Paying for Mods Discussion (SEE OP)

[SturmChurro]

Since Valve have since withdrawn this feature, there is no need to have more threads about the topic than this one.

This thread has been reopened, however, please remember to remain within the Terms of Service at all times, and also remember that the topic at hand is the idea of selling mods, not the fact that Valve messed it up.

~Tango12345

Original OP:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Introducing New Ways to Support Workshop Creators The Steam Workshop has always been a great place for sharing mods, maps, and all kinds of items that you’ve created. Now it's also a great place for selling those creations.

With a new, streamlined process for listing and selling your creations, the Steam Workshop now supports buying mods directly from the Workshop, to be immediately usable in game.


Discover the best new mods for your game and enable the creators to continue making new items and experiences.Starting with
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Bethesda Game Studios has a history of providing strong support for user modifications in their games. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has continued that tradition, adding a comprehensive editor and integration with the Steam Workshop back in 2012. There are now well over 24,000 free mods available for Skyrim via the Steam Workshop, adding everything from new soundscapes to epic multi-hour quests, to tweaks that perfect the reflections on water.


With the launch of paid mods in Skyrim, you can now support mod authors that are creating top quality items and amazing new experiences for your game.

Buying From The Steam WorkshopIf you've been using the Steam Workshop, you already know how much incredible content is available for many of your favorite games. By paying for mods and supporting the people that made them, you enable those artists and creators to continue working on their mods and inspire new modders to try their hand in creating new, higher quality items and experiences.

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.

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.

Good thing most of the games I play can't be modded. I am not paying for mods.

[IlluminatiRex]

Can't wait to see what other games start to pick this up. Knowing CA, they probably already started striking the deals. This is legitimately one of the worst things I've heard, and what little respect I had for Valve is pretty much gone now.

Also, the modders only get 25% of each sale. Valve/Beth are taking in 75%.

[SturmChurro]

Literally if I had to pay for the majority of the mods I have installed or tried (for free) for Bethesda games. I would be spending multiple hundreds of dollars on them, looking at the prices of some of these mods. Just a generalization, yes there will be some modders who say they won't charge, but lets just say the majority of the modders on Steam started. Imagine having to pay for a modded bug fix? Let's be honest here guys, Bethesda games are very buggy. Now that would be hilarious.

[The Despondent Mind]

And if you download them from Nexus? With all the DLC and unfinished games these days, I think this is just brutal, absolutely brutal money grabbing.

[Spartan999]

I would support this, only if they did this like twitch did where paying money was a optional

thing like the sub system, but you still get the mod for free, while supporting a favorite modder

of yours.

[Derpy Hooves]

Good thing most of the games I play can't be modded. I am not paying for mods.

Actually this is not the first game, TF2 was the first
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/you-can-now-sell-skyrim-mods-on-steam/1100-6426844/

[SturmChurro]

Actually this is not the first game, TF2 was the first
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/you-can-now-sell-skyrim-mods-on-steam/1100-6426844/

Well I was just quoting the steam article. I think this is their first deal with another publisher is what they mean.

[Påsan]

Well the nexus is always better. But this is not good since its sets a precedence for the future for mod authors to demand payment. I cant play skyrim without a hundred or so mods.

[Sphere]

Free mods are essentially gifts you are being given by moders who often put many hours into creating them. I'm glad that Steam is facilitating a system where mod creators can be compensated.

Complaining about having to pay for them is like a 5 year old complaining about not getting enough toys for Christmas. It's immature.

[IlluminatiRex]

Free mods are essentially gifts you are being given by moders who often put many hours into creating them. I'm glad that Steam is facilitating a system where mod creators can be compensated.

Complaining about having to pay for them is like a 5 year old complaining about not getting enough toys for Christmas. It's immature.

Money kills modding communities. Minecraft, Garry's Mod even. Money is NEVER a good thing for modding communities.

These are micro-transactions for single-player games where the developer doesn't even have to do any real work and takes a majority of the cut. This is bad anyway you slice it. As 'Gunny said.

I somewhat disagree. I am a modder who has worked on several large modifications for the Total War series (such as The Great War mod, Divide et Impera, and Constantine: Rise of Christianity) and though the discussion came up to possibly use adfly or other pay-for-click services, it was largely as a joke. We mod because we enjoy messing around with the game and creating something. It's a hobby, not a job (Though Mitch from TGW recently got hired by the Creative Assembly thanks to his stellar mod work!) Sure some people will see it as a way to make money and pump out minimal quality stuff to try to make a quick buck, but a lot of people who see modding as the end itself, rather than a means an end, will continue to make mods for their own enjoyment. I could never imagine Dresden, head of Divide et Impera, making the mod monetized even if CA let us, and hell he's bought three copies of Rome II just to be able to upload all the versions of DeI and Constantine: Rise of Christianity.

