Yeah, I don't buy the "We put you in front of a big market" thing, modders already had that, there was just no money being made. I still think Bethesda and Valve should get a slice, but If you look at the split like a negotiation (not that it is) I think most people would pass.
It's also why most people suck at business.
If you can make 40k from an asset, because they put it in-front of a market and sold 160k. For your time, it's absolutely one of the best paying ways to make money in commercial art in the history of commercial art.
Yes, for you, who make 40k, sure it works, and for all those who makes much fewer sales, that's pretty much difference between make it or break it....
And even then, why would you be ok with getting 40k, if you could earn more?
So yes, i do understand your point, Muzz, but that doesn't work for everyone. Maybe i remember wrong, but i remember reading somewhere that % of games who actually earn enough money to atleast pay them back, in mobile games, is VERY small.
Now imagen how many of those game companies would manage to survive if the share they get was a little higher. You can still say that if you sell more than certain amount, you get a little less %....
Yeah, I don't buy the "We put you in front of a big market" thing, modders already had that, there was just no money being made. I still think Bethesda and Valve should get a slice, but If you look at the split like a negotiation (not that it is) I think most people would pass.
this is not going to happen, but I would really love to hear your opinion on that subject matter once again, after you create a well established IP with few successful titles and a marketplace for online sales across the globe.
If you can make 40k from an asset, because they put it in-front of a market and sold 160k. For your time, it's absolutely one of the best paying ways to make money in commercial art in the history of commercial art.
You have to publish a lot of assets before you can get an accurate assessment of your average return. Having one asset be a mega-hit is nice but not representative.
That said, it's very easy for anyone with decent skills to make tens of thousands of dollars every year just publishing assets on asset stores.
Paid mods are good for artists because it means more programmers and producers will be buying pre-made assets. Ka-ching!
It reminds me of the music industry, where often the artists gets a minimal % of the actual music sale. But at least the music industry is actually doing something (although I don't care for it in general), compared to this. I really don't want the same attitude from the music industry to infect the modding area, with "you should be happy to at least get something, instead of nothing".
Hell, when I think about how vehemently people reacts to the whole "paid in work experience" for artists, I'm surprised that people are actually defending this.
It reminds me of the music industry, where often the artists gets a minimal % of the actual music sale. But at least the music industry is actually doing something (although I don't care for it in general), compared to this. I really don't want the same attitude from the music industry to infect the modding area, with "you should be happy to at least get something, instead of nothing".
Hell, when I think about how vehemently people reacts to the whole "paid in work experience" for artists, I'm surprised that people are actually defending this.
Its actually, in this case for mods, you do it because you love to do it.
Good, so hopefully Bethesda/Zenimax learns to cut their greed (now they poisoned DLC with horse armor and Paid mods for everyone) and valve can fix the issues with the terms.
Keep it in perspective guys, if your feelings on Valve's decision can best be described as "safe" ergo you felt endangered by modders' ability to ask for money, or you have trouble resisting buying DLC or mods you don't like, e.g. horse armor, you need to seek therapy.
edit: I agree linkov, paid content programs in other games like DOTA2 have been a wild success, I think this needed to "cure" for a few months while everyone cooled down and modders had a chance to really take stock and invest time in more elaborate projects.
I think this type of paid-model is better suited to free games like DOTA and TF2 where the new items are largely cosmetic, not a game like Skyrim where the mods are much more interconnected with each other are are potentially necessary to fix bugs and extend/improve other areas of the core game.
I'm going to enjoy seeing this happen when I'm old and not gaming anymore:
Seriously, guys, stop pretending like mods exist in a vacuum and that nothing bad will happen. I made modding a large hobby of mine, ranted about it for who knows how long, and I have seen what happened when money was involved outside of donations in the 3 different scenes from external influences. Stop the wishful thinking, go and make money somewhere else or run donations, if Streamers can do it, so can you, period.
Ace-Angel I have a feeling that people like you are just being afraid of changes. Community on steam is celebrating right now, but what did they won exactly? Best case scenario - the mod support from Bethesda is going to be on the same level as with Skyrim right now. And from what I can gather its not that great. Creation kit crashing, shit gets broken, bugs are not being fixed, etc.
I think Bethesda should have made a show of good faith by trying to strike a deal with the developers of SkyUI/SKSE/Fores, etc. to continue developement (since SkyUI was basically dead before this) and release them for free to the community.
Considering they address core functionality problems with modding for their own game I think it would have gone a long way in showing people they were serious about improving the modding community.
I think what they really need to do to make amends is create a series of games across multiple IP's with an incredibly easy to overwrite file structure, then release a few tools to help people create quests and change the game mechanics, but they have to be robust enough to include a custom scripting system, then also make a few Wikis and a couple of youtube tutorial series for documentation, then maybe a pilot a program in partnership with the largest game distribution platform to allow user to explore, rate and/or download and install mods in a single click, which they should debut by releasing all the high res textures for their latest game. They don't have to do that all at once though, maybe over like 15 years? Definitely should be for free though, all that should be for free.
I totally like how they dressed it up like it was in the best interest of the modders and to help the community grow, when in reality all they wanted was more money.
This is not some money grabbing scheme by us. Even this weekend, when Skyrim was free for all, mod sales represented less than 1% of our Steam revenue.
Presented without commentary.
EDIT: (Now with more commentary)
Obviously over time, as the amount of mods for sale increased, revenue from the sale of mods would make up a larger percentage of their revenue. However, there was a massive amount of attention on just a few mods, so each individual mod likely made much more money than any mod would make in the time span without a massive controversy directing traffic toward them.
And I'm pretty sure the complaints and ways to show dislike of this thing was all sensible and non hostile.
The entire workshop was pretty much put to the flames by the community before it had a chance to show the system at work.
Now what remains is discontinued mods remaining discontinued and modders being chased out of the community for being a part of the paid workshop system.
Valve and Bethesda have stated their intentions. Whether you believe them or not is up to you. Yes, they are corporations and they exist to make money. However, that doesn't mean there are not well intentioned people working for both companies. It's very likely that what they've said is true. They wanted to benefit the mod authors and the modding community. Of course it had the added benefit of making them both money, even if that wasn't their main goal.
