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[Skux]

"Newell believes that users are as important as developers and should even be able to assign quests for other players in games. He believes the next logical step is that even a store should be looked at as user-generated content."

Completely the wrong way to look at it. Modders have never been in it for the money. They have never seen themselves as "developers" of the game they're modding, but instead as dedicated fans who do it because they want to, they love doing it, and they want to be part of a community that shares that view and shares their work.

The next example me paraphrasing from Dan Pink's TED Talk, "The Puzzle of Motivation":

Remember Microsoft's Encarta encyclopedia? MS got a bunch of professors and writers and editors to write articles for it. Each contributor was assigned a subject and deadline, and made responsible for their own area of expertise. They submitted their articles and got paid for them. It worked for a while.

And then a new paradigm came along. Wikipedia. An encyclopedia that anyone can contribute to. No one gets paid. You work when you want and do what you can. Everyone works together to fact check and fix mistakes and keep it updated. Now it's the biggest repository of human knowledge on the planet, and no one has even heard of Encarta anymore.

The best mods are incredible technical and artistic feats. You load them up and it's astounding how rich and complex they are, and the extent of creation and creativity from a single person or tiny team with a shoestring budget is mind boggling, often better than the original game. That's because it's a labour of love. It's not something someone rushed to meet a deadline to get a paycheck, it's a work that is good because its creator wanted it to be.

The sad part is that Gabe Newell knows this. Or at least he used to.

When I click the Workshop I don't want to see a whole load of shitty shovelware that caters to the lowest common denominators and is made as a cheap cash-in. I want to see what people are making because they love making things.

 

[PetriP-TNT]

Games as a service would have been complete nonsense to people a few generations ago and yet, here we are. If you can't see the trajectories then it's your fault when greed inevitably ruins something else.

Few generations as in human generations? Because games-as-a-service concept predates to at least 1985 when Island of Kesmai cost 12 dollars a hour to play.

until someone makes DSRepair for 3.99 with minimally more features and a lot more convenience due to the supported distribution of the Steam Workshop(tm)

Then you can go to Steam and compare DSRepair for 3.99 and DSFix for free. You can make your own choice, no one is forcing you to buy the other product over the other.

And then a new paradigm came along. Wikipedia. An encyclopedia that anyone can contribute to. No one gets paid. You work when you want and do what you can. Everyone works together to fact check and fix mistakes and keep it updated. Now it's the biggest repository of human knowledge on the planet, and no one has even heard of Encarta anymore.

Wikipedia is absolutely struggling to stay up. There will be a day when Wikipedia cannot support itself through random donations and no-one knows what will happen then.

 

[The Cartographer]

Was all this shit necessary, Valve?

 

[vio]

Can`t wait for those fancy horse armors.

 

[Marcel]

Few generations as in human generations? Because games-as-a-service concept predates to at least 1985 when Island of Kesmai cost 12 dollars a hour to play.

Don't be purposefully daft. I'm talking about the modern system of games as a service, not some obscure example you've likely pulled from a Google search.

 

[Htown]

Not as much as "the market will become completly curated and all will be flower and sunshines".

If Valve has success with this, why would they allow free mods?

For the same reason that they've always allowed them. To increase the sales of related games and to keep people looking at the Steam store.

 

[danthefan]

until someone makes DSRepair for 3.99 with minimally more features and a lot more convenience due to the supported distribution of the Steam Workshop(tm)

But is DSFix still not free, even if someone does this?

Anyway I really don't like this move, fuck sake Valve you have enough money already.

 

[GHG]

Completely the wrong way to look at it. Modders have never been in it for the money. They have never seen themselves as "developers" of the game they're modding, but instead as dedicated fans who do it because they want to, they love doing it, and they want to be part of a community that shares that view and shares their work.

The next example me paraphrasing from Dan Pink's TED Talk, "The Puzzle of Motivation":

Remember Microsoft's Encarta encyclopedia? MS got a bunch of professors and writers and editors to write articles for it. Each contributor was assigned a subject and deadline, and made responsible for their own area of expertise. They submitted their articles and got paid for them. It worked for a while.

And then a new paradigm came along. Wikipedia. An encyclopedia that anyone can contribute to. No one gets paid. You work when you want and do what you can. Everyone works together to fact check and fix mistakes and keep it updated. Now it's the biggest repository of human knowledge on the planet, and no one has even heard of Encarta anymore.

