Steam and Bethesda remove paid modding from Skyrim Workshop

[tirekyll]

I've now gone through and endorsed every mod that I've used and really liked. I'll get to commenting on all of them in time and will be sure to appreciate the mod developers more for their hard work. I know it isn't much but I'm doing what I can to give a push to the creators who make this game far better than anyone could have ever dreamed.

[UberSmaug]

In response to post #24811984. #24812039, #24813429, #24814149, #24814369, #24814459, #24814579, #24814829, #24815214, #24815539, #24815809, #24815829, #24816074 are all replies on the same post.

Alenderis wrote:

WightMage wrote: Well said.

TheFlamingRed wrote: This is probabily the view of many modders who really don't say much in the community and simple download mods and play the game, of which I am one and know of several others of similar opinion. It's not like we're heartless for not posting a comment and saying thanks, but we test these mod, enjoy them in our own way and recommend it to our friends if they're good.

To carry on the main point here, if Paid Mods were introduced from the get go of Skyrim, and SKYUI was a paid mod - I would never have paid money for it without trying it first - even though it's a mod that noone plays without. The risk / reward ratio wouldn't have been worth my money. If a mod required SKYUI, a mod I didn't pay for, I wouldn't have even looked at that mod once I read that dependancy, and I feel that many others would have done the same. Like said above, I would never pay to test to see if I liked a new mod.

I am like this with games in general too, if there is no demo, no friend who has it, no Let's play whose first hour makes me think "I need to stop watching and get this game", I simply don't play that game. Falkstar via Gopher's Let's Play, may be the only mod I would have ever paid for if it was a paid mod on release. His spotlights probably would not have been enough for me to get any utility mods, or combat mods, or apparance changing mods, as I look at my money in a 'Pounds Per Minute of Enjoyment' ratio, without any first hand expereince as to whether I would enjoy something or not. Skywind and Skyblivion and Haar-Nien-something would have been the only other mods I may have paid for, given the size and scope of their respective projects (though whether they will ever be finished is another thing)

So Beth/Valve were smart to use a game that already had famous mods that perhaps people would pay for, as it would be very hard to get new people using any paid mods - so looking at that scenario... SKYUI again as everyone knows it, Let's say they released V1 of SkyUI free, but V2 onwards paid... Well, I'd have installed the original version and I remember well how amazed I was at how better the interface was - however, this is their main selling point. V2 onwards did add things, but if they were behind a pay wall, I will probably only stayed with the original, If other mods, free or paid, required V3 with mod configerator - this would not be enough for me to buy it also, I'd just not be testing these other mods (aside that, a feel a lot less people would have made this a requirement had Mod Config been a paid for only feature). I love SKYUI, but without knowing better, I would have loved the original and would have comfortably lived ignorantly how much better V4 is and keep my money. I do not know how many people actually donate, or how much people were earning for the brief amount of paid mods, but I would not have assumed it would have been all that much different to them in the long run, especially if most of the audence of mods are people like me (I cannot even recall the Nexus policy for modders asking for donations but I would hope it is not opposed to such practice).

Maybe I will be seen in a bad light here for being tight, unhelpful for not providing income to the mod makers. I also have no stance on this paid/free modding argument as it kinda slipped under my radar until I red this post. But even though I do not post very much, nor endorce all mods i download, or donate. What I am though, is a big appreciator of the mods here, someone who advertised people I know to try mods I know they will enjoy (I cannot count how many times I have recommened SKYUI to people who still play Skyrim unmodded, and iNPCs to basically everyone who loves the game. While I am not contributing much myself, I hope through my advertisements, and the network of advertisements of mods I give, that someone will be donating, endorcing, becoming usefully active in this community.

Anyway, this was just how I see things from being a very much outside / conveince user of this site and mods in general. I mean no disrespect to anyone, and all statements correspond only to my own thoughts.

Take Care

Red

blackasm wrote: your wrong dude, the most popular mods through donations got max a couple hundred dollars in a few years, the paid mods made a thousand in a few days, the difference is huge the reward for modders is clear and the market is very real despite how cheap you and others might be. Would it create a separation between haves and have nots, yup just like dlcs, collectors editions and hell video games themselves. The fact that the entire opportunity was scrapped because a bunch of entitled loafers feel they wouldn't buy it so no one else should so they can keep getting free labor is utterly atrocious, and as far as the cut, basically they were essentially saying the mod authors or worth 25% of what they think which is pretty bad but understandable in business terms, and the community collectively shouted "NO you are worth NOTHING!"

TheFlamingRed wrote: I am surpised modders got a thousand pounds revenue out of a paid not and not through donations. That has confused me greately as I would assume that the target audience would be people who already got free mods. Still, could you point me to the figures you suggested, I cannot find where they are or what mods it was for. Where these for long standing mods or brand new mods? I really cannot find any information.

I am interested to see what the size of the market would be, compared to the the current market for free mods allowing for donations. I, as stated above, would not think the average mod user would use paid mods, so the aim is definatly a niche market, and I am curious just how big that market is.

UberSmaug wrote: Asking for donations is not allowed in the agreement. Its like a tip jar that gathers more dust than money. Technically sounds like it should have been illegal until Bethesda gave us permission to profit from their IP.

TheFlamingRed wrote: That is a shame that asking for donations is now permitted. I love open source software, and in that light, I have donated to things I find almost essential. If modders would like donations to keep on developing, then I see no harm in them stating that fact. Hell, if it means they can use the money to get better hardware, take an hour off their working week so thay can mod a bit more, I don't believe donations generate so little. Hell, even a mini Kickstarter for mods or mod development wouldn't be farfetched if authers wanted some sort of donations to the modding cause.

In open source, you will never make money to live off of like a business will provide, but there is a saying that "if you're providing something good, people want to give you money". By keeping donations on the hush-hush,'means that most people probably don't reliase that you can even donate in this way to mod authors... This is something that maybe Nexus should look at itself (i do not claim to know if there are any legal ramifications of such practice)

UberSmaug wrote: Stats are directly from the workshop about 5 days in. These were the top performers.

Purity selling for $2.99, 1400 subs = $4191.98 25%=$1047.99

Shadow Scale set $1.99, 1985 subs = $3950.15 25% = $987.54
low $1.49 " = $2957.65 25% = $739.41

Wet and Cold $4.99 670 subs = $3343.30 25% = $835.82
low .99 " = $663.30 25% = $165.82

Gifts of Akatosh $1.49 1456 subs = 2169.44 25% = $542.36

Alenderis wrote: blackasm, if you're responding to me I think you chose the wrong comment to respond to. You're essentially insulting me while making the exact same points I made in my initial post... just in a rather standoffish way. If you're going to insult me and argue with me, make sure you're not trying to say the same thing I just said.

My post can be boiled down to a simple statement that I honestly don't understand why you're arguing against: "Paid Mods are not a bad thing, but we should be able to TRY the mods before making the purchase if for a limited time. Also the modders should make more of a cut from it." My only mention of donations was stating "Hey, we should donate more". I'm arguing for Paid Mods to be done correctly, how does that make me an entitled loafer and cheap? Mods aren't an exact science here, its not official and in a lot of cases there's no between-mod support so mods just don't work together. All I stated was that we should be able to TRY the mod for a short time before buying it to make sure it works for us before we pay money.

TheFlamingRed wrote: Awesome, that is some decent money in 5 days.

Again, as a normal consumer of mods, and probably about to subject myself to a lot of hate mail, I would not have got any of those mods, nor would I recommend any of them to anyone I know. The only one i recognise is Wet and Cold - is it the same version as they one that is free on here?

Looking at Purity, lots of Subs and decent money. It made its way to nexus now and in less then a day, has about 3.5x the number of downloads. Its shame we didn't get to see what those figures would have looked like in a month. Would it have continued to grow, is the audience limited?

All it does look like is, providing it for free makes mods far more outreaching but apparently undervalued, and paid mods get some more cash but will narrow the audence significantly. In the end, I guess it is upto the motivations of a mod maker and what they want to see happen out of their mods.

Are there mod makers who want to make a profit? Would they be happy with just more donations?

