Steam Launches Paid Mod Support

[Gusington]

From all the posts above I have yet to take away one positive result of this mod pay scheme for.gamers, modders or Steam.

[steve58]

...and the first paid-for mod has been removed from sale due to copyright issues.  At least self-policing kinda worked in this instance...

[mirth]

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.

[Rayfer]

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.

[Gusington]

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.

[jomni]

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.

[JudgeDredd]

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.

[Huw the Poo]

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.

Would this then backfire so bad that users will start buying non Steam versions of everything possible?

I really, really hope so.

[Huw the Poo]

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.

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.

[Pete Dero]

It is a mess : http://steamed.kotaku.com/skyrim-modder-considers-quitting-after-steam-controvers-1700077114/+nathangrayson

[Ian C]

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."

[Nefaro]

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.

[Ian C]

I think that in the coming weeks this is going to ignite...

[Boggit]

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.

[panzerde]

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.