The best mods are incredible technical and artistic feats. You load them up and it's astounding how rich and complex they are, and the extent of creation and creativity from a single person or tiny team with a shoestring budget is mind boggling, often better than the original game. That's because it's a labour of love. It's not something someone rushed to meet a deadline to get a paycheck, it's a work that is good because it's creator wanted it to be.

The sad part is that Gabe Newell knows this. Or at least he used to.

Well said and bang on with the Encarta example.

I remember it even if apples IOS spellcheck doesn't .

 

[Relaxed Muscle]

For the same reason that they've always allowed them. To increase the sales of related games and to keep people looking at the Steam store.

Only if that gives them more money that the other option.

Which is not so unlikely right now.

 

[Kintaro]

The Playstation 4?

I would like to say that supporting a system and a company that took away free online play and replaced it with a $50 entry barrier, and then never uses the money it makes to make said network service better in any way, shape or form is NOT a positive way to "vote with your wallet."

 

[Durante]

until someone makes DSRepair for 3.99 with minimally more features and a lot more convenience due to the supported distribution of the Steam Workshop(tm)

If DSRepair is plagiarized I put up a DMCA takedown notice. If it isn't, then people can decide whether to use the free DSfix or whether the purportedly added convenience of DSRepair is worth its cost for them. I don't see where you are going with this. Who loses?

 

[Fox318]

Fear mongering rarely benefits anyone. It's better suited for tabloids than on discussion boards.

Except that is exactly what this is.

And the most disgusting part is people who are doing the work creating the mods aren't even getting a good cut.

Why the fuck should Valve and another party get a 75% cut when they are doing no work to promote, optimize tools, or quality control?

 

[PetriP-TNT]

Don't be purposefully daft. I'm talking about the modern system of games as a service, not some obscure example you've likely pulled from a Google search.

No, actually I learned about it from this thread:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=830107

You can name the starting point for "modern GaaS" and we can play this from there too.

 

[EviLore]

Fun fact: in my experience, less than 0.17% of all mod users donate. If you actually want to make a living or even just support yourself with modding (which I think is a bad idea, but I wouldn't want to stop anyone from trying!) then donations are entirely unsuitable.

Shocking news.

This was in the comments for the Midas Magic Gold Skyrim Workshop mod before comments were disabled (from what I could tell, the dev of the mod had stopped working on Midas Magic for Skyrim a long time ago, but after being courted by Bethesda and Valve for the Workshop launch, went back and revamped it, since there was an opportunity to actually get paid for his work):

"I appreciate the time and effort that you put into this. It looks really, really good. I hate to say it, but honestly.. I would rather you not have done this at all than charge for it. Mods have always been about community and fan love for the game. Not about becoming second-tier content developers to make money. I really hope that if you decide to create mods in the future, that you go for the traditional free model."

Durante, whether you want to or not, you need to abide by the Modder Bushido of giving everyone your time and skills and work for free, no matter what, forever. Only then can you preserve the love. The 0.17% love.

 

[Juniez]

Then you can go to Steam and compare DSRepair for 3.99 and DSFix for free. You can make your own choice, no one is forcing you to buy the other product over the other.

But is DSFix still not free, even if someone does this?

Anyway I really don't like this move, fuck sake Valve you have enough money already.

yes but the comparison was that now From would be 'rewarded' through any purchases of DSrepair even though there exists a free alternative

 

[Nabs]

DayZ Creator Weighs In On Paid 'Skyrim' Mods

This is a really good interview. I'm expecting it to go ignored.

 

[_machine]

DayZ Creator Weighs In On Paid 'Skyrim' Mods

Dean puts it into words that I couldn't, I can't say I disagree with him in the least. I would have liked to him to address some of potential consequences when it comes Workshop being the right platform for every game (Skyrim for example I feel is a bit too complex so I much prefer Nexus) and Valve is by all means very constrained when it comes to quick support.

 

[Jac_Solar]

Nevermind.

 

[Marcel]

They cannot live on their hobby alone (surprise) even though there was no expectation of payment and no overhead (now there is and boy are you gonna hear about it) before this economy of meager corporate pittance even existed.

 

[Htown]

This is a really good interview. I'm expecting it to go ignored.

