Steam and Bethesda remove paid modding from Skyrim Workshop

[Vesuvius1745]

In response to post #24815524. #24816764 is also a reply to the same post.

Kashrlyyk wrote:

UberSmaug 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

I used to work in the game industry, and that post made by Bethesda is what is known as pure unadulterated bull*s#*!.

Profit is the guiding light for every game company. Period. And they will follow the path of least resistance to maximize that profit whenever possible. With Bethesda, just look at their actions instead of their words: they released Skyrim unfinished and so bug-riddled, even 4 years after release modders are still fixing bugs they find. It was a poorly done console port, and rushed out the door to get it on the shelves before 4th quarter dividend declarations. Vanilla Skyrim is a mediocre game without the modding community, and if mod authors are willing to finish their game for them, Bethesda knows they can make even more money by releasing the next TES game even earlier than Skyrim, and even more unfinished.

They have been profiting off of Skyrim for years longer than they would have because of the modding community keeping the game alive and interesting, but alas, corporate greed required them to try and get even more. They would have you believe otherwise, but the modding community has been doing just fine without profit being brought into this. By wanting your mods on Steam, they aren't being altruistic. They aren't doing it because they like you and want to help you out. They are doing it because they want more profit. PERIOD. And if this had worked out, as the free mods from the sites like Nexus were widdled away, and the paid-for mods increased on Steam, you'd slowly see that 25% they dangled in front of you get widdled away too. It's right there in the contract. They said they would "adjust" the percentage as deemed necessary (pssst! Guess what? A company NEVER "adjusts" a percentage in YOUR favor. NEVER). So these wide eyed and bushy-tailed modders would wake up one day and realize they'd been exploited, that they no longer have control of their mods, and they are working for literally peanuts while Bethesda reaps all the rewards.

But don't take my word for it. Ask Chesko.

[acidzebra]

 

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.

 

 

There are many well-known bugs in all the DLCs. That you haven't encountered them doesn't mean they don't exist. Look over the relevant USKP for the DLCs sometime. You'll be amazed at the stuff that slipped through QA.

 

A mod maker's "responsibility" is to ensure the mod works well with the original product, it is not his job to ensure the mod plays nice with the entire ecosystem of mods. It's an impossibility; like I said there are too many possible combinations. There is such a thing as consumer responsibility.

 

If something you bought doesn't work, ask for a refund. That's not unreasonable. Unreasonable is expecting all mods to work with all other mods, paid for or not.

[Wolvenlight]

In response to post #24816339.

Vesuvius1745 wrote:

While I could be wrong, I haven't seen any mod authors state that they couldn't continue modding because they weren't getting paid. From what I understand, they reacted to the horrid backlash from the community and decided from there that the community they had been a part of for years was a fickle bunch of spoiled jack offs who didn't actually appreciate mod authors at all. I'm paraphrasing, and I don't agree, but that's what I've read and I can understand the logic behind it. If I were a mod author and many of my "fans" treated me like that, I might jump ship too.

If anything, the introduction of a paid mod system meant they could do what they love for a living (or at least spend more time on it,) and the retraction of that system meant they couldn't. Unfortunately, while I think paid mods would cause a lot of problems and I'm sort of relieved it all ended, good people got screwed over more than just losing out on potential revenue.

[UberSmaug]

In response to post #24817394.

acidzebra wrote:

Its is similar to if you bought a charger for your phone. You cant be upset that it doesn't also charge your electric razor as well.

[Wolvenlight]

In response to post #24810109. #24810954, #24813769, #24814189 are all replies on the same post.

eu3fan wrote:

WightMage wrote: ...Ok, that's actually pretty awesome. The getting a job with IBM thanks to your mod portfolio, I mean.

blackasm wrote: honestly programmers do not feel the pain of artists. Artists work is constantly devalued in every arena because artists themselves provide their work for nothing and help foster cultures that take advantage of them. whereas for the most part computer programmers earn above 80k whereas art graduates are for the most part unemployed. There is a huge difference between the amount of free time programmers have and artists have as well as the realistic opportunity for success based on portfolio.

jediakyrol wrote: and also..typically an artist's work is worthless until he is dead. Van Gogh couldn't get people to take his paintings for free...but once he died he was called a "master artist" and his paintings became worth millions... ... ...

Quite a few mods made about a thousand dollars in about five days. It totally did work for some, but you're right that most would find themselves lacking.

That said, I agree with the point that we would have much less with a paid mod system. Content tends to get shared in a free system, and in a paid system people tend to hold on to their assets and not teach others how to do things for themselves, (to cull potential competition.)

[Vesuvius1745]

In response to post #24816339. #24817409 is also a reply to the same post.

