So the ability to mod for money now should also classify as a job right? you make something and ask for money so you get compensated.
Skyrim Workshop Now Supports Paid Mods
- Thread starter Sendou
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So the ability to mod for money now should also classify as a job right? you make something and ask for money so you get compensated.
Netherscourge
Banned
I can totally see it.
Instead of selling full-fledged games that support mods, companies will now be selling bare-bones ENGINES (or even just giving them away for free) and letting each individual customer pick and choose what "mods" they want to buy for that "ENGINE".
Could be a full-blown modded campaign. Could be a small race track. Could be a couple sandbox FPS maps. Could be a make-shift MOBA. Who knows? Depends how flexible the engine is and how creative the modder or mod team is.
Why pay $60 up front when you can pay $0 up front and pick and choose what you want for whatever that base game engine can do.
Fragamemnon
Member
Modders will work together to determine base sets of dependencies that are common /shared across multiple mods for the game, and then set up a sustainable means for those dependencies to be maintained. This is how the rest of the software industry works.
Modders using other modder's content without agreement or in a way that the original modder didn't intend was always a bad part of the community and one good outcome of monetization/professionalization would be that content creators would have better control over how their work is used.
This is the opening line for the readme included in Quake II Extremities:
Indeed this is prophetic, the very of Action Quake 2 on the disc is incompatible with updated versions of Quake 2. You were saying about "quality control"?
Dorsal Axe
Member
Although the post is not exactly clear, it's true that some have gone on to bigger and better things from building a portfolio or producing exceptional work. But claiming the "vast majority" set out to do that still stands as hyperbole.
I mean 1 expansion from 1991... or the five other expansions you posted don't show the majority of expansions originated as mods... that's just math.
The company also has a much greater incentive in those cases to make sure the work actually works, and to support it since their name is on it. That's a huge difference.
StrangeTaco
Member
Again a few mods that got noticed and picked up by developers is in the overwhelming minority of cases and is not a standard. On top of that, that is entirely different from what Valve is offering. In that case a single expansion was vetted and taken on by the original content creator so there is quality control and financial responsibilities to their customers. This is not the case with valve's workshop market.
water_wendi
Water is not wet!
Well each of those mods were good enough for id to publish in a collection. Do the devs/pubs give the thumbs up on a Workshop mod before it goes from free to pay?
2-3 months from now, the Skyrim Workshop will be the Windows App store of mods. I've uninstalled Skyrim in the meantime, and will actively stop buying/playing games on Steam that run on a similar setup. If this works out for mod authors, good for them, but the entire thing reeks of bad intentions.
If I had to guess, Skyrim is just the testing ground for Fallout 4/Elder Scrolls 6 (?). They'll come out of the gate with this Workshop setup, so while gamers will complain about having free mods go pay in Skyrim, come the next chapter of FO or ES, mods will be pay out of the gate, and likely mods will be required to be listed on Steam to be installed.
Steam Workshop has gone from being a value-add for buying/owning games through Steam to being another nickel/dime scheme on the part of Valve and publishers to milk more money out of their games. I sympathize with mod makers, but I question the idea that this is right way to make money on their mods.
If I had to guess, Skyrim is just the testing ground for Fallout 4/Elder Scrolls 6 (?). They'll come out of the gate with this Workshop setup, so while gamers will complain about having free mods go pay in Skyrim, come the next chapter of FO or ES, mods will be pay out of the gate, and likely mods will be required to be listed on Steam to be installed.
Steam Workshop has gone from being a value-add for buying/owning games through Steam to being another nickel/dime scheme on the part of Valve and publishers to milk more money out of their games. I sympathize with mod makers, but I question the idea that this is right way to make money on their mods.
It's the truth. As opposed to your unsupported claim that expansions originate from the actual development team behind the games - an exceedingly rare practice.
See above.
The main concerns I see here are:
-Policing copyright, which Valve already does for community content in Dota 2 and TF2 and CS:GO, but may be more difficult here since we're also dealing with code, not just visual assets. Already coming into play with a paid mod being removed from the Skyrim workshop, so it looks like they were prepared.
