[Discussion] Valve Removes Paid Steam Mods

bbgunshot

bbgunshot

Well-Known Member
http://www.pcgamer.com/valve-has-removed-paid-mods-functionality-from-steam-workshop/

Well that was much more short-lived than I had expected. Usually Valve's policy is ignore a raging community until it can't be controlled anymore then address the problem. It seems like Valve and Bethesda bit the bullet quickly and cut their losses. I would like this thread to be a discussion of the ideas and opinions that surrounded this idea initially, Valve's original implementation of the system, and what clear positives and negatives it may have had.

Personally, I am of the opinion that modders can do some very impressive things. Create expansions, and even create entire games based around what may have started originally as a small modification to a videogame. Do I believe that modders should be compensated for their work? Possibly. However, the way in which Valve and Bethesda chose to implement this system was the biggest cash grab I have seen since EA. Valve (and Bethesda) would take 75% of the total profits on ALL mods and the modders wouldn't get paid until the MODDER had made more than $100 off of the mod. If I am correct, that means a mod would have to make $400 in addition to taxes and fees for a modder to get ANY money back. Not to mention the obvious content stealing, copyright issues, mod piracy, and Nexus mod ripping that took place.

Many people advocated, and still do advocate for a donation OPTION to be added to mods that we enjoy. However, I have also heard of the incredibly small amount of money that has ever been donated to modders with their own website and donate page. I can totally see adding a donation option more as a attractive solution than something that actually benefits the modders. But, you must also take into account that the nature and success of steam came from is simplicity and accessibility. This is WHY PC gamers are willing to pay money for games and not pirate them anymore, the idea simply is not attractive. Having the donation option added would give people a safe, easy, and attractive outlet to dump some extra steam wallet into a mod that they enjoyed.

Another solution that I found interesting would be a subscription option. There is a price available for someone to subscribe to a paid workshop page for a certain game, and download as many mods as they would like. The most popular mods would be compensated more than the less popular mods, and this would create healthy competition among the modding community, and encourage large projects.

The issues with the ideas above is that neither Valve or Bethesda were interested in ACTUALLY helping the modding community like they advertised. Every comment from the both of them is a backhanded "We did nothing wrong, but you get your way" because they hid behind this shield like they were helping the modding community. They were taking 75% of the profits, did not regulate or even ATTEMPT to regulate the paid mods, and did this without any warning or reason. They were certainly keen to explain their reasoning after the controversy, but beforehand they just wanted to see if they could get away with it.

These are some quickly written feelings and ideas I have surrounding this whole fiasco. I'm curious what others might think. Feel free to discuss further!
 
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"gaben i love you please take me back i didn't mean it"
--everyone

But in all honesty, this somewhat restored my faith in Valve again. They actually listened to the community. That's awesome.
 
"Valve would take 75% of the total profits"

Valve would take 30% of the profits. Bethesda would take 45% of the profits.

Regardless, I think the whole thing is dumb. I'd be fine if they wanted to take 99% of the profits.
 
Wooty said:
"Valve would take 75% of the total profits"

Valve would take 30% of the profits. Bethesda would take 45% of the profits.

Regardless, I think the whole thing is dumb. I'd be fine if they wanted to take 99% of the profits.
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Okay I knew some went to Bethesda obviously. I apologize for the wording I didn't know exactly the split. I assume it all goes to valve first, then it is split anyways so I'm not entirely incorrect. I'll rephrase.
 
Maybe if only the best mods were paid, and only for new subscribers, I might be ok with this. Like, top 10/25/100 of the month or something. Or just have a donate button. That might work too.
 
TotalBiscuits video gives a fair representation of my thoughts on the matter.

However, my main two issues with the whole paid mods fiasco are:

The manner in which it was implemented was poor. Namely the allowing of mods to be stolen from the creators and be sold on the service without certification, among other things.

Secondly, Valve did not warm up players to the notion modders being paid for their content over a substantial period of time.

