Valve now allows selling of mods



  • SHOCKING interview with Valve employee about selling mods on the workshop – 02:57
    — Cephei

    I don't really have an opinion, but i love the video...



  • You can't monetize existing mods (even if you want to do "pay what you want".)

    Per usual, Valve fucked up and only half-implemented the feature.



  • Of course gaming press says this will bring better quality to mods. Valve probably likes it when they say that.



  • I was actually expecting blakey to make this topic.

    I could count the wtfs, but I think the biggest one is that Valve/Bethesda is taking 75% of the value these mods are being sold for.



  • I'd be fine just setting my mods to "pay what you want", if people wanna give Valve 75% and me 25%, that's their business.



  • Valve now allows selling of mods

    Awesome! I wonder how much we can get for @boomzilla?

    Filed under J/K , ❤ U boomy



  • @blakeyrat said:

    pay what you want

    Which means "pick an integer number of dollars between 0 and 99 and then add 99 cents and that's the price".



  • @Magus said:

    Of course gaming press says this will bring better quality to mods. Valve probably likes it when they say that.

    I see a couple possible consequences:

    1. @Groaner's First Law of Game Modding: Whenever players are given an avenue of creative expression within a game, their first creations will be copyright infringement. There's always some desire among modders to make sure every game has a Buster Sword and a Wonder Woman costume. Salable mods are likely not going to comprise these items.
    2. @Groaner's Second Law of Game Modding: Not long after mod databases have been flooded with Buster Swords and Wonder Woman costumes, out come the nude mods. Due to pornography laws, salable mods are likely not going to comprise these items.


    1. @TwelveBaud's Exception to @Groaner's Laws of Game Modding: If a mod marketplace is understaffed in terms of moderation, these laws fail in either one of two modes:
      1. The marketplace defaults to allowing content, in which case it will be choked to death with copyright infringement, both of content from other properties and of other mods within this property. Actual innovation flees the cesspool of Buster Swords, Wonder Woman costumes, bouncing boob mods, and repacks of repacks of repacks.
      2. The marketplace defaults to denying content, in which case it soon becomes a tomb of the first wave of admittances, forever memorialized but out of date and unusable. Actual innovation is suffocated under the iron blanket of "under review" hell. Of course, the outdated mods that made it through will still be offered for sale, even if they don't work, usually without warning, poisoning the well against any recovery.


  • It's basically just:

    1. If someone posts something that's illegal (like REALLY illegal, not copyright infringement stuff) they'll ban the account.
    2. Otherwise, the item goes up on the store.
    3. If it infringes copyrights, it's up to the copyright holders to file a DMCA takedown notice, meaning Steam doesn't have to actively moderate - the community can do that for them by sending angry letters.


  • He problem here is the DMCA.

    That worked out really well for YouTubes users. It's clearly the fair way of determining infringement. /s

    But I suspect after a time mods will be properly licenced (as in commercial /GPL /etc) and that will rectify that problem mostly.
    Edit: and valve predictably added their own sprinkle of wtf on top...



  • Amazing, the guy from the video (Risitas) was famous like 10 years ago around here and now, for some reason, seems to being it on the US.



  • @TwelveBaud said:

    @TwelveBaud's Exception to @Groaner's Laws of Game Modding

    I have a feeling this could become a pretty long list.



  • "I was just contacted by Valve's lawyer. He stated that they will not remove the content unless 'legally compelled to do so'

    "Well, we got our money, why should we give it back so easily? It's the modder's reputation on the hook, not ours!"



  • So, it turns out that 75% figure from earlier is set by the game creator. In other words, Bathesda set it at that.

    Apparently Valve's share is always 30%, so the remaining 45% goes to Bathesda.

    Also, Gabe Newell was doing a Reddit AMA about it, although he hasn't answered anything in roughly 40 minutes now.

    ...and now back to streaming the Batman Arkham games on Twitch... just finished Asylum a little while ago.



  • The arguments seem to go like this:

    Valve allowing people to sell mods on Steam will cause people to stop making mods!

    Why would an optional feature cause people to stop using something they were already planning on using?

    Well if there are paid mods on Steam nobody will want to make free mods!

    Plenty of people want to make free mods. And plenty of people want to get money for their efforts. That's why this feature is optional.

    If I pay for a mod, I'll be less likely to donate to other mods!

    If you refuse to donate to a cause based on an unrelated occurrence, that's your problem.

    If there are paid mods, nobody will donate to the free mods anymore!

    Think of how many paid Dwarf Fortress clones there are on Steam alone. Dwarf Fortress is free, and somehow they still manage to make $5k+ per month on donations.

