Valve / Steam / Steam Machines, General Discussion v2.0- "Is Steam Down again?" - Games

I wonder if they'd branded it as "third-party DLC" rather than "paid mods" it would have gone down better. Sure, it's the same thing, but branding it as a way for people to go semi-pro rather than stay amateur might have played better.

[QUOTE=Pepsi-cola;47596860]Don't get me wrong modders deserve more than 25%.[/QUOTE] Ask A Game Dev on tumblr went over this, actually. [quote]Valve pocketing 75% of the money seems like an awful lot There are a lot of games on steam workshop with revenue sharing already. Can you guess what the revenue sharing is for each and every single one of those, including TF2, CS:GO, and Dota 2? Yep. 25%. 75% sure seems like a lot, but Valve is shouldering the majority of the costs too. This includes hosting, handling all of the financial matters, distribution, maintaining the marketplace itself, and continued development of the tools and platform. It subsidizes the hosting and distribution of the free mods, and it policing workshop submissions to find and root out copyright violations, mod thieves, and so on. On top of all that, Valve’s cut is also partially going to the base game’s publisher to pay for the rights to use the development software and make a profit on it legally. Do you know what percentage of a game’s sales a game publisher sees after licensing an existing IP (like the base game)? Usually around 35-50%. 30% goes to the platform, 10-15% goes to the retailer, 10-20% goes to the license holder. Valve isn’t a charity. They’re making money off of this too, for sure. They’re extending that opportunity to new modding communities as well, just like they’ve already done for their own modding communities to the tune of $57 million so far. Modders don’t have to sell through steam workshop, but it is unlikely they’ll be able to find another avenue where they earn money from their work without being served a Cease and Desist from a publisher’s lawyers. If you want to see modders able to get more than 25%, hope somebody else can build a competing distribution platform and secure better terms so that they can compete with Valve.[/quote] He's gone over a number of different things about this already, and the blog is otherwise pretty interesting. [editline]25th April 2015[/editline] Whoops, forgot to link it: [url]http://askagamedev.tumblr.com/[/url]

After pirating games comes the era of pirating mods.

[QUOTE=Knurr;47596952]After pirating games comes the era of pirating mods.[/QUOTE] Ok google "thepiratemodsdatabase nude alyx"

This is actually a great idea, and i'm incredibly disappointed how short sighted a loud percentage of gamers are being about it. I can't be the only one, surely.

[QUOTE=Supernorn;47596973]This is actually a great idea, and i'm incredibly disappointed how short sighted a loud percentage of gamers are being about it. I can't be the only one, surely.[/QUOTE] Its a good idea in concept, modders getting a bit of money for hard work. But so much of it was broken when it came to releasing it.

[QUOTE=megafat;47596983]Its a good idea in concept, modders getting a bit of money for hard work. But so much of it was broken when it came to releasing it.[/QUOTE] What was broken, exactly? I must have missed this.

[QUOTE=Supernorn;47596989]What was broken, exactly? I must have missed this.[/QUOTE] There was righ from beginning mods that used other mods assets. Not best start at all.

[QUOTE=Supernorn;47596989]What was broken, exactly? I must have missed this.[/QUOTE] Some of shady people re-released other's free mods as paid ones, then kicked original creators from Market with false claim of ownership.

[QUOTE=DoktorAkcel;47596999]Some of shady people re-released other's free mods as paid ones, then kicked original creators from Market with false claim of ownership.[/QUOTE] Modders squabbling over ownership and generally being jerks to each other has been happening for years, and this will continue to happen regardless of what happens. That's not a good enough reason to be so unsupportive of a paid workshop. [b]A modder on the workshop won't see a paycheck for at least 3+ months after the mod has gone on sale. This is Valve's safety net to tackle exactly the sort of situations such as this one. Three months is more than enough time for these things to get sorted.[/b] Assholes are always going to try to game the systems put in place. Does that mean we shouldn't try anything new? Here's the big picture, that a lot of people are seemingly missing here: [b]- A paid workshop potentially means talented artists could make a living solely from creating high quality content for games. This is already happening with the top modders on the TF2 workshop. - Valve do not get 75% of the mod sale. The developer gets the majority. The dev can also choose how much of the revshare the modder gets. - There's a lot of professional artists in the industry who currently make content for the existing paid workshops on the side. This raises the overall quality of content on the workshop. - High quality mods rise up to the top, setting a high standard for others and burying the junk. - Developers seeing a percentage from modding, means modding is now profitable for developers. This gives developers that otherwise wouldn't, an incentive to support modding in their future games.[/b] So who exactly is losing out here? Valve isn't. The developers aren't. The modders themselves now have an opportunity to benefit from their work massively. It seems like the people that lose out here are those that simply don't want to pay a penny for mods. Well, free mods aren't going anywhere either. Do Valve need to be vigilant and ensure that their system isn't gamed? Of course. Nobody is going to dispute that. But the clear benefits here massively outweigh the negatives.

