Valve/Bethesda announce paid modding for Skyrim, more games to follow

[IgnacyOrder]

In response to post #24592779. #24592899, #24593074, #24593094, #24593509, #24593979, #24594029, #24594224, #24594404 are all replies on the same post.

SvarogNL wrote:

insaneplumber wrote: Thanks.

AronaxAE wrote: Will come in extremely handy, thank you c:

WightMage wrote: Brilliant mate!

EnaiSiaion wrote: Looks like the London Underground logo.

"Mind the crap"

Charismoon wrote: Using your banner on my mods - thanks!

Magnalenian wrote: thanks!

AwesomeNino wrote: Im putting this on the dragonskin mod for fnv

SjoertJansen wrote: Thanks. Added to my mod page.

How to use it?

[jet4571]

In response to post #24594034. #24594549 is also a reply to the same post.

Da Erkka wrote:

IgnacyOrder wrote: Some dosnt even say thanks. Just use your stuff without even mentioning your name in credits. Happend to me :( Worst thing that this mod is still on Nexus mooking me

I ask for people who use mine to drop a link in the comments so I can see what they did because that's all the payment I need, just seeing the creativity they have using my models... and it is so very rare that I have received any links.

[JonnyEvil]

In response to post #24594129.

d4rkoverlord wrote:

Bethesda owns everything that you make with their construction kit. Apart from custom meshes and textures, they technically own all of them. Prior to this dubious idea you'd get a letter from their lawyers if you sold mods.

[NoDebate]

In response to post #24589329. #24589589, #24589619, #24589869, #24589984, #24590034, #24590139, #24590269, #24591409, #24591504, #24591544, #24591669, #24591839, #24591859, #24591919, #24592019, #24592054, #24592144, #24593439, #24593614, #24594099 are all replies on the same post.

Maverick11 wrote:

DiaSin wrote: The modders get a maximum of 25% of the profit. How is this them getting what they deserve?

Arendella wrote: Everyone has even said they should of done this years ago.
Back in 2012-2013 when the modding scene was booming and Skyrim's modding community was huge.

A lot of them left nexus, and they could of easily made more money and if they polished it better instead of this really dumbass way of 75% of your proceeds which is Absolutely nothing I might add for the modder themselves, it probably wouldn't of been as a big deal.

Daiyus wrote: I don't think anyone is condemning mod authors for wanting a bit of commercial recompense. Anyone who's made a mod knows how labour intensive it can be.

I think the big complaint is how Valve/Bethesda are handling that business model; they're stripping 75% of that profit away for something that they were happy being distributed for nothing?

That and it completely changes the way the community works. I don't think anyone would complain about having a more prevalent donations system with recommended donations. That at least would be keeping with the ethos of the community.

I personally don't have a problem with paying authors for good work, but let me try it first, don't put it behind a paywall.

salvador33 wrote: If it was about some other method of supporting the modders, everything would be fine. They SHOULD get some money via an alternate system. But how is it not GREED when modders get only 25%?

1)How many mods are based on other people's work and assets? I am sure nobody will be greedy and they will share the profits equally.

2)Why do people complain about DLC? It TAKES TIME for the company to create that product. I think we have all seen where that thinking has led.

3) What happens when Bethesda decides that they will allow mods for their games to only be hosted on Steam? If everyone follows suit, say goodbye to the Nexus. But I am sure that monopolistic practices never hurt any consumers before.

4)If you're being paid, it's not a mod but a DLC. Your work better be stellar since you're now selling me a product and if it breaks I am expecting you to fix it or else. See how this changes the relationships in the community?

I am not against modders being paid for their work, I am against the method implemented.

Maverick11 wrote: 25% is very fair. The platform for modders to begin work is available and ready. That platform cost Bethesda and steam a great deal of money to prepare. It is very easy to for a modder to begin work and entirely hassle free when preparing their next project. 25% is better then nothing which has been the case since the dawn of modding.

pr0 wrote: In all fairness a mod author would make more money making mods on Twitch or YouTube than they'll ever make from the SWS program....because even Youtube and Twitch have better profit splitting policies than this.

