Steam Workshop allowing creators to charge for mods

Surfer said:
https://www.change.org/p/valve-remove-the-paid-content-of-the-steam-workshop#petition-letter

at 126,000 already.
Click to expand...

That is a large number of people, I just do not know if Valve will listen.

In the past, Valve generally "do the right thing" in the end, HOWEVER, we have to consider the possibility at this point that they have now joined the "dark side".

They obviously have a contract with Bethesda for WONGA amounts of money, did they have a clause in that contract stipulating "Hey, if our customers call ******** on this, were scrapping it"?

Remember the COD Dedicated Server fiasco. That had lots of noise but literally, it achieved NOTHING. Who gives a **** about people or a culture when their is money to be made.
 
If it's such a bad idea, then surely no-one will buy any paid mods...the consumer will speak, and paid mods will be a failure....no need for petitions.
 
mid_gen said:
If it's such a bad idea, then surely no-one will buy any paid mods...the consumer will speak, and paid mods will be a failure....no need for petitions.
Click to expand...

It's a bad idea for anyone who like it for how it's always been and those who can't decide to spend more on mods than the game itself.
Don't underestimate how in large numbers, gamers will spend very little individually for a collective butt load of money.

I'm not sure if you were being sarcastic though, you can't vote with your wallet in games, too many of us - too many of them.
 
I am trying to leave a constructive review on Metacritic for PC Skyrim but am unable to do so.

503 - Service Unavailable when trying to submit.
 
Of course you can vote with your wallet! If no-one buys mods, no-one will develop paid ones...simple!

I'm amazed it's taken Bethesda this long to monetise the mod market. Time will tell if it's a success.
 
Where will these lead to?

Mods ONLY allowed on their "authorised" store? Anyone else found hosting being threatened with legal action?
 
mid_gen said:
Of course you can vote with your wallet! If no-one buys mods, no-one will develop paid ones...simple!

I'm amazed it's taken Bethesda this long to monetise the mod market. Time will tell if it's a success.
Click to expand...

It's like peeing in the ocean, the amount of people who buy stuff is going to outweigh any protest. I vote with my wallet a lot of the time but all those things I think are crap keep getting made because obviously people like them and think otherwise.

Hasn't it made a lot of money anyway? I refuse to believe the outrage claims of the cost of the setup.
 
This is gopher's view on it, and I agree with him. I don't actually mind modders getting some compensation for their work but the completely underhand and secretive way Valthesda have gone about this have really been the thing thats divided people and modders in particular. Its been brewing for a month and half with certain modders having been contacted by Bethesda basically saying "Psst. We want you join in this scheme we're setting up for paid-for mods and we want you to be a part of it. Naturally you can't breathe a word of it. Or else." Even the modders subforum on Nexus normally a haven of tranquility and easy going-ness has erupted in acqusations of treachery and selling out. It could have been handled so much better with consultations and easing it in but no, they drop it like a nuke from high orbit.

[/QUOTE]

And as for the sake of the stuff on sale... have you seen the so called Debut Pack? A bunch of suspect looking mods from people you've mostly never heard of. £16.34? Seriously? I bought the Legendary edition of the game for only slightly more than that and its less than half of that nowadays in the sales.

Someone posted a review of the pack here:
http://imgur.com/a/bqcla?gallery#ossWJm0

Yep thought so. A load of cheap tat. Even the leading armour pack (shadowscale armour) you have add via... a console command. Thats right you have to cheat your way into acquiring paid content. Weapons imported straight from DOTA 2 (they don't even fit the hands properly) and Lambda Locator features the CrowBar(tm) model imported straight from HL2. Moving on Bleakdon Town seems to be inaccountably located in.. a mine and consists of almost nothing but a series of corridors. What the...? The entire product seems to consist of one, maybe two items worth having bundled with a pile of junk to pad it out in an attempt to justify the overinflated asking price. So pretty much like any other so-called value pack, then.
 