Another thing that needs addressing is the steam workshop itself. I... kinda hate it. It's massively inefficient because it doesn't allow us to compress our mods, which leads to issues like that I described above in which Dresden had to buy multiple copies of the game in order to upload all of DeI. Even then, here were bugs that came with it, such as buggy textures due to poor transferrence. TW overhaul modders largely prefer TotalWarCenter over the Steam workshop simply because the workshop is kind of a pain in the ass. Here's hoping it never becomes the only way to get mods into TW.

In short, no we are not all going to charge for the stuff if given the chance. It's a hobby, something that most of us do for fun, rather than money. I would prefer a thank you any day, especially as a vocal minority of people already tend to be fairly entitled when it comes to mods. God it would be a nightmare, having to deal with people like those who buy early access and suddenly feel like they are part of the design team. I feel like charging for a mod would put a level of being beholden to those who paid for the mod, and that is something I, nad most other modders I know, would never willingly subject myself to.

Edit: Thinking about it, I had a little event pictures mod on the Rome 2 workshop with over 27,000 subs. What if I monetized it for a buck, or even 50 cents (even though it is completely not worth it, and I doubt anyone would actually pay that much for it) MUWAHAHAHAHA!

But it also leads to an interesting question: sure that events mod is a small thing made pretty much solely by me with some help from people who let me use some of their artwork, but how the hell would one divvy up %s for larger mod teams such as Divide et Impera. Hell, we had easily over 10 people working together to make the 1.0 release a reality, how on earth could a large mod team expect to realistically divide up profits without tearing the team apart. Hell, how would I give parts of the profits to people like /u/Chewiemuse whose artwork make up a large part of my event pictures. It's a very tricky situation that I think many mods would seek to avoid altogether.

As another modder said on the situation

So I've read into this, and I think I can flesh out my opinion a little more.

I don't know if anybody's going to read this, or care, since the thread is moving at 20 posts a minute; but as a modder, this is why I think that though this seems anti-consumerist right away (it is), in the long term I feel like, if this catches, it'll set a horrible precedent for the modding community from now on.

For why you should or shouldn't listen to me: I'm not very popular on Workshop. I only have about 20k current subscribers, and I've only published what I feel would be better in the community's hands than in mine. I'd say 99% of my 5 years of effort and dedication are hidden somewhere on my harddrive, and will be for a long time. I'll admit I'm given a paid commission every once in a while, but only once, ever, have I had a guaranteed audience and significant payment.
But I do have one thing in common with them - I know what unrewarded hard work feels like. I've gone months upon months on end, many different times, working on something purely out of passion and hype for the community; though I've only released what I've been obligated to and what I believe holds up to my standard of quality, which is that it brings something new and desired to the table (that would be 3 things total in the last 2 years, for a grand total of roughly 450$ from commissions that didn't scam me).
But if I could upload whatever I felt like, all of the rehashes and unfinished piles of , if people had to reward me for all of my work - frankly, I'd love it. Getting paid to do what I love is the dream I strive for, and the same is most likely true for them. Ignoring the 25% cut, it sounds like a really good idea for me as an individual, in that moment.

But, here's the part you care about - I've seen this happen at least twice before.
This was back in 2010 so I'm probably missing a lot, and somebody else already made this point, but I'm gonna talk about Minecraft. At first, something so modular and easy to access with infinite potential and a huge audience was almost unheard of. For people who only saw it now, it's hard to imagine the vibe was once casual. From what I remember, it felt like LEGO fans and DND nerds got together just to swap ideas and share code. But after a while, more ambitious mods kept coming out. The attitude slowly shifted to 'I'll make this because it's cool, if people want to support my effort that's nice' into 'for X amount of effort I require to be compensated Y$' - until somebody found ad-fly, and it spread like wildfire. It didn't happen right away, but things changed. If a download broke and somebody tried to mirror, the creator would be rabid on their ass. If you shared an idea, somebody would passive-aggressively tell you off. If you asked for help, people would treat you like you were trying to steal their 'X effort' so you could collect the 'Y$ compensation'. It was all super-serious numbers; greedy people with low talent saw the cash train and tried to jump on, and started throwing people out once it hit capacity. The 'X effort' bar got lower and lower until everyone else became an enemy. If you talked to another modder, they were just someone trying to steal your ad-fly pennies/OC donut steel concepts/'fanbase'.

