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DayZ Creator Weighs In On Paid 'Skyrim' Mods

He's right that flight sims have had paid 3rd party content for a long time. For me, the difference is that the barrier of entry to creating and selling that stuff was huge. It's people modelling aircraft interiors with extreme attention to detail, creating flight models for new planes, building high resolution heightmaps of real world terrain etc. The equivalent of that for Skyrim would be if the next CD Projekt build a full, commercial grade RPG in Skyrim. If you say they should be able to charge for that I'm with you. This is not that though, this is a no barrier to entry, free for all shitfest that damages hobbyist modding by teasing people with the prospect of making a few hundred dollars on something they made.

 

[_machine]

The one with 7 mods, no refunds at all and a poor-looking webpage? That doesn't make the Workshop any better by comparison.

How does URD having a poor-looking website affect the fantastic quality of their mods? They also aren't the only example, but my favorite because those mods most likely would not have happened weren't they getting paid for it (because they actually do it professionally and do subcontracting). I never commented on Workshop, but the quality of the mods themselves.

 

[Two Words]

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.

The issue here to me is that mods are unregulated and are going to be exempt from Steams usual QA, while still charging money.

 

[Sendou]

The issue here to me is that mods are unregulated and are going to be exempt from Steams usual QA, while still charging money.

Steam's "usual QA" is a myth. There's so many unbelievable shitty games on Steam. Both simply bad games and ones that don't really work as advertised.

 

[Advent1s]

Regardless of what exists now, i shall be waiting for a likely statement, on monday.

I don't see how the current way it works can possibly move forward, without at least some transparency.

I am now kinda bored of the situation and regurgitating the same line over and over, I shall finally return to the Witcher playthrough i am currently undertaking.

 

[ashecitism]

Steam's "usual QA" is a myth. There's so many unbelievable shitty games on Steam. Both simply bad games and ones that don't really work as advertised.

They still regulate the TF/CS/Dota marketplaces though, right?

 

[Hari Seldon]

I will not be supporting any games financially that implement a paid modding scene. If people want to make content for the fun of it and give it away, great! If they want to sell it, that is fine to, but I am not buying it. Do modders care more about some small amount of money or the fame of releasing a mod that thousands of people use? That is up to them I guess.

If a game has pages and pages of horse armor for sail, then all I see is a game with tons of micro DLC, and I associate that with F2P garbage. Does a AAA studio making a AAA game want to be associated with that nonsense?

It is clear to me though that we definitely need a serious competitor to Valve. Perhaps Amazon can finally step up since they have some wizard coders and that massive Amazon Cloud backend. They won't be as concerned with trashing the community for pennies.

 

[crazyrabbits]

How does URD having a poor-looking website affect the fantastic quality of their mods? They also aren't the only example, but my favorite because those mods most likely would not have happened weren't they getting paid for it (because they actually do it professionally and do subcontracting). I never commented on Workshop, but the quality of the mods themselves.

If they didn't, someone else would have (and probably has, to be honest). Like I said, never discount what people can, have and continue to produce simply for the love of the game and the community.

This is also an order of magnitude different than a handful of mods on a creator-owned site, with a much higher threshold for quality. I doubt the Workshop is going to have that same kind of standard, especially considering their track record with Greenlight.

 

[Hari Seldon]

He's right that flight sims have had paid 3rd party content for a long time. For me, the difference is that the barrier of entry to creating and selling that stuff was huge. It's people modelling aircraft interiors with extreme attention to detail, creating flight models for new planes, building high resolution heightmaps of real world terrain etc. The equivalent of that for Skyrim would be if the next CD Projekt build a full, commercial grade RPG in Skyrim. If you say they should be able to charge for that I'm with you. This is not that though, this is a no barrier to entry, free for all shitfest that damages hobbyist modding by teasing people with the prospect of making a few hundred dollars on something they made.

Exactly, if we were talking about massive mods with voice acting and hours of new content and story, that is one thing. But we are talking about UI shit and horse armor.

