Hooray, another way for Valve to make money by watching other people work. Can't wait for the markets to get flooded with garbage so that they can pawn off the job of fixing it on content producers or consumers.

I've kind of accepted that Valve probably won't make interesting things anymore but I hope they stop shitting up steam with stuff like this before they cross the line where any of this gets between me and buying or playing games. They keep nudging closer and closer to it and when it finally happens I'm done.

One could argue that one of the main reasons why Skyrim is still relevant today is because mods were free and so accessible.

Why shouldn't content creators be paid for the content they create?

Don't buy the ones that look shitty?

Did you really think Valve wouldn't take a cut for hosting it on their storefront using their resources? It's not like the old 'put my mod up on the internet somewhere myself and add a donate button' method of trying to make money is suddenly no longer an option. Hell, I'm sure you could even put it up for free on the Steam Workshop and link to your website where you have a donate button or something.

I can pretty much guarantee that if somebody tries to charge for a 'no carry limit' or equivalent non-mod mod, somebody else will come along and release a free one out of principle.

It's actually that last bit that worries me while also being shitty. This could just offload the work needed to do DLC while effectively getting paid like you made some. All kinds of annoying but otherwise ignorable stuff could be kept in place knowing paid mods will come around to address them. Things like Vinny's Bane (carry weight limitations) even if that specific example would probably be included in large mods or race to the bottom in pricing.

So how is Steam going to handle mod's breaking the game. Will you be entitled to a refund? What about mods that are no longer supported on the current version of the game. Or mods that have conflicts with other paid for mods?

Seems like a headache that hasn't really been thought through properly.

@officer_falcon: Most of them are mods that patch the game, improve performance, add creatures and items to the world, improve the graphics etc. Look at this for instance. My mod list in post 19 of that thread. I like mods that add bits and pieces to the world. More civilians in towns, travellers on the road, birds, cats and dogs around town. Everything that makes the game feel more alive while not breaking immersion. I also have a lot of graphical mods that make the game look better while not increasing the stress on my old pc. Extra music, better looking clothes for npcs, bladibladibla.

A lot of mods that add bits and pieces to the world are modular, so the number of things you have to install can add up fast. For example there's not a cummonity patch for the entire game and DLC combined, you have to download the community patch for skyrim and all the dlc seperately. Also you have to sometimes download compatibility patches so mods work well together. So not all the mods in the list are actually different.

Valve isn't doing this because they care about the moders. They are doing it for free money and publicity.

When I created mods for Morrowind I did it for fun. And that's the same reason all modders created mods; for fun.

Now people consider it difficult work that they deserve to be compensated for? That's just silly.

I fucking love polls. Even if it's an ugly poll.

My gutreaction is one of 'mods should be accessible to everyone, not locked behind a price!' but i'm also for people getting paid for what they're good at. So yeah, i'm not sure yet how i feel about this.

I wonder how steam mods will interact with other versions of the game. Can you still use steam mods on non-steam versions like GOG? can you still use Nexus mods on steamgames or will that slowly be phased out by valve so that you can only access mods from the workshop?

Edit:

did some more thinking about this, and i'm opposed to paid mods now.

A lot of mods are based on other people's work. There are already a lot of people putting mods on the skyrim page that didn't create that mod. I've heard that some moderation is happening, but even with only 1 game offering mods, some are still slipping through. That's going to happen exponentially once more games gain mod support.

Also, buying a mod makes it a legal transaction. This means that customers are protected and should receive a working version of the product they purchased.This means that you're now not only in a business relationship with the developer of the game, but also the developers of your mods. So whenever a mod is up for sale, it has to be working AT ALL TIMES. This means modders will have to support the mods they made, otherwise they can't sell it. Now this mod can be broken anytime something happens to the files of that game, an update, someone else's mod, whatever. Your savefiles might get corrupted, mods might conflict with eachother, maybe you can't get in the main menu anymore. Sure you can refund a mod within 24 hours, but that still means that existing users might see the mod breaking later on; when the mod updates or the game updates and breaks stuff. At that point, you're SOL. Especially because Valve seems to keep their hands off approach, asking customers to contact modders and hope they'll update the stuff that breaks.

