Paid Mods on Steam Workshop - A Discussion

[MrChoke]

Well, the paid mod idea was very short lived. Oh well.

http://www.pcgamer.com/valve-has-remove ... -workshop/

[Azel]

aww, guess I won't get rich using Skyrim to make my Riven Mod. Oh wells

[David Ward]

My friend and I are investing to get a modded game of LOG2 out within a few months. There won't be any charging of money for it. Why? Because until modding-for-money reaches a certain threshold, it's about exposure.

I would far rather make a mod free and have a lot of people play it, than charge money for it and have fewer players. It can lead to bigger things than sales on a mod and make a contribution that enhances the entire community than choke it off with a monetary pricetag. That's the hope anyway.

Now, if someone puts out a mod that is standalone far and above and becomes extremely popular, maybe it's worthy of a more officially recognized pricetag?

[Dr.Disaster]

I don't think Valve is getting 75%. Probably closer to 10% VAT/sales tax & credit card fees, 30% Valve, 35% Bethesda, 25% mod author. Just my guess, of course.

Pretty close guess: it was 45% Bethesda along with the default 30% for Valve, leaving 25% to the author.
One now might argue it was a cash grab attempt by Bethesda but the community clearly rejected paid mods for what it was: a bad idea.

[Leki]

Guys...

Do you remember "demo makers". Kind of people trying to bring to users smth "special" - push the limits in some way or just share smart idea as "working prototype" etc. Usually they were skilled programmers, musicians, animators - one man army/small team - renaissance people in some way.

They are gone nowdays and the same gonna happen to the moders in few next years. Moders will transform into "professional" soliter/teams making usually "micro" DLCs - as an independent studios or as outsourcers for big players.

In other word games like Skyrim will be smth like "appstore" and "mods" smth like "apps" in that "appstore. You will be able to buy Final Fantasy hairs set for Skyrim, made by Square Enix - not by anonimous modder... Some skilled people will make "great stuff" - as some independent apps/games are today and - well thats all. It's just an evolution of gaming.

It's the same story as digital shipping was and Valve plays this game well.

What souds crazy today is next big thing in next years. Bud imagine it... Developer like Ubisoft in the future can sell their stuff twice. 1st time in AC game and 2nd time as assassins armour for Skyrim. Do you see the potential? Show must go on.

Steam workshop is gonna be "the appstores manager". Games like Civilization 5 of Skyrim will represent huge and popular appstores, others will be humbler, but they can find their customers as well. Developers will support "moders" because they have % from every financial transaction" etc.. Valve owns the platform, service processors etc and profit - because % from every trasnaction - as well. And if oyu don't like how % looks today, just give them time, "they will find acceptable distribution"

So... sad for me in some way because old good times are passing out, but on the other hand (I hope) "win-win-win" for the next generation of game/mod developers...

[Diarmuid]

Well, they really backed away hard on that one. We'll see if the idea comes back eventually in another form in a few years, but for now things will stay as they are... which is a good thing IMO.

I was thinking about it some more in the last days, and utimately I decided that it was a bad thing, not necessarily for the modding scene as such, but for independant game development. As a few people already said, at 25% (or even a bit more, as they said that the modders' part would be up to game publishers), you're probably better off developing your own game. Learning to mod a game properly, the editor, the scripting API, the particularities, etc. takes a lot of time, about the same time you could invest learning Unity for example. But if paid mods had become a thing, this would essentially drawn in talents as indirect "workers" for the majors, and all that talent and time would be lost for the indie scene. Because, if you're developping a mod for skyrim, essentially you help Bethesda and their distributor (steam) make money and you get a cut in return. It's not very different from being hired by them to develop a DLC for example, essentially a work relationship, albeit an "open" one.

So for the big publishers, it was a good strategic move, because they were consolidating their presence and user-base, and they were undercutting future competition by drawing starting devs under their hood. It wasn't such good news for the rest of the smaller players, and that's why I'm rather happy it didn't happen finally.

I've been invited today to discuss the matter at local radio station, in Montreal here changes to the video game industry are watched closely...

[JKos]

I'm also glad that this idea didn't fly. But in other hand some of the mods are so good and well crafted that the modders should be justified to get some reward from their hard work.
And there is some good examples where this has happened, for example my all time favourite game: Mount & Blade Warband has a couple of dlcs which were originally developed as mods,
but the game devs did notice that they really good and popular so they gave some help with polishing them and published them as dlcs.
I don't know how much the original modders do get from the sales, but since it's Taleworlds I'm pretty sure that they have a fair deal and there is no extra hands(publishers/distributors) at the same purse.
A bit offtopic, but I just love how Mount & Blade was originally developed with help of community, and it's just great that the great community gets a cut too. I have played the original Mount & Blade since 0.6xx beta version, and I still do play Warband,
and there is something similar in Grimrock development story, I really feel that I contributed to the development of the game (just a tiny bit but anyway), I guess that's why I'm still here.

Btw. Nice to see you back here Diarmuid.

[Isaac]

http://www.vg247.com/2015/03/16/ex-maxi ... -skylines/

There are those that are managing it.

[Eleven Warrior]

I am not going to say much on this because I don't want the community to stop sharing ideas. This site is 1000 times better than any of the other sites I have been on. At least here people share their sets and newly created things, which by the way is a good thing yeah

So no to selling Mods soz

Also If there is anything that I would buy, would be add on packs from AH eg: Additional 3d objects like, houses etc... or I would buy them from who ever made them. I have brought Mods for other games and said wow what a waste of money man. I like this place and don't want to see it go down hill like others I have seen over the last 20 years or more.

[JohnWordsworth]

The Patreon idea is actually pretty nice. I could definitely see a few proven modders making some (good) pocket money from that. I mean, they're not going to get "TF2 Hat" rich or anything, but it's a reasonable middle ground between paid mods and getting nothing for certain types of mods.

I guess it works best for games that allow you to drop-in single items - buildings, hats, weapons, spells, etc as you can say $1 per item ($5 to get voting privileges) - which is a nice discrete goal. Something bigger like Grimrock 2 Dungeons would be harder to "Patreon-ize" I guess because you work on something for months and then it's done (ie. there is nothing to see and then you are finished - so there is nothing to offer for future donations). But still, a nice solution for some cases.