...well this will change things up a bit ???
http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/aboutpaidcontent/
Quote
Try any mod, Risk Free
It's still important to spend a little time learning about any product you are about to purchase. But, if after purchase you find that a mod is broken or doesn't work as promised, you can easily get a refund of that mod within 24 hours of your purchase. View the full refund policy here.
...and Steam doesn't see the irony with this?? :idiot2:
Quote from: steve58 on April 23, 2015, 02:40:11 PM
...well this will change things up a bit ???
http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/aboutpaidcontent/
Quote
Try any mod, Risk Free
It's still important to spend a little time learning about any product you are about to purchase. But, if after purchase you find that a mod is broken or doesn't work as promised, you can easily get a refund of that mod within 24 hours of your purchase. View the full refund policy here.
...and Steam doesn't see the irony with this?? :idiot2:
Slippery slope.... people will demand to get their monies worth and mod creators will have to support their creations. Not sure if this is a good move or not...
PE
Slippery slope indeed....Steam may have to be a bit more forthcoming with refunds themselves...
And what if the original game developer upgrades the game engine...are the modders required to go in and make the paid for mods compatible?
This sounds like a very poorly thought out idea. And from reading some of the comments on Steam, a lot agree.
http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/0/618459931322607080/
...these comments I can agree with.
Quote
Modding has always been about passion, fun, creativity and community. As soon as money is involved, that dilutes that. Issues such as plagarism, copyright and intellectual theft become issues and suddenly 'sharing' becomes 'stealing'.
Quote
A donation button would have been a much less intrusive and controversial method.
Quote from: Rayfer on April 23, 2015, 02:56:29 PM
And what if the original game developer upgrades the game engine...are the modders required to go in and make the paid for mods compatible?
Yes - a true minefield.
Are steam short of money ?
This is a very slippery slope indeed.
I haven't read a EULA in about fifteen years or so, but since they are mostly boilerplate I doubt that much has changed in the interim.
Most of the EULA's that I remember reading usually contain some kind of language to the effect that the game and its derivatives are the intellectual property of the game's copyright holder. Despite what most modders believe, the mod is probably not the property of the modder as much as the company which produced the original game. And even if this were wrong, would you really want to go to court with a large corporation for several years over a mod that didn't generate enough revenue to offset more than about two seconds of your lawyers' billable hours?
When you add in the fact that most modders play fast and loose with copyrighted material to begin with, I can imagine the game's copyright owner suing a modder (who passed the consideration test by charging for his mod) and Steam (because they've got deeper pockets and were enabling the modder to violate the game's copyright for money). But it gets worse. Many mods contain bits and pieces of things borrowed without attribution from the web, so I can imagine several other game companies suing our hypothetical modder and Steam and the original game's copyright holder for violating their own copyrights, and I can imagine several music companies and book publishing companies chiming in because some of their sounds had been lifted or images scanned or copied off the internet (with or without substantial modification).
Who in their right mind would want to open this particular can of worms? It's a bit like a short call option: no real upside and unlimited downside.
What were they thinking?
Agree with all above.
As someone else posted - a donation button. Mods for pay are totally different to free mods (apart from the obvious). With free mods, there's no expectation. If it works, good. If there's issues, report them and if they get sorted - good. But paid content means there's an expectation.
It'll likely kill modding unless there's an option for the user to bow out of the process.
Selling mods?
F that S. Burn the heretics who proposed & implemented this blasphemy. Unsurprisingly a Steam creation. ::)
I have released non-Workshop Steam versions of a few of my mods, and have sometimes wondered if I should learn how to use the Workshop.
After this I'm not ever going near the Workshop to avoid taking (potential) collateral damage.
People will simply have to reinstall my mods if they get overwritten verifying the integrity of the game files.
Modding is aggravating enough as it is, without adding an element of financial risk.
What the hell!
Paid mods = 3rd party DLC.
The world is not falling appart. It's an opt in process. Steam just provided a platform for greedy moders to turn their junk into unofficial DLC. Don't worry too much about this and avoid those greedy guys.
Decent moders who has a heart and brain will not sell their mods at a fixed price (Donations maybe). Too much headache.
