Skyrim Workshop Now Supports Paid Mods

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Will pick up on this thread this time next year to see how accurate you are. I'm feel certain free mods are not going anywhere, but of course there will be people who would like either the ability to choose a "pay what you want" method that scales to free, or would like to be paid for their time and effort. We'll see

They aren't going anywhere, that's for sure.

Before: you can make and release a mod for free.

After: you can make and release a mod for free.

And then some people that feel they can't spend time for free on content can now make content that wouldn't have happened otherwise.

It's funny how people were cheering on deep Steamworks integration into every game and now it's suddenly a problem, lol
 
Holy crap at that cut. That does indeed seem to be 100% motivated by Valve wanting more cash and in no way assisting mod communities. Didn't know its been that low for all creators. I thought youtube partners were thieves.

I don't know. I saw an interesting forum post - "consider how much an employee of a game company is paid for creating a hat, or a map. They'll get paid less than the modder for their work". Would be interesting to get more insight on how true that is.
 
Yeah, absolutely nobody does free work on cars or gives away fab parts for free, people only buy spoilers and running lights for their honda civic only from garages that specialize in car modifications.

Absolutely no hobbyist car people exist anymore.

Yep.

Kind of a ridiculous response to a very legitimate concern. Very, very few people do free work on cars. You have to know a guy.

Do I have to know a guy now to get free mods for my games?

Dude, everyone and their dog is just going to throw their mod up on Steam and charge like $0.50 for it. No point in not doing that, might as well make a bit of cash right?
 
This seems like a slippery slope that is easily exploitable. I think the donation system works just fine on sites like nexus mods works just fine. I know I have personally contributed to several of the mods that I really enjoy
 
Not true. Just look at the mobile games scene...

People pay for what they think is valuable. I was going to use the mobile games scene as a supporting argument :)

This seems like a slippery slope that is easily exploitable. I think the donation system works just fine on sites like nexus mods works just fine. I know I have personally contributed to several of the mods that I really enjoy

Mod developers are totally free to continue doing that.
 
I don't know. I saw an interesting forum post - "consider how much an employee of a game company is paid for creating a hat, or a map. They'll get paid less than the modder for their work". Would be interesting to get more insight on how true that is.

True and that sucks as well but I don't like to compare inequalities it just muddies it for me. Right now that cut is terrible for them.
 
I don't know. I saw an interesting forum post - "consider how much an employee of a game company is paid for creating a hat, or a map. They'll get paid less than the modder for their work". Would be interesting to get more insight on how true that is.

An employee at a developer is compensated via a regular recurring salary, not a la carte per item created. I think it's safe to assume they get a better deal.
 
Will pick up on this thread this time next year to see how accurate you are. I'm feel certain free mods are not going anywhere, but of course there will be people who would like either the ability to choose a "pay what you want" method that scales to free, or would like to be paid for their time and effort. We'll see

So will I because the horse armour gates have been opened and paychecks have been smelled. Crowdsourced DLC is here and it's going to change the game. I hope I'm dead wrong but I doubt I will be. Every single noteworthy mod is going to end up being a project that gets charged for.

Yeah, absolutely nobody does free work on cars or gives away fab parts for free, people only buy spoilers and running lights for their honda civic only from garages that specialize in car modifications.

Absolutely no hobbyist car people exist anymore.

Yep.

I like car analogies. I don't think it works here. Also I don't know many people that give away car parts with actual value for free.
 
I can see a lot of modders don't doing this paid stuff because they use hundreds of other mods from other people themselves..

Let's wait and see... despite being against the Valve deal I support the modders for everything they have done. If they start to charge I'll not think it is wrong. And Nexus should highlight the donation option.
 
People pay for what they think is valuable. I was going to use the mobile games scene as a supporting argument :)



Mod developers are totally free to continue doing that.

The problem is most people are too dumb to realize that the status quo is not valuable, so they feed into it. People new to gaming will start buying tons of shit up simply because they don't know it used to be free. It will be a massive success for everyone except the end consumer.
 
Is there going to be any quality assurance for paid mods or can anyone freely release junk for a price? I'd like for this new route Valve is taking with the Workshop to incentivize modders into creating higher quality content rather than it just deluding down into something like the Xbox 360's Indie marketplace.
 
Sadly there's already several mods that I've used that're now only available as paid mods. The old version was removed from the Workshop aswell as Skyrim Nexus. :/

If someone does that, they're... Kind of cheeky cunts, in my opinion. :p

Which mods, exactly? I'm worried about lack of updates or support for Nexus mods in lieu of paid Workshop versions.
 
