In reality people leave modding sooner or later anyway to pursue realistic and more fruitful endeavors like making their own games, while this might actually retain modders for longer.
They always shout "why aren't you working on this mod anymore!!?".
It'll also incentivize more developers to furnish mod tools in the first place, something modders should be happy for.
All jokes aside, I can't believe some here are seeing Valve's setup as a good setup. There can definitely be a paid mod system, but Valve is going about it all wrong.
You want a good example of a community making a living income with mod making, look at Second Life. The model the have going on over there is correct.
Honest question, why does Valve have to take 75%? When something like Second Life only charges $1 and still maintains a multi million dollar company.
Every other content creation program we have seen so far, that is meant to promote the content creators themselves, take the smaller cut. Look at how Epic is handling their Unreal Engine. They are giving their Engine away for free and if you start making money, Epic takes only 5%!!
Gumroad is the hot spot for us right now, they only take 5% and zero fees!
So why does Valve HAVE to take 75% for doing nothing?
All jokes aside, I can't believe some here are seeing Valve's setup as a good setup. There can definitely be a paid mod system, but Valve is going about it all wrong.
You want a good example of a community making a living income with mod making, look at Second Life. The model the have going on over there is correct.
Honest question, why does Valve have to take 75%? When something like Second Life only charges $1 and still maintains a multi million dollar company.
Every other content creation program we have seen so far, that is meant to promote the content creators themselves, take the smaller cut. Look at how Epic is handling their Unreal Engine. They are giving their Engine away for free and if you start making money, Epic takes only 5%!!
Gumroad is the hot spot for us right now, they only take 5% and zero fees!
So why does Valve HAVE to take 75% for doing nothing?
EA tried this for Sims 1-3, it did not work well for them.
They don't, afaik they take their usual cut which I believe is 25%~, then the publisher gets the remaining 50% after your cut.
Why the publisher is entitled to 50% isn't really clear to me, but whatever. Up to the mod makers to decide if that's worth it and I expect if the adoption rate sucks with that split, they'll just change it to be more generous.
Also Valve is hardly doing nothing, they're giving people a platform to sell their bullshit to millions of potential buyers. You could just as easily ask why Valve takes a cut of game sales... same reason.
Turns out that the Developer / Publisher of the game sets their share % rate, so you can almost entirely blame Bethesda / Zenimax for trying to screw over people with 25%, so Valve is not to blame. You can also read this in the terms. Edit: Valve takes flat 30%
Edit: Added "their"
Edit: Added list on Page 5 about what everyone is outraged about
So why does Valve HAVE to take 75% for doing nothing?
I'm not sure if I missed something but I didn't see where it says Valve is taking 75% of the cut, the only thing I saw was that content creators get 25% of the cut.
It is quite likely that Valve is taking somewhere between 15% - 25% for themselves, and giving the rest to the developer and publisher of the game, and a split like that would be perfectly fair. It takes time and money to create mod tools and it requires a lot of planning to ensure a game is modder friendly. Developers could have spent that time making DLC that they could sell back to customers.
As for Valve's percentage of the money, they are providing the market for which the transactions take place. From a legal perspective they could take 90% of the cut if they wanted since it is the content creator's choice to determine if they want to use one market over another.
The biggest issue I can see with this is stealing content, which was an issue with Valve's own game workshops at one point. I'm not sure how Valve plans to filter everything but I think it would have been better if mods had to go through a process similar to their own games where only the highest quality mods could be submitted as paid mods (determined by users' votes.) Doing so would prevent any stolen content from ever having a pricetag attached to it, and if something does slip by Valve can handle it manually.
Turns out that the Developer / Publisher of the game sets the share % rate, so you can almost entirely blame Bethesda / Zenimax for trying to screw over people with 25%, so Valve is not to blame. You can also read this in the terms. Im not sure, some said they (Valve) take 5%, 13% maybe the usual 30%.
Turns out that the Developer / Publisher of the game sets the share % rate, so you can almost entirely blame Bethesda / Zenimax for trying to screw over people with 25%, so Valve is not to blame. You can also read this in the terms. Im not sure, some said they (Valve) take 5%, 13% maybe the usual 30%.
You'll have to forgive me for my skepticism but I seriously doubt Valve just went to Zenimax and said "No it's cool... YOU decide how much we get paid!"
I suspect Valve decides how much they want and then lets publishers decide how big they want to make their own share. If that's the case I would hardly call that the "Developer decides", more like they both decided what they wanted and the mod maker got what was left.
ok let me edit, i wrote it badly i guess, Developer sets their own share rate, and valve likely has this low share rate of 5 or 13% or X which is fixed. An employee on twitter said they take 5% if i recall right.
