Victory for paid mod boycotters: Valve removes payment feature from TES: Skyrim area of the Steam Wo - Polidicks

[QUOTE=geel9;47616032]Donations on scrap.tf have received around $10,000 over three years. For a service with 1,000,000+ pageviews a day [b]and legitimate benefits for donating.[/b] There are no such incentives for donating to mods.[/QUOTE] 1- why are you trying to compare your situation on a shit page that only does crafting or whatever for tf2, and the situation of thousands of modders? 2- I see your 'donator' thing more as a premium kind of service. 3- your page suffers and many of the .tf pages have the same kind of cancerous deal of favoritism, rankings, and "give this guy all this because he paid more than anyone/it's famous" thing that bothers me and probably other people because it's fucking stupid. Please, your situation is a whole different thing from the paid mods topic, and to me you're just trying to advertise your services more.

scrap.tf is usable, but in a lot of cases "donationware" becomes nagware, where it's basically required if you actually want to do anything within a timely, complete manner.

I'm still writing an article about this by the way. The content is going to alter greatly due to the recent closure of the entire system, but I feel like I can still make a postmortem analysis of why it failed so miserably. The system fucked up based on a whole list of fuck-ups, and I think it would have worked if : - It came with a genuine pay what you want system with a small gap between zero dollar and the smallest possible fee (so that you can't buy a mod for a single cent which would be a financial nightmare). - The mods and modder selection had been more apt, rather than have half the list be composed of inexperienced modders who have only produced poor content or no skyrim content at all in the past. - The modders had been given more time to work on their product, and had been given the guideline of making a brand new product (would have avoided the isoku and skyUI debacle). Finally, I think the system would have seemed a lot more legitimate if the mod submission was not done via a greenlight-type system with a ton of stupid mods but instead worked on a professional selection done by Bethesda and Valve. Having these two companies directly contact modders (even through some form of automation) and propose them a deal to monetize their most popular mods would have allowed the selection to feel more professional and more legitimate. The community reacted really violently to the idea, sometimes way too violently, but Bethesda and Valve handled this whole thing really poorly. Goes to show that these two companies just have no clue what exactly makes their own consumer base happy.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;47616787] The system fucked up based on a whole list of fuck-ups, and I think it would have worked if : - It came with a genuine pay what you want system with a small gap between zero dollar and the smallest possible fee (so that you can't buy a mod for a single cent which would be a financial nightmare). [/QUOTE] It was going to feature that, but it wasn't implemented yet, actually.

[QUOTE=Grandzeit;47616802]It was going to feature that, but it wasn't implemented yet, actually.[/QUOTE] It should have featured the system from the start. [editline]28th April 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Prollgurke;47616555]Well, giving mod creators the opportunity to earn a living with their mods is one thing, but taking 75% off the creator is another. I'd rather have an explanation about why they thought it's fine to take 75% as a "fee" instead of making it similar to the steam market where it's 10% or something. It's good that they removed it but a donation option would still be nice. Even with a small fee of around 5-10% going to Valve just to finance the service and the support for it.[/QUOTE] 25% is pretty standard. Dota 2, TF2 and CS:GO have the same fee. Keep in mind that part of the 75% is support from bethesda and valve to the modders in case the API breaks or the mod somehow gets fucked along the way.

[QUOTE=WhyNott;47613501]Can people like valve again now[/QUOTE] Maybe when they actually fucking make a game