I think the idea of steam offering mods is fine, and a donation button for your favourite modders, sure i could get behind that. But there are too many problems to be still worked out to offer paid mods.

@jeff Just wanted to say that I'm really digging the conversational tone of your recent writing. I've seen you muse for years about the place of written vs. video content in modern games coverage and how video is just taking over everything, but I think these kind of news rundowns are perfect in this format. Keep it coming!

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Also, people here instantly going from monetizing some tiny user-made things to CORPORATIONS ARE EVIL. Maybe, slow down a bit.

Valve is getting a cut because they think they (and the devs/publishers) should be compensated for providing the hosting service, integration tools, and the IP/original content. If you don't think that makes sense, don't engage with this stuff and just download mods like you always have for free elsewhere.

This really just isn't a problem for anyone in any way.

This seems to be a disaster waiting to happen. I really dunno, the mod scene would not be the same for better or worse. I hope I'm proven wrong.

If you don't want to pay for mods then don't pay for mods, I'm sure free stuff will still appear at a certain rate, I like to think that Valve is trying to get money to flow into a system so they can work on making the system more fleshed out in the future?

Or maybe I'm wrong?

With Dead or Alive 5 on steam now, how long until someone's charging for a nude mod, or worse yet, charging for an Iron Man in GTA V mod.

And you'd be right. Skyrim on the PC is only still big because everyone can mod it and turn the game into anything at all, and it's why people are still pumping out TOP 10 MODS OF THE WEEK(mods of the week) videos and getting hits. Trying to leech even more money out of the modding scene that's kept you relevant is pretty stupid. It's better to try and absorb the stuff you can, maybe officially support stuff, maybe do a contest or something... not try and sell them for a 75% cut. This backlash is exactly what it deserves, and I only hope it gets pointed at similar monetization schemes. Like the entirety of Dota.

What will happen is there will be competition between free and paid. I think it will work out in the end since people will want exposure at the expense of being free.

I'd hope this rewards hard working mod creators but I fear it will only be taken advantage of people looking to make a quick buck.

The same people who will then probably complain about DLC on some forum somewhere.

I'm surprised so many people are surprised that Skyrim is still cared about. Until GTA V game out just the other week Skyrim was still sitting pretty on top of all non-Valve games on the list of top games by current player count.

As for this. I think dudes who make mods are entitled to some cash but I think this is the wrong way of doing it. This is Valve getting theirs. The fact that you can be refunded but that you can't get that money back to the real world is kind of slimy. A better way to me is how one guy whose making Cities Skyline mods is doing it and that's through Patreon. So if you like his work and feel like contributing to paying him, you can and he'll keep making new buildings for the game.

As someone else mentioned, a donation button would also be suitable.

The big problem I see happening here is undercutting on the mod community. What's going to stop people downloading say an armour set, cracking open the mod and then tweaking some RGB values on it then reuploading it for 4c less than the original?

I think I'll just stick with The Nexus for my Skyrim mods.

I think it's dumb due to the revenue split, if the majority of the money was going towards the mod developer I'd be alright with it. But 75% to Valve & Bethesda? That seems too high, and fucked up. This doesn't seem like a way for creators to get money, but for Valve and Bethesda to make more money off of others people work.

This makes value propositions even more difficult than they already are. In the context of an entire game, single assets, or smaller groups of assets are easy/cheap. People generally have a very bizarre idea of what it takes to make a game and this will likely push that idea further from reality.

At this point I'm just kind of done with Steam, though that's been the case since Greenlight and Early Access games started ruling Steam.

