Exilian
Game Design and Project Resources: The Workshops Quarter => Mods, Maps & Game Add-Ons - The Bazaar => Topic started by: Jubal on April 27, 2015, 04:53:08 PM
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After what could be described as a cool reception to the news that Valve would allow modders to charge for their creations, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell took to reddit to talk about mods, Valve's reasoning behind the move, and his confidence that mod authors won't have their creations ripped-off.
Addressing concerns that a pay model will corrupt the modding community, Newell said Valve's goal is to improve modding both for the authors and gamers. "If something doesn't help with that, it will get dumped," he said, adding that while he believes this will be a win-win situation for modders and gamers, ultimately the data will decide what stays or goes.
Some different news articles:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-32480606
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-04-27-gabe-newell-responds-to-paid-for-mod-controversy
http://uk.ign.com/articles/2015/04/26/valve-adding-pay-what-you-want-option-to-steam-workshop-mods
As you might expect, I'm massively against this. Making a tiny amount of pocket money for some modders (which is all most of us would make, with one or two exceptions) is simply not worth the amount of hate and screwups this will cause in the modding communities. I like modding for its communities, that's why this whole place is even here, and I don't want to see them ripped apart by arguments over money. Suddenly, you're turning hobbyists into service providers. People with obligations to paying customers. I don't want to be financially obligated to the people that download my mods - seriously, have you MET some of the people who download my mods? What I do, as I see it, is make fun toys, give them to people, and some of them go and have fun playing with them. It's nice, I enjoy it, they enjoy it. The value is already encapsulated for everyone concerned, and it doesn't need a price tag.
Except if Valve and Bethesda and the like think they can make a quick buck from it, which is presumably what's happened here.
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I am also absolutely against it. Even worse is there is nothing to stop someone posting someone else's mod with the system at the minute, plus there is absolutely no quality control when you have to pay up front. Worse still is that the mod creator receives but 25% of the revenue generated, the rest goes to Bethesda and Valve. I don't want to see modding die.
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These links are both good on why this is a problem:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/611704730313709437/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/04/24/valves-paid-skyrim-mods-are-a-legal-ethical-and-creative-disaster/
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The forbes article is clearly wrong on "Oh someone will just mod that" but the rest of it is ok. The legal issue and splitting the community are the issues to me. Valve taking the cut they do is fine imo, its their business, if you don't like it, don't charge for mods or don't buy them depending on which side of the fence you're on.
I think what they've done since (adding a donate button instead) is a decent compromise. The main problem with paying for mods is that now there's a ton of crappy mods flooding the workshop.
EDIT: http://steamcommunity.com/games/SteamWorkshop/announcements/detail/208632365253244218
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As per Colossus' edit, Valve have shut down the paid-mod system. There's some more information in a BBC News article (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-32493895), largely based on Valve's own post in the Steam community forum.
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I think Gabe has really done his company proud again, reaching out personally to the community and showing that he hasn't forgotten about the gamers. Even though I think that it was the right idea but badly implemented and needed a fix rather than a removal, the volume of community backlash from this meant that there wasn't much of a choice. I think that there might be some sort of payment method in the future but I would think not for a while at least.
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Double post but I thought this was really interesting for those who are wondering what the state of things are with regards to the modding scene.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aavBAplp5A