Plagiarism will become a bigger issue. I create my own stuff in my Japanese mod to avoid copywright issues. Free resources like pictures, 3d models, sounds that can be used in modding also cannot be part of a commercial product. Someone has to police this now.
Same issues like monetizing YouTube vids.
This is uncool on many levels.
^ +1.
This is the number one contender for Stupid Gaming Idea of the Year 2015.
I wonder what Bethesda thinks of this? Because if I can't mod their games anymore without dropping an extra $40 for mods, I won't bother buying them. They've always depended on modders to finish their work.
Edit: Read some more, and Bethesda is in the thick of it. Oh well, it isn't like I don't have plenty of other games to play instead of Fallout 4.
Have to agree with Jomni her...this is totally optional
Set your own price
As creator of your Workshop submission, you get to set the price. You can specify a set price or choose to sell as pay-what-you-want and let the customer decide how much to pay.
Free, Paid, or Pay What You Want
With over 24,000 free mods available for Skyrim in the Steam Workshop, there will always be lots to do and explore for free. Now you can also find mods with a specified price, or mods where you can choose how much you wish to support the creators. The price is up to the mod creators.
^ Holy overreaction, Batman (at Panzerde)!
It is not mandatory to charge for mods- it's up to the modder. So feel free to mod to your heart's content!
It's not a whole lot different than choosing a freeware plane for FSX vs. a payware plane for FSX. Think of it like that. You don't have to buy the payware if you don't want it.
I suspect this is going to be an epic fail, so don't lose sleep over it Panzer. 8)
To me this seems like more of a way to stop mods than support them. Who actually gets the money? The modder or Steam? If the workshop is a financial burden on Steam then they should say so and be up front about it. The workshop was always a draw to Steam for me, an advantage over their competitors and made running mods a simple and easy way to enjoy them while making their games better. But I agree it'll probably last about as long as it takes people to figure out there are free mods to be had and by this time next year it will be my new April Fool's Day joke.
Both get a portion. Not sure of the split.
Quote from: challerain on April 23, 2015, 11:13:57 PM
Both get a portion. Not sure of the split.
75% to Valve/Bethesda, 25% to the modder. The modder has to generate sufficient sales to get a $100 payout before getting anything, so $400 in mod sales.
If the 'featured' Skyrim mods in the linked Steamworks page are any indication, at 99 cents per D/L some of these modders may never see a dime.
Quote from: panzerde on April 23, 2015, 11:16:28 PM
75% to Valve/Bethesda, 25% to the modder. The modder has to generate sufficient sales to get a $100 payout before getting anything, so $400 in mod sales.
That's a terrible deal, by any standard.
Quote from: Staggerwing on April 24, 2015, 06:37:15 AM
If the 'featured' Skyrim mods in the linked Steamworks page are any indication, at 99 cents per D/L some of these modders may never see a dime.
Quote from the STEAM splash page:
"...the Workshop is also a great place for community content creators to
earn a living by selling their greatest works".
Earn A Living. I'm not going to do the math, but at those rates, I doubt it.
Quote from: Sir Slash on April 23, 2015, 10:31:34 PM
To me this seems like more of a way to stop mods than support them. Who actually gets the money? The modder or Steam? If the workshop is a financial burden on Steam then they should say so and be up front about it. The workshop was always a draw to Steam for me, an advantage over their competitors and made running mods a simple and easy way to enjoy them while making their games better. But I agree it'll probably last about as long as it takes people to figure out there are free mods to be had and by this time next year it will be my new April Fool's Day joke.
I agree.
Whilst I think people should give to modders if they can, I don't ever think it;s a good idea to force a charge. That would be up to the modder and as such he would need to be fully able and willing to support said mod
I think it's a way of killing mods off. I've always wondered why gaming companies might think it's a good idea to release a game that can be modded when it takes away from them DLC - especially now DLC is much much more prevalent.
There's also the fact that Steam isn't the only place to get mods. For TW and Civ games, just to name two, there are lots of sites to grab user created content by the truckload. So...all is not lost.
