Please don’t mistake this response for being against modders getting money. A good number of them deserve it. A select few deserve a punishment worse than death, but I can thankfully ignore their stuff ;)
Anyway, it’s not that Valve is doing anything of the sort, but rather that it seems like they’ve created a “Wild West” free market kind of scenario. Nobody else is to blame but them for that situation, as those who dwell in the environment can only do the best they can to work within it. Even if a publisher/indie developer wants to limit mods to Workshop-only so as to encourage more to charge for them, that’s not an inherently bad thing. It optimizes income for everyone. There does appear to be a liability issue (not necessarily legal - IANAL - but rather moral/ethical), however, with publishers/indies accepting money for something that they will not support. Modders often go the way of the dodo, and sometimes their product holds up just fine while other times it gets broken by patches or issues with dependencies. That’s not a huge issue for the consumer when the only thing they’ve invested is spare time, but when money is involved then there’s an expectation created for many if not most people involved. Purchasing a mod suddenly becomes quite the gamble - not only do you know ahead of time if you’ll like it (the standard chance), but you don’t know if it will keep working beyond 24 hours, after which you’ll have zero recourse on what you’ve spent but the publishers get to take their vacations to Maui [exaggeration for the sake of humor]. The very nature of mods combined with the lack of proper curators heightens the issue even more.
Anyway, I’m waiting to see what happens when someone purchases the mods and republishes them elsewhere for free or simply distributes them to all their friends (and so on and so on until one person triggers a free distribution of thousands). Such “lost sales” would encourage publishers to severely restrict the modding environment as much as possible, wouldn’t it?
I don’t understand this mindset at all. I find it truly bewildering that anybody at this point can believe that just because something is “optional” that there can’t possibly be any negative repercussions.
I remember when Steam first came out and people like you said “Oh it’s optional, you don’t even have to use it if you don’t want to, so why are you complaining?” which led to “Well it’s just Half-Life 2.” which led to “Well it’s just a few games; just play something else.” which led to “Why don’t you like Steam? Just use it and stop complaining.” because well, at this point it’s kind of not really optional anymore is it?
It is, but it isn’t, right?
Remember when Team Fortress wasn’t a carnival of stupidity full of [totally optional!] hats and crates and trading cards?
Go for it. When this turns out to be a tempest in a tea pot, well, their will be a lot of people who should feel silly.
Steam is optional. You can still get most games at stores. The games that you can’t get at the store or directly from the publisher are probably games that wouldn’t have been available without a convenient platform like steam.
Still, all I see happening is a bunch of mods being sold at awful prices, that eventually will drop to the bottom because they are over priced. Just like the original app store. In time we will see a good mix of free and purchasable mods like on the phone. There might be some growing pains but nothing else.
It seems this is just people upset that they have to pay for someone else’s effort for once. I don’t get it. Don’t we pay artists for there products? Even if it is made for the fun of it, an artists still asks for compensation.
Well, ignoring the fact that there are more games available than ever before and you can still get games from other platforms (and that having steam as the DRM is much better than anything anyone has come up with and getting patches are much easier) this is the world we live in. You might as well complain about your keyboard being terrible designed while you are at it.
And there are plenty of games on gog and desura and metro and blizzard that don’t need or want steam. Also, all the console games. And EA.
My arguments against this is that
a) the implementation is poorly suited to how Skryim mods work and have traditionally been constructed/“licensed” (asset-sharing, collaboration between different groups, mods becoming dependencies that other mods require)
b) the potential future effects of this are bad for games that lend themselves to Skyrim-style mods
I think Valve is trying to do a “good” thing for mods (while making money). They’re not trying to destroy modding, as some of the hyperbolic shouting on other sites are screaming about. It’s just that this implementation probably isn’t conducive to a non-total conversion or minor reskin/remodeling mod environment.
This should have been implemented as local-only skins for DOTA2/TF2/CSGO to allow the hundreds of items that aren’t selected for global distribution to attract buyers, and then grow from there.
I don’t have a problem with Steam at this point mostly because Origin, UPlay and all their competitors are just awful… but it’s not optional. You can’t compare this like a Walmart vs Target scenario. Large series are found in Steam only, and even if you buy them at Target, you have to go to Walmart to use them. It’s just different.
