Steam paid mods still under consideration at Valve: "We screwed things up in the details" - Sensationalist Headlines

[QUOTE=wauterboi;48942926]If that's the case, protest that and not the paid mod system as a whole. I'm sure people were doing that and I missed it, but reading through online comments I just kept hearing "this is stupid" and not why.[/QUOTE] Literally all they have to do is have support for a donate button. Nexus does it and you know how many people bitched? 0.

Probably because no one used it.

[QUOTE=wauterboi;48950422]See, when you say "make a donation option", what you mean is "make a button that I won't use". Be honest, because statistically this is true. [url]https://synergy-project.org/purchase/faq/[/url] Sure, get upset with Steam's cutting up of funds and failure to provide quality control, but no should pretend that donations matter, because chances are they won't. Ever.[/QUOTE] Really though, is it? I'm a ridiculously charitable person when it comes to things and people I like. Hell, I'd even donate a dollar or two to whoever makes the first instakill headshot mod for FO4 if it ends up having the same damage system as 3/NV because I hate coating somebody's face in lead before they die and I'd consider that mod, easy as it is to do, essential. [editline]21st October 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=wauterboi;48953200]Probably because no one used it.[/QUOTE] Source statistics and then we'll talk.

[QUOTE=RichyZ;48946451]I'm way more likely to donate through the more secure Steam payment process than having to set all my shit up for whatever the Nexus does.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=J!NX;48946472]I've never even seen the donation button wherever the fuck they put it, they should make it obvious[/QUOTE] They should really big up the donators in the same way Patreon and Twitch streamers do. I think the ego boost from getting a tier on Patreon or a verbal thank you from the streamer really greases the wheels. [QUOTE=wauterboi;48953200]Probably because no one used it.[/QUOTE] There's several Minecraft modders I can find who have a Patreon, some of which get hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month. It can and does get used, just not via innocuous green buttons in the corner of the page. But that's prohibited by Bethesda's legal team AFAIK, presumably because they want some of it for themselves.

[QUOTE=wauterboi;48942871]I still don't know what's wrong with paid mods. Don't buy stuff you don't want, and support those who do cool stuff. If you don't like it, move on with your life and keep doing what you were doing.[/QUOTE] There are serious issues with it from a community standpoint, it's toxic to the entire point of mod communities and the reason why we mod in the first place. Everyone loses except for Valve/publisher who make money, and the "whale" mod creators who exploit the community for their popularity. These kinds of mod creators have already made the elder scrolls modding community pretty toxic compared to how it used to be in the morrowind/oblivion days, and paid mods emphasize modders to be just that even more. I've been modding for years and there is no way I'd support paid mods in any game that has true mod support Steam Workshop for something like DOTA2 and TF2 is fine, because that's a completely different thing that isn't just paid mods. Its actual content that is curated by valve to be put into a game where the only things that can be changed are cosmetics. [editline]21st October 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=wauterboi;48950422]See, when you say "make a donation option", what you mean is "make a button that I won't use". Be honest, because statistically this is true. [url]https://synergy-project.org/purchase/faq/[/url] Sure, get upset with Steam's cutting up of funds and failure to provide quality control, but no should pretend that donations matter, because chances are they won't. Ever.[/QUOTE] "Donations don't matter" More like poorly advertised, hidden, legal-grey-area donations (in most cases getting paid to mod is literally illegal) using unofficial channels that most people don't know about don't matter. Patreon and Kickstarter alone has proven that donations actually matter a lot. You just have to you know... actually inspire people to donate enough to want to donate. And make it easy to do so through services that are guaranteed/trusted, and easily visible. And kickstarter/patreon has also proven that while donations matter, they only do if whatever you are doing is relevant enough for people to want to donate. A random program isn't going to inspire anyone to donate (or for that matter.. buy). A big project that excites you backed by trustworthy people? A content creator who makes him/herself known for making great stuff and wants to be supported? These are the things that get money on kickstarter and patreon. For every success story on these services there are thousands of failures, because people just assume donation = plz make me a lot of money. It doesn't, and most of the time people aren't gonna donate shit. Guess what, selling it vs a donation model wouldn't work any better.