I look back on Wet and Cold... Please let me know if it is the same, or near same to the version they have on here... if so, who are the people playing for it? I find it hard to believe they are all new people who have never heard of it before. If many of the people buying it are from the Nexus and said "I will buy it to show my support", then something has gone wrong if they are not getting similar money via donations at the moment!

Kashrlyyk wrote: You are ignoring the fact that the buyer only has 24h to find out if the mod works or not. And you are ignoring that Valves approach to "What can the consumer do if a mod stops working at some point?" is "Well, you can ask the mod maker and if he doesn't fix it than you lost money!" Valve is fine with people losing money with their shitty paid mod system.

The outcry was not just about Valve/Bethesdas cheap attitude towards modders but also that paying consumers are treated like s#*!.

TheFlamingRed wrote: I should add at this point, that all the points I am making are off the bat of Alen. I'm not against the principle, I am saying that I cannot see myself or many modders paying for mods without the ability of testing or, and in my case, seeing some sort of time of enjoyment to money spent ratio. That is impossible to do without some sort of demo. And in addition, if a purely free but less feature version came out, I may still coose to keep that rather then pay for updated version. This leaves test periods... but how long I may wish to test compared to another may differ significantly. I would stuggle to justify to pay for something that may result in my saved game being currupted (thinking old Warzones - awesome at the time, didn't get developed and caused some horrible issues and had to remove it - though admittedly, love the fact they came back and redid it) - but I have no quarms about dealing with such hurdels with free mods... I accept that when using mods, the game will be less stable, but if it happened on something I paid for. These are problems that need to be addressed before you get people like me investing in free mods.

I must appologise to the OP as I have derailed the topic a little, as I my thoughts take me through the scenarios of 'why are paid mods better for the mod author too'. I would think anyone who paid money to get these mods, would normally be more then willing to donate to them too!

TheFlamingRed wrote: Kashrlyyk has hit a big nail here and Warzones is the perfect example of this.

Warzones was amazing, but through lack of development became outdated through patches (and was heroically saved only a few months ago).

But let's take this to the next game.... Elder Scrolls 6 comes out, paid mods comes out. Pay £2 for a mod. Patch 4 comes out breaks mod. Mod is broken and game auto-updates through steam. Author has moved onto modding another game, as not much revenue is being got through original mod. Big Issue that would prevent me from buying a mod until all patches were out. Would a mod author be bound by contract with beth/valve to fix this mod?

I can see that there is money to be made in paid modding given the figures given, but there are also now consumer rights risks that never existed before. I'm not against that approach but it certainly has flaws to work out, both from the modders standpoint and consumers. I would like the idea of 'Open Source' style funding to keep a happy medium between purely free and purely paid modding, but that is something that needs to be sorted out by the community leaders amoung themselves.

I think you would see a lot of free Demo versions of mods being released before the paid one. I think it would happen quite naturally. I love when games do that. If you have an armor mod. Put out the a cuirass for free. If people like it and want the rest of the set they can buy it.

[tirekyll]

In response to post #24811984. #24812039, #24813429, #24814149, #24814369, #24814459, #24814579, #24814829, #24815214, #24815539, #24815809, #24815829, #24816074, #24816474 are all replies on the same post.

Alenderis wrote:

WightMage wrote: Well said.

TheFlamingRed wrote: This is probabily the view of many modders who really don't say much in the community and simple download mods and play the game, of which I am one and know of several others of similar opinion. It's not like we're heartless for not posting a comment and saying thanks, but we test these mod, enjoy them in our own way and recommend it to our friends if they're good.

To carry on the main point here, if Paid Mods were introduced from the get go of Skyrim, and SKYUI was a paid mod - I would never have paid money for it without trying it first - even though it's a mod that noone plays without. The risk / reward ratio wouldn't have been worth my money. If a mod required SKYUI, a mod I didn't pay for, I wouldn't have even looked at that mod once I read that dependancy, and I feel that many others would have done the same. Like said above, I would never pay to test to see if I liked a new mod.

I am like this with games in general too, if there is no demo, no friend who has it, no Let's play whose first hour makes me think "I need to stop watching and get this game", I simply don't play that game. Falkstar via Gopher's Let's Play, may be the only mod I would have ever paid for if it was a paid mod on release. His spotlights probably would not have been enough for me to get any utility mods, or combat mods, or apparance changing mods, as I look at my money in a 'Pounds Per Minute of Enjoyment' ratio, without any first hand expereince as to whether I would enjoy something or not. Skywind and Skyblivion and Haar-Nien-something would have been the only other mods I may have paid for, given the size and scope of their respective projects (though whether they will ever be finished is another thing)

So Beth/Valve were smart to use a game that already had famous mods that perhaps people would pay for, as it would be very hard to get new people using any paid mods - so looking at that scenario... SKYUI again as everyone knows it, Let's say they released V1 of SkyUI free, but V2 onwards paid... Well, I'd have installed the original version and I remember well how amazed I was at how better the interface was - however, this is their main selling point. V2 onwards did add things, but if they were behind a pay wall, I will probably only stayed with the original, If other mods, free or paid, required V3 with mod configerator - this would not be enough for me to buy it also, I'd just not be testing these other mods (aside that, a feel a lot less people would have made this a requirement had Mod Config been a paid for only feature). I love SKYUI, but without knowing better, I would have loved the original and would have comfortably lived ignorantly how much better V4 is and keep my money. I do not know how many people actually donate, or how much people were earning for the brief amount of paid mods, but I would not have assumed it would have been all that much different to them in the long run, especially if most of the audence of mods are people like me (I cannot even recall the Nexus policy for modders asking for donations but I would hope it is not opposed to such practice).

Maybe I will be seen in a bad light here for being tight, unhelpful for not providing income to the mod makers. I also have no stance on this paid/free modding argument as it kinda slipped under my radar until I red this post. But even though I do not post very much, nor endorce all mods i download, or donate. What I am though, is a big appreciator of the mods here, someone who advertised people I know to try mods I know they will enjoy (I cannot count how many times I have recommened SKYUI to people who still play Skyrim unmodded, and iNPCs to basically everyone who loves the game. While I am not contributing much myself, I hope through my advertisements, and the network of advertisements of mods I give, that someone will be donating, endorcing, becoming usefully active in this community.

Anyway, this was just how I see things from being a very much outside / conveince user of this site and mods in general. I mean no disrespect to anyone, and all statements correspond only to my own thoughts.

Take Care

Red

blackasm wrote: your wrong dude, the most popular mods through donations got max a couple hundred dollars in a few years, the paid mods made a thousand in a few days, the difference is huge the reward for modders is clear and the market is very real despite how cheap you and others might be. Would it create a separation between haves and have nots, yup just like dlcs, collectors editions and hell video games themselves. The fact that the entire opportunity was scrapped because a bunch of entitled loafers feel they wouldn't buy it so no one else should so they can keep getting free labor is utterly atrocious, and as far as the cut, basically they were essentially saying the mod authors or worth 25% of what they think which is pretty bad but understandable in business terms, and the community collectively shouted "NO you are worth NOTHING!"

TheFlamingRed wrote: I am surpised modders got a thousand pounds revenue out of a paid not and not through donations. That has confused me greately as I would assume that the target audience would be people who already got free mods. Still, could you point me to the figures you suggested, I cannot find where they are or what mods it was for. Where these for long standing mods or brand new mods? I really cannot find any information.

I am interested to see what the size of the market would be, compared to the the current market for free mods allowing for donations. I, as stated above, would not think the average mod user would use paid mods, so the aim is definatly a niche market, and I am curious just how big that market is.

UberSmaug wrote: Asking for donations is not allowed in the agreement. Its like a tip jar that gathers more dust than money. Technically sounds like it should have been illegal until Bethesda gave us permission to profit from their IP.

TheFlamingRed wrote: That is a shame that asking for donations is now permitted. I love open source software, and in that light, I have donated to things I find almost essential. If modders would like donations to keep on developing, then I see no harm in them stating that fact. Hell, if it means they can use the money to get better hardware, take an hour off their working week so thay can mod a bit more, I don't believe donations generate so little. Hell, even a mini Kickstarter for mods or mod development wouldn't be farfetched if authers wanted some sort of donations to the modding cause.

