gaming Steam Removed Paid Mods

[CaptainDoubloon 856]

This is a copy & paste why Steam removed paid mods:

 

http://steamcommunity.com/games/SteamWorkshop/announcements/detail/208632365253244218

 

We're going to remove the payment feature from the Skyrim workshop. For anyone who spent money on a mod, we'll be refunding you the complete amount. We talked to the team at Bethesda and they agree.

We've done this because it's clear we didn't understand exactly what we were doing. We've been shipping many features over the years aimed at allowing community creators to receive a share of the rewards, and in the past, they've been received well. It's obvious now that this case is different.

To help you understand why we thought this was a good idea, our main goals were to allow mod makers the opportunity to work on their mods full time if they wanted to, and to encourage developers to provide better support to their mod communities. We thought this would result in better mods for everyone, both free & paid. We wanted more great mods becoming great products, like Dota, Counter-strike, DayZ, and Killing Floor, and we wanted that to happen organically for any mod maker who wanted to take a shot at it.

But we underestimated the differences between our previously successful revenue sharing models, and the addition of paid mods to Skyrim's workshop. We understand our own game's communities pretty well, but stepping into an established, years old modding community in Skyrim was probably not the right place to start iterating. We think this made us miss the mark pretty badly, even though we believe there's a useful feature somewhere here.

Now that you've backed a dump truck of feedback onto our inboxes, we'll be chewing through that, but if you have any further thoughts let us know.

Edited April 28, 2015 by Seeker Dragonheart

[Aura 120]

This is not the end of the paid mods feature, Valve will try again.  The question is, will they implement it in a "fair" way for everyone?  Not just fair pricing, but accountability and a reasonable refund period?

[Raritas 6,820]

Thank goodness. Although I was not against creators selling their mods, I was completely disagreed with Valve's payment structure. The creator only get's 25%? No thanks. I know it's business, but that's unfair on the creators.

 

I'm glad to see them listening to the community, but I can easily see them trying this with another game. Not only will it likely fail, like this time, but it kinda encouraged content theft. I heard reports of people uploading preexisting mods that weren't theirs onto the workshop for money... Which is messed up.

 

Good idea as a whole, poor execution.

Edited April 29, 2015 by Raritas

[Mr F 1,520]

They had good intentions with the paid mod system, sadly they could never have made it work as the modding community is ment to be open.

A donate button would be nice anyway, there are many modders who deserve a little treat.

[Chrysa 28]

It was one of those "good on paper" ideas, a modder should be able to get paid for his work but Valve have shown they have zero quality control (early access, 'nuff said), piracy/plagiarism would be rampant. Not to mention the cut the modder got was disgusting, only 25% of the profit.

 

On the other hand, the so called "concerned, caring modding community" showed some really nasty colours. The few mod makers that started the initial wave of paid mods were thrown under the bus, inundated with  death and rape threats and have practically abandoned modding as a whole. I think the only silver lining to the situation is the trolls and those posting "good riddance" comments are getting ban-hammered left and right.

 

Pretty sickening show all around to be honest.