Utterly Mad
The Pit => Last Man Gaming => Topic started by: saltmummy626 on April 24, 2015, 04:05:15 am
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So, steam and bethesda have begun allowing modders to charge for their skyrim mods.
The caveat is that if you dont like the mod, or it isn't compatible with all the mods you have currently, you get 24 hours to get a refund. If you dont request a refund before the 24 hour mark, your just shit out of luck. bought a bad mod and for some reason couldn't request that refund? pfft, lol, good luck with that. Its a modders dream. Sure, some modders do deserve a bit of recognition for the hard work they do. some modders, not all of them. Thats what donations are for. besides all this, I also noticed something someone else put foreward, "its not as if players cant sub the mods, copy the files, get a refund, and upload the files elsewhere so people can get the free." apparently, if you dont have the mods purchased, they simply dont get updated and wont get updated until you pony up the cash for the up to date version or so ive heard.
Anyways, discuss this payed mods shenanigans. Is it shenanigans? Discuss!
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This reeks of greedy cash grabbing!
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Just found out that the modders dont even get that much of the profits. steam takes 75% of the profits from each sale.
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r/modpiracy is already a thing! (http://www.reddit.com/r/modpiracy/)
Also steam/valve doesn't get all of that 75% some of it goes to whoever owns the IP (in the case of skyrim, Bethesda). Doesn't make it anymore ok though.
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Peri-Rant inbound. Lemme type it up, just saying first off that this us fucking stupid.
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Oh my god. OH MY GOD! The whole point of a mod is to be a fun, free little modification. The thought of having to pay to get a mod fills me with bile. I mean, for Skyrim its not that bad, as I don't play Skyrim anymore, but I'm worried about Fallout 4 and TES 6. If I have to pay for mods for either of those games, I'm going to go on a warpath. Some people don't have money to buy the fucking mods. Also, from the sounds of it, Bethesda gets almost all if the money, so its like "HEY GUYS! WHY DONT CHA MAKE SMALL DLC SO WE CAN SELL IT!! YOU GET LIKE NOTHING OUT OF IT THOUGH!" Bethsoft. Making great games and poor decisions since 1996.
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Okay, so my thoughts in a somewhat structured manner
1: This could be okay, if it were set up differently.
2: small mods(an item or two, an armor set) should not be allowed to do this
3: Stuff like Project Brazil for FNV I think this could work for, as they are LARGE mods that are essentially fan made expansion packs
4: that 75% is bullsh*it. A modder should get at least half the profits, yes they used your game's coding and all as groundwork, but a lot of these larger scale mods actually do things you couldn't and have to use workarounds they develop.
5: Looked at one of the paid things, it's like 10 bucks for a set of armor, and what, like two weapons? Bull sh*it.
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Wait! Are forgetting ValveTime is a thing? Maybe it's 1st of April in ValveTime and this is all a (terrible) April Fools joke...
I wish it was, any chance for large companies (Example: Beth and Valve) to make heaps more money with practically no effort is something they would jump at. Charging for mods is exactly that a way to make more money for almost no effort on their part.
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But... Mods are supposed to be free?
Like that was sort of the idea?
Any mod that decides to charge me money for it is automatically off my list, permanently. Charging for them is not the idea, you're making this stuff for other people to use because you enjoy it and if they think your work is good enough then they'll give you donations for it.
If it's something absolutely spectacular, like DLC quality content, then yeah I'll make an exception if it's priced right because well it may as well be DLC.
I do have an issue with how much of the funds the modders supposedly receive, I mean they're the one who's done all the work to make what they're selling, shouldn't they be getting 75% of it, or at least half? (But that wouldn't be CAPITALISM!)
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Yeah, I mean about the only kind of Mod I'd pay for would be ones that are pretty much expansion packs. I'm not going to pay for some random item.
Also, I do think if a modder is going to try and sell a mod they need approval from the original developers, since technically that's the only legal way to sell them and it's just the right thing to do.
Also, did you guys know some people were trying to sell Project Brazil as a hard copy expansion of FNV? The devs of the Mod were unaware for a while apparently, and I think they've(along with bethesda probably) shut it down since.
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Modders need more than just 25%, and their mods have to be approved so they do not have nasty bugs. That's about it, for me. It's ok for them to charge, it's their hard work. It goes with every modder if they want to charge money or not!
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It's one of those iffy things that maybe they should've implemented differently, like allowing modders to have the option to allow people to pay for their mods, but they're still available for free, so that everyone has the choice and it doesn't stop people unable from being able to pay from downloading it.