-Disincentivization of free mods, which is mainly just an issue of entitlement toward the countless hours of real work that modders put into their projects. Modders who want to get paid can now get paid. Free mods will continue to exist en masse.
-Revenue splitting. 25% may sound like a pittance, but you have to consider that you're taking advantage of a streamlined delivery system to a massive userbase (Valve's cut, industry standard) and you're making content for someone else's game using their tools, which they're under no obligation to even let you do (Bethesda's cut, which is arguably on the high side when mods are a big selling point for their semi-broken games, but that's not a black and white issue).
Community creators have made millions of dollars from producing content for Dota 2, TF2, and CS:GO, though, despite the same revenue split, and the system is lauded there. Jobs have been created, lots more content gets produced that it would otherwise, and people get compensated very well if they create a popular item.
Pricing will sort itself out based on consumer willingness. Something like Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul landed the author a job at Obsidian, but in this new system he could have also made five or six figures from Workshop sales, deservedly so, and used some of those resources to do a lot more with it or release updates faster. This doesn't bother me in the least.
-Policing copyright, which Valve already does for community content in Dota 2 and TF2 and CS:GO, but may be more difficult here since we're also dealing with code, not just visual assets. Already coming into play with a paid mod being removed from the Skyrim workshop, so it looks like they were prepared.
-Disincentivization of free mods, which is mainly just an issue of entitlement toward the countless hours of real work that modders put into their projects. Modders who want to get paid can now get paid. Free mods will continue to exist en masse.
-Revenue splitting. 25% may sound like a pittance, but you have to consider that you're taking advantage of a streamlined delivery system to a massive userbase (Valve's cut, industry standard) and you're making content for someone else's game using their tools, which they're under no obligation to even let you do (Bethesda's cut, which is arguably on the high side when mods are a big selling point for their semi-broken games, but that's not a black and white issue).
Community creators have made millions of dollars from producing content for Dota 2, TF2, and CS:GO, though, despite the same revenue split, and the system is lauded there. Jobs have been created, lots more content gets produced that it would otherwise, and people get compensated very well if they create a popular item.
Pricing will sort itself out based on consumer willingness. Something like Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul landed the author a job at Obsidian, but in this new system he could have also made five or six figures from Workshop sales, deservedly so, and used some of those resources to do a lot more with it or release updates faster. This doesn't bother me in the least.
PepsimanVsJoe
Member
Look.
I have no problem with the principle behind it all.
Yes, modders that do great work deserve to pursue compensation for their efforts.
I'm alright with that.
But doesn't anyone here see it? This is a standard corporation tactic.
You turn the 99% against one another so that they stop paying attention to what the 1% is attempting to accomplish.
It's just like how every forum thread about minimum wage laws goes to shit.
Valve/Bethesda can paint whatever picture they like, but let's look at it for what it is, a half-baked scheme to make as much money as possible with little to no effort. They're exploiting the talents of others because they're too lazy to create anything worth a damn on their own.
But I'm not worried about the "death of mods" or anything of that sort.
Once the dust settles, the extent of Skyrim's paid mods will be weapons and skins.
I have no problem with the principle behind it all.
Yes, modders that do great work deserve to pursue compensation for their efforts.
I'm alright with that.
But doesn't anyone here see it? This is a standard corporation tactic.
You turn the 99% against one another so that they stop paying attention to what the 1% is attempting to accomplish.
It's just like how every forum thread about minimum wage laws goes to shit.
Valve/Bethesda can paint whatever picture they like, but let's look at it for what it is, a half-baked scheme to make as much money as possible with little to no effort. They're exploiting the talents of others because they're too lazy to create anything worth a damn on their own.
But I'm not worried about the "death of mods" or anything of that sort.
Once the dust settles, the extent of Skyrim's paid mods will be weapons and skins.
You shut your mouth and accept it, you filthy consumer! Modders and developers don't work for you! You should consider yourself lucky to be blessed with access to their creations, you entitled child!