From personal experience; I've never ever donated to a mod and probably never would. I think that's the same for most gamers too. If I played a mod that really blew me away, I might reconsider, but the only thing that comes close was Black Mesa (Which I did buy). Now if there was a really well made mod up for sale (Talking about expansive additions or extensive overhauling), I'd be up for buying it. I think opening up the market for paid mods will usher in better/larger mods and I'm all for that. The details have to be ironed out though, and Valve should take less of a cut and front that to the developers.

[QUOTE=KorJax;48953288]There are serious issues with it from a community standpoint, it's toxic to the entire point of mod communities and the reason why we mod in the first place. Everyone loses except for Valve/publisher who make money, and the "whale" mod creators who exploit the community for their popularity. These kinds of mod creators have already made the elder scrolls modding community pretty toxic compared to how it used to be in the morrowind/oblivion days, and paid mods emphasize modders to be just that even more. I've been modding for years and there is no way I'd support paid mods in any game that has true mod support Steam Workshop for something like DOTA2 and TF2 is fine, because that's a completely different thing that isn't just paid mods. Its actual content that is curated by valve to be put into a game where the only things that can be changed are cosmetics. [editline]21st October 2015[/editline] "Donations don't matter" More like poorly advertised, hidden, legal-grey-area donations (in most cases getting paid to mod is literally illegal) using unofficial channels that most people don't know about don't matter. Patreon and Kickstarter alone has proven that donations actually matter a lot. You just have to you know... actually inspire people to donate enough to want to donate. And make it easy to do so through services that are guaranteed/trusted, and easily visible. And kickstarter/patreon has also proven that while donations matter, they only do if whatever you are doing is relevant enough for people to want to donate. A random program isn't going to inspire anyone to donate (or for that matter.. buy). A big project that excites you backed by trustworthy people? A content creator who makes him/herself known for making great stuff and wants to be supported? These are the things that get money on kickstarter and patreon. For every success story on these services there are thousands of failures, because people just assume donation = plz make me a lot of money. It doesn't, and most of the time people aren't gonna donate shit. Guess what, selling it vs a donation model wouldn't work any better.[/QUOTE] Kickstarter is not a "donation." Kickstarter is used by the vast majority of people because of the perks associated with your contribution. It's essentially fucking preordering something.

[QUOTE=Inspector Jones;48953524]From personal experience; I've never ever donated to a mod and probably never would. I think that's the same for most gamers too. If I played a mod that really blew me away, I might reconsider, but the only thing that comes close was Black Mesa (Which I did buy). Now if there was a really well made mod up for sale (Talking about expansive additions or extensive overhauling), I'd be up for buying it. I think opening up the market for paid mods will usher in better/larger mods and I'm all for that. The details have to be ironed out though, and Valve should take less of a cut and front that to the developers.[/QUOTE] The difference between Black Mesa and 99% of mods is that 99% of mods are abysmal. And considering how many abortions that they've allowed through Greenlight, Valve aren't even going to try and moderate it. I'm guess they're going to run it on "The community can take care of itself" without realizing that most of the community is cancer.

[QUOTE=geel9;48954653]Kickstarter is not a "donation." Kickstarter is used by the vast majority of people because of the perks associated with your contribution. It's essentially fucking preordering something.[/QUOTE] Not at all. From the Kickstarter FAQ: [QUOTE]At the same time, backers must understand that Kickstarter is [B]not a store[/B]. When you back a project, you’re helping to create something new — not ordering something that already exists.[/QUOTE] Realistically it's neither a business transaction nor a donation, because you're getting something out of it presumably but with no guarantees. But it would be far more wise to consider it a donation, that is to say, no legal strings attached. At best you 'may' be able to get a refund if the project has any money left to give should it ultimately fail, but there are no guarantees there will be any money left. [QUOTE=megafat;48956690]The difference between Black Mesa and 99% of mods is that 99% of mods are abysmal. And considering how many abortions that they've allowed through Greenlight, Valve aren't even going to try and moderate it. I'm guess they're going to run it on "The community can take care of itself" without realizing that most of the community is cancer.[/QUOTE] It's far more realistic to believe that Valve knows, yet doesn't care. From the reasons you yourself listed, plus the constant criticism that gets thrown around, in addition to the their abysmal Customer Service you don't 'just' not notice. Particularly when companies pay people with the explicit purpose of doing the noticing. Instead it's more likely that Valve has figured out that it's cheaper to do nothing. They can pass off the effort to the community, much like they did for content production in TF2, CSGO, and DotA, and make/save ungodly sums of money without ever having to lift a finger.