A similar thing happened again with the GTA modding community, on a much smaller scale but far more competitive. What was once passion fueled by donation, transformed overnight into a sense of entitlement once free money became involved via ad-fly. A pretty significant amount of people saw it as a cheap 'opportunity', so about every 3rd new mod released on a given site was created solely to cash out by a few different means (either filling a gap or adding your OC donut steel to an existing one). Through lack of an audience, these cash-4-mods could only sustain themselves by trying to maximize your audience, which meant to them eliminating competiton. New talent was IMO almost seen as a threat, so were shunned and insulted out of forums (me included!) for asking for help. Very little documentation was published, partly because of this incentive to keep people out. Creators did whatever they could to eliminate 'competitors', mostly by publishing hitpieces and badmouthing other modders, though IIRC a few doxxes and DMCAs were attempted.

This is really speculatory, but I see the same thing happening very easily with Workshop if the paywall spreads anywhere else. Once a significant amount of mods are set at arbitrary prices, existing modders neutral on the issue think 'Hey, mods similar to mine are priced at $5. If I price my mod at $5, that's guaranteed money for me, since everybody else is successful with theirs'. More and more will probably begin to change their tags to accommodate an imaginary economy, that X effort deserves Y payment, until the line of thinking slowly mutates: 'If I eliminate one free Y mod (my own), that's a little bit more potential profit in the Y market that could go to me. If I find a way to eliminate my competitor's rival Y mod, that's one more. If I could stop people from learning how to Y mod and X mod, my potential cashflow would have x3 the opportunities to get an audience.' It slowly turns modders against eachother, at the cost of everyone involved.
And even if introducing this payment doesn't make existing modders change their mentality due to friendships and communities, you can bet your ass that the low-talent, highly-competitive 'capitalists' that saw an opportunity in Minecraft/GTA/pretty much every other game with modding potential would descend like locusts. This time, it wouldn't be for pennies, but $10, $20, $30. That's x100 the cash that ad-fly caused so many communities to turn against eachother, stagnate new talent, or sometimes destroy communities. They would take over and flood a given market to try and maximize cashflow - bonus points if they start fights with other modders/eachother, alienate new talent and stagnate the market.

It's happened before - people will always abuse cash systems like this. I can't stand in favor of this happening to the communities I love.

This is entirely bad news.

[Ciciro]

Well the nexus is always better. But this is not good since its sets a precedence for the future for mod authors to demand payment. I cant play skyrim without a hundred or so mods.

Modders are taking their mods off Nexus in order to monetize them.

[SturmChurro]

Free mods are essentially gifts you are being given by moders who often put many hours into creating them. I'm glad that Steam is facilitating a system where mod creators can be compensated.

Complaining about having to pay for them is like a 5 year old complaining about not getting enough toys for Christmas. It's immature.

I won't argue with you there (some) mod authors deserve some payment for the hard work they put into the game. However, monetizing this system like this promotes things like:

Modders are taking their mods off Nexus in order to monetize them.

Players will now have to pay to simply try out a mod, and that one mod you always played and endorsed is now gone! Now I don't mind paying $5 or so for that one mod I always loved, but I like a lot of mods. Now if those mod authors decide they want to monetize them and remove them from nexus, I will have to pay to use each and every one of them. I have about 120 or so mods downloaded on my Skyrim nexus, if each and every one of them cost $5 that is $600! Obviously, not all mods are priced at $5, but that is just an example. That is $600 on top of what I paid for the game and supposed DLC. Not to mention I would be paying for a mod that may or may not get any updates or support in the future. Some mod authors will (and are) just put up half finished or low quality mods and charge $ for them! And people complain about DLC! At least with DLC it will have the support of the developer behind it. Sure, Steam has a 24 hour refund policy on each mod purchase, but I honestly don't want to have to open my wallet to demo a mod I may or may not like!

Sorry to say, but as a mod player I will not pay to extensively mod a game. Yes, I may pay a little here and there to support some mods I really enjoy, but nothing more than that. If it comes to it the days of 100+ mods in my game might be over, I will not pay potentially hundreds of dollars to play a couple playthroughs of one game like I used to. I will only be playing Bethesda vanilla if this is the case, and their games are average at best without mods.