Honest question, why does Valve have to take 75%? When something like Second Life only charges $1 and still maintains a multi million dollar company.
Every other content creation program we have seen so far, that is meant to promote the content creators themselves, take the smaller cut. Look at how Epic is handling their Unreal Engine. They are giving their Engine away for free and if you start making money, Epic takes only 5%!!
Gumroad is the hot spot for us right now, they only take 5% and zero fees!
So why does Valve HAVE to take 75% for doing nothing?
You're comparing licensing terms for different products (engine vs. mod) in different markets (everywhere vs. steam workshop vs. second life...) from different developers and publishers. You aren't just comparing apples to oranges, you're asking why they don't both measure up to bananas.
You're casting this as a moral outrage. You seem to think someone is getting screwed. But who? Do you think you have special information that Valve, Bethesda, and the people selling their mods (all of them self-interested parties who want the best outcomes for themselves) lack?
They don't, afaik they take their usual cut which I believe is 25%~, then the publisher gets the remaining 50% after your cut.
Why the publisher is entitled to 50% isn't really clear to me
Turns out that the Developer / Publisher of the game sets the share % rate, so you can almost entirely blame Bethesda / Zenimax for trying to screw over people with 25%, so Valve is not to blame. You can also read this in the terms. Im not sure, some said they (Valve) take 5%, 13% maybe the usual 30%.
I'm not sure if I missed something but I didn't see where it says Valve is taking 75% of the cut, the only thing I saw was that content creators get 25% of the cut.
Thanks for the correction everybody!
The premise of my question still stands though. Every other platform out there that is built to promote the content creator takes the smaller percentage.
As for Valve's percentage of the money, they are providing the market for which the transactions take place. From a legal perspective they could take 90% of the cut if they wanted since it is the content creator's choice to determine if they want to use one market over another.
The issue here is not about legality, it's about WHY. Epic Studios can take 80% of the cut of any game made on UE4 and they have every right to do so, but they don't. So why does ZeniMax HAVE to take such a large cut?
Also Valve is hardly doing nothing, they're giving people a platform to sell their bullshit to millions of potential buyers. You could just as easily ask why Valve takes a cut of game sales... same reason.
Gumroad provides a platform just like Valve, and yet they only take 5% and zero server fees among others. So why does Valve have to take a sizable cut?
So my question is why does Valve's system with the developers have to be this way when we have multiple of other successful content creation examples where the company providing the platform takes the smaller percentage and is still a success?
The value of the split really depends on whether or not this actually works and people are willing to buy mods.
Frankly I'd be happy with 5% if that meant making $30k for a pack of items or something.
Gumroad provides a platform just like Valve, and yet they only take 5% and zero server fees among others. So why does Valve have to take a sizable cut?
Gumroad does not provide the same thing, discoverability on gumroad is non-existent, you're in charge of your own store page and promoting it, there's no advertising and it's not a landing page for the relevant customers.
Steam is all of that.
Afaik you can't even browse gumroad, we had to make a thread here just so people could find the tutorials that ARE on Gumroad.
You're comparing licensing terms for different products (engine vs. mod) in different markets (everywhere vs. steam workshop vs. second life...) from different developers and publishers. You aren't just comparing apples to oranges, you're asking why they don't both measure up to bananas.
You're casting this as a moral outrage. You seem to think someone is getting screwed. But who? Do you think you have special information that Valve, Bethesda, and the people selling their mods (all of them self-interested parties who want the best outcomes for themselves) lack?
Really?
My apologies if I'm coming off that way, it's not my intention, I am just genuinely asking why?
Edit: also fair point about apples and oranges, I guess I'm just viewing everything in the broad sense of content creation.
Gumroad does not provide the same thing, discoverability on gumroad is non-existent, you're in charge of your own store page and promoting it, there's no advertising and it's not a landing page for the relevant customers.
Steam is all of that.
.
You have a point, but wouldn't that be considered more as a feature? Gumroad is still pretty fresh, so it's not out of the realm of possibilities that a search/category system can be implemented, like Patreon. Steam was released in 2002 and didn't start to have a community until 2008 for example.
If poor discoverability was a feature then iTunes should be bragging about it because they're pretty much the discoverability cautionary tale for all marketplaces.
Also I just want to point out something that should be obvious here, Gumroad has competition. So does Epic. Anybody who doesn't like Epic's terms can go to Unity or CryEngine. Epic is also relatively new to the indie scene compared to Unity and they're trying very aggressively to secure their position there and generous licensing helps with that .
Steam has no serious competitor. They're basically a benevolent monopoly at this point.
Ultimately though what we are arguing here is arbitrary numbers, it's up to creators to decide if they're okay with that split and if not then they don't have to make anything for that game. It's not really up to outsiders to determine what is fair.