I get a 60/40 split from YouTube...and I'm literally nobody, I'm sure far more popular people get 90% or even 100% of what they generate in ad revenue. I have friends that make more in one night on Twitch, just playing games, than a mod author is likely to make from the SWS program in the span of a year.

I'm not sure where Bethesda thinks 25/75 is even a fair split, and I'm not sure why a mod author would think it was either.

There are far more effective ways to monetize content than this.

uszpdoz wrote: this is a good thing guys...now modder will take full attention for their mod....so we wont see any paid mod get abandoned right?

belenbelen wrote: dude. please. stfu. the guyaboveme. please.

Celltrex wrote: Is that sarcasm? Have you ever heard about Early Access games? Most of them cost money, and they are left unfinished and abandoned, and customers have their money taken. Anyone who condones payed mods and other Early Access cancer is a thug.

Maverick11 wrote: ^ And anyone who doesn't support modders making money is selfish. Arguably the real thug.

TheLine wrote: 25% is NOT fair at all. I don't understand what sort of mental gymnastics you have to tell yourself to think that Valve deserves 75% of a mod that costs 0.25 and the creator wont see a profit until after its made over $400. How much of a shill do you have to be? Not to mention that modding is a hobby not a career. I would gladly donate (read: DONATE) money to a modder that i felt truly deserved it but anyone who thinks they deserve even a cent for a sword retexture is greedy and doesn't understand what modding is truly about. Which is the community.

numeriku wrote: 25% is very fair.

25%.

Fair.

Not sure if serious.

P.S: They only get that 25% if they make $400 from selling their mod(s). So if you only made $399.99, then you get nothing, while Valve and Bethesda claim all of it.

:3 Still fair?

Arendella wrote: Mowing my Neighbors backyard makes more money than this crap

Noortje wrote: If it was 90% then MAYBE I would consider purchasing on steam. 25%? Are you f*#@ing kidding me? Mod authors deserve 100% not f*#@ing 25%.

The most downloaded mod has 7.2 million unique downloads. The author would only receive 72000 dollars before taxes if EVERYONE who ever downloaded that mod bought it on steam. Long story short: The income mod authors will get from this is ridiculously low. If someone sells 7.2 million copies of something they don't deserve some asshole company stealing 75% of what they should have made.

Winjin wrote: When I see not-supporting guys saying that 25% is fair I start to think that it's either Bethesda or Valve sales reps. You know, guys who desperately try to pluck the shitstorm by trolling the community into thinking that it's TOTALLY FAIR.

Gaben is not love anymore. Gaben is not life.

Noortje wrote: Winjin that's a bit weird to say, Maverick has made two outstanding mods. Not everyone has to give back to the community by supporting.

Maverick11 wrote: @TheLine

This coming from a guy who has never made a single mod. I have never received a single donation for anything I provided from this site nor do I expect a single dime. To say donations is even a viable solution to make money is nonsense. Whats even more nonsense is saying that modders should accept this as a hobby and nothing more. Some of us actually do this in hopes that one day we can make a career out of it.

To me, making money doing what I love is better then making nothing at all. Perhaps the 25% is arguably low but as person who simply downloads mods as opposed to actually making them... that doesn't concern you at all. Not in the slightest.

The platform to host these mods cost money. The platform to create these mods cost money.

icecreamassassin wrote: I will say 25% is pretty low, but it's not far off the mark of the industry norm for consignment of products like this. In the indie table top RPG world there is a PDF seller that gives 30% and takes 70% with a $100 payout threshold. This is fairly common. same with amazon's create space at one point. The PDF seller even wanted you to send people to their sure from your own which is absurdity if you already have the customer yourself. The trade off is promotion, but frankly I don't think what steam offers in that area is worth their cut.

