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.
