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Valve shuts down paid mod system after pressure from gamers

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Valve shuts down paid mod system after pressure from gamers

#271

Post by Already__Taken »

lsaferite wrote: post #70
ux-app wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't been paying extra close attention to the whole fiasco, but there's something that I don't understand. Are people really more in favor of modders getting 100% of $0 rather than 25% of $X? Is there more to this debate that I'm missing?

As much as the idea of paid mods pissed me off, I 100% agree with this. Anyone who was getting upset over the 25% to the modder was just using it as an argument point and not serious. If they were serious then they would have come to the same conclusion you did and realized 25% of something is better, monetarily, than 100% of nothing.

It's also a sting as others have mentions because the customer already must have bought 100% of something to get assets the will use. The publisher skimming 75% off 100% of the value that modders created for free seems a bit shitty.

Especially when there's still no requirement for the original developer to have made the modders lives any easier to get this benefit.

Re: Valve shuts down paid mod system after pressure from gamers

#272

Post by Already__Taken »

yebyen wrote: post #103
lsaferite wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally found Bethesda getting any split quite distasteful. They produced the game and made their money on game sales. If they continue to be responsive to bug reports and/or adding new features to the game then perhaps I can see a small amount going to them. Valve taking a cut I understand as they handle the sales and distribution platform. I'm not sure I think 30% is fair, but that's a different issue. As a re…

> I personally found Bethesda getting any split quite distasteful. So, you agree that Valve should get some part of the sales, because they are the ones (Steam) actually taking the payment and assuming some of the upfront risks of processing payments (fraud) and, because of the network effect and the customers they bring (read ... marketing) But Bethesda who developed the actual game that brought the modders and gave…

What about mods that the publisher can't do?

I played GRID a lot and found the "any car any track" mod which was awesome. Codemasters didn't do that for some reason. There are mods that add Ferraris, Codemaster aren't licensed to include those cars. They were even in the trailer for the game and got pulled.

There's mods to include stuff the publisher couldn't even care[1] to sort out. Why should they get any cut of money for that. Would they even be allowed to take a cut? I assume this kind of stuff sits in a grey zone at the moment.

I think this will always be a problem if you couple the distribution and the day-to-day service in the way steam does.

[1]:http://www.moddb.com/mods/8-ball-prestige-packs-dlc-pc

Re: Valve shuts down paid mod system after pressure from gamers

#273

Post by yebyen »

Already__Taken wrote: post #272
yebyen wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I personally found Bethesda getting any split quite distasteful. So, you agree that Valve should get some part of the sales, because they are the ones (Steam) actually taking the payment and assuming some of the upfront risks of processing payments (fraud) and, because of the network effect and the customers they bring (read ... marketing) But Bethesda who developed the actual game that brought the modders and gave…

What about mods that the publisher can't do? I played GRID a lot and found the "any car any track" mod which was awesome. Codemasters didn't do that for some reason. There are mods that add Ferraris, Codemaster aren't licensed to include those cars. They were even in the trailer for the game and got pulled. There's mods to include stuff the publisher couldn't even care[1] to sort out. Why should they get any cut of m…

If you think about it, those mods probably wouldn't be able to be sold either (forget anyone taking a cut)

Unless a deal could have been worked out with Ferrari. But good on you for asking something different!

Re: Valve shuts down paid mod system after pressure from gamers

#274

Post by Already__Taken »

yebyen wrote: post #273
Already__Taken wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about mods that the publisher can't do? I played GRID a lot and found the "any car any track" mod which was awesome. Codemasters didn't do that for some reason. There are mods that add Ferraris, Codemaster aren't licensed to include those cars. They were even in the trailer for the game and got pulled. There's mods to include stuff the publisher couldn't even care[1] to sort out. Why should they get any cut of m…

If you think about it, those mods probably wouldn't be able to be sold either (forget anyone taking a cut) Unless a deal could have been worked out with Ferrari. But good on you for asking something different!

I agree maybe not the best example, but it illustrates about problems than can come up from combining services in the market. Hypothetically if steam was _just_ a package manager and the mods payed to for the convenience of users to install it. It shouldn't matter about the content.

Maybe a better example is Red Alert 2, I still occasionally LAN play that and there's a community patch to replace the IPX stack with TCP/IP so it can still work. as IPX is completely gone from windows 8+ I think.

Re: Valve shuts down paid mod system after pressure from gamers

#275

Post by talmand »

mcphage wrote: post #167
talmand wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A donation doesn't instill the same level of responsibility to the product. A donation is to support a hobby, a payment is to support a job.

So they want to get paid, they just don't want any responsibility towards their product or the people who give them money for it?

Yes, to use your slightly off description. But there's nothing wrong with that if the people offering the money understand what the expectations are before donating.