[QUOTE=Digivee;48946526]The thing with donating is that unless you made an amazing, gamechanging mod, people wont really bother to give you money unless they have to.[/QUOTE] Make a mod worth donating to. Problem solved. [editline]21st October 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=megafat;48956690] And considering how many abortions that they've allowed through Greenlight, Valve aren't even going to try and moderate it. I'm guess they're going to run it on "The community can take care of itself" without realizing that most of the community is cancer.[/QUOTE] Steam Greenlight has shown that people vote in shit just to laugh. 100 Dollars and shitty free copies is all you need for a guaranteed successful Greenlight campaign.

[QUOTE=Rangergxi;48956933]Make a mod worth donating to. Problem solved.[/QUOTE] This doesn't change the fact that there's legal higher ground when you decide to work with companies to accomplish cool stuff. More importantly, there are some cool fucking mods and cool games that have started as mods, and sometimes their value is equal to or greater than the actual game, and I'd gladly pay for some of them and encourage people to work harder on the gameplay mods they create. We can start at the very basics of Valve mods, in which developers on this very forum have become too caught up with school, work, and life to consider modding a fruitful endeavor, which ends projects I would've enjoyed in my Steam library. Garry's Mod is another example of a video game that could benefit from people working harder and receiving some level of reciprocity for the stuff they do. They've established markets for working on stuff, but a direct line from Garry's Mod to paid mods would be awesome for some of the people I know and love in the Lua dev forum, who could then produce better content because it results in some extra cash flow. Sure, it's easy to shit out awful content, but are you going to say that people shouldn't try to look at modding as something that can [url=http://www.blackmesasource.com/]blossom into something serious that could ever be worth paying for[/url]? Mind you, sometimes they get into legal grey area [url=http://wiki.blackmesasource.com/Donations]that makes it impossible for donations to even occur[/url], and stunt development: [quote]The Black Mesa dev team can't and will not accept donations. The main reason for this is the fact that they are using someone else's engine and intellectual property (Half-Life). The Source engine belongs to Valve and hence the dev team aren't allowed to make money from it without a commercial license. The ads on the website generate enough money to keep the site up and running. If you have the money and really want to do something with it, go and give it to some charity such as Child's Play. [/quote] [editline]21st October 2015[/editline] The best thing, however, is it can also provide serious competition for the big guys with their AAA titles. I've had far more fun playing indie games than most AAA titles provide nowadays. Modding can contribute to more underground indie games that encourage people to support. The "pay-what-you-want" and donation model only works if you're prominent enough to matter. [url]http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/26/when-pay-what-want-means-dont-pay-online-bookshop[/url]

[QUOTE=geel9;48954653]Kickstarter is not a "donation." Kickstarter is used by the vast majority of people because of the perks associated with your contribution. It's essentially fucking preordering something.[/QUOTE] While that is the popular "image" of kickstarter among the game community, it is unfortunately completely incorrect and the reason why people get burned when their project they backed ends up going nowhere. Kickstarter is absolutely a donation, you just get "perks" for donating a certain amount. This literally isn't any different than donating to big charities, who will often send you something to thank you for your donation if you donate a certain amount. You are not guaranteed to get whatever the project you back says you will get. You aren't even guaranteed to get the rewards for backing in a certain tier. Any money you put into kickstarter is a donation on good faith that the people behind the project will stand up to their word and deliver. It is in a way "investing-lite", because you risk your investment for the promise of return just like a real investor. Except n Kickstarter's case, the reward tier you backed is your return and not actual money.

[QUOTE=kaukassus;48942906]If the modders get 100% of the money, then I'm fine, but as of right now, they get a very sad amount of money. Not to mention the fact that as shown in the last attempt at monetizing, the community will turn into a wild mob of witch hunters, aggressively bullying every modder that makes paid mods out of the community.[/QUOTE] Valve is the middle man so them taking a cut could be justified, but 25% is absolute bullshit.