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;47616057]Say a modder creates a mod for Skyrim that has a dependency on another mod, but they manage to sort it out between the two of them as to how the money will be dealt with. Turns out, they'll split it. So, lets say this mod is a feature changing mod, not a skin or something but it does something to alter the gameplay. It's going to sell for 10$, it's dependency is on a sub set of animations. But okay, we're dealing with it, the pay is split, the 25% mod maker split is 20% for the main mod, 5% for the other mod. But that money is being dealt with on the honor system post cash out at the 100$ minimum point, that's 20$ to the animator, and 400$ in sales on a 10$ mod. That's not a huge deal but I'm curious as to how many people would buy a 10$ feature changing mod. DLC of equivalent cost for a game like Skyrim adds much more than that mod ads. Now, I have to wonder, how can a modder justify that price? How can a customer justify that price? How would developers like Bethesda handle that on their end? How would they see customers who do buy that stuff? We saw Horse Armor years ago. Do you think it'll get better? I'm genuinely curious as to how this is thought of in the minds of people who supported it in the first place.[/QUOTE] Would I buy it if it were labeled DLC and sold for $10 by the official developers? If yes, then yes. If no, then no. I'd happily pay even $15-20 for something adding expansion pack levels of content. If you're talking a more minor gameplay mod like a combat rebalance, a price of $2-3 seems more reasonable. If someone is pricing themselves out of the market then the issue is in their pricing scheme. What exactly are you asking here? [editline]28th April 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Ganerumo;47616787]Finally, I think the system would have seemed a lot more legitimate if the mod submission was not done via a greenlight-type system with a ton of stupid mods but instead worked on a professional selection done by Bethesda and Valve. [/QUOTE] Valve is probably the wrong company to be trying this, because they're trying to create self-curating marketplaces. Perhaps they could work it out by implementing a more robust review and rating system, allowing people to write comprehensive reviews of mods with a score that would affect how they are sorted, and providing more support for mods breaking or copyright infringement than their policy that was somewhere between 'ask nicely' and 'deal with it'. But ultimately any self-curating market is going to be flooded with cash grabs on day 1 before the system has a chance to police itself, and people aren't going to accept that at all now that it's already happened once.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;47616805] 25% is pretty standard. Dota 2, TF2 and CS:GO have the same fee. Keep in mind that part of the 75% is support from bethesda and valve to the modders in case the API breaks or the mod somehow gets fucked along the way.[/QUOTE] And of course the commercial use license for the engine. Btw. most Indie developers on Steam only get between 25% and 35% of every game sold (with another publisher and valve involved; not talking about self-publishing). That's why I get mad if people call the 25% unfair.

It was a good idea, but it was horribly implemented

[QUOTE=geel9;47616032]Donations on scrap.tf have received around $10,000 over three years. For a service with 1,000,000+ pageviews a day [b]and legitimate benefits for donating.[/b] There are no such incentives for donating to mods.[/QUOTE] Modders have different views from you. As much as it is your service is helpful, it's a complete different world from ours. You work on something that aids an economy; what we do is nothing like that. More often than not, we devote our time to creating content for the community. Some may deserve the money more than others, but despite this, most of us refuse money more often than not. What we do, more often than not, is not for some odd obsession for fame, money, or anything. We do it because it is what we enjoy. To me, what it sounds like coming from you is a business man's approach. You see neither our perspective nor do I believe have you done this. There is no incentive. You are correct. The only incentive is one's determining factor if a mod creator has released content worth surrendering only a tidbit of money. A donation should never be one with premium services or anything that gives benefits. Donation should be something that is done out the pure volition of people. If they do not donate, then this is how it shall be. It makes no difference in the long run. Giving an 'incentive' to donate is asinine. It takes out the complete point of a donation in the first place. And you also speak of common people as if they're mindless drones. Again, they're people of volition. Sure, they may be blind and prone to a few things, but they are human nonetheless. Gain some more insight and perspective in our point of view before you make such baseless conjecture.

I maintain my stance that I will buy a mod that is behind a paywall. It's against the modding spirit, and you can not continue to deny how money splits modding communities; since there are now permanant scars on the Skyrim community. Donations/Patreon are the way to go if you're so inclined as a modder where you want to make monsy off of it. It's just that if your mids or shit, or you're a shit person (ala Arthmoor), don't expect much. Also, why is it the consumer who doesn't want to get nickeled and dimed even more by game developers are the "entitled" ones, but not those that expect money put of every little thing they do?

[QUOTE=WhyNott;47613501]Can people like valve again now[/QUOTE] They fucked up pretty badly, people are going to be angry for a while and watching them like a hawk.

[QUOTE=josm;47617468]They fucked up pretty badly, people are going to be angry for a while and watching them like a hawk.[/QUOTE] There's already people praising lord gaben the almighty savior of our kind for listening and cutting the fiasco short, which I find really distressing. People go up in arms when something scandalous happens but the moment it's over they go back to droning all over gabe newell which is really annoying. I've had enough of him and valve being able to get away with all of this shit because people forget about the bad deeds the day after they were made up for.

[QUOTE=WhyNott;47613501]Can people like valve again now[/QUOTE] I'll like them when they get an actual customer support team, give Steam the overhaul it desperately needs, set up a refund policy that is AT LEAST as good as Origin's, and start talking with the community instead of radio silence (and that's not just for Half-Life 3, that's just in general). Valve has done a lot of good, and I didn't spend all that money on Steam for no reason, but they've fallen WAY behind and this is just another example of it. I'm glad they listened quickly here, but they have a long way to go before they're back in good graces.

