gaming Paid Mods for Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

[Shadowking58 1,137]

Valve has recently announced the feature for paid mods on Steam Workshop for Elder Scrolls: Skyrim. Where people can charge for the mods they make. Valve gets 75% of the income from each purchase, and the mod developer only gets 25%. This feature may migrate to other games in the future as well. What do you all think of this? Can this be good? Or is it the bane of all existance AKA this is going to suck? What do you think? I think this was Bethesda's idea. Not Valve's. It's definitely a bad thing.

 

[Nuke87654 1,849]

It's a disaster waiting to happen for several reasons.

 

1. Valve/Bethesda is charging the mod creator with a 75% cut of their profit. You thought Nintendo's 30-40% creator plan was bad, Valve's idea just made Nintendo's look fair in comparison. To make matters even worse, you're only able to make that 25% profit on your product if you pass the 400$ mark. Meaning that if you fail to reach that mark and quit, you get none of that money while Valve gets all of it in turn.

 

2. Remember how we despise DLC's being used to nickel and dime you for small items or upgrades to your inventory? Well now mods may suffer this in turn with the flat paywall they're giving to modders on steamworks now.

 

3. This may discourage modders from sharing their mods with other mod creators unless they form a team of sorts. One of the best things of mods is that the modding community is generally friendly with each other to the point that they would often go and share their mods to other modders for them to use. Now it may turn into an exclusive circle among friends where if you're not a friend to the modder, his group, or aren't willing to share a bit of the 25% of the profit you only earn from the mod you want to create, then you won't get that mod in question.

 

4. Valve is only offering you one recourse for a refund on a mod. That recourse is a 24 hour period where you can demand a refund for the mod. Now the issue lies in this.

 

A. Say you found a collection of mods you like and are enjoying it. Weeks later you found another mod but the issue is is that it isn't compatible with the mods you have. This means that the only way you can play that mod would be to uninstall, which can be an issue if you're not knowledgeable enough on how to uninstall it, the other mods that you're going to need to shelve until you decide to use it again lest you waste whatever amount of money you spend on it.

 

B. This would scare consumers from getting mods. While year old games like Skyrim are most likely safe from a patch, however what if there is a patch the developer released that not only ruins the mod, but the mod creator cannot find a way to make his mod work? Yep, you just wasted money on the deal. This is actually even worse then paid dlc in games as at least you know developers have an obligation of sorts to ensure your dlc works as intended. The modders will have no control over if their mod can work or not and what if the modder decides to no longer update his mod anymore. You're playing Russian roulette with a paid mod to see if it will work in the future or not due to a patch and if the modder is willing to work on it or not.

 

C. It defeats the whole purpose of modding in that you're modding the crap out of your games to get the best results. With this paid mod scene that only offers you one small window to save your money in case it doesn't work, will you be more or less encouraged to find mods if such a flimsy protection was available?

 

 

5. This puts a bigger target crosshair on modders who are using Valve's new paywall system for mods by content creators and companies. One of the biggest reasons why mods have been free previously was out of safety rather then out of want as TB makes a good point that modders should receive monetary compensation for their work though not in this manner. Content creators who are protective about their IP are less likely to go after you if you make it for free and without intent of making a direct profit off of their product as it's not harming their bottom line, and their copyright is relatively protected under the whole 'free advertisement' thing they can claim in this very grey area. Now if they hear a modder is making a mod out of their products image and making a profit out of it, they're far more likely going to send a C&D to that modder to protect their copyright. Thus this may in turn actually discourage modders and limit the scope of their creativity as sure game developers like Bethesda may approve you making mods in their game, but if a company like Viacom finds out you're making a star trek mod on that game, it won't matter if Bethesda owns that game, they'll C&D your mod for violating their copyright.

 

6. Lazy and greedy modders may also start churning out mods that are clearly unfinished or poorly made purely for profit. This makes your purchase of a mod even more risky as what if that mod happens to be a poorly made one?

 

Honestly this is just a very greedy cash grab attempt by Valve to corner the modding market to their needs, and Bethesda in trying to profit off of the immense size of the Skyrim modding community as much as they can. I wouldn't mind supporting modders through a patreon like system, but not through a paywall that Valve is doing instead.

Edited April 24, 2015 by Nuke87654

[Honsou 399]

What in the blue f*ck?

 

Has bethesda ever heard of the nexus?

 

The Nexus contains 90% of the skyrim mods out there... and is free to use too. 

[TenorSounds 831]

I mean...it all sounds bad, but you would otherwise release the mods for free anyway right? It's not the mod-creators getting 25% that worries me but the idea that paying for mods will become the norm for users. Why release on the Nexus when you can get paid on the Steam Workshop? I know Nexus has donation/patrion/etc., but the incentive is still there to make the move.

Edited April 24, 2015 by TenorSounds

[Nuke87654 1,849]

I mean...it all sounds bad, but you would otherwise release the mods for free anyway right? It's not the mod-creators getting 25% that worries me but the idea that paying for mods will become the norm for users. Why release on the Nexus when you can get paid on the Steam Workshop? I know Nexus has donation/patrion/etc., but the incentive is still there to make the move.

 

Which isn't all that pleasing to hear, but considering Valve will only let you have a profit if you get past the 400$ mark, meaning any modder whose profit is sold below that is owned entirely by Valve.

[Banul 3,831]

I don't begrudge certain modders the opportunity to make some cash. Some of them are pretty big and made by whole teams of people, it can be argued that they are worth money. I doubt that there are that many people who would be willing to pay for a mod though, especially ones that have been free for so long. For me personally, it better be pretty damn good (AND cheap) for me to consider dropping cash for a mod. For most small time mods, I think the creators would rather see them downloaded and enjoyed that to put them behind a paywall that nobody is going to pay. Also, Valve getting most of the profits is going to dissuade people from wanted to sell their mods. 75% is absurd.

 

So, I don't think things will really change that much. It's not a good system so people won't use it. 

[[NULL] 906]

I might be able to live with paid mods for Skyrim. For instance, I only see myself paying for horse armour if it's included with a Dawnguard-like mod. However, I really hope they won't charge for mods in Garry's Mod. That will most likely cause divisions in the community.

Edited April 24, 2015 by SpaceOnion

[A Black Circle 1,586]

I know! Use Nexus! And, while you're at it, pick up a non-Steam release of Skyrim. You can thank me later.

[Omega Centauri 316]

What in the blue f*ck?

 

Has bethesda ever heard of the nexus?

 

The Nexus contains 90% of the skyrim mods out there... and is free to use too. 

Some of the mods are being taken down so that steam is the only place to get them

 

Some people have started pirating mods instead.

 

Let that sink in. People are pirating... mods...

 

If that's not fucking hilarious, I don't know what is.

Edited April 24, 2015 by Omega Centauri

[Honsou 399]

Honestly, I'm a little bit concerned. I have skyrim. I have several mods installed on my system. When I get my other PC up and running, I would very much like to keep the same mods installed that I'm running. Basically Bethesda just ended Skyrim's RPG dominance by selling modded items.