But yeah, nothing problematic at all about the prospect of mods becoming a core part of the business model as opposed to a tertiary community.
Hyperzephyrian
Banned
I don't have a strong opinion on this issue. But none of these sound like concerns. Just justifications; you seem to think it's a great idea overall, right?
Oh god please don't ban me.
Perfect Blue
Banned
*Steam wallet refund, to then buy more broken mods.
StrangeTaco
Member
In addition to that, if you are returning things too often Valve will consider you to be abusing the system and won't let you return things after a certain point.
You can get a refund within 24 hours. If the problem manifests itself after that and fucks your save up, tough titty.
And refunds are only in the Steam wallet, so you're not really getting your money back.
Within 24 hours. Better hope you can do everything you can do in the mod within that time limit, see any potential conflicts (even though many types won't show up for a while) and hope the mod author doesn't update the mode breaking compatibility with other paid mods in the future (workshop mods automatically update).
Yeah 24 hour period, because all conflicting mods break within 24 hours. Of course.
superseohyun
Member
which may stop working after a new official patch rolls out, or contains bad script that will break your save after 3 days of playing. But hey, you can get refund in 24 hours! ALL IS WELL!
jshackles
Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
I would like to add a bit of context to this discussion. Paid mods have been available now for almost 24 hours. Because paid mods on the workshop work like other items on the workshop, it's easy to see the number of people who have subscribed (aka paid) to access the mod. Additionally, we know that the revenue share is somewhere in the range of 25% to the mod developer, 25% to Valve, and 50% to the publisher. Using this premise, I've constructed a few breakdowns of the 18 currently available mods. The first shows the minimum price that you can pay for the mod, since every mod available currently falls under the "pay what you want" model but has a minimum price:
Additionally, each item also has a "default" price (the price it's listed at in the search page and the price it defaults to when you visit the page). This model assumes that nobody opted to pay less than the base price:
It's interesting to note also that Valve doesn't pay the modders until they are owed$400$100. This means that, so far at least, it's very likely (unless someone went nuts and decided to pay $99.99 for something) that only 6-9 modders have been paid for participating in this program.
Additionally, it means that Valve has most likely only generated between $1,466.19 and $2,444.90 from the sale of these mods. Bethesda has (again, most likely) only generated between $2,932.38 - $4,889.79 in revenue. While this may sound like a lot of money to make in 24 hours, it really isn't. Especially considering that the Steam homepage has a huge banner introducing this program. Valve and Bethesda both could have made significantly more money by simply putting Skyrim (or even The Elder Scrolls Online) on the Steam home page banner instead. In fact, I'd wager that both Valve and Bethesda made significantly more money selling Skryim itself than these mods. And since I enjoy stuff like this, let's break it down:
At $4.99 a copy, Valve takes $1.50 and Bethesda takes $3.49. So for all the hullabaloo about mods yesterday, Bethesda could have made the same amount of money selling only 1,402 copies of Skyrim on Steam. Did they? Probably. Were some of those sales motivated by the new paid modding system in place? Maybe (though I doubt it).
It seems people are outraged by this move on Valve's part. I've seen a lot of "I'm losing faith in Valve" posts here. I just thought I'd put a dollar figure to these arguments as best I could. When you look at it, it seems entirely silly on Valve's part to throw away so much community goodwill for a few thousand dollars, even if it does end up being a few thousand dollars every 24 hours.
Additionally, each item also has a "default" price (the price it's listed at in the search page and the price it defaults to when you visit the page). This model assumes that nobody opted to pay less than the base price:
It's interesting to note also that Valve doesn't pay the modders until they are owed
Additionally, it means that Valve has most likely only generated between $1,466.19 and $2,444.90 from the sale of these mods. Bethesda has (again, most likely) only generated between $2,932.38 - $4,889.79 in revenue. While this may sound like a lot of money to make in 24 hours, it really isn't. Especially considering that the Steam homepage has a huge banner introducing this program. Valve and Bethesda both could have made significantly more money by simply putting Skyrim (or even The Elder Scrolls Online) on the Steam home page banner instead. In fact, I'd wager that both Valve and Bethesda made significantly more money selling Skryim itself than these mods. And since I enjoy stuff like this, let's break it down:
At $4.99 a copy, Valve takes $1.50 and Bethesda takes $3.49. So for all the hullabaloo about mods yesterday, Bethesda could have made the same amount of money selling only 1,402 copies of Skyrim on Steam. Did they? Probably. Were some of those sales motivated by the new paid modding system in place? Maybe (though I doubt it).