Last edited:
What's the problem then? Don't like something, don't buy it. No-one's being prevented from making good free mods. No-one's being forced to buy crap mods.
 
mid_gen said:
What's the problem then? Don't like something, don't buy it. No-one's being prevented from making good free mods. No-one's being forced to buy crap mods.
Click to expand...

Yes, that stands.

However the whole point of people being upset is that companies are now creating a platform to monetise something that was once free, in order to capitalise on an untapped part of the gaming market.

That is to say whether people buy mods or not, their intention is to create a market using Joe Public's code to line their own pockets. Whether modders or customers use the service or not, it's still a pretty ****** way to make money.
 
I can't believe the number of butt-hurt fanboys coming out of the woodwork (over at reddit for example) about this whole issue.

Leaving aside the magnitude of "dick-move" Valve has just pulled off (which is alarmingly weighted in favour of people who want things for free, surprise-surprise), I think the issue here is way more nuanced and deserving of more debate before we demonise Valve as the next EA. People ain't got a ******* grip, that much is clear and apparent, which in a way is also a positive as it means our overall PC Gaming market has expanded way bigger than we all were thinking back in the days of "PC is dead, long live Xbox/PS3".

Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah, well Gabe(n) obviously is trying to go for the classic win-win that Valve has pulled off successively. Modders get money, make better mods, give said money to Valve/Publisher, gamers get quality. Nice in theory, horrendously complicated in practice.

"So where is the nuance Random Guy?!", I hear you cry. Well, to me, this brings out the most important/interesting issue - how much should modders be compensated for their work? At what bar of quality do we as gamers say, "right, this stuff is better than the original, this stuff is totally amazing, I want to GIVE this guy/guys/gals some of my hard-earned dosh"...suspend your disbelief for a second because we all know how much that actually happens in the real world...but should it? Should there be a bar of quality (or multiple bars/milestones) which Mods should achieve, before they are deeemed worthy of cash by the community? Well? I would say *yes*, but I think Valve's approach is not correct here - it is too broadly focused and is coming off as ill-considered, or even one-sided driven by an arrogant assumption that the Publisher/Distribution Network have more say than the community. That was an EA-sized mistake.
 
mid_gen said:
If it's such a bad idea, then surely no-one will buy any paid mods...the consumer will speak, and paid mods will be a failure....no need for petitions.
Click to expand...

mid_gen said:
Of course you can vote with your wallet! If no-one buys mods, no-one will develop paid ones...simple!

I'm amazed it's taken Bethesda this long to monetise the mod market. Time will tell if it's a success.
Click to expand...

mid_gen said:
What's the problem then? Don't like something, don't buy it. No-one's being prevented from making good free mods. No-one's being forced to buy crap mods.
Click to expand...

You have said the same thing multiple times in quick succession. At least post something new.

You have made your point but you have to realise that for a large number of people, this whole act is despicable and for some parts of the community has had an element of "cloak and dagger" about it which has segregated some communities. Is that what they wanted do?
 
I wonder how many copies of Skyrim were purchased on PC because of the huge wealth of freely available mods?

I know I certainly wouldn't have bought a second copy when the legendary edition came out on PC, after spending probably 100+ hours on the PS3 version, if it hadn't been for the "moddability".

You could say similar about other games with a large modding community - How many copies of Warcraft 3 + Frozen Throne were purchased to play Dota? How many copies of ARMA2 + expansions were purchased to play Dayz?

How many copies of Fallout 4 WONT be purchased because if you want to play it with mods, it's going to cost you more than the purchase price of the game?

Modding is (IMO) one of the major benefits of PC gaming over consoles - take that away, and you may as well just buy and sell a pre-owned copy of the game on a console (particularly for single player games like Skyrim with none of the "online pass" malarkey).

Looks like most of my future game purchases will be from GoG from now on...
 
Haggisman said:
Looks like most of my future game purchases will be from GoG from now on...
Click to expand...

Humble Store are good as well. Where possible, you get a DRM free version AND a Steam key. Win Win.

Valves stance used to be that continued free updates and user content alone will shift copies of the base game.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom