Terramaris

Going to quote post #11, since I do not wish to retype what I wrote: And why is that? It should be an authors decision if it's free or not. You don't get to walk through a market and demand that an artist give you a picture from their stall for free. If someone produces a product, and wants to charge for it, there is absolutely nothing wring with that (at least not in our economic system, but my problems with THAT are unrelated). If it's good, people will pay, if not, well, it's a wasted endeavour. If someone want's to produce something and not charge, that's their prerogative too. I have never charged for a painted miniature, or a drawing, or a tatoo (sketeches, not the actual inking) because i genuinely enjoy doing it. That doesn't mean i hold any ill regard for commissioned painters, artists and tatoo artists. There ARE problems with what Valve is doing (and don't blame Bethesda for this one, this is almost entirely Valve, as its covering ALL their Steam mods) such as the actual ratio of money going to modders, and what they get to pocket. There are copyright issues that are poorly established, and some genuine concerns about quality control (although, that's just how the market works... Lets face it, Apple's produced crap with no quality control for a decade, and people sill buy it up). But there is absolutely nothing wrong with offering a mechanism for which Modders can get paid, IF THEY CHOOSE, for the work they do. "but there is absolutely nothing wrong with offering a mechanism for which Modders can get paid, IF THEY CHOOSE, for the work they do." And here we have the crux of the problem. Saying mods should be free != modders should not be paid. Now I am not going to say donations. But, an early access system on nexus where you can pay a few bucks to get the new version a month early though is an amazing idea. Paywalling a mod, 25% cut, no customer service... that is a bad idea.

Stopped, absolutely not. Carefully considered and regulated to account for future problems? Yes. Has Valve done the careful consideration? No, not really. Or at least if they have, they haven't shown any sign of it in the rules. Why not stopped?

People are scared. Valve just created a precedent that very few of us could have imagined: Suppose a company, ElectronicSoft, wants to release day 1 DLC. They know they are going to get flak so instead they get a shell company: Ubigames to release the DLC as a paid "mod". If they get flak, Electronicsoft can just say "Oh no, we are against Day1 DLC, but we fully support modders getting paid for their work".As you can see, this problem is a whole lot larger than modders wanting some cash. This sets a bad precedent and for that reason must be stopped in it's tracks.

Because there is a very short window when I can mass game before summer classes and the like, and if I am interested in a mod I would pay some money to the modders in exchange for having it now. This has been done with video makers (Chuck from SFdebris for example) to outstanding success.

And why is that? It should be an authors decision if it's free or not. You don't get to walk through a market and demand that an artist give you a picture from their stall for free. If someone produces a product, and wants to charge for it, there is absolutely nothing wring with that (at least not in our economic system, but my problems with THAT are unrelated). If it's good, people will pay, if not, well, it's a wasted endeavour. If someone want's to produce something and not charge, that's their prerogative too. I have never charged for a painted miniature, or a drawing, or a tatoo (sketeches, not the actual inking) because i genuinely enjoy doing it. That doesn't mean i hold any ill regard for commissioned painters, artists and tatoo artists. There ARE problems with what Valve is doing (and don't blame Bethesda for this one, this is almost entirely Valve, as its covering ALL their Steam mods) such as the actual ratio of money going to modders, and what they get to pocket. There are copyright issues that are poorly established, and some genuine concerns about quality control (although, that's just how the market works... Lets face it, Apple's produced crap with no quality control for a decade, and people sill buy it up). But there is absolutely nothing wrong with offering a mechanism for which Modders can get paid, IF THEY CHOOSE, for the work they do. "but there is absolutely nothing wrong with offering a mechanism for which Modders can get paid, IF THEY CHOOSE, for the work they do." And here we have the crux of the problem. Saying mods should be free != modders should not be paid. Now I am not going to say donations. An early access system on nexus where you can pay a few bucks to get the new version a month early though is an amazing idea. Paywalling a mod, 25% cut, no customer service... that is a bad idea.

Having your mod depend on another mod not made by yourself is fine, as long as you don't re upload said mod you aren't breaking any violations. Maya is not a mod. Maya is a 3d modelling program that has two licences: -Student (non-commercial 3 years) -Professional (Commercial, costs $1,470 a year)

I agree completly on this. I also have to ask how many unofficial DLC makers upgraded their licences? If you are using the free version of Maya, you are not allowed to sell your work on it. You need to fork out $1,470 a year now...

Outcries make a difference Keep the noise up. Not just here, but in other places. If a media site latches on, then there's the possibility of something happening. If Valve get enough bad press overall it should be good Remember SimCity? That went "wonderfully" for EA and they eventually were forced to make the online mode that was allegedly impossible on their system, along with basically completely remaking Sims 4 lest they had another disaster. At the same time, do you remember this?: http://i.neoseeker.com/gg/uploads/news/11-2009/news_img_27039_0.jpg That armour mod that Valve is featuring just raked in $2k in revenue. I am starting to feel some of the signers of the petition are turncoats just like those in the photo.