Like I said in my earlier post, if they can't get enough creators on board with this split they will probably change it
Seriously, why do people who have nothing to do with modding even bother talking? Thats like playing Dark Souls 2 for a couple of hours, not even getting to the Chariot fighting and it's buggy performance related I-frames and claiming you know anything, you don't, end of story.
Over several dozen people worked one that mod, I guess fuck them and everything they helped with, only a single person deserves the money in the first place. Oh, also, apprently if any new mods will require that specific paid version to work, you're out of luck mate.
Valve removed files and even changes them when big companies are involved, but a small modder that was invited and had license issues? Fuck them, even if the mod was removed because of License issues between softwares, fuck them, because Valve has lawyers and you don't.
I don't know why you guys are discussing anything about fee's. Valve will always take the same cut, period. The only outlier is the case of service providers which can take an extra 5% from Valves 30, but that it.
Cannot link to the specific links due to related piracy issues, but apparenlty the refund is once again broken, doesn't actually work right off the bat (can take 24+ hours) and you only get Steam funds, not your actual money back, once again, making charge backs a death sentance to your account.
Also, several of the mods creators (2 of them from Polycount, SHAME ON YOU, what disgusting behaviour) made is specifically clear they have no commitments to keeping their mods updated should anything happen or fix them (ei; it's on my time schedule, deal with it).
Valve is really good at forcing you to keep store credit...if EA or any other company forced you to only get instore refunds for a mod, people would be asking for blood right about now.
Anyone with half a brain would know something is up when Valve couldn't be bothered finding and fixing (you know, their job?) a bug breaking pathing issue in DOTA2 unless the community SPECIFICALLY FOUND THE BUG through almost Dexter level of research: http://blog.dota2.com/2015/03/various-pathfinding-fixes/
Not the best video, but seriously, this is like 90% of the problem Valve had before they even got into this mess, not even my local bank and markets are this aggressive in keeping my money circulating in their cards or sending me adverstisments. What a joke.
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlbGeQuXuZ0[/ame]
People made it specifically clear, ADD A PURE DONATION BUTTON. If a person wants to set up a charity akin to Patreon on Steam out of all places, which makes Second Life with thier 0.05$ tax look charitable, then so be it, but forcing people into bottom line taxe payment of 0.25$ to cover bandwith cost? How greedy can you get?
Again, I hope you have an important job at your company, because nothing is stopping me from retopolgizing PoserDAZ models and selling them on Steam for a penny or two with zero traces.
No one's forcing anyone to charge for anything. People are flipping out about an option.
Thats what people said about EA, and look how its detrimentally effected indie developers.
Here we have the same setup. You pay for a mod that may be incomplete or not work in a newer revision of the game. You can only hope the modder is dedicated to the project.
Correct?
Now instead of Indie Devs, Modders will get the wrath.
It's up to the modder to make that call, NOTHING has actually changed. If they don't charge, then it's like Valve never introduced this option, if they do, then it's like releasing your product commercially only easier.
It's up to the modder to make that call, NOTHING has actually changed. If they don't charge, then it's like Valve never introduced this option, if they do, then it's like releasing your product commercially only easier.
It has changed. You are now paying for that Mod. 24hours only for a refund. This is going to create a backlash like it has in EA where people don't read or research a EA project, get burned and then spew across the internet their displeasure. Thus the EA game you worked on and are dedicated to gets overlooked because its "EA". Same thing with Kickstarter. The modders who are dishonest or flake out on this are going to ruin the reputation of the entire system.
Also saw a good point in reddit.
Why would a company bother with say a FOV update for multiple monitors, if a modder can do it for them and the company gets a cut of that for literally doing nothing?
I also echo the idea that this "does change things."
Regardless of how we as developers see this, the public sees this VERY differently. And as far as I can tell from Reddit, it's mostly "Greed and unnecessary" instead of "Hey, we can financially support our modders!"
I'm starting to believe more and more it's less "If there's a will, there's a way" but more "If there's a way, there will eventually be a will." Something people consider near unthinkable to do will eventually be taken up as a pioneering act.
Why would a company bother with say a FOV update for multiple monitors, if a modder can do it for them and the company gets a cut of that for literally doing nothing?
Give this guy a medal. I've been waiting on more information and a clearer picture before i posted a real opinion on the matter. Suffice to say a donate button is worthless & the current choice opens the doors to developer abuse. As quoted, companies no longer need to release a entirely functional game, since someone else will do it for them.
Dual screen? Mod.
Custom maps? Mod.