Vesuvius1745 wrote:

Wolvenlight wrote: While I could be wrong, I haven't seen any mod authors state that they couldn't continue modding because they weren't getting paid. From what I understand, they reacted to the horrid backlash from the community and decided from there that the community they had been a part of for years was a fickle bunch of spoiled jack offs who didn't actually appreciate mod authors at all. I'm paraphrasing, and I don't agree, but that's what I've read and I can understand the logic behind it. If I were a mod author and many of my "fans" treated me like that, I might jump ship too.

If anything, the introduction of a paid mod system meant they could do what they love for a living (or at least spend more time on it,) and the retraction of that system meant they couldn't. Unfortunately, while I think paid mods would cause a lot of problems and I'm sort of relieved it all ended, good people got screwed over more than just losing out on potential revenue.

" I haven't seen any mod authors state that they couldn't continue modding because they weren't getting paid."

Read some of these threads. Multiple mod authors have stated as such.

And some of that "selfish community" that "attacked" them were mod authors themselves, and although I could be wrong, seemed to be upset that these modders were piggy-backing on the work others had given to the community for free, and trying to make a profit off of it. The programmers of ENB, FORE, SKSE and many others have given countless hours of their time developing these tools and utilities, and gifting them to the community with the only expectation that people pay-it-forward (i.e. more mods given to the community). It might be disappointing to such individuals to see their work taken, used, relied upon, and then stuck in a pay-for system on Steam.

[GoldenDragonRider]

In response to post #24808104. #24814359, #24816149 are all replies on the same post.

GoldenDragonRider wrote:

blackasm wrote: you hit the nail on the head bro, it is not right at all. The worst part of this is that the users don't even see their entitlement (do they ever) and just assume that form of creation must always be utterly worthless. Of course many of these users claiming Bethesda and valve are thieves for taking a huge risk and keeping modding alive in general (remember they really don't have to support modders and it only barely adds to their revenue stream while adding a buckton of headaches). well in an age where less and less game studios hire mod makers or even support mod development (that was really more of a 10+ years ago thing) and where artists work is devalued more and more artists like me need to seriously reconsider our involvement with communities that would further devalue our creative efforts while benefitting off of them, I mean lets not forget the reality here, the nexus mod site and its users benefit more directly from the content of mod authors more than Bethesda or valve does.

Ghatto wrote: Poor analogies both.

People are angry at the painter because a 'free' painting in the gallery (mod) will leave that gallery. If they wanted to pay him for making a new work unassociated with the gallery (separate game) nobody could stop him or really complain.

Your musician friend plays at a show for money, consumers have to pay money for a ticket. This is like how every single modder and user here must pay Bethesda for the game (a ticket) in order to use mods. If the audience was forced to tip your friend for their music in addition to the ticket there would be more contention and argument about value. Admittedly, in this example, Bethesda does not share the proceeds of that ticket, but that's not the consumers fault.

I'm interested in your statements:
1)
(a) In many cases, the Painter (mod maker) did not remove their old work from the Gallery (Nexus), they made a newer version of their old work or entirely new pieces of artwork (mods). If the old is there for all to enjoy what's the harm of selling a new one?

(b) I know some modders decided to remove their mods from the Nexus and put them up for sale only. But isn't everyone allowed to make a living doing what they want provided it's legal?

2)
I think I see your statement for you this one. You're saying "we paid for the game and the right to be able to mod it", and "if we pay for mods we'll be; paying once for the game and to ability to mod the game, then paying again for the ability to use the mod." Kinda like the WoW and ESO when it first came out, buy once, then keep paying to be able to play. Correct?

Although, I can't disagree that buying the game does give you the ability to mod it at will, why does that mean that modders don't deserve the option to make money?

If (2) was your point I can kind of see why many mod users do have a problem with the pay-to-mod system. But that doesn't explain why people blame the mod authors...

I personally disliked the selling of mods, however, what right do I have to force them that they can't make a living in that way?

The common argument that they should have asked nicely for donations or setup a Paetron/Kickstarter account or something. And I'd agree I've got much more incentive to give money in that way than be forced, but from my interpretations of the events, before this became active, it was not common knowledge that such options were open, the only way I knew it existed was a list of donars on the Immersive Armours page (I think it was that mod), but I didn't know how to donate, and maybe I was a little cheap and hadn't gone looking for it. And because of modding being in a legal grey area and/or in accordance with the Nexus you couldn't just ask for money. People say modders were offered a chance to make money and all of a sudden they betrayed us and the spirit of modding, my second-best friend says a similar thing, but I disagree. To me, in the eyes of the modder it was "We've been given the green flag that we now have a second option, maybe we could make a side-career out of it and improve our work." I know there's always going to be some people who want to make a quick buck, but they're the minority.

is that everything I wanted to say? I think so...