The best way to combat this? Show your financial appreciation to modders you like and give them no reason to defect. Think about it this way; you volunteer with an organization you believe in and does good things and one day they say that they have a paid position doing just what you volunteer doing and they are offering it to you. Nobody in their right mind would turn that down. This is very similar.

eldiabs wrote: @Maverick11

As a person who has made mods, in my opinion, this is a very bad idea. Without the community, there is no modding. You can make the most amazing mod ever, and if people aren't behind you, it will go nowhere. Put your work on steam behind a paywall and you will alienate yourself from the community.

The modding community is about collaboration, and finding a common interest. There is no 'milking' going on. We all do this of our own free will, in our FREE time. The platform we created these mods on would exist whether we modded or not. We are all gamers here.

You want money from your hobby, get into game development and get a real job. Trying to make money off of mods is counter productive to the modding scene.

Trust me, there will be little acceptance of this change.

BadHatter wrote: "To me, all I see is greed. We don't complain when sites like the Nexus or Youtube advertisers make money..."

I complain pretty heavily when Youtube advertisers make money, depending on the content they're producing (such as most Let's Plays). But Nexus is a totally different service; it isn't a hobby that someone's putting out there for peoples' entertainment. It's a series of file hosting servers, which requires money constantly to keep afloat. It's not like someone whipped up the Nexus one weekend while they were bored and now it's just out here, totally self-sufficient. The administration team pays for the servers to stay up, so that modders can continue to host files here. You're essentially comparing apples and oranges.

This is the line on thinking we need to embrace. I wrote a wall of doomy text a couple pages back, alas, lost to the cosmos (Brumbek, that was for you buddy). Probably best you don't go looking for it. The ramblings of a crazy man. That aside, my point in that wall of text was this, Bethesda needs to feel accountable for their work. If Bethesda wants cash flow? They need to continue making quality games. Not setup with Valve and use the Workshop as a means to supplement their income, on-top of whatever pandered DLC. If the Workshop took off using the current model, 75% of the profits going to the companies (who by the way invest nothing already given in the process), where's the motivation for quality products? Where's the motivation for expansions? The market is already saturated with butter-churned DLC. That 75% cut? That shows the true colors. This isn't about modder's compensation, this is about establishing a new form of DLC, one that requires no investment from the parent company. Borderline profiteering.

That said, I am very interested to see how Bethesda plays on with this. Fallout 4 is around the corner. I like Wasteland, USA but, I'm not about to treat her like a hooker.

[SjoertJansen]

In response to post #24592779. #24592899, #24593074, #24593094, #24593509, #24593979, #24594029, #24594224, #24594404, #24594644, #24594984 are all replies on the same post.

SvarogNL wrote:

insaneplumber wrote: Thanks.

AronaxAE wrote: Will come in extremely handy, thank you c:

WightMage wrote: Brilliant mate!

EnaiSiaion wrote: Looks like the London Underground logo.

"Mind the crap"

Charismoon wrote: Using your banner on my mods - thanks!

Magnalenian wrote: thanks!

AwesomeNino wrote: Im putting this on the dragonskin mod for fnv

SjoertJansen wrote: Thanks. Added to my mod page.

IgnacyOrder wrote: How to use it?

SjoertJansen wrote: That will look like this:

http://i.imgur.com/HxnL2uP.png

Right click imge, click "Copy Image Location"

When editing your modpage, change to BBCode. Or when simply writing a post, type the following:

[ img ] the image location [ / img ] Without the spaces!! You can center it using:

[ center ] blablabla [ / center ]

You can even add an url like this one: https://www.change.org/p/valve-remove-the-paid-content-of-the-steam-workshop Best way to understand is to look up a nice BBCode tutorial.

Example:
[ center ] [ url = https://www.change.org/p/valve-remove-the-paid-content-of-the-steam-workshop ] [ img ] http://i.imgur.com/HxnL2uP.png [ / img ] [ / url ] [ / center ]
AGAIN, remove all spaces!