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A lot of mods are followers and reskins. most of those follower mods are pretty standard easy to make stuff. until you get into stuff like the super best friends followers mod. Do the best friends get a cut of that cash? Its their voices and likenesses used in that mod, shouldn't they be getting something if that mod suddenly has a price slapped on it? What about mods that use someone elses meshes and textures? Lot's of mods out their that are just modders resources.
Mods that deserve cash are things like skywind. big mods that actually take a long time to make. The assumption that a bunch of people in skyrims community page is that most mods take a lot of effort and time to make. Ive made mods before, they really don't. My mods weren't much good, but they really weren't that much effort.
What if this stretches into other games? the one im most worried about is tabletop simulator. people start charging for mods for that, and suddenly berserk games gets slammed up the ass with cease and desists from the companies that make the board games people are uploading. at least thats what I see happening.
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There's nothing fundamentally wrong with the concept of modders wanting to get paid for their hard work. The system as implemented on Steam workshop is goddamn awful though, and the cut that Valve is taking out of every sale is nothing short of absurd for a game that they didn't even ****ing make. I'd feel better if there was full disclosure on how much of that 75% actually goes to Bethesda.
As is, I'd rather modders set up individual Paypal donation links or a Patreon so I'm at least somewhat confident that the modders themselves are getting their fair share. I can't willingly spend money for anything offered over Steam workshop knowing how much of a pseudo-monopoly it is over digital distribution on the PC platform already, because that's just going to give them free reign to **** everybody over even more in the end.
The only reason mods were free previously is because there was never any good way for modders to reliably get paid, but with stuff like Patreon around, that's becoming less of an issue, and they can get their fair dues without putting even more power into the hands of Valve.
Right now, it's pretty much horse armor territory as far as I'm concerned. Just get your mods from Nexus and donate to mod authors wherever possible through external means.
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Okay, let me rephrase and reword myself
In my opinion, there is nothing wrong if a mod author asks for donations. In my opinion unless you have permission from the developer you are not allowed to SELL the mod, and this goes for kickstarting a mod as well, though that's a different topic.
If you want to ask for donations or put up a patreon that's perfectly fine, but if you don't have permission from the original developer then you can't sell your mod.
IDK, just my opinion, and it's, as always, subject to change.
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The real issue here is even more power being put into Valve's hands. I can't willingly support it. Every aspect of this system on Steam workshop simply stacks the deck even more in Valve's favor when they're already the gods of the PC gaming market.
I'll be waiting to see what Nexus puts into place for their donation system and making liberal use of it next time I get a hankering for some heavily modded Skyrim or whatnot. Better to have my refunds for mods that don't work be in virtual bucks that aren't also lining Valve's golden pockets.
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I saw that steam was removing donation links from the descriptions of mods on the workshop, which is pretty disgusting.
steam: "You want something for your mod eh? lol, silly modder. you gotta go through us. Steam needs its cut!"
Mod author: "no no, I don't want anything really. the donation thing is just in case someone really likes it and thinks I should get a little something for it."
steam: "pfft. no. **** that. here's how its going to work. You are going to charge for your mod and we are gonna take a cut. bethesdas gonna get a cut too."
Mod author: "but... I dont want to sell my mod."
steam: "just do it ****, or your not gonna be using the workshop."
Thats how I see it going down anyway.
also thanks for the link to the mod piracy thing caconym.
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You know what, I'd be fine with paying for 'certain' mods as long as its sizeable and as long as their is a 'cut down' free version that lets you try it before it breaks on you. But I looked on the workshop its fucking bullshit, 2$ for fucking animated fishing minigames, and 75% goes to the mod author and then 20% goes to Bethesda; like what the fuck? Only 5% goes to the actual mod author, and Valve gets to bathe in more money.
And you know what smite me for heresy, but I'm kinda getting sick of Valve's "who fucking cares, we're rich!" policy and their money grubbing 'accessibility' policy with updates for their games. TF2's last update made me full on quit it cold, we waited for that fucking map for ages only for it being removed because it was "too complicated" , and not to mention how they nearly break every gun that was perfectly okay before the patch.
Then they won't make any games, unless someone feels like it because Steam is the end all-be all platform for PC; because its the only one with a decent interface, and player base. Like Hobocop said.
But I can only see this getting worse and worse on our end if they keep this up, they've already gotten flak for their customer service policy... and yet they've done fuck all about it.