Sure. I don't think that being against Valve providing this option inherently means that you believe that modders must give away their work for free and have no right no charge for their work. Apparently you disagree.
what has changed because of this?

what's stopping patreon pages from going up?

we've already discussed the legality og selling mods through a paypal
 
Sure. I don't think that being against Valve providing this option inherently means that you believe that modders must give away their work for free and have no right no charge for their work. Apparently you disagree.

That's not really an explanation, you just reiterated the same thing. If you're against modders being provided the option to get paid, then the only option left for them is giving their work away for free. There are people in this thread that are arguing that mods should remain free because that's the "beauty" of the modding scene.

The problem is most people are too dumb to realize that the status quo is not valuable, so they feed into it. People new to gaming will start buying tons of shit up simply because they don't know it used to be free. It will be a massive success for everyone except the end consumer.

People aren't dumb because they value something you don't.
 
Cool to hear, although I think all of this is all made somewhat more problematic by the fact that you can't simply have "pay what you want" with a slider that goes all the way to 0, or 0.1 or whatever. If that was the case, I doubt people would be making *as* big a deal as they are now, but right now, you have to add individual price-steps to PWYW, instead of being able to simply offer it for free (or a really low price) all the way up to an arbitrary amount, on the same mod-page.

Hopefully that'll change though.

A pay what you want slider would of course be great, since it would basically mean just an easy way to donate. Nobody should have a problem with that, and I'm sure a lot more people would be willing to give a few bucks to creators if they can just use their steam wallet etc, and don't have to go through Paypal or something. I know i would.
 
This is the death of modding and the birth of third party created DLC.

This. Modding, by virtue of not being yet another 'marketplace' had a good-natured community-oriented feel to it. Now all that is gone.

How long before the marketplace looks like any crummy app store, with blatant copies and rip-offs and theft everywhere? When you introduce incentives other than altruition things get much scummier.
 
Skyrim modding has been going on for a long time and I feel it's died down a little bit.

All the best of the best mods everyone already has got them
 
A pay what you want slider would of course be great, since it would basically mean just an easy way to donate. Nobody should have a problem with that, ans I'm sure a lot more people would be willing to give a few bucks to creators if they can just use their steam wallet etc, and don't have to go through Paypal or something. I know i would.

Most of the mods I have clicked on in the workshop do have a pay what you want slider right now. None of the ones i looked at let you go to zero for those curious though. Most seem to bottom out at 99 cents.
 
Which mods, exactly? I'm worried about lack of updates or support for Nexus mods in lieu of paid Workshop versions.

Well, Cold and Wet's free version has officially been discontinued, same with Midas Magic (although that had been abandoned for quite a while, last I used it I had a save file corrupted)

Haven't paid attention to any other ones, though. I'm too busy being bitter, salty and happy at the same time.

Mixed feelings, slippery slopes and all that. :s
 
Looked at a set of Armor on there. You cant even access the damn thing or find it through a quest currently. You have to use the console to put it in your inventory first. If youre going to charge for your mod, put a little effort into actually integrating it into the game in a fashion that makes me want to get it. A little quest, something. This is what I have a problem with currently. Totally worth $1.99
 
Is there going to be any quality assurance for paid mods or can anyone freely release junk for a price? I'd like for this new route Valve is taking with the Workshop to incentivize modders into creating higher quality content rather than it just deluding down into something like the Xbox 360's Indie marketplace.

There's junk already on there lol.
 
I'm not really seeing any compelling arguments, mostly just slippery slopes.

This seems like a slippery slope that is easily exploitable. I think the donation system works just fine on sites like nexus mods works just fine. I know I have personally contributed to several of the mods that I really enjoy

I'm sure it does, but Bethesda and Valve see potential profits being squandered.

Is there going to be any quality assurance for paid mods or can anyone freely release junk for a price? I'd like for this new route Valve is taking with the Workshop to incentivize modders into creating higher quality content rather than it just deluding down into something like the Xbox 360's Indie marketplace.

Valve's entire business model at this point is predicated on the market dictating success. Valve doesn't act as a gate keeper unless under the most extreme circumstances.
 
So... don't like 90% percent of Skyrim mods require other mods to work (SKSE)? Since most mods rely on skyrim script extender, which was created by a team of modders, should the creators of that mod be compensated as well? Would they have any legal claim on mods that are making money off of their work?

This whole thing seems sketchy and loaded with problems. Still, I'm sure they will make it work. The potential to make astronomical amounts of money for doing absolutely nothing will make sure that a little backlash won't make much of a difference here.
 