Quote from: Gusington on April 24, 2015, 07:10:18 AM
There's also the fact that Steam isn't the only place to get mods. For TW and Civ games, just to name two, there are lots of sites to grab user created content by the truckload. So...all is not lost.
Yeah - but would your Steam game allow those mods?
Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 24, 2015, 07:11:05 AM
Yeah - but would your Steam game allow those mods?
Logically speaking, for this business model to work, no.
Would this then backfire so bad that users will start buying non Steam versions of everything possible?
What if Bethesda is just pushing this as a chance to make over-priced dlc and pass it off as a community mod? People complained about them releasing horse armor as dlc, but would be more willing to support a passionate "modder".
This is a horrible idea. I wonder what the monetary breakdown is between Steam, the developer, and the modder.
I'd be happier with Steam's Workshop if they would just FINALLY get the Attila Workshop up and running. They posted Tuesday announcing the release but still nothing. I've seen some mods for 99 cents and some for as much as $5 or $6. Who determines how much a mod is worth? The modder or Steam? And why the big differences I wonder? Smacks to me of a big Govt. conspiracy :o. But you didn't hear that from me. Shhhh.... :-X
Is this only for new mods ?
Just checked and i currently have 107 workshop mods installed. If free mods become paid mods these will undoubtedly be removed from you libary, probably making old savegames corrupt unless you pay up.
From all the posts above I have yet to take away one positive result of this mod pay scheme for.gamers, modders or Steam.
...and the first paid-for mod has been removed (http://www.pcgamer.com/paid-for-skyrim-mod-removed-in-a-matter-of-hours/) from sale due to copyright issues. At least self-policing kinda worked in this instance...
Quote from: Gusington on April 24, 2015, 07:18:36 AM
Would this then backfire so bad that users will start buying non Steam versions of everything possible?
Bingo. If I can only install Steam approved mods, I'll stop buying games through Steam.
There's a thread in their forums dedicated to this news. It has over 4,000 posts spread across 280 pages. Finding a positive comment is like finding a needle in a haystack.
The Steam forums are scum and villainy, but this time...this time I side with the scum and villainy. This could destroy Steam and seriously hurt modding. Maybe both.
Quote from: Rayfer on April 24, 2015, 09:31:34 PM
There's a thread in their forums dedicated to this news. It has over 4,000 posts spread across 280 pages. Finding a positive comment is like finding a needle in a haystack.
So they don't understand that charging for mods is optional.
Quote from: jomni on April 24, 2015, 11:11:36 PM
Quote from: Rayfer on April 24, 2015, 09:31:34 PM
There's a thread in their forums dedicated to this news. It has over 4,000 posts spread across 280 pages. Finding a positive comment is like finding a needle in a haystack.
So they don't understand that charging for mods is optional.
You say that - but it's almost like a "non option". Sometimes having an option is only an illusion. How many modders will pass up the chance to earn a bit of money from their work? That is of course rhetorical....no one knows. But it's a valid question when talking about modders having a choice.
Quote from: jomni on April 24, 2015, 11:11:36 PM
Quote from: Rayfer on April 24, 2015, 09:31:34 PM
There's a thread in their forums dedicated to this news. It has over 4,000 posts spread across 280 pages. Finding a positive comment is like finding a needle in a haystack.
So they don't understand that charging for mods is optional.
No, you don't understand the potential ramifications of all of this. But you don't need to take my word for it; Gabe Newell recently hosted a Q&A on Reddit. (https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33uplp/mods_and_steam/?sort=qa)
Quote from: Gusington on April 24, 2015, 07:18:36 AM
Would this then backfire so bad that users will start buying non Steam versions of everything possible?
I really, really hope so.
By the way, the split is decided by the publisher of the game. So in the already notorious case of Skyrim mods, Bethesda has decided to profit from people spending their free time fixing their game. Incredible. Where would Bethesda be today without modders, and this is what they get in return? Don't forget this is the company responsible for horse armour (http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/horse-armor).
I don't normally succumb to schadenfreude, but today I am giving in to my more base emotions and taking enormous delight in watching the shitstorm descend on Valve and Bethesda, both utterly deserving of it - and have deserved something like this for a long time in my opinion.