I totally forgot about the Flight Simulator thing. You used to be able to walk into a store and buy somebody's addon for Flight Simulator Whatever right off the shelf in the PC game section. I know because I used to have people coming in to return them because they didn't know you needed Flight Simulator to use them.

 

[Calabi]

Completely the wrong way to look at it. Modders have never been in it for the money. They have never seen themselves as "developers" of the game they're modding, but instead as dedicated fans who do it because they want to, they love doing it, and they want to be part of a community that shares that view and shares their work.

The next example me paraphrasing from Dan Pink's TED Talk, "The Puzzle of Motivation":

Remember Microsoft's Encarta encyclopedia? MS got a bunch of professors and writers and editors to write articles for it. Each contributor was assigned a subject and deadline, and made responsible for their own area of expertise. They submitted their articles and got paid for them. It worked for a while.

And then a new paradigm came along. Wikipedia. An encyclopedia that anyone can contribute to. No one gets paid. You work when you want and do what you can. Everyone works together to fact check and fix mistakes and keep it updated. Now it's the biggest repository of human knowledge on the planet, and no one has even heard of Encarta anymore.

The best mods are incredible technical and artistic feats. You load them up and it's astounding how rich and complex they are, and the extent of creation and creativity from a single person or tiny team with a shoestring budget is mind boggling, often better than the original game. That's because it's a labour of love. It's not something someone rushed to meet a deadline to get a paycheck, it's a work that is good because it's creator wanted it to be.

The sad part is that Gabe Newell knows this. Or at least he used to.

When I click the Workshop I don't want to see a whole load of shitty shovelware that caters to the lowest common denominators and is made as a cheap cash-in. I want to see what people are making because they love making things.

This is the sad thing everything is being reduced to a monetary transaction, the money is god and decide's all. This wont improve anything it will reduce the creativity and collaborations. It was inevitable this was going to happen though our current society has one idea and is going to bury itself with it.

 

[Marcel]

This is the sad thing everything is being reduced to a monetary transaction, the money is god and decide's all. This wont improve anything it will reduce the creativity and collaborations. It was inevitable this was going to happen though our current society has one idea and is going to bury itself with it.

Money has never shown in of itself to be a motivating factor in making art 'better', it just creates need, want and speculation in an artificial environment where people attempt to outdance one another for dollars. Watch Welles' F for Fake to see what I mean.

 

[alexandros]

Your passive attitude reflects that of someone who didn't really care much for modding to begin with and is perhaps more inclined in seeing this from Valve's perspective rather than the modder/player.

I've been gaming exclusively on home computers and PC since the late 80s and I've often tried my hand at creating mods for my own amusement for games that I loved like Starcraft, X-Com and Morrowind. Modding is one of the pillars of PC gaming and it is because I deeply care for it that I would like to see it receive better funding and get more people involved in the creation process. I believe that PC gamers are mature enough to assess this new business model and accept it, tune it or reject it depending on their preferences and personal beliefs. There are bound to be a few teething problems but these should be solved relatively fast and the prices will be tuned to a sustainable level. I don't think free mods will disappear anytime soon.

I would like to say that supporting a system and a company that took away free online play and replaced it with a $50 entry barrier, and then never uses the money it makes to make said network service better in any way, shape or form is NOT a positive way to "vote with your wallet."

I agree 100%. Compared to the travesty that was the original XB1 pitch it was a small "victory", if a pyrrhic one.

 

[eot]

The way I see it, there's nothing wrong with wanting to make money off something you made, or making something with the intend of charging for it. Of course not. However, there's also value in communities where people aren't motivated by financial gain. I don't have a problem with someone spending hundreds of hours on something they don't get paid for. They knew what they were doing the whole time. I've spent hundreds of hours mapping for CS and having people play your maps is plenty of reward. Besides, the very best mods, ones worth selling, typically end up as standalone games anyway and I don't have a problem with that either.

Are hats and skins a net positive for CS and TF2? In 2003 I could go on gamebanana and replace my AK with a pulse rifle from Aliens if I wanted to, and today people pay hundreds of dollars for knife skins. Yay, what an improvement.

 

[meanspartan]

Shocking news.

