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steam | April 2015 - Orange, you glad it’s morningbus? “No.”

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P

PetriP-TNT

Member
lashman said:
more info

The first paid Skyrim mod has been pulled

(and it was the fishing mod too ... the one they advertised that whole thing with ... oh, the irony)
Click to expand...

I'll ask again, what's the issue here?

Wait a second, I'll goto the super secret FAQ on the secret society of Valve supporters only and read up on it.

Q. What if I see someone posting content I've created?
A. If someone has copied your work, please use the DMCA takedown notice.
Q. Can I include someone else's mod in my mod?
A. The Steam Workshop makes it easy to allocate and approve portions of your item’s revenue with other collaborators or co-authors.
Click to expand...

Okay, that second point isn't that clear but anyone with decent thinking capabilities could figure out from the collaborators or co-authors part that you can use other mods IF YOU HAVE THE PERMISSIONS TO USE THEM. Which the fishing guy clearly didn't.

But what about the ones who already paid for the mod. I'll dive deeper into this 500 pag... lin... word document:

Q. Can I delete my Workshop item?
A. You can stop selling and delist your Workshop item, but it cannot be deleted. If there are customers that have purchased your item, they will need continued access to the mod as well as your Workshop page so they can reference the items they have purchased.
Click to expand...

Okay, it seems that the users can keep the item. But what if they don't want to support these kind of fraudulent sellers? Hidden within this sacred document is this:

Q. Can I get a refund?
A. If you discover that a mod does not work for you, or does not meet your expectations based on the description of the mod, you can get a refund within 24 hours of your purchase. You can view the full refund policy here.
Click to expand...

Oh you can get money back too?

So let's sum who got the shaft in this case:

- The guy who tried to make money with something that belonged to someone else


ps. it isn't actually a secret document, it's printed with semi-large cat sized letters on the about page http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/aboutpaidcontent/
 
D

Dr Dogg

Member
As with any new initiative, judging it on the first couple of weeks, let alone days or hours even isn't really the best thing. Sure this might all go bottoms up for all parties concerned but reading the 'arguments' here and other places on both sides, more over the against side, are lacking in a bit of substance for me. It's happened, albeit for one game at the moment, so let see how this pans out in say a months time. Get some feedback from the community that constitutes constructive criticism and not just shout people down, look at the numbers of paid verses free new mods over this period of time, even things like the number of clone mods or trial free mods with paid premium versions.

Not like I'm going to be the voice of reason for most though. Even if I did fail into the strongly against camp I don't the energy/emotional attachment to muster up all this passion on demand.

derExperte said:
See above. Let's all buy Hardline.
Click to expand...

I've still got Titanfall and Garden Warfare to sink my teeth into before the community dies, I don't think Hardline will last that long.
 
M

Mr. Doop

Member
Ozium said:
who is going to join the steam boycott?

it's time to stand up to gaben and his foul deeds
Click to expand...

How far are we going with this boycott? Like are we just not buying things or are we stopping use of steam completely. I don't think I can do that second thing.
 
D

Dwalls

Neo Member
Mr. Doop said:
How far are we going with this boycott? Like are we just not buying things or are we stopping use of steam completely. I don't think I can do that second thing.
Click to expand...

I'm in the same spot, and it was recently pointed out to me, by someone I play Destiny, with that this is a very bad spot to be in. Valve have a strangehold on the pc gaming market at this point and as a result are virtually free to do what they want because they know people are so locked in to their eco-system. I used to boycott origin because I wanted their games on steam, but now I'm not so sure about that stance because Valve obviously don't have the pure-hearted intent commonly ascribed to them. I feel like they're constantly on the lookout for other, additional revenue streams to leverage, consumers be damned.
 
B

BronzeWolf

Banned
I agree with Mods creator being paid for their work, but Steam's implementation is such a clusterfuck!!! I think Steam is getting too fucking much out of the pie for doing literally almost nothing!

This moment is ripe for an easy Mod platform/archive/website thing to arise, unless it already exists.
 
D

dex3108

Member
BronzeWolf said:
I agree with Mods creator being paid for their work, but Steam's implementation is such a clusterfuck!!! I think Steam is getting too fucking much out of the pie for doing literally almost nothing!

This moment is ripe for an easy Mod platform/archive/website thing to arise, unless it already exists.
Click to expand...

Valve could just add Tip Jar on Mod Page and avoid all of this. They could take money from voluntary tips if they want.
 
P

PetriP-TNT

Member
BronzeWolf said:
I agree with Mods creator being paid for their work, but Steam's implementation is such a clusterfuck!!! I think Steam is getting too fucking much out of the pie for doing literally almost nothing!
Click to expand...

Non all-inclusive list of "almost nothing" Valve does for their 25%

Provide the infrastructure including:
  • Hosting
  • Delivery
  • Support
  • Refunds
  • Legal crap
  • the other Steam Workshop as a service functions
Provide the revenue sharing:
  • To the mod maker
  • To the publisher

That's to get 25 cents of your 1 dollar horse armor
 
B

BronzeWolf

Banned
dex3108 said:
Valve could just add Tip Jar on Mod Page and avoid all of this. They could take money from voluntary tips if they want.
Click to expand...