If you are in AAA games, or games publishing to make money alone, you are an idiot, and you chose the wrong profession.
While these companies are making bank now, it's not like it was a sure far way to make money as a business at the start. That of course doesn't change the fact that people can become greedy after getting successful but to imply that these companies tried to do this out of greed alone is silly.
Calm down boss, we don't want their money, we'd rather keep modding the way it is (free) then a paid thing.
Modding has never been one big happy community, there's no "we", there's no "mods should always be free" especially since mods have been monetized before.
Especially one that is 75% to them and 25% to the modding group.
Honestly if their hearts where in it they could have said look, we'll take 15%, steam will take 15% you get a whopping 70% so keep the price down lads and make it affordable for most of the userbase, and if you did create something so good that goes viral well good on you!
So a modder should get nearly the same percentage as someone who brings their own tools, their own IP and their own everything to the table on steam with their own game?
As has been mentioned before several times, licensing fees exist and are real, modders were given an easy tool to bypass all the paperwork and had been given full access to the IP and tools and the easiest way to publish it. This is where the costs come in, this is why bethesda takes its fees.
People seem to be completely oblivious to this, comparing it to just another storefront and not even considering the involvement of an IP and tools.
I think Skyrim was indeed not the best title to launch this system, but I don't understand why so much people are outraged over the percentages to be honest (much less why it was used as a weapon by the community when it's the modders who were affected by it). In the case of TES at least, it's one of the most well known IPs in the industry, thinking they have to allow modders to take a 70% or similar while benefiting from that success seems a bit naive to me. Don't get me wrong, that would be great if they did, but I can't fault them for trying to make money from their product, after all that's exactly their business.
As has been mentioned before several times, licensing fees exist and are real, modders were given an easy tool to bypass all the paperwork and had been given full access to the IP and tools and the easiest way to publish it. This is where the costs come in, this is why bethesda takes its fees.
Well, they seems to have done it just fine with morrowind, oblivion, and skyrim. In fact, it seems, despite these huge cost of tools, they actually make profit still.
Now....tell me, do you think if none of these 3 games had any modding whatsoever, do you really think they would be as succesfull as they are/were?
Again, modding is one of the bigger appeal of these games, it's what Beth's games were known for, or at least TES series. Take that away, and i'm pretty sure they will loose some sales.
And access to IP? Do you really get that? You only get access to IP as long as you help selling their games via modding. As guys as Skywind said...if you really get rights to IP...can i get mod to Kickstarter and start gathering money based on it?
AT the end...it's fans making modification on YOUR game, because they like your game. Everyone already payed a lot of money for it. What's more, beth gets even more money by increase in sales.
So i find that logic faulty, mostly because modding is in Beth's interest as well.
It's what helps selling their games. You can't just ignore that. And full access to their IP is a bit questionable i'd say....
In other words...imo, mods ARE what made this IP as interesting as they are atm, or at least it helped a lot. So it's a not fair to turn that around and say "our IP is huge so give us 45%...
I'm going to enjoy seeing this happen when I'm old and not gaming anymore:
That is the most well thought explanation of what is inherently wrong with the system. Its not something that can be glossed over with the excuses I have seen here to have kept the system in place.
Remember (most) of us are not against the idea of mods having monetary value. We simply agree the system that was being offered wasn't well thought out.
Patreon like that guy doing Cities XL might be a good option if donation isn't working for you.
Also stop gaming when you're old??? Shame on you Ace-Angel!
Wow, they backed down, I am somewhat disappointed. From all the millions of posts "please add a donate button *(that I will never use, but I say that I want because it makes it look like I'm not a kid with no money who can't stand the thought of having to pay someone for their work)", it's obvious where most of the outcry was coming from.
In an ideal world it would have been nice to see a fairer split and a better way to report stolen content and downvote terrible mods into oblivion. Shame Valve and Beth didn't realise that they should have put more effort into making this a nice thing for modders and the community, hardly surprising you get backlash from a bad system and bad reward. And now they are taking their ball and saying "you're mean, I don't want to play anymore, my way or the highway".
This was sadly an argument of Greed vs Entitlement. Its sad they killed the baby in the cradle before it had a chance to walk. I utterly loathe the sense of entitlement players had,thinking that modders should give every bit of their work for free to the community. People need to live and have bills to pay and if there was an incentive to make money on mods,imagine the type of quality mods that will most likely never be made now.
Then there is Bethesda, the greed they should by the percentage they wanted is frankly shameful and insulting.If it was not for modders,would Skyrim have had the life it has had? I think not.
So sadly because of Valves/Bethesda's handling of this and the shameful behavior of the community,we have nothing now,instead of something with great potential.
I am a modder and a modder only and have been since quake. I started right here on polycount back when this place still was a models and skins repository.
I do not work in the industry and I do not intend to.
I feel paid mods are a terrible idea no matter what way you shake it. The only entitlement I am seeing is that of modders feeling they somehow "deserve" to make money of what was a hobby project they intitially made for themselves and were willing to give away for three only 4 days ago.
I see no entitlement from the gamers who wish to for the status quo to remain, all I see from that side is an effort to prevent the destruction of the main support pillar of pc gaming.
Without modding, there is no PC games industry. It will die rapidly without modding.
I see modding as a path into the industry, a proving grounds of sorts. If the incentive has to be money you are modding for the wrong reasons. Build and release an indie game if you want to do that.
I posted this on reddit, but I am overall feeling quite disapointed by all this so posting here as well.
Throwaway, because I expect to be attacked for my opinion.
Paid mods are not a bad idea, the implementation was terrible.
I am disappointed in Valve because they made zero effort and expected a 30% share, simply because they are in a monopoly position. They could have thought carefully about how they would deal with stolen content, how to avoid the workshop being spammed full of useless content leaving the customers confused and ripped off, and what sort of cut they deserve from a single player game they had zero part in creating. Instead they seemingly attempted to grab as much as they could, while doing as little as they could. The quality of the initial mods and their asking price, and the apparent 1 month notice modders were given are testament to this. Now we have a horrible taint on what could have been a good thing.
