valve talking about paid mods again

[TheSpaceShuttleChallenger]

As long as there are people committing hundreds of hours of hard work and skill into creating a product that other people can use, then there will be talk of compensation. I don't think that's unfair at all. In fact I'm fairly certain that if a good system for vetting, supporting, and distributing paid mods can be implemented, that it will do good things for the modding community.

I don't really know how I feel about Valve doing it, though. On one hand, I know that Valve is perfectly capable of developing a decent working relationship with community modders, and can create an environment where both valve and the modders make a damned near fortune off of mods. Source? Eight years of TF2. However, TF2 modding is nowhere near the scope and scale of TES and FO modding. The model used for TF2's 'paid mods' (in the form of cosmetic microtransactions) is nowhere near sufficient, and well... lately, Valve's track record has sort of faltered. There was, of course, that terrible rollout of a Skyrim paid mod system that gave modders the short straw, and Valve has completely dropped the ball on TF2 the past year or two: First they had the Snowplowpocalypse, wherein a community mapmaker was allegedly 'lead on' to produce a new game mode (a nearly year-long project) only to have the deal dropped in beta stages. Then there was that hugely ambitious courtship with turning over the development of the game to the community which lead to... Valve ceasing to produce updates of its own without ever finding suitable successors within the (still active, still willing) community, effectively pulling the plug on its own game.

One thing I will say in favour of Valve, though, is that they do still care about customer satisfaction and they do listen to feedback. If they offer us crap again (admittedly, they probably will offer crap) and we push back the way that we pushed back the first time, they will go back to the drawing board as many times as needed.

 

So I guess TL;DR is that while I'm not extremely hopeful that we'll get a good paid modding system out of Valve any time, soon, I do at least trust that Valve isn't going to ram a terrible system through as long as we remain active in providing feedback.

[Reneer]

I agree with everything you're saying, TheSpaceShuttleChallenger, but, at least as far as Bethesda is concerned with a paid modding system, Valve no longer matters because Bethesda has taken over the hosting duties with Bethesda.net. So while I totally agree with your assessment of the situation regarding Valve (though apparently the latest TF2 update is pretty good, I hear?) the next paid modding system will (in all likelihood) be solely through Bethesda.net. Whether or not Bethesda is capable of learning from previous missteps (both their own and Valve's) remains to be seen, though.

Edited February 16, 2017 by Reneer

[mkr1977]

The paid vs free mod thing is a trade off. I made a few mods, but they aren't significant enough to pay for, and if I did demand payment for them you can bet that someone else would implement it for free.

 

On the other hand, there are some large mods that probably deserve some payments. Some of these large mods get hundreds of thousands of downloads. Would it be for horrific if one of these mods cost 50 cents? Because that would means tens of thousands of dollars for mod author, and much more of this type of content.

 

Money is a great motivator.

[charwo]

As a rule, I would not pay for a mod like Project Nevada or an armor set or something like that. I would be interested in paying for a DLC sized story mod, assuming it reviewed very well. At some point I need to kick back 30-60 buck to someguy2000, because I effectively got a second full priced game out of New Vegas. If money will get Someguy2000 or Gopher to do a story mod, I think it would be worth it. I would pay 40 dollars for a mod that would overhaul Fallout 4's story completely, although it would have to be on my terms: A good chunk of the city rebuilt and inhabited, all the plot holes filled in, a better Father more ways to complete quests.

And I'd be happy to kick back 10 bucks right now for someone to make an Animalica mod for Fallout 4:
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/57413/?

20 bucks if it included a ridable horse.

I actually PMed the guy to do it and he says he doesn't have time to mod anymore. But most of my bitching about this game would stop if it was a joy to explore. And for me, it's too ugly, far, far too ugly.

[HeyYou]

I agree with everything you're saying, TheSpaceShuttleChallenger, but, at least as far as Bethesda is concerned with a paid modding system, Valve no longer matters because Bethesda has taken over the hosting duties with Bethesda.net. So while I totally agree with your assessment of the situation regarding Valve (though apparently the latest TF2 update is pretty good, I hear?) the next paid modding system will (in all likelihood) be solely through Bethesda.net. Whether or not Bethesda is capable of learning from previous missteps (both their own and Valve's) remains to be seen, though.

I'm not holding out a lot of hope here. Beths track record so far, just for mod hosting, is abysmal. They put very little though/effort into the system at all. It was only after a major hue and cry, that things started to improve. And now, they have switched to a new system, that broke everything they had improved previously. I fully expect that when beth makes the foray into pay-to-play mods, they will much it just as badly, if not worse, than what valve did.