My prediction still stands: UT4 will cost ~$20 due to the paid mods debacle.

50%dev, 25%Steam and 25%creator? How about 33% to everyone? [sp]Might be optimistic but it would better tho.[/sp]

[QUOTE=flashn00b;48967031]My prediction still stands: UT4 will cost ~$20 due to the paid mods debacle.[/QUOTE] Except not because it was already confirmed that UT4 is going to be free but entirely supported by "paid mods" from the ground up as a part of the game's design.

Gabe's insatiable appetite for money is going to bring Valve's reputation to Korean MMO levels of sketch.

[QUOTE=KorJax;48974550]Except not because it was already confirmed that UT4 is going to be free but entirely supported by "paid mods" from the ground up as a part of the game's design.[/QUOTE] Should Epic keep the game free, I imagine that they'll be bombarded by complaints about how they have to spend money on mods. A $20 price tag would keep modding free, though I understand that it would be at the expense of people entering the gaming industry. Either way, Unreal Tournament's sorta kinda fucked thanks to Skyrim.

[QUOTE=RichyZ;48942909]The way they were implemented were shit and having mods that are necessary to run other mods being paid really complicates the system. Let's not forget that only 25% went to the modder and they could only withdraw money at $100 worth of earnings (aka 400 in sales) as steam funny money (iirc).[/QUOTE] The minimum amount withdrawal thing is true, but you did get paid in real money. People had to set up like a place to deposit the money though I forget exactly how it worked. I think you hooked your bank account to it or something. That said 25% is huge, considering how in other industries like music or movies, royalties are like 5-10%. 25%, considering distribution is already handled and the developer is licensing their engine and providing the development tools for free, is incredibly generous and is pretty much unprecedented. People think 25% is small, until you actually take a look at how business works in the real world. Then you realize that 25% is unbelievably fair. I had other problems with the system, though. Mods on the Steam Workshop sorta preclude the use of tools like Mod Organizer and Wrye Bash. What you are paying for, in effect, is a vastly inferior modding experience. There are ways around this, but this is complicated and obnoxious to deal with. There's also problems with guaranteeing quality on purchases. There's no assurance that these mods would work after game updates, or that the modder themselves would fix bugs. There are certain protections in place with current published games, but I don't know that those exist with Steam mods. It's a very volatile way to do business. Then you have problems with mod compatability. I buy one person's mod, but it isn't compatible with another person's mod I bought. Whose responsibility is it to fix it? Will it be fixed at all? Will the user need to resolve the issues themselves? These are some real problems.

[QUOTE=SGTNAPALM;48982205]That said 25% is huge, considering how in other industries like music or movies, royalties are like 5-10%. 25%, considering distribution is already handled and the developer is licensing their engine and providing the development tools for free, is incredibly generous and is pretty much unprecedented. People think 25% is small, until you actually take a look at how business works in the real world. Then you realize that 25% is unbelievably fair.[/QUOTE] Regardless of whether 25% is fair (if the system would become available for my games, I think I'd provide a higher cut myself), it's really irrelevant to the community what that cut is. The entire system is entirely voluntary for the modder. If the modder feels the cut is too low, they just don't make a mod for that system. In producing video games, I've dealt with companies offering a wide variety of royalty rates, and I've turned some down for being too low. Yet, over the years, not a single person has ever suggested they'd be upset if that rate happened to be particularly low for a distributor. It's really no different here.

I hate it when people want to monetize something that's been free for years.

[QUOTE=NoobSauce;48982999]I hate it when people want to monetize something that's been free for years.[/QUOTE] Specially something that was free for over 25 years at this point.

[QUOTE=NoobSauce;48982999]I hate it when people want to monetize something that's been free for years.[/QUOTE] If mods are monetized, modders can put a great deal more time into producing them, and higher-skilled people will stay around producing content that's well beyond typical modding levels. It's the exact same reason we pay for video games in general. Most of the arguments I've seen can apply to video games just as well: Some video games/mods will be produced with stolen content: Has happened, never gets very far. Someone will just sell my video game/mod as if it's theirs: Not actually aware of this happening recently, it's one of those ways to get dinged for huge fines under copyright law. Game/Mod will be unsupported: More relevant for mods, but there's no legal guarantee of support for video games - at least, not that's been tested in court to my knowledge. Modders that want to make more money will provide ongoing support, more often than if unpaid. Game/Mod making use of other games'/mods' content: Up to the licensing for the base content. See Garrysmod for a locally relevant example of this working just fine. Awful pricing for game/mod: Don't buy stupidly priced products, [I]of any kind[/I]. If you wouldn't buy a gallon of milk for $25, why would you buy horse armor for $5? Previously free game/mod going paid: This is only a problem if you feel especially entitled to others' work. Developer/Modder gets a low cut: Has nothing to do with you. If you're a modder, just don't make a paid mod. If you're a developer, don't produce a game. As a developer, should I find myself between jobs, I would happily produce a paid mod if it proved to be viable. However, I just don't have the time to put into modding anything for free.

[QUOTE=NoobSauce;48982999]I hate it when people want to monetize something that's been free for years.[/QUOTE] Oh [b]GOD[/b], the creator is asking me to pay $1-2 for a mod/product that took a half year of their spare-time? But lets not stop there.. [b]All games[/b] should be free! I hate it when people ask for money for something that have been free (Free to play) for years. Valve start packing up, no one will pay your bills anymore. That counts for you too EA. Yes. It does kinda sound a bit arrogant. [snip the rant]

I think my biggest problem with this is Valve's involvement tbh. I rather have the game developers set up their own programs where modders can apply for partnerships and submit their mods to be served up as "player-created DLC" or something. Valve should figure out greenlight before attempting this a second time.

How long before Valve starts outsourcing feature deployment to the community. I bet the dream is to let off everything that works there and just have the Steam Workshop self-sustain everything.

[QUOTE=Nak;48984268]Oh [b]GOD[/b], the creator is asking me to pay $1-2 for a mod/product that took a half year of their spare-time? But lets not stop there.. [b]All games[/b] should be free! I hate it when people ask for money for something that have been free (Free to play) for years. Valve start packing up, no one will pay your bills anymore. That counts for you too EA. Yes. It does kinda sound a bit arrogant. I also agree with mobrockers. If the community can't get its head around $1-2 items on the workshop .. then why would they use the 'donate'-button? And don't dare to start the "Authors set the prize too high"-bullshit. Make it yourself and set it to a lower prize. [url=http://time.com/4084455/aids-drung-martin-shkreli/]Learn how the market works[/url]. What they should fix: - Add a "free mods"-filter for those who can't spare 0.9-5 dollars. - Give the author 70-75% of the cut, steam 25% for 'handling' the money and the game-creators 0% since you already brought the game. - Add a dusty 'donate'-button. (It would be used just as much as the one on winrar). - Add some sort of quality check and ID handling. So the workshop won't accept a mod that's 80% identical to another. - Chain the creator to update/fix the mod, until a year after it have been pulled from the workshop. - If people still don't get it. Change "Payed mods" to "Workshop DLC's"[/QUOTE] The "Don't buy it if you don't like it" model doesn't work when something doesn't end up working advertised, i.e. Assassin's Creed: Unity, Batman: Arkham City and Watch_Dogs on PC or 98% of all Greenlight games being complete piece of shit.