I am disappointed in Bethesda, for thinking that 45% was a fair share to take from people who have practically made the Elder Scrolls as successful as it is, while providing poor tools, very little support and letting the community fix a game that is literally renowned for its bugs. Last time I modded skyrim you couldnt even add new skeletons or animations to create new creatures. Maybe it would be justified if this had been released on a new game, with good mod tools and a commitment to improving them, just like Valve has continually done with the Dota tools. But this wasnt the case, they just tried to take as much as they could from a previously free system. Where was the system to have mods like SKYUI or the unofficial patch be listed as a service you could give a percent to, so that they could get some return, but still provide their invaluable additions to the game free of charge.
Lastly, I am disappointed with the community that has attacked modders for wanting to make a little money doing what they love and coming up with a bunch of excuses as to why everything must remain free. Repeatedly saying things like add a donate button, because they know that it looks better than admitting that they dont want to pay, and have no intention of paying. Someone else will always donate.. right? Except they dont because its inconvenient and why go to additional effort when its easier to just get it for free. People who want to be paid for their work, actually do deserve it. We are talking about artists who are going to be competing with people working for free, its already a tough industry to be in.
This could have been great for the community and the artists and designers. The community could have had amazing dlc sized quality mods, made by professional and non-professional artists. An endless stream of professional quality content added to your favourite games. It could have been great for artists and game designers, who might be able to make a living or at least justify not working full time on other things, and be able to create content they love to make. I know if I could make a living making fun to create content for my favourite games instead of the job I am currently doing I would quit in an instant and go back to the art I love.
Instead we got a bunch of small somewhat unprofessional mods, asking stupidly high prices for the content they provided, partially because Valve and Beth wanted to take a huge cut and partially because Valve made no effort to even think about a quality release lineup or value for money.
Now all three parties burned something that could be great to the ground with a fight over all their individual greed. Nice work Valve, being the instigator of this its almost all on you. I have no idea how you didn't foresee the community reaction this would have.
I am a modder and a modder only and have been since quake. I do not work in the industry and I do not intend to.
I feel paid mods are a terrible idea no matter what way you shake it. The only entitlement I am seeing is that of modders feeling they somehow "deserve" to make money of what was a hobby project they intitially made for themselves and were willing to give away for three only 4 days ago.
I see no entitlement from the gamers who wish to for the status quo to remain, all I see from that side is an effort to prevent the destruction of the main support pillar of pc gaming.
Without modding, there is no PC games industry. It will die rapidly without modding.
I see modding as a path into the industry, a proving grounds of sorts. If the incentive has to be money you are modding for the wrong reasons. Build and release an indie game if you want to do that.
You shouldn't be looking at this as paid mods, you should be looking at this as freely outsourcing addons to the game. People will always continue to make free mods, and people won't pay for something they don't think is worth it. The system should have just been a bit fairer and a bit better managed.
How are "paid mods" any different to someone like gearbox creating Opposing Force and Blueshift for Half Life, except on a smaller scale and open to developers and development teams all over the world.
I'd just like to throw in another topic to make discuss.
While it's kinda not cool to see gamers reacting...shall we say, "strong"....i feel like that's kinda not only their own fault.
When it comes to bad deals from publishers and studios, like maybe poor DRM or day1 dlcs and such....if gamers wants a change...realistically speaking, does anyone honestly think they could achieve anything at all (like in this case with valve and beth) by simply politely protesting? Sadly, i believe it's not the case. So maybe publishers should put more effort into listening and talking to their community to avoid them snapping back like this.
How are "paid mods" any different to someone like gearbox creating Opposing Force and Blueshift for Half Life, except on a smaller scale and open to developers and development teams all over the world.
exactly, counterstrike, dota on the game side, then there are gearbox and splashdamage on the company side and many many more coming from the modding background and transforming their once free mods into stand alone games.
It's not like this is a totally new thing.
I was thinking about that yesterday, and I think they can, but only very slowly.
This reminds me of the initial reaction to the xBox One where a lot of what Microsoft was doing was aimed at sustainability for the industry, but they did a horrible job selling it. In the end most of it happened anyway because it turns out downloading games is easier and cheaper than buying the disc.
The community reaction was insane in this case. I've read everything from scripture to poems to what sounds like political rallying by people who basically just want all their content for free. Terms like "end of an era" have been thrown around and suddenly neither Valve or Bethesda care about the modding community. Assertions of why modders should be creating content for free are made by people simultaneously looking to get paid for their work in this industry.
I think paid mods are already here, they have been for a long time in the form of commercial releases or curated content in games like DOTA2. In Valve's blog post they stated they're still interested in this venture. I've made mods for Dragon Age, Tomb Raider, Oblivion, Skyrim, Arkham City and a handful of older games (Anyone remember Escape Velocity?). Most of the time I create one or two small things, go "that was fun" and move on. If modding actually helped me pay my rent, I would absolutely put more time into it and based on discussions with other devs, I'm not alone.
I think we'll get there, but the community is similar to Gollum in that it only sees as far as was its own possessions. If even the idea of that possession is threatened, whether true or not, you get a frenzied knee-jerk reaction like what we saw over the weekend.
The change will probably happen with a fresh title, where mods are either free or paid from their point of release. The community's reaction will be far less frantic because it wont perceive that content as being lost.
@Zocky
I've made mods for Dragon Age, Tomb Raider, Oblivion, Skyrim, Arkham City and a handful of older games (Anyone remember Escape Velocity?). Most of the time I create one or two small things, go "that was fun" and move on. If modding actually helped me pay my rent, I would absolutely put more time into it and based on discussions with other devs, I'm not alone.
Indeed, and I expect that's the same for a lot of us. My main job is working as a web designer, because honestly if I am going to have my artistic creativity crushed I might as well make decent money :P My current job is about to end and I was seriously considering moving to eastern europe for fun, breaking onto Valve's payroll through skyrim mods and eeking out a cheap existence creating things I love on dota2 and Skyrim workshop and working on contract web stuff.
I think people don't realise that the "paid mods" would end up as basically professional add on content. The change in the quality of the content on Dota 2 is clear evidence what you get when people can earn money. A lot of the early sets were nothing but hastily made items, now its almost a requirement to make a video and advertising campaign and the content has to be better than Valve's.