Some people may go right back to supporting Valve, but all this has shown me is that Valve is really out of touch with their users now and I am not going to forget that they'll just implement shit out of nowhere if it means profits for them.

[QUOTE=MILKE;47617062]It was a good idea, but it was horribly implemented[/QUOTE] There is no way it would of been a good idea unless it supported the sale of conversion mods. They said themselves that's what they want! But selling content is a mess of stealing, competition, and low quality cashgrabs

[QUOTE=catbarf;47614379]If modders get anything from this debacle, it should be to learn to [url=https://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html]properly license their work[/url] before it gets ripped off and used in someone else's commercial project. Commercial writers get 25% revenue on completely original works. Amazon offers a service where people can write essentially fanfiction using an existing IP, and get 15% for it. Restaurant franchises skim 30% off the top just for the privilege of using the company's name. Steam itself takes 30% from all sales, [B]and if you license an engine for your 100% original game the pricing on something like Unreal is another 20-40%.[/B] If independent game developers licensing an existing engine and selling on Steam only get 30-50% of their gross revenue, there is no way in hell modders licensing an existing game and selling on Steam will ever get 75%. Not gonna happen.[/QUOTE] This is from like 5 pages ago, but like, um. 5%. And Unity is completely free after you pay $1500 for the license. [quote]Once you ship your game or application, you pay Epic 5% of gross revenue after the first $3,000 per product per calendar quarter.[/quote] [url]https://www.unrealengine.com/faq[/url]

[QUOTE=Mr. N;47618076]There is no way it would of been a good idea unless it supported the sale of conversion mods. They said themselves that's what they want! But selling content is a mess of stealing, competition, and low quality cashgrabs[/QUOTE] for me its the ingame advert factor. when any company implements ingame sellables (like DLC) they always try to advertise it to you which is annoying as hell. instead of just having good mods that make the gameplay better, its suddenly all about "HORSE ARMOR SALE $5.99!!!!"

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSypj0fNbaE[/media]

[QUOTE=DMGaina;47616922]And of course the commercial use license for the engine. Btw. most Indie developers on Steam only get between 25% and 35% of every game sold (with another publisher and valve involved; not talking about self-publishing). That's why I get mad if people call the 25% unfair.[/QUOTE] (actually indie developers themselves say the 25% is unfair because they're forced onto steam)

[QUOTE=xASTRIXx;47616768]1- why are you trying to compare your situation on a shit page that only does crafting or whatever for tf2, and the situation of thousands of modders? 2- I see your 'donator' thing more as a premium kind of service. 3- your page suffers and many of the .tf pages have the same kind of cancerous deal of favoritism, rankings, and "give this guy all this because he paid more than anyone/it's famous" thing that bothers me and probably other people because it's fucking stupid. Please, your situation is a whole different thing from the paid mods topic, and to me you're just trying to advertise your services more.[/QUOTE] Yes, I give a shit about the few facepunchers here using my site. Please. There's an allegory to be made. [QUOTE=HumanAbyss;47616186]So you agree with the idea that the nearly required to play Unofficial Skyrim Patch would reasonably been allowed to have been sold for whatever price the mod team deemed neccessary and that this is not only right for the market, but good for the market? Okay. If this turns most mods into small shitty mods(which in 3 days it did) then I fail to see how your argument holds any water.[/QUOTE] Do you deserve the Unofficial Skyrim Patch for free? [editline]28th April 2015[/editline] Content creators do not have to work for free, and they have a right (barring the law saying otherwise) to charge for their hard work and produce content. You do not have the right to get content for free that they do not want you to have for free, simply because you "disagree with their motives." They do not have the right to actually have sales, but they do have the right to not have to give their content away for free.

[QUOTE=geel9;47618235]Yes, I give a shit about the few facepunchers here using my site. Please. There's an allegory to be made. Do you deserve the Unofficial Skyrim Patch for free? [editline]28th April 2015[/editline] Content creators do not have to work for free, and they have a right (barring the law saying otherwise) to charge for their hard work and produce content. You do not have the right to get content for free that they do not want you to have for free, simply because you "disagree with their motives." They do not have the right to actually have sales, but they do have the right to not have to give their content away for free.[/QUOTE] If a mod author wants to be paid for their work, they can become a game developer or join a company that makes games, and if they do develop mods, they clearly have enough talent to start working on a standalone game. Besides, a person would rather pay five dollars to support the creator of a free mod rather than pay fifty cents to pay for a monetized mod. And I know I would.