This was in the comments for the Midas Magic Gold Skyrim Workshop mod before comments were disabled (from what I could tell, the dev of the mod had stopped working on Midas Magic for Skyrim a long time ago, but after being courted by Bethesda and Valve for the Workshop launch, went back and revamped it, since there was an opportunity to actually get paid for his work):

"I appreciate the time and effort that you put into this. It looks really, really good. I hate to say it, but honestly.. I would rather you not have done this at all than charge for it. Mods have always been about community and fan love for the game. Not about becoming second-tier content developers to make money. I really hope that if you decide to create mods in the future, that you go for the traditional free model."

Durante, whether you want to or not, you need to abide by the Modder Bushido of giving everyone your time and skills and work for free, no matter what, forever. Only then can you preserve the love. The 0.17% love.

Yes but modders knew that they weren't going to get paid going in, and yes they did do it out of love for the game and not much more.

When you change that dynamic, you can't be surprised when modding as a whole changes, and probably for the worse. And once it changes, it won't be undone. Look at Day 1 DLC and other shitty practices that are here to stay because we allowed the precedent to be established.

 

[Mesoian]

I really hope someone is watching this with a fine tooth comb and documenting each change that happens on the daily.

It's going to make for one hell of an article a month from now, when speculation and outrage has died down and all that's left are the dirty, ugly truths behind the truth of the modding community.

 

[Marcel]

The way I see it, there's nothing wrong with wanting to make money off something you made, or making something with the intend of charging for it. Of course not. However, there's also value in communities where people aren't motivated by financial gain. I don't have a problem with someone spending hundreds of hours on something they don't get paid for. They knew what they were doing the whole time. I've spent hundreds of hours mapping for CS and having people play your maps is plenty of reward. Besides, the very best mods, ones worth selling, typically end up as standalone games anyway and I don't have a problem with that either.

Are hats and skins a net positive for CS and TF2? In 2003 I could go on gamebanana and replace my AK with a pulse rifle from Aliens if I wanted to, and today people pay hundreds of dollars for knife skins. Yay, what an improvement.

This is where some oversentimental boob tells you that someone is feeding their family with that knife skin, as if such a local and mostly invented bullshit example makes exploitative markets okay.

 

[PetriP-TNT]

The way I see it, there's nothing wrong with wanting to make money off something you made, or making something with the intend of charging for it. Of course not. However, there's also value in communities where people aren't motivated by financial gain. I don't have a problem with someone spending hundreds of hours on something they don't get paid for. They knew what they were doing the whole time. I've spent hundreds of hours mapping for CS and having people play your maps is plenty of reward. Besides, the very best mods, ones worth selling, typically end up as standalone games anyway and I don't have a problem with that either.

Are hats and skins a net positive for CS and TF2? In 2003 I could go on gamebanana and replace my AK with a pulse rifle from Aliens if I wanted to, and today people pay hundreds of dollars for knife skins. Yay, what an improvement.

I don't know, I enjoy the hats-n-skins metagame very much and I have made more than double I have spent on the game by just playing the games itself (for 204 hours for CS:GO and 89 for TF2) and never buying anything (other than a Hotline Miami music kit because I enjoy the series and it was on sale - I could have sold it for double the price 7 days later but didn't).

edit: I want to say at this point that I code, follow and contribute to various open source software and tools nearly daily.

 

[Grief.exe]

@Durante

I could see a massive value in a paid-Gedosato app in the workshop. Not only does it add value to the game in question, but also adds functionality to a growing list of other titles.

Link to your blog on the page and let people know it is available there as well.

Except that is exactly what this is.

And the most disgusting part is people who are doing the work creating the mods aren't even getting a good cut.

Why the fuck should Valve and another party get a 75% cut when they are doing no work to promote, optimize tools, or quality control?

I'd recommend you to and read the Forbes interview with Dean Hall. Some of these statements are frankly ignorant in the way the industry functions and licencing in general.

I would agree that Bethesda's cut is too high however.

Shocking news.

This was in the comments for the Midas Magic Gold Skyrim Workshop mod before comments were disabled (from what I could tell, the dev of the mod had stopped working on Midas Magic for Skyrim a long time ago, but after being courted by Bethesda and Valve for the Workshop launch, went back and revamped it, since there was an opportunity to actually get paid for his work):

"I appreciate the time and effort that you put into this. It looks really, really good. I hate to say it, but honestly.. I would rather you not have done this at all than charge for it. Mods have always been about community and fan love for the game. Not about becoming second-tier content developers to make money. I really hope that if you decide to create mods in the future, that you go for the traditional free model."