I would like to see it that way Carbon14 but that is not what will happen.
How it is different is that Modding is hobby. Not a job. It is a labour of love to create a change to an existing game.
If you wish to make money of this then that is fine. Take the skills you learned while modding (art, code, managing community expactations, etc) and apply that to making a full game.
Maybe apply for a job at an established studio. Thanks to the modding community a modder will have an extensive portfolio of mods and will be an established name in several game communties. That looks fantastic on your CV, I've been told it looks better than a piece of paper from some multimedia university.
Have you suggestions how it could be better managed Carbon14?
because I feel no form of managing this will make it viable.
Changing who gets what cut of the take won't make a difference. Giving 0$+donate option while better will still split the communities.
If you can think of a way to differentiate between mods and full blown fan-made xpacks, I'm all for it.
A large part of the modding community is the sharing of assets. Mods are built upon each other.
Take the skyrim example. For the nude/lewd mops a skeleton and rig was created that is now considered the standard even for non-sexual mods. Pose and animation mods have been built on top of it. Other mods use those animations to give life to their locations. etc. It's all intertwined.
Why would I share assets if I stand a chance of gaining money from them? Would we have to start licensing mod assets of each other? That would be ridiculous.
The next step is that we keep our skills a secret and sell the knowledge.
Can you imagine what that would be like?
Right now you learned by googling, and then following a tutorial created by a polycounter who used to be a modder, and then aplying that tutorial to your own project, and then you came across a hurdle so you googled how to defeat that hurdle. This time googling led you to a blog by someone who solved that, so you applied that newly learned knowledge and blew past that hurdle. Then ran into yet another hurdle. This time with normal map baking. SO you found the now world famous "make me hard" thread.
Can you imagine how well your personal projects would have gone if at every step you would have been greeted by a paywall?
"learn how to bake a chamfered corner. -$2"
Modding is a school and by extension a benefit to all in the industry, gamers, devs and modders alike.
I am a modder and a modder only and have been since quake. I started right here on polycount back when this place still was a models and skins repository.
I do not work in the industry and I do not intend to.
I feel paid mods are a terrible idea no matter what way you shake it. The only entitlement I am seeing is that of modders feeling they somehow "deserve" to make money of what was a hobby project they intitially made for themselves and were willing to give away for three only 4 days ago.
I see no entitlement from the gamers who wish to for the status quo to remain, all I see from that side is an effort to prevent the destruction of the main support pillar of pc gaming.
Without modding, there is no PC games industry. It will die rapidly without modding.
I see modding as a path into the industry, a proving grounds of sorts. If the incentive has to be money you are modding for the wrong reasons. Build and release an indie game if you want to do that.
Why does modding have to be exclusively free? Who says its a path to only be the path to the industry? How is this different? When it comes to working for a living as an artist,why limit the possibilities for making a living? I understand there will be some modders who do,mod as a hobby and if they decide to share whatever they mod for free then,thats their choice. On the same token why cant their be modders who desire to get paid by creating content? If there is a market,then people will pay,if not then the players will speak with their wallets. I do not understand why the two can not coexist? As long as you give the choice of free or pay to the modder right?
I wont deny it, if there was a way of creating content for steam and potentially make a living from it I would. Id find the games I like,play and create content for it. If i could make a living from that I would definitely give it a go. Ive been a 3d artist in the games industry for 12 years now and Ive experienced every shitty,unstable aspect of this industry and every single possibility to work as a 3d artist is something to be celebrated.
I think Bethesda and Valve dropped the ball with their implementation and that as well as the community's toxic reaction killed a good opportunity for 3d artists everywhere.
Why do you think they can coexist?
How can they coexist?
If they can coexist, and that is a big IF, I am all for it. Because then as a modder who is well known for lewd I mods would make money too. Sex sells, allways.
But I see no way for them to coexist without one (paid mods) cannibalizing the other.
I'll stick to skyrim examples.
A mod like SKSE would become paid. It would no longer be a mod, it would be a required framework for modding. Just like we now have required runtimes and frameworks for running or creating software.
If that becomes true, we buy first party software, to run it we need software from a third party, its redistributed by the first part. I later wish to make play mods for this software. A fourth party makes the mods. that fourth party had to license skse from a fifth party. I myself have to pay a fee to us the fifth party software so that I can run the fourth party add-on for the first party software that in turn needs third party software to run.
How is this in any way a navigatable situation for the consumer?
If there is some way to differentiate between shit tier mods and xpack tier mods, some quality control, some central point for end responsibilty, some way to ensure paid mods do not cannbalize free mods, to ensure my free art is not stolen by some entitled mod coder for his paid for mod. Then I am for it.
I can not think of a method to do this though. But I'm not all that smart.
Why do you think they can coexist?
How can they coexist?
If they can coexist, and that is a big IF, I am all for it. Because then as a modder who is well known for lewd I mods would make money too. Sex sells, allways.
But I see no way for them to coexist without one (paid mods) cannibalizing the other.
I'll stick to skyrim examples.
A mod like SKSE would become paid. It would no longer be a mod, it would be a required framework for modding. Just like we now have required runtimes and frameworks for running or creating software.
If that becomes true, we buy first party software, to run it we need software from a third party, its redistributed by the first part. I later wish to make play mods for this software. A fourth party makes the mods. that fourth party had to license skse from a fifth party. I myself have to pay a fee to us the fifth party software so that I can run the fourth party add-on for the first party software that in turn needs third party software to run.
How is this in any way a navigatable situation for the consumer?
If there is some way to differentiate between shit tier mods and xpack tier mods, some quality control, some central point for end responsibilty, some way to ensure paid mods do not cannbalize free mods, to ensure my free art is not stolen by some entitled mod coder for his paid for mod. Then I am for it.
I can not think of a method to do this though. But I'm not all that smart.
I think they could,but it was require Valve actually earning their % and policing the content.One of the big flaws on the proposed plan was that it lacked controls to prevent such things from happening. That was one of my problems with the proposal,Valve earned a cut and did nothing besides hosting to earn it. Valve lacked the guidelines that would make this a fair and even market.
