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Valve has announced that they will be allowing content creators to charge for workshop mods:
The Steam Workshop has always been a great place for sharing mods, maps, and all kinds of items that you’ve created. Now it's also a great place for selling those creations. With a new, streamlined process for listing and selling your creations, the Steam Workshop now supports buying mods directly from the Workshop, to be immediately usable in game. Discover the best new mods for your game and enable the creators to continue making new items and experiences.
While this seems a great way to incentivize the creation of more and better mods, of course not all gamers are happy about it. [venturebeat.com - Warning: lots of javascript]
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Steam Now Offering Paid Workshop Mods
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Madness takes its toll.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Mr Big in the Pants on Friday April 24 2015, @10:11PM
This is not what I have seen elsewhere. Things change drastically once the scent of money is in the water - and often not for the better:
- Modders move from being incentivised based purely on passion to the other thing.
- Contributors are now "the paid" and "the unpaid". Expect the latter to dry up quickly and lots of arguments over the difference.
- Many free resources that modders have used in the past are no longer available when it is a commercial product.
- Game makers will want their cut since, let's face it, these modders will be making cash based mostly on their hard work.
- Legal issues aplenty that are now worth someone's time following up...
On the plus side a FEW modders could make this a viable, professional alternative (assuming the game companies don't squash it outright) to building games from scratch - in the best case scenario providing enough cash to make it worthwhile or even live on.
But if I was betting on this I would say the overall is not going to be that great long term.
(Score: 4, Informative) by K_benzoate on Friday April 24 2015, @10:33PM
And let's remember that Valve takes a 75% cut.
This is the most anti-consumer decision they've ever made.
Climate change is real and primarily caused by human activity.
(Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Friday April 24 2015, @11:44PM
I did not see that part...you are not serious??
In the past they have taken a 30% cut...
Are you sure you don't have it back to front?
If they ARE taking that it is surely because half of it goes to them, half to the game companies....
(Score: 2, Informative) by Pseudonymous Coward on Saturday April 25 2015, @05:37AM
I'm sure, see here: https://i.imgur.com/BJP4c33.png [imgur.com]
Here for a discussion on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/33mpuv/valve_takes_75_of_the_sales_that_are_made_from/ [reddit.com]
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Saturday April 25 2015, @09:55AM
It matches what I read over at Ars Technica:
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/04/23/steam-workshop-lets-users-sell-mods-but-only-shares-25-percent-of-revenue/ [arstechnica.com]
It gets worse, though...from the Ars article:
"Money-making modders will have to wait until they've earned at least $100 of sales before receiving a payment"
(Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Saturday April 25 2015, @07:02PM
So in other words this is less about the fostering a healthy modding community and more about monetising something that was free to increase revenue.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 25 2015, @08:24PM
Yes. Even more odd considering people within valve have stated that they do not do things for money as steam is so profitable and valve has so few employees they can do whatever they want. It has been used by Newell as justification for why they have refused to be bought out for absurd amounts of money. Maybe making money itself has just become a game to them, like what Ted Turner does: "Life is a game. Money is how we keep score." Too bad he started with cheat codes enabled.
(Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Sunday April 26 2015, @02:27AM
Well then I predict this has the halflife highly radioactive substance.
See what I did there?
(Score: 2) by mtrycz on Saturday April 25 2015, @09:56AM
Nitpicking, but Valve isn't taking 75% cut: that figure is split between Valve and the original game maker/distributor.
The modders still get the 25% tho, and *ONLY* if they raise at least 100$ (or 400$? didn't get that part)
At first I thought that this is a good thing, like the next step after the indie developer era. More high quality content around. Valve democratizing the market further.
But the execution is hideous. The terms of the deal just straightout *engourage* bad behaviour. Game developers will create even shittier games, don't care since they get a cut from the mods that fix it. Modders, who have always been a great community, will become just like the next market; paid mods building upon free mods (already happening).
Until you see the thing that will make you just loose it.
Early access mods.
I'm out.
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 25 2015, @09:49AM
I disagree. An analogy would be that Intel and AMD want to get paid for you using OSS on the system that you paid for because it runs on the system they built.
Or the car analogy: Automakers don't have to give 75% of revenue to road construction crews, so why do modders have to pay game publishers the same?
(Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Saturday April 25 2015, @07:06PM
That analogy is so weak it just collapsed under its own weight. I am not going to discuss it.
You do realise that finding any ol' analogy that vaguely fits is not proof of anything, right?
Analogies are supposed to make EXPLAINING something complex easier - not become the laughable pretence of proof.
Its like a car that you buy because it looks like it would go real fast and then you find during the first rain shower its made of cardboard.
Cardboard, meet rain..
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Hairyfeet on Saturday April 25 2015, @01:46PM
Exactly. Look at Greenlight which Valve said would help get good indie games on Steam, reality? For every 1 decent you now have 100 "attack of the cheap Unity art assets" pieces of trash shat out quickly clogging up the pipe. And its not like modders don't ALREADY have ways they can make money, they can accept donations AND there is always the option of turning your mod into a full game and selling it, see Killing Floor or Red Orchestra for just 2 examples.
No what this will do is crapflood every moddable game with broken, cobbled together trash that will be more likely to crash the game than work and within 90 days there won't be a single mod for anything that doesn't have a $ next to it so you will quickly learn not to even look at the mods because like Greenlight it'll be filled with shitty cash ins by devs that don't have anything but a quick buck in mind. Its a shame as modders used to be able to create real value for their favorite games and keep them alive well past their "sell by" date but this will kill modding quicker than banning it....I have to wonder, is that the point? After all if you are playing mods you aren't as likely to buy new games, if so its brilliant from a marketing perspective. Just let the modding community destroy itself with greed under the guise of "helping" it.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.