Durante, whether you want to or not, you need to abide by the Modder Bushido of giving everyone your time and skills and work for free, no matter what, forever. Only then can you preserve the love. The 0.17% love.

People find that cherry picking bad mods or bad DLC practices is easier than contemplating the positives aspects for the community.

Yes but modders knew that they weren't going to get paid going in, and yes they did do it out of love for the game and not much more.

When you change that dynamic, you can't be surprised when modding as a whole changes, and probably for the worse. And once it changes, it won't be undone. Look at Day 1 DLC and other shitty practices that are here to stay because we allowed the precedent to be established.

Case in point. The slippery slopes.

This is where some oversentimental boob tells you that someone is feeding their family with that knife skin, as if such a local and mostly invented bullshit example makes exploitative markets okay.

There are plenty of content creators on the Steam workshop making six figure salaries.

 

[_machine]

Yes but modders knew that they weren't going to get paid going in, and yes they did do it out of love for the game and not much more.

And you know why modders started modding or that they only did out of love? I know dozens of people who started modding as a way to get in the industry, that wanted build portfolios, that wanted to make money out of it, but still also did for the love creating, for the love of games and for the love of community. These arent't exclusive things.

When you change that dynamic, you can't be surprised when modding as a whole changes, and probably for the worse. And once it changes, it won't be undone. Look at Day 1 DLC and other shitty practices that are here to stay because we allowed the precedent to be established.

The dynamic has been changed for other games years ago and it has worked well for some and not so well for others.

 

[Supernorn]

People are overreacting to such an extent that they can't see the big picture. Here's my take on it, as someone who started out in modding and who now works in the games industry:

- A modder on the workshop won't see a paycheck for at least 3+ months after the mod has gone on sale. This is Valve's safety net to tackle ownership issues and other problems. Three months is more than enough time for these things to get sorted.

- A paid workshop potentially means talented artists could make a living solely from creating high quality content for games. This is already happening with the top modders on the TF2 workshop.

- Valve do not get 75% of the mod sale. The developer gets the majority. The dev can also choose how much of the revshare the modder gets.

- There's a lot of professional artists in the industry who currently make content for the existing paid workshops on the side. This raises the overall quality of content on the workshop.

- High quality mods rise up to the top, setting a high standard for others and burying the junk.

- Developers seeing a percentage from modding, means modding is now profitable for developers. This gives developers that otherwise wouldn't, an incentive to support modding in their future games.

So who exactly is losing out here? Valve isn't. The developers aren't. The modders themselves now have an opportunity to benefit from their work massively. It seems like the people that lose out here are those that simply don't want to pay a penny for mods. Well, free mods aren't going anywhere either.

Do Valve need to be vigilant and ensure that their system isn't gamed? Of course. Nobody is going to dispute that. But the clear benefits here massively outweigh the negatives.

Also, this is going to be rolled out far beyond Skyrim. Valve have already approached other developers, outside of Bethesda. It just makes sense that they'd go with them first as the Skyrim Workshop is absolutely massive.

 

[EviLore]

yes but the comparison was that now From would be 'rewarded' through any purchases of DSrepair even though there exists a free alternative

From was already rewarded tremendously by DSFix existing. Dark Souls has sold like 1.8 million copies on Steam despite being what would be considered one of the worst PC ports in the modern era without DSFix, and from what I recall they used code from DSFix for the PC version of Dark Souls 2. Even though Durante doesn't want to sell his mods, if, say, a paid workshop scenario had existed for Dark Souls on release day, he could have made a significant amount of money, deservedly, had he wanted to.

Be less concerned about corporations taking a cut in a paid marketplace and more concerned about modders getting jack shit in the utopian free mod scene.

 

[eot]

This is where some oversentimental boob tells you that someone is feeding their family with that knife skin, as if such a local and mostly invented bullshit example makes exploitative markets okay.

Sure, I bet some kid made a million bucks on a knife. Who am I to say he shouldn't because I want free knives? It's a socialist argument, it's better for the collective if we all do things for eachother than for ourselves, and it's worse for the few people who benefit the most from capitalism. Since this is a hobby I'm fine with a bit of socialism.

