Paid mods for skyrim workshop on steam

[amylyn960]

If anyone is interested, this just showed up in my feed on YouTube. Hopefully it's a good sign:

 

[HiiragiTsukasa]

Please forgive the long post but if you bear with it I believe you will find it worth your time reading.

 

Seeing as more and more people appear to be highlighting the 25% split that Modder’s, from here on called 'Unofficial Content Developers' (UCD's), are getting as the single biggest problem with this whole debacle I feel it needs to be pointed out once again that 25% is on the extreme high side of what any actual original game Development team would get paid. Steam has essentially since it's inception and certainly since it's popularisation always taken a 30% cut as the Distributer. Publishers of any reasonable size have always taken the larger cut of what remains after the Distributer got theirs. Developers have always and most likely will always get the shortest possible end of the stick even more so when the Developer staff is in house to the Publisher. It is not fair; It is not right; it is, however, how it is and always has been and the direct result of and fundamental principal of the capitalist system whose altar all those pro paid Modder’s are worshipping at.

 

Many people seem to be confusing the difference between an App store like Apple's 'iCrap' or whatever *censored* it's called and the 75% they give and an Add On store like Steam Workshop. Apple only take 25% because they are acting as Distributer and Distributer alone, that most Developers choose to act as both Publisher and Developer thereby taking home the entire remaining 75% is because those Developer are not under any obligation to an existing Publisher. An Add On store is a completely different beast, it is entirely liable to the initial Publisher of whatever it is Adding On to. In this case that Publisher is, of course, choosing to take the lion’s share which they feel entitled to given that without their investment there wouldn't be anything to Add On to in the first place. Even so they are still leaving a higher than industry standard 25% for the Developer (in this case Unofficial Content Developer).

 

Again I say by all means lament the injustice of it, not for the sake of Modder’s but for the sake of the actual original game Developers who did all the work in creating the game and got far far less than 25% but please do not for a second be so ignorant as to forget those actual Developers. It is certainly not impossible that should everyone cry loud enough about this 25% it may, in the case of the Steam workshop, be increased; but given the magnitude of threat such an outcome would pose to the Publisher, and the entire structure of the industry they have worked so hard to manipulate into being, it is extremely unlikely.

 

So assuming this Distribution of Monies does not change let's break it down in a more comprehensive manner that I have yet seen posted anywhere and see where it ends up.

 

 

There seems to be a significant amount of misinformation and miscomprehension about this distribution so I will first list the FACTS as they have been outlined by STEAM.

 

30% goes to 'Steam' as the Distributor.

Should an 'Unofficial Content Developer' (UCD) elect to do so 16.65% of Steam's share can be paid to a so called 'Service Provider' elected from a Steam approved list of such. In the case of multiple chosen 'Service Providers' the 16.65% of Steam's share would be divided equally amongst them.

 

45% goes to 'Bethesda' as the Publisher.

An undisclosed amount of the Publisher's share, though almost certainly 0%, goes to the 'Original Development Team'.

 

25% goes to the 'Unofficial Content Developer' (UCD) as the Developer.

A variable amount up to 30% of UCD's share goes to the 'Internal Revenue Service' of the 'United States Federal Government' as Taxation.

 

 

Or to put it in brief...

 

$1.00 Listed Price

$0.25 Steam

$0.05 Service Provider

$0.45 Bethesda

$0.17 Unofficial Content Developer

$0.08 United States of America Internal Revenue Service.

 

 

Now that we have the FACTS and whilst we have these figures in front of us we could have a little fun with them and see just what would be needed for a UCD to earn minimum wage selling a mod for the rather high price of $1.00 USD. In the United States of America the minimum hourly wage rate is currently around $7.25 USD per hour, assuming an average full time working week of 45 hours that is an approximate wage of $325.00 USD per week. So for our hypothetical UCD this means that they would have to sustain a minimum new user purchase rate of 11 per hour up to a total of nearly 2000 new user purchases per week. This would be an absolute best case scenario, if we were to use endorsements as a guide to what people may pay for, almost 99% of all mods currently available at the Nexus have significantly less than 2000 endorsements the overwhelming majority of Mods are barely in the hundreds of endorsements. In short any UCD thinking they can turn to Modding full time is delusional! Even thinking one could receive financial compensation commensurate to the amount of time put into creating a Mod is ridiculous, unless of course you were to put very little time into creating the Mod.

 

In fact there are only five scenarios where this scheme could be of any real financial benefit to a UCD.

 

Scenario 1: Make a must have mod.

This scenario has many issues not least of which is actually conceiving, implementing and popularising such a mod within a timely manner. There is also an issue of replication, as soon as any mod starts to hint at entering this sort of domain you can bet there will be a host of copycat mods just around the corner that will eat into its popularity. In other words probably not going to happen and if it did it wouldn't last for very long.

 

Scenario 2: Make a really quick mod.