[CiderMuffin]

I don't have any faith in Valve when it comes to moderation is the thing. Steam is actively getting pure garbage games pushed onto it's store and greenlight and instead of bothering to hire an entire team of content moderators they just sit on their asses and let the community deal with it. Hell, look at Digital Homicide. They regularly pushed cheap trash onto the storefront to make a quick buck and Valve didn't give a damn about them until they did their most idiotic stunt of trying to sue a large amount of Steam users who criticize their "work"

 

There isn't only one Digital Homicide out there, this is still a problem and I don't think "Steam Direct" is the good solution when it could cost content creators up to $5,000 dollars to get a product up. Just open up a freaking content moderation division and stop being so "Meh the community will deal with it"

 

Skyrim paid mods was going to get the same thing, Skyrim paid mods would've been another crappy steam greenlight.

Edited February 17, 2017 by CiderMuffin

[Reneer]

I'm not holding out a lot of hope here. Beths track record so far, just for mod hosting, is abysmal. They put very little though/effort into the system at all. It was only after a major hue and cry, that things started to improve. And now, they have switched to a new system, that broke everything they had improved previously. I fully expect that when beth makes the foray into pay-to-play mods, they will much it just as badly, if not worse, than what valve did.

I don't hold out too much hope for it either. It's one of the reasons I've basically stopped making mods and am instead focusing on making my own games.

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I don't have any faith in Valve when it comes to moderation is the thing. Steam is actively getting pure garbage games pushed onto it's store and greenlight and instead of bothering to hire an entire team of content moderators they just sit on their asses and let the community deal with it. Hell, look at Digital Homicide. They regularly pushed cheap trash onto the storefront to make a quick buck and Valve didn't give a damn about them until they did their most idiotic stunt of trying to sue a large amount of Steam users who criticize their "work"

 

There isn't only one Digital Homicide out there, this is still a problem and I don't think "Steam Direct" is the good solution when it could cost content creators up to $5,000 dollars to get a product up. Just open up a freaking content moderation division and stop being so "Meh the community will deal with it"

 

Skyrim paid mods was going to get the same thing, Skyrim paid mods would've been another crappy steam greenlight.

The thing is that Valve is no longer involved with Bethesda modding, at least when future ventures are concerned. And honestly every system - content moderated or not - has its problems. And there are very few content moderated shops I can think of - Apple is the only one that comes to mind (I don't really think GoG counts, since its library primarily consists of games that are 10+ years old). Edited February 18, 2017 by Reneer

[wileecoyote1969]

,....... The day they put a price tag onto mods, they were no longer mods. They were products and users expect products to work 100% and to be supported.

And herein lies the rub - the REAL problem Valve had besides public backlash.

Quality Control.

Refunds.

Support.

Community

We have all seen our fair share of crap mods. We have all seen updates to the game that break mods.

Let's be honest - very few modders out there are pro level. In current form, If you download a mod and it is total crap, who cares? You delete it, offer advice to the author, etc. In many cases the community at large is the defacto beta testers for these mods. Once you monetize this process the entire game changes. First there is support. What happens when the game engine is updated and breaks the functionality of a mod? Who is responsible? Valve? The mod author? The company that codes the game? Second we have refunds. Let's say the author completely forgets to mention in the description that his mod requires all the official DLC's, clearly the fault of the author. How do you get a refund? Then of course there is Quality Control. The thought of grabbing a few easy bucks is sure to bring charlatans out of the woodwork. Sitting down and thinking up any lame excuse for a mod just to slap it on the website with a dollar charge attached to it. Posting buggy, incomplete mods claiming to do dozens of awesome things but can do maybe 3. Then there is the question of how the Modding Community itself works. Can you imagine how many mods simply wouldn't exist if Caliente did not allow people to re-use / edit the CBBE mod because of a fear of losing income? And then there is just the plain greed factor. Fifty different hairstyles all released one at a time by the same author rather than in 1 bundle to capitalize on the money grabbing potential. Last but not least - Valve was trying to capitalize on the modding community. They were were taking a substantial cut of the profits. Well past what any operational costs were. That alone should tell you how much inclination they would have to fix ANY of the above mentioned issues. As long as people were clicking on the Download button at 1 dollar a pop there would be very little incentive to do anything that would put a stop to the clicking and even less incentive to honor refunds.