How it is different is that Modding is hobby. Not a job. It is a labour of love to create a change to an existing game.
If you wish to make money of this then that is fine. Take the skills you learned while modding (art, code, managing community expactations, etc) and apply that to making a full game.
I don't really understand the whole "modding is not a job" thing. Why couldn't it be ? Wacky free mods (anything from joke models to ripped models ported over) can very well coexist with well crafted original content released for free or for a fee. Valve certainly made many mistakes in this early attempt and it is understandable that they cancelled it, but the core idea is still worth thinking about.
I feel like most of the internet hate on this topic comes from mixing up all the different aspects of the problem into one. Sure, in retrospect Skyrim was a bad pick for the experiment, Valve's hands-off approach to QA is terribly misguided, and the idea of the 25% cut was bound to be rejected. But while a lot of good points have been made against this early draft, I think that claiming that mods should all be free "just because" is not one of them.
A few ideas :
- Wouldn't there be a way to generate revenue through ad placement ?
- If Valve wants to introduce payments for uncurated user-generated content, then there needs to be some sort of QA - automated or manual. The Dota2 importer is a great example of that, and the concept could be applied for any game supporting cosmetics not affecting gameplay. As for more complex content, maybe the QA could be outsourced thanks to another revenue sharing system - basically paying players to playtest mods ?
- Even though the revenue split of 25% going to the author is based on the current Dota2/TF2 system, the fact that this information went more "viral" this time around and caused such a stir is very interesting. Regardless of how justified this 25% split is, 50% going to the author simply sounds more fair. I guess that's a psychological thing. I sure wouldn't mind the split for Dota2 items to double !
- A tip jar system is interesting, but it's hard to tell if it would really work. It honestly sounds a lot like a justification for not having to pay at all.
It really is a shame that such an interesting experiment is turning into yet another internet controversy of the week. I suppose that people really love being "for" or "against" something without anything in between.
Meanwhile, Epic is conducting a very similar experiment and it seems to be shaping up nicely, probably because they are being very open about it and fully embracing the technical challenges that come with it. Unreal Tournament 4 already has paid user-generated content.
I would like to see it that way Carbon14 but that is not what will happen.
How it is different is that Modding is hobby. Not a job. It is a labour of love to create a change to an existing game.
If you wish to make money of this then that is fine. Take the skills you learned while modding (art, code, managing community expactations, etc) and apply that to making a full game.
Maybe apply for a job at an established studio. Thanks to the modding community a modder will have an extensive portfolio of mods and will be an established name in several game communties. That looks fantastic on your CV, I've been told it looks better than a piece of paper from some multimedia university.
The labour of love is subjective, I have modded for oblivion and skyrim, and many games before that and I was happy to do it for free, but at the time I was also living at home, and studying full time with government assistance and very little expenses. What if I don't want to work at an esablished studio and my dream isn't making 50 variations of a rock mesh and a tuft of grass while getting paid peanuts? A system likes this enables anyone who loves an IP to be their own boss, or their own small team and to earn some money. If I could earn money doing this stuff, I would still be modding, instead I am not, and there will be many professional and non professionals like me. The most common thing I heard from modders who decided to quit was that they had no time anymore, and the time they had was almost certainly directly related to the time they had left over after working for...you guessed it... money.
So if we have a system like this, we get more professionals producing high quality content, in a competive market place that keeps prices low, and the consumer gets huge amounts of professional grade content for a small cost and still all the free stuff that isn't good enough to charge for. The original studio gets money and can potentially continue to support the game with better tools, that sounds great for everybody involved That is, if it's properly managed and fair.
Have you suggestions how it could be better managed Carbon14?
because I feel no form of managing this will make it viable.
Changing who gets what cut of the take won't make a difference. Giving 0$+donate option while better will still split the communities.
A large part of the modding community is the sharing of assets. Mods are built upon each other.
Take the skyrim example. For the nude/lewd mops a skeleton and rig was created that is now considered the standard even for non-sexual mods. Pose and animation mods have been built on top of it. Other mods use those animations to give life to their locations. etc. It's all intertwined.
Why would I share assets if I stand a chance of gaining money from them? Would we have to start licensing mod assets of each other? That would be ridiculous.
You're saying that with the presumption that this will be a bad thing.
I would start with
Valve accepting that they take a smaller percentage or alternatively actually working for their money and providing better support and a proper moderation process.
Bethesda taking a smaller cut or again working for their money and providing non broken tools with more access to creating content, skeletons and animations etc. It's a singleplayer game, here there is no worry of hacks or cheats.
Some proper downvote system, report system etc. If you want to charge money you should be at the mercy of the community. If there had been some system like this almost all the "release" mods would have been downvoted into oblivion, and then maybe later some high quality mods that actually made people think "hey this is worth paying money for" would have popped up.
As for the last part, if valve added an easy way to give other mods a cut from your sales, it would solve that entirely. Imagine providing a mod like that for free and then having every mod that utilizes it give you a small cut, if that wouldn't be a huge incentive to still provide mods that can be used as a base for free I don't know what is. Again, probably you end up with better quality and more updates too.
The next step is that we keep our skills a secret and sell the knowledge.
Can you imagine what that would be like?
Right now you learned by googling, and then following a tutorial created by a polycounter who used to be a modder, and then aplying that tutorial to your own project, and then you came across a hurdle so you googled how to defeat that hurdle. This time googling led you to a blog by someone who solved that, so you applied that newly learned knowledge and blew past that hurdle. Then ran into yet another hurdle. This time with normal map baking. SO you found the now world famous "make me hard" thread.
Can you imagine how well your personal projects would have gone if at every step you would have been greeted by a paywall?
"learn how to bake a chamfered corner. -$2"
Modding is a school and by extension a benefit to all in the industry, gamers, devs and modders alike.
Except this isn't how things are and people already make money doing 3d work. I can understand how this could be a concern, maybe one of the more valid, but the free community will still be there, and people are generally surprisingly giving. Secondly, if someone comes up with a clever way to do something, and wants to make some money off it how is that a bad thing? We don't live in some communist utopia quite yet.