I don't know, I enjoy the hats-n-skins metagame very much and I have made more than double I have spent on the game by just playing the games itself (for 204 hours for CS:GO and 89 for TF2) and never buying anything (other than a Hotline Miami music kit because I enjoy the series and it was on sale - I could have sold it for double the price 7 days later but didn't).

edit: I want to say at this point that I code, follow and contribute to various open source software and tools nearly daily.

Yeah, I know people like it.
Maybe I'm a luddite.
I don't like how they gamify the Steam sales either tbh.

 

[Boss Doggie]

A huge problem here is that people assume all modding is the same. That modding from TES is the same as Garry's Mod or Sonic. That is a very, very terrible view and ignorant of the underlying problems.

 

[Marcel]

Be less concerned about corporations taking a cut in a paid marketplace and more concerned about modders getting jack shit in the utopian free mod scene.

"Be less concerned about corporations" is a mostly irresponsible and cowardly tack to take in this scenario where corporate neolib market speculation has now tainted the well. We've already seen free content stolen and used in paid mods and Valve sees fit to offer no real solution other than "DMCA people yourself". Why not an auditing process? Why not a clarification process?

I shouldn't ask because I know why: Valve has been this lazy for years. It's why their marketplace still sucks from a curation standpoint and why Greenlight has been a joke since day 1.

 

[EviLore]

"Be less concerned about corporations" is a mostly irresponsible and cowardly tack to take in this scenario where corporate neolib market speculation has now tainted the well.

Adjust your talking points away from personal attacks, dipshit.

 

[Mesoian]

Tertiary: One of the saddest things that's going to come out of this is the fact that The Cowl of Nocturne is going to miss being the mod of the month on the nexus because people are upvoting Give Me Money For No Reason over it in protest.

Cowl of Nocturne is good you guys...the type of mod that we probably SHOULD be paying for.

 

[Advent1s]

People are overreacting to such an extent that they can't see the big picture. Here's my take on it, as someone who started out in modding and who now works in the games industry:

- A modder on the workshop won't see a paycheck for at least 3+ months after the mod has gone on sale. This is Valve's safety net to tackle ownership issues and other problems. Three months is more than enough time for these things to get sorted.

- A paid workshop potentially means talented artists could make a living solely from creating high quality content for games. This is already happening with the top modders on the TF2 workshop.

- Valve do not get 75% of the mod sale. The developer gets the majority. The dev can also choose how much of the revshare the modder gets.

- There's a lot of professional artists in the industry who currently make content for the existing paid workshops on the side. This raises the overall quality of content on the workshop.

- High quality mods rise up to the top, setting a high standard for others and burying the junk.

- Developers seeing a percentage from modding, means modding is now profitable for developers. This gives developers that otherwise wouldn't, an incentive to support modding in their future games.

So who exactly is losing out here? Valve isn't. The developers aren't. The modders themselves now have an opportunity to benefit from their work massively. It seems like the people that lose out here are those that simply don't want to pay a penny for mods. Well, free mods aren't going anywhere either.

Do Valve need to be vigilant and ensure that their system isn't gamed? Of course. Nobody is going to dispute that. But the clear benefits here massively outweigh the negatives.

Also, this is going to be rolled out far beyond Skyrim. Valve have already approached other developers, outside of Bethesda. It just makes sense that they'd go with them first as the Skyrim Workshop is absolutely massive.

This would indeed be the case...IF Valve went about it correctly.

They have done it literally the worst way possible and are reaping what has been sown, I wonder how Zenimax is seeing this, another company having control over a subsidiaries image.

I doubt they enjoy it.

 

[PetriP-TNT]

They have done it literally the worst way possible and are reaping what has been sown

How so?

 

[Vallen Valiant]

- Valve do not get 75% of the mod sale. The developer gets the majority. The dev can also choose how much of the revshare the modder gets.

Developers?
How DARE you call them Developers, when they didn't develop anything in the Mod? The "developers" sold me the full priced game, that should be enough. Now they want 75% of someone else's work too?

You think Bethesda should get paid for horse armour they didn't even make themselves?

 

[Fox318]

Shocking news.