It seems people are outraged by this move on Valve's part. I've seen a lot of "I'm losing faith in Valve" posts here. I just thought I'd put a dollar figure to these arguments as best I could. When you look at it, it seems entirely silly on Valve's part to throw away so much community goodwill for a few thousand dollars, even if it does end up being a few thousand dollars every 24 hours.
Dorsal Axe
Member
So what are people supposed to do if problems manifest after the 24 hour refund period? What happens when a mod update breaks the game? What happens when a modder decides to go rogue and scorches the earth for their mod (which has happened before) ruining it for everyone that paid for it?
"I will only buy your stuff if I can get it for free."
You dont see the pitfall in this?
PhilGPT
Member
Here are a few problems I have with paid mods:
- Mod creator abandons paid mod, game gets updated and breaks the mod.
- Paid mods using assets from other sources with no compensation to original source (example: texture packs using assets from texture artists without their approval)
- Paid mods getting "DMCA'd" after being sold.
- Incompatibility between mods. "Paid Mod 1" doesn't work with "Paid Mod 2".
- Possibility of mod creators ending their collaborative work with each other.
- Mod quality going down the drain because some people are just out to make a quick buck.
- "Early Access Mods"...
- Mod creator abandons paid mod, game gets updated and breaks the mod.
- Paid mods using assets from other sources with no compensation to original source (example: texture packs using assets from texture artists without their approval)
- Paid mods getting "DMCA'd" after being sold.
- Incompatibility between mods. "Paid Mod 1" doesn't work with "Paid Mod 2".
- Possibility of mod creators ending their collaborative work with each other.
- Mod quality going down the drain because some people are just out to make a quick buck.
- "Early Access Mods"...
Perfect Blue
Banned
I don't know, that's obviously the other side of the argument. I do think they would enable returns after 24 hours if the mod itself is broken - too much bad publicity would come from not doing it. I'm basing this on Valve not being a dumb company and one that prides itself on its public image.
Those are the potential points of failure, but everything seems hypothetically sound and viable with the exception of Bethesda's cut. Bethesda is probably the most egregious example in the entire video game industry of a developer reliant on its community to fix its games. Skimming a token amount in this case would seem fairer than taking a larger cut than the modders themselves are getting, considering the value directly added to Bethesda's games with each mod released for them. I could see the disparity there making modders cynical about developing for Bethesda games in particular, and consumers cynical about giving Bethesda the bulk of the purchase price for the mods being bought, more so than the 25% number itself in a vacuum.
"I want to make money modding even though the culturally accepted norm is that mods are free."
You don't see the pitfall in this?
StarlordDial
Member
Man .. Mod authors from nexus are already taking out their mods in fear of someone uploading them to steam and selling them there ;_;
And i'm scared about ENb "presets" being sold soon in the future or hid it in a package inside a mod ... Boris if i recall does't want anyone to be selling his dll. files and etc
And i'm scared about ENb "presets" being sold soon in the future or hid it in a package inside a mod ... Boris if i recall does't want anyone to be selling his dll. files and etc
The program just started yesterday and according to you they already made roughly 2,000$ on ONE GAME. Just imagine how much money starts making when you multiply that figure with a few thousand games on steam. Granted not every game is going to be a big seller and not all mods will sell crazy amounts but Valve makes money in volume.
WAY too much money on the table for Valve and publishers to leave this alone.
Why can't they just host them on both the workshop and nexus? What the reason for removing it from the nexus?