Can we thread watch: http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/611704730318746878/ as well. It pointed out a Valve change of Heart. http://i.imgur.com/cL2NIUy.jpg

The Steam King has invited you to the Workshop.

I tagged both "Microtransactions" and "micro transaction"

I'm advocating this. I have every right to. If I want to create a free version of a paid mod from scratch I'll have put in the same amount of work as the other author. This would only be a problem if you steal their hand made assets. I don't want anyone who puts their mod behind a paywall to make a single cent, and I'll do everything in my power to make sure they don't. If you make a SkyUI knockoff, you would have the support of 60k people. Anyone want to make a money pot as a reward for anyone who makes a SkyUI replacement? We all pledge a dollar, and we give it to whoever gives us an alternative to the pay wall. If we are going to vote with our wallets, we should do so both positively (giving money to the modders) and negatively (not giving any money to Valve/Bethesda) I will start out by pledging one Sealand Dollar (fixed exchange rate with the USD) to whoever builds this replacement. Who else wants to join in?

I am glad to hear you changed your mind. I donated the price of what you were going to charge on the Workshop to you. Ain't much, but I hope others follow my lead (and I seriously need to go to bed, curse Valve for making this controversy so horrible yet interesting to watch... like a car crash I say.). Edit: My phone didn't ding like it usually does when I make a transaction, so if you didn't receive it let me know. Paypal Receipt said it worked fine though. Edit 2: Just dinged five minutes after the fact. Guess Paypal is slow today. Thank you. I really appreciate it. I am going to trust the Nexus to resolve some of the issues modders are having. Maybe this will serve as a much needed wake up call. Really hope things are improved somehow. Nexus could provide some real competition for Workshop. Valve opened themselves up to competition, their name is besmirched and I believe the PCmasterrace reddit removed Gaben from their page. All it will take is someone to move in while Valve is off balance to knock them down a peg.

I am glad to hear you changed your mind. I donated the price of what you were going to charge on the Workshop to you. Ain't much, but I hope others follow my lead (and I seriously need to go to bed, curse Valve for making this controversy so horrible yet interesting to watch... like a car crash I say.). Edit: My phone didn't ding like it usually does when I make a transaction, so if you didn't receive it let me know. Paypal Receipt said it worked fine though. Edit 2: Just dinged five minutes after the fact. Guess Paypal is slow today.

Nexus doesn't want to profit from your mods; that creates a market environment and not a community environment. Nexus is a community, not a marketplace. It's where we gather to share content and ideas and such about a game we're all passionate about. I don't come here to shop or do business. Same reason I come home from work and play games; I'm not at work, I'm not doing business. I don't like be sold to all the time especially not about things I do for fun and absolutely not when I'm trying to engage with other enthusiasts in my hobby. Valve has already made it absolutely clear that the community needs to police itself. Read the FAQ. If you want to keep people from selling stolen stuff you have to go find them and catch them and report them. At which point the people who stole the content keep it, the thief keeps whatever money they made but the content is taken down. They may (or may not) get that account banned. You get nothing, absolutely nothing at all in any way. Nothing gets refunded to anyone. The best you get is that if in catching the thief you have to buy and download the mod to confirm it. If it's less than 24 hours from when you bought it you get the price of that mod refunded to you as credit to your steam wallet. That's it, that's all. Valve does not, will not and has confirmed they are not involved in policing content. They don't even confirm the mods work. You buy a mod, you have 24 hours to get a steam wallet refund. If someone files a DCMA takedown notice they honor it. If the person who got served can prove it's not legit they leave it up. Donations.... a donation system sucks. I agree completely. The problem is that the people who don't donate are not going to pay either. I actually like the idea of a 'paid early access'. The content is up for 30/60 days for a buck or two, after which time it goes to the Nexus for free. I'd buy in on that. You can think of it as 'donations get you early access on content updates'. This avoids the position of saying 'I'm a professional and deserve paid for all access to my content' and instead says 'I put a lot of time into this, if you really like it you can pay me a little money to get early access to it when it gets updated'. That also avoids the problem of the Nexus being viewed as a free advertising site for having your mod to point people to your paid work. I'd recommend to anyone looking at this to try that first. See if a 'pay for early access' approach is sufficiently profitable and productive. If not you can always then move into a pay-only model. I knew I said I was going to bed, but I saw this right after I saved my post and wanted to comment. I would support Nexus going early-access with the mods. The mods remain free, modders get money, and Valve gets nothing. It is a win-win-win for everyone (except Valve tehehehe). What would you think about this Phendrix?