It is a mess : http://steamed.kotaku.com/skyrim-modder-considers-quitting-after-steam-controvers-1700077114/+nathangrayson
Quote from: Pete Dero on April 26, 2015, 03:44:50 AM
It is a mess : http://steamed.kotaku.com/skyrim-modder-considers-quitting-after-steam-controvers-1700077114/+nathangrayson
Quote:
"I was just contacted by Valve's lawyer. He stated that they will not remove the (my) content unless "legally compelled to do so", and that they will make the file visible only to currently paid users. I am beside myself with anger right now as they try to tell me what I can do with my own content. The copyright situation with Art of the Catch is shades of grey, but in [separate mod] Arissa 2.0's case, it's black and white; that's 100% mine and Griefmyst's work, and I should be able to dictate its distribution if I so choose. Unbelievable."
Quote from: Ian C on April 26, 2015, 05:02:00 AM
Quote from: Pete Dero on April 26, 2015, 03:44:50 AM
It is a mess : http://steamed.kotaku.com/skyrim-modder-considers-quitting-after-steam-controvers-1700077114/+nathangrayson
Quote:
"I was just contacted by Valve's lawyer. He stated that they will not remove the (my) content unless "legally compelled to do so", and that they will make the file visible only to currently paid users. I am beside myself with anger right now as they try to tell me what I can do with my own content. The copyright situation with Art of the Catch is shades of grey, but in [separate mod] Arissa 2.0's case, it's black and white; that's 100% mine and Griefmyst's work, and I should be able to dictate its distribution if I so choose. Unbelievable."
I'm sure that has to be the case, otherwise people who actually purchased it wouldn't receive the product they paid for. It's just like the games that were pulled from Gamersgate's site after they changed publishers and weren't going to be sold there anymore - the people who previously purchased them can still download but nobody can purchase anew. It's consumer protection laws. Of course, that means the guy could have to deal with legal issues even if he wanted to remove it later on.
To clarify, I think having Valve open this nonsense is the worst idea they've ever had. Now we will see the mod community rip itself apart with enmity & legal threats, lower quality mods, and general bullshit. Not to mention increasing the likelihood of games being released early and incomplete because cheap modder labor can finish building content for them while still making them money. It's crap.
I think that in the coming weeks this is going to ignite...
I think Steam is treading a potentially very dangerous path that could easily backfire on them, if this results in creating a situation where consumers for practical purposes lose out.
As a dominant player in the games distribution market they run a potential risk of someone complaining to the EU Commission about abuse of a dominant position, which can incur millions of Euros in fines, and the US has similar anti-trust laws.
Quote from: Nefaro on April 26, 2015, 05:12:43 AM
To clarify, I think having Valve open this nonsense is the worst idea they've ever had. Now we will see the mod community rip itself apart with enmity & legal threats, lower quality mods, and general bullshit. Not to mention increasing the likelihood of games being released early and incomplete because cheap modder labor can finish building content for them while still making them money. It's crap.
This is exactly the problem with this approach. Nef, GD, and Huw and right on with how this breaks what was a useful and workable community of modders. Saying "just don't pay for mods" entirely misses the complexities of this.
We can expect every Asian code mill to start churning out $.99 crap like they do for the mobile app stores now. Valve has determined that they are going to exercise zero quality control. Its clear that even is most people aren't going to buy this stuff there are still a lot of gamers that will; just look at the published revenue figures from the first day of sales. That's enough to attract hordes of people churning out 467 variants of minimally retextured glass swords each sold for a buck minimum.
There could have been a system that encouraged teams of modders to create great, deep content and make reasonable money for it. That system would need to include a means to pay a team (because almost no big, complicated mods are done by a single modder), it would have to include a means of extensive QA testing to be sure that the commercial mod (which is actually 3rd party DLC, innit?) doesn't break a bunch of other stuff and plays well with other significant 3rd party content, it would need to make a provision for customer support (something Valve and Steam have decided they aren't going to provide for anything), and it would need to ensure that any for-profit content wasn't making inappropriate use of someone else's IP.
