Valve... pressure... I see what you did there.
I'm glad you did, because I didn't... I'll just pretend like I meant to say it...
Valve shuts down paid mod system after pressure from gamers
11–20 of 282 posts
Re: Valve shuts down paid mod system after pressure from gamers
#12I think Valve/Steam (and Bethesda) really screwed up on this one. Although the idea of modders being fairly compensated for their work is a great idea the execution was poor at best. Only 25% going to the content creators? Really? And a poor returns mechanism, getting a refund gets you banned from the steam store for 7 days to stop abuse. That's a poor returns policy when you're buying things like mods that might be…
I think the more important thing is they actually responded to their users. Valve is a model company. Live and learn.
Yet people (primarily redditors) were swearing up and down that our complaints meant nothing and that we were wasting our time and that Valve only cared about money.
Like seriously, have those people been paying attention? If anybody is going to listen to their userbase, admit their mistake, and do a 180, it's Valve.
Re: Valve shuts down paid mod system after pressure from gamers
#13I think Valve/Steam (and Bethesda) really screwed up on this one. Although the idea of modders being fairly compensated for their work is a great idea the execution was poor at best. Only 25% going to the content creators? Really? And a poor returns mechanism, getting a refund gets you banned from the steam store for 7 days to stop abuse. That's a poor returns policy when you're buying things like mods that might be…
I agree with everything you said, but it seemed like a lot of the more nuanced feedback on this was drowned out by a subset of gamers having a screaming tantrum at the suggestion of paying anything for a mod, regardless of where the money was going.
I'm hopeful that Valve will eventually try this again on a new game with a fairer compensation structure and a better community infrastructure in place. I'm not so hopeful that that same subset of gamers won't have a tantrum all over again.
Re: Valve shuts down paid mod system after pressure from gamers
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ditto. I'd quite happily pay for mods - they add value, there's more a chance of bugs being fixed, Steam would make installation less of a hassle. But 25% going to the authors is awful. The game's original creators - who already benefit from increased sales - additionally get more of the revenue than the actual mod creator.
This is true, and if you read into it you'll find that it wasn't anything to do with Valve, but actually Bethesda who defined the 25%, they've already profited immensely from the game and I found it quite hard to swallow that they were not stiffing dedicated content creators.
I struggle to see why Bethesda has any say at all. They need Valve/Steam more than Valve/Steam need Bethesda. What, are they going to launch their own paid mod system? Who would waste their time with that? Seems to me like Valve holds all the cards...
edit: And maybe Bethesda would've taken their ball and gone home for any less, but I'm sure Valve could've found another developer. They probably should have ,given Bethesda's bad reputation for making games that need bug-fixing mods, terrible DLC, and the vastness of the FREE modding community.
Re: Valve shuts down paid mod system after pressure from gamers
#15Ha! They actually caved! Incredible.
I've been following the evolution of the situation very closely, as i'm actually a big believer in paid mods.
Valve's problem, I believe, was trying to take an existing ecosystem/market that wasn't geared towards financial rewards, and tried to force it on it. Even if 75% would have gone to the mod developers, the community would still resist the change, since that's what the human mind is programmed to do, and tight communities like those operate like a hive-mind, causing the outburst to be exponentially stronger.
Edit:
Forgot to add, all the talk about "open collaboration cannot happen in an ecosystem with financial incentives" - I call BS.
Compare this to the world of software development and open source - which is thriving. Mega corps & the little guy/girl building production quality libraries and systems which generate big ass revenue streams.
What's the difference between a mod's code and an [insert your favorite package manager here] package? Right, there's graphic assets, but maybe someone's missing a collaborative graphic design market?
Game development is heading the same directions as the start-up world - from an industry where only the big boys can play, to a collaborative effort where the execution matters & creativity thrives.
