Source
r/Drama•
LeoFail

Steam Workshop now includes the option to buy mods. People flip their shit.

So to start this all off, Steam announced that you can now up load mods on to the steam workshop and charge for them. Valve gets a 75% cut and people start flipping out.

This gets people mad all over reddit, steam, and elsewhere.

All of these threads have outrage and claiming people are uploading others work instead of the original creators for that sweet monies.

Feel free to notify me of more drama as this will certainly cause mass outrage and MANY YouTubers and others will start posting outrage/damage control etc.

Edit: added more threads.

Posted Apr 23, 2015, 8:23 PM UTC · edited

7024
murderouskitteh•

Its quite a legitimate outrage. Mods are made by the fans for the fans, not for profit. Donations are there for something.

This is definitely going to cause a rift in the community as the mods are suddenly sprouting premium editions or simply only resume updates behind paywalls, already seen it with Midas Magic wich has a premium edition.

Then theres the thing... they are mods, they break easily.

And they are usually made using other modders work current example is wet and cold mod wich uses Skyrim Script Extender wich a free comunity effort from wich Wet and Cold creator is proffiting.

Ill expect some modders to start pull their mods or simply abandoning them to put it on the workshop behind paywall... to be promptly ignored or just pirated as its starting to occur, people pirating mods.

EDIT: THey say its a pay what you want, but all the mods ive seen so far has a minimun ammount you have to pay. So its more like, you have to pay this but you can give more if so you want.

50
LeoFailOP•

Yeah I know. Can't wait for the large scale meltdown this is going to create.

So its more like, you have to pay this but you can give more if so you want.

Well at the moment there is no free option. So at most it is pay $1 or don't use at all. Then most people are fearing this will be the new green light and early access program.

10
murderouskitteh•

http://i.imgur.com/x9w6OBB.png

Early access mods.

19
LeoFailOP•

I saw that. Part of me wants to just face palm at that and the other part of me is saying "Its Chesko he doesn't put out crap mods."

7
murderouskitteh•

You can see what the trust in GabeN from PCMR went.

8
a57782•

That mod has already been pulled. It relied on FNIS, and FNIS's author has explicitly expressed that one stipulation to using FNIS is that you can't use it "to make money with files which are part of FNIS Behavior, or which are created with the help of FNIS Behavior."

5
Swineflew1•

Mods are made by the fans for the fans, not for profit.

That's up to the modder to decide.
There are many very legit concerns, but this notion that someones work should be free because "it shouldn't be for profit" is pure entitlement.

-1†
Jazzeki•

the problem as i see it is that it's forced upon a comunity that has so far been "for the fans by the fans, not for profit".

if a mod had charged in the past and said "i belive what i have made here is worth money" that argument wouldn't hold.

the problem when people say "modding is not for profit" is that the people who is maing it for profit and taking the lions share as it happens is not the comunity.

4
murderouskitteh•

True, I agree the modder should be able to make profit. But doing mods with profits in mind is not something very healthy to the comunity as many mods rely on part of other peoples work and comunity collaborations to completely function such as Skyrim Script Extender or FNIS for example as well as being extremely unreliable and easy to break with patches or just other mods. This way you are ensuring quite a lack of collaboration as only those who have created their content all by themselves are really free to ask for money to use. Which tend to be just skins and new models. People have called for optional Donation button in the Workshop instead and i think it would be good if it werent for Valve and Bethesda wanting a cut in the profits.

2
Accipiter1138•

Hoo boy. I'm out of town for work shit for the next few days, and I gotta say I'm not going to be thrilled to find out which of my mods won't be available anymore.

6
Parrk•

I expect we will soon be treated to publishers (Bethesda with the most cause for concern I think) flipping their shit over this as well.

When you are charging money for a mod which leverages even a single native asset then you have likely broken the terms under which the toolset was offered, as well as all kinds of agreements you clicked without reading.

The easiest way around it would be to call it a "Bandwidth convenience fee" a though you were charging for the DL itself rather than a product. That would be cheesy as hell, but I can't see the current scheme lasting very long.

6
bat_mayn•

As it stands, only 25% of the revenue share is given to the actual modder. The remaining 75% is divided between Valve and Bethesda, or any other involved parties.

But yeah, a lot of mods are blatant content/style rip offs of other popular IP's, like Lord of the Rings, Dark Souls, Witcher, e.g. So I'm not sure how something like that could be handled? It will be dicey for sure.

11
Parrk•

Great point.

For Example, my favorite skyrim armor mod is Tera Armor Collection which borrows all the textures from a Korean MMO into skyrim.

While the Tera publishers have been good sports about it previously, watching Bethesda and Valve pocket cash paid for CBBE adaptations of armor designs they spent a lot of money on having artists create is likely a little more than they are willing to sit quietly through.

10
itoucheditforacookie•

Shit, there is a warhammer 40k armor and weapon mod for Skyrim, Games Workshop is famous for killing things using their id.

6
PeruvianSkies•

Guys these people aren't retarded, they are companies with massive legal teams. The reason you couldn't sell mods before was because you couldn't monetize a dev's IP. Bethesda and Valve have reached an agreement allowing modders to sell skyrim mods. This does not somehow trump the illegality of monetizing someones ELSE's IP, such as Tera, so that mod would still be ineligible to be sold, as well as any WH40k mods or any mod that uses any IP that does not belong to bethesda. Only mods which dont infringe on other IP's would be elligable.

All that said, I still think this is a fucking terrible idea

1
Purpledrank•

What a rip off. I understand that they have the right to set the royalty percentages. But 75% just seems so greedy. Like they are expecting modders to produce quality mods with a 75% royalty fee.

2
WFTitsGatsby•

Now that they put a price on it, I see an huge wave of shitty mods coming in from people who are looking just to make a quick buck.

6
Purpledrank•

Skyrim farting mod huehuehuehue.

2
NetworkOfCakes•

As played by Pewdewpie in that 3 minutes video one time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1
ttumblrbots•

^^doooooogs ^^/ ^^more ^^doooooogs ^^(seizure ^^warning)

3
1wfFatty lover•

fuck that noise.

I wish instead they would make steam workshop work for HOMM 3 and bring HOMM 4 + Steam workshop to steam...

1
Koaah•

You'd think the pc race would have more to it that Steam and mods. That race is nothing but a sham using steam and mods!

-2
PeruvianSkies•

We still have amazing hardware, customizability, and access to other games with free mods?

2