Incorrect. Modders get the money when they are owed 100$(the 400$ figure is about the complete revenue)I would like to add a bit of context to this discussion. Paid mods have been available now for almost 24 hours. Because paid mods on the workshop work like other items on the workshop, it's easy to see the number of people who have subscribed (aka paid) to access the mod. Additionally, we know that the revenue share is somewhere in the range of 25% to the mod developer, 25% to Valve, and 50% to the publisher. Using this premise, I've constructed a few breakdowns of the 18 currently available mods. The first shows the minimum price that you can pay for the mod, since every mod available currently falls under the "pay what you want" model but has a minimum price:
Additionally, each item also has a "default" price (the price it's listed at in the search page and the price it defaults to when you visit the page). This model assumes that nobody opted to pay less than the base price:
It's interesting to note also that Valve doesn't pay the modders until they are owed $400. This means that, so far at least, it's very likely (unless someone went nuts and decided to pay $99.99 for something) that no modders have been paid for participating in this program.
Additionally, it means that Valve has most likely only generated between $1,466.19 and $2,444.90 from the sale of these mods. Bethesda has (again, most likely) only generated between $2,932.38 - $4,889.79 in revenue. While this may sound like a lot of money to make in 24 hours, it really isn't. Especially considering that the Steam homepage has a huge banner introducing this program. Valve and Bethesda both could have made significantly more money by simply putting Skyrim (or even The Elder Scrolls Online) on the Steam home page banner instead. In fact, I'd wager that both Valve and Bethesda made significantly more money selling Skryim itself than these mods. And since I enjoy stuff like this, let's break it down:
At $4.99 a copy, Valve takes $1.50 and Bethesda takes $3.49. So for all the hullabaloo about mods yesterday, Bethesda could have made the same amount of money selling only 1,402 copies of Skyrim on Steam. Did they? Probably. Were some of those sales motivated by the new paid modding system in place? Maybe (though I doubt it).
It seems people are outraged by this move on Valve's part. I've seen a lot of "I'm losing faith in Valve" posts here. I just thought I'd put a dollar figure to these arguments as best I could. When you look at it, it seems entirely silly on Valve's part to throw away so much community goodwill for a few thousand dollars, even if it does end up being a few thousand dollars every 24 hours.
Rise of the Triad
Garry's Mod
DayZ
Counter-Strike
Team Fortress
Red Orchestra
Diaspora
Natural Selection
The Stanley Parable
Dear Esther
Day of Defeat
Damnation
Killing Floor
Antichamber
...and countless others
As for paid modding scene:
United Racing Design (Assetto Corsa & rFactor)
Carenado (various paid flight simulator mods)
Ultimate Traffic
Seriously, it's not a new thing and there have been paid mods since the incarnation of the modding scene. The modding scene for Assetto Corsa is quite healthy even though paid mods are available and allowed, same for flight sim mods.
From what i saw Epic is doing it is great better then what valve does at this moment.
Boris doesn't even allow people to download certain ENB files from Nexus, you have to go to the main ENB site to download it (for free). I wonder how those guys would react if someone uploaded a preset to the Workshop.
What? Mods are not free cause its "culturally accepted" its because there is no way to make money from them if don't have permission, licenses or agreement granted by the developer of the game.
I was looking at my Fallout: New Vegas mod installation through FOMM, and I have roughly 75 mods installed in that game, ranging from ENB stuff to full land mass additions and quest lines. Some of it is really good, some of it is fairly minuscule. If I had to pay for even half of those mods, I'd pretty much give up on New Vegas modding completely, the price of modding the game the way I have would have cost several times more than the game itself more than likely.
I would be more in favor of a set amount (annually perhaps?) for full access to a specific game's Workshop content. Lets say I pay $30/year for access to Skyrim's Workshop, and modders are paid based on their number of download/ranking in the Workshop.
Not saying this is the answer, just a possible alternative. Again, I have no issue paying for content, I have 950+ games in my Steam account, a good percentage of those bought at launch or for full price.
I would be more in favor of a set amount (annually perhaps?) for full access to a specific game's Workshop content. Lets say I pay $30/year for access to Skyrim's Workshop, and modders are paid based on their number of download/ranking in the Workshop.