[QUOTE=Nak;48984268]Oh [b]GOD[/b], the creator is asking me to pay $1-2 for a mod/product that took a half year of their spare-time? But lets not stop there.. [b]All games[/b] should be free! I hate it when people ask for money for something that have been free (Free to play) for years. Valve start packing up, no one will pay your bills anymore. That counts for you too EA. Yes. It does kinda sound a bit arrogant. I also agree with mobrockers. If the community can't get its head around $1-2 items on the workshop .. then why would they use the 'donate'-button? And don't dare to start the "Authors set the prize too high"-bullshit. Make it yourself and set it to a lower prize. [url=http://time.com/4084455/aids-drung-martin-shkreli/]Learn how the market works[/url]. What they should fix: - Add a "free mods"-filter for those who can't spare 0.9-5 dollars. - Give the author 70-75% of the cut, steam 25% for 'handling' the money and the game-creators 0% since you already brought the game. - Add a dusty 'donate'-button. (It would be used just as much as the one on winrar). - Add some sort of quality check and ID handling. So the workshop won't accept a mod that's 80% identical to another. - Chain the creator to update/fix the mod, until a year after it have been pulled from the workshop. - If people still don't get it. Change "Payed mods" to "Workshop DLC's"[/QUOTE] wow, someone is really missing the point, almost as if you don't get it the mods workshop lasted less than a week and we already saw a huge amount of crap. Abused from unfinished mods, no refunds for broken mods after X time, C&D/copyright issues, a mod that literally had no content and had "promised in the future huge updates", all within the [u]first official paid mods[/u]. It's all from third party content that people volunteered to make themselves as a hobby. THe worst part is, that 75% of money taken from the payment shows that paid mods wasn't about supporting the modders, it was entirely made to monetize mods. people aren't saying everything should be free either (0 people said anything close to that), why use such an inane hyperbole to try and support your own point. Games aren't free because they're built generally from the ground up rather than being 'tiny additions from a third party'. They're their own entity as a whole, not a tiny niblet of one. They have enough content to be a purely stand alone game, same thing with full conversion mods, or something like tf, CS, or gmod. the mods being sold for 2$ on the workshop had 20% the price of garrys mod and about 50000 times less content, most of them took about 2 hours to finish, not half a year. Paid mods shouldn't be based around an already paid-for game. It should be optional, as well as handled like cosmetic items in free to play games, as secondaries. Completely separate from everything. it should also actually support modders, not take 75% of the cut away. and half a year of their spare time? They never had to do anything, modders have always done it in their spare time, as a hobby, as a "ehh, I'm bored and want to create" thing, they've never done it for payment. They could have simply not made the mod had it been that inconvenient, because modders don't do it out of convenience, they do it out of wanting to do it. Why the fuck should they be paid all of a sudden. and the worst part is? Someone out there could release a 20$ mod that fixes the game and some people literally cannot play without it, and get away with it. Imagine if everyone had to pay for "dark souls fix" just to play the game, and pull a C&D on anyone who tries to copy the code or god forbid, release it publicly. And then an update breaks it, and it doesn't get fixed, but no one gets a refund. [editline]26th October 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Cassel;48984504]I think my biggest problem with this is Valve's involvement tbh. I rather have the game developers set up their own programs where modders can apply for partnerships and submit their mods to be served up as "player-created DLC" or something. Valve should figure out greenlight before attempting this a second time.[/QUOTE] to be honest, no matter how valve does it, I think it'd be a disaster if they did try it again. Epic games should be able to pull it off, but valve absolutely should make no attempt. Epic is far more involved with their community than valve ever could be.

[QUOTE=Nak;48984268]text[/QUOTE] Insufferable strawman aside, there's no money to be made in "workshop DLCs". So Valve/dev takes a blow to its cut [I]and[/I] has to curate submissions for copyright infringement, copied content, maybe even quality control. And this more than likely wouldn't be a volunteer position because when profit is introduced, all parties become liable for litigation so now money is coming out of their pockets to fund a system to keep track of mods. Stop being so naive and realize that modders weren't being paid before, because we're all jobless 14 year olds, but because establishing a market that is profitable for all parties is impossible. There is fair reason to expect mods to be free, for pragmatic reasons and the ideological purity of mods being untouched by the mad profit seeking that permeates gaming today, AAA and indie alike.

funny thing is, like 90% of the paid mods that were officially out there would have taken less than 5 hours to make and didn't even have anything at all to emulate the idea of "This took effort" everyone just pooped on a plate and tried to sell it. Imagine how screwed the skyrim workshop community would be after just 1 month of paid mods, everyone would try to make 0 effort scam mods and then now fix them after they break from an update. the first official batch had "Hey, I made a crowbar/sword/armor/slutty woman armor model, use console to spawn" levels of quality control. nothing was unique, it was filled with mods that already existed in the thousands, and yet people were expected to pay for that [B]shit[/B]. it created immediate mass drama and the amount of controversy it caused forced Valve to shut it down with everything they had.