 

I would like to see serious modder's get paid for their hard work. I think there should be some sort of vetting process before a modder is authorized by said company to ask a fee for their work. I think that mods that are in Alpha / Beta stage should not be eligible for profit. I think that once the author considers the mod a full release and has opted to charge a monetary amount they should be obligated for 1 year to fix / update the mod due to game engine chages.

Edited February 19, 2017 by wileecoyote1969

[charwo]

What about the company buying the mod? That is in this case, Bethesda keeps tabs on the really good modders and invitation only, invites them to make mods that the company, after quality control will buy from them? Modders will get something, including a track record in the industry, and Bethesda will take over quality control. This might mean relatively few paid mods, but they will be quality mods. And breaking into a new marketplace, you have to have a selling point, and if not free, then it has to be assured of being quality.

[Reneer]

 

,....... The day they put a price tag onto mods, they were no longer mods. They were products and users expect products to work 100% and to be supported.

And herein lies the rub - the REAL problem Valve had besides public backlash.

Quality Control.

 

Valve had a review process in place but it didn't get used because Valve killed the project too quickly because of the backlash.

Refunds.

Valve had a refund system in place. Bethesda would have a refund system in place. You don't like the mod / it doesn't work? Get a refund. Simple. How do you think everyone got their money back when Valve closed down paid modding back in 2015?

Support.

That's the mod author's problem, not Valve's.

Community

We have all seen our fair share of crap mods. We have all seen updates to the game that break mods.

Let's be honest - very few modders out there are pro level. In current form, If you download a mod and it is total crap, who cares? You delete it, offer advice to the author, etc. In many cases the community at large is the defacto beta testers for these mods. Once you monetize this process the entire game changes. First there is support. What happens when the game engine is updated and breaks the functionality of a mod? Who is responsible? Valve? The mod author? The company that codes the game? Second we have refunds. Let's say the author completely forgets to mention in the description that his mod requires all the official DLC's, clearly the fault of the author. How do you get a refund? Then of course there is Quality Control. The thought of grabbing a few easy bucks is sure to bring charlatans out of the woodwork. Sitting down and thinking up any lame excuse for a mod just to slap it on the website with a dollar charge attached to it. Posting buggy, incomplete mods claiming to do dozens of awesome things but can do maybe 3. Then there is the question of how the Modding Community itself works. Can you imagine how many mods simply wouldn't exist if Caliente did not allow people to re-use / edit the CBBE mod because of a fear of losing income? And then there is just the plain greed factor. Fifty different hairstyles all released one at a time by the same author rather than in 1 bundle to capitalize on the money grabbing potential. Last but not least - Valve was trying to capitalize on the modding community. They were were taking a substantial cut of the profits. Well past what any operational costs were. That alone should tell you how much inclination they would have to fix ANY of the above mentioned issues. As long as people were clicking on the Download button at 1 dollar a pop there would be very little incentive to do anything that would put a stop to the clicking and even less incentive to honor refunds.

 

I would like to see serious modder's get paid for their hard work. I think there should be some sort of vetting process before a modder is authorized by said company to ask a fee for their work. I think that mods that are in Alpha / Beta stage should not be eligible for profit. I think that once the author considers the mod a full release and has opted to charge a monetary amount they should be obligated for 1 year to fix / update the mod due to game engine chages.

First, Valve wasn't taking a "substantial" cut of the profits - 30% was and is their standard rate for content creators on Steam. It has been that percentage for years. If anyone was being greedy, it was Bethesda with their 45% percentage rate - they could have easily knocked it down to 40% or even 35% and given mod authors 30-35% instead.

 

Secondly, can people please stop with the "game patches break mods" canard? The vast majority of mods do not break when the game is patched (and for that matter, Bethesda is likely about close to done patching Fallout 4). The ones that do break are those that require F4SE and it's not even technically the mod author's fault - in this case it is simply that for each game patch that Bethesda releases the F4SE team has to update their code to deal with differences between executable versions. So F4SE "breaks" / won't work with the latest executable, but people keep complaining that mods break when that isn't technically the case at all. It's like blaming your car tire when really the oil needs to be changed.

 

Finally, it wasn't Valve that was trying to capitalize on the modding community. It was Bethesda all the way. Valve was simply the system that Bethesda decided to go with because they didn't have the support system in place to do mod distribution on their own. But now they do with Bethesda.net.

Edited February 20, 2017 by Reneer