In open source, you will never make money to live off of like a business will provide, but there is a saying that "if you're providing something good, people want to give you money". By keeping donations on the hush-hush,'means that most people probably don't reliase that you can even donate in this way to mod authors... This is something that maybe Nexus should look at itself (i do not claim to know if there are any legal ramifications of such practice)

UberSmaug wrote: Stats are directly from the workshop about 5 days in. These were the top performers.

Purity selling for $2.99, 1400 subs = $4191.98 25%=$1047.99

Shadow Scale set $1.99, 1985 subs = $3950.15 25% = $987.54
low $1.49 " = $2957.65 25% = $739.41

Wet and Cold $4.99 670 subs = $3343.30 25% = $835.82
low .99 " = $663.30 25% = $165.82

Gifts of Akatosh $1.49 1456 subs = 2169.44 25% = $542.36

Alenderis wrote: blackasm, if you're responding to me I think you chose the wrong comment to respond to. You're essentially insulting me while making the exact same points I made in my initial post... just in a rather standoffish way. If you're going to insult me and argue with me, make sure you're not trying to say the same thing I just said.

My post can be boiled down to a simple statement that I honestly don't understand why you're arguing against: "Paid Mods are not a bad thing, but we should be able to TRY the mods before making the purchase if for a limited time. Also the modders should make more of a cut from it." My only mention of donations was stating "Hey, we should donate more". I'm arguing for Paid Mods to be done correctly, how does that make me an entitled loafer and cheap? Mods aren't an exact science here, its not official and in a lot of cases there's no between-mod support so mods just don't work together. All I stated was that we should be able to TRY the mod for a short time before buying it to make sure it works for us before we pay money.

TheFlamingRed wrote: Awesome, that is some decent money in 5 days.

Again, as a normal consumer of mods, and probably about to subject myself to a lot of hate mail, I would not have got any of those mods, nor would I recommend any of them to anyone I know. The only one i recognise is Wet and Cold - is it the same version as they one that is free on here?

Looking at Purity, lots of Subs and decent money. It made its way to nexus now and in less then a day, has about 3.5x the number of downloads. Its shame we didn't get to see what those figures would have looked like in a month. Would it have continued to grow, is the audience limited?

All it does look like is, providing it for free makes mods far more outreaching but apparently undervalued, and paid mods get some more cash but will narrow the audence significantly. In the end, I guess it is upto the motivations of a mod maker and what they want to see happen out of their mods.

Are there mod makers who want to make a profit? Would they be happy with just more donations?

I look back on Wet and Cold... Please let me know if it is the same, or near same to the version they have on here... if so, who are the people playing for it? I find it hard to believe they are all new people who have never heard of it before. If many of the people buying it are from the Nexus and said "I will buy it to show my support", then something has gone wrong if they are not getting similar money via donations at the moment!

Kashrlyyk wrote: You are ignoring the fact that the buyer only has 24h to find out if the mod works or not. And you are ignoring that Valves approach to "What can the consumer do if a mod stops working at some point?" is "Well, you can ask the mod maker and if he doesn't fix it than you lost money!" Valve is fine with people losing money with their shitty paid mod system.

The outcry was not just about Valve/Bethesdas cheap attitude towards modders but also that paying consumers are treated like s#*!.

TheFlamingRed wrote: I should add at this point, that all the points I am making are off the bat of Alen. I'm not against the principle, I am saying that I cannot see myself or many modders paying for mods without the ability of testing or, and in my case, seeing some sort of time of enjoyment to money spent ratio. That is impossible to do without some sort of demo. And in addition, if a purely free but less feature version came out, I may still coose to keep that rather then pay for updated version. This leaves test periods... but how long I may wish to test compared to another may differ significantly. I would stuggle to justify to pay for something that may result in my saved game being currupted (thinking old Warzones - awesome at the time, didn't get developed and caused some horrible issues and had to remove it - though admittedly, love the fact they came back and redid it) - but I have no quarms about dealing with such hurdels with free mods... I accept that when using mods, the game will be less stable, but if it happened on something I paid for. These are problems that need to be addressed before you get people like me investing in free mods.

I must appologise to the OP as I have derailed the topic a little, as I my thoughts take me through the scenarios of 'why are paid mods better for the mod author too'. I would think anyone who paid money to get these mods, would normally be more then willing to donate to them too!

TheFlamingRed wrote: Kashrlyyk has hit a big nail here and Warzones is the perfect example of this.

Warzones was amazing, but through lack of development became outdated through patches (and was heroically saved only a few months ago).

But let's take this to the next game.... Elder Scrolls 6 comes out, paid mods comes out. Pay £2 for a mod. Patch 4 comes out breaks mod. Mod is broken and game auto-updates through steam. Author has moved onto modding another game, as not much revenue is being got through original mod. Big Issue that would prevent me from buying a mod until all patches were out. Would a mod author be bound by contract with beth/valve to fix this mod?

I can see that there is money to be made in paid modding given the figures given, but there are also now consumer rights risks that never existed before. I'm not against that approach but it certainly has flaws to work out, both from the modders standpoint and consumers. I would like the idea of 'Open Source' style funding to keep a happy medium between purely free and purely paid modding, but that is something that needs to be sorted out by the community leaders amoung themselves.

UberSmaug wrote: I think you would see a lot of free Demo versions of mods being released before the paid one. I think it would happen quite naturally. I love when games do that. If you have an armor mod. Put out the a cuirass for free. If people like it and want the rest of the set they can buy it.

@Kashrlyyk I think part of the issue as well is the mod creators wanting money also didn't really care about the consumer. Of course that isn't all of them, but those that did would have never updated or cared whether or not your mod worked. It was just money to them.

[UberSmaug]

In response to post #24811984. #24812039, #24813429, #24814149, #24814369, #24814459, #24814579, #24814829, #24815214, #24815539, #24815809, #24815829, #24816074, #24816474, #24816529 are all replies on the same post.

Alenderis wrote:

WightMage wrote: Well said.

TheFlamingRed wrote: This is probabily the view of many modders who really don't say much in the community and simple download mods and play the game, of which I am one and know of several others of similar opinion. It's not like we're heartless for not posting a comment and saying thanks, but we test these mod, enjoy them in our own way and recommend it to our friends if they're good.

To carry on the main point here, if Paid Mods were introduced from the get go of Skyrim, and SKYUI was a paid mod - I would never have paid money for it without trying it first - even though it's a mod that noone plays without. The risk / reward ratio wouldn't have been worth my money. If a mod required SKYUI, a mod I didn't pay for, I wouldn't have even looked at that mod once I read that dependancy, and I feel that many others would have done the same. Like said above, I would never pay to test to see if I liked a new mod.

I am like this with games in general too, if there is no demo, no friend who has it, no Let's play whose first hour makes me think "I need to stop watching and get this game", I simply don't play that game. Falkstar via Gopher's Let's Play, may be the only mod I would have ever paid for if it was a paid mod on release. His spotlights probably would not have been enough for me to get any utility mods, or combat mods, or apparance changing mods, as I look at my money in a 'Pounds Per Minute of Enjoyment' ratio, without any first hand expereince as to whether I would enjoy something or not. Skywind and Skyblivion and Haar-Nien-something would have been the only other mods I may have paid for, given the size and scope of their respective projects (though whether they will ever be finished is another thing)

So Beth/Valve were smart to use a game that already had famous mods that perhaps people would pay for, as it would be very hard to get new people using any paid mods - so looking at that scenario... SKYUI again as everyone knows it, Let's say they released V1 of SkyUI free, but V2 onwards paid... Well, I'd have installed the original version and I remember well how amazed I was at how better the interface was - however, this is their main selling point. V2 onwards did add things, but if they were behind a pay wall, I will probably only stayed with the original, If other mods, free or paid, required V3 with mod configerator - this would not be enough for me to buy it also, I'd just not be testing these other mods (aside that, a feel a lot less people would have made this a requirement had Mod Config been a paid for only feature). I love SKYUI, but without knowing better, I would have loved the original and would have comfortably lived ignorantly how much better V4 is and keep my money. I do not know how many people actually donate, or how much people were earning for the brief amount of paid mods, but I would not have assumed it would have been all that much different to them in the long run, especially if most of the audence of mods are people like me (I cannot even recall the Nexus policy for modders asking for donations but I would hope it is not opposed to such practice).