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http://kotaku.com/paid-skyrim-mod-turns-into-a-cluster****-1699913114
http://www.pcgamer.com/creator-of-removed-paid-skyrim-mod-gives-his-side-of-the-story/
Also steam giving out permission to use resources that don't belong to them and now wont let the mod author take the mod down completely.
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This cause such an uproar there is now a subreddit called Fuck Valve.
http://www.reddit.com/r/fuckvalve
People get 1 week suspension for speaking out against the paid modding or really anything negative against the paid for modding.
Paid items under review is pretty funny though (http://tinyurl.com/mzcmgjy)
(http://cdn.pcgamesn.com/sites/default/files/horse%20genitals.jpg)
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Lol, there is some pretty hilarious **** in there. BUY MY FOLLOWER! 9$! MADE DAGGER VAGUELY FASTER! .25$! Its mostly protest mods though, now that I look at them.
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ok, im going to go on a rant here. i kinda like steam, but i really hate it. its kinda nice because games are cheap, patches are often, and it helps with matchmaking. i hate it because A: My net is shit so i cant use it properly B: Valve are goblins who made three good games (Half life one, TF2, and L4D 1) and now everyone worships them C: I JUST WANT TO BUY A FUCKING DISK COPY WITHOUT HAVING TO INSTALL IT ON STEAM AND DOWNLOAD 4 GIGS OF DAY ONE PATCHES BECAUSE THEY CANT MAKE A GAME PROPERLY! D: It starves out game devs that cant get on Steam E: I hate most DRM and finally F: Its just not as satisfying to click a button, its not the same as fighting with the game for 40 minutes to get it installed.
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I use steam because it's convenient and has a lot of sales. I also use it because it makes connecting with my friends and playing with them easy. It also makes it easy to for me to get games, as I don't have a local store to get hard copies.
I don't like the DRM, at least everything I've seen of it. I disagree with some of what Steam's done, this being a case in point.
In the end though I'm tired of all of the 'fuck steam' bull shit so I guess I'm not going to continue checking this thread.
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Also mod authors can set to "Pay what you want" So i'm guessing that means you don't have to pay for *All* mods.
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I use steam because it's convenient and has a lot of sales. I also use it because it makes connecting with my friends and playing with them easy. It also makes it easy to for me to get games, as I don't have a local store to get hard copies.
I don't like the DRM, at least everything I've seen of it. I disagree with some of what Steam's done, this being a case in point.
In the end though I'm tired of all of the '**** steam' bull **** so I guess I'm not going to continue checking this thread.
I like steam for the usefulness, but they have made some stupid decisions. Lemme put the another way. Lets compare steam to a gun. Its convenient, and is overall a good gun, but it has a really high chance to jam up and ruin bullets at any time. Good, but bad. I just hate the monopoly they have on PC gaming right now.
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GoG, GMG. two other sites that sell games. Yes not as big but from the looks of a decent size. Now if these guys could build an OPTIONAL client that contains similar features to steam I think they'd be good contenders.
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I really can't understand why GoG isn't as big as Steam, it's a fantastic platform, the games are dirt cheap, they often either have 75% sales on games or outright give them away for free despite how cheap the platform already is
AND THEY'RE DRM FREE
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I really can't understand why GoG isn't as big as Steam, it's a fantastic platform, the games are dirt cheap, they often either have 75% sales on games or outright give them away for free despite how cheap the platform already is
AND THEY'RE DRM FREE
i get a lot of games from GOG too, just mostly older games.
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GOG is pretty good. Wish they had more selection, not that it isnt already prodigious. I recall a couple years ago they tried to raise prices a little bit so they could get funding to acquire more titles to sell, but the community threw an absolute ****storm over the minor price hike and so GOG scrapped the whole plan. Sometimes, the players themselves can be the problem. At least in the case of the GOG thing.
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GOG is pretty good. Wish they had more selection, not that it isnt already prodigious. I recall a couple years ago they tried to raise prices a little bit so they could get funding to acquire more titles to sell, but the community threw an absolute ****storm over the minor price hike and so GOG scrapped the whole plan. Sometimes, the players themselves can be the problem. At least in the case of the GOG thing.
So... GOG is great but the community kinda sucks, Steam kinda sucks but the community is better?
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GOG is pretty good. Wish they had more selection, not that it isnt already prodigious. I recall a couple years ago they tried to raise prices a little bit so they could get funding to acquire more titles to sell, but the community threw an absolute ****storm over the minor price hike and so GOG scrapped the whole plan. Sometimes, the players themselves can be the problem. At least in the case of the GOG thing.