Edited April 24, 2015 by SjoertJansen

[yurica]

hi :P I have few mods that I have uploaded to Nexus, I prefer to keep my current and future mods free.

 

it is not because $$ is not attractive, let's be realistic, donations are always welcome because honestly it can take me a lot of time to build a mod, but I do not like the stance valve/beth are taking, and it makes me worry about future modding especially in FO4/TESVI.

 

from what I understand, in the beginning there was no tool for modding skyrim at all, a lot of people spent a great deal of time to develop 3dsmax/blender nif plugin and discovering the mystery of skyrim behavior files and then shared them FOR Free. Without them, most of the content in armor/weapon/animations section would not exist at all... without these tools/plugin, steam workshop will only have rexturture and replacers at most.

 

and beth/valve is trying to make money out of their work, and only giving the modders 25% of the share, but I must state that, it is not the % share that matters, it is their stance, they are more like... thieves.

 

yet, this is not the end of the world :P it somewhat motivates me to make better mods to compete with those on steam workshop heh

 

 

[SjoertJansen]

In response to post #24592779. #24592899, #24593074, #24593094, #24593509, #24593979, #24594029, #24594224, #24594404, #24594644, #24594899 are all replies on the same post.

SvarogNL wrote:

insaneplumber wrote: Thanks.

AronaxAE wrote: Will come in extremely handy, thank you c:

WightMage wrote: Brilliant mate!

EnaiSiaion wrote: Looks like the London Underground logo.

"Mind the crap"

Charismoon wrote: Using your banner on my mods - thanks!

Magnalenian wrote: thanks!

AwesomeNino wrote: Im putting this on the dragonskin mod for fnv

SjoertJansen wrote: Thanks. Added to my mod page.

IgnacyOrder wrote: How to use it?

SjoertJansen wrote: Right click imge, click "Copy Image Location"

When editing your modpage, change to BBCode. Or when simply writing a post, type the following:

[ img ] the image location [ / img ] Without the spaces!! You can center it using:

[ center ] blablabla [ / center ]

You can even add an url like this one: https://www.change.org/p/valve-remove-the-paid-content-of-the-steam-workshop Best way to understand is to look up a nice BBCode tutorial.

Example [ center ] [ url = https://www.change.org/p/valve-remove-the-paid-content-of-the-steam-workshop ] [ img ] http://i.imgur.com/HxnL2uP.png [ / img ] [ / url ] [ / center ] AGAIN, remove all spaces.

That will look like this:

http://i.imgur.com/HxnL2uP.png

Edited April 24, 2015 by SjoertJansen

[Terrahero]

In response to post #24583619. #24583669 is also a reply to the same post.

Terrahero wrote:

WightMage wrote: Going? It already has.

Chesko's fishing mod, "Art of the Catch," was removed earlier today: http://i.imgur.com/DItmsFn.jpg

Thats one i guess. I wonder if it was removed by chesko or steam, because im not sure steam really cares if the mods being sold contain work from free mods.

Steam is legendarily bad when it comes to moderating content. And this scheme for them and Bethesda is just free money. Get someone else to make DLC for you, you dont have to pay them unless they sell (and make you at least 400$), and you are not responsible for anything.

[SkeletonShen]

In response to post #24594599.

Ehwhat2008 wrote:

I agree.

[theblueshark]

In response to post #24593024. #24593174, #24593264, #24593554, #24593789, #24593874, #24594259, #24594264, #24595624 are all replies on the same post.

ScrollTron1c wrote:

WightMage wrote: Sadly true.

mcguffin wrote: Well, money is actually a real way to show some appreciations. It's not the only one, but still.
I dont think a lot a modders want money as a business model, but being able to buy new games, extensions (to mod them also) just by donation, is kind of cool, actually.

Georgiegril wrote: I believe people who mod are artists who are creating in a particular medium. Donating to modders is like paying a street musician--sure, you could get it for free, but if it is beautiful and/or improved your day, then the money will help encourage them to keep doing it and adds to the benefit of yourself and the community.