This was in the comments for the Midas Magic Gold Skyrim Workshop mod before comments were disabled (from what I could tell, the dev of the mod had stopped working on Midas Magic for Skyrim a long time ago, but after being courted by Bethesda and Valve for the Workshop launch, went back and revamped it, since there was an opportunity to actually get paid for his work):

"I appreciate the time and effort that you put into this. It looks really, really good. I hate to say it, but honestly.. I would rather you not have done this at all than charge for it. Mods have always been about community and fan love for the game. Not about becoming second-tier content developers to make money. I really hope that if you decide to create mods in the future, that you go for the traditional free model."

Durante, whether you want to or not, you need to abide by the Modder Bushido of giving everyone your time and skills and work for free, no matter what, forever. Only then can you preserve the love. The 0.17% love.

Most modders knew going in that they weren't going to make bank. It was originally people making stuff they wanted in the game that devs didn't want to make or couldn't legally make due to copyright or censorship laws.

There are plenty modders and mod teams that have been able to break out and make full games based on their mods.

This would be a more interesting question if this was for mods like Sourceforts or Pirates, Vikings, and Knights 2 than any of the skins or UI mods.

While on one hand the Pirates Vikings and Knights team deserve to get loads of dosh for their game they probably don't get the exposure today because they get lumped in with cheap indie games that get lost in bundles or F2P trash that ruins the game.

I mean I can say I've supported workshop content creators by buying items in TF2 and Source but a simple donate button probably would have made more sense or have a modding steam card badge that allows members to buy cards, backgrounds, and steam badges that goes to fund mod development of games.

 

[Klossen]

I've been gaming exclusively on home computers and PC since the late 80s and I've often tried my hand at creating mods for my own amusement for games that I loved like Starcraft, X-Com and Morrowind. Modding is one of the pillars of PC gaming and it is because I deeply care for it that I would like to see it receive better funding and get more people involved in the creation process. I believe that PC gamers are mature enough to assess this new business model and accept it, tune it or reject it depending on their preferences and personal beliefs. There are bound to be a few teething problems but these should be solved relatively fast and the prices will be tuned to a sustainable level. I don't think free mods will disappear anytime soon.

My bad. As you, I too grew up modding my games. To me, early Total War games were unplayable unless you applied some mods. I remember being blown away when I got Mount&Musket for Mount&Blade and seeing the vanilla game turn into a completely different thing. When I heard the devs were going to shut down Mount&Musket in favor of Napoleonic Wars, I was very dissapointed but ended up buying the DLC anyways. It was pretty much the same thing, only that I had paid for it this time. Luckily, other great M&B mods remained free. And I felt lucky being able to play Mount&Musket when it was free as I would've never bought the DLC had I not known what I was buying.

To me, whether bad or good, mods are supposed to "made by the community, for the community". Modding brought communities closer, made them tighter and unified their voices. What eventually crippled modding were newer engines purposely designed to cripple mods so they could sell DLC instead. Suddenly it was impossible to mod Battlefield. Suddenly it became incredibly difficult to mod Total War games. I guess I should've seen this coming. What publishers don't see profit and control in, they don't see purpose in either. So they'll fight it, by either hijacking it or killing it. And the events of the past week reflects this. It's yet another part of gaming that falls more and more under the control of publishers and distributors.

I don't believe making people pay for mods will make them better. I don't believe mods should be a full-time job. What defined modding was its hobby enthusiast-driven attitude. Bringing in the same capitalist profit attitude that have ruined so many other communities is downright toxic. It's not lack of monetization that marginalized modding, it was newer engines specifically made to kill it. So either I see modding become harder and therefore less prevalent or I watch it fall under publisher control. Sounds like a lose-lose situation for me and a win-win to big publishers. Going to quote Marcel aswell as I also believe that great artists are motivated by something more than just monetary compensation.

Money has never shown in of itself to be a motivating factor in making art 'better', it just creates need, want and speculation in an artificial environment where people attempt to outdance one another for dollars. Watch Welles' F for Fake to see what I mean.

 

[Advent1s]

How so?

The implementation is crude, just like the last few Steam socialised sales, greenlight regulation and the like.

A company that fails to regulate itself, is doomed to explode, but they accept it anyway, because, I and a lot of people have too many licenses on the platform to leave comfortably.

If Valve wishes to continue being lazy, that is their prerogative, but i will not be their regulator.