Maybe I will be seen in a bad light here for being tight, unhelpful for not providing income to the mod makers. I also have no stance on this paid/free modding argument as it kinda slipped under my radar until I red this post. But even though I do not post very much, nor endorce all mods i download, or donate. What I am though, is a big appreciator of the mods here, someone who advertised people I know to try mods I know they will enjoy (I cannot count how many times I have recommened SKYUI to people who still play Skyrim unmodded, and iNPCs to basically everyone who loves the game. While I am not contributing much myself, I hope through my advertisements, and the network of advertisements of mods I give, that someone will be donating, endorcing, becoming usefully active in this community.

Anyway, this was just how I see things from being a very much outside / conveince user of this site and mods in general. I mean no disrespect to anyone, and all statements correspond only to my own thoughts.

Take Care

Red

blackasm wrote: your wrong dude, the most popular mods through donations got max a couple hundred dollars in a few years, the paid mods made a thousand in a few days, the difference is huge the reward for modders is clear and the market is very real despite how cheap you and others might be. Would it create a separation between haves and have nots, yup just like dlcs, collectors editions and hell video games themselves. The fact that the entire opportunity was scrapped because a bunch of entitled loafers feel they wouldn't buy it so no one else should so they can keep getting free labor is utterly atrocious, and as far as the cut, basically they were essentially saying the mod authors or worth 25% of what they think which is pretty bad but understandable in business terms, and the community collectively shouted "NO you are worth NOTHING!"

TheFlamingRed wrote: I am surpised modders got a thousand pounds revenue out of a paid not and not through donations. That has confused me greately as I would assume that the target audience would be people who already got free mods. Still, could you point me to the figures you suggested, I cannot find where they are or what mods it was for. Where these for long standing mods or brand new mods? I really cannot find any information.

I am interested to see what the size of the market would be, compared to the the current market for free mods allowing for donations. I, as stated above, would not think the average mod user would use paid mods, so the aim is definatly a niche market, and I am curious just how big that market is.

UberSmaug wrote: Asking for donations is not allowed in the agreement. Its like a tip jar that gathers more dust than money. Technically sounds like it should have been illegal until Bethesda gave us permission to profit from their IP.

TheFlamingRed wrote: That is a shame that asking for donations is now permitted. I love open source software, and in that light, I have donated to things I find almost essential. If modders would like donations to keep on developing, then I see no harm in them stating that fact. Hell, if it means they can use the money to get better hardware, take an hour off their working week so thay can mod a bit more, I don't believe donations generate so little. Hell, even a mini Kickstarter for mods or mod development wouldn't be farfetched if authers wanted some sort of donations to the modding cause.

In open source, you will never make money to live off of like a business will provide, but there is a saying that "if you're providing something good, people want to give you money". By keeping donations on the hush-hush,'means that most people probably don't reliase that you can even donate in this way to mod authors... This is something that maybe Nexus should look at itself (i do not claim to know if there are any legal ramifications of such practice)

UberSmaug wrote: Stats are directly from the workshop about 5 days in. These were the top performers.

Purity selling for $2.99, 1400 subs = $4191.98 25%=$1047.99

Shadow Scale set $1.99, 1985 subs = $3950.15 25% = $987.54
low $1.49 " = $2957.65 25% = $739.41

Wet and Cold $4.99 670 subs = $3343.30 25% = $835.82
low .99 " = $663.30 25% = $165.82

Gifts of Akatosh $1.49 1456 subs = 2169.44 25% = $542.36

Alenderis wrote: blackasm, if you're responding to me I think you chose the wrong comment to respond to. You're essentially insulting me while making the exact same points I made in my initial post... just in a rather standoffish way. If you're going to insult me and argue with me, make sure you're not trying to say the same thing I just said.

My post can be boiled down to a simple statement that I honestly don't understand why you're arguing against: "Paid Mods are not a bad thing, but we should be able to TRY the mods before making the purchase if for a limited time. Also the modders should make more of a cut from it." My only mention of donations was stating "Hey, we should donate more". I'm arguing for Paid Mods to be done correctly, how does that make me an entitled loafer and cheap? Mods aren't an exact science here, its not official and in a lot of cases there's no between-mod support so mods just don't work together. All I stated was that we should be able to TRY the mod for a short time before buying it to make sure it works for us before we pay money.

TheFlamingRed wrote: Awesome, that is some decent money in 5 days.

Again, as a normal consumer of mods, and probably about to subject myself to a lot of hate mail, I would not have got any of those mods, nor would I recommend any of them to anyone I know. The only one i recognise is Wet and Cold - is it the same version as they one that is free on here?

Looking at Purity, lots of Subs and decent money. It made its way to nexus now and in less then a day, has about 3.5x the number of downloads. Its shame we didn't get to see what those figures would have looked like in a month. Would it have continued to grow, is the audience limited?

All it does look like is, providing it for free makes mods far more outreaching but apparently undervalued, and paid mods get some more cash but will narrow the audence significantly. In the end, I guess it is upto the motivations of a mod maker and what they want to see happen out of their mods.

Are there mod makers who want to make a profit? Would they be happy with just more donations?

I look back on Wet and Cold... Please let me know if it is the same, or near same to the version they have on here... if so, who are the people playing for it? I find it hard to believe they are all new people who have never heard of it before. If many of the people buying it are from the Nexus and said "I will buy it to show my support", then something has gone wrong if they are not getting similar money via donations at the moment!

Kashrlyyk wrote: You are ignoring the fact that the buyer only has 24h to find out if the mod works or not. And you are ignoring that Valves approach to "What can the consumer do if a mod stops working at some point?" is "Well, you can ask the mod maker and if he doesn't fix it than you lost money!" Valve is fine with people losing money with their shitty paid mod system.

The outcry was not just about Valve/Bethesdas cheap attitude towards modders but also that paying consumers are treated like s#*!.

TheFlamingRed wrote: I should add at this point, that all the points I am making are off the bat of Alen. I'm not against the principle, I am saying that I cannot see myself or many modders paying for mods without the ability of testing or, and in my case, seeing some sort of time of enjoyment to money spent ratio. That is impossible to do without some sort of demo. And in addition, if a purely free but less feature version came out, I may still coose to keep that rather then pay for updated version. This leaves test periods... but how long I may wish to test compared to another may differ significantly. I would stuggle to justify to pay for something that may result in my saved game being currupted (thinking old Warzones - awesome at the time, didn't get developed and caused some horrible issues and had to remove it - though admittedly, love the fact they came back and redid it) - but I have no quarms about dealing with such hurdels with free mods... I accept that when using mods, the game will be less stable, but if it happened on something I paid for. These are problems that need to be addressed before you get people like me investing in free mods.

I must appologise to the OP as I have derailed the topic a little, as I my thoughts take me through the scenarios of 'why are paid mods better for the mod author too'. I would think anyone who paid money to get these mods, would normally be more then willing to donate to them too!

TheFlamingRed wrote: Kashrlyyk has hit a big nail here and Warzones is the perfect example of this.

Warzones was amazing, but through lack of development became outdated through patches (and was heroically saved only a few months ago).

But let's take this to the next game.... Elder Scrolls 6 comes out, paid mods comes out. Pay £2 for a mod. Patch 4 comes out breaks mod. Mod is broken and game auto-updates through steam. Author has moved onto modding another game, as not much revenue is being got through original mod. Big Issue that would prevent me from buying a mod until all patches were out. Would a mod author be bound by contract with beth/valve to fix this mod?

