Skyrim Workshop Now Supports Paid Mods

[Wulfburk]

Yes i can see valve and bethesda saying "alright sorry we agree with you, we'll let the mod developer take 90% and we the rest".

And everyone going oooh its alright then.

BUT ITS NOT FREAKING ALRIGHT.

This will basically turn the whole modding community into 3rd party dlc.

[gastovski]

I'm also greatly annoyed because Nexus site owner is okay with paid mods.

[Wulfburk]

He didnt say he is ok.

He said he woudnt say if it was ok or not for him. Obviously he is doing the smart thing and keep him out of the controversy. (though Chesko cheaply tried to bring him and the nexus into it)

[Gothic_Knight]

Creating a really good mod takes a lot of time and effort, I would pay for a decent mod that adds high quality content to my game. The problem is that Steam takes 75% of this. They did nothing to create Skyrim or the mod that I'm about to pay for. Mod author gets some leftovers and Steam gets the rest for doing one big nothing. He'll lose popularity because more people are using Nexus and let's be honest - mod piracy is unavoidable. Mod author would probably make more money from donations than this money milking mess. So what will this poor mod author do to actually make profit from his hard work? Charge 99$ for it?
This is like vanilla Skyrim. 100 gold for slaying a Giant. One big B slap.

It also depends on what the mod adds to our games. DLC sized mod or Immersive Armours type mod is probably worth it, I would pay to play Wheels of Lull but a mod that adds only one armour set to the game isn't worth it because there are dozens of similar mods on the Nexus for free.
There are mod thievery issues already so I'm curious to see how Steam is going to handle that.
For now I'm going to download all of my favourite mods and upload them on personal storage site in case someone will decide that a minor upgrade is worth five bucks and using Steam Workshop instead of Nexus.

[Mangalore]

To me the general problem is that mods weren't created for monetization and thus to argue whether they deserve monetiziation ignores that they never had to endure the scrutiny of a paid product because of it aka the mod community is entirely different because of it being kind of forced to be free.

For paid mods I would look at Valve's Early Access Greenlight BS which means tons of money grabbing crap.

Do modders create great stuff? Yes. Is it buyable stuff? I would say particularly for a single player game (the big difference to Dota and TF2) to 99%, nope. Falskaar and Nehrim and similar stuff, sure, Cold and wet etc, nope. That's just some graphical fancy stuff and certainly not worth more than the entire game (which is currently the case due to a sale). If it's buyable the question is why the bloody game developer doesn't do it as DLC or standalone expansion.

There is also legality concerning product service to consider.

And does SKSE get anything? They are a necessary core for tons of mods but they essentially hack the core game code which is if you are anal about it kind of illegal if it comes to liability and guarantees.

[Leonardo]

To me the general problem is that mods weren't created for monetization and thus to argue whether they deserve monetiziation ignores that they never had to endure the scrutiny of a paid product because of it aka the mod community is entirely different because of it being kind of forced to be free.

For paid mods I would look at Valve's Early Access Greenlight BS which means tons of money grabbing crap.

Do modders create great stuff? Yes. Is it buyable stuff? I would say particularly for a single player game (the big difference to Dota and TF2) to 99%, nope. Falskaar and Nehrim and similar stuff, sure, Cold and wet etc, nope. That's just some graphical fancy stuff and certainly not worth more than the entire game (which is currently the case due to a sale). If it's buyable the question is why the bloody game developer doesn't do it as DLC or standalone expansion.

There is also legality concerning product service to consider.

And does SKSE get anything? They are a necessary core for tons of mods but they essentially hack the core game code which is if you are anal about it kind of illegal if it comes to liability and guarantees.

I agree with this.

You're correct about other products such as 3rd party tools and SKSE is one 3rd party tool, which many mods required to run these days.

From what I read and heard the SKSE team declined to put SKSE behind a paywall, so no they won't get paid. Also read the official statement from the SKSE team posted by behippo.

[Mangalore]

I agree with this.

You're correct about other products such as 3rd party tools and SKSE is one 3rd party tool, which many mods required to run these days.

From what I read and heard the SKSE team declined to put SKSE behind a paywall, so no they won't get paid. Also read the official statement from the SKSE team posted by behippo.

My issue is mainly a paid product has warranty and somesuch but as it stands none will pick up that tap and leave people out to hang.

Overall the thing is that the moment money gets involved the market will get swamped precisely by people who _only_ make mods because of the money and they will clog everything with crap. Steam has built a reputation the past years of zero quality control of what it let's into its own store. This will be twice as bad for modifications they will reject even more any liability. I mean the store frontpage of Steam is an effing joke of bad games. Sure there are AAA and good indie titles as well but the vast majority by now feels very shady in its business practice with high early access prices, bad quality control and often no regards for copyright. Heck, most Youtubers by now have a playlist where they solely play crappy Steam games for everyone's amusement.

In essence it has the potential to kill the community and replace it with a bad C grade marketplace.


edit: Just read a bit on Steam. The negative reviews for Skyrim is an interesting thing to watch trying to break the 100 000 good reviews over the years.