Fixing the piss poor rendering system? Developer approved :thumbup: wink wink mod. It's pretty much mandatory DLC (hypothetically)
Lets go to Natural selection 2 as an example, the development is run by the community now. Core functionality server side and client side have been created by the mod team. If the doors opened and they charged for the work the game becomes useless without the mods. Now i don't see in this case them doing that as it's a labor of love but it is a prime example of modders taking over essential development. Now i've spent close to 200 hours on the game and zero qualms about what people are doing to make the game better but imagine if it was expected of the community to do that after release.
£1 Mod to fix environment bug 1.0
£1 Mod to fix graphic bug x 1.0
Game updates 1.1
NEW £1 Mod to fix environment bug 1.1
NEW £1 Mod to fix graphic bug x 1.1
What has really taken me back though is the sheer toxicity of the mod community. Good god they have some serious issues, the middle finger ASCII art is in poor taste after all the workshop has provided in the past and still does.
Does anyone know if the paid for mods will be for every game or just selected titles?
Does anyone know if the paid for mods will be for every game or just selected titles?
It seems to be a game to game basis. Killing Floor 2 has updated their EULA to say "no paid mods" or something to that effect, according to Kotaku. Can't find the article at the moment, though.
But this definitely feels like an experiment of some sort. So either Valve or Bethesda are possibly planning on releasing a game with support from paid mods.
What has really taken me back though is the sheer toxicity of the mod community. Good god they have some serious issues, the middle finger ASCII art is in poor taste after all the workshop has provided in the past and still does.
That's just largely the Steam Community, which has been terrible for years. Even back when Steam had its regular forum, it was a cesspool. As awful as it may seem, it's really nothing new and sadly Valve had done very little to improve its quality. Comments on Greenlight are of similarly bad. The discussion in other places is quite heated, but nowhere near as angry. So to me that's a moderation issue, or a lack of thereof.
That said, the more I read about this whole thing, the more it sounds like a PR nightmare. I will be curious to see how they address this.
I strongly disagree with this. Mods should be made for free and downloaded for free. It's community-made things for the sake of community. If it's paid... well, it's just paid amateur DLC and that's all. Hell, devs don't even need to do anything with their game after the initial release, if they feel scummy. Just open the files, let people mod stuff, they will patch it up and make expansions or whatever free and devs can just grab the money, while doing absolutely nothing. It's like free content for your game, without you actually doing anything, AND you get money for it! Sweet opportunity.
I will just pirate mods if this gets popular. For decades, mods have been a one of the major reasons to be a PC gamer. PC gamers tell console gamers "hey, you have "insert exclusive game*, but have you seen Skyrim with mods? It's amazing and free!". Now it's more like "But on PC you can pay extra for shitty DLC made by the community, exciting, isn't it? You like to pay more, right? Right?".
I get it that people want to make money for their creation, but with mods you don't get to it for money. It's an altruistic endeavor only for your own benefit, for the benefit of your favorite game and the community.
The only way I'd be OKAY with it if publishers/devs didn't make any money from it. That would minimize the chance of scummy practices.
If contributors feel that 25% is too low, they don't have to give it to Valve. They can go elsewhere. If they want to give it for free, then they have all the right to distribute it freely. It's not like Valve said that you can't give free mods anymore.
If the consumers feel like Valve is taking advantage of people they can just ignore the workshop.
Plus the revenue split goes
25% contributors
5% service providers (contributor's choose, for example 5% goes to polycount)
70% goes to Valve and Game Creator.
Apparently 2000+ mods have now been removed from the Nexus for various reasons. SKYUI has gone paid, which means a very significant number (hundreds?) of previously free mods that rely on it are stuck behind a paywall they have no control over.
Apparently 2000+ mods have now been removed from the Nexus for various reasons. SKYUI has gone paid, which means a very significant number (hundreds?) of previously free mods that rely on it are stuck behind a paywall they have no control over.
That's quite some fallout.
Only the new version of SkyUI is going to be paid, the old version will continue to be free so no... those mods are not stuck behind a pay wall. They'll continue to function just as they always had.
SkyUI also hasn't been updated in years, in the absence of the paid marketplace the developer would have probably just continued to do absolutely nothing with it. Modders aren't losing anything from this...
I will just pirate mods if this gets popular. For decades, mods have been a one of the major reasons to be a PC gamer. PC gamers tell console gamers "hey, you have "insert exclusive game*, but have you seen Skyrim with mods? It's amazing and free!". Now it's more like "But on PC you can pay extra for shitty DLC made by the community, exciting, isn't it? You like to pay more, right? Right?".
I get it that people want to make money for their creation, but with mods you don't get to it for money. It's an altruistic endeavor only for your own benefit, for the benefit of your favorite game and the community.
This is the same logic that leads people to think artists should be paid shit wages because they're supposed to be doing it for "the love of art" not for the money.