I can see that there is money to be made in paid modding given the figures given, but there are also now consumer rights risks that never existed before. I'm not against that approach but it certainly has flaws to work out, both from the modders standpoint and consumers. I would like the idea of 'Open Source' style funding to keep a happy medium between purely free and purely paid modding, but that is something that needs to be sorted out by the community leaders amoung themselves.

UberSmaug wrote: I think you would see a lot of free Demo versions of mods being released before the paid one. I think it would happen quite naturally. I love when games do that. If you have an armor mod. Put out the a cuirass for free. If people like it and want the rest of the set they can buy it.

tirekyll wrote: @Kashrlyyk I think part of the issue as well is the mod creators wanting money also didn't really care about the consumer. Of course that isn't all of them, but those that did would have never updated or cared whether or not your mod worked. It was just money to them.

If you want to stay in business you would have to provided customer service. You would be a fool not too. You could easily put a clause in the agreement that a modder must maintain their mod for a set period of time after release or be held responsible. I think that is standard for many software products. But that doesnot mean must make sure its compatible with every other mod out there.

[UberSmaug]

In response to post #24815524.

Kashrlyyk wrote:

Update: After discussion with Valve, and listening to our community, paid mods are being removed from Steam Workshop. Even though we had the best intentions, the feedback has been clear – this is not a feature you want. Your support means everything to us, and we hear you.

Original Post: We believe mod developers are just that: developers. We love that Valve has given new choice to the community in how they reward them, and want to pass that choice along to our players. We are listening and will make changes as necessary.

We have a long history with modding, dating back to 2002 with The Elder Scrolls Construction Set. It’s our belief that our games become something much more with the promise of making it your own. Even if you never try a mod, the idea you could do anything is at the core of our game experiences. Over the years we have met much resistance to the time and attention we put into making our games heavily moddable. The time and costs involved, plus the legal hurdles, haven’t made it easy. Modding is one of the reasons Oblivion was re-rated from T to M, costing us millions of dollars. While others in the industry went away from it, we pushed more toward it.

We are always looking for new ways to expand modding. Our friends at Valve share many of the same beliefs in mods and created the Steam Workshop with us in 2012 for Skyrim, making it easier than ever to search and download mods. Along with Skyrim Nexus and other sites, our players have many great ways to get mods.

Despite all that, it’s still too small in our eyes. Only 8% of the Skyrim audience has ever used a mod. Less than 1% has ever made one.

In our early discussions regarding Workshop with Valve, they presented data showing the effect paid user content has had on their games, their players, and their modders. All of it hugely positive. They showed, quite clearly, that allowing content creators to make money increased the quality and choice that players had. They asked if we would consider doing the same.

This was in 2012 and we had many questions, but only one demand. It had to be open, not curated like the current models. At every step along the way with mods, we have had many opportunities to step in and control things, and decided not to. We wanted to let our players decide what is good, bad, right, and wrong. We will not pass judgment on what they do. We’re even careful about highlighting a modder on this blog for that very reason.

Three years later and Valve has finally solved the technical and legal hurdles to make such a thing possible, and they should be celebrated for it. It wasn’t easy. They are not forcing us, or any other game, to do it. They are opening a powerful new choice for everyone.

We believe most mods should be free. But we also believe our community wants to reward the very best creators, and that they deserve to be rewarded. We believe the best should be paid for their work and treated like the game developers they are. But again, we don’t think it’s right for us to decide who those creators are or what they create.

We also don’t think we should tell the developer what to charge. That is their decision, and it’s up to the players to decide if that is a good value. We’ve been down similar paths with our own work, and much of this gives us déjà vu from when we made the first DLC: Horse Armor. Horse Armor gave us a start into something new, and it led to us giving better and better value to our players with DLC like Shivering Isles, Point Lookout, Dragonborn and more. We hope modders will do the same.

Opening up a market like this is full of problems. They are all the same problems every software developer faces (support, theft, etc.), and the solutions are the same. Valve has done a great job addressing those, but there will be new ones, and we’re confident those will get solved over time also. If the system shows that it needs curation, we’ll consider it, but we believe that should be a last resort.

There are certainly other ways of supporting modders, through donations and other options. We are in favor of all of them. One doesn’t replace another, and we want the choice to be the community’s. Yet, in just one day, a popular mod developer made more on the Skyrim paid workshop than he made in all the years he asked for donations.

Revenue Sharing

Many have questioned the split of the revenue, and we agree this is where it gets debatable. We’re not suggesting it’s perfect, but we can tell you how it was arrived at.

First Valve gets 30%. This is standard across all digital distributions services and we think Valve deserves this. No debate for us there.

The remaining is split 25% to the modder and 45% to us. We ultimately decide this percentage, not Valve.

Is this the right split? There are valid arguments for it being more, less, or the same. It is the current industry standard, having been successful in both paid and free games. After much consultation and research with Valve, we decided it’s the best place to start.

This is not some money grabbing scheme by us. Even this weekend, when Skyrim was free for all, mod sales represented less than 1% of our Steam revenue.

The percentage conversation is about assigning value in a business relationship. How do we value an open IP license? The active player base and built in audience? The extra years making the game open and developing tools? The original game that gets modded? Even now, at 25% and early sales data, we’re looking at some modders making more money than the studio members whose content is being edited.

We also look outside at how open IP licenses work, with things like Amazon’s Kindle Worlds, where you can publish fan fiction and get about 15-25%, but that’s only an IP license, no content or tools.

The 25% cut has been operating on Steam successfully for years, and it’s currently our best data point. More games are coming to Paid Mods on Steam soon, and many will be at 25%, and many won’t. We’ll figure out over time what feels right for us and our community. If it needs to change, we’ll change it.

The Larger Issue of the Gaming Community and Modding

This is where we are listening, and concerned, the most. Despite seeming to sit outside the community, we are part of it. It is who we are. We don’t come to work, leave and then ‘turn off’. We completely understand the potential long-term implications allowing paid mods could mean. We think most of them are good. Some of them are not good. Some of them could hurt what we have spent so long building. We have just as much invested in it as our players.

Some are concerned that this whole thing is leading to a world where mods are tied to one system, DRM’d and not allowed to be freely accessed. That is the exact opposite of what we stand for. Not only do we want more mods, easier to access, we’re anti-DRM as far as we can be. Most people don’t know, but our very own Skyrim DLC has zero DRM. We shipped Oblivion with no DRM because we didn’t like how it affected the game.

There are things we can control, and things we can’t. Our belief still stands that our community knows best, and they will decide how modding should work. We think it’s important to offer choice where there hasn’t been before.

We will do whatever we need to do to keep our community and our games as healthy as possible. We hope you will do the same.

Bethesda Game Studios

[Kashrlyyk]

Thank you UberSmaug for the text.

[Alenderis]

In response to post #24811984. #24812039, #24813429, #24814149, #24814369, #24814459, #24814579, #24814829, #24815214, #24815539, #24815809, #24815829, #24816074, #24816474, #24816529, #24816694 are all replies on the same post.

Alenderis wrote:

WightMage wrote: Well said.

TheFlamingRed wrote: This is probabily the view of many modders who really don't say much in the community and simple download mods and play the game, of which I am one and know of several others of similar opinion. It's not like we're heartless for not posting a comment and saying thanks, but we test these mod, enjoy them in our own way and recommend it to our friends if they're good.

To carry on the main point here, if Paid Mods were introduced from the get go of Skyrim, and SKYUI was a paid mod - I would never have paid money for it without trying it first - even though it's a mod that noone plays without. The risk / reward ratio wouldn't have been worth my money. If a mod required SKYUI, a mod I didn't pay for, I wouldn't have even looked at that mod once I read that dependancy, and I feel that many others would have done the same. Like said above, I would never pay to test to see if I liked a new mod.