 

[a very cute dog]

Not really sure what to make of this.

I feel that people should be able to charge for mods. People deserve to be compensated for work like that. I understand wanting free mods and content, but as it stands (or, at least, as I understand) free mods only directly benefit the game developers by moving more copies and not the modders themselves.

That being said, the 75% Valve/Bethesda cut screams exploitation and such a big attempt to shift mod culture is, well, scary. Despite what I just said, there are so many ways that this could go wrong for modders and consumers.

 

[Htown]

I will not be supporting any games financially that implement a paid modding scene. If people want to make content for the fun of it and give it away, great! If they want to sell it, that is fine to, but I am not buying it. Do modders care more about some small amount of money or the fame of releasing a mod that thousands of people use? That is up to them I guess.

lol "fame"

 

[MrHoot]

How is it different from any new game coming to Steam? You either buy it at launch or not. If you decide to wait you have more impressions to base your purchase decision on. Although what's different from buying games is obviously the 24 hours return policy. If it doesn't work then get your money back. My personal stance is that I won't buy anything that doesn't have a plethora of positive reviews. On the other hand I realize that some people are more adventurous.

Games are not the same as mods. And even though, there's a lot of garbage games that go through steam's "QA" where the sole purpose is to get a quick buck before being found out.

Games are a way more substantial efforts that takes months, dozens to hundreds of people, QA, goes through ESRB, and also have to go through the platform's holder QA in some place (Sony or Microsoft also test the game to ensure that it works on the platform)

Mods, especially for skyrim, can downright break the game (and sometimes, as others havep ointed out, not immediatly. You could get past the 24h00 refund time before noticing it), and most are made not by certified professionals or setup companies, but by a random person or a group of random people. And usually, it's "portfolio" work for the most part. Some of these mods can outright break the game. Others use mods made by other people, and these people are less than happy seeing their work being monetized, as evidence of a lot of work being taken down on the nexus.

That's the same argument as for "bad" games not being there. I disagree, and apparently Valve also disagrees. Amazon can and should allow the sale of "bad" books, and Valve can and should allow the sale of "bad" games and mods, and people can decide what to buy.

You can't argue against a "corporate overlord" on the one side and then ask for one to filter your purchasing options on the other.

When I say "bad" games i mean outright broken or derivative. Yes, I would like if steam didn't let the plethory of "[INSERT NAME] simulator". I think it's also part of their job to filter out games that are completely crass and offer no value to the consumer. I am opposed to steam/valve just shunning responsibility for their platform and becoming just an anything goes marketplace where the responsibility is completely on the consumer.

It's similar to real life malls who are trying to get rid of personel and just setup machines so you do all the work. Call me an old reactionary, but I don't like that setup, at all.

And especially when Valve and Bethesda do take a major chunk out of the creative's money, leaving them scraps to fight for and, in theory, could create a completely unhealthy modding scene where creativity and good-will will no longer encouraged, only the flashiest quick-buck scheme. My "corporate overlord" (granted, poor choice of words, but I stand by the concept) is about both Valve and Bethesda who offer no added value to the consumer (i really really doubt Valve, in the long run, will be able to sustain any kind of quality control or notice when a mod uses the work from someone else. They can barely keep up with greenlight), give the short end of the stick to the creators, and line their pockets after already profiting from modding as it is.

I am not against modders getting a profit for hard work as it is. In fact, would be great if the ones who did the best mods would get compensated. But the way it is now, I see it as a disaster. In an ideal world, yes it could work. But we don't live in an ideal world, and I don't see this system improving the quality of mods, or it's community

 

[Htown]

That being said, the 75% Valve/Bethesda cut screams exploitation and such a big attempt to shift mod culture is, well, scary.

Nah.

Despite what I just said, there are so many ways that this could go wrong for modders and consumers.

I do agree that this could, theoretically, go really badly.

Two days is not long enough to say that, though.