Paying for mods at this point is optional. There is no way to tell if it will always be optional. And I still think the legal playground here is not healthy. Valve didn’t seem to invest any time in figuring out how to provide a healthy, vibrant approach and just kind of threw it out there to sit back and watch… a completely not responsible for any problems approach. I am not a fan of that.
Simple problem with this, no recourse for the consumer.
Mod maker releases mod
Player buys it
Game maker updates/patches game
Mod maker is no where to be found
There is a real quagmire of legal issues with this. Who’s responsible for implied warranty? Is it ok for someone else to come in over the top on a mod if the original mod owner has vanished and the mod is broken by a patch? What recourse will the original mod owner have if someone does that to their work and they didn’t want it done?
I’m all for modders getting paid, but I’m guessing this is going to be a real firestorm when peoples mods don’t work anymore and they are trying to figure out who to complain to.
Ultimately I believe Valve will be held responsible for these issues. Regardless of their hands off stance, they are getting the lion share of money from this, and are the obvious avenue of recourse when something goes wrong. /popcorn for sure on this one.
I’m not a game or mod developer but I support the optional approach. From what I can tell, some against this approach seem to be taking for granted that just because you paid for software(or a mod) that you should be able to count on compatibility/support/what have you.
This is ridiculous. For one thing, the game can be patched, ruining compatibility. If I made and sold a mod, as is, why the hell should I have to fix that? Because you gave me two bucks? F that! For another thing, you the buyer may have altered your game, tweaked config files, or added any number of other mods to your game, which may affect how my mod works. Why the hell is that my problem to fix? As someone who has used game mods for years and years, I know that issues are to be expected and it’s on me, the player, to figure out how to do it.
If I make and sell half assed mods, word will get out and only idiots will pay me for them. Don’t be an idiot and everyone is happy. I wouldn’t expect Valve or any other provider to do your homework either. Finding good and worthwhile mods is the job of the player. Valve may object to something I find perfectly acceptable, I’d rather they stay out of filtering out mods as much as possible and let me have the choice.
One of the new ones I heard of yesterday - upset players trying to blow the whistle on modders using the student version of programs like 3dsmax for their mods that they’re now listing for a fee on the Workshop, which is a huge no-no for student licenses of most products.
Well this is the DLC vs mod comparison right. Actual companies that sell and support their products tend to ensure they’re DLC still works after an update. They don’ do that with mods except now the modder/Valve and the company will get a cut from mods they have no intention of supporting. Once you introduce dollars, it seems the bar should be raised a bit. But hey, we see how well Valve works with EA games, no issues there and dollars.
If there’s an issue, it may be the same kind of issue you get with some Steam game mods–if a mod changes the .exe or other integral components of the game that might affect a multiplayer experience, problems result.
When I mod a game with free stuff, and it breaks in a later patch and no one is around to fix it, it is disappointing but I move on. Or in many cases, the code is out there and anyone with the initiative can jump in and fix it (if it is popular enough, this has a non-zero chance of actually happening). But if I paid for something and there was no attempt to keep it current? I tend to feel that it IS on you to fix it. Or change it to free and release the code so someone else can fix it. Or add you to a public blacklist of hit’n’run mod authors.
Heheh, yes. I remember going to a CP/M users group in NYC and someone stood up and pronounced, ‘Gotta tell you guys, CP/M will soon be obsolete, and MS-DOS will dominate personal computers!’ “Blasphemy!” we cried, and then tarred and feathered him.*
I’m not sure this counts as the same kind of new marketplace as home computer operating systems in 1982 or whenever. Perhaps there’s some analog, but I can tell you that mods, permissions, fair use, and pay-for-creation have been issues within modding for well over a decade now.
I don’t think this is Armageddon. I just think it’s a poorly implemented idea. And yes, I imagine the “market will sort itself out.” As others have wryly noted, when we’re the consumers and the market, that’s not such a fun place to be.
Looks like people are buying them. Most have an ~1% conversion rate, if subscribers means purchasers. More than what I expected from single player cosmetic stuff.
It’s really disgusting how people who’ve made those mods are being treated. All the death threats and carp aren’t worth $100.