[QUOTE=Supernorn;47597053] It seems like the people that lose out here are those that simply don't want to pay a penny for mods. [/QUOTE] Maybe because we've grown on free mods and don't want to spend 5x of the game's price on them? [quote]Well, free mods aren't going anywhere either.[/quote] Hell yeah they do, once it catches up, who's gonna make free stuff? It's not like it's a question of freedom, like it is with software

my thoughts on this entire paid mod debacle: some of you guys in the TES thread are blatantly admitting to pirating these mods. whether or not [B]you[/B] think they're worth paying for, once that creator thinks they are, you are still pirating these and frankly shouldn't be discussing it so casually, and if you are, you should be getting banned for it

[QUOTE=aiusepsi;47596880]I wonder if they'd branded it as "third-party DLC" rather than "paid mods" it would have gone down better. Sure, it's the same thing, but branding it as a way for people to go semi-pro rather than stay amateur might have played better.[/QUOTE] I figure that third-party DLC is when the developer has struck a deal with the third party studio, prior to development of the DLC. A good example of this would be the different plane modules for DCS. Although DCS World is made by Eagle Dynamics, the Mig-21 airplane (which goes for $40 and on sale for $20) was developed by Leatherneck Simulations as their entry into the game development scene.

Gabe doing an AMA atm: [url]https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33uplp/mods_and_steam/[/url]

[QUOTE=jazzpunk;47599500]Gabe doing an AMA atm: [url]https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33uplp/mods_and_steam/[/url][/QUOTE] [QUOTE]Hi, I'm the developer of LOOT (first reddit post!). Today I learned that I was put forward by [B]Robin [/B]as a potential Service Provider on Skyrim's Workshop while everything was still under wraps. As I was never contacted, I assume that I didn't pass whatever approval criteria there are. Could you please clarify what those criteria are? I'm sure there are plenty of people/organisations involved with mods for all sorts of games that would like to know. [/QUOTE] I think the mad hatter is behind all this

[QUOTE=Supernorn;47597053]Valve do not get 75% of the mod sale. The developer gets the majority. The dev can also choose how much of the revshare the modder gets.[/QUOTE] Valve gets 30% where Bethesda gets 45%.

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/DWEPpNL.png[/IMG]

[QUOTE=Rob3k;47600625]Valve gets 30% where Bethesda gets 45%.[/QUOTE] Actually according to Dark0ne Bethesda gets 40% and Valve gets 35% of which that 5% can go to service providers like Nexus or Blender, if the modder ticks the boxes. [QUOTE]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.[/QUOTE] [url]http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/news/12459/?[/url]

[QUOTE=damnatus;47597109] Hell yeah they do, once it catches up, who's gonna make free stuff? It's not like it's a question of freedom, like it is with software[/QUOTE] Isn't the shitstorm that's been brewed up due to all this proof enough that people will make free stuff? [editline]26th April 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Sally;47599954]I think the mad hatter is behind all this[/QUOTE] Robin, as in Robin "Dark0ne" who owns NexusMods.com.

[QUOTE=Jetamo;47603262]Isn't the shitstorm that's been brewed up due to all this proof enough that people will make free stuff? [/QUOTE] Don't know, it seems to me that the shitstorm started mainly because of players, not mod makers

Can anyone connect to the steam store or workshop? Does disagree mean yes or can you guys not connect?