 

[mbmonk]

That's the same argument as for "bad" games not being there. I disagree, and apparently Valve also disagrees. Amazon can and should allow the sale of "bad" books, and Valve can and should allow the sale of "bad" games and mods, and people can decide what to buy.

Traditionally publishers have been the filter of bad books and videogames. They filter out a lot of poor ideas or killed poor implementations. So there has been filter above the consumer level for paid content. Recently publishers have become optional and now the filtering is 100 percent on the end consumer. That has both good and bad aspects. Jim sterlings videos highlight some of the bad.

 

[RK9039]

Yeah. Speaking just as someone who modded Baldur's Gate II back in the day, there were some mods that worked great all the way through, some that bugged out my system or caused it to crash uncontrollably midway through a run, some that caused underlying compatibility issues with other mods (that didn't manifest itself until late-game) and some that just didn't work at all.

Were there a longer refund period (48-72 hours) and a pay-what-you-want (even free) feature, there wouldn't be nearly the same backlash.

It's just the nature of these mods. You will install a few and fun with it, install some more a couple of days later and eventually come to a point where you can't load your save file because something is causing a conflict. But everything is fine because you just end up uninstalling whatever caused the problem or just start again. With this workshop system the potential for losing money now exists because when things break, and they will, you ain't getting your money back and worse you might not even get the help needed to address the issue (happened many times in my experience).

There are games like that as well. Some are still being sold on Steam too. How do we cope? Well as it is the word seems to get around pretty quickly and games that work rise to the top. Why should it be any different with mods? Can't see a problem with Steam Wallet myself. So what is it? Is there one unless you don't want to spend money on Steam after that one mod purchase that turned out the be a dud? That seems kind of an unlikely scenario to me.

We cope because games generally get updated, Skyrim mods don't. Modders don't have to update anything, if something goes wrong that's on you to fix it. The other problem is when Skyrim mods break, due incompatibility/conflicting files, how is the average person suppose to figure out what's causing those issues?

If I spent real money on something and it doesn't work I except my real money back as a refund. Steam wallet money is useless to me.

 

[_machine]

If they didn't, someone else would have (and probably has, to be honest). Like I said, never discount what people can, have and continue to produce simply for the love of the game and the community.

This is also an order of magnitude different than a handful of mods on a creator-owned site, with a much higher threshold for quality. I doubt the Workshop is going to have that same kind of standard, especially considering their track record with Greenlight.

You keep moving the goal posts. I provided an example how paid mods can result in higher quality mods. Now it's about whether these mods wouldn't happen, and URD, big part of flight sim mods should be enough of an example. They are made professionally and live alongside high quality mods, but usually these paid mods are more extensive, better supported, higher quality than those that are not, but of course there are free mods that rival the quality as well. As a player I benefit from the option and wealth of content.

I'm not disagreeing that Workshop is the right place though, I personally don't use it for Skyrim mods yet, because I much prefer the Nexus system, but if it can offer me more value than it has before then I will have no problem moving there too. But that is something that remains to be seen.

 

[Grief.exe]

Exactly, if we were talking about massive mods with voice acting and hours of new content and story, that is one thing. But we are talking about UI shit and horse armor.

Spoiler

There is literally a mod with hours of voice acting and story in the debut pack.

 

[a very cute dog]

Nah.


I do agree that this could, theoretically, go really badly.

Two days is not long enough to say that, though.

Care to explain?

And you're right. I'm not running around saying the sky is falling but this at least has the potential to go badly.

 

[Sendou]

Mods, especially for skyrim, can downright break the game (and sometimes, as others havep ointed out, not immediatly. You could get past the 24h00 refund time before noticing it), and most are made not by certified professionals or setup companies, but by a random person or a group of random people. And usually, it's "portfolio" work for the most part. Some of these mods can outright break the game. Others use mods made by other people, and these people are less than happy seeing their work being monetized, as evidence of a lot of work being taken down on the nexus.

Well how did people use mods in the past? Sounds scary that they can break your game like that and you have no control over it and no idea what mods are more likely to do that. I mean even if they were free in the past wouldn't your save file dying still suck?

