But Valve did say they would pull this idea if it turned out not to be good gamers, lol.
People Can Now Make Money Off Game Mods On Steam
- Thread starter wshowers
- Start date
But Valve did say they would pull this idea if it turned out not to be good gamers, lol.
Many of those who think that modders should get nothing more than donation and rely on the goodwills of gamers are just naive or cheap IMO. Modding is becoming increasingly difficult for modders and developers alike and paying for the effort of the modders and maintenance cost of developers is only natural. Would have liked to see developers and modders getting an equal cut at least though.
I have to disagree. Modders mod cause they want to, it isn't their job, it isn't their means of financial support/stability. Modding is a hobby. Should I be paid for the hours I spend gaming?
I don't know why doing what they want for hobby should not earn them money. Hobby or not it's still a huge effort. Say, maintaining a Youtube channel can be monetized, and nobody has a problem with that. I have even asked some of the channels I love to start monetizing and put more time and effort into videos, and I was not alone in such a sentiment. Modding can be the same thing. If it's good enough, it would be worth the money. If I pay for a certain mod, maybe that will free the modder from a part-time job s/he has to do for a living, and make him/her to put more time into the mod, and I think that's really healthy. Nobody's really forcing anybody to pay for mods. Those who want to monetize will go with paid mods. Some will buy it, some will hate it, and come up with a free alternative, and nobody would and could stop that.
Last time I heard it's something like 30% to Valve and 45% to Bethesda. 30% is a cut from other markets as well, like App Store or Play Store, and I think that's fine. 45% to Bethesda however, I may have a problem with that. Above all it's supposed to be a maintenance cost, but I don't know whether they are doing as much work to get almost half of the money for things they have not worked on... For that to be justified, Bethesda Softworks should put A LOT of work in ensuring that mods work together without a hassle, which is going to be a huge task.
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It is a huge effort, nobody is denying that. This is a hobby though. Yes, you can make money from hobbies and there is nothing wrong with that, but if modders really wanted people to pay for their mods they could have done it before valve stepped in.
FAR easier to use a trusted and secure platform then, "Hey, wanna buy my mod? Send me money through PayPal."
But, like, how? Donation? I have been reading how the discussion has been going on the internet, but with such an "anti-capitalism" vibe thoroughly pervading the whole talk, any active effort to get paid for a mod would have ended up vilifying certain individual modders instead of Valve. Just leaving the donation option and say "please donate if you like my mod" wouldn't work either, because people - including you and many others - are thinking that mods are free and they should stay that way. Even I would be much less likely to pay for a mod if it was just open for donation. Maybe it's a sad news, but I think there is no other way. This is the surest and safest way for modders to make money from mods.
However, it's the 25% part that troubles me. If I buy mods, I want to support modders first and foremost. The fact that only 25% of what I have paid goes to modders kinda ruins the whole point for me.
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Yes. I want the modders to have a bigger cut. If this terrible idea stays I want the modders to get a bigger share. Granted I fully understand there wouldn't be any Skyrim mods if Bethesda hadn't made the game. I think the cut should go 50/40 (Bethesda/modders) Valve gets the remaining 10%. Make people feel like they aren't trying to become the next EA.
As it stands now though I even think Bethesda should get less of a cut.
I sincerely don't understand how anyone can defend the split. When someone makes a mod that fixes Skyrim in some way, under the current system Bethesda gets more money for it than the modder. That's insanity, and it actively encourages Bethesda to not fix things themselves.
I still think that this scenario could lead to the downfall of PC gaming. I'm not even joking. That is how much against this I am.
As it stands now though I even think Bethesda should get less of a cut.
I sincerely don't understand how anyone can defend the split. When someone makes a mod that fixes Skyrim in some way, under the current system Bethesda gets more money for it than the modder. That's insanity, and it actively encourages Bethesda to not fix things themselves.
I still think that this scenario could lead to the downfall of PC gaming. I'm not even joking. That is how much against this I am.
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UPDATE:
It looks like Valve realized just how stupid the idea was...
Well no s*** Valve. You can't come in and provide a paywall for a community that has been thriving without your input for years. Hey at least you figured it out early.
Link to Steam of paid Skyrim mods being taken down...
Lord Gaben redeemed.
It looks like Valve realized just how stupid the idea was...
Well no s*** Valve. You can't come in and provide a paywall for a community that has been thriving without your input for years. Hey at least you figured it out early.
Link to Steam of paid Skyrim mods being taken down...
Lord Gaben redeemed.
It was a stupid, very stupid, idea from the get go. The concept wasn't well-received by the general consensus and I'm glad Valve listened and came to its senses. This is why I love Lord Gaben. 
Well I really don't like how things went on during the last few days, same with some of my friends. Whatever, I wasn't crazy about Skyrim anyways.
With such a backlash, I do not expect Valve to come back to such an idea in a long while - if you forget the fact that Valve has been doing basically the same thing with their own game for several years.
I have a feeling that other mod-heavy games like Minecraft were preparing something similar, of which plans would have been scrapped or modified by now. Should someone ever tinker with the idea of paid mods in the coming month, it would be in disguise of something more traditional, like purchasing assets of a mod and turning it into an official DLC.
The principle for paying for mods aside, I don't think the people who greenlit this at Valve, or Bethesda for that matter understood how Skyrim modding works. Mods rely on so many other mods to work that it turns into a clusterf*** when the modders make their mods cost money. It's bizarre that they suddenly threw this up with no pre-announcement or any communication with the players and potential customers before they launched it.
One last post on the matter for now. I think the whole thing would have been received differently if paying for mods came with clear advantages. If it came with the assurance that all mods should just work when downloaded, if it offered a powerful in-app or in-game mod management system that forgoes the hassle of Nexus Mod Manager, especially when even free mods can make use of such infrastructure, or if the first paid mod on the workshop was killer contents like Skywind, this would have been hailed as a godsend.