ScrollTron1c wrote: @ Georgiegril
Fair point about the street artist comparison.

But i don't listen to 200 of them at the same time. And wouldn't it be unfair to donate 200$ to one of them, 20$ to another, and 0$ to the rest of them?

Not to mention that i have thousands of mods downloaded in my whole Skyrim career. Some of them only took the author 5 minutes to make, while others spent definitely more time than any single Bethesda developer on their game.

This is still supposed to be an entirely creative hobby, free of monetary profit and greed (at least on the user and modder end).



PS and i apologize for the bad formatting above, i actually wrote it as a proper <list> in the forum which is extremely laggy today for some reason.

mcguffin wrote: "This is still supposed to be an entirely creative hobby, free of monetary profit and greed (at least on the user and modder end)."

mmh, that sounds like dogma.
everybody is actually not supposed to act like *you* want.

Kandahar wrote: Well said. Recieving income by selling mod will not give modders more time for their family, it will not expend their life time. It will not help them to improve mod at once magically. It is only a need of money. (Of course some modders deserve some money/donation for their work, like Falskaar, but it's up to player if he will do this)
I agree with matter you mentioned about that players already paid for this mod. But not by real money. Thanks to constant players support they could improve thier mods. I know how time consuming is to test game then report bugs to deleloper, because I'm QA tester of game called Primal Carnage: Extinction.

SjoertJansen wrote: @mcguffin

Donation buttons exist already. Nothing wrong with that, fully agreed. Money could be a way of showing appreciation. I personally don't want it though, I don't have a donate button for that very reason. Money has no appreciative value for me personally.

The street musician comparison is also nice. This is different though, now we pay upfront to listen to the street musician. And one can ask the question, why was this mod made? I'd rather pay people out of appreciation than being forced to do so. I also rather pay those that created the mod out of their creative mind, or other emotional, fun reasons, than someone who made the mod for pocket reasons. Can you answer that question? And since when do I pay the instrument makers for the music the musician makes? Hasn't the musician paid them off already? Didn't they already pay to use the creation kit?

I know you can get your money back, but what does that say? You pay the musician upfront, and then ask back the money? Does that mean you don't enjoy the music, do not appreciate their creative talents or can't afford the money?

This kind of stuff is walking on a rope, I wouldn't risk it keeps the balance right. It's a very thin line...

teknofil wrote: While I am currently unable to do so, I have sent money, on more than one occasion, to the Nexus to help them continue the work that they are doing. I am appalled by the lack of understanding shown by some of these posts.

How has the effort you spent installing a mod benefited the creator of that mod? Sure you may have made helpful suggestions or told them their mod was not compatible with mod X. But does that little bit of effort compare to the effort made by the mod creator? Not really.

And while you are financially stable and able to donate to all those victims of whatever, including homeless beggars, there are people who aren't as financially stable for one reason or another. Take myself as an example, I am disabled and unable to drive and as a result I spend way too much time sitting in front of a computer playing games. I used to mod but i gave it up when I started trying to figure out a way to make money from home, which never quite panned out, to supplement my pitiful disability income.

In addition to other people like me there are probably a lot of "Stay-At-Home" parents who supplement their income working from home who could dedicate more time to modding if they had an income from it.

So let's be really honest, there are more reasons this can help the community than there are those that this hurts the community. Nobody is forcing you to use the mods being sold by Steam. If just one mod creator puts a quality mod on there that helps them support their family in some way then it has been a good thing. Whether you support it or not isn't going to change the fact that it now exists. You can complain or you can look at the bright side of it. Someone may be helped out of a bad situation by this.

We use to make mods to improve games. we share them to boast off skills and creative thinking. This used to be a fun hobby when did it start to be a stressful job that you need to be paid. Donations are ok though at least its not mandatory.

Edited April 24, 2015 by theblueshark