 

[Phrozenflame500]

My issue with this still pretty much comes down to the fact that Valve's unwillingness to invest in QA will probably just lead to more "Greenlight syndrome" where there are endless cash-ins often containing IP-infringing content dominating the paid marketplace.

That being said, I don't think much is going to change. Most mod devs who do it purely for the fun will continue to do it purely for the fun because they want as big an audience as they can. Some might release updates/content earlier for paid consumers, but even then I see that as pretty limited to very big modders.

People who say that this is going to ruin modding are almost certainly overreacting. Looking at Reddit or Twitter and seeing all these people telling others how Valve are "forcing" people to pay for mods is really disheartening.

 

[TsunamiOfSwagger]

I can't stop watching this shit. So funny.

I know, I have watched it god knows how many times, I am aching with laughter.

 

[Trojita]

It's just the nature of these mods. You will install a few and fun with it, install some more a couple of days later and eventually come to a point where you can't load your save file because something is causing a conflict. But everything is fine because you just end up uninstalling whatever caused the problem or just start again. With this workshop system the potential for losing money now exists because when things break, and they will, you ain't getting your money back and worse you might not even get the help needed to address the issue (happened many times with me).



We cope because games generally get updated, Skyrim mods don't. Modders don't have to update anything, if something goes wrong that's on you to fix it. The other problem is when Skyrim mods break, due incompatibility/conflicting files, how is the average person suppose to figure out what's causing those issues?

If I spent real money on something and it doesn't work I except my real money back as a refund. Steam wallet money is useless to me.

Yeah 24 hours isn't enough especially for items that aren't tested at an industry standard and cause conflicts. The amount of dedication needed to make a 200+ mod game run smoothly is a lot of time invested. Also a lot of mods aren't going to be compatible with some systems that could previously run vanilla Skyrim. You could buy a mod and find out your system can't really display 4K textures.

 

[Dolor]

OK. So let's jump into a possible future and say that my favourite go-to selection of mods cost £2 each and are only available via the shop. I've probably downloaded and tried 700+ mods over the years, but let's keep it simple to the main ones.

I use 2x lighting mods, 1x gameplay overhaul, 3x texture replacers, 5x more NPC and enemies, 3x weapon packs, 1x UI mod, 1x map, 1x more blood, 1x locational damage, 1x LOD, 1x added normal/bump map, 2x grass/tree, etc etc

My Skyrim has just cost me another £44. fuck that. I can buy other games for that price.

If you find more value buying another game for that price.... then buy the other game maybe?

I would guess you wouldn't be the only one to make that call at that price, the modders would then get very few sales and would be incentivized to lower their prices to attract the sales they aren't getting. It's not really that crazy of a theory given about 500 years of human development has been based on it...

 

[pahamrick]

I think this entire thing is bullshit simply because of the mod makers making only 25% cut of the actual profits.

Okay, sure, they're using an already established IP -- but Bethesda is making free money from other people fixing their game. It just rubs me the wrong way, they deserve a larger cut.

 

[Aesius]

This is a good idea on the surface but so many mods are dependent on other mods. I just don't see this working out for the good of the community.

Seems like mods for the next Fallout/Elder Scrolls games will be really shallow and people who find out how to mod something "first" in that initial gold rush after release, whether it's level caps, perks, etc., will basically own that mod forever and prevent others from improving it or using it in their own mod.

The beauty of the mod community is seeing how mod creators collaborate with each other to make their own mods and existing mods better and better over time. I doubt that will be the case in future Bethesda games.

 

[vio]

Most popular mod at the momen lol.

 

[crazyrabbits]

You keep moving the goal posts. I provided an example how paid mods can result in higher quality mods.

No, I haven't. I've already said that I'm not opposed to paid mods - provided they have some sort of semi-official support and maintenance behind them. The workshop doesn't have that luxury, nor has it shown that it's capable of such a thing when it's already being flooded with all sorts of garbage (some deliberate, some calculated like Midas Magic) in only a couple of days.