I understand if a Mod creator thinks his work is worth a certain amount of $$ and that would attract more professional modders. But Mods is such a murky territory. What if Mod A needs Mod B? Does Mod B creator require compensation from Mod A's revenue? I don't know how the contract is structure but they should open all the available Mods in a kind of Open for Dependencies Modding so anyone can use Mod B to construct Mod A without having to pull revenue from Mod B. It would suck for people that bloatMod, but at least you know where the risk is there before publishing the Mod.

And the cut is all wrong! What risk is Steam taking here? A 40/40/20 is a fairer cut IMO.

PetriP-TNT said:
Non all-inclusive list of "almost nothing" Valve does for their 25%:
Retailer Stuff
Click to expand...

You have to understand that Modding is not the same market space as Retailing. The 25% for Steam as a retailer is absolutely fair and even a little lower than the standard 30% cut, because the content creator is getting 75% of the remaining revenue, which might or might not be split again between the Publisher and the Developer. The thing is, the Publisher is taking a lot of either financial risk or time (opportunity) cost into the game by either paying for the game outright or sinking ours into it (for self-published devs).

With the Mod scene, the risk of the Publisher/Dev is not there anymore because they are not putting hours/$$ into the new content. Should they be paid? Of course, since it's the Mod is a derivative work, but they should not get paid AS MUCH as if they created it, no way! Neither Valve's nor the Pub/Dev are really risking anything in this scheme, so I don't think their cut should be as high. It's really simple

And please don't put Customer Support in the list of things that Valves puts money in, we all now it's pretty shitty.
 
S

Stallion Free

Cock Encumbered
PetriP-TNT said:
Non all-inclusive list of "almost nothing" Valve does for their 25%

Provide the infrastructure including:
  • Hosting
  • Delivery
  • Support
  • Refunds
  • Legal crap
  • the other Steam Workshop as a service functions
Provide the revenue sharing:
  • To the mod maker
  • To the publisher

That's to get 25 cents of your 1 dollar horse armor
Click to expand...

Sorry, this doesn't fit the narrative required for ranting about Valve. You must not be a Valve fan.
 
B

BronzeWolf

Banned
Thinking more about this I believe that the following split is the most fair.

Mod Dev 50% (The person putting $$ into the content)
Valve 25% (The Retailer)
Pub/Dev 25% (The original IP owner)

Valve's current split is very shortsighted, and might be aimed as Let's get money from this Mod scene now instead of developing a market. It's also kind of stupid to remove a free feature from your service after it has been provided for free, which is also where some hate is coming from

Imagine Google charging for Gmail and the amount of hate and user mistrust that it would draw.
 
Majukun

Majukun

Member
well,I understand that if someone wants their work to be paid,it's only fair that they can..and the only reason they didn't ask for that before,it's because they weren't able to...

but if you want to up the ante or something and make it "professional",you have to upgrade your service too..and the fact that the mods come with no warranty about

a)if the mod is gonna work if you have any other mod installed
b)if the mod is gonna continue working if the developer patches their game

when we weren't paying for mod..that was acceptable..but if you pay for them,it's only fair to pretend assistance and that the mod works as intended in the future as the day i have purchased it from you.

with rights comes responsability..this to me seems tehe casa of someone who wants to get their rights recognized but doesn't want to shoulder the duties
 
P

PetriP-TNT

Member
BronzeWolf said:
You have to understand that Modding is not the same market space as Retailing. The 25% for Steam as a retailer is absolutely fair and even a little lower than the standard 30% cut, because the content creator is getting 75% of the remaining revenue, which might or might not be split again between the Publisher and the Developer. The thing is, the Publisher is taking a lot of either financial risk or time (opportunity) cost into the game by either paying for the game outright or sinking ours into it (for self-published devs).

With the Mod scene, the risk of the Publisher/Dev is not there anymore because they are not putting hours/$$ into the new content. Should they be paid? Of course, since it's the Mod is a derivative work, but they should not get paid AS MUCH as if they created it, no way! Neither Valve's nor the Pub/Dev are really risking anything in this scheme, so I don't think their cut should be as high. It's really simple

And please don't put Customer Support in the list of things that Valves puts money in, we all now it's pretty shitty.
Click to expand...

Your mistake is thinking that Steam is a mom-an'-pop retailer: the Steam store itself kinda is, but Steam in general is rather large software-as-a-service that does much much more than just listing names of video games with a "buy" button. It's free (and free of third party ads). If there's a fifth option between paid software, free with ads and free with middleman fees and open source with sizable donations that's actually feasible in anyway for this size of operation, I am sure that many parties are interested to hear about it.

And it's not about "risking" anything, it's about providing a service. The service provider is putting countless of hours to this system. I guess the publisher part is sort of gray area too, but some of that money might trickle down to the developer or not, but the issue there is that without that publisher there wouldn't be a game for you to mod. At all.