- Even though the revenue split of 25% going to the author is based on the current Dota2/TF2 system, the fact that this information went more "viral" this time around and caused such a stir is very interesting. Regardless of how justified this 25% split is, 50% going to the author simply sounds more fair. I guess that's a psychological thing. I sure wouldn't mind the split for Dota2 items to double !
It went viral because it looks terrible. In the case of Dota Valve actually moderates the content, provides very good tools for import, provides detailed documentation and resources. They also have to add it to the main game, bug fix it when things go wrong, and provide a market to one of the most played multiplayer games in existence.
Compare that with Skyrim, where they implemented a pretty much unmoderated dumping ground with zero quality control and then gave Bethesda 45% for literally zero percieved additional effort compared to what they were providing free before. Which I might add they deemed the CK and modding community worth the effort to spend time on when they were making "nothing from it" (They already made money indirectly from it)
Replies
If you can make 40k from an asset, because they put it in-front of a market and sold 160k. For your time, it's absolutely one of the best paying ways to make money in commercial art in the history of commercial art.
And even then, why would you be ok with getting 40k, if you could earn more?
So yes, i do understand your point, Muzz, but that doesn't work for everyone. Maybe i remember wrong, but i remember reading somewhere that % of games who actually earn enough money to atleast pay them back, in mobile games, is VERY small.
Now imagen how many of those game companies would manage to survive if the share they get was a little higher. You can still say that if you sell more than certain amount, you get a little less %....
This can't be real
this is not going to happen, but I would really love to hear your opinion on that subject matter once again, after you create a well established IP with few successful titles and a marketplace for online sales across the globe.
You have to publish a lot of assets before you can get an accurate assessment of your average return. Having one asset be a mega-hit is nice but not representative.
That said, it's very easy for anyone with decent skills to make tens of thousands of dollars every year just publishing assets on asset stores.
Paid mods are good for artists because it means more programmers and producers will be buying pre-made assets. Ka-ching!
Hell, when I think about how vehemently people reacts to the whole "paid in work experience" for artists, I'm surprised that people are actually defending this.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/04/27/gabe-newell-garry-newman-defend-steams-paid-mods/
Its actually, in this case for mods, you do it because you love to do it.
[ame]
http://www.bethblog.com/2015/04/27/why-were-trying-paid-skyrim-mods-on-steam/
http://steamcommunity.com/games/SteamWorkshop#announcements/detail/208632365253244218
http://www.polygon.com/2015/4/27/8505883/valve-removing-paid-mods-from-steam
Good, so hopefully Bethesda/Zenimax learns to cut their greed (now they poisoned DLC with horse armor and Paid mods for everyone) and valve can fix the issues with the terms.
edit: I agree linkov, paid content programs in other games like DOTA2 have been a wild success, I think this needed to "cure" for a few months while everyone cooled down and modders had a chance to really take stock and invest time in more elaborate projects.
Seriously, guys, stop pretending like mods exist in a vacuum and that nothing bad will happen. I made modding a large hobby of mine, ranted about it for who knows how long, and I have seen what happened when money was involved outside of donations in the 3 different scenes from external influences. Stop the wishful thinking, go and make money somewhere else or run donations, if Streamers can do it, so can you, period.
Considering they address core functionality problems with modding for their own game I think it would have gone a long way in showing people they were serious about improving the modding community.
Moneygrubbing jerks...
Presented without commentary.
EDIT: (Now with more commentary)
Obviously over time, as the amount of mods for sale increased, revenue from the sale of mods would make up a larger percentage of their revenue. However, there was a massive amount of attention on just a few mods, so each individual mod likely made much more money than any mod would make in the time span without a massive controversy directing traffic toward them.
The entire workshop was pretty much put to the flames by the community before it had a chance to show the system at work.
Now what remains is discontinued mods remaining discontinued and modders being chased out of the community for being a part of the paid workshop system.
While these companies are making bank now, it's not like it was a sure far way to make money as a business at the start. That of course doesn't change the fact that people can become greedy after getting successful but to imply that these companies tried to do this out of greed alone is silly.
Modding has never been one big happy community, there's no "we", there's no "mods should always be free" especially since mods have been monetized before.
So a modder should get nearly the same percentage as someone who brings their own tools, their own IP and their own everything to the table on steam with their own game?
As has been mentioned before several times, licensing fees exist and are real, modders were given an easy tool to bypass all the paperwork and had been given full access to the IP and tools and the easiest way to publish it. This is where the costs come in, this is why bethesda takes its fees.
People seem to be completely oblivious to this, comparing it to just another storefront and not even considering the involvement of an IP and tools.
Well, they seems to have done it just fine with morrowind, oblivion, and skyrim. In fact, it seems, despite these huge cost of tools, they actually make profit still.
Now....tell me, do you think if none of these 3 games had any modding whatsoever, do you really think they would be as succesfull as they are/were?
Again, modding is one of the bigger appeal of these games, it's what Beth's games were known for, or at least TES series. Take that away, and i'm pretty sure they will loose some sales.
And access to IP? Do you really get that? You only get access to IP as long as you help selling their games via modding. As guys as Skywind said...if you really get rights to IP...can i get mod to Kickstarter and start gathering money based on it?
AT the end...it's fans making modification on YOUR game, because they like your game. Everyone already payed a lot of money for it. What's more, beth gets even more money by increase in sales.
So i find that logic faulty, mostly because modding is in Beth's interest as well.
It's what helps selling their games. You can't just ignore that. And full access to their IP is a bit questionable i'd say....
In other words...imo, mods ARE what made this IP as interesting as they are atm, or at least it helped a lot. So it's a not fair to turn that around and say "our IP is huge so give us 45%...
That is the most well thought explanation of what is inherently wrong with the system. Its not something that can be glossed over with the excuses I have seen here to have kept the system in place.
Remember (most) of us are not against the idea of mods having monetary value. We simply agree the system that was being offered wasn't well thought out.
Patreon like that guy doing Cities XL might be a good option if donation isn't working for you.
Also stop gaming when you're old??? Shame on you Ace-Angel!