Looked at a set of Armor on there. You cant even access the damn thing or find it through a quest currently. You have to use the console to put it in your inventory first. If youre going to charge for your mod, put a little effort into actually integrating it into the game in a fashion that makes me want to get it. A little quest, something. This is what I have a problem with currently. Totally worth $1.99

Exactly the kind of BS I expected to see right out of the gate. What a mess.
 
Looked at a set of Armor on there. You cant even access the damn thing or find it through a quest currently. You have to use the console to put it in your inventory first. If youre going to charge for your mod, put a little effort into actually integrating it into the game in a fashion that makes me want to get it. A little quest, something. This is what I have a problem with currently. Totally worth $1.99
so don't buy it then
Exactly the kind of BS I expected to see right out of the gate. What a mess.
you too
 
One of the positives (don't hurt me guys) I see from this is that maybe other companies will open up to the idea of mods and we will have more games that are as mod friendly as Skyrim is. Imagine if we get could more big AAA games on PC with many different and easy to implement mods. It could help the modding community grow and could even help make some of the industries current DLC practices more toned down as they wouldn't be so worried about $30 season pass sales and whatnot as there could be better alternatives for content for $1.

Of course this only works if not every mod charges money and not every mod costs $5 for something like making your character look wet after they swim in water or get rained on, or dress up all characters in clown costumes, etc. For as many people that will charge for mods there will be just as many that don't charge for them. I would be all for having modders make elaborate expansions with help from the developers for $5-10 instead of waiting months and months for companies to release a $20 expansion that people will end up modding anyways.

Now I won't personally pay for many mods as I only get mods that fix bugs and enhance graphical details and I don't like that developers can essentially ship a broken game charge for it and get paid up front. Then some modder comes along fixes issues and add some visual flair charges $5 for it then people buy it and the developer is getting a cut of the revenue. To me that's them saying "Thanks for fixing our game and making it better here is a $1.25." While they pocket whatever their share is, essentially getting paid for free.
 
If someone does that, they're... Kind of cheeky cunts, in my opinion. :p

Yeah I agree with that, particularly having that set of users or even fans simply shown the door. I'm fine if they at least differentiate it and give options for reasonable pricing for what you get
 
Kind of a ridiculous response to a very legitimate concern. Very, very few people do free work on cars. You have to know a guy.

Do I have to know a guy now to get free mods for my games?

Dude, everyone and their dog is just going to throw their mod up on Steam and charge like $0.50 for it. No point in not doing that, might as well make a bit of cash right?

My brother did work on a ton of people's cars when he was younger. He'd install things, replace things, or even install modifications for his friends and family cars. We'd pay him a bit or buy a meal each time he did work.

He's now in a full on career dealing with selling car parts and car mods. He got the experience by being able to get familiar and learn in a low risk, but low paying environment. He's now doing it as a full on career and no longer works on anyone's car for free, except for family. At no point did people say he was greedy or said he "sold out". It's only video games where people expect entitlement to everything once they have bought the base game (car).


As pointed out, paying 60$ for a game, you paid for what was in the game at the time. If you didn't think it was enough content for the 60$, stop buying games at 60$. If you want extra content, either spend all the time learning how to make mods yourself and modify the game on your own, or pay the cost of a hamburger to get a substantial amoutn of content added to your game without having to hope Bethesda was going to specifically budget it out in the next 5 years. They can't serve everyone's interests or wants with content, it's impossible as a single company. Much like Dodge or Ford only sell limited versions of their cars, and let the aftermarket supply to all the variants people desire.
 
Looked at a set of Armor on there. You cant even access the damn thing or find it through a quest currently. You have to use the console to put it in your inventory first. If youre going to charge for your mod, put a little effort into actually integrating it into the game in a fashion that makes me want to get it. A little quest, something. This is what I have a problem with currently. Totally worth $1.99

Don't click the buy button. There there. Solved.
 
A pay what you want slider would of course be great, since it would basically mean just an easy way to donate. Nobody should have a problem with that, and I'm sure a lot more people would be willing to give a few bucks to creators if they can just use their steam wallet etc, and don't have to go through Paypal or something. I know i would.

Same here. I'd gladly give all my card money to modders whose work I like, but having an actual paywall up in my face discourages me more-so than anything.
Most of the mods I have clicked on in the workshop do have a pay what you want slider right now. None of the ones i looked at let you go to zero for those curious though. Most seem to bottom out at 99 cents.

It's not an actual slider, the creator has to manually add the different price-points.

