Steam now allowing paid mods

[Reier]

http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/workshop/

I rarely rarely get on board with these kind of movements but it needs to be spread.

You guys can google to find out your position on the issue but personally I think it's pretty dumb. It sounds like valve is helping the modders get cash doing what they love, but the modders only gets 25% of the cut. I can also see this creating a less friendly environment for modding if it becomes about the monetary value instead of the passion. There's also zero quality control and modders can put up parts or entire free mods on the paid section to make a quick buck at potentially no compensation to the original author. This just has bad idea written all over it and I hate to see people like EA follow suit.
If you guys also feel this way, there's a petition: https://www.change.org/p/valve-remove-the-paid-content-of-the-steam-workshop

NPC-T64 dlc only $0.99 coming this june

[cephalopod]

Robot Wars RA2 is going to be £1000 so with just a few people buying it we can all afford new full pressure featherweight flippers.

[Lemonism]

It sounds like valve is helping the modders get cash doing what they love, but the modders only gets 25% of the cut. I can also see this creating a less friendly environment for modding if it becomes about the monetary value instead of the passion. There's also zero quality control and modders can put up parts or entire free mods on the paid section to make a quick buck at potentially no compensation to the original author. This just has bad idea written all over it and I hate to see people like EA follow suit.

Totally agree. I feel this whole issue would be solved by a totally optional donate button. That way every mod stays free, valve and greedy greedy bethesda can still take a cut of the donations (although it would be great if they didn't it's clear that won't happen), and modders are still supported. This also would do a lot to cut out those people that would take a mod from the Nexus and claim it as their own for quick cash.

[Reier]

Yes the donate button would be perfectly fine
but then valve/beth won't get 75%

[RedAce]

I feel this whole issue would be solved by a totally optional donate button.

That's a great idea. It can solve both crowds for this argument and supports both the creators and modders of the games.

[Lemonism]

Yes the donate button would be perfectly fine
but then valve/beth won't get 75%

In an ideal world they wouldn't be taking that at all, but obviously that wouldn't happen, so I think having some of the donation go to valve/bethesda would be an acceptable compromise.
Also one thing I didn't mention is that the current system has a 24 hour refund policy, so by having the donation button instead of the paywall we would have more time to test any mods downloaded before putting any money towards it.

[Reier]

24 hours isn't enough time to do anything
and how the does this entice people who put up paid mods to update them when they inevitably break after game patches?

[Lemonism]

and how the does this entice people who put up paid mods to update them when they inevitably break after game patches?

If anything it encourages people to put up something they made very quickly or stole for quick cash. The quality of the paid mods out already is evidence of this, as can be seen in this gallery:
http://imgur.com/a/bqcla?gallery (warning, long gallery, lots of images)
I've heard that mod authors on the Nexus are taking down their mods because they're afraid someone will steal them. This system has no redeeming qualities at all.

[Jonzu95]

[playzooki]

Robot Wars RA2 is going to be £1000 so with just a few people buying it we can all afford new full pressure featherweight flippers.

I am going to steal your mod and sell it for £30 so i can get a new chassis for jaguar :3

[cephalopod]

I am going to steal your mod and sell it for £30 so i can get a new chassis for jaguar :3

£30? 3D printing I'm assuming, for that kinda price? :P

[Badnik96]

live designs ai v2 comes with one new ai team i just came up with now and will be purchasable for $50

the funds go towards me making a heavyweight

[NeighImACarrot]

Yes the donate button would be perfectly fine
but then valve/beth won't get 75%

In an ideal world they wouldn't be taking that at all, but obviously that wouldn't happen, so I think having some of the donation go to valve/bethesda would be an acceptable compromise.
Also one thing I didn't mention is that the current system has a 24 hour refund policy, so by having the donation button instead of the paywall we would have more time to test any mods downloaded before putting any money towards it.

If you refund a mod you get banned from the market for 7 days.

[RpJk]

Thank God RA2 isn't on Steam.

[playzooki]

I am going to steal your mod and sell it for £30 so i can get a new chassis for jaguar :3

£30? 3D printing I'm assuming, for that kinda price? :P

well i could put the rest to a distortion pedal :P

(its happening)

[Mr. AS]

It's worth noting that people are stealing Skyrim mods (that they didn't make) off of Nexus and putting them up on steam for a quick buck. There's also a pricey "better horse genitalia" mod going for $100 that I bet Jonzu would be interested in, maybe MNB too if it included an option to reskin the horses to pink. Very quality. Congrats on your decision, Steam.

Steam's going about paid mods all wrong, minor mods like "hurf durf i reskind one of the weapons" shouldn't be monetized, that's on-par with microtransactions that wouldn't be out of place in a shoddily made facebook or mobile game. If you make a total conversion mod (like DSL, or Valve's own TF Classic), then it should undergo an approval process and be put up on steam if it gets approved.

Then again, that doesn't make mad money like selling a gorillion hats and crates at a few dollars a pop does.

[Jonzu95]

There's also a pricey "better horse genitalia" mod going for $100 that I bet Jonzu would be interested in

skyrim sucks

[Chaosmancer]

As a pure concept, I agree with it, some of these things can fix what the devs couldn't be bothered to fix or give many more hours of entertainment to an otherwise dead game. The problem is that the original dev gets the lion's share of the money which could mean that the devs could basically use it as indirect DLC (release a game unfinished, have modders finish it, get money from mods).

Of course, the other problem is the fact that, considering some of the stuff that gets sold on Steam (largely broken rubbish that the indie people will never bother to fix properly/are incapable of fixing properly), it won't be too... well, it's already happened with horse genitals, but it won't be long before the whole scene is filled with people making terrible (possibly broken, possibly made from stolen assets) mods, selling them for lots of money, and then getting money for them.

In all honesty, I think that a pay what you want system would work better. Sure, you will always get the people that go 'if I don't have to pay anything, I'm not going to pay anything', but there are plenty of people that will drop £10 here and there, and then you get the ones that just seem eccentric with how much they will donate to people who make things that they like.

[NeighImACarrot]

Gaben did an AMA on reddit over the weekend and basically said Bethesda forced the 75% going to valve/bethesda and he also said implementing the pay what you want button was basically retarded

[Reier]

live designs ai v2 comes with one new ai team i just came up with now and will be purchasable for $50

the funds go towards me making a heavyweight

you only get $12.50 though

Gaben did an AMA on reddit over the weekend and basically said Bethesda forced the 75% going to valve/bethesda and he also said implementing the pay what you want button was basically retarded

as if the current system isn't