151–160 of 282 posts
So far the paid mods have generated $10K total. That's like 1% of the cost of the incremental email the program has generated for Valve employees (yes, I mean pissing off the Internet costs you a million bucks in just a couple of days).
https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33uplp/mods_and_ste...
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> In the end, most modders don't WANT to be paid for their mods, because it's not a profession. I saw plenty of support for a donation system, however. So in the end, most modders don't WANT to be paid for their mods, except they do WANT to be paid and call it a donation?
When you buy something you have some expectations. You'll want the mod to be stable, be updated along with the game, play along with other mods. If you are the seller, and you got paid, that means work. Give support or get shouted at by dozens of angry customers. Reply to emails for months to come when a competitor modder added your mod features to his mod and why the hell are you charging 4.99 if it's worth 1.99 and…
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Valve introduced DRM to the PC gaming world in late 2004 Utter nonsense. Have you never played an abandonware game from the late 80s and early 90s? "Enter the first letter of the third word on page 14 of the manual"? I used to get pirated Amiga 500 floppies with the copy protection stripped out and a little boot animation from the pirates inserted. Valve introduced Steam to the PC gaming world... but then again, it's…
You are wrong. DRM != copy protection You can own the DVD with a copy protection and even legally create a backup-copy. You simply cannot own a DRM product, as its bound to a server side check. DRM products may suddenly vanish from your PC, or change its content. Valve already wiped some games and changed the regional settings (removing games from certain parts of the world in retrospect) and Rockstar released an aut…
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If you make a Mickey Mouse sequel using derivative assets, how much of a cut would Disney want? Keeping in mind the assets would be open to competing high-caliber studios (back to the Skyrim example, just allowing for free modding generally precludes competing triple-A's from producing anything, but give them say a "fair" 75% cut of expansions or complete sequels to a competitor's bockbuster game, taking advantage of…
75% should go to the modders. If people are buying the mod, then the mod developer deserves most of the cash for the mod purchase. Remember, the player needs to buy the original game too. Those funds don't go to the mod developer.
75% is not to the mod developer, 75% was to Bethesda, and 25% to the mod developer.
This is what pissed people off. (Also, the developer would only get paid if he got 100 USD to receive, meaning that he needed 400 USD in sales, meaning that probably most developers would never get any money).
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The core of the issue came down to the effects on the modder community. 1. Modders are hobbyists, not professionals. Many modders came right out and said they would no longer make mods under this system, because the pressure to charge means it becomes a job. They no longer would have the option to just walk away from the mod. 2. Piracy. Modders have explicitly made their mods available for free. Once you have a syste…
Why would making it possible to make money from them make it impossible not to charge for them?
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The core of the issue came down to the effects on the modder community. 1. Modders are hobbyists, not professionals. Many modders came right out and said they would no longer make mods under this system, because the pressure to charge means it becomes a job. They no longer would have the option to just walk away from the mod. 2. Piracy. Modders have explicitly made their mods available for free. Once you have a syste…
Why would making it possible to make money from them make it impossible not to charge for them?
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It's an example for the perfectly accepted greed in the corporate world. Valve claims that 30% share is fair while having one of the highest income per employee of any company. That means that their share is too high. It's more than what the government demands from you, while the government is _much_ more important than Valve is for any business. The CEO of Valve argues that money steers the community. That's true, a…
Apple takes 30% of app store purchases, in-app purchases, and iAd revenue. Google takes 30% of Google Play purchases and in-app products. 30% is a reasonable share for the maintainer of a network to take. As for the 25% to the author of the mod, that does seem unfair, but I don't think that was Valve's decision. I think they left that up to the game producer, Bethesda in this case. Bethesda chose how to split the rem…
That's obviously a remarkably stupid definition of fair.
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The core of the issue came down to the effects on the modder community. 1. Modders are hobbyists, not professionals. Many modders came right out and said they would no longer make mods under this system, because the pressure to charge means it becomes a job. They no longer would have the option to just walk away from the mod. 2. Piracy. Modders have explicitly made their mods available for free. Once you have a syste…
In the end, most modders don't WANT to be paid for their mods, because it's not a profession. That's an interesting perspective. Sounds like there are some valid criticisms of the system Valve has put in place. To me it seems that gamers have cut off their nose to spite their own face in this regard. It seems to me that a paid modding ecosystem would be a big win in favor of gamers. If lone hobbyists can improve a ga…
And some mods do end having a "studio" backing... For example the Network Addon Mod for SimCity 4, it started with several individual modders solving their own problems with the game, and now it has a official "NAM Team" that act as a professional team (they give release dates, have deadlines, make their own installer, etc...)
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If you make a Mickey Mouse sequel using derivative assets, how much of a cut would Disney want? Keeping in mind the assets would be open to competing high-caliber studios (back to the Skyrim example, just allowing for free modding generally precludes competing triple-A's from producing anything, but give them say a "fair" 75% cut of expansions or complete sequels to a competitor's bockbuster game, taking advantage of…
If you make a Mickey Mouse sequel, it doesn't require users to first buy a copy of the original movie. Using a mod does . These two things are in no way comparable.
Developers should be ecstatic that modders want to build off their game as a platform. It can only bring them additional money as people buy their game for access to hugely popular mod. I can understand the desire to monetize this, but too much and you freeze out your modders and you get nothing.
I spent a lot of my time as a young teenager on the custom ladder in Warcraft 3, where people played home made maps which essentially amounted to mods. This was the birthplace of Dota and the place where many of us were introduced to tower defence. Every time someone uploaded an original or fun new map people would take their map and tweak it in some fashion or another and slowly the maps would evolve. The versions of Wintermaul that people were playing years after the original were definitely improvements upon the original.
If new maps/mods on the custom ladder had cost money this would never had happened. I'm sure Duke Wintermaul wouldn't have been happy with all the remixes of his vastly popular mod if he had been selling it himself. And, although he might have updated his mod to improve balance and the such he most likely would not have come up with several of the features that were included in the late versions made by others.
I see people saying that modding is for hobbyists and I have seen several modders claiming that they will never charge for a mod and that may very well be the case. For now. Once paid mods are released they will slowly seep into the community and the modders of the future will have been raised with paid mods instead of free ones. Once upon a time video game companies would sell their games in retail and then support it for free, now they charge for the support cost through subscription fees, dlc or microtransactions. If customers are OK with paying for it, why should they give away their work for free? The same thing goes for modders.