nice post
Steam Workshop allowing creators to charge for mods
- Thread starter Mark A
- Start date
They wanted to launch a new marketplace, they contacted potential vendors prior to launch, nothing cloak and dagger about it.
Well, to be precise, the market was already there, they've just created an option for people to monetise their content. The onus is entirely on the mod developers, and the original game developer, whether they choose to charge for mods, and entirely on the customer, if they want to pay for them.
If hobbyists want to develop mods for free, they can still do it! Now there is the possibility of professionals developing mods, opens up a whole new range of possible works. I see a lot of smaller, talented studios that are struggling in the indie market to start focusing on the mod market, should be some great stuff coming out in the coming years.
Give it time, the marketplace will mature, the chaff will sink, the real quality stuff will appear. Remember the paid mods will be competing with the free mods still, they are going to have to be good for people to buy them!
Well, to be precise, the market was already there, they've just created an option for people to monetise their content. The onus is entirely on the mod developers, and the original game developer, whether they choose to charge for mods, and entirely on the customer, if they want to pay for them.
If hobbyists want to develop mods for free, they can still do it! Now there is the possibility of professionals developing mods, opens up a whole new range of possible works. I see a lot of smaller, talented studios that are struggling in the indie market to start focusing on the mod market, should be some great stuff coming out in the coming years.
Give it time, the marketplace will mature, the chaff will sink, the real quality stuff will appear. Remember the paid mods will be competing with the free mods still, they are going to have to be good for people to buy them!
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Do I have to keep repeating myself? Do you guys have any idea of the history of modding communities? The Sims, Minecraft, GTA, and others - they completely imploded on each other when money was introduced, and were never the same again. Why, do you ask? Money begets greed, greed begets selfishness, and selfishness destroys a community. Professionals developing mods? Not with that measly, tiny cut they aren't. This is a quick cash and grab.
Now, what has happened in 3 days? We've had thousands of mods pulled from nexus either to put behind a paywall (modders being selfish and greedy, trying to cash in on a quick buck on a once free mod) or because people fear their work being stolen and sold. We've had resource pack makers say they are now leaving because of all this - there's no point in making free assets for the community when it's going to be sold for profit. Collaboration is taking a hit - why give advice to free when you can sell it? What about the hobbyist amateurs looking to get into modding? Nobody is going to give them advice so freely anymore, not when they now consider their time now worth money. Project management will be a nightmare when you introduce permissions, splitting of profits, trying to manage everyone, etc. You say the marketplace will mature? Valve aren't policing it. Do you know how much complete crap you have to siphon through to get to any gems on Greenlight? I bet you don't.
These are all problems introduced by money that won't go away just because the idea has been around for a while, if only, it will get worse over time until the community is completely dead.
Also, just so you know, studies have proven that ideas borne from a labour of love are superior in quality to those which are designed with profit as the end goal.
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Modding doesn't work like that though, modders and the community are one in the same. Those hobbyists you speak of are part of a community that freely communicate ideas, discoveries, mods and CK work-arounds to each other. The major mods you see in Skyrim for example are all interconnected ideas built upon free giving communication that has been built since the construction kit was released. Modders themselves don't suddenly turn up, look at a highly specific piece of individual software and know right there and then how to use it. There are no "photoshop tutorial"-esque guides to help them, only the community, those free giving hobbyists who enjoy it.
As soon as you put a price-tag on those valuable pieces of information, those CK work-arounds, those valuable meshes, animation skeletons etc, then all of that free giving, creative nurturing simply doesn't exist. All those talented people who would like to make mods but are not sure how to get into it suddenly haven't got a community to help them. Only people that want to make money from them.
Instead the future in store for us (the next lot of games with new construction kits and game engines) will be filled with countless bug filled mods made by people desperate to earn some money, despite whether they have the talent to do it or not. We will get more generic mods, less quirky/ambitious mods, and an absolute ****-ton of mods that steal the ideas and work done by modders that do it for free, which in turn will put those "hobbysists" off because there's nothing they can do to stop it happening because Steam doesn't give a **** as they have recently stated and have the legal team to back it up.
They've basically destroyed an entire gaming community simply because they can. That's it.
I've briefly dabbled with creating some mods, but I've always relied on modders producing a 'how to' guide. My fear is that people will potentially stop producing these? Why bother showing someone else how to do things when it could potentially eat into profits? Will companies actually charge more for the source code and modding tools they produce?
Scared
Scared
Lets not also forget that as soon as you put a price tag on these mods, in the EU especially, there is an expected standard of quality, and the mod must work. We all know how volatile Skyrim is to mod, which is why clever people won't use the workshop anyway - but if an update breaks a mod, you're SOL. In the EU this crap doesn't fly.
