort into the mod. As a game developer - you don't want to get paid pennies on the dollar. This new system means the publisher double dips the revenue stream off the backs of the modders. If the game development industry is indeed paying you all pennies on the dollar - that's not our fault - you guys have to change that culture. As a business owner, I charge for the skills and service I bring to the table and expect no less. And if the client doesn't pay, that don't get my service. Simplistic analogy I know, maybe apples & oranges but change has to come from your industry not us if you are not getting paid what you are worth.

Building good will still has a place in our economic climate (Paradox and CO have already proved this with C:S) - this new mod paying idea will not build good will at all. If you hired me to add content to the game, I expect the current rate for game developers. Modders are adding content to the game with partial tools, adding future value and getting paid (IMHO) far less. Again this does not build good will.

Lastly, if Steam, the publisher or the developer does not hire a team to curate content on the basis of the same quality standards that went into the production of the game - the wide variety of good and poor content will be impossible to sift through, making potential purchases a crap shoot and depending on the comments of gamers who are not qualified to determine or know the quality standards set for the game.

I am sorry to say this because I am not a believer in the "sky is falling" mentality that has prevailed this topic the last 48 hours but if Paradox/CO did decide to adopt this strategy all of the good will that you gained pre and post launch (speaking particularly of Cities Skylines cause that is what I am playing at the moment) will evaporate. And in a niche gaming market as this - that could mean a very long difficult road ahead for the product life cycle.

just my 2 cents....

EDIT: to be clear, I support the idea of modders getting compensated for their time and efforts. But there is a better way to do it than this.

 

[ABookshelf]

Now when it comes to this, its going to be a real clusterfuck. And any modder who wants to do it for free is going to get discouraged for fear of doing it just so someone else can get a quick a buck, like many modders are already saying in the nexus and at the steam community.

Again, what precedent do you have to support this claim? Whats the logical sequence of events that will lead from point A, Modders have the option to monetize their work, to point B, the death of the modding community? You're just making a wild, sweeping claim about human nature. If we think about video games, the presence of big-budget studios spending huge sums of money on AAA titles hasn't deterred people from developing free flash games. That community is large enough to warrant entire sites devoted to the showcase of free flash creations.

The fact that people on the Nexus are scrambling to take down their work to protect it from theft is an indication of Valve's haphazard implementation, not some inherent greediness in modders. In a more well-thought out system, there would be rules to prevent such blatant abuse of the system. Whether or not Valve chooses to crack down on that abuse is another story.

 

[ABookshelf]

To provide a counterpoint to your idea that mod-monetization will result in the end of good mod content, I would bring up mods for Source games like Half Life 1 and 2. Popular titles like Garry's Mod and Counterstrike started as mods, and their makers, by monetizing their work, were able to build their mods up into incredible things. But plenty of solid user-created content continues to be developed for Source games.

Mod monetization isn't necessarily some brand new concept, and it certainly hasn't killed the development of good, free content where it's been present. Sure, we can consider the ethics and morals of someone like Garry Newman who was developing G-mod as a free thing, and then decided to monetize it. But there's no basis for raising an alarm that mod-monetization spells the end of free, quality content when the opposite has happened in the past.

Ford doesn't get a cut of money if I resell my car when I modify it. My stores don't get a cut if I build something out of materials sold, Builders don't get a cut of house sales when the house is sold.

You don't rely on Ford doing anything to sell your car. If Ford went out of business tomorrow, you could still sell your car. If the building supplies store went out of business tomorrow, you could still build a house and sell it. I'm sure they'd love to have a piece of your profit in those situations, but they have absolutely nothing to leverage against you. If Valve goes out of business and steam goes down, you're not selling your mod to anybody. You can distribute it on a website but you won't be selling it or making any money. So you depend on steam's continued operation to profit from your mod in the same way that the advertiser from before relies on you to keep your store open for their advertisement to generate revenues.

And again, I'll point out that the studio manager of PI who owned a digitial marketplace much like steam disagrees with your notion that valve is doing zero work here.