[snuggans]

this is an alright idea, the market is going to decide whether your mod is worth the price you set so its not like every single little mod is going to now be monetized and they'll get purchases/word-of-mouth regardless, but i do expect the more fleshier overhauls to cost something, which is totally fair to me. even though some modders will claim this is just a hobby, the monetization provides more incentive to do more on your project, or to do anything at all.

also, this is a much better system than adfly whose downsides have been described in the quotes above. this is going to work like the greenlight project where indie games are judged by the community, except now mods are going to be judged by the community market.

this is what's going to happen:

-modder sets the price of his very small mod that changes little to an exorbitant $5.
-market reacts or doesn't react.
-another modder looks at this mod, makes something similar but way better, and then decides to charge $3.
-market FLOCKS to this new mod, original modder needs to change his strategy now

you have created competition with real monetary compensation, the consumer should win here

yes it sucks that the developer/publisher is going to get a huge cut but valve needed to get them on board for this because essentially other people are making money off of their foundation.

[Stavroforos]

This sounds like a good idea for many reasons. First, as Sphere said, mods are gifts, not something you have a right to demand or an expectation of having with the game you've purchased. It means that mod creators can now get rewarded for their work, which also means that there can be a greater incentive to get mods out faster and with more polish on them.

My only concern is that I don't think 25% of the profit is enough.

[gastovski]

Thepiratebay will be more busy after this.

[Abdülmecid I]

you have created competition with real monetary compensation, the consumer should win here

The consumer was winning more decisively, when everything was free. Also, a much more probable scenario is that the two modders will have a small conversation and agree to fix the price at 10$. Monopolies will be extremely easy to form in an Internet market, where communication between sellers is so simple.

[Derpy Hooves]

​This isn't a good thing at all, it will kill the modding community. And those who argue that paid mods=more quality mods, Greenlight would have to disagree. 99% of Greenlight is and we all know that.

[snuggans]

The consumer was winning more decisively, when everything was free.

there was less incentive before so you're not accounting for missed potential or mods that could have been, this should attract more modders or more modding and renewed attention on old projects if modders can now make a living off it without horrible adfly.

Also, a much more probable scenario is that the two modders will have a small conversation and agree to fix the price at 10$. Monopolies will be extremely easy to form in an Internet market, where communication between sellers is so simple.

then why would anyone want to buy the inferior version of the 2 mods if they are both $10? your scenario makes no sense.

[Sir Adrian]

No there wasn't, a quick look at Skyrim, Civ 5 or any other easily moddable game can disprove the idea that there was less incentive. The only people who felt less incentive were those who are not genuinely interested in modding and who will put out mediocre after mediocre mod just to make a quick buck, but that incentive will dissipate shortly after they learn that they only get 25% of the money. We've already seen this happen with Steam Greenlight and Early Access, which were also touted as a means to "provide more incentive for indies to make game" and lo and behold less than 3 years later it's the equivalent of an open sewer where you get flooded with in search of that lucky dollar coin.

All Valve has managed to do with this move is to turn the workshop into another youtube, only without the quality controls and without having learned a thing from past experience.

[IlluminatiRex]

For those saying this is a good thing, you really don't have a clue about how money absolutely kills modding scenes. Minecraft's modding community is terrible since it became about how much money you can make. New modders are shunned out, tutorials and documentation are nearly non existent.

Garry's Mod is going through something similar with server plugins, there's a reason why many GMod servers now are just variations of DarkRP and the like. In both of those communities now it's not about making quality mods, its about making mods that will sell and net you the most cash. There is no quality.

GTAIV's modding community was crippled by the same thing.

And by the way, the modders don't see ANY of that money until their mod has made a total of 400 bucks, which is when they get to 100 dollars earned themselves. All the while Valve and Bethesda are raking in money by doing absolutely nothing. This move is bad, bad news.

Even then, why would I purchase content not officicially made by the devs? I love mods, they're one of the reasons I got into PC gaming but to see them get put behind a paywall is troubling. They're not official content made by the developers of the game, I have no reason to actually purchase them. And that 24 hour refund that you can get if the mod doesn't work? It's in Steambux and not back to your bank account/credit card. Some "refund" there.

'Gunny is right, this is not good news and only complicates things.

All that was needed was a donation button, not a "buy now for 5.99 or don't get it at all" button.