If contributors feel that 25% is too low, they don't have to give it to Valve. They can go elsewhere. If they want to give it for free, then they have all the right to distribute it freely. It's not like Valve said that you can't give free mods anymore.
If the consumers feel like Valve is taking advantage of people they can just ignore the workshop.
Exactly, in the end it's all about discretion on part of the modders and players. People are barking at each other over the idea of paying for all mods as though it's the law, it isn't.
In order for me to pay for a mod, it would need to be on par with official DLC, and I don't tend to buy DLC for small additions like one gun that's delivered to your character with zero immersion, etc. Otherwise I'm likely to just shrug and move on.
This is the same logic that leads people to think artists should be paid shit wages because they're supposed to be doing it for "the love of art" not for the money.
Ridiculous...
This is a completely different issue. Mods are the equivalent of fan art, nothing more. You pay for fan art only if you want something specific made exclusively for you. Modding is not "work", there never was an expectation or promise of payment. It's a hobby. People did it only for the sake of the game itself and community, maybe to get a job experience doing something they like.
I would never ever pay for a mod to a game. Mods were for free for decades and everybody were OK with that, and suddenly it's not ok because Valve said so? Paying for mods is against the spirit of free game modifications. Do you really want a future where you have to pay 5 bucks to play as a shitty My Little Pony in Skyrim just for a few cheap laughs?
Mods were for free for decades and everybody were OK with that, and suddenly it's not ok because Valve said so?
They are not exclusively paid for, no one is forcing payment upon mods, modders are given the ability to set a price to their mod, or leave it just as before.
It's already happening. Launcher mods that you need to have to run many other mods are becoming pay-walled, because the developers of these mods suddenly decided that it would be great to make some money. And you have to pay if you want to use free mods.
Even if no one forces the modders to sell their mods, the situation can easily negatively affect everyone.
Anyway, I'm just ranting because I tend to be very pessimistic about stuff like that. We'll have to wait and see, I guess.
It's already happening. Launcher mods that you need to have to run many other mods are becoming pay-walled, because the developers of these mods suddenly decided that it would be great to make some money. And you have to pay if you want to use free mods.
Even if no one forces the modders to sell their mods, the situation can easily negatively affect everyone.
Anyway, I'm just ranting because I tend to be very pessimistic about stuff like that. We'll have to wait and see, I guess.
You need to have some examples here, mods don't require any launcher except if it's a mod that does something on its own that other mods can depend on, and if that developer of that mod decided that he can make a bit of money of it, then good on him.
HAHA this fucking thread. People supporting Vale in this? As a former modder i think its hillarious. They started monotizing SkyUI. So Bethesda is literally getting paid beacuse of their lackluster UI design.
So whats next, patches beeing montoized aswell? Who needs patches anyway when the modding community can sort that stuff out for free. Perfect flawless system. And if the gamers complain lets just call them entitled.
It does seem problematic when you are essentially telling developers they can half ass it, let the community fix it, and then profit from it. I mean ... why develop features if you can let the community do it for you and they'll PAY YOU for the privilege.
@Visceral
I don't think people are supporting Valve. More like, if modders want to sell their mod, they can sell it. If they don't, they won't.
What is the real issue here? That some modders want money? That companies are profiting from modders? Did they prevent people from releasing free mods?
I see the steam workshop as another way to get mods instead of a mod monopoly. If modders wan't to sell their product then that is on them. As long as nobody is forced to do anything. There is nothing wrong.
Since most people attribute modding to "free patch". Just rename different parties. One who gives for free the other who sells for money.
EDIT: I think people here don't really support Valve, but they don't support the argument either.
Replies
All jokes aside, I can't believe some here are seeing Valve's setup as a good setup. There can definitely be a paid mod system, but Valve is going about it all wrong.
You want a good example of a community making a living income with mod making, look at Second Life. The model the have going on over there is correct.
Honest question, why does Valve have to take 75%? When something like Second Life only charges $1 and still maintains a multi million dollar company.
Every other content creation program we have seen so far, that is meant to promote the content creators themselves, take the smaller cut. Look at how Epic is handling their Unreal Engine. They are giving their Engine away for free and if you start making money, Epic takes only 5%!!
Gumroad is the hot spot for us right now, they only take 5% and zero fees!
So why does Valve HAVE to take 75% for doing nothing?
EA tried this for Sims 1-3, it did not work well for them.
Why the publisher is entitled to 50% isn't really clear to me, but whatever. Up to the mod makers to decide if that's worth it and I expect if the adoption rate sucks with that split, they'll just change it to be more generous.
Also Valve is hardly doing nothing, they're giving people a platform to sell their bullshit to millions of potential buyers. You could just as easily ask why Valve takes a cut of game sales... same reason.