I am like this with games in general too, if there is no demo, no friend who has it, no Let's play whose first hour makes me think "I need to stop watching and get this game", I simply don't play that game. Falkstar via Gopher's Let's Play, may be the only mod I would have ever paid for if it was a paid mod on release. His spotlights probably would not have been enough for me to get any utility mods, or combat mods, or apparance changing mods, as I look at my money in a 'Pounds Per Minute of Enjoyment' ratio, without any first hand expereince as to whether I would enjoy something or not. Skywind and Skyblivion and Haar-Nien-something would have been the only other mods I may have paid for, given the size and scope of their respective projects (though whether they will ever be finished is another thing)

So Beth/Valve were smart to use a game that already had famous mods that perhaps people would pay for, as it would be very hard to get new people using any paid mods - so looking at that scenario... SKYUI again as everyone knows it, Let's say they released V1 of SkyUI free, but V2 onwards paid... Well, I'd have installed the original version and I remember well how amazed I was at how better the interface was - however, this is their main selling point. V2 onwards did add things, but if they were behind a pay wall, I will probably only stayed with the original, If other mods, free or paid, required V3 with mod configerator - this would not be enough for me to buy it also, I'd just not be testing these other mods (aside that, a feel a lot less people would have made this a requirement had Mod Config been a paid for only feature). I love SKYUI, but without knowing better, I would have loved the original and would have comfortably lived ignorantly how much better V4 is and keep my money. I do not know how many people actually donate, or how much people were earning for the brief amount of paid mods, but I would not have assumed it would have been all that much different to them in the long run, especially if most of the audence of mods are people like me (I cannot even recall the Nexus policy for modders asking for donations but I would hope it is not opposed to such practice).

Maybe I will be seen in a bad light here for being tight, unhelpful for not providing income to the mod makers. I also have no stance on this paid/free modding argument as it kinda slipped under my radar until I red this post. But even though I do not post very much, nor endorce all mods i download, or donate. What I am though, is a big appreciator of the mods here, someone who advertised people I know to try mods I know they will enjoy (I cannot count how many times I have recommened SKYUI to people who still play Skyrim unmodded, and iNPCs to basically everyone who loves the game. While I am not contributing much myself, I hope through my advertisements, and the network of advertisements of mods I give, that someone will be donating, endorcing, becoming usefully active in this community.

Anyway, this was just how I see things from being a very much outside / conveince user of this site and mods in general. I mean no disrespect to anyone, and all statements correspond only to my own thoughts.

Take Care

Red

blackasm wrote: your wrong dude, the most popular mods through donations got max a couple hundred dollars in a few years, the paid mods made a thousand in a few days, the difference is huge the reward for modders is clear and the market is very real despite how cheap you and others might be. Would it create a separation between haves and have nots, yup just like dlcs, collectors editions and hell video games themselves. The fact that the entire opportunity was scrapped because a bunch of entitled loafers feel they wouldn't buy it so no one else should so they can keep getting free labor is utterly atrocious, and as far as the cut, basically they were essentially saying the mod authors or worth 25% of what they think which is pretty bad but understandable in business terms, and the community collectively shouted "NO you are worth NOTHING!"

TheFlamingRed wrote: I am surpised modders got a thousand pounds revenue out of a paid not and not through donations. That has confused me greately as I would assume that the target audience would be people who already got free mods. Still, could you point me to the figures you suggested, I cannot find where they are or what mods it was for. Where these for long standing mods or brand new mods? I really cannot find any information.

I am interested to see what the size of the market would be, compared to the the current market for free mods allowing for donations. I, as stated above, would not think the average mod user would use paid mods, so the aim is definatly a niche market, and I am curious just how big that market is.

UberSmaug wrote: Asking for donations is not allowed in the agreement. Its like a tip jar that gathers more dust than money. Technically sounds like it should have been illegal until Bethesda gave us permission to profit from their IP.

TheFlamingRed wrote: That is a shame that asking for donations is now permitted. I love open source software, and in that light, I have donated to things I find almost essential. If modders would like donations to keep on developing, then I see no harm in them stating that fact. Hell, if it means they can use the money to get better hardware, take an hour off their working week so thay can mod a bit more, I don't believe donations generate so little. Hell, even a mini Kickstarter for mods or mod development wouldn't be farfetched if authers wanted some sort of donations to the modding cause.

In open source, you will never make money to live off of like a business will provide, but there is a saying that "if you're providing something good, people want to give you money". By keeping donations on the hush-hush,'means that most people probably don't reliase that you can even donate in this way to mod authors... This is something that maybe Nexus should look at itself (i do not claim to know if there are any legal ramifications of such practice)

UberSmaug wrote: Stats are directly from the workshop about 5 days in. These were the top performers.

Purity selling for $2.99, 1400 subs = $4191.98 25%=$1047.99

Shadow Scale set $1.99, 1985 subs = $3950.15 25% = $987.54
low $1.49 " = $2957.65 25% = $739.41

Wet and Cold $4.99 670 subs = $3343.30 25% = $835.82
low .99 " = $663.30 25% = $165.82

Gifts of Akatosh $1.49 1456 subs = 2169.44 25% = $542.36

Alenderis wrote: blackasm, if you're responding to me I think you chose the wrong comment to respond to. You're essentially insulting me while making the exact same points I made in my initial post... just in a rather standoffish way. If you're going to insult me and argue with me, make sure you're not trying to say the same thing I just said.

My post can be boiled down to a simple statement that I honestly don't understand why you're arguing against: "Paid Mods are not a bad thing, but we should be able to TRY the mods before making the purchase if for a limited time. Also the modders should make more of a cut from it." My only mention of donations was stating "Hey, we should donate more". I'm arguing for Paid Mods to be done correctly, how does that make me an entitled loafer and cheap? Mods aren't an exact science here, its not official and in a lot of cases there's no between-mod support so mods just don't work together. All I stated was that we should be able to TRY the mod for a short time before buying it to make sure it works for us before we pay money.

TheFlamingRed wrote: Awesome, that is some decent money in 5 days.

Again, as a normal consumer of mods, and probably about to subject myself to a lot of hate mail, I would not have got any of those mods, nor would I recommend any of them to anyone I know. The only one i recognise is Wet and Cold - is it the same version as they one that is free on here?

Looking at Purity, lots of Subs and decent money. It made its way to nexus now and in less then a day, has about 3.5x the number of downloads. Its shame we didn't get to see what those figures would have looked like in a month. Would it have continued to grow, is the audience limited?

All it does look like is, providing it for free makes mods far more outreaching but apparently undervalued, and paid mods get some more cash but will narrow the audence significantly. In the end, I guess it is upto the motivations of a mod maker and what they want to see happen out of their mods.

Are there mod makers who want to make a profit? Would they be happy with just more donations?

I look back on Wet and Cold... Please let me know if it is the same, or near same to the version they have on here... if so, who are the people playing for it? I find it hard to believe they are all new people who have never heard of it before. If many of the people buying it are from the Nexus and said "I will buy it to show my support", then something has gone wrong if they are not getting similar money via donations at the moment!

Kashrlyyk wrote: You are ignoring the fact that the buyer only has 24h to find out if the mod works or not. And you are ignoring that Valves approach to "What can the consumer do if a mod stops working at some point?" is "Well, you can ask the mod maker and if he doesn't fix it than you lost money!" Valve is fine with people losing money with their shitty paid mod system.

The outcry was not just about Valve/Bethesdas cheap attitude towards modders but also that paying consumers are treated like s#*!.

TheFlamingRed wrote: I should add at this point, that all the points I am making are off the bat of Alen. I'm not against the principle, I am saying that I cannot see myself or many modders paying for mods without the ability of testing or, and in my case, seeing some sort of time of enjoyment to money spent ratio. That is impossible to do without some sort of demo. And in addition, if a purely free but less feature version came out, I may still coose to keep that rather then pay for updated version. This leaves test periods... but how long I may wish to test compared to another may differ significantly. I would stuggle to justify to pay for something that may result in my saved game being currupted (thinking old Warzones - awesome at the time, didn't get developed and caused some horrible issues and had to remove it - though admittedly, love the fact they came back and redid it) - but I have no quarms about dealing with such hurdels with free mods... I accept that when using mods, the game will be less stable, but if it happened on something I paid for. These are problems that need to be addressed before you get people like me investing in free mods.

I must appologise to the OP as I have derailed the topic a little, as I my thoughts take me through the scenarios of 'why are paid mods better for the mod author too'. I would think anyone who paid money to get these mods, would normally be more then willing to donate to them too!