Re: Valve shuts down paid mod system after pressure from gamers
#16I think Valve/Steam (and Bethesda) really screwed up on this one. Although the idea of modders being fairly compensated for their work is a great idea the execution was poor at best. Only 25% going to the content creators? Really? And a poor returns mechanism, getting a refund gets you banned from the steam store for 7 days to stop abuse. That's a poor returns policy when you're buying things like mods that might be…
Ditto. I'd quite happily pay for mods - they add value, there's more a chance of bugs being fixed, Steam would make installation less of a hassle. But 25% going to the authors is awful. The game's original creators - who already benefit from increased sales - additionally get more of the revenue than the actual mod creator.
I don't understand, Steam hosts mods for free, so why would they want such a huge chunk? Then Bethesda just needs a minor incentive for developing the mod tools, which were already funded for the creation of the game (I imagine they use the same tools, if not something more advanced, correct me if I'm wrong?). In fact the mod tools don't get updated all that often after being released as far as I'm aware.
Re: Valve shuts down paid mod system after pressure from gamers
#17I think Valve/Steam (and Bethesda) really screwed up on this one. Although the idea of modders being fairly compensated for their work is a great idea the execution was poor at best. Only 25% going to the content creators? Really? And a poor returns mechanism, getting a refund gets you banned from the steam store for 7 days to stop abuse. That's a poor returns policy when you're buying things like mods that might be…
I think the more important thing is they actually responded to their users. Valve is a model company. Live and learn.
I don't to sound like a pessimist but reading the blog post on Steam I can't help but notice:
"We understand our own game's communities pretty well, but stepping into an established, years old modding community in Skyrim was probably not the right place to start iterating."
Translation: "We'll let it go this time". It wouldn't surprise me if the next Bethesda game had that very same system baked-in right from the start.
Re: Valve shuts down paid mod system after pressure from gamers
#18I think Valve/Steam (and Bethesda) really screwed up on this one. Although the idea of modders being fairly compensated for their work is a great idea the execution was poor at best. Only 25% going to the content creators? Really? And a poor returns mechanism, getting a refund gets you banned from the steam store for 7 days to stop abuse. That's a poor returns policy when you're buying things like mods that might be…
The whole EA getting off Steam fiasco is something similar, except a new policy in Steam wants 30% of anyone's revenue for DLC even if you setup your own payment system, and distribution system. So Steam would be getting money for doing absolutely nothing.
Doesn't Valve bring in the users and the channel to them ?
Re: Valve shuts down paid mod system after pressure from gamers
#19I think Valve/Steam (and Bethesda) really screwed up on this one. Although the idea of modders being fairly compensated for their work is a great idea the execution was poor at best. Only 25% going to the content creators? Really? And a poor returns mechanism, getting a refund gets you banned from the steam store for 7 days to stop abuse. That's a poor returns policy when you're buying things like mods that might be…
Ditto. I'd quite happily pay for mods - they add value, there's more a chance of bugs being fixed, Steam would make installation less of a hassle. But 25% going to the authors is awful. The game's original creators - who already benefit from increased sales - additionally get more of the revenue than the actual mod creator.
Unfortunately, I think this concern will be lost in the noise. The most noise on this issue seems to have been that gamers do not want to pay for mods and not that modders feel they are being unfairly compensated.
I really don't have an issue with paying for good mods and in fact I was really excited by the initial announcement because I would have totally gotten into game modding if I could earn some significant supplemental income doing it.
Re: Valve shuts down paid mod system after pressure from gamers
#20I think Valve/Steam (and Bethesda) really screwed up on this one. Although the idea of modders being fairly compensated for their work is a great idea the execution was poor at best. Only 25% going to the content creators? Really? And a poor returns mechanism, getting a refund gets you banned from the steam store for 7 days to stop abuse. That's a poor returns policy when you're buying things like mods that might be…
They still think that "the problem" was that they were asking for mods to be compensated(and that the exiting mod community doesn't like commercialism), not that they were keeping 3/4 of it.
Valve kept 30%, Bethesda kept 45% and modders got the rest. It's not just Valve's fault.