Edit: Added "their"
Edit: Added list on Page 5 about what everyone is outraged about
It is quite likely that Valve is taking somewhere between 15% - 25% for themselves, and giving the rest to the developer and publisher of the game, and a split like that would be perfectly fair. It takes time and money to create mod tools and it requires a lot of planning to ensure a game is modder friendly. Developers could have spent that time making DLC that they could sell back to customers.
As for Valve's percentage of the money, they are providing the market for which the transactions take place. From a legal perspective they could take 90% of the cut if they wanted since it is the content creator's choice to determine if they want to use one market over another.
The biggest issue I can see with this is stealing content, which was an issue with Valve's own game workshops at one point. I'm not sure how Valve plans to filter everything but I think it would have been better if mods had to go through a process similar to their own games where only the highest quality mods could be submitted as paid mods (determined by users' votes.) Doing so would prevent any stolen content from ever having a pricetag attached to it, and if something does slip by Valve can handle it manually.
That is crazy
I suspect Valve decides how much they want and then lets publishers decide how big they want to make their own share. If that's the case I would hardly call that the "Developer decides", more like they both decided what they wanted and the mod maker got what was left.
Edit: here
You're comparing licensing terms for different products (engine vs. mod) in different markets (everywhere vs. steam workshop vs. second life...) from different developers and publishers. You aren't just comparing apples to oranges, you're asking why they don't both measure up to bananas.
You're casting this as a moral outrage. You seem to think someone is getting screwed. But who? Do you think you have special information that Valve, Bethesda, and the people selling their mods (all of them self-interested parties who want the best outcomes for themselves) lack?
Really?
Thanks for the correction everybody!
The premise of my question still stands though. Every other platform out there that is built to promote the content creator takes the smaller percentage.
EA attempted this for Sims 1-3 and failed horribly, they learned their lesson and let the modders handle it themselves with Sims 4.
The issue here is not about legality, it's about WHY. Epic Studios can take 80% of the cut of any game made on UE4 and they have every right to do so, but they don't. So why does ZeniMax HAVE to take such a large cut?
Gumroad provides a platform just like Valve, and yet they only take 5% and zero server fees among others. So why does Valve have to take a sizable cut?
So my question is why does Valve's system with the developers have to be this way when we have multiple of other successful content creation examples where the company providing the platform takes the smaller percentage and is still a success?
Frankly I'd be happy with 5% if that meant making $30k for a pack of items or something. Gumroad does not provide the same thing, discoverability on gumroad is non-existent, you're in charge of your own store page and promoting it, there's no advertising and it's not a landing page for the relevant customers.
Steam is all of that.
Afaik you can't even browse gumroad, we had to make a thread here just so people could find the tutorials that ARE on Gumroad.
My apologies if I'm coming off that way, it's not my intention, I am just genuinely asking why?
Edit: also fair point about apples and oranges, I guess I'm just viewing everything in the broad sense of content creation.
You have a point, but wouldn't that be considered more as a feature? Gumroad is still pretty fresh, so it's not out of the realm of possibilities that a search/category system can be implemented, like Patreon. Steam was released in 2002 and didn't start to have a community until 2008 for example.
Also I just want to point out something that should be obvious here, Gumroad has competition. So does Epic. Anybody who doesn't like Epic's terms can go to Unity or CryEngine. Epic is also relatively new to the indie scene compared to Unity and they're trying very aggressively to secure their position there and generous licensing helps with that .
Steam has no serious competitor. They're basically a benevolent monopoly at this point.
Ultimately though what we are arguing here is arbitrary numbers, it's up to creators to decide if they're okay with that split and if not then they don't have to make anything for that game. It's not really up to outsiders to determine what is fair.
Like I said in my earlier post, if they can't get enough creators on board with this split they will probably change it
Nothing terribly interesting.
Modding doesn't exist in a vacuum.
Lets see more issues shall we?
Another mod which was 'finished' by the Developer even though it clearly wasn't, decided to magically come back to life and add 'core' finals to the entire thing even though they claimed they were complete: https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/33quz6/skyui_pretty_much_one_of_the_most_essential_mods/
Over several dozen people worked one that mod, I guess fuck them and everything they helped with, only a single person deserves the money in the first place. Oh, also, apprently if any new mods will require that specific paid version to work, you're out of luck mate.
Authors mod which got taken down. Apparently they have regrets now about the entire thing being commercialzied, too bad Valve won't remove the files to keep 'current customers happy;: https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/33qcaj/the_experiment_has_failed_my_exit_from_the/
Oh, look at this: http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Timebreaker?version=345aaeab924152650ef2e95a39dc51ad
Valve removed files and even changes them when big companies are involved, but a small modder that was invited and had license issues? Fuck them, even if the mod was removed because of License issues between softwares, fuck them, because Valve has lawyers and you don't.