And again, as I've pointed out, we're already getting free mods just in Skyrim that put some of the official stuff to shame. Falskaar, Vijia, Interesting NPC's, etc. You threw out a hypothetical and ignored that Bethesda games (especially Skyrim and Oblivion) have had years to put out massive projects that were borne out of people's love for the product, testing themselves or wanting to give back to the community.

I'm not disagreeing that Workshop is the right place though, I personally don't use it for Skyrim mods yet, because I much prefer the Nexus system, but if it can offer me more value than it has before then I will have no problem moving there too. But that is something that remains to be seen.

Knowing Greenlight's history, I predict that it's going to give rise to a bundle-style subindustry where people will sell mods for pennies on the pop because they aren't getting paid fast enough or there's no interest because the market is saturated.

 

[Sendou]

We cope because games generally get updated, Skyrim mods don't. Modders don't have to update anything, if something goes wrong that's on you to fix it. The other problem is when Skyrim mods break, due incompatibility/conflicting files, how is the average person suppose to figure out what's causing those issues?

If I spent real money on something and it doesn't work I except my real money back as a refund. Steam wallet money is useless to me.

Again: how is it different from shitty games? I can provide you many examples of games you could call broken being sold on Steam. Developers don't really have to update their games either. They have just noticed that if you don't want your name being dragged through the mud it's usually worth it.

In fact now that some mods ask money for them I would assume that the devs are thinking about updating them differently than in the past. This is already true to some parts (old mods being picked up because now they can charge for them).

If Steam wallet money is literally useless to you then why are you speculating about buying mods in the first place? This is very much something you would be able to do with your Steam wallet funds.

 

[Fox318]

They still regulate the TF/CS/Dota marketplaces though, right?

That's because the items effect game balance (At least in TF2). Item and character silhouette is crucial and new weapons are tested before introduced.

The difference is with those content creators create content that is naturally introduced into the games ecosystem. If I still want a SMG skin for my SMG I can search mod sites and find it.

CS:GO is kinda crazy with the skins as any change in weapons starts a shitstorm like the CZ75-Auto.

In those games you can't easily add custom UIs or new items like you could in say Cities :Skylines

I'd say the only downside to having paid mods is that with it their is going to be the expectation of support for when stuff breaks whenever a game update is pushed through.

If the product is free there isn't the expectation of support and technical assistance but if I pay money and their content is broken then the system is broken.

Regardless of the product's value when you put a monetary cost nest to it the standards for what is fair or not fair increases.

Plus until I see it the introduction of money+mods is going to increase corporate involvement in what is ok and not ok for a mod (A modern day hot coffee fiasco).

 

[MrHoot]

Well how did people use mods in the past? Sounds scary that they can break your game like that and you have no control over it and no idea what mods are more likely to do that. I mean even if they were free in the past wouldn't your save file dying still suck?

Yes, it did suck. Usually I used the mod manager thing. Some of the mods sometimes shown what was compatible and what was not. And you could locate your mod files and delete them. The problem is that there's so many and they keep expanding over time, and modders don't necessarily keep their stuff up to date. After a while, there's usually a list of very well known mods that work well together.

There's also the nasty part that some mods HAVE to use another one to work. So, while a bunch of mods can remain free, if suddenly the root mod goes behind a paywall, then you have to go through it to get access to "free" mods

 

[Dolor]

All this sound and fury for what will probably end up being so harmless...

Prediction:

1. about 90% of mods will remain free
2. about 9% will end up being sold for barely any money (e.g. trading card money)
3. about 1% will charge a significant amount (>$1) but will probably be worth it because they will be total conversions or DSfix or something of that sort which is actually worth the money
4. some idiots will put up worthless mods for ridiculous prices that no one will buy but detractors will point to those mods as examples of how corrupt the system is

 

[Vik]

As it should be. It's not up to Valve to decide what customers are ready to buy. It's up to the customers themselves.