[QUOTE=geel9;47618235] Content creators do not have to work for free, and they have a right (barring the law saying otherwise) to charge for their hard work and produce content. You do not have the right to get content for free that they do not want you to have for free, simply because you "disagree with their motives." They do not have the right to actually have sales, but they do have the right to not have to give their content away for free.[/QUOTE] Yes actually you're right, they don't. They have actual jobs and there is no, economic way to make this a 'living', its simply not feasible with the current game release model of a new installment every 1 to 3 years. The royalties system works for pieces of work that can last longer, like movies and books because people can buy them after the release of the movie or book. Videogames have a lifespan before they become unable to play due to code breaking or graphics cards moving beyond. There is a literal technological and hardware limitation to these games. That is not the case with movies and books. Stop. trying. to make what has been a traditionally egalitarian model monetized, that has never worked. All that happens when you introduce money into egalitarian models is locked away code and locked away abilities. The consumer doesn't win, and to be quite fucking frank, the consumer is more important than the content creator.

[QUOTE=WhyNott;47613501]Can people like valve again now[/QUOTE] That's implying there's anything left to like about them.

Go away Geel.

[QUOTE=Kybalt;47618113]This is from like 5 pages ago, but like, um. 5%. And Unity is completely free after you pay $1500 for the license. [url]https://www.unrealengine.com/faq[/url][/QUOTE] Yeah, that's UE4, and it's been the hot news of the past few months, because Unreal is finally going to be able to compete with products like Unity. Until recently the UDK licensing page said this: [quote]A team creates a game with UDK that they intend to sell. After six months of development, they release the game through digital distribution and they earn $60,000 in the first calendar quarter after release. Their use of UDK during development requires no fee. Upon release they would pay US $99.99 for a Royalty Bearing license. After earning $60,000, they would be required to pay Epic $2,500 ($0 on the first $50,000 in revenue, and $2,500 on the next $10,000 in revenue). On subsequent revenue, they are required to pay the 25% royalty.[/quote] 25% royalty was considered [I]low[/I] in the late-2000s, especially when a full license for unlimited commercial use of the Unreal 3 engine tended to be anywhere from $600k to $1.2 million. Add on the 30% Steam fee, and most professional devs who licensed an engine are getting under 50% back on their wholly-original work. I don't see how anyone could look at that and think that a monetization scheme where modders get a higher percentage than the original devs is likely to happen.

I don't see the victory in this. It just shows the organization's intentions, and so now everyone loses instead of just consumers. I'm now considering moving to GOG; I don't feel like I have any incentive to continue purchasing games from Steam considering Valve's platform continues to introduce changes to the game industry that I have no interest in at all, and consider them to be primarily monetization introductions that are not friendly to the consumer. It also doesn't help that Valve has made it clear the Half-Life series is no longer being worked on. I don't care how they word it. I don't want to give them my money—not a cent. I haven't bought games in a while now, but I made a mistake purchasing GTA V through them instead of elsewhere. Unfortunately, I don't think most people care or see reason to move. So I'm sure I'm in a minority here, but I can't continue to support a company that continues to dismiss its customers, regardless of how they dance around with PR, and ignore a fanbase that's been waiting for a sequel for nearly a decade.

How the fuck can you people claim that because people used to work for free, they [b]have to from now on?[/b] "They can join a game development studio" OH THANK GOD! It's everyone's DREAM to join a shitty overworking underpaying studio! "It used to be free" get the FUCK over yourselves. All you care about is the ability to get free content without having to pay. If a modder wants to work from the goodness of their heart, they can. If they don't want to, they don't fucking have to, you selfish conniving dickbags.

I already spend enough fucking money on games and their DLC, I don't need to add the costs of mods in top of it. The consumer weighs far more than the producer.

[QUOTE=geel9;47618469]How the fuck can you people claim that because people used to work for free, they [b]have to from now on?[/b] "They can join a game development studio" OH THANK GOD! It's everyone's DREAM to join a shitty overworking underpaying studio! "It used to be free" get the FUCK over yourselves. All you care about is the ability to get free content without having to pay. If a modder wants to work from the goodness of their heart, they can. If they don't want to, they don't fucking have to, you selfish conniving dickbags.[/QUOTE] You sound about as disconnected from reality as Valve does, maybe you should go work for them and further their efforts to generate profit off small models placed on characters' heads.