The fees are standard: https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/33q8pz/skyui_dev_announces_project_will_be_targeted_for/cqnit9q
I don't know why you guys are discussing anything about fee's. Valve will always take the same cut, period. The only outlier is the case of service providers which can take an extra 5% from Valves 30, but that it.
Cannot link to the specific links due to related piracy issues, but apparenlty the refund is once again broken, doesn't actually work right off the bat (can take 24+ hours) and you only get Steam funds, not your actual money back, once again, making charge backs a death sentance to your account.
Also, several of the mods creators (2 of them from Polycount, SHAME ON YOU, what disgusting behaviour) made is specifically clear they have no commitments to keeping their mods updated should anything happen or fix them (ei; it's on my time schedule, deal with it).
Valve is really good at forcing you to keep store credit...if EA or any other company forced you to only get instore refunds for a mod, people would be asking for blood right about now.
Anyone with half a brain would know something is up when Valve couldn't be bothered finding and fixing (you know, their job?) a bug breaking pathing issue in DOTA2 unless the community SPECIFICALLY FOUND THE BUG through almost Dexter level of research: http://blog.dota2.com/2015/03/various-pathfinding-fixes/
Not the best video, but seriously, this is like 90% of the problem Valve had before they even got into this mess, not even my local bank and markets are this aggressive in keeping my money circulating in their cards or sending me adverstisments. What a joke.
[ame]
People made it specifically clear, ADD A PURE DONATION BUTTON. If a person wants to set up a charity akin to Patreon on Steam out of all places, which makes Second Life with thier 0.05$ tax look charitable, then so be it, but forcing people into bottom line taxe payment of 0.25$ to cover bandwith cost? How greedy can you get?
Again, I hope you have an important job at your company, because nothing is stopping me from retopolgizing PoserDAZ models and selling them on Steam for a penny or two with zero traces.
No one's forcing anyone to charge for anything. People are flipping out about an option.
Thats what people said about EA, and look how its detrimentally effected indie developers.
Here we have the same setup. You pay for a mod that may be incomplete or not work in a newer revision of the game. You can only hope the modder is dedicated to the project.
Correct?
Now instead of Indie Devs, Modders will get the wrath.
It has changed. You are now paying for that Mod. 24hours only for a refund. This is going to create a backlash like it has in EA where people don't read or research a EA project, get burned and then spew across the internet their displeasure. Thus the EA game you worked on and are dedicated to gets overlooked because its "EA". Same thing with Kickstarter. The modders who are dishonest or flake out on this are going to ruin the reputation of the entire system.
Also saw a good point in reddit.
Why would a company bother with say a FOV update for multiple monitors, if a modder can do it for them and the company gets a cut of that for literally doing nothing?
Regardless of how we as developers see this, the public sees this VERY differently. And as far as I can tell from Reddit, it's mostly "Greed and unnecessary" instead of "Hey, we can financially support our modders!"
I'm starting to believe more and more it's less "If there's a will, there's a way" but more "If there's a way, there will eventually be a will." Something people consider near unthinkable to do will eventually be taken up as a pioneering act.
Give this guy a medal. I've been waiting on more information and a clearer picture before i posted a real opinion on the matter. Suffice to say a donate button is worthless & the current choice opens the doors to developer abuse. As quoted, companies no longer need to release a entirely functional game, since someone else will do it for them.
Dual screen? Mod.
Custom maps? Mod.
Fixing the piss poor rendering system? Developer approved :thumbup: wink wink mod. It's pretty much mandatory DLC (hypothetically)
Lets go to Natural selection 2 as an example, the development is run by the community now. Core functionality server side and client side have been created by the mod team. If the doors opened and they charged for the work the game becomes useless without the mods. Now i don't see in this case them doing that as it's a labor of love but it is a prime example of modders taking over essential development. Now i've spent close to 200 hours on the game and zero qualms about what people are doing to make the game better but imagine if it was expected of the community to do that after release.
£1 Mod to fix environment bug 1.0
£1 Mod to fix graphic bug x 1.0
Game updates 1.1
NEW £1 Mod to fix environment bug 1.1
NEW £1 Mod to fix graphic bug x 1.1
What has really taken me back though is the sheer toxicity of the mod community. Good god they have some serious issues, the middle finger ASCII art is in poor taste after all the workshop has provided in the past and still does.
Does anyone know if the paid for mods will be for every game or just selected titles?
So paid mods of free mods are acceptable?
What about free mods made from paid mods?
This is all just so confusing And I'm seeing all this mixed info.