There's a lot more reasons for the backlash than simply "Mods should be free!" though. There's not many mods I would be willing to pay for, but any mod I do feel is worthy of it I'm certainly not going to be willing to purchase through the fustercluck that is the workshop because then I'm not paying the modder, I'm paying Valve and Bethesda for hours of hard work and effort put in by the person they're deliberately screwing over. Let's say, for example, Skywind. I'd be happy to pay $10 for Skywind, but not if the Skywind team only sees a quarter of that $10. This exactly. I am a map maker on Minecraft (so I do know the struggle, although I will admit it has nothing on the difficulty of Skyrim Modding) and the way the community there compensates modders is through ad.fly links, ain't the best, but it is a step in the right direction. Modders should be compensated. The way the workshop is setup though compensates Valve more than it does you. Free content that compensates modders can work if implemented well. I am watching SFDebris right now and he has a paetron setup along with doing a video for hire scheme. I will leave ya with a question: Are you truly happy with the way the Workshop is right now, or is it just the best option available? Time to go back to watching KOTOR. I will see you all in the morning.

I am not attacking you, don't get me wrong (though I do not agree with you either). You chose to go corporate, alright. I cannot stop you. Corporate life though means you need to pay for your advertising just like the rest of the advertisers on the site in my opinion. Please don't feel attacked or challenged. You're just in the position of being the first ship on the water so to speak. The concern is people creating 'demo mods' on the Nexus to get free advertising for their paid mod on the Workshop. Is that a good thing, is it something the Nexus wants. What does and doesn't qualify, what is and isn't fair where that's concerned. Again, this comes back to what I said elsewhere - by charging for your product you become a merchant more so than a member of the community. Money is a sticky subject and, as they say, 'business is business'. At what point does it stop becoming a mod you're sharing on the Nexus and instead an advertisment to drive sales on your paid site? I would encourage you to reach out to the Nexus folks and see where they want those lines. At that point you need to ask yourself how you want to handle the free mod. You're monetizing your work now and as such it's not unreasonable to view what you do in that light. How do you best leverage the stuff you provide to free to maximize what you want to earn profit from. How does the Nexus want to position itself relative to the Workshop - do they want to host advert mods? Do they want to support scaled down free versions that help redirect people to the paid versions? Is that actually a 'bad thing'? If so, why? One of the problems with being an early adopter on a business model is you're going to be involved in answering those questions. I encourage you to be proactive in reaching out to the Nexus folks and being an active and honest part of that discussion. You've been very honest and up front about what you're doing and why and that's awesome, much appreciated. I don't see any of the other mod authors here doing so. I hope you'll put the work into helping sort that out sooner rather than later. I definitely understand your point. It is not like I am abandoning the nexus. All of my mods will remain on the nexus. Just one of them will have a free version and premium version. I do agree about the whole merchant comparison. This isn't necessarily a bad thing though. Just because I become a merchant and modder doesn't mean I won't still regularly interact with the community. I appreciate everything the Skyrim Nexus has done for the modding community. I really wish Bethesda would buy the Skyrim Nexus and allow us to sell mods on the Nexus instead. Everyone is free to voice their opinion. I honestly just think some of the backlash is amusing. People need to stop acting like they are entitled to free mods. Publishing large works for free has always been a generosity modders have performed. For me it is not entitlement that has me against this, it is the precedent set. This whole system is easily exploitable by companies. Suppose a company, ElectronicSoft, wants to release day 1 DLC. They know they are going to get flak so instead they get a shell company: Ubigames to release the DLC as a paid "mod".If they get flak, Electronicsoft can just say "Oh no, we are against Day1 DLC, but we fully support modders getting paid for their work".As you can see, this problem is a whole lot larger than modders wanting some cash. This sets a bad precedent and for that reason must be stopped in it's tracks. I would be all for a kickstarter/paetron/ or even the big modders hired by Bethesda to polish out their mods to sell (a la Insurgency and Garry's Mod). This free for all though is rubbish. This doesn't make any sense. Skyrim Nexus would be profiting if my mod got a sale on the Steam Workshop. Valve will definitely have to do a good job at making sure content is legitimate and not just derivatives of other work on the site. It will be difficult and it will be interesting to see how they handle it. If they decide to go back on all of this. My work will definitely go back on the Nexus. It is just pretty ridiculous that I have only ever gotten one donation in more than 2 years of modding. People act like the donation system is enough when no one ever really donates. When did I say the donation system was enough? The last line of my post I believe indicated the opposite, but I haven't slept in a while so maybe that is the tiredness talking. Now if you worked out a deal with Dark0ne or the relevant person saying I want to use Nexus to advertise my main mod and I will give you a cut of my sales, I will accept it. This is also directed at every unofficial DLC maker.