Donation is one of the more obvious solutions, but like other alternatives, it has its fair share of issues.
 
GabeN spent about 6 hours on Reddit doing an AmA specifically about this topic before they decided to scrap it.

Apparently they made $10,000 off of it.....and the sheer quantity of emails they received about it cost them over $1M.

Sounds like a pretty bad deal to me.
 
Skryter said:
TotalBiscuits video gives a fair representation of my thoughts on the matter.

However, my main two issues with the whole paid mods fiasco are:

The manner in which it was implemented was poor. Namely the allowing of mods to be stolen from the creators and be sold on the service without certification, among other things.

Secondly, Valve did not warm up players to the notion modders being paid for their content over a substantial period of time.

Donation is one of the more obvious solutions, but like other alternatives, it has its fair share of issues.
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The problem I had with it was they were delving into something that should have been handled with much more extreme care then they were willing to commit to it. Modding has been fine for nearly 15+ years and when you suddenly throw the pinnacle of all modding controversy into the light and do little to nothing for it except pocket the profit (be it 30% or 75%) and expect everything to go fine you have another thing coming. And when their official response to the question "what if modderss are using content from other modders?" and they tell them to work it out amongst themselves then there is a problem with how much they are willing to dedicate to this.

Knowing steams abysmal customer support the problems they would have to deal with years down the line makes me think they are not ready for this and they did not think this out.
 
Skryter said:
TotalBiscuits video gives a fair representation of my thoughts on the matter.

However, my main two issues with the whole paid mods fiasco are:

The manner in which it was implemented was poor. Namely the allowing of mods to be stolen from the creators and be sold on the service without certification, among other things.

Secondly, Valve did not warm up players to the notion modders being paid for their content over a substantial period of time.

Donation is one of the more obvious solutions, but like other alternatives, it has its fair share of issues.
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I liked TotalBiscuits video except for the fact that he assumes the reason all consumers hate the idea is because we don't think modders should get paid. That is his entire argument, and not EVERYONE believes that. His "They couldn't get paid until now" mentality works both ways. Properly implemented alternatives that are not cash grabs and open to the community would have been received MUCH better by everyone. Even people who just think that modding should be a passion of love.
TheGurw said:
GabeN spent about 6 hours on Reddit doing an AmA specifically about this topic before they decided to scrap it.

Apparently they made $10,000 off of it.....and the sheer quantity of emails they received about it cost them over $1M.

Sounds like a pretty bad deal to me.
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That's interesting. I actually looked up his comment from the AMA...
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.
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This statement is in response to someone claiming that Valve did this as complete money grubbing. Gabe Newells response is the above, which states that they only made $10k in profit and had a million dollars in losses. To which he adds "You need a more robust Valve-is-evil hypothesis." Using this as his defense is dumb because earlier in the same AMA he talks about his surprise when he receives "3500 emails" about the modding. So he obviously did not expect the backlash and obviously did not expect to lose so much money on this project. But because he DID it is a perfect excuse/proof that Valve wasn't being greedy? That makes NO sense to me.

If he really did expect this reaction then he would have been better prepared and in communication with the rest of Valve who (as mentioned throughout the AMA) were indiscriminately throwing out bans and censoring responses (that Gabe himself did not agree with). Or more realistically, he would have scrapped the idea until he had a form of implementation that would have ACTUALLY worked.
 
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As people have pointed out elsewhere, the wording of the statement announcing the removal of the paid mods almost certainly implies that they'll be making a comeback in the future.

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I'm not saying Valve wasn't trying to make money off it. It's just that they didn't expect to LOSE money on it....which is why it was scrapped. Voting with dollars works, apparently.

I don't agree with the paid mods thing. Why should I give Bethesda more money for literally zero investment on their part? I already paid for the game - if they want their modders to make some coin, then they should hire those modders. Otherwise, modders can do what they've done for years; include a donate button on the mod page (this doesn't apply to all games or mods, of course, many modders do it as a labour of love).
 
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