Steam Adds Support for Paid Mods

I think a lot of it is about the idea that something that once was free might not be anymore.

ive read that some modders are already being harrased by being called "sell-outs" which is lame.

it seems like a big part of this is that the game maker advises what cut the modders get if they want to monitize and besesda decided they wanted 75%. it can certainly be debated on both sides if that is fair but the good thing is the people doing the mod can still do what they were doing before and do it for free.

totally agree with @beefthug69420 that they eventually need to have some kind of moderation so that if people are stealing other peoples mod to try to make money off it they can report it. the details on how that would work seem...complicated

You've misunderstood something greatly here. That's not how it works; it would be a totally unreasonable way for the contract to work and probably wouldn't hold up legally if Valve could essentially steal money from small fish.

Sales tracking and payouts are two separate processes. There's no time limit on sales tracking; sales of your mod are credited to you for life.

Paying out to your bank account happens once per month and there's a minimum cutoff (to prevent fees becoming a large percentage). The FAQ mentions $100 but it's not totally committal; it's possible that the exact value would change over time. This is par-for-the-course for similar arrangements; and note that this is for your account as a whole (so all your published mods combined).

IMO people should stop complaining / making stuff up about the payout schedule as there is nothing wrong with that. The %age cut being totally controlled by the publisher (and Zenimax having been greedy in Skyrim's case) *is* something that merits complaint.

Those Clean Faces don't come cheap.

How in anyway is that the same?

I mean, good luck with that. Skyrim mods are especially intertwined with each other and frequently use assets or utilities from other mods. Valve doesn't seem to want to moderate its own store, nevermind a bunch of mods on the workshop.

There are perhaps legit problems with some specifics of how valve are doing this, but it seems like most people on the internet (not in this thread - which is lovely) are freaking out over the very idea of paying for a thing. It's giant entitled baby syndrome again.

I think there should really be some kind of check to stop people from loading the workshop with paid trash. Possibly a download goal to hit, or a tier that exists as pay what you want until that point - a way of doing donations through Steam's system without requiring payment before even seeing the mod in action. Mod authors with confirmed quality releases could be fast tracked through the system, like established publishers are for the steam store.

Even places like Youtube and Twitch, long known as places content creators can earn cash, didn't just open the floodgates for anyone with a capture device.

I feel like this may be the end of how I played Skyrim, with my hundred mod jumble, because I just can't afford pay for everything I want to use. Perhaps heavy modders like me are the unfortunate casualty of this in the end.

Were I to offer modders, seasoned or not some advice - going paid isn't something to take lightly. Money ruins everything, and if you've enjoyed a community atmosphere with users, that will probably change. That said, time has value, and many authors deserve to be compensated.

Were I the owner of a successful mod now, I would tell the userbase I am not going paid yet, but will watch how the system works out to decide if/when I would switch over.

comments are tl;dr but how exactly is this not a great thing? Maybe because being able to pay bills with your passion isn't something juvenile trolls can comprehend?

Paying people for there work? Why should anyone do that?

@winternet: Hey, Rorie is plenty pretty. You take that back.

Seriously though. I think this is great, Having been an avid mod user in the mid 2000's when I was around 15, It sure helped give extra length to games like Max Payne 2, Half Life and The Sims 2.

I wrote some more on this on my Blog here on the site. Hope some of you make the trip over there, and hit me up in the comments. Would love to hear from you

It's been dropped, for now at least: https://steamcommunity.com/games/SteamWorkshop/announcements/detail/208632365253244218

Thank god that's gone. For now at least.

My only real issues with this is that Bethesda is apparently taking a 70% cut of the proceeds, and possible plaigirism. That and the probable buttloads of crap that now cost money.

I would pay for a well crafted mod...the creators should see some type of compensation for mods that add to my playing experience.

Glad to see Valve dropping this shitty idea.

yay its been dropped: http://steamcommunity.com/games/SteamWorkshop/announcements/detail/208632365253244218

Too bad they screwed over all of the modders who put up paid mods for their scheme.

@pgn: I believe the main problem most people had was that the publisher still got a sizable percentage of the sales of mods... which cynics could see that cases were modders made the game playable were basically doing the publishers work, and Steam shouldn't encourage that kind of behavior. Also, their notion that it would "regulate itself for the betterment of the users" was naive of them, specially considering the state of the greenlight library, and other online stores with low bars of entry.

I still think there was a good idea behind it, but it was poorly implemented. Something to ease the process of "donations" to the steam account of the creator, without setting a pay gate and without the involvement of the publisher would have worked better.