It seems to be a game to game basis. Killing Floor 2 has updated their EULA to say "no paid mods" or something to that effect, according to Kotaku. Can't find the article at the moment, though.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/04/24/valves-paid-skyrim-mods-are-a-legal-ethical-and-creative-disaster/
But this definitely feels like an experiment of some sort. So either Valve or Bethesda are possibly planning on releasing a game with support from paid mods.
That's just largely the Steam Community, which has been terrible for years. Even back when Steam had its regular forum, it was a cesspool. As awful as it may seem, it's really nothing new and sadly Valve had done very little to improve its quality. Comments on Greenlight are of similarly bad. The discussion in other places is quite heated, but nowhere near as angry. So to me that's a moderation issue, or a lack of thereof.
That said, the more I read about this whole thing, the more it sounds like a PR nightmare. I will be curious to see how they address this.
Are you imagining valve just suddenly activating this for every title on steam without having the permission from every single product owner?
I will just pirate mods if this gets popular. For decades, mods have been a one of the major reasons to be a PC gamer. PC gamers tell console gamers "hey, you have "insert exclusive game*, but have you seen Skyrim with mods? It's amazing and free!". Now it's more like "But on PC you can pay extra for shitty DLC made by the community, exciting, isn't it? You like to pay more, right? Right?".
I get it that people want to make money for their creation, but with mods you don't get to it for money. It's an altruistic endeavor only for your own benefit, for the benefit of your favorite game and the community.
The only way I'd be OKAY with it if publishers/devs didn't make any money from it. That would minimize the chance of scummy practices.
If the consumers feel like Valve is taking advantage of people they can just ignore the workshop.
Plus the revenue split goes
25% contributors
5% service providers (contributor's choose, for example 5% goes to polycount)
70% goes to Valve and Game Creator.
That's quite some fallout.
Only the new version of SkyUI is going to be paid, the old version will continue to be free so no... those mods are not stuck behind a pay wall. They'll continue to function just as they always had.
SkyUI also hasn't been updated in years, in the absence of the paid marketplace the developer would have probably just continued to do absolutely nothing with it. Modders aren't losing anything from this...
.. I hope mod never featured in steam
front page, it is disgrace for eye.
Ridiculous...
Exactly, in the end it's all about discretion on part of the modders and players. People are barking at each other over the idea of paying for all mods as though it's the law, it isn't.
In order for me to pay for a mod, it would need to be on par with official DLC, and I don't tend to buy DLC for small additions like one gun that's delivered to your character with zero immersion, etc. Otherwise I'm likely to just shrug and move on.
This is a completely different issue. Mods are the equivalent of fan art, nothing more. You pay for fan art only if you want something specific made exclusively for you. Modding is not "work", there never was an expectation or promise of payment. It's a hobby. People did it only for the sake of the game itself and community, maybe to get a job experience doing something they like.
I would never ever pay for a mod to a game. Mods were for free for decades and everybody were OK with that, and suddenly it's not ok because Valve said so? Paying for mods is against the spirit of free game modifications. Do you really want a future where you have to pay 5 bucks to play as a shitty My Little Pony in Skyrim just for a few cheap laughs?
You've skipped out on some serious gaming industry history now.
Chances are you probably already did pay for a game that was a mod once, without you knowing.
They are not exclusively paid for, no one is forcing payment upon mods, modders are given the ability to set a price to their mod, or leave it just as before.
It's already happening. Launcher mods that you need to have to run many other mods are becoming pay-walled, because the developers of these mods suddenly decided that it would be great to make some money. And you have to pay if you want to use free mods.
Even if no one forces the modders to sell their mods, the situation can easily negatively affect everyone.
Anyway, I'm just ranting because I tend to be very pessimistic about stuff like that. We'll have to wait and see, I guess.
You need to have some examples here, mods don't require any launcher except if it's a mod that does something on its own that other mods can depend on, and if that developer of that mod decided that he can make a bit of money of it, then good on him.
So whats next, patches beeing montoized aswell? Who needs patches anyway when the modding community can sort that stuff out for free. Perfect flawless system. And if the gamers complain lets just call them entitled.
I don't think people are supporting Valve. More like, if modders want to sell their mod, they can sell it. If they don't, they won't.
What is the real issue here? That some modders want money? That companies are profiting from modders? Did they prevent people from releasing free mods?
I see the steam workshop as another way to get mods instead of a mod monopoly. If modders wan't to sell their product then that is on them. As long as nobody is forced to do anything. There is nothing wrong.
Since most people attribute modding to "free patch". Just rename different parties. One who gives for free the other who sells for money.
EDIT: I think people here don't really support Valve, but they don't support the argument either.
Some people have the idea that Bethesda games are broken, buggy and bad until you mod them, as if they weren't worth it out of the box.