Doing all of that would have been complicated and expensive though, and would result in mods that were more expensive that $1.00. Logistically it would have been tough for Valve to pull off. A lot of people wouldn't have paid $19.99 for a mod developed this way, either - not in a culture where people routinely gripe over any software that costs more than $.99. Far easier to do what Valve did and claim that it's all "community curated" and so not their responsibility.
At the end of the day, Valve, Bethesda and all of the rest are corporate entities driven by immediate profit. The only thing that changes their mind is something that impacts their bottom line. This isn't going to, because despite all of the pitchforks and torches most people will line up to buy Fallout 4 on Steam as soon as it's announced. When all of the mods for that are pay-to-play, most people will shrug and buy them. Gamers whinge a lot, but when it comes down to actually not buying a game from the company they were whinging about, they'll buy the game. That's less the case with a lot of the regulars here but very much the case in the general population.
Quote from: panzerde on April 26, 2015, 10:49:35 AM
At the end of the day, Valve, Bethesda and all of the rest are corporate entities driven by immediate profit. The only thing that changes their mind is something that impacts their bottom line. This isn't going to, because despite all of the pitchforks and torches most people will line up to buy Fallout 4 on Steam as soon as it's announced. When all of the mods for that are pay-to-play, most people will shrug and buy them. Gamers whinge a lot, but when it comes down to actually not buying a game from the company they were whinging about, they'll buy the game. That's less the case with a lot of the regulars here but very much the case in the general population.
Nail -> head. Gamers as a general population are depressingly weak-willed. I'll never forget that image of the Steam group that was set up to boycott some game (think it was a Call of Duty or something) and the screenshot showed that the vast majority of them were playing that very game.
^^ I think Panzerde is right.
Valve have just done a u-turn. They've removed paid mods from the Skyrim workshop and are refunding anyone who paid for one. Can't link right now but it's the top thread in r/games on reddit.
Really?? That was quick.
Looks like they have some idea of the difference between penny-smart and pound-foolish. Not their first rodeo I guess...
??? This is just bizarre. I didn't get any sense that this was being launched as a 'trial balloon'... Wasnt Gabe Newell just touting the virtues of Steam's wonderful new scheme in a conversation with the founder of Mods Nexus?
I hope this gets buried quick.
Not at all sorry to see the kibosh put on this. Just very surprised by Valve's inept handling of the whole thing...
Definitely looks like a retreat. Clearly, the cost of dealing with the fallout was higher than the revenue generated. No one ever accused the team at Valve of not being able to count.
I think they did a nice job in their announcement of admitting that they screwed up. At the same time the announcement makes it clear that they haven't abandoned the concept of paid modding, they've just done so in the Skyrim modding community. It remains to be seen what, if anything might be tied to the launch of FO4 and TESVI, but if I try and read between the lines of the announcement it sounds like they might try a paid modding solution at launch rather than trying to break into an established modding community.
Again, done right I think that could work. I'm not at all against someone that produces a really exceptional addition to a game getting something for it, as long as all of the consequences of acting in a professional rather than hobbyist manner are dealt with. As several members of this forum can attest, there's a BIG difference between posting a few ARMA missions for people to play and trying to sell a total conversion to an entirely different war, for example - I'm looking at you, Iron Front!
So, good on Valve for seeing the writing on the wall and being smart enough to react to it the right way. Let's hope they actually learned something from it and future efforts at this are a lot less hamfisted.
I think there was something of a revolt going on with modders posting their complete opposition to ever charging money for their mods and modders in general fleeing Steam over the weekend. Nexus was saying modders were moving their content there to hide it from Steam and Valve fearing it would be taken away from their control. Nice to see the way the community came together and that angry people can do something positive instead of burning down a city. O0
Quote from: Sir Slash on April 27, 2015, 09:49:46 PM
I think there was something of a revolt going on with modders posting their complete opposition to ever charging money for their mods and modders in general fleeing Steam over the weekend. Nexus was saying modders were moving their content there to hide it from Steam and Valve fearing it would be taken away from their control. Nice to see the way the community came together and that angry people can do something positive instead of burning down a city. O0
But it's all optional. Why do they need to overreact?