So... GOG is great but the community kinda sucks, Steam kinda sucks but the community is better?
Oh, definitely not. I was just mentioning the GOG thing because it came to mind at the moment. GOG is great, and the only thing I know about its community is that incident I mentioned. steam is... bleh, and its community can be pretty "bleh" a good portion of the time. Steam is pretty much like any other place on the internet.
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GOG is pretty good. Wish they had more selection, not that it isnt already prodigious. I recall a couple years ago they tried to raise prices a little bit so they could get funding to acquire more titles to sell, but the community threw an absolute ****storm over the minor price hike and so GOG scrapped the whole plan. Sometimes, the players themselves can be the problem. At least in the case of the GOG thing.
So... GOG is great but the community kinda sucks, Steam kinda sucks but the community is better?
Oh, definitely not. I was just mentioning the GOG thing because it came to mind at the moment. GOG is great, and the only thing I know about its community is that incident I mentioned. steam is... bleh, and its community can be pretty "bleh" a good portion of the time. Steam is pretty much like any other place on the internet.
Yeah. all gaming services have there own Bleg moments.
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(http://i.imgur.com/snOVtjL.gif)
(http://i.imgur.com/ITzprpo.gif)
(http://i.imgur.com/IsiWVJf.gif)
(http://i.imgur.com/nNJEWad.gif)
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http://steamcommunity.com/games/SteamWorkshop/announcements/detail/208632365253244218
They're removing it! Oh frak yes!
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Good to hear. I didn't expect Valve to take it back considering the state of so many of their systems on Steam.
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http://steamcommunity.com/games/SteamWorkshop/announcements/detail/208632365253244218
They're removing it! Oh frak yes!
*waves Kalashnikov and Soviet Flag*
VIVA LE REVOLUTION! THE COMMON PEOPLE WON WITHOUT VIOLENT ACTION I THINK. YAY. ALSO, WE STOPPED EM BEFORE IT COULD GET MUCH WORSE!
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Honestly though, their 'apology' was complete bullshit.
Supposedly they did this so that modders could take up modding as a full time job. How the fuck are they going to do that when they're only receiving 25% of the profits from their mod? That's like taking a minimum wage job and then having your employer say they'll be taking 75% of your wages anyway.
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Also the wording suggests that there's the possibility of paid for mods in future games.
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We wanted more great mods becoming great products, like Dota, Counter-strike, DayZ, and Killing Floor, and we wanted that to happen organically for any mod maker who wanted to take a shot at it.
This reeks of a lie to me. Either that or its more than true with the between the lines bit being "so we can maximize profits."
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Well after hearing about the few good modders actually liking the idea but still don't think its the "best idea", I could say that paid mods could work. If they actually offered mods that weren't such obvious cash grabs, or like that one asshole who turned the free version of a mod into a "trail version with a 4% pop up ad chance"; that dude is a fucking asshole for doing that.
And honestly I wouldn't mind paying the modders for their hard work, but there's alright a donate button on The Nexus that gives them a big and fair cut of the profits; but no one uses it is the problem. But the whole idea of paid mods is taboo enough already, and I know that Bethesda and Valve had good intentions with it (letting modders that deserve it finally getting paid). But too bad that: 1. They're a company that needs to bathe in money 24/7 regardless of what they say. And 2. The internet is full of scheming, unoriginal hacks that would rather ruin a system to make a quick buck with clones of existing mods or scamming people out of their cash.
Oh and Bethesda's hands-off moderation of the workshop was literally the most stupid fcuking thing I've ever seen.
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Their execution of the whole thing was all wrong.
I listened to Totalbiscuit's interview with the owner of Nexus mods and developer of one of the most popular mods for Skyrim, SMIM, and they mentioned that they were not contacted in any real capacity about how this thing should have been done.
Why would you not contact an experienced modder or the guy who has had 14 years of experience hosting a community for mods about how a paid service should be run?
On top of that, Valvethesda apparently went around and contacted a number of modders somewhat under the table and asked them to create brand new mods to serve as posterchilds for the new service, giving them 45 days to do so.
45 days isn't nearly enough time to make a mod of any significant quality, let alone one that people would actually pay for. That's why the initial selection of mods on the service was complete ass, and other modders with more developed works who elected to put up their mods (SMIM dev) for sale didn't even get a chance before Valvethesda tore the whole thing down because they decided to launch the system on a Friday then go home for the weekend, leaving nobody around to keep an eye on the house while it burned down.
Doesn't make any sense to me, and it just showed how disconnected both Bethesda and Valve are from the modding community.