Milleuros

In response to post #24638144. Interesting indeed. Thanks for the post.

Just some quick thought : how far can paid modding go ? First, consider that Steam owns all rights for the games you purchase. Currently we have modders who stop support/updates for the free version of the mod and will only continue with the non-free version. Indeed, many people will prefer having a few less features but for free. That's when the modder will say : "heck, all this work I made back then, I want to be rewarded for it". Then he deletes his free files on websites such as the Nexus. At this point, all mods that needed the first one as a pre-requisite will collapse and the mod will not be available anymore for free. But it can go on. Many people have downloaded the mod back then and still play it. Or they can upload it to shady websites for others to enjoy it. Using a paying software without having purchased it can be considered illegal. Therefore the modder can contact Valve to ask for a ban on people using it. Since Valve has all rights on your Steam account and Steam-based software, it can either release an update that will break the game compatibility with previous version of the mod, or directly detect if you have this mod installed and straightforwardly ban you. Valve would have the right to do so. And since you cannot play Skyrim without running Steam, there is little you could do. Of course I'm being paranoid. But then again, people who imagined massive DLCs, DRM or even paid mods were paranoid back then.

I'm not so sure on how to express my opinion, but here I go. I think that even if this contract is extremely minimalist and does not take your rights away, you are actually participating into this new vision of modding. In other words, making a contract and accepting money from it makes you a supporter of the new Steam Workshop. It's about the symbol, the message. By the way, when you tell that the community is being hypocrite because those who insult you have not made the step of completely un-installing Steam and all their games, I think there is a very important difference : "earning money" vs "losing money". It's always harder to accept losing money you have already paid rather than accept not earning money you could earn. Btw, please do not consider my message as an attack against you, for it is not.

In response to post #24597829. #24598674, #24599279, #24599624, #24621674, #24622339, #24622439, #24623969, #24626364, #24630889 are all replies on the same post. @ Shadow : ""The truly greedy ones are people who blindly oppose this, who've never in their life donated a single penny to actually support a modder, all because they want to continue getting stuff for free at the expense of someone else's time and energy."" You don't want to waste your time and energy to give away stuff ? --> You don't mod. It's as simple as that. Let me ask one thing. Battlefield 2, Dota 2, Counter Strike have all been created out of free mods. I think I don't have to explain how great the original mods were and how much content and work people put into it. In many other games there have been huge mods and/or huge amount of mods. People have worked extremely hard to make mods and give them away for free. And it worked. The main argument pro PC gaming is the access to game-enhancing mod. I don't know how many of us bought Skyrim on PC because of its mods. All of this worked without modder even wanting a compensation. Why shouldn't it work anymore ?

In response to post #24628009. #24628194, #24630189 are all replies on the same post. Agree. But it poses a problem. Admit there is no more SkyUI on Nexus. How many mods require SkyUI to work?

In response to post #24626904. #24629779 is also a reply to the same post. ""keep in mind that it is their mods and if they want to sell them that is their choice."" I stopped there. They use a game motor which is not yours and they have no right on it. They use the creation kit that they got a free license on it. They rely on community-made tools and read several tutorials from community members to make their mod. By putting it on the Steam Workshop, they directly agree that all rights from their mod belong to Valve and Bethesda. If they do not agree, then they forgot to read the conditions. A modder has no right on its creation. He can just ask people to be honest.

In response to post #24629839. I still think even donations are a bad idea. Because there will be jealousy/envy between modders who were lucky enough to get lots of donations and modders with better work yet less donations. One can imagine "donation bonuses". You donate, you get a bonus. Money should never have appeared in modding. I was once a modder, I never felt I deserved any kind of reward. I was using a game motor which was not mine, an official tool which was not mine, modding tutorials not written by me and getting the help (as answers to my questions) from many other modders. The only reward I wanted was a "hey bro, nice mod there, I frankly enjoy it".