I am not attacking you, don't get me wrong (though I do not agree with you either). You chose to go corporate, alright. I cannot stop you. Corporate life though means you need to pay for your advertising just like the rest of the advertisers on the site in my opinion. Please don't feel attacked or challenged. You're just in the position of being the first ship on the water so to speak. The concern is people creating 'demo mods' on the Nexus to get free advertising for their paid mod on the Workshop. Is that a good thing, is it something the Nexus wants. What does and doesn't qualify, what is and isn't fair where that's concerned. Again, this comes back to what I said elsewhere - by charging for your product you become a merchant more so than a member of the community. Money is a sticky subject and, as they say, 'business is business'. At what point does it stop becoming a mod you're sharing on the Nexus and instead an advertisment to drive sales on your paid site? I would encourage you to reach out to the Nexus folks and see where they want those lines. At that point you need to ask yourself how you want to handle the free mod. You're monetizing your work now and as such it's not unreasonable to view what you do in that light. How do you best leverage the stuff you provide to free to maximize what you want to earn profit from. How does the Nexus want to position itself relative to the Workshop - do they want to host advert mods? Do they want to support scaled down free versions that help redirect people to the paid versions? Is that actually a 'bad thing'? If so, why? One of the problems with being an early adopter on a business model is you're going to be involved in answering those questions. I encourage you to be proactive in reaching out to the Nexus folks and being an active and honest part of that discussion. You've been very honest and up front about what you're doing and why and that's awesome, much appreciated. I don't see any of the other mod authors here doing so. I hope you'll put the work into helping sort that out sooner rather than later. I definitely understand your point. It is not like I am abandoning the nexus. All of my mods will remain on the nexus. Just one of them will have a free version and premium version. I do agree about the whole merchant comparison. This isn't necessarily a bad thing though. Just because I become a merchant and modder doesn't mean I won't still regularly interact with the community. I appreciate everything the Skyrim Nexus has done for the modding community. I really wish Bethesda would buy the Skyrim Nexus and allow us to sell mods on the Nexus instead. Everyone is free to voice their opinion. I honestly just think some of the backlash is amusing. People need to stop acting like they are entitled to free mods. Publishing large works for free has always been a generosity modders have performed. For me it is not entitlement that has me against this, it is the precedent set. This whole system is easily exploitable by companies. Suppose a company, ElectronicSoft, wants to release day 1 DLC. They know they are going to get flak so instead they get a shell company: Ubigames to release the DLC as a paid "mod".If they get flak, Electronicsoft can just say "Oh no, we are against Day1 DLC, but we fully support modders getting paid for their work".As you can see, this problem is a whole lot larger than modders wanting some cash. This sets a bad precedent and for that reason must be stopped in it's tracks. I would be all for a kickstarter/paetron/ or even the big modders hired by Bethesda to polish out their mods to sell (a la Insurgency and Garry's Mod). This free for all though is rubbish. I hope you do not think all of us boycotters are bad, you are one of the few I would pay for if this was workshop thing was implemented better than a trainwreck into a nuclear powerplant.

Please be careful with stuff like this. This problem is about Bethesda/Valve trying to coerce modders into guilting/shaming/compelling the gaming community to give Bethesda/Valve more money in return for community created content. The last thing we want, at all, is any modder to feel like their work and effort is unappreciated or they are not welcome. We screwed up, badly, with someone who already caught hell on the Workshop (name left out to avoid getting this thread closed) and we need to stop that. What someone chooses to do with their creations is up to them. I would say that if someone feels they deserve remuneration, paid cash money, for their time and effort they should do so professionally either part time or full time and seek a job in said field. When they decide to stop being a peer in a community and instead be a merchant wanting to sell us a product they should expect to be treated like we treat the phone company or cable company or guy at Best Buy wanting to sell me a TV. That in mind... I would say that the Nexus should not allow content that redirects or points someone to a paid mod location. Essentially that's advertising and should be treated like anyone else wanting to put an add on the Nexus. I agree with this, does any Nexus Staffer want to comment in?

In response to post #24615234. Kudos for ya! (You didn't upset me by the way...)

In response to post #24614504. Boris said not to sell his mod I believe.

In response to post #24611779. #24612574, #24613159, #24613174, #24613179 are all replies on the same post. Edit: Never mind, someone beat me to the punch!

In response to post #24608634. #24609314, #24612079, #24612614 are all replies on the same post. If you want money as your motiviation, well I cannot stop you. What Valve has done to the community here though is unforgivable. The irony of having a civil war in a game about a civil war... I will ask though: Is it worth the small cut from Valve to be part of this schism? If you are going to sell your mods, might as well do it on your own site and get the full cut instead of a quarter. Then again, I know nothing about modding Skyrim so maybe it is worth the 25%. My map mods are me just messing around with Terrain Control, takes me about a week to make one (two if I go with custom biomes) so money isn't worth it for that.