TheFlamingRed wrote: Kashrlyyk has hit a big nail here and Warzones is the perfect example of this.

Warzones was amazing, but through lack of development became outdated through patches (and was heroically saved only a few months ago).

But let's take this to the next game.... Elder Scrolls 6 comes out, paid mods comes out. Pay £2 for a mod. Patch 4 comes out breaks mod. Mod is broken and game auto-updates through steam. Author has moved onto modding another game, as not much revenue is being got through original mod. Big Issue that would prevent me from buying a mod until all patches were out. Would a mod author be bound by contract with beth/valve to fix this mod?

I can see that there is money to be made in paid modding given the figures given, but there are also now consumer rights risks that never existed before. I'm not against that approach but it certainly has flaws to work out, both from the modders standpoint and consumers. I would like the idea of 'Open Source' style funding to keep a happy medium between purely free and purely paid modding, but that is something that needs to be sorted out by the community leaders amoung themselves.

UberSmaug wrote: I think you would see a lot of free Demo versions of mods being released before the paid one. I think it would happen quite naturally. I love when games do that. If you have an armor mod. Put out the a cuirass for free. If people like it and want the rest of the set they can buy it.

tirekyll wrote: @Kashrlyyk I think part of the issue as well is the mod creators wanting money also didn't really care about the consumer. Of course that isn't all of them, but those that did would have never updated or cared whether or not your mod worked. It was just money to them.

UberSmaug wrote: If you want to stay in business you would have to provided customer service. You would be a fool not too. You could easily put a clause in the agreement that a modder must maintain their mod for a set period of time after release or be held responsible. I think that is standard for many software products. But that doesnot mean must make sure its compatible with every other mod out there.

Well no, no modder should be held accountable to make his mod work with every other mod. I just think you should be able to test compatibility before you buy. I know they'd have to wait for the money, but give me a month to try it before I have to give you my money. If it doesn't work for me, causes crashes, or anything of the sort I can uninstall it and it won't cut into my budget. Steam remembers how much of my time I used, and if I go back to the mod, I need to remember I have less time to test it before buying.

If its a mod I enjoy, well I've got a month. Once that months up I need to buy it or never use it again. It means in the long run good modders get money, and those of us modding our games aren't left in a lurch because we got to use the mod a bit before handing over our money. I just want something to protect both sides from getting screwed.

[tirekyll]

In response to post #24811984. #24812039, #24813429, #24814149, #24814369, #24814459, #24814579, #24814829, #24815214, #24815539, #24815809, #24815829, #24816074, #24816474, #24816529, #24816694, #24816959 are all replies on the same post.

Alenderis wrote:

WightMage wrote: Well said.

TheFlamingRed wrote: This is probabily the view of many modders who really don't say much in the community and simple download mods and play the game, of which I am one and know of several others of similar opinion. It's not like we're heartless for not posting a comment and saying thanks, but we test these mod, enjoy them in our own way and recommend it to our friends if they're good.

To carry on the main point here, if Paid Mods were introduced from the get go of Skyrim, and SKYUI was a paid mod - I would never have paid money for it without trying it first - even though it's a mod that noone plays without. The risk / reward ratio wouldn't have been worth my money. If a mod required SKYUI, a mod I didn't pay for, I wouldn't have even looked at that mod once I read that dependancy, and I feel that many others would have done the same. Like said above, I would never pay to test to see if I liked a new mod.

I am like this with games in general too, if there is no demo, no friend who has it, no Let's play whose first hour makes me think "I need to stop watching and get this game", I simply don't play that game. Falkstar via Gopher's Let's Play, may be the only mod I would have ever paid for if it was a paid mod on release. His spotlights probably would not have been enough for me to get any utility mods, or combat mods, or apparance changing mods, as I look at my money in a 'Pounds Per Minute of Enjoyment' ratio, without any first hand expereince as to whether I would enjoy something or not. Skywind and Skyblivion and Haar-Nien-something would have been the only other mods I may have paid for, given the size and scope of their respective projects (though whether they will ever be finished is another thing)

So Beth/Valve were smart to use a game that already had famous mods that perhaps people would pay for, as it would be very hard to get new people using any paid mods - so looking at that scenario... SKYUI again as everyone knows it, Let's say they released V1 of SkyUI free, but V2 onwards paid... Well, I'd have installed the original version and I remember well how amazed I was at how better the interface was - however, this is their main selling point. V2 onwards did add things, but if they were behind a pay wall, I will probably only stayed with the original, If other mods, free or paid, required V3 with mod configerator - this would not be enough for me to buy it also, I'd just not be testing these other mods (aside that, a feel a lot less people would have made this a requirement had Mod Config been a paid for only feature). I love SKYUI, but without knowing better, I would have loved the original and would have comfortably lived ignorantly how much better V4 is and keep my money. I do not know how many people actually donate, or how much people were earning for the brief amount of paid mods, but I would not have assumed it would have been all that much different to them in the long run, especially if most of the audence of mods are people like me (I cannot even recall the Nexus policy for modders asking for donations but I would hope it is not opposed to such practice).

Maybe I will be seen in a bad light here for being tight, unhelpful for not providing income to the mod makers. I also have no stance on this paid/free modding argument as it kinda slipped under my radar until I red this post. But even though I do not post very much, nor endorce all mods i download, or donate. What I am though, is a big appreciator of the mods here, someone who advertised people I know to try mods I know they will enjoy (I cannot count how many times I have recommened SKYUI to people who still play Skyrim unmodded, and iNPCs to basically everyone who loves the game. While I am not contributing much myself, I hope through my advertisements, and the network of advertisements of mods I give, that someone will be donating, endorcing, becoming usefully active in this community.

Anyway, this was just how I see things from being a very much outside / conveince user of this site and mods in general. I mean no disrespect to anyone, and all statements correspond only to my own thoughts.

Take Care

Red

blackasm wrote: your wrong dude, the most popular mods through donations got max a couple hundred dollars in a few years, the paid mods made a thousand in a few days, the difference is huge the reward for modders is clear and the market is very real despite how cheap you and others might be. Would it create a separation between haves and have nots, yup just like dlcs, collectors editions and hell video games themselves. The fact that the entire opportunity was scrapped because a bunch of entitled loafers feel they wouldn't buy it so no one else should so they can keep getting free labor is utterly atrocious, and as far as the cut, basically they were essentially saying the mod authors or worth 25% of what they think which is pretty bad but understandable in business terms, and the community collectively shouted "NO you are worth NOTHING!"

TheFlamingRed wrote: I am surpised modders got a thousand pounds revenue out of a paid not and not through donations. That has confused me greately as I would assume that the target audience would be people who already got free mods. Still, could you point me to the figures you suggested, I cannot find where they are or what mods it was for. Where these for long standing mods or brand new mods? I really cannot find any information.

I am interested to see what the size of the market would be, compared to the the current market for free mods allowing for donations. I, as stated above, would not think the average mod user would use paid mods, so the aim is definatly a niche market, and I am curious just how big that market is.

UberSmaug wrote: Asking for donations is not allowed in the agreement. Its like a tip jar that gathers more dust than money. Technically sounds like it should have been illegal until Bethesda gave us permission to profit from their IP.

TheFlamingRed wrote: That is a shame that asking for donations is now permitted. I love open source software, and in that light, I have donated to things I find almost essential. If modders would like donations to keep on developing, then I see no harm in them stating that fact. Hell, if it means they can use the money to get better hardware, take an hour off their working week so thay can mod a bit more, I don't believe donations generate so little. Hell, even a mini Kickstarter for mods or mod development wouldn't be farfetched if authers wanted some sort of donations to the modding cause.

In open source, you will never make money to live off of like a business will provide, but there is a saying that "if you're providing something good, people want to give you money". By keeping donations on the hush-hush,'means that most people probably don't reliase that you can even donate in this way to mod authors... This is something that maybe Nexus should look at itself (i do not claim to know if there are any legal ramifications of such practice)

UberSmaug wrote: Stats are directly from the workshop about 5 days in. These were the top performers.