Story here:
http://www.pcgamer.com/valve-has-removed-paid-mods-functionality-from-steam-workshop/
Quote"We underestimated the differences between our previously successful revenue sharing models, and the addition of paid mods to Skyrim's workshop. We understand our own game's communities pretty well, but stepping into an established, years old modding community in Skyrim was probably not the right place to start iterating. We think this made us miss the mark pretty badly, even though we believe there's a useful feature somewhere here.
"Now that you've backed a dump truck of feedback onto our inboxes, we'll be chewing through that, but if you have any further thoughts let us know."
The story straight from Steam (http://steamcommunity.com/games/SteamWorkshop/announcements/detail/208632365253244218):
QuoteRemoving Payment Feature From Skyrim Workshop
April 27 - Alden
We're going to remove the payment feature from the Skyrim workshop. For anyone who spent money on a mod, we'll be refunding you the complete amount. We talked to the team at Bethesda and they agree.
We've done this because it's clear we didn't understand exactly what we were doing. We've been shipping many features over the years aimed at allowing community creators to receive a share of the rewards, and in the past, they've been received well. It's obvious now that this case is different.
To help you understand why we thought this was a good idea, our main goals were to allow mod makers the opportunity to work on their mods full time if they wanted to, and to encourage developers to provide better support to their mod communities. We thought this would result in better mods for everyone, both free & paid. We wanted more great mods becoming great products, like Dota, Counter-strike, DayZ, and Killing Floor, and we wanted that to happen organically for any mod maker who wanted to take a shot at it.
But we underestimated the differences between our previously successful revenue sharing models, and the addition of paid mods to Skyrim's workshop. We understand our own game's communities pretty well, but stepping into an established, years old modding community in Skyrim was probably not the right place to start iterating. We think this made us miss the mark pretty badly, even though we believe there's a useful feature somewhere here.
Now that you've backed a dump truck of feedback onto our inboxes, we'll be chewing through that, but if you have any further thoughts let us know.
This is a great turn of events!
Quote from: Gusington on April 28, 2015, 06:42:53 AM
This is a great turn of events!
+1 Someone at Valve won't be getting a year end bonus! :knuppel2:
Glad to see Steam came to their senses, but I suspect we've not heard the last of this. Pay-4-mods will be back eventually in some form or another...
Quote from: RooksBailey on April 28, 2015, 01:40:32 AM
Story here:
http://www.pcgamer.com/valve-has-removed-paid-mods-functionality-from-steam-workshop/
...did not know of the online petition mentioned in the PCGamer link. 133,000 sigs. O0
Good thing. You'd have thought Valve's PR people would have given this more thought (or even some thought... :idiot2:) before diving in to something that was so full of PR toxicity. Anyway, all's well that ends well.
Quote from: challerain on April 23, 2015, 09:59:51 PM
Have to agree with Jomni her...this is totally optional
I agree. Some modders do a lot of work. There may be copyright issues for some games though right?
I usually don't get mods anyway -- I'm usually tired of a game before the mods get good.
Quote from: steve58 on April 28, 2015, 07:40:22 AM
Glad to see Steam came to their senses, but I suspect we've not heard the last of this. Pay-4-mods will be back eventually in some form or another...
Yep.
They're just saying that they need to do it with new releases.
Valve need to do more research on their customer base. They clearly did not know which way the wind would blow. And they should have.
^yep. They really screwed the pooch on this one.
Valve may also be feeling a bit too big for their britches, like they are the only outlet to purchase games. They are dominant, yeah, but it wouldn't take much to whittle that dominance down - as we see with this whole mod thing.
Quote from: Gusington on April 28, 2015, 07:44:59 PM
Valve may also be feeling a bit too big for their britches, like they are the only outlet to purchase games. They are dominant, yeah, but it wouldn't take much to whittle that dominance down - as we see with this whole mod thing.
Any "abuse" of the dominant position - cartel agreements, anti-competitiveness, tie-ins, overweening anti-consumer contract terms can lead to some pretty heavy penalties if someone finds a chink and wants to exploit it.
"With great power comes great responsibility..." (Spiderman I)