This is what most UCD's will try and do, spend as little time and effort as possible making something that is broadly appealing. This also has a host of problems first and foremost of which is competition, everyone else will be trying to do this and the market will quickly be flooded with these kinds of mods. Secondly there is the issue of support, unless your mod is nothing more than a single basic item introduced via console command there will be conflicts and issues come up that must be addressed thereby extending the time and effort spent on the mod. Finally the mod has to be half decent or you will develop low ratings and high refunds eventually leading to little or no existing or future mod sales.

 

Scenario 3: Copy and undercut an existing mod.

Obviously this involves finding a popular mod and either replicating it using original material or just stealing the existing material outright and publishing it for a cheaper price than the copied mod. The success of this strategy will depend on how well the Workshops DMCA takedown system functions and how often a UCD is willing and able to change their banking details and create a new Steam account. Unfortunately we will see quite a bit of this and its occurrence will only increase as more and more mods are uploaded to the Workshop thereby providing greater camouflage through sheer volume of numbers.

 

Scenario 4: Have little to no financial obligations and plenty of free time.

Basically this means either being a young teen or adolescent living under guardians who pay for your every need and wanting only to earn a little extra pocket change or some similar situation. There are so many problems with this scenario that I couldn't possibly list them all but they range from lack of experience heightening the likelihood of poor quality work to complications with taxation to the ramifications of a false perception of growing independence.

 

Scenario 5: Live in a country with a significantly lower minimum wage and high level unemployment.

This is my favourite scenario because of the punch line at the end. Essentially if a UCD was unfortunate enough to live in a region with no available and viable employment alternatives and a cost of living where an income of around $10.00 a week may be sufficient then they could conceivably sustain gainful independent employment making reasonable quality mods in a reasonable time per mod and reasonable quantity of mods per month. An issue here is that most regions where these circumstances could be found are non-English speaking regions and that language barrier would limit both the complexity, quality and publicity of the mod not to mention any technical support. There are other problems too such as a very real limit on the longevity and replayability of the game per individual player and the hard coded limit to the number of mods that each game can be played with as well as the more obvious limit to how much each player would be willing to spend on their game. These limits essentially place a hard cap on the amount of unique mods that could ever be sold, using the number of mods on the Nexus as a guide one would expect that cap to be well under 25,000. This scenario is pretty much the only one which could actually benefit the player being the most likely to produce something that could in some small way be worth buying and here is the punch line... This word turn the Steam Workshop into an actual Sweatshop :wink:

 

 

So what exactly does an average UCD get by charging people for their Mod?

• At best a scrap of pocket change.
• The slim chance of better Mod tools in future Moddable games given the extra revenue Mods will supply to Publishers.

 

And what of the cost a UCD pays by charging people for their Mod?

• Vastly fewer people actually experiencing their work (and as many seem to have forgotten that is why we Modder’s started releasing our Mods in the first place).
• Those few who actually do experience their work being drastically more critical of it (and rightly so).
• Should their work be decent or popular it will be copied, stolen and or pirated.
• Should their work be poor or faulty (and this being the internet even if it isn't) they can also expect spam messages, hate messages, cyber threats and cyber attacks.
• Should their work become outdated or incompatible they will be expected to fix it (and they damn well better understand that for paid work this is an obligation not a generosity).
• They are no longer a Modder but rather a paid Unofficial Content Developer and subject to all the legal obligations of any paid service provider (nobody seems to have comprehended this not so little fact yet and really it needs a post all of its own because the ramifications are truly staggering).

 

What then does the player get out of UCD's charging for their Mod?

• A small chance that a handful of very good Mods could come out in the not too distant future.
• A medium chance that a reasonable number of very small but reasonably average mods could come out in the not too distant future.
• A large chance that a vast number of very small poor quality mods some of which may have quirk appeal could come out in the not too distant future.

 

What does the player lose out on by UCD's charging for their Mod?

• A fractured Modding community.
• A far more hostile general community.
• An infinitely more secretive community when it comes to learning how to become a Modder.
• A lack, or eventually even total absence, of compatibility Mods.
• A lack, or eventually even total absence, of unification Mods.
• A smaller number of possible Mods active per game due to the lack of compatibility and unification Mods.
• A significantly increased total cost of ownership to play a Modded game.
• A smaller number of Mods made with any real passion given the UCD's desire to optimise profit by broadening the appeal of their Mods beyond their own interests.
• A smaller number of Mods servicing any specific niches given the UCD's desire to optimise profit by broadening the appeal of their Mod beyond specific niches.
• A smaller number of Mods containing or referencing proprietary intellectual property such as a Film, Television, Novel or other series due to the illegalities of selling such a Mod.
• A flood of garbage Mods making it more and more difficult to find the few Mods that may actually be worth trying.
• A risk albeit slim one that future games designed with Mods in mind may be less than they otherwise could have been due to Publishers limiting Official Developers initial work and or long term support under the assumption that Mods will pick up the slack.

 

I could go on and on but really what is the point? If you have actually read this far and still don't get it I am clearly incapable of explaining in a way that you would understand.