Purity selling for $2.99, 1400 subs = $4191.98 25%=$1047.99

Shadow Scale set $1.99, 1985 subs = $3950.15 25% = $987.54
low $1.49 " = $2957.65 25% = $739.41

Wet and Cold $4.99 670 subs = $3343.30 25% = $835.82
low .99 " = $663.30 25% = $165.82

Gifts of Akatosh $1.49 1456 subs = 2169.44 25% = $542.36

Alenderis wrote: blackasm, if you're responding to me I think you chose the wrong comment to respond to. You're essentially insulting me while making the exact same points I made in my initial post... just in a rather standoffish way. If you're going to insult me and argue with me, make sure you're not trying to say the same thing I just said.

My post can be boiled down to a simple statement that I honestly don't understand why you're arguing against: "Paid Mods are not a bad thing, but we should be able to TRY the mods before making the purchase if for a limited time. Also the modders should make more of a cut from it." My only mention of donations was stating "Hey, we should donate more". I'm arguing for Paid Mods to be done correctly, how does that make me an entitled loafer and cheap? Mods aren't an exact science here, its not official and in a lot of cases there's no between-mod support so mods just don't work together. All I stated was that we should be able to TRY the mod for a short time before buying it to make sure it works for us before we pay money.

TheFlamingRed wrote: Awesome, that is some decent money in 5 days.

Again, as a normal consumer of mods, and probably about to subject myself to a lot of hate mail, I would not have got any of those mods, nor would I recommend any of them to anyone I know. The only one i recognise is Wet and Cold - is it the same version as they one that is free on here?

Looking at Purity, lots of Subs and decent money. It made its way to nexus now and in less then a day, has about 3.5x the number of downloads. Its shame we didn't get to see what those figures would have looked like in a month. Would it have continued to grow, is the audience limited?

All it does look like is, providing it for free makes mods far more outreaching but apparently undervalued, and paid mods get some more cash but will narrow the audence significantly. In the end, I guess it is upto the motivations of a mod maker and what they want to see happen out of their mods.

Are there mod makers who want to make a profit? Would they be happy with just more donations?

I look back on Wet and Cold... Please let me know if it is the same, or near same to the version they have on here... if so, who are the people playing for it? I find it hard to believe they are all new people who have never heard of it before. If many of the people buying it are from the Nexus and said "I will buy it to show my support", then something has gone wrong if they are not getting similar money via donations at the moment!

Kashrlyyk wrote: You are ignoring the fact that the buyer only has 24h to find out if the mod works or not. And you are ignoring that Valves approach to "What can the consumer do if a mod stops working at some point?" is "Well, you can ask the mod maker and if he doesn't fix it than you lost money!" Valve is fine with people losing money with their shitty paid mod system.

The outcry was not just about Valve/Bethesdas cheap attitude towards modders but also that paying consumers are treated like s#*!.

TheFlamingRed wrote: I should add at this point, that all the points I am making are off the bat of Alen. I'm not against the principle, I am saying that I cannot see myself or many modders paying for mods without the ability of testing or, and in my case, seeing some sort of time of enjoyment to money spent ratio. That is impossible to do without some sort of demo. And in addition, if a purely free but less feature version came out, I may still coose to keep that rather then pay for updated version. This leaves test periods... but how long I may wish to test compared to another may differ significantly. I would stuggle to justify to pay for something that may result in my saved game being currupted (thinking old Warzones - awesome at the time, didn't get developed and caused some horrible issues and had to remove it - though admittedly, love the fact they came back and redid it) - but I have no quarms about dealing with such hurdels with free mods... I accept that when using mods, the game will be less stable, but if it happened on something I paid for. These are problems that need to be addressed before you get people like me investing in free mods.

I must appologise to the OP as I have derailed the topic a little, as I my thoughts take me through the scenarios of 'why are paid mods better for the mod author too'. I would think anyone who paid money to get these mods, would normally be more then willing to donate to them too!

TheFlamingRed wrote: Kashrlyyk has hit a big nail here and Warzones is the perfect example of this.

Warzones was amazing, but through lack of development became outdated through patches (and was heroically saved only a few months ago).

But let's take this to the next game.... Elder Scrolls 6 comes out, paid mods comes out. Pay £2 for a mod. Patch 4 comes out breaks mod. Mod is broken and game auto-updates through steam. Author has moved onto modding another game, as not much revenue is being got through original mod. Big Issue that would prevent me from buying a mod until all patches were out. Would a mod author be bound by contract with beth/valve to fix this mod?

I can see that there is money to be made in paid modding given the figures given, but there are also now consumer rights risks that never existed before. I'm not against that approach but it certainly has flaws to work out, both from the modders standpoint and consumers. I would like the idea of 'Open Source' style funding to keep a happy medium between purely free and purely paid modding, but that is something that needs to be sorted out by the community leaders amoung themselves.

UberSmaug wrote: I think you would see a lot of free Demo versions of mods being released before the paid one. I think it would happen quite naturally. I love when games do that. If you have an armor mod. Put out the a cuirass for free. If people like it and want the rest of the set they can buy it.

tirekyll wrote: @Kashrlyyk I think part of the issue as well is the mod creators wanting money also didn't really care about the consumer. Of course that isn't all of them, but those that did would have never updated or cared whether or not your mod worked. It was just money to them.

UberSmaug wrote: If you want to stay in business you would have to provided customer service. You would be a fool not too. You could easily put a clause in the agreement that a modder must maintain their mod for a set period of time after release or be held responsible. I think that is standard for many software products. But that doesnot mean must make sure its compatible with every other mod out there.

Alenderis wrote: Well no, no modder should be held accountable to make his mod work with every other mod. I just think you should be able to test compatibility before you buy. I know they'd have to wait for the money, but give me a month to try it before I have to give you my money. If it doesn't work for me, causes crashes, or anything of the sort I can uninstall it and it won't cut into my budget. Steam remembers how much of my time I used, and if I go back to the mod, I need to remember I have less time to test it before buying.

If its a mod I enjoy, well I've got a month. Once that months up I need to buy it or never use it again. It means in the long run good modders get money, and those of us modding our games aren't left in a lurch because we got to use the mod a bit before handing over our money. I just want something to protect both sides from getting screwed.

Why? If I buy dlc for a game I know they'll work together and will be supported as long as the game exists. I can't guarantee that with a mod and find it difficult in this way to spend money on one that may not work with another I spent money on. A 24 hour refund that only allows you to do so once every 5 days isn't going to protect me from finding out that 2+ mods I purchased the same day wont work together. Some guarantee that one persons paid mod will work with everyone elses paid mod isn't a lot to ask in this situation I believe.

[acidzebra]

Some guarantee that one persons paid mod will work with everyone elses paid mod isn't a lot to ask in this situation I believe.

 

That is a guarantee nobody can give. There are simply too many mods in too many possible combinations. What Bethesda does is make sure the DLC works with the original product (well, more or less because have you ever seen a non-buggy Beth product?). I make sure my mods work with the Bethesda product. What you do beyond that is YOUR responsibility. If you load a million mods, remove as many, then load my mod and it further breaks your already broken game, who is at fault?

 

Patches made by mod authors for inter-mod compatibility are a courtesy, not a god-given right, even if going by nexus comments some mod consumers think otherwise. Users who are capable of modding their game and maintaining a decent load order are capable of making their own patches.

[tirekyll]

In response to post #24817199.

acidzebra wrote:

Skyrim itself was pretty broken at first but I've yet to have an issue with their dlc. So yeah I have seen non-buggy Beth products.

This is kind of a crude way to go about it. I've no idea how to mod and yet I should pay someone to, intentionally or not, break my game? I mean if it breaks and I hadn't paid for it, yeah that's on me. If it breaks after I spent $5 for it? I hardly think it's a consumer issue at that point. I mean I see where you're coming from but I kind of see it as "if you want my money, do more to prove I should pay you". It isn't really entitlement since I can see a lot of people claiming it is. It's just common sense to stay away from something that can screw your experience over. Edited April 30, 2015 by tirekyll