Re: Valve shuts down paid mod system after pressure from gamers

#276

Post by talmand »

mcphage wrote: post #242
llama052 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[0] Actually if you look at some of the big engines, they are becoming free, or require a small royalty to use, and it sure as hell isn't a 75% cut. [0] https://www.unrealengine.com/what-is-unreal-engine-4

It's much less than 75%—but then, you only get the engine, you don't also get the multimillion dollar award winning game to build on top of. If you make a mod for Skyrim—say, a new dungeon—you're adding that to the existing game and assets and dungeons and all that. You don't have to build everything from scratch, and you don't need your new content to be enough by itself to get people to buy it. A game with 1 dungeo…

Well, I could say that the fact the assets already exist in the game that I paid for, then the assets have already been paid for whether there's a mod that makes use of them or not. The other factor is that the game assets the modder is using is only available to players who have purchased the game. The assets have been paid for once, what this system is asking that the assets be paid for more than once. Mind you, not paid for by the modder, but by the player who has already paid once for those assets. To expand that to an obvious conclusion; let's say there is a sword asset in the game I paid for. I pay for ten mods that make use of that same sword asset in different ways. Which means I have paid for that same sword eleven times. Which is free money to the developer for doing absolutely nothing beyond providing the initial game I already paid for.

Also, are they going to have different percentages based on amount of usage of game assets? So far I haven't seen an indication of that.

As I have said before, if Skyrim had been free then I could understand the position. In this case I feel it is in the best interest of the company and game to let the modders go forward without interference. But hey, that's just my opinion, it's their company and their game so they can do whatever they want.

Re: Valve shuts down paid mod system after pressure from gamers

#277

Post by namlem »

ekianjo wrote: post #74
danr4 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I think both launching it and canceling it were ill-conceived moves. The first - obviously didn't align well with the community's (more like the mod users) intentions. The canceling - Upset quality producing modders who think they should be compensated for their time and effort, and now makes them part "part of valve's greediness" in the eyes of users. Seems like they didn't think all the way through in bot…

> Seems like they didn't think all the way through in both moves. Yes, it looks pretty bad, and it makes Valve look like a bunch of amateurs. And this is coming from someone who generally likes what they do.

The thing is they always do shit like this. Steam had tons of problems in the early days. And remember when Greenlight was launched? Total shitshow. Valve doesn't always think things through all the way, but eventually, they work out the bugs and the result ends up being pretty damn good.

Re: Valve shuts down paid mod system after pressure from gamers

#278

Post by yebyen »

Already__Taken wrote: post #274
yebyen wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think about it, those mods probably wouldn't be able to be sold either (forget anyone taking a cut) Unless a deal could have been worked out with Ferrari. But good on you for asking something different!

I agree maybe not the best example, but it illustrates about problems than can come up from combining services in the market. Hypothetically if steam was _just_ a package manager and the mods payed to for the convenience of users to install it. It shouldn't matter about the content. Maybe a better example is Red Alert 2, I still occasionally LAN play that and there's a community patch to replace the IPX stack with TC…

That's a great example of a mod that just plainly repairs a deficiency in the original game! I was in fact struggling to think of one.

It's clear that this game is abandoned and there's no further support coming from Westwood Studios for it, not to mention that it won't be coming available on Steam any time soon. As troubled as this analogy is, ...

I think it's still clear that in a hypothetical scenario where Steam gets the rights to distribute RA2 and Westwood (EA? who owns the rights to C&C series now?) has still washed their hands of support for it long ago, it would make sense for Steam to give the mod authors the option of sending back some percent of the gross (1-10%) to the rights holders for the game. Sort of a "vote with your dollars" kind of thing.

Of course if we are really talking about sending "extra money" to EA to say thanks, as a mod author or gamer I'm probably going to need to vomit right away, but replace EA with some other hypothetical not-shitty company (the ghost of Westwood) and I think you've got a deal.

This whole scenario just makes me reflect on the relatively recent development of Apple deciding that they can't allow any apps in their phone store that mention support for any products competing with Apple Watch (misfit, fitbit, etc)

The way this played out just goes to show who really owns the greatest share of the attention of Valve and Steam (it's the game companies, not the mods or the community.)

Re: Valve shuts down paid mod system after pressure from gamers

#279

Post by lsaferite »

mcphage wrote: post #265
lsaferite wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I paid full price for the game and all of the DLC. Part of the reason I did this was due to the ability of the game to be easily modded. I knew with modding the lifetime of the game was much greater. Why should they get 40% of mod sales for doing nothing? They already got paid for making the game. Now, if they are still providing good customer support with timely bug fixes around the mod system, then perhaps I c…

> I paid full price for the game and all of the DLC. > Part of the reason I did this was due to the ability of the game to be easily modded. I knew with modding the lifetime of the game was much greater. So you paid full price for the game because you knew people would spend their time and effort making things for you for free... and now that there was an option for them to get paid for their work, you get pissy?

I knew the mod community around the game would provide value long past the original game.

Did I say I never donated to mod authors? Did you ask?

I'm not pissy, but it sounds like perhaps you are.

Re: Valve shuts down paid mod system after pressure from gamers

#280

Post by Zren »

SimpleXYZ wrote: post #106

They should have probably made tiers. 0-1,000 downloads = nothing 1,001-100,000 downloads = donate button 100,001-1,000,000 downloads = big donate button 1,000,001+ downloads = set your own price, 50% share to modder

It's very easy to abuse ratings/downloads when there's no paywall.
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