So, it's okay for them to sell broken products? Screw the customers, right?

 

[RK9039]

Again: how is it different from shitty games? I can provide you many examples of games you could call broken being sold on Steam. Developers don't really have to update their games either. They have just noticed that if you don't want your name being dragged through the mud it's usually worth it.

In fact now that some mods ask money for them I would assume that the devs are thinking about updating them differently than in the past. This is already true to some parts (old mods being picked up because now they can charge for them).

If Steam wallet money is literally useless to you then why are you speculating about buying mods in the first place? This is very much something you would be able to do with your Steam wallet funds.

I'm not seeing how that adresses the issue of broken mods being sold. Just because broken games are sold doesn't mean broken mods are also okay.

Old mods are literally being updated with in game pop-ups.

I can only buy these mods with Steam wallet funds?

 

[Sendou]

So, it's okay for them to sell broken products? Screw the customers, right?

No of course it's not okay. It's just that the solution is not the gatekeeper one. We already tried that and it's not good.

I'm not seeing how that adresses the issue of broken mods being sold. Just because broken games are sold doesn't mean broken mods are also okay.

Old mods are literally being updated with in game pop-ups.

I can only buy these mods with Steam wallet funds?

Of course it's not okay. It's just how do we cope today with all these shitty and/or broken games being sold on Steam? I would imagine whatever the answer is to that can also be applied to mods.

No idea what that means.

No, you can't. It just that if you don't think being refunded the dollar or whatever you spend on a broken mod to your Steam wallet is unacceptable them perhaps accept that you're in the minority and don't buy mods. Personally I have hard time seeing what's the big deal for a few reasons. Firstly I can see myself spending money on Steam to unforeseeable future. Secondly the kind of money I'd be ready to spend on mods isn't so significant that I would have to have it back to my bank account. Preferable for sure but not any kind of real issue.

 

[bonesmccoy]

Nope, not a fan.

I'd be more then happy with a donate button for mods.

This is a poorly thought out cash-grab. Extremely unseemly.

 

[von Stroheim]

Once again, greed ruins everything. Thanks Valve!

Looking forward to not buying Fallout 4 since I'm sure it will have only paid mods.

Thanks Bethesda!

SMH

 

[hobblygobbly]

The only major problem I have now is that many mods will exclusively be on Steam Workshop.

Steam Workshop is great for many games but for Skyrim I don't like it, the mod managers for Bethesda games such as Mod Organizer for Skyrim + download mods manually from nexus (or through the mod organiser) is the superior way for when you have a lot of mods. There's a lot of functionality for dealing with many mod installs.

If modders exclusively put it on Steam Workshop that's when it becomes shitty and I don't want to see that exclusivity. It's particularly useful when you experiment with a lot of different mods on a large modded Skyrim. If you can't access the mods outside of Steam Workshop then it's a huge hamper.

 

[Durante]

Traditionally publishers have been the filter of bad books and videogames. They filter out a lot of poor ideas or killed poor implementations. So there has been filter above the consumer level for paid content. Recently publishers have become optional and now the filtering is 100 percent on the end consumer. That has both good and bad aspects. Jim sterlings videos highlight some of the bad.

I agree with all of this. But I believe that for entertainment products, a gatekeeper-less system is far preferable to a centrally curated one. E.g. I much prefer the selection on Steam now to back when it was "curated" and getting on it was a coinflip for developers, and I don't find avoiding crap to be particularly arduous.

 

[eot]

You keep moving the goal posts. I provided an example how paid mods can result in higher quality mods. Now it's about whether these mods wouldn't happen, and URD, big part of flight sim mods should be enough of an example. They are made professionally and live alongside high quality mods, but usually these paid mods are more extensive, better supported, higher quality than those that are not, but of course there are free mods that rival the quality as well. As a player I benefit from the option and wealth of content.

If this was about providing a marketplace for professional grade mods it would look vastly different.

 

[The Llama]

Falskaar will remain free, so that's nice.
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/37994/?