 

[ABookshelf]

And on the subject of Garry Newman, here's an interesting take from him on the emergence of mod-monetization. This is a man that's been through the process of monetizing a mod and received backlash for his decision to monetize, much like there's backlash against the system right now.

http://garry.tv/2015/04/24/paying-for-mods/

 

[Epicity]

To provide a counterpoint to your idea that mod-monetization will result in the end of good mod content, I would bring up mods for Source games like Half Life 1 and 2. Popular titles like Garry's Mod and Counterstrike started as mods, and their makers, by monetizing their work, were able to build their mods up into incredible things. But plenty of solid user-created content continues to be developed for Source games.

Mod monetization isn't necessarily some brand new concept, and it certainly hasn't killed the development of good, free content where it's been present. Sure, we can consider the ethics and morals of someone like Garry Newman who was developing G-mod as a free thing, and then decided to monetize it. But there's no basis for raising an alarm that mod-monetization spells the end of free, quality content when the opposite has happened in the past.



You don't rely on Ford doing anything to sell your car. If Ford went out of business tomorrow, you could still sell your car. If the building supplies store went out of business tomorrow, you could still build a house and sell it. I'm sure they'd love to have a piece of your profit in those situations, but they have absolutely nothing to leverage against you. If Valve goes out of business and steam goes down, you're not selling your mod to anybody. You can distribute it on a website but you won't be selling it or making any money. So you depend on steam's continued operation to profit from your mod in the same way that the advertiser from before relies on you to keep your store open for their advertisement to generate revenues.

And again, I'll point out that the studio manager of PI who owned a digitial marketplace much like steam disagrees with your notion that valve is doing zero work here.

Did I ever say they were doing zero work? I said they were doing zero extra work. That is a huge difference. If Steam goes down and so does Bethesda, guess what? Mods still can exist and no cut needs to go to either of them proving that they're not doing anything extra.

Steam is getting extra money for no extra work. That is greed. Yet to see the extra work here.

 

[RadioMan]

I don't think they meant zero work, infact I am pretty sure that the first time this was mentioned in this thread they spoke about zero EXTRA work.
This isn't true, valve/steam has alot of work to do on the workshop now, but that's their fault, they implemented this change, so it's alot of work now, they also need to remove any donate button on the workshop pages, this is alot of work too.
But all this extra work, shouldn't have been necessary if they didn't offer mods for sale and it's a one time job.
I doubt that steam/valve will protect the modders in when he or she is the actual author of the mod, because that would be extra work that has to be done with every single mod, not to mention if a modder suddenly decides to stop updating a certain mod, for instance if he didn't make enough profit for a while, or that he simply doesn't have the time to update anymore, I highly doubt we will get our money back.
This whole discussion isn't about a mod developper shouldn't be paid for all his / her hard work, it's about whether or not we think this is the way to go, should valve be the saviour of the mod dev and if they should, why does it leave a bad taste in my mouth. There are actually better ways to do this, paypal donations or patreon for instance.

 

[ABookshelf]

Did I ever say they were doing zero work?

You said that verbatim, actually. Back on page 3 you said "It is zero work" in response to Johan.

It is zero work. How is not?

And I think it's not a huge difference between work/extra work. Maybe your mod attracts tons of attention, and because of everyone trying to download your mod, Valve actually has to buy new servers to handle all the traffic you created. So there's extra work. It doesn't really matter. Bottom line is that if you choose to monetize your mod through steam workshop, you rely on someone else to do something or you're not making anything.

 

[Johan]

I personally dont see how paid mods could work for our PDS games that are constantly updated.

Keeping large mods up to date after a major patch is ALOT of work, and if people have paid for them, they have much higher demands.

It would also force us to take modsupport into far bigger account, potentially making worse experiences for the users, as we may be forced to not do what we feel is the best design because it breaks some mod.

I mean, I've met @gigau and @myzael they are great people and their mod is really good. However, I don't even consider the impact for them to update M&T when we change or add features in EU4, because my job is to make the best game possible, not a technology-platform.