The last few days I've borne witness to three things: Valve announced their new take on the Steam Workshop, Then I saw gamers reacting to this, and lastly Gabe Newell appearing on a Reddit AMA where he defended their stance and reassured gamers that the quality of the product came first, and if their vision for the Workshop didn't work, it would be scrapped.

As far as I understand, their new vision was to allow the developers behind Mods that appear on the Workshop to make money off of their hard work. This way Valve also hoped to bring the quality of the mods to new heights. I've seen some pretty impressive mods in my day, and I know a lot of gamers have gotten extra mileage out of games, like Skyrim for instance, through modifications so this is something I'm all for, at least in concept.

From what I've read on the matter, it seems that Valve and the developer/publisher of the games the mods are made for will take a 75% cut, leaving 25% for the mod developer. At first this struck me as odd and unfair but after some thought I'm definitely more open to this idea.

Valve owns the platform where these games and mods are distributed, so of course they get a cut, The developer/distributor owns the game where the modifications fit in, so they should get a cut too. Had the mod developer gotten the majority or all of the profits from the mods, it would put the developer/distributor in a weird place where they were allowing someone to make money of their the product they themselves own and not seeing a cut of it.

For instance, lets take a look at Just Cause 2. Before the multiplayer modification came out this game had run its course in the sales market. It was being sold for a couple of bucks on Steam quite regularly. Then came the modification and the sales skyrocketed, but the price remained unaltered. Had the mod developer been allowed to take lets say 10-15 bucks for each copy of the modification that was installed, the Mod developer would earn quite the payday and the distributor would have been left in the dust,

Sure they would have made money, but not as much as they could have, and definitely not as much as they would like. So had this actually been a real scenario, then I would think the publishers would be less likely to put their games on sales, which would ruin one of the great things about being into PC gaming.

By allowing the mod developer to earn some money off of their products, even if it isn't more than 25%, Valve and the publishers are creating a "mod scene" where the mod developers actually can sustain their development and get a chance to hone their skills. And who knows, maybe these mod developers are the ace game developers of tomorrow.

If by the next time I am in the market of backing a game on Kickstarter I could see in the credentials of the developer that they had made a mod that I or some of my friends liked, I know atleast I would be more inclined to back that project.

There are pitfalls of course, Some will try to release unusable mods on the workshop to make money off of, and some sleazebags will release mods they've stolen from some poor developer. But if we all pull together and actively report cases we think are sketchy then this might not be as big of a problem as it potentially could be.

As long as Steam Workshops Pay-For-Mods plan doesn't supplant the guys that wants their mods to be free, then I see no problem with the solution Valve has presented us with, Sure the mod developers could get a bit more for their work. 33% somehow seems better. But in the end it is up to Valve and the IP holder to decide the terms. They are the ones who are allowing a third party to make money on a product that is by design useless without the product they own. So in closing, I'd say I'm pretty enthusiastic towards the future of this thing, whatever it ends up being

Any comment I give on the matter is of course my subjective opinion and I don't expect everyone to agree with me. Do you have another take on the situation or do you think I've missed something? Sound off in the comments.

Just thought I'd let you guys know, the comments that were made earlier was removed by a moderator, Still I hope some of you will read this and hit me up in the comment section. Cheers

I would remove the developers/publisher share of the equation. Sure, they are entitled to some credit, but it is not like they are not getting anything out of the mod community to begin with. As you mentioned, cases like Just Cause 2, Skyrim and Left 4 Dead has have a lot of their sales lifespan extended thanks to a prolific mod developers community. To have a good community behind was already a big push on sales for those games already, without the steam changes.

Besides, the mods sometimes make a game much better or even playable; for example the Dark Souls port on PC. I am sure some people would think the mod developers deserve more credit than they got, and the publishers should not be encouraged to release a subpar PC product expecting the mod community to come to its rescue. Under the following model, some developers could see releasing a poorly made port, and then selling high resolution packs, performance boosters or fixes as mods, as a viable business strategy.

I would also make it more like a "donate to the creators account" than a pay-gate. Let them be free, but encourage people to make donations to those mods they enjoyed. This is not ideal for mod developers, but it would help to put some control over unfinished/broken mods or those that advertise them with photoshoped screenshots, and it would still be better for them than the classic situation...

Finally, steam should up the ante for this. Put people in charge of community management, detecting duplicates, handling complains and punishing infractions. Their idea of a "free formed market" is nice on paper and Star Trek episodes, but its really naive of them to think this will not degenerate into another greenlight or android store...

Hi, and thanks for taking the time to read my blog @hermes:)

Yeah, I'm not a fan of what Rorie called "Valves Hands Off Approach", They should police this thing a bit, at least in the start, and then hope the community will rise to the occasion so that they could use that personnel elsewhere.

If they are first gonna organize something, they should try and keep it in check so that it does not wind up being a wild west situation.

Gabe did announce on his Reddit AMA (Where is answers were downvoted, which is just dumb) that they would have a 0$ baseline option with a Pay-what-you-want solution, so that would basically have been their "donation" button. But it would still allow the mod devs to charge money up front, and from what you are writing, I interpret that this is not what you would consider ideal?

As to the publisher/distributor cut, I think they kind of have to get something, because why would they otherwise bother with supporting the game at all. You can argue that they aren't supporting it now, but the proposed plan would atleast give Valve the incentive to keep the Steam Workshop alive and well and the publisher/developer the incentive to keep their game compatible with future software and hardware iterations. There are alot of games from my childhood that is unplayable on modern systems, and I think this could help prevent that in the future.