Valve shuts down paid mod system after pressure from gamers • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by pdpi » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 12:35 PM UTC

UK-AL wrote: post #23

I just don't think gamers understand, if you pay for high quality mods, your gonna get more high quality mods. It's a bit like the crazy excuses people make for pirating games.

Clearly, that's a simplistic view of the world. The iOS app store (and, I expect, Play too) is choking on shit-quality shovelware, while I pay zero for Ubuntu and a whole range of other high-quality open source tools that have tons of volunteer contributions.

Adding financial incentives to a community built on a share-and-share-alike mentality skews things a lot. I can see this whole paid mod thing working, but it's going to take a much gentler approach than what they did here.

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

#42

Post by Jolijn » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 12:36 PM UTC

nailer wrote: post #4

gkwelding wrote: post #2

I 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.

In business terms, you could consider giving a cut to the modders a marketing expense (you might sell more because the mods increase the value of your game, perhaps?). But you can also consider it as providing a platform that modders exploit commercially, and you can squeeze them as much as is sensible in any commercial relationship.

I think the number of people buying a game because of a mod is rather small, so business people will see things more from the second viewpoint.

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

#43

Post by aethr » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 12:36 PM UTC

giancarlostoro wrote: post #16

nailer wrote: post #4

Earlier 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.

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.

When Steam is hosting mods for free, then they are effectively just hosting files. They transfer so much data, I can imagine this would be effectively zero cost for them.

Once they start charging for something, the entire payment infrastructure is now part of the picture. They need to pay merchant fees, assume risk for disputed transactions, arrange for the money to be split up and transfered to stakeholders, etc. This may not account for 30% (who knows) but it does make sense to charge something.

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

#44

Post by pekk » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 12:36 PM UTC

dijit wrote: post #27

UK-AL wrote: post #23

I just don't think gamers understand, if you pay for high quality mods, your gonna get more high quality mods. It's a bit like the crazy excuses people make for pirating games.

but 25% goes to creators, 45% to bethesda and valves standard 30% fee for transactions? 25% is awfully low, honestly.

What is the correct number they should have used, and how did you arrive at that number?

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

#45

Post by cbg0 » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 12:37 PM UTC

The idea of compensating content creators worked extremely well for Valve for games like Team Fortress 2, CS:GO and Dota 2, since they can get access to a large talent pool with no investment. You have people creating assets for these games and getting a cut of profits, which is pretty cool, but on the other hand this means that Valve doesn't have to invest many man hours to create their own content for these games, effectively letting the community handle voting for new assets and approving the popular choices.

This can become pretty dangerous for games that will start popping up with relatively limited amount of content in them but with 'Infinite possibilities through modding', developers leaving it up to fans of the game to provide additional content, either free or paid. What happens when these assets or mods aren't maintained by the 3rd party that created them? Will the game developer simply remove these or maintain them?

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

#46

Post by malka » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 12:37 PM UTC

nailer wrote: post #4

gkwelding wrote: post #2

I 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.

The biggest issue for me was 'library' mods. ie mods that sole purpose is being used by other mods. SKSE for instance. They were virtually unable to profit of this system. However, if Steam handled mods dependy, they could retribute mods like this. That could actually be very good for AppStore, and free libraries : each sale in the appstore could also profit to the ones that created the basic build block.

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

#47

Post by Lancey » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 12:37 PM UTC

I really think Valve as a whole has been making bad decisions for a while. They've been neglecting to push for the more innovative ideas that they're known for and have instead been adding a lot of shady features to Steam and their games that make them the most money. It's good to see that Valve still listens to the community, and I hope this is the start of them moving back to being fan-oriented rather than turning into another faceless corporation.

Not going to trust Valve as much as I used to until they start being constructive again, of course. It's one thing to recognize a bad decision and backtrack on it (something most video game publishers would never do), but it's another to not make the bad decisions in the first place. Valve tends to be heavily concerned with testing and user acceptance, and it seems weird that they'd push a feature like paid mods without going over it with a fine tooth comb first.

To me, paid mods seemed like an experiment in self-publication on Steam. Like how Valve used Team Fortress 2 as a testbed for many features that would eventually be used in Dota 2, it seemed like paid mods was a test of something a lot larger, especially considering their stance on the existing Steam Greenlight. Setbacks like this will probably mean we won't see what they were planning from the beginning for a while.

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

#48

Post by MereInterest » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 12:39 PM UTC

UK-AL wrote: post #23

I just don't think gamers understand, if you pay for high quality mods, your gonna get more high quality mods. It's a bit like the crazy excuses people make for pirating games.

I'm not so sure. As soon as you start having monetary incentives, you lose on the social incentives.

For example, suppose I ask for a friend's help moving to a new apartment. The friend says yes, and the move is finished after a full day of moving boxes. At the end of the day, I tell him thank you, and give him $5. The friend is insulted. Do I value him that little? What he would happily do for free, he refuses to do for $5.

The same is true for mods. A modder may pour his/her soul into making a mod, all the while thinking of how people will enjoy the mod. The modder has a few friends, and they enjoy discussing it. Now, the modder is offered a pittance. Suddenly, it is an insult, because the amount is so low.

Unless you are offering sufficient monetary compensation to outweigh the loss of the social incentive, you lose. No, it isn't "rational", but it is how people work.

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

#49

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 12:39 PM UTC

nailer wrote: post #4

gkwelding wrote: post #2

I 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.

[deleted]

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

#50

Post by bwat48 » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 12:39 PM UTC

stupidcar wrote: post #13

gkwelding wrote: post #2

I 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 hopefu…

It might be something that could work for a new game, but in the case of skyrim, I don't see any kind of paid mod system working.

Skyrim has a very complex modding system, and a lot of skyrim mods have dependencies on other skyrim mods, so when you start putting any mods behind a paywall things get dicey real fast.

It could only see this working in a game where mods are simple and standalone.