I don't really get the people who say this will improve mod quality. The poster child of paid mods for the moment is a one-piece armor which, while a decent model, doesn't adapt correctly to female characters, clips through the inventory screen, isn't integrated into the game through either a quest or crafting and needs to be brought in with a console command. Another is a mod that makes NPCs equip various items depending on the weather, which charges 5$ for this minor addition, and even uses assets made by other modders. The rest is mostly weaponry sold for a buck or two. Why would someone make the effort to craft a mod that impacts gameplay and adds a substantial amount of content, the price of which you'll have to limit to around 20$ in order to stay in the price range of official extensions, if you can simply model a sword or axe, which is comparatively a minuscule amount of content, and sell it for 1$, make 20 of those or more, and effectively making just as much profit from it if not more. Not to mention big mods usually require the efforts of a team, if not an entire community, to succeed. You'd need to share the profits with everybody who took part in the project, effectively ending up with pennies. This brings up other issues that we can already observe, which is the use of other people's content. Where yesterday, people were free to use other people's mods to implement in their own as long as they gave them credit, now they have to give them a share of the profit, which discourages the use of other's resources, and instead encourages each modder to remake those resources from scratch (assuming they don't blatantly steal them, claim them as their own and get away with it, given Valve's shitty curating), reducing the productivity of the community tenfold. The transformation of a working, collaborative community into a competitive one most certainly won't yield any positive results. Where before, people were content to help solve each other's issues, shedding their respective knowledge into a common pool where everybody can help themselves, now they will be reluctant to share their experience and tips for fear of others making money on their back, or losing that edge against their competitors. In a simple event such as an update which breaks a key component of many mods, where in the past you would have a simple sticky on the main modding forum which explains how to patch your mod, now such knowledge becomes incredibly valuable, people will either keep onto it or sell it for profit. You'd end up with half the available mods being broken with no way for their authors to fix them. Openness is a [I]vital need[/I] for modding, and is one of the main reasons why it's been so successful. Would massive projects such as Wikipedia have been able to succeed without contributors freely collaborating with each other? A lot of modders got into the scene because of how accessible it was. Do you think newcomers would have been interested in modding for long if everytime they asked for help the only answer they got is '[I]buy my tutorial or fuck off[/I]'? And before you start saying I'm just spouting doomsday stories, I have to mention it has [B]already happened in the past[/B]. Just take a look at the Minecraft, GTA IV or MUGEN modding scene. The mere incentive of [I]advertisement money[/I] pitted modders against each other and tore the community apart. One Minecraft modder installed a DRM in his mod that checked if one of his competitors' mods was installed and made it unplayable, for fuck's sake! What do you think adding the ability to paywall your mods will result in? This whole ordeal is disastrous, and that's not even considering the customers' point of view, with a 24 hour refund windows after which you're fucked, Valve being completely hands-off when it comes to modders fixing broken shit, no quality control whatsoever, criticism censoring, and a lot of other pleasant surprises... This is a lot more complex than simply saying 'if you don't like it, don't buy it', and people who think like that are doing so in a one-dimensional way.

-snip-

I love how the people who are defending this are the ones that often upload to the TF2/CSGO/DOTA 2 workshops. Those aren't mod workshops those are workshops for items that require a verification process, tweaking, and coding by official devs to be added to the game's core.

[QUOTE=JumJum;47602533][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/DWEPpNL.png[/IMG][/QUOTE] that's the current system we have

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/CTM0s9V.png[/IMG]

[url=http://steamcommunity.com/games/SteamWorkshop/announcements/detail/208632365253244218]Removing Payment Feature From Skyrim Workshop[/url] "Ayyy lmao"

i hope they return atleast a button to donate to the modder. there are a few space engineer modders i would be happy to give a few bucks to. but i will never be ok with paywalled mods, thats just not right.

[QUOTE=Reagy;47613468][url=http://steamcommunity.com/games/SteamWorkshop/announcements/detail/208632365253244218]Removing Payment Feature From Skyrim Workshop[/url][/QUOTE] good riddance.

[QUOTE=dracotonisamond;47613671]i hope they return atleast a button to donate to the modder. there are a few space engineer modders i would be happy to give a few bucks to.[/QUOTE] Only if they give them a fair share. I'd rather just donate to a patreon or similar otherwise.