    If Valve lets people put anything they want on the workshop, it'll be filled with useless crap!

    And it isn't already? Every user-generated content host has mostly useless crap.

    But putting a price tag on useless crap that I ignore makes it hurt me... somehow!

    [closes tab, goes to play video games]



  • I understand people who include skyUI or use mods that include it. Before they had working games, now they don't.
    The ama is worth a read, mainly to see the way people are bothered...
    As i stated above: as soon as licencing is fixed it'll be a much smaller problem. But it's fucked up just now...



  • @Groaner said:

    "Well, we got our money, why should we give it back so easily? It's the modder's reputation on the hook, not ours!"

    To be fair, not removing the content from people who already paid for it seems sensible (which, if I understand correctly is what going on -- the mod in question is no longer available for new purchases).

    If they had removed it from people who already paid for it, there would now be an equivalent amount of outrage on the internet discussing how steam can remove stuff that you already paid for & potentially downloaded. (And this regardless of whether they'd give refunds.)



  • @cvi said:

    If they had removed it from people who already paid for it, there would now be an equivalent amount of outrage on the internet discussing how steam can remove stuff that you already paid for & potentially downloaded. (

    Amazon got in so much hot water for this...
    But I wonder what would happen if the creator of the idle mods issued a DMCA takedown for the already bought things. Does that not count as willful infringement, because valve knows that they are delivering disputed mods?



  • The post mentions that Valve would remove it if "legally compelled" to do so. I guess a DMCA takedown would count as such.

    IIRC one of the posts mentions that the mod in question can work without the idle-mod (however that the idle-mod is a substantial part of it -- I don't know, haven't played either). So is the idle-mod packaged with the mod? Is it fetched from somewhere else? If it's freely available elsewhere, what restrictions did the author put on redistributionhow does the original author allow it to be redistributed?

    To me this looks a bit like that particular part of the mod community is discovering that licensing matters.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @swayde said:

    But I wonder what would happen if the creator of the idle mods issued a DMCA takedown for the already bought things.

    It depends on how the platform is being managed. If there's a manual process involved that can pick up on whether the original author is the issuer of the takedown (and tell them “no” because of the existing agreement they entered into when the mod was hosted in the first place; courts will view the author as being the shyster they are in that case) then everyone is largely OK. It's automatic systems that are overly easy to abuse, and the DMCA doesn't mandate their use.



  • Also:
    @https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33uplp/mods_and_steam/cqojx8y said:

    Let's assume for a second that we are stupidly greedy. So far the paid mods have generated $10K total. That's like 1% of the cost of the incremental email the program has generated for Valve employees (yes, I mean pissing off the Internet costs you a million bucks in just a couple of days). That's not stupidly greedy, that's stupidly stupid.
    You need a more robust Valve-is-evil hypothesis.



  • @cvi said:

    So is the idle-mod packaged with the mod? Is it fetched from somewhere else?

    From the article above I gather author of fishing mod asked valve how to handle inclusion of other's work and the nda. They told him to just include it. Creator of idle mod was not cool with his creation being included in monetized mods. Thus author of fish mod asks valve to remove his mod after launch.
    Valve only stops selling his mod, does not issue refunds automagically..



  • Bethesda is the ones making out like bandits here.

    Not only is Bethesda taking a 40% cut on every sale (versus Valve's 30-35%), but Valve is taking all the flak for it and has to deal with takedown notices and whatnot.



  • Think of it this way:

    Valve takes 30% of any money that is spent on Steam no matter what. Nobody has had a problem with this before that I know of.

    Bethesda takes ⅔ of the remaining money for any mod sold for their game. Their running cost for those mods? Zero. They don't release updates to Skyrim, they don't need to worry about servers or anything. That ⅔ goes straight to the bank.

    Meanwhile, the modder that did all the work gets a quarter of the price they're asking for their mod.



  • Yeah pretty much. One of my big pet peeves is people who bitch over optional features. It's simple, people: if you don't like it, don't use it.



  • Pfft, as if Steam ever read or did anything about support tickets.


  • FoxDev

    @swayde said:

    Valve only stops selling his mod, does not issue refunds automagically

    Did they remove the mod from people's machines? If not, then they don't need to offer refunds.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @RaceProUK said:

    Did they remove the mod from people's machines? If not, then they don't need to offer refunds.

    No but he asked them to do both, so it was made unavailable to everyone, and not just people who hadn't bought it.