A worrisome story is about Chesko who apparently added a mod using some FNIS resource or other and got in a scuffle with the FNIS modders. That I wouldn't mind and I don't get the personal hating on modders, particularly he got a pretty bad treatment imho. The real worrisome part is that Chesko decided to pull his mods and remove them from the Workshop but Valve refuses. They will keep his mods aka by their policies he rescinded control over them and they can keep hosting them against his will (not necessarily sell them but to me that sounds bad enough) and essentially said they will only remove them when legal actions compells them to.
http://www.pcgamer.com/creator-of-re...0&ns_fee=0

That looks precisely like leaving the modders to work out the legalities themselves aka getting screwed from all sides...

[gastovski]

He didnt say he is ok.

He said he woudnt say if it was ok or not for him. Obviously he is doing the smart thing and keep him out of the controversy. (though Chesko cheaply tried to bring him and the nexus into it)

He should be a senator or congressman or something. Keep him out of controversy?. He has the goddamn second greatest modding site on internet so he must take a side. He's getting some income from Valve that's why he doesn't say "i'm against paid mods".

[Derpy Hooves]

He should be a senator or congressman or something. Keep him out of controversy?. He has the goddamn second greatest modding site on internet so he must take a side. He's getting some income from Valve that's why he doesn't say "i'm against paid mods".

​Who are you to demand someone take a side? Your post is immature, and is not considerate whatsoever.

[gastovski]

​Who are you to demand someone take a side? Your post is immature, and is not considerate whatsoever.

I am gastovski and i have already demanded DarkOne take a side but he hasn't taken a side yet because of conflict of interest with Valve.

[Derpy Hooves]

because of conflict of interest with Valve.

​Source? Or is that all just unproven conjecture?

[Facupay]

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/news/12459/?

And so it begins the great internet drama of our time.

Thanks, Valve.

[SLN445]

Steam only gets 35% if ive been reading correctly, the developer/publisher gets the rest of the 75-80% cut.
The best thing that can be done is the community policing things, don't buy or refund the mods you think are abusing the system, support the modders that are doing good work at reasonable prices or free and/or get all your mods from Nexus and other websites if you don't think steams workshop is worth using at all.

[Leonardo]

Steam only gets 35% if ive been reading correctly, the developer/publisher gets the rest of the 75-80% cut.
The best thing that can be done is the community policing things, don't buy or refund the mods you think are abusing the system, support the modders that are doing good work at reasonable prices or free and/or get all your mods from Nexus and other websites if you don't think steams workshop is worth using at all.

No. Steam/Valve only get 30% and Bethesda get 45% of the 75% that's left after the modders have their share of 25%. Also note that the listed service providers get 5% and DarkOne mention it here.

The system works by presenting the mod author with a list of "Service Providers" when they go to upload their file. They're informed that they can choose to support none, one or more of these Service Providers and that any cut is taken from Valve's cut, and not from their cut. The cut percentage is 5%. Ergo, if a mod author does not select any Service Providers then the cut remains 25% to the mod author, 40% to Bethesda, 35% to Valve. If the mod author picks one or more Service Providers then the cut changes to 25% to the mod author, 40% to Bethesda, 30% to Valve, 5% shared between one or more Service Providers.

[SLN445]

No. Steam/Valve only get 30% and Bethesda get 45% of the 75% that's left after the modders have their share of 25%. Also note that the listed service providers get 5% and DarkOne mention it here.

only 5% off

[gastovski]

Oh cmon after reading all of the posts above you couldn't bother visiting skyrim nexus site and read DarkOne's post and other stuff on there?.

Let me make it simple for you with my crappy english. The Nexus sites gets %5 of income from a paid mod (if the author chooses donation option for 3rd party services like Nexus, ModDB and others, completely optional) on steam. What if DarkOne says "i don't like this and i don't support it" what would you think Valve will do, remove nexus from donations ofcourse.

This stuff affects entire modding community so expect TES6 or Fallout 4 paid bugfixes by community. Probably in future there will be paid mods for Total War games too.

[the_mango55]

Even if this ends up going through it's not going to be a disaster like some people think. People will start out making paid mods but eventually they will stop when they don't get any money from it, and they won't get money because people will continue making free mods, especially small ones (and nobody is going to spend 50 cents for a new sword when they can get one just as good for free). The biggest potential problem with this is mods that are already free and have been free going behind a paywall, thus mods relying on those now paid mods are virtually broken.

I was afraid this would happen with SkyUI but the current version of that mod will remain free.

[Facupay]

http://steamcommunity.com/games/Stea...32365253244218

They are going to remove the paid mod features!

The internet paid off! We won.

But remember that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

[Leonardo]

http://steamcommunity.com/games/Stea...32365253244218

They are going to remove the paid mod features!

The internet paid off! We won.

But remember that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

Like you said it is a major victory for the community!

http://www.bethblog.com/2015/04/27/w...mods-on-steam/

[the new username]

Man i'm so glad this didn't last long
What a load of bollocks, what a way to destroy modding