So really it's not at all a "pay what you want" system in any sense, it's just... Different price-tiers.
 
My brother did work on a ton of people's cars when he was younger. He'd install things, replace things, or even install modifications for his friends and family cars. We'd pay him a bit or buy a meal each time he did work.

He's now in a full on career dealing with selling car parts and car mods. He got the experience by being able to get familiar and learn in a low risk, but low paying environment. He's now doing it as a full on career and no longer works on anyone's car for free, except for family. At no point did people say he was greedy or said he "sold out". It's only video games where people expect entitlement to everything once they have bought the base game (car).


As pointed out, paying 60$ for a game, you paid for what was in the game at the time. If you didn't think it was enough content for the 60$, stop buying games at 60$. If you want extra content, either spend all the time learning how to make mods yourself and modify the game on your own, or pay the cost of a hamburger to get a substantial amoutn of content added to your game without having to hope Bethesda was going to specifically budget it out in the next 5 years. They can't serve everyone's interests or wants with content, it's impossible as a single company. Much like Dodge or Ford only sell limited versions of their cars, and let the aftermarket supply to all the variants people desire.

Please stop talking, because I'm having a hard time comprehending. Nobody is expecting any of what you wrote above from Bethesda. There was simply a system in place to extend games through a collective modding effort, that ended up increasing playtime significantly for no extra money lost. That's gone now, replaced by piecemeal overpriced garbage that's going to be fishing for whales the same way DLC is.
 
I think thats obvious lol. But I'm just asking for a little effort into paid ones, ESPECIALLY when they are directly advertised by Valve in this case.

Valve doesn't really care. As long as they keep increasing their profits by huge margins every few months and keep the appearance of a happy customer-base up, they're all good.
 
Please stop talking, because I'm having a hard time comprehending. Nobody is expecting any of what you wrote above from Bethesda. There was simply a system in place to extend games through a collective modding effort, that ended up increasing playtime significantly for no extra money lost. That's gone now, replaced by piecemeal overpriced garbage that's going to be fishing for whales the same way DLC is.

Bold is entirely false. The entire mod pipeline is still there, and you can still release mods for free, under the existing system that existed to this point, and that will continue to exist.
 
Bethesda and Valve have no right to any of the money for these mods. Especially Bethesda. They ended support for the game and stopped selling dlc. They could have continued releasing more content after dragonborn. But their lazy ass didn't. Modders did and now bethesda wants a piece of that pie? Pay 99 cents to change weather in your game and most of that money goes to the developer who should have had a weather option in the settings to begin with. Instead they released buggy vanilla version day one.

Yea ok lol such awful revenue split. You could make an argument for Valve taking a cut but at the most it would be like 10%.

It should be

Content makers = 90%

Valve = 10%

The current notion of content makers only getting 25% is such a scam and robbery. I can't believe anyone would support it. Just awful smh. On top of that all the terrible dlc practices from bethesda in the past...this split is like adding insult to injury.

Let's put aside everything else for a moment like costs of running a digital distribution service and all of the development of software are APIs that make this possible. Who do you know that will do free payment processing?

Please hook me up with whoever does it.
 
Bold is entirely false. The entire mod pipeline is still there, and you can still release mods for free, under the existing system that existed to this point, and that will continue to exist.

Sadly, it will not continue to exist in the same way. This new model actively discourages resource sharing and collaboration.
 
Bold is entirely false. The entire mod pipeline is still there, and you can still release mods for free, under the existing system that existed to this point, and that will continue to exist.

In skyrim -- for now. Once publishers/valve smell the money to be made off of charging 75% of an items cost for providing a webserver free mods will go the way of the dodo. Free modding is a transition phase at best now. Come back to this thread in a few years and realise that my avatar is lying and I am a goddamn prophet.
 
Valve doesn't really care. As long as they keep increasing their profits by huge margins every few months and keep the appearance of a happy customer-base up, they're all good.

I don't think Valve has to care, just needs a cool armor picture to entice people into looking at it. It's up to the modders to actually make something thats worth the money.
 
This is such a slippery slope. I can see games like Cities: Skylines being next in line, and it's going to be super shitty.

It would have made so much more sense for Valve to adopt some kind of "approved content creator" program where you had to submit your mod to them to make sure your work meets certain standards. This is just a free for all.
 
Sadly, it will not continue to exist in the same way. This new model actively discourages resource sharing and collaboration.

In what way? You still have the choice to share your resources. The people that didn't want to share before still won't, and the ones that do will. You can still collaborate. I don't see how this stops any of the existing setups from existing.
 
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