  • Valve sells $100 virtual rings? Sounds cool.
    Valve makes you install and launch a buggy piece of crap software with extra DRM to run games? Who cares.
    Valve makes BILLIONS every year using every psychological "gamification" trick available, including outright gambling, to make people want to pay for games they have no intention of playing or cosmetic items they could get for free? Oh yeah gotta buy more games for the trading cards, so cheap!

    Valve allows people to pay for mods (which are actual content, as opposed to virtual items that are mere entries in a database)? GABE NEWELL IS NOW LITERALLY HITLER


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @anonymous234 said:

    Valve allows people to pay for mods (which are actual content, as opposed to virtual items that are mere entries in a database)?

    What they're griping at is that this gives some people the capability to be complete asshats. They're not complaining at the people who are actually asshats though, which is dumb and weird.



  • Doesn't the existence of communication technologies such as talking do that already?



  • Bay 12 Games is proud to announce that we've acquired DFHack and made a core part of the Dwarf Fortress experience; effective immediately DFHack as a separate project is discontinued and its source repositories have been closed. Nevertheless, we are proud to support the community; as such, StoneSense and the other DF hacks will now be distributed through Steam Workshop at a minimum price of $3.99 each. We hope that you find good value in this new direction, and thank you for your continuing support!

    Said neither Tarn nor Zach at all in the history of ever. But that's the sort of shit people on the Internet are freaking out about even "being possible" now. (Even though it already was.)



  • Fun fact: Bay 12 Games actually did acquire something: the Dwarf Fortress File Depot.

    Here's the original address: http://dffd.wimbli.com



  • They're hosting it, but have they really acquired it? Also, Toady's not charging end users for anything. EA might make it mandatory.


  • FoxDev

    @TwelveBaud said:

    EA might make it mandatory.

    #FSCK EA. FSCK them with a giant purple spiked dildo, without lube.

    Repeat until EA learns that FSCKING MICROTRANSACTIONS are NOT gameplay!


  • FoxDev

    Sounds like someone needs a scratching behind the ears ;)
    <Foxes like being scratched behind the ears, yes? I know cats and dogs do…



  • (Note: behind-the-ear scratchers are ⬟85,000, one use only)


  • FoxDev

    I don't provide ear-scratching services via microtransactions 😛
    Plus, I already have scratchers; they're on the ends of my limbs ;)



  • The backlash is hilarious, but it's useful to keep in mind that the people complaining are mostly children.

    It is fairly obvious that this is not a bad thing, at least in theory, though the implementation in typical Valve fashion is pretty fucking lazy. But modders getting some compensation from their work? What's the issue there?



  • To be honest, it's their IP and they're allowing modders to do something that would be outright illegal as of five days ago. The DayZ dev came out and said that 25% is actually a fairly good number.



  • @anonymous234 said:

    Valve allows people to pay for mods (which are actual content, as opposed to virtual items that are mere entries in a database)? GABE NEWELL IS NOW LITERALLY HITLER

    Srsly.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    Is that Dungeon Ripoff Keeper? I was interested in that until I heard about the macrotransactions.



  • Yep, that's Dungeon Ripoff alright.


  • FoxDev


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    I've seen that video, I just wasn't sure if that screenshot was for that game.


  • FoxDev

    it is.

    😡



  • I'm not really sure how this is going to work out.

    I've noticed a few of the mods I use on Skyrim now have their new versions up on Steam for $2-3 a mod. Since I have a ton of mods, I'd be looking at spending some decent cash to get these new versions, which don't really add features but are mostly bug-fixes to the free versions.

    The thing that strikes me as odd, though, is that a lot of these mods are using assets from other mods or people. In fact, these other people are credited in the mod credits. How does it work, then? Do these people who generated the assets get a portion of the mod revenue, or no? Seems like there may be some rather pissed off content generators out there.

    There have also been some reports of people putting mods up for sale on Steam that were only on other sites before, but who aren't the actual mod authors. So, if people are to believed, people are downloading free mods and putting them on Steam and claiming to be the author while charging for them. Fun stuff, there.

    It'll be interesting to see how this shakes out. There are certainly some mods I wouldn't have trouble paying for; Falskaar springs to mind right away, and I wouldn't mind pitching a few dollars at some other less-massive mods as well.



  • @nullptr said:

    There are certainly some mods I wouldn't have trouble paying for; Falskaar springs to mind right away,

    ... seriously?

    Falskaar sucks.


  • FoxDev

    @nullptr said:

    There have also been some reports of people putting mods up for sale on Steam that were only on other sites before, but who aren't the actual mod authors. So, if people are to believed, people are downloading free mods and putting them on Steam and claiming to be the author while charging for them. Fun stuff, there.

    Yeah, that happens with all sorts of other places too


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