[lukianna]

Wow no-one has heard of the expression quality over quantity. plus in my opinion the unofficial patches are the only important mods, is it classed as a mod? Either way everything else is cosmetic. I have played Oblivion and Skyrim on 360 since they both went on the shelves until my 360 broke but luckily the TES anniversary came out, so when it went on sale, my family bought it for me. Hence i now can just use my less than useless computer, Skyrim is playable without mods of any kind even unofficial patches, the patches just helped with annoying glitches and bugs, which means i can now play Clavius Viles Umbra quest and not have the game not move or play at all. My next point if it can be done is YouTube your own mods n get paid for it, see if you open a deviant art and do commissions or just be happy you get a pound/dollar etc from at least one person through donations. Before you comment, no i have made no mods avail to nexus or any site but I have attempted to make a house for myself and change a armor mesh and wow never again, no i have never made comment til now or donated and yes i have endorsed but my endorsement button refuses to work and yes i cant be bothered to report it as i am not dying from not being able to using it. i shall say one thing, i do mention to friends and family about Skyrim community and showcase any pics i take through the game and talk about it to those who ask, so in a way i do contribute to the community whether you think so or not is your prerogative. i do agree with comments by some mod authors that some mod users are rude and ungrateful and to mod users who had mod authors taking it out on them i apologise to you for them both sides need to sit down and look at the others point of view. Not good I wrote enough to write a novel or at least a chapter in one, never typed so much lol. Either way about this PFM(paid for mods) i wouldn't pay you don't need to know why as i said before all elder scroll games are playable without mods even unofficial patches having them is just a luxury but i agree modders should be allowed to have the choice to sell their wares such as fanfics whether its in written form or not with obvious permission from owner i.e. Bethesda just in a more tasteful manner. I mean look at world events where change was forced on people and riots happened, people were divided. Also with that percentage, you better of going to East Asia to end this of, if none above appeal to you make your own game and sell it I am sure if you look at other companies they will happily let you borrow their assets if you can prove your worth it. Now, back to lurking. Oh great work people keep modding whether its privately or for the community and the users keep on praising and showing love. MY current mods on pic The Ningheim race, live another life, ELFX, Mini-dresses, COT and obviously SKUYI, unofficial patch and skse, thanks for those mods to those authors. Now get along, no point talking about things in the past, all you are doing is creating a gap pushing the community even further apart with blaming each other, when we should be doing the opposite not saying you should forget but you should forgive, again look just look at world events then look at this he said she said stuff. If you can't then its best to walk away from the community to cool down and return later.

[tirekyll]

In response to post #24817394. #24817499 is also a reply to the same post.

acidzebra wrote:

UberSmaug wrote: Its is similar to if you bought a charger for your phone. You cant be upset that it doesn't also charge your electric razor as well.

Actually it's not similar to that at all. It's close to buying a phone, installing two separate apps, then find out one app causes issues with the other and bricks your entire phone. The person at fault for that isn't the consumer when there were no warnings that the apps couldn't be used on the same phone. Especially bad when the apps are paid for. There needs to be more quality control and assurance that all the apps coincide, largely for the fact that it likely wouldn't be hard to brick a smartphone. Edited April 30, 2015 by tirekyll

[Wolvenlight]

In response to post #24774814. #24776789, #24777459, #24811584, #24811694, #24811904, #24811959, #24813484 are all replies on the same post.

chidosity wrote:

Brasscatcher wrote: And if they don't like it, they can hit the bricks. Right on, chido!

FavoredSoul wrote: You totally missed the point of my post.

95% of my discontent had to do with the simple fact that this "issue" has brought to the surface, such a disgusting amount of hate that I never knew existed, or was even possible. And why?

Did I even have any mods for sale? No. Only about 15 people were even part of the program, let me repeat that, *FIFTEEN*, so for people like you to say that people like me are greedy and entitled, when we DIDN'T EVEN DO ANYTHING, that's the truly heart breaking part.

I was merely upset and disappointed over the fact that, for the briefest moment, the POSSIBILITY of some kind of return system existed, and it was so vilified, and so hated, that you guys decided to make, in large part, the mod-authors the target of that hate, and not bethesda and valve who were the ones that CREATED IT.

So again, when people like you say to people like me, "good riddance we don't need you", it just proves how disposable you think we are. You're happy to use our mods when we're offering, and just as readily are willing to throw us away without a second thought. You take us for granted, and that makes you nothing else but a selfish individual. And you say that I am the one with the disease?

I would say that anybody who posts comments like that, filled with hate, is the one with the disease. I haven't done anything. I didn't pull my mods from the Nexus. I didn't put any mods behind a paywall. Where did all this hate come from?

Musicdude132 wrote: "Some of you are calling end-users entitled brats for wanting something for nothing. I am calling all of you mod authors that wish to be financially compensated for your work entitled brats. When you started your project, large or small, you never envisioned being paid for you work. No matter what your motivation was, money was never one of them.