Not saying this is the answer, just a possible alternative. Again, I have no issue paying for content, I have 950+ games in my Steam account, a good percentage of those bought at launch or for full price.
hobblygobbly
Member
The simulator scene for games has had paid mods and stuff for almost a decade now yeah, my dad pretty much just plays FSX online and the FSX community is filled with mods/software/3D models/everything and most of it is paid for. It probably has the biggest modding scene (although it's a simulator) for a game. There's even companies that exist that make products just for FSX now as full blown development companies.
For example: https://www.fullterrain.com/product/nor
A plane (granted, these are very, very detailed and have insane simulation) http://www.pmdgsimulations.com/pages/product/FSX/744x.html $55
For all sim games the paid modding scene has been a thing for many years. Many of them are what you'd pay for a full priced game like $60.
jshackles
Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
That's up to Valve to decide. Of course things like this will most likely operate on a sliding scale meaning that just because something has 10 times as much content available doesn't mean it's going to generate 10 times as many sales. And like I said, they probably could have gotten just as much (or more) money using the home page banner space to sell the game itself. That banner space is big bucks, and the fact that 5,152 people or less clicked through to purchase something says a lot. It also appears they've lost of fair amount of community goodwill over this move. It's all about trade offs.
Thanks for the clarification. I've updated my post to reflect this.
Backlogger
Member
Agreed 100%. I was blown away when I heard what the cut was going to be. That being said, I am still not against charging for mods.
Also, since they are doing Steam Wallet refunds I think they should let people request a refund any time after buying the mod instead of the 24 hours grace period. That way if the mod breaks later you can always get your money back and spend it on something else with Steam. Valve could lose money if they have already paid out the author and publisher but I think it would provide much needed "good will".
Additionally authors with a track record of high refund requests should also get black listed somehow from offering paid mods.
Garry's Mod - started off free
DayZ - started off free
Counter-Strike - started off free
Team Fortress - started off free
Red Orchestra
Diaspora
Natural Selection - started off free
The Stanley Parable - started off free
Dear Esther
Day of Defeat - started off free
Damnation
Killing Floor
Antichamber - is this a mod or a udk game? Legit don't know so yeah.
That's still a tiny list in comparison to the free mods currently available. It's also a list of the cream of the crop proving that exceptional work does end up being profitable already. Most of the mods that started free also weren't being developed for the sole reason of becoming profitable, they are traditional mods that ended up transitioning to a paid for model at some point for some reason. That's out of the window now and mods will be getting developed with a paid marketplace in mind. I think this is just the start of disincentivization for free modding too, like I've stated previously (this is a slippery slope argument and time will bear out if my predictions are true) but modding is only going to get more locked down now that companies are realizing they could create alternate revenue streams they don't have to actively put in work for beyond developing mod tools during development. In the future development kits will only output drm'ed up files that can't be shared easily or implemented easily without a specific tool that uploads them to the workshop where they can be charged for.
You keep calling it a culturally accepted norm. The norm is that development is compensated. That is a norm across virtually every sector of society. It is what our economic system is based on.
Being paid for your work is by far more normal than the weird sector that was prohibited montization previously. This is moving towards societal norms, not away.
Corronchilejano
Member
Lots of people talking about modders and why they do their thing without ever doing a mod themselves.
This speaks of ignorance of the developer process. The vast majority of games start off as unpaid pitches before getting funding. Of course this stuff started off free, that is how development goes.
Once you have a product that has worth, it is natural to take advantage of that worth.
Given how many mod are uninstalled in a matter of days, since you need time to judge how it will go with the other mods you have, or will get ( and that is with the ease of use of Mod Organizer ). Given that, yeah, I'm more likely to give money to someone after I was able to use it for free and see that I do we get some use out of it, it did work with my other mods etc.. Than imagining having spend ~150$ ( on a 1$ per mod basis ) on mods in the last 2 month only to have used only a third of them for more than 2 or 3 days ( and 1-3h of actual play/test time ).
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