Really Jeff? No sense starting an argument by others children, despite the immaturity. I don't have a problem with mod creators charging for their shit (assuming they have permission from the devs/and or the publisher) anyone who is into Flight sims has experienced premium mods. MS Flight sim has tons of premium mods that come at premium prices. In this case though making it go through Steam workshop, what mod creator wouldn't charge for their mod? Its practically free money since you have an audience made for you. I certainly wouldn't buy a mod through steam, because there is no guarantee of quality as when buying from a trusted dev team (be it mod teams or otherwise). If modders started using this by and large I would think it would quickly kill off mods entirely. It would similar to the slew of garbage shitting up mobile and steam markets. When mods are free there is really no risk to trying it out, but when I might be paying an upwards of $20 for some amateur skin pack that doesn't even work right, I would be pretty turned off to even bothering with the mods at all.

I'm in two minds about this. Yes the end times are nigh but this might attract people who might not otherwise make mods at all to make really good ones for the money. We'll just have to wait and see I suppose.

Also the mods that couldn't just be cloned and sold for 1c cheaper are large content mods which are the ones probably worth paying for anyway.

The end times sure are taking a while

Donation Button, that is all it needed to be.

Eh, this seems fine. Hopefully, Valve will figure out some better ways to help cream rise to the top, but other than that, people getting paid for doing work is good.

ASCII fuck yous are the most devastating fuck yous.

Being that many of the most popular mods are inherently infringing on copyrights, this will be an interesting problem for steam to police.

It's days like these that really depress the hell outta me. You see comment after comment, tweet after tweet of folks laughing at the idea of paying for mods. Of calling modders who charge for their work 'scum bags'.

Who are these people that don't need money to live? Are they children? They must be, right? Do they not pay for rent? For health insurance? For fucking food? Do they think that in order to make video games you should sacrifice every other aspect of your life or else you aren't passionate enough?

The idea that money will get in the way of a modder's passion in a joke. It's so far removed from reality I don't understand where it comes from. Fear of not being able to support myself financially is the NUMBER ONE BLOCKER OF CREATIVITY! It's the desire to ensure to make the money to support yourself that causes you to take less risks in the first place! It's what causes you to make a 'safer product!' If creators didn't have to worry about money, you would have an EXPLOSION of creative content!

I should get off the internet today. I'm getting too salty.

This will end poorly

I don't know what Valve's policy on selling AO content is, but I assume the sexually explicit mods will remain free and available from places like TesNexus.

*Season Passes for mods*

*Lite versions of mods with ad support*

*Premium versions of mods*

*EXCLUSIVES*

*Official Mortal Kombat meshes in every game*

I don't ever use mods so, on one hand, I couldn't give a shit if I'm being honest. That said, much like Greenlight, Early Access, and everything else about Steam these days, I feel as if somehow this has potential to turn into another clusterfuck.

Selling huge mods like that one Skyrim mod that adds a whole island with dozens of quests and voice acting makes sense. It's weird, but it makes sense.

Considering a lot of people seem to have no problem selling and buying fucking hats that do nothing for way too much money though, I'm guessing this is bad news.

Riiight, because that's exactly what Valve is known to do right? In absolutely every other aspect similar to this they've let it turn to garbage every time. You really think they're gonna hire someone to sit there and figure out what mods for a game they have nothing to do with are good? They can let it be user defined but we've already seen how people abuse that stuff. From devs offering free games in exchange for greenlight votes to pretty much every kids game on Steam being tagged as "Psychological Horror".

Especially now that such a large amount of ire has been produced over this there is no way they can leave it to the community and not have it go to shit.

I think this is totally fine and don't get the backlash *at all*

I'm still playing skyrim. Well, technically I am. But with all the mods it's an entirely new game. I would rather there be a donate option for mods that clearly took hundreds of hours of work to complete, but I don't use Workshop for Skyrim anyway; Nexus Mods is the way to go.

Buy The horse Armor you always wanted !!!!