 

[Nzyme32]

DayZ Creator Weighs In On Paid 'Skyrim' Mods

This is a really interesting read, particularly for making the argument that such a cut is more reasonable than it seems.

They still regulate the TF/CS/Dota marketplaces though, right?

Yeah, those are the "Currated Workshops" similar to Chivalry and Dungeon Defenders 2 has got recently. In my opinion that is a more reasonable way to do it so far, since the developers get involved in the support and payment (the same split as this I think, which is a bit questionable) but ensure a top tier mod / items that work as expected. That sort of thing along side free / tradable stuff (where the community determine its value, seems at least a more proven way of doing things thus far, and people seem relatively happy with it.

 

[RK9039]

Falskaar will remain free, so that's nice.
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/37994/?

Yup, Falskaar, Skywind and Beyond Skyrim. Some of the most ambitious mods I've seen, those guys deserve money for all the work they're doing/have done.

 

[Bizzquik]

All this sound and fury for what will probably end up being so harmless...

Prediction:

1. about 90% of mods will remain free
2. about 9% will end up being sold for barely any money (e.g. trading card money)
3. about 1% will charge a significant amount (>$1) but will probably be worth it because they will be total conversions or DSfix or something of that sort which is actually worth the money
4. some idiots will put up worthless mods for ridiculous prices that no one will buy but detractors will point to those mods as examples of how corrupt the system is

I could live with that if mod authors received 50%, rather than just 25%.

But I think launching this for Skyrim - 41 months after its release - is a mistake. Too many mods require other mods, or need patches to be compatible....which completely defeats one of the supposed benefits of the Steam Workshop space: hassle free, plug-and-play.

Also, Bethesda really needs to keep iterating on its mod creation tools if they suddenly want to receive money in all this. Frequent updates which aid their mod author partners. Creating new, optional master files as a framework for authors to build from for ease & compatibility. See, we shouldn't just expect more from mod authors now that they can make money...we should expect more from Bethesda because of their sizable cut.

 

[Nzyme32]

Once again, greed ruins everything. Thanks Valve!

Looking forward to not buying Fallout 4 since I'm sure it will have only paid mods.

Thanks Bethesda!

SMH

Prove it.

Even now there are modders for Skyrim all for supporting free mods. Even if (and it is a fucking big if) a game was locked into "only paid mods", people will always work out a way to circumvent such a system and provide free mods if they want to develop them.

All this sound and fury for what will probably end up being so harmless...

Prediction:

1. about 90% of mods will remain free
2. about 9% will end up being sold for barely any money (e.g. trading card money)
3. about 1% will charge a significant amount (>$1) but will probably be worth it because they will be total conversions or DSfix or something of that sort which is actually worth the money
4. some idiots will put up worthless mods for ridiculous prices that no one will buy but detractors will point to those mods as examples of how corrupt the system is

Wouldn't surprise me.

I think things will get really interesting if (I hope) publishers are free to choose the cut modders can receive, and start competing for their support

 

[RK9039]

No of course it's not okay. It's just that the solution is not the gatekeeper one. We already tried that and it's not good.



Of course it's not okay. It's just how do we cope today with all these shitty and/or broken games being sold on Steam? I would imagine whatever the answer is to that can also be applied to mods.

No idea what that means.

No, you can't. It just that if you don't think being refunded the dollar or whatever you spend on a broken mod to your Steam wallet is unacceptable them perhaps accept that you're in the minority and don't buy mods. Personally I have hard time seeing what's the big deal for a few reasons. Firstly I can see myself spending money on Steam to unforeseeable future. Secondly the kind of money I'd be ready to spend on mods isn't so significant that I would have to have it back to my bank account. Preferable for sure but not any kind of real issue.

What's the answer then? because being quiet and pointing at broken games doesn't sound like an answer to me.

I'll tell you what that means. You suggested old mods will now be updated, well yes some have, some old mod now has an in game pop-up to advertise the workshop mod periodically when you use spells. It's a very nice update, one that truely rivals big content updates found in something like Elite or FF14 or Path of Exile.