In an ideal world it would have been nice to see a fairer split and a better way to report stolen content and downvote terrible mods into oblivion. Shame Valve and Beth didn't realise that they should have put more effort into making this a nice thing for modders and the community, hardly surprising you get backlash from a bad system and bad reward. And now they are taking their ball and saying "you're mean, I don't want to play anymore, my way or the highway".
Then there is Bethesda, the greed they should by the percentage they wanted is frankly shameful and insulting.If it was not for modders,would Skyrim have had the life it has had? I think not.
So sadly because of Valves/Bethesda's handling of this and the shameful behavior of the community,we have nothing now,instead of something with great potential.
I do not work in the industry and I do not intend to.
I feel paid mods are a terrible idea no matter what way you shake it. The only entitlement I am seeing is that of modders feeling they somehow "deserve" to make money of what was a hobby project they intitially made for themselves and were willing to give away for three only 4 days ago.
I see no entitlement from the gamers who wish to for the status quo to remain, all I see from that side is an effort to prevent the destruction of the main support pillar of pc gaming.
Without modding, there is no PC games industry. It will die rapidly without modding.
I see modding as a path into the industry, a proving grounds of sorts. If the incentive has to be money you are modding for the wrong reasons. Build and release an indie game if you want to do that.
You shouldn't be looking at this as paid mods, you should be looking at this as freely outsourcing addons to the game. People will always continue to make free mods, and people won't pay for something they don't think is worth it. The system should have just been a bit fairer and a bit better managed.
How are "paid mods" any different to someone like gearbox creating Opposing Force and Blueshift for Half Life, except on a smaller scale and open to developers and development teams all over the world.
While it's kinda not cool to see gamers reacting...shall we say, "strong"....i feel like that's kinda not only their own fault.
When it comes to bad deals from publishers and studios, like maybe poor DRM or day1 dlcs and such....if gamers wants a change...realistically speaking, does anyone honestly think they could achieve anything at all (like in this case with valve and beth) by simply politely protesting? Sadly, i believe it's not the case. So maybe publishers should put more effort into listening and talking to their community to avoid them snapping back like this.
exactly, counterstrike, dota on the game side, then there are gearbox and splashdamage on the company side and many many more coming from the modding background and transforming their once free mods into stand alone games.
It's not like this is a totally new thing.
I was thinking about that yesterday, and I think they can, but only very slowly.
This reminds me of the initial reaction to the xBox One where a lot of what Microsoft was doing was aimed at sustainability for the industry, but they did a horrible job selling it. In the end most of it happened anyway because it turns out downloading games is easier and cheaper than buying the disc.
The community reaction was insane in this case. I've read everything from scripture to poems to what sounds like political rallying by people who basically just want all their content for free. Terms like "end of an era" have been thrown around and suddenly neither Valve or Bethesda care about the modding community. Assertions of why modders should be creating content for free are made by people simultaneously looking to get paid for their work in this industry.
I think paid mods are already here, they have been for a long time in the form of commercial releases or curated content in games like DOTA2. In Valve's blog post they stated they're still interested in this venture. I've made mods for Dragon Age, Tomb Raider, Oblivion, Skyrim, Arkham City and a handful of older games (Anyone remember Escape Velocity?). Most of the time I create one or two small things, go "that was fun" and move on. If modding actually helped me pay my rent, I would absolutely put more time into it and based on discussions with other devs, I'm not alone.
I think we'll get there, but the community is similar to Gollum in that it only sees as far as was its own possessions. If even the idea of that possession is threatened, whether true or not, you get a frenzied knee-jerk reaction like what we saw over the weekend.
The change will probably happen with a fresh title, where mods are either free or paid from their point of release. The community's reaction will be far less frantic because it wont perceive that content as being lost.
Indeed, and I expect that's the same for a lot of us. My main job is working as a web designer, because honestly if I am going to have my artistic creativity crushed I might as well make decent money :P My current job is about to end and I was seriously considering moving to eastern europe for fun, breaking onto Valve's payroll through skyrim mods and eeking out a cheap existence creating things I love on dota2 and Skyrim workshop and working on contract web stuff.
I think people don't realise that the "paid mods" would end up as basically professional add on content. The change in the quality of the content on Dota 2 is clear evidence what you get when people can earn money. A lot of the early sets were nothing but hastily made items, now its almost a requirement to make a video and advertising campaign and the content has to be better than Valve's.
How it is different is that Modding is hobby. Not a job. It is a labour of love to create a change to an existing game.
If you wish to make money of this then that is fine. Take the skills you learned while modding (art, code, managing community expactations, etc) and apply that to making a full game.
Maybe apply for a job at an established studio. Thanks to the modding community a modder will have an extensive portfolio of mods and will be an established name in several game communties. That looks fantastic on your CV, I've been told it looks better than a piece of paper from some multimedia university.
Have you suggestions how it could be better managed Carbon14?
because I feel no form of managing this will make it viable.
Changing who gets what cut of the take won't make a difference. Giving 0$+donate option while better will still split the communities.
If you can think of a way to differentiate between mods and full blown fan-made xpacks, I'm all for it.
A large part of the modding community is the sharing of assets. Mods are built upon each other.
Take the skyrim example. For the nude/lewd mops a skeleton and rig was created that is now considered the standard even for non-sexual mods. Pose and animation mods have been built on top of it. Other mods use those animations to give life to their locations. etc. It's all intertwined.
Why would I share assets if I stand a chance of gaining money from them? Would we have to start licensing mod assets of each other? That would be ridiculous.
The next step is that we keep our skills a secret and sell the knowledge.
Can you imagine what that would be like?
Right now you learned by googling, and then following a tutorial created by a polycounter who used to be a modder, and then aplying that tutorial to your own project, and then you came across a hurdle so you googled how to defeat that hurdle. This time googling led you to a blog by someone who solved that, so you applied that newly learned knowledge and blew past that hurdle. Then ran into yet another hurdle. This time with normal map baking. SO you found the now world famous "make me hard" thread.
Can you imagine how well your personal projects would have gone if at every step you would have been greeted by a paywall?
"learn how to bake a chamfered corner. -$2"
Modding is a school and by extension a benefit to all in the industry, gamers, devs and modders alike.