 

[PetriP-TNT]

The implementation is crude, just like the last few Steam socialised sales, greenlight regulation and the like.

A company that fails to regulate itself, is doomed to explode, but they accept it anyway, because, I and a lot of people have too many licenses on the platform to leave comfortably.

If Valve wishes to continue being lazy, that is their prerogative, but i will not be their regulator.

I mean whats wrong with the implementation, I already understood that you think it's bad.

 

[CybernatonEvolution]

I would buy mods under these conditions:

1-The game is not Skyrim; it is not as buggy and crappy like Skyrim where every mod has compatibility issues (load order and dirty edits).

2-The price of the mod should reflect professional work: I expect modders to even start hiring professionals/semi-professionals to assist them in modeling/design, coding and playtesting.

3-The mod is large, contains a lot of changes and is reasonably priced. I would not buy a mod that is more expensive than a DLC, especially if it was a texture replacement or some dumb quest markers with NPCs that only have badly written dialogue. Speaking of badly made mods, when you make a quest-type mod, DON'T make spelling/punctuation mistakes, especially if you planning on publishing it as a paid mod.


That aside, I really like PC gaming and the concept of flexibility; it is one of my favorite hobbies. Therefore, I will try making mods myself. I lack expertise in some technical aspects of using modeling/designing software, and coding game scripts; I already know C++ and other programming languages, so it is not a huge deal. The time that I spend trying to Skyrim mods to work would be replaced by making mods or learning how to make them--certainly a more productive thing to do.

What worries me about this business model is the frequency of buying minor game additions. They could add up to a large amount that would equal the main game, and it is not just game content; it is secondary game content that may or may not work. If consumers think that this is a bad investment, the paid mods thing might fade away fast.

 

[Sendou]

Most modders knew going in that they weren't going to make bank. It was originally people making stuff they wanted in the game that devs didn't want to make or couldn't legally make due to copyright or censorship laws.

Okay. In the other hand it seems to me that it's a vast improvement that they can now monetize their work if they so want. Biggest reason why mods were all free for the longest time was because there wasn't a way to monetize them. There was no Steam as it is today. As Steam has grown we have seen mods getting monetized. This is just the latest step in that direction.

I just hope most people could agree on the fact that modders should be able to monetize their mods. I still haven't seen a convincing argument on why that shouldn't be the case. Arguing about the split and all that comes afterwards.

 

[ashecitism]

btw I don't think I've seen 'neoliberal' mentioned this much before lol

 

[Juniez]

Adjust your talking points away from personal attacks, dipshit.

he said the viewpoint was a cowardly and irresponsible one to take, especially in consideration the fact that this implementation may serve as the prototype for future attempts, not neccecarily that you were a coward or whatever you assumed him to call you. it's entirely possible to be in support of a concept while being against an implementation of it

edit: LOL at the ban

 

[GHG]

From was already rewarded tremendously by DSFix existing. Dark Souls has sold like 1.8 million copies on Steam despite being what would be considered one of the worst PC ports in the modern era without DSFix, and from what I recall they used code from DSFix for the PC version of Dark Souls 2. Even though Durante doesn't want to sell his mods, if, say, a paid workshop scenario had existed for Dark Souls on release day, he could have made a significant amount of money, deservedly, had he wanted to.

Be less concerned about corporations taking a cut in a paid marketplace and more concerned about modders getting jack shit in the utopian free mod scene.

I don't see the issue with modders getting jack shit when the fact is the vast majority of them didn't make mods for money before. They knew the score, knew what they were getting themselves into and you didn't see any modders crying about not being able to make enough money to feed their kids.

If they were in it for the money there were plenty of other options for them to use their talents as a means to make money. Make an ios game, make a game based on unity, unreal engine, etc, etc. Its the 21st century, the market is more open than ever for people to go and create games in order to try and make money. This wasn't needed for those people.

 

[Kyougar]

If DSRepair is plagiarized I put up a DMCA takedown notice. If it isn't, then people can decide whether to use the free DSfix or whether the purportedly added convenience of DSRepair is worth its cost for them. I don't see where you are going with this. Who loses?

We.

If you think its not neccessary anymore because there are other alternatives for us (paid ones)

This is a complete minefield and we cant see where we are going. Headless chicken mode.