Well speaking as someone who has had 40 or 50 Skyrim mods, to me it will become quite significant. And yes not all of them will break the game, some of them will.

 

[_machine]

No, I haven't. I've already said that I'm not opposed to paid mods - provided they have some sort of semi-official support and maintenance behind them. The workshop doesn't have that luxury, nor has it shown that it's capable of such a thing when it's already being flooded with all sorts of garbage (some deliberate, some calculated like Midas Magic) in only a couple of days.

Then I might have misunderstood so apologies if that's the case, but in this:

I still haven't heard much of a cogent argument for exactly how this is going to increase the quality of mods.

You asked how paid mods could result in increased quality of mods (now I infer that you meant some mods and not all, because of course it wouldn't increase the quality of all mods), if I understood you correctly?

And then not only provided an argument, but an example how it can result in high quality mods that most likely would not have been created if the paid environment didn't exist.

And again, as I've pointed out, we're already getting free mods just in Skyrim that put some of the official stuff to shame. Falskaar, Vijia, Interesting NPC's, etc. You threw out a hypothetical and ignored that Bethesda games (especially Skyrim and Oblivion) have had years to put out massive projects that were borne out of people's love for the product, testing themselves or wanting to give back to the community.

Absolutely and I never have tried to contest this, amazing mods will continue to exist for free with and without this programme. What I do believe is that at least the concept of paid mods will increase the amount of content made and thus the likelihood of extremely high quality content that very well could be or could likely be better than that without the option of paid mods.

If this was about providing a marketplace for professional grade mods it would look vastly different.

Yes, I've never contested that Steam Workshop would be the right place. I just want to show that paid mods can and has resulted in additional high quality content for us players. I too, am a bit skeptical of the results of what will happen with the Workshop.

 

[PepsimanVsJoe]

Dark0ne (owner of the Nexus) released another statement several hours ago.
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/news/12459/?

Might have already been posted, but it's a good read.

As soon as Valve announced the paid workshops I took a count of the number of Skyrim files on Skyrim Nexus. We had 40,567 mods on the site. Right now that count sits at 40,492. We've lost 75 mods, of which, almost all of those "lost" mods have been hidden by mod authors who want to see how this all plays out, many of which contacted me to explain what they're doing.

Free mods aren't going anywhere.

 

[Mrbob]

I'm late to the party, but I don't mind seeing modders getting paid. However I'm not sure this is the right way to do it. In fact, the current set up seems like a disaster. If I'm going to pay for a mod I don't want to give Bethesda half the cut. I feel the best option would be a direct donation system where the modder gets at least half the cut. But we'll see how this plays out over time.

I also don't believe this will affect free mods that much. Some mods which were free will try to make money off them, but the market will work this out.

Edit: So I'm reading the cut is 30% to Valve and 45% to Bethesda with 25% to the modder? Both Valve and Bethesda get a way too big of the cut.

 

[Vik]

No of course it's not okay. It's just that the solution is not the gatekeeper one. We already tried that and it's not good.

If they are going to charge a toll, then they have the responsibility to keep the bridge from collapsing when you cross it.

 

[idolminds]

I wonder (and sorry if this has been brought up before) what this arrangement might mean for Bethesda and how they update their games. It is unlikely for Skyrim to receive another patch but assuming this is a dry run and will be implemented in their future games...

Previously as a developer it didn't really matter when you updated your game if it broke a mod. That was 3rd party unofficial content, nothing to do with Bethesda or Valve or whoever made the game. It was not a major concern.

But now that these mods are sold and more importantly Bethesda themselves are taking the majority of the money from those sales, do they have a bigger responsibility to not break mods? Does this tie their hands in any way to what kinds of updates they make to their game? It would look really, really bad if Fallout 4 receives a patch that breaks all the mods people have bought. And since it's Steam it isn't like everyone can decide to not apply the patch.