 

P.S.

I really didn't want to nor initially believe it would be necessary to make this post but my briefer comment seemed to be misunderstood to the extent that I felt I should elaborate and this is really kind of only the groundwork for that elaboration. If I can find the strength left in my beaten down soul to go on I will try to explain tomorrow the Ramifications of Modder’s becoming Unofficial Content Provider's and therefore legally obligated service providers which is what my brief comment was actually in regards to. This would seem to be especially important given that even Steam's lawyers seem to have somehow missed the issues that this raises.

 

 

One of the best posts I've read about this issue

[Erinaea]

 

 

 

One of the best posts I've read about this issue

 

That post is awesome. I wish we could pin it somewhere for everyone to read haha.

 

You know you goofed when Forbes publishes an article about what you're doing being a mistake.

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/04/24/valves-paid-skyrim-mods-are-a-legal-ethical-and-creative-disaster/

Edited April 27, 2015 by Erinaea

[lordmonkus]

 

 

 

 

One of the best posts I've read about this issue

 

That post is awesome. I wish we could pin it somewhere for everyone to read haha.

 

You know you goofed when Forbes publishes an article about what you're doing being a mistake.

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/04/24/valves-paid-skyrim-mods-are-a-legal-ethical-and-creative-disaster/

 

Indeed, this is a must read for everyone. This should be mailed directly to Zenimax / Bethesda and Valve for them to wrap their heads around.

[FordPerfect]

A viable alternative to monetizing mods

I'd like to ask everyone who uses Nexus, both as a modder and as a mod user to have a look at the above and let me know what you think. Thank you

[Erinaea]

For anyone curious...I found this screenshot around..A mod author actually put advertisements for his paid mod in the free version of his mod (if this screenshot is genuine).

https://i.imgur.com/jvA06NO.png

Also for anyone curious, this is the rating Valve received from the Better Business Bureau.

http://www.bbb.org/alaskaoregonwesternwashington/business-reviews/computer-software-publishers-and-developers/valve-corporation-in-bellevue-wa-27030704

Edited April 27, 2015 by Erinaea

[andyg65]

@daede & @arestris well said.

On the point of donations, which has been an option on Nexus forever, I notice Dogtown1 has a Paypal donation button on his Monster Mod mod uploaded on Steam and Joop with his Combat AI mod encourages people to go download his free version on the workshop that he says will be the most upto date one!

 

The scenario of lots of sh*t mods being released is no bad thing if it makes the Workshop pointless, we don't get our mods from there anyway so let it fill with crap.

 

The best result of this fiasco would be for the workshop to fail and cease to exist, show the developers that it's in their best interests to allow a free modding model to keep their game at the top for so long.

[RurikNiall]

@daede & @arestris well said.

On the point of donations, which has been an option on Nexus forever, I notice Dogtown1 has a Paypal donation button on his Monster Mod mod uploaded on Steam and Joop with his Combat AI mod encourages people to go download his free version on the workshop that he says will be the most upto date one!

 

The scenario of lots of sh*t mods being released is no bad thing if it makes the Workshop pointless, we don't get our mods from there anyway so let it fill with crap.

 

The best result of this fiasco would be for the workshop to fail and cease to exist, show the developers that it's in their best interests to allow a free modding model to keep their game at the top for so long.

 

 

Nah, that'd be the second best result. The best result would be for the workshop to fold and for Bethesda to cut all ties with Valve so we won't be forced to use Steam to legally play our physical copies of their games.

[Deleted3507349User]

After having thought hard about this over yet another night, I have come to the following conclusion.

We, the modders, initiated this whole thing. We were the ones that created a way to get around the 'mods must be free' clause in the CK's EULA by setting up the donation system. Bethesda didn't do it, Steam didn't do it, WE did it. No modder ever made any significant amount of money out of it, but we made it a thing. WE were the ones that made the original arguments about how modders deserved compensation and how it would inspire new heights of creativity. Once the system was in place there's been constant complaints about how innefective it is.

Bethesda is a business from the get go. They are not and never were a charity. They allowed and supported modding for no other reason than it makes good business sense. They made the games to begin with. They provided the Creation Kit, a modified version of the tool that created the game itself and provided it FREE OF CHARGE for modders to use, with only two main caveats. Modders can't steal copyrighted material to make mods and mods have to be free.

How can we criticize Bethesda for looking at what we did and saying "Okay, you want to be compensated. We agree with you, here's a system that you can use to get paid for modding if that's what you want to do. BUT, we want OUR cut also."

Now, the whole modding community is shaking itself apart because Bethesda did for us what we wanted but could not do for ourselves. WE are the hypocrites in this.

 

EDIT: That said, the Steam model is a horrible model.

Edited April 27, 2015 by digitaltrucker

[stoaty6666]

and how many people do donate,lets be honest here.myself I've played almost 5000 hours and I have donated prob six times,dont know it that good or bad (prob bad)