In response to post #24615349. #24615514, #24615539, #24615594, #24615744, #24615844, #24616559, #24616664, #24616684, #24616839, #24616949, #24617094, #24617659, #24617939, #24617944, #24618744, #24623334, #24624164, #24624429, #24625279, #24626674, #24627199, #24627214, #24628219, #24628379, #24629339 are all replies on the same post. """Funny how few mod authors thought they were 'entitled to compensation' before this paid model came along...seem to be more of them now. """ Indeed. That's what you get when money get into the equation. Just for some politic analogy, not wanting to run an argument on that. What we had yesterday was anarchy. No rules at all. Yet people had ethics, modding was fair, the community was supportive. What we'll have tomorrow is capitalism. You just add money to it, and bam you forget about ethics and fairness. Realizing this analogy, I find the reaction of the community extremely funny.

In response to post #24627084. #24629289 is also a reply to the same post. I see an issue in that he concluded a contract with Valve and is therefore supporting the new system. It's not about the money, it's about the message.

This whole argument reminds me a lot of the debate about DLCs back then. Maybe some of you remember that. Back then it was normal that developers added new content to the game as "updates", or "patches". New maps, new tools, game extension, and so on and so forth. Back when the first DLC were made, we could read arguments such that : "Now that they are paid they will be more willing to produce large scale high quality content !" and "This only means that there will be two types of content : free, same as today, and paid. Overall we'll get more content." Today we notice how wrong they were. Most, if not all developers have released as paid DLC a content that would in the past have been released as an update. At the same time, the "base content" of the game has decreased in terms of quantity (and arguably quality) such that having an acceptable content now requires to buy DLCs. On this mod affair, some of you keep saying that there will be bigger mods because people will now be able to sell them. Some others say that there will always be high-quality free mods. The example of DLCs and expansions should show you how wrong you are to think it will happen. On mod quality, you just have to browse popular games on ModDb to see that mods with more content than full-games are common. Project Reality for Battlefield 2, Desert Combat for Battlefield 1942, to name two examples that I know pretty well.

In response to post #24596664. #24601034, #24601499, #24601684, #24602554, #24602869, #24603179, #24604044 are all replies on the same post. @ TheEyeLessWanderer You're cute. Editors are tired of PC gamers. They represent only a small part of the market and they have incredible expectations. Many recent games on PC have been lowered down if you compare to old PC gaming. Skyrim itself has a very poor UI and lack of hotkeys because it is console-adapted.

In response to post #24603704. #24603984 is also a reply to the same post. I never paid for DLC, now games have almost no content at day one and if I buy the regular edition I can't play with my friends who bought all DLCs. I never paid for pre-order bonuses and now it's impossible to find any game without a part of its content being only available as pre-order. I never paid for a game edited by a company I strongly disagreed with their politics, now I don't buy games anymore. I will never pay for a mod. Guess what ?

In response to post #24601489. #24601644, #24601719, #24601884, #24601969, #24602009, #24602079, #24602239, #24602539, #24602874, #24603004, #24603284 are all replies on the same post. @phellen : They were contacted beforehands so they could make the agreement on the 1-5% part. There is somewhere on this comment page a link to Nexus' answer on Reddit.

In response to post #24603219. Either you support something or you don't. Nexus has advertising (disable your adblock) and donations, this should give them enough money. By agreeing on a contract with Valve, they are silently positioning the Nexus as a partner of this new mod business. That's how it works.

In response to post #24596664. #24601034, #24601499, #24601684, #24602554, #24602869 are all replies on the same post. @hector530 : I was coding micro-mods for Battlefield 2, years ago. It was very different from this. I can safely say that modding is dead. Yeah, we are the ones with the wallets and we are the ones who decide. But come on, there are already been plenty of people who bought mods on Steam after a single day. When there were the first DLC or the first preorder bonuses, optimists said that it would never work because gamers are the ones with the wallet. Guess what it failed.