Who the fuck is going to make a living off of making mods? It's 25% of a small profit at most. Where do you live that you have the luxury to sit at home and create mods for a video game and the cost of raising a family, paying for health insurance, buying food, and paying rent is less than like 100 bucks a month? I want to live there. And I find it adorable that you consider creating mods comparable to developing a full video game.

I'm a bit on both sides of the fence. On on hand I think it's awesome that creators are able to get a bit of money out of their hard work, but on the other hand I think one of the main reasons mods works, are because most of the time they are free. Normally when I see a cool looking mod there is no reason not to try it, because let face it, it's free. I think if creators start charging for their mods, many of them might never get their time in the spotlight... Which is already a problem even when they're free.

Donations might have been a better option, but hey let's see what happens.

I thought it was a really good idea for mod creators and didn't know there was any backlash until reading this... but of course there would be backlash on the internet. Everyone will accept it in a week.

Support people who put a lot of hours into something and then ask you for money!! Don't support the current internet ad business though, it's terrible.

I wonder what kind of Steam Mod pirating scene is going to pop up.

I like the idea of content creators getting paid, but them getting only 25% of revenue is gross and makes it feel a lot like this is just another way for Valve to create free money for themselves. Paying $6 for a mod that's existed since Oblivion (Midas Magic) is mind boggling to me, and knowing that less than $2 of that is going to the creator makes my blood boil. Seeing this pricing already makes me dread how much bullshit is going to show up in the workshop, going the way of Greenlight and Early Access, as Jeff and other duders have said.

My only hope is that the long-time hobbyist modders stay away from this and find a way to take donations. If this workshop does become popular for the skilled modders, I sure hope Valve put some effort into cleaning the bullshit out of it, which is unlikely given the state of Early Access games.

Hopefully the bright side of this is that it provides an incentive for other devs/publishers to support modding. Make a little bit of money doing almost nothing. It's always been a shame most devs/publishers choose not to supporting modding.

@cornbredx: My hope is that it will be a good way to balance out the mod community, lesser known modders will still hopefully offer free content to make a name for themselves or to show off what they've made to a larger audience, big name guys that are known for things like armor sets and homebases that spend a lot of time and effort crafting stuff that is a higher quality than whats in the game already can make a little money for their effort (they could even start making sort of free lite versions of their stuff to give a basic idea for what someone can expect from a paid version), and lastly the guys who make garbage or steal someone's work will ideally be found out faster and dealt with. I'm with you though, it's a weird new world, and I hope this doesn't lead to people taking advantage of the people who want to enjoy the best part of gaming on a pc.

End times confirmed.

@neocalypso: This is blowing things way out of proportion. Mods are optional, right? No one's going to have to pay for anything they don't want to. My point was maybe Steam figures out a way to better promote good content. If they do, great. If they don't, it really doesn't matter.

It's the Horse Armor vs. Shivering Isles argument all over again. And another Elder Scrolls game, how fitting! There are cosmetic mods that I would never spend money on but if someone made a really cool new town with custom quests, factions, etc. sure, why not? And so what if there's some sword selling for 50 cents? You're not forced to buy it.

This is all purely academic, of course. I stopped giving a shit about Skyrim about a month after it came out.

I would be fine with a donate button, but this method is awful. I really hope cities skylines doesn't get paid mod support. At least not in its current form and the content creators getting 25% is a fucking joke. They also need to get $100+ before Valve gives them their money and since they only get one fourth of each sale, that is going to take a lot longer.

I'd rather see modders open Patreons, it seems to work well for other artists. People who used to support themselves with commissions are now able to stop doing them, and are getting more money than before.

Steam Greenlight has set a bad tone for things like this. I can only imagine abuse with a few shining examples.

What about mods with dependencies? Lots of the more "in-depth" mods for Fallout/Skyrim require Script Extender mods, do those modders get a cut? What if those fundamental mod tools become paid as well?

There's a risk for destroying the ecosystem.