As neither of us knows what the future holds, lets come back to this thread in a year and see how it's panned out.
My prediction :
A busy paid mod market with some great premium content.
A thriving free mod community.
EDIT: I'll that I reckon the pay what you want option will be popular
My prediction :
A busy paid mod market with some great premium content.
A thriving free mod community.
EDIT: I'll that I reckon the pay what you want option will be popular
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these modders best get rich as fast as they can because you know what's coming right.
the real modders will be pushed out by everyone jumping on the money trail in third world countries like china where the $ value is crazy compared to average wages.
going to be a huge steaming mass of **** from people with no interest in gaming and no interest in interacting with the community.
then comes all the in fighting between mods we did this first bla bla bla.
half the textures from mods are stolen from the internet and not to be used for commercial purposes so in comes with copyright disputes about people making money from another artists work.~ (that includes brick textures and everything else not just copyrighted stuff from films and other games)
I know how quick and simple most mods are I was probably the first person to do a deathstar moon mod
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/441/
Things I would actually pay for high res textures.
the smin thing or whatever it's called that adds better wire meshes but people think they can put a value on any old crap even if it takes minutes
Worst thing is the greed from mod makers thinking some stupid crappy sword texture is worth a couple of $ are they insane? compare the value of an actual game to the value of your stupid texture...
should be a few pence at most for stuff like that
the real modders will be pushed out by everyone jumping on the money trail in third world countries like china where the $ value is crazy compared to average wages.
going to be a huge steaming mass of **** from people with no interest in gaming and no interest in interacting with the community.
then comes all the in fighting between mods we did this first bla bla bla.
half the textures from mods are stolen from the internet and not to be used for commercial purposes so in comes with copyright disputes about people making money from another artists work.~ (that includes brick textures and everything else not just copyrighted stuff from films and other games)
I know how quick and simple most mods are I was probably the first person to do a deathstar moon mod
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/441/
Things I would actually pay for high res textures.
the smin thing or whatever it's called that adds better wire meshes but people think they can put a value on any old crap even if it takes minutes
Worst thing is the greed from mod makers thinking some stupid crappy sword texture is worth a couple of $ are they insane? compare the value of an actual game to the value of your stupid texture...
should be a few pence at most for stuff like that
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The ironic thing about all this is that, if Valve did pull out of this, people will now donate more willingly because the profile of modders and the work they do has been highlighted. Unfortunately Valve have never wanted that despite what they claim.
All they needed to do was add a donation button in a little box that pops up confirming your download and a little description about the hard work that's gone into it. Just as the Nexus have done.
All they needed to do was add a donation button in a little box that pops up confirming your download and a little description about the hard work that's gone into it. Just as the Nexus have done.
Yes we do. That is why we look to history. I explained that very same history in the previous post.
It will crash and burn, bringing the community down with it.
I suspect some of the well known modders will get rich very quickly and lose interest once they have money
Now everyone has made their predictions clear, I'll be back in a year, and we'll see if Valve's paid mods initiative has been a failure or not.
I've briefly dabbled with creating some mods, but I've always relied on modders producing a 'how to' guide. My fear is that people will potentially stop producing these? Why bother showing someone else how to do things when it could potentially eat into profits? Will companies actually charge more for the source code and modding tools they produce?
Scared
These how to guides could potentially become very popular on youtube as lots of people who would never have bother to try modding will be wanting in on the action now. So I think if anything we could see a rise in guides etc on Youtube as that is another way for people to make a lot of cash.
You're forgetting those who already know how to will now be reluctant to share guides and tips because their peers are now consumers/competition.
Do you know what a 'bait and switch' is?
This is something like that. Mods have always been something that is out of the control of publishers - this is a way for them to profit and make money on something that previously they had zero right to.
Once you start charging for mods they cease to be mods and become DLC. So that makes the DLC seller a business it makes those who download all these mods customers - all the shenanigans this will bring. A 24 hour right to refund is a joke to be honest and surely highly questionable legally.... Note that any problems with the mods Bethesda/valve will just redirect you to the mod maker.. they are happy to reap the huge slice of the financial pie over creative work that came from the modder for doing nothing. All the grief, all the flak, all the work, all the responsibility lands smack in the modder's lap.
The only good thing i see that could happen is that the massive grey area of consumer rights in digital services/goods market could be strengthened.
I would love to see the first court case that comes from this - faulty software must surely come under soga? And let's face it, many mods suffer from bugs and incompatibilities - perfectly acceptable from a free mod, not from a professional product sold by a business in the EU (which is exactly what a mod becomes the moment you have to buy it)