Why does modding have to be exclusively free? Who says its a path to only be the path to the industry? How is this different? When it comes to working for a living as an artist,why limit the possibilities for making a living? I understand there will be some modders who do,mod as a hobby and if they decide to share whatever they mod for free then,thats their choice. On the same token why cant their be modders who desire to get paid by creating content? If there is a market,then people will pay,if not then the players will speak with their wallets. I do not understand why the two can not coexist? As long as you give the choice of free or pay to the modder right?
I wont deny it, if there was a way of creating content for steam and potentially make a living from it I would. Id find the games I like,play and create content for it. If i could make a living from that I would definitely give it a go. Ive been a 3d artist in the games industry for 12 years now and Ive experienced every shitty,unstable aspect of this industry and every single possibility to work as a 3d artist is something to be celebrated.
I think Bethesda and Valve dropped the ball with their implementation and that as well as the community's toxic reaction killed a good opportunity for 3d artists everywhere.
Why do you think they can coexist?
How can they coexist?
If they can coexist, and that is a big IF, I am all for it. Because then as a modder who is well known for lewd I mods would make money too. Sex sells, allways.
But I see no way for them to coexist without one (paid mods) cannibalizing the other.
I'll stick to skyrim examples.
A mod like SKSE would become paid. It would no longer be a mod, it would be a required framework for modding. Just like we now have required runtimes and frameworks for running or creating software.
If that becomes true, we buy first party software, to run it we need software from a third party, its redistributed by the first part. I later wish to make play mods for this software. A fourth party makes the mods. that fourth party had to license skse from a fifth party. I myself have to pay a fee to us the fifth party software so that I can run the fourth party add-on for the first party software that in turn needs third party software to run.
How is this in any way a navigatable situation for the consumer?
If there is some way to differentiate between shit tier mods and xpack tier mods, some quality control, some central point for end responsibilty, some way to ensure paid mods do not cannbalize free mods, to ensure my free art is not stolen by some entitled mod coder for his paid for mod. Then I am for it.
I can not think of a method to do this though. But I'm not all that smart.
I think they could,but it was require Valve actually earning their % and policing the content.One of the big flaws on the proposed plan was that it lacked controls to prevent such things from happening. That was one of my problems with the proposal,Valve earned a cut and did nothing besides hosting to earn it. Valve lacked the guidelines that would make this a fair and even market.
I don't really understand the whole "modding is not a job" thing. Why couldn't it be ? Wacky free mods (anything from joke models to ripped models ported over) can very well coexist with well crafted original content released for free or for a fee. Valve certainly made many mistakes in this early attempt and it is understandable that they cancelled it, but the core idea is still worth thinking about.
I feel like most of the internet hate on this topic comes from mixing up all the different aspects of the problem into one. Sure, in retrospect Skyrim was a bad pick for the experiment, Valve's hands-off approach to QA is terribly misguided, and the idea of the 25% cut was bound to be rejected. But while a lot of good points have been made against this early draft, I think that claiming that mods should all be free "just because" is not one of them.
A few ideas :
- Wouldn't there be a way to generate revenue through ad placement ?
- If Valve wants to introduce payments for uncurated user-generated content, then there needs to be some sort of QA - automated or manual. The Dota2 importer is a great example of that, and the concept could be applied for any game supporting cosmetics not affecting gameplay. As for more complex content, maybe the QA could be outsourced thanks to another revenue sharing system - basically paying players to playtest mods ?
- Even though the revenue split of 25% going to the author is based on the current Dota2/TF2 system, the fact that this information went more "viral" this time around and caused such a stir is very interesting. Regardless of how justified this 25% split is, 50% going to the author simply sounds more fair. I guess that's a psychological thing. I sure wouldn't mind the split for Dota2 items to double !
- A tip jar system is interesting, but it's hard to tell if it would really work. It honestly sounds a lot like a justification for not having to pay at all.
It really is a shame that such an interesting experiment is turning into yet another internet controversy of the week. I suppose that people really love being "for" or "against" something without anything in between.
Meanwhile, Epic is conducting a very similar experiment and it seems to be shaping up nicely, probably because they are being very open about it and fully embracing the technical challenges that come with it. Unreal Tournament 4 already has paid user-generated content.
So if we have a system like this, we get more professionals producing high quality content, in a competive market place that keeps prices low, and the consumer gets huge amounts of professional grade content for a small cost and still all the free stuff that isn't good enough to charge for. The original studio gets money and can potentially continue to support the game with better tools, that sounds great for everybody involved That is, if it's properly managed and fair.
You're saying that with the presumption that this will be a bad thing.
I would start with
Valve accepting that they take a smaller percentage or alternatively actually working for their money and providing better support and a proper moderation process.
Bethesda taking a smaller cut or again working for their money and providing non broken tools with more access to creating content, skeletons and animations etc. It's a singleplayer game, here there is no worry of hacks or cheats.
Some proper downvote system, report system etc. If you want to charge money you should be at the mercy of the community. If there had been some system like this almost all the "release" mods would have been downvoted into oblivion, and then maybe later some high quality mods that actually made people think "hey this is worth paying money for" would have popped up.
As for the last part, if valve added an easy way to give other mods a cut from your sales, it would solve that entirely. Imagine providing a mod like that for free and then having every mod that utilizes it give you a small cut, if that wouldn't be a huge incentive to still provide mods that can be used as a base for free I don't know what is. Again, probably you end up with better quality and more updates too.
Except this isn't how things are and people already make money doing 3d work. I can understand how this could be a concern, maybe one of the more valid, but the free community will still be there, and people are generally surprisingly giving. Secondly, if someone comes up with a clever way to do something, and wants to make some money off it how is that a bad thing? We don't live in some communist utopia quite yet.
It went viral because it looks terrible. In the case of Dota Valve actually moderates the content, provides very good tools for import, provides detailed documentation and resources. They also have to add it to the main game, bug fix it when things go wrong, and provide a market to one of the most played multiplayer games in existence.
Compare that with Skyrim, where they implemented a pretty much unmoderated dumping ground with zero quality control and then gave Bethesda 45% for literally zero percieved additional effort compared to what they were providing free before. Which I might add they deemed the CK and modding community worth the effort to spend time on when they were making "nothing from it" (They already made money indirectly from it)