Once that possibility became a reality, suddenly you're entitled to compensation? Horseshit."

Well said.

I haven't been following this debacle, but I have seen some modders attacking users for "taking away their dream of making money off of mods" and in response will no longer be uploading free mods any more. How childish.

WightMage wrote: Personally, I think modders should be compensated at some point, but I agree that the end goal of modding should not be financial, for reasons stated over the past three news threads.

WightMage wrote: FavoredSoul, I get that the modders who joined the initial program (and were subsequently burned, both by users and Valve/Bethesda) were for the most part wrongly attacked, but I'm honestly confused as to how you can believe that mod-authors were vilified alone.

I've been watching these comments threads for six days too long, and from what I've seen, the hatred has passed from Valve/Bethesda, to SPECIFIC mod authors, back to Valve, back to Bethesda, stayed with Bethesda, back to Valve, and now that the system is dead, focused on mod users, many of whom were in fact DEFENDING the right of mod authors to get paid if they so wished. When people started attacking *you*, it was because you posted a reply that attacked mod users, who in turn thought that *you* were being entitled.

Do you see the problem here? This isn't helping anything. Anytime anyone creates a large post written entirely in the spirit of passion infused hatred, it just brews more hatred and we hear each other even less and less and yell more and more in response to being heard less.

It's only getting worse, and everyone involved with this riot mongering is culpable, even the OP of this thread. But from what I gather, he and several others like him only posted this because he felt he was being attacked, just as you did originally.

TL;DR, we all seriously need to get a drink together and talk about s#*! without throwing glasses at each other's face.

sunshinenbrick wrote: I think the end goal if there is one for me is maybe getting a JOB out of it, not money. Not necessarily as a game designer but I find that what is my hobby actually allows me to learn a lot of skills.

A job (which modding can feel like sometimes) is about more than money, it is about realising your potential as a human being. What was offered was a job contract, and a lousy illegal one at that which had next to no protection for anyone except themselves and a few others.

Now I like to believe that there are some great people at both Beth and Val but with things the way they are in the world they are sometimes thrown into situations and make very bad decisions in the process. The problem with big business. This does not excuse what they did but it should not mean that there cannot be an open dialogue with them so as we can express our fears and concerns so that (as this is probably inevitable) we can find a compromise that we agree on. Authors and users alike. I think we must also argue that ending free modding altogether will be their undoing eventually.

Sorry I do not know you either and I have just mouthed off my opinions on your post but I just feel there are some deep issues here we need to get to grips with.

That's my 2 cents... or what ever the hell people are saying nowadays ;D

svanderwerf wrote: this is pretty much my entire problem with Valve's handing of this clusterfeic

They took an existing and very healthy community and did the one thing absolutely guaranteed to cause an ideological war. The level of mismanagement is staggering, and I'll be amazed if whoever was responsible for this debacle still has a job.

Chido, I have to take FavoredSouls side here. Regardless of whether or not paid modding was a good idea overall, (and I personally think it wasn't,) the consumer portion of the Nexus was far more filled with extreme vitriol and hatred towards the paid authors, people who have given so much for free already. Very few mod authors who tried the paid workshop actually cared enough about being compensated to the point they wouldn't have modded in the first place. When presented with the option, they tried it. It did okay for some but ultimately failed. Many of them accepted that gracefully. Heck, it was always a possibility, quite a few games allow mods to be sold. Bethesda could always make that choice, and you know this is true, because they just did. However brief it was. And if your motivation is experience and a portfolio, then money is your motivation, simple as that.

When people like you attack them, calling them entitled brats, a disease, tell them how they should think, why they should do modding, (or anything,) as if you own the very concept... coming off to others as if you think you're so much better than them because you do it for free? (Not to be confused with "for nothing.") You prove everything the paid authors say against you and the people who first started this "war." Especially because you attacked first. I don't care how many mods you've made. I've never made one in my life and I'm on the paid authors side here. You think they're delusional? We don't need your mods either. We don't need you. Bethesda doesn't need you. There will always be other people. Your opinion isn't automatically better because you've made mods for free, or at all.

Also, no, nobody is going to replace them when they leave. People will come and go as they always have, but only you and your kind have chased good people away by being so dead set against not the system for it's flaws, but the innocent people who did nothing but fall outside your banner. We have lost their mods, their ideas, their concepts and assets because of the horrible things said by people like you. I like free mods, but I like fair, kind people a lot more. If I had to choose, I'd rather have a smaller more expensive modding community than a hate filled one. (Neither exist, but hey.)

Enough is enough. It's fine if you think it's a bad idea. Discuss it's flaws, rail against Bethesda, be logical, convince people. Don't hurt innocent people, and don't let jerks goad you.


Also, please learn how to use the word "entitled" correctly. I haven't seen anyone use it right once this entire fiasco.