People tend to think that services, such as Steam, run on good spirit after they have been put up once, but that too costs money. I suggest that you try and maintain a service with 5 to 9 million concurrent users and report back when you have done that.

Last week Discogs announced that EU-customers have to pay VAT in their Discogs fees and people were absolutely outraged for very similar reasons than here ("people make the content, Discogs doesn't have to do anything..") and the raise there was only a few cents to a dollar. That gets paid to the EU countries.
 
B

BronzeWolf

Banned
PetriP-TNT said:
Your mistake is thinking that Steam is a mom-an'-pop retailer: the Steam store itself kinda is, but Steam in general is rather large software-as-a-service that does much much more than just listing names of video games with a "buy" button. It's free (and free of third party ads). If there's a fifth option between paid software, free with ads and free with middleman fees and open source with sizable donations that's actually feasible in anyway for this size of operation, I am sure that many parties are interested to hear about it.
Click to expand...

Steam is a retail space and nothing more. It's the Amazon/Walmart of Videogames. The fact that it has so many other features is just Value Aggregated in order to either compete in convenience/price vs. pirating.

Forums/Streams and other user interaction services serve more as a marketing tool than a community tool -> "Get people into steam and then we can sell them stuff" is like when retailers organize product show-off or parties. It's just getting people into the store that's important. Walking into Walmart is free, Valve charging for Steam would be stupid

Pub/Devs have only 2 real options at the moment:

1. Sell through Steam and lose 25% of their earnings but access Steam's client base
2. Self publish free with ad support
3. Self publish with their own system (as EA did with Origin)

PetriP-TNT said:
And it's not about "risking" anything, it's about providing a service. The service provider is putting countless of hours to this system. I guess the publisher part is sort of gray area too, but some of that money might trickle down to the developer or not, but the issue there is that without that publisher there wouldn't be a game for you to mod. At all.
Click to expand...

The Risk I am talking about is financial risk. This risk is because either actual $$ put into the content being sold or time, which has a direct $$ relationship.

After the game is done, no more risk ($$/hrs) is input from the developer into the game. They have nothing to lose now! Should they be paid? Yes, because that would encourage new Pub/Devs to support Modding! Should they be payed as much? Not really, because once the game is out, they are not putting $$/hrs into the Mod.

It's fairly simple from my POV
 
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M

madjoki

Member
PetriP-TNT said:
You do know that people have bought hats and skins for over 200 million dollars in the span of 4 years with increasing pace?
Click to expand...

Skins for (valve) MP games are different than single player mods.

Skins are popular because they're about gambling (open crates), buying mod isn't gambling in the same way.
 
A

Arthea

Member
BronzeWolf said:
So what? You should not be expecting this kind of content to be free. It reflects into time put into the game from the Mod creator.
Click to expand...

What's your point?
I don't expect anything. I don't expect free games but there are free games, as I don't expect free books that also are available, or free music, or free software.
We get free translations of games that never were localized sometimes, we get subs to non English movies and anime and in general people love free stuff. They love some of paid stuff too, but much less ;)
 
T

TheAutomator

Banned
BronzeWolf said:
So what? You should not be expecting this kind of content to be free. It reflects into time put into the game from the Mod creator.
Click to expand...

PC mods have long been looked at as a big advantage for PC gaming, and now with paid mods it's much less so. We're essentially paying for horse armor now.
 
P

PetriP-TNT

Member
madjoki said:
Skins are popular because they're about gambling (open crates), buying mod isn't gambling in the same way.
Click to expand...

I can almost swear that gambling and opening crates are popular because of the popularity of skins and hats.


BronzeWolf said:
Steam is a retail space and nothing more. It's the Amazon/Walmart of Videogames.
Click to expand...

That is just crazy talk. Steam didn't start as a retail store, it has been just one and nor it still isn't.


BronzeWolf said:
The Risk I am talking about is financial risk. This risk is because either actual $$ put into the content being sold or time, which has a direct $$ relationship.

After the game is done, no more risk ($$/hrs) is input from the developer into the game.
Click to expand...

This might have been true in the Super Nintendo days, but those days are long past.
 
T

texhnolyze

Banned
Cj3ahMY.jpg


Well, there it is.

Anyway, I do agree with PetriP-TNT. Let's just chill out a bit.
Perhaps in the coming months we'll see that this is truly not a big deal afterall.
 
M

madjoki

Member
TheAutomator said:
PC mods have long been looked at as a big advantage for PC gaming, and now with paid mods it's much less so. We're essentially paying for horse armor now.
Click to expand...

They basically outsourced horse armors for gamers. Maybe devs will port them for consoles too, if they sell well (keeping profits, of course).

Edit: I'm not 100% against this, but it's not for me. I think it's not great for creators either, due to 25% cut.

PetriP-TNT said:
I can almost swear that gambling and opening crates are popular because of the popularity of skins and hats.
Click to expand...

But it's part of success. If there were only in-game shop, with no economy (crates, trading) it wouldn't be as successful.
 
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