7 ms·

As far as I understood that was a value set by Bethesda, not Valve.

efaref 11y ago
And okayed by Valve.
jonlucc 11y ago
The latest I've seen is that Valve gets 30%, then the publisher decides what the rest of the split looks like. If they had released the exact same system, but said the modders get 75%, I think this whole ordeal would have been avoided. It's interesting to me that it was apparently better to give modders nothing than to give them 25%.
- draugadrotten 11y ago
  > It's interesting to me that it was apparently better to give modders nothing than to give them 25%. It's due to perceived "fairness" This 75/25 split by Valve reminds me of the psychology experiment the Ultimatum Game: "'Inequity aversion' is so strong that people are willing to sacrifice personal gain in order to prevent another person from receiving an inequitably better outcome." https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-brain-work/200911/fair-play https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-brain-work/200911/...
  - talmand 11y ago
    That's not quite the same. That game involves two people trying to figure out who gets what from a pot of money they did nothing to deserve receiving. Mod makers did work that may deserve compensation. One example is a possible bonus for the people involved, the other is a possible shafting for the people involved.
  - dragontamer 11y ago
    Inequity Aversion only exists in America and other Westernized countries btw. We're WEIRD like that. Different cultures respond differently to the Ultimatum Game. Be wary of those studies that only use "Anglo-Saxon American College Kids" as test subjects, which is a group of people that isn't even representative of America in general. http://bigthink.com/praxis/are-americans-the-weirdest-people-in-the-world http://bigthink.com/praxis/are-americans-the-weirdest-people... >>> The revelation that rural Peruvians handle the ultimatum game so differently from American respondents led Henrich on a MacArthur Foundation-funded research trip to more than a dozen more locales around the world, where he found wide variation in the average offers of player #1 and this curious result: “in some societies — ones where gift-giving is heavily used to curry favor or gain allegiance — the first player would often make overly generous offers in excess of 60 percent, and the second player would often reject them, behaviors almost never observed among Americans.”
    - crdoconnor 11y ago
      >Inequity Aversion only exists in America and other Westernized countries btw. Monkeys do it: http://www.livescience.com/2044-monkeys-fuss-inequality.html http://www.livescience.com/2044-monkeys-fuss-inequality.html
- lsaferite 11y ago
  I personally found Bethesda getting any split quite distasteful. They produced the game and made their money on game sales. If they continue to be responsive to bug reports and/or adding new features to the game then perhaps I can see a small amount going to them. Valve taking a cut I understand as they handle the sales and distribution platform. I'm not sure I think 30% is fair, but that's a different issue. As a revenue split I'd be much more on board with the modder getting 75% and the rest being to everyone else. Of course, then you need to consider how mod dependency is handled. And you have to look at how long term mod support is handled. What happens when the modder goes away or Bethesda releases an update that breaks existing mods. The whole thing is a big nasty ball of problems.
  - mcphage 11y ago
    > I personally found Bethesda getting any split quite distasteful. They produced the game and made their money on game sales. They produced the game engine, and are letting people develop on it for free. And them getting a cut from people piggybacking on their work and making money from it was distasteful to you?
    - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
      'Piggyback' is a loaded word. Its something we all do when we use a compiler or desktop machine. Yet those folks don't stick their hands into our revenue stream.
      - lsaferite 11y ago
        LOL, exactly. Hell, why don't musical instrument makers get a share of royalties for music made with their instruments?
        mcphage 11y ago
        > Hell, why don't musical instrument makers get a share of royalties for music made with their instruments? Hell, why don't game engine developers get a share of royalties for games made with their engines? ...oh, right, they do.
mxfh 11y ago
Yes they wanted 45% so Valve slapped on another 30% while not providing any or minimal QA from Valve or Bethesda for that other 75%?. As with the Store or Greenlight before outsourcing tasks to the community (reviews/greenlight votes) doesn't mean Valve isn't responsible for the stuff they offer in their store. A 24h hour refund policy is simply laughable when non-waiveable EU consumer rights regulations require 14 days. The other thing is the quite astronomic payout cap at $100 which means any hobbyist has to sell $400 ore more, depending on taxes before he see any of his efforts compensated. This further shows that Valve was not interested in amateurs but this was all about professionalizing the modding scene to a few contributors.
- grovulent 11y ago
  And don't forget they were trying to minimise the potential competition and challenge to their revenue streams that modding represents.
- Vespasian 11y ago
  > non-waiveable EU consumer rights regulations require 14 days I don't think this is true in the case of purely digital products. As far as I am aware of the german implementation of this regulation it explicitly allows to waive the rights before the first download. Like many companies steam does this during checkout ("I agree..").
  - mxfh 11y ago
    That Steam allows it doesn't make it legally binding or compliant with current regulations which override any TOS/EULA in a given legal region. http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/consumer_affairs/consumer_protection/consumer_rights/distance_selling.html http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/consumer_affairs/consum... «In the case of digital content, the cooling-off period expires when the downloading or streaming starts.» Says you can't waive it; for digital downloads the 14 day period get's annulled once you start downloading/streaming, not at checkout. Since many more things can go wrong with software(games) then compared to linear media (books/music/video) that implementation is still questionable. Untouched by this, at least in Germany every product sold (including Software) comes with two years of warranty ("Gewährleistung") which is established between the consumer an the reseller (at point of final sale, in this case Valve SARL) which first requires the reseller to provide a working product ("Nacherfüllung") if that's not possible the customer is entitled to a refund. Not that that this is found in many online shops in Germany, but those are the regulations that Valve has to follow by when selling software (games) to German customers.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
ekianjo 11y ago
Oh so you think Valve has no negotiation power over this kind of things?

And okayed by Valve.

The latest I've seen is that Valve gets 30%, then the publisher decides what the rest of the split looks like. If they had released the exact same system, but said the modders get 75%, I think this whole ordeal would have been avoided. It's interesting to me that it was apparently better to give modders nothing than to give them 25%.

draugadrotten 11y ago
> It's interesting to me that it was apparently better to give modders nothing than to give them 25%. It's due to perceived "fairness" This 75/25 split by Valve reminds me of the psychology experiment the Ultimatum Game: "'Inequity aversion' is so strong that people are willing to sacrifice personal gain in order to prevent another person from receiving an inequitably better outcome." https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-brain-work/200911/fair-play https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-brain-work/200911/...
- talmand 11y ago
  That's not quite the same. That game involves two people trying to figure out who gets what from a pot of money they did nothing to deserve receiving. Mod makers did work that may deserve compensation. One example is a possible bonus for the people involved, the other is a possible shafting for the people involved.
- dragontamer 11y ago
  Inequity Aversion only exists in America and other Westernized countries btw. We're WEIRD like that. Different cultures respond differently to the Ultimatum Game. Be wary of those studies that only use "Anglo-Saxon American College Kids" as test subjects, which is a group of people that isn't even representative of America in general. http://bigthink.com/praxis/are-americans-the-weirdest-people-in-the-world http://bigthink.com/praxis/are-americans-the-weirdest-people... >>> The revelation that rural Peruvians handle the ultimatum game so differently from American respondents led Henrich on a MacArthur Foundation-funded research trip to more than a dozen more locales around the world, where he found wide variation in the average offers of player #1 and this curious result: “in some societies — ones where gift-giving is heavily used to curry favor or gain allegiance — the first player would often make overly generous offers in excess of 60 percent, and the second player would often reject them, behaviors almost never observed among Americans.”
  - crdoconnor 11y ago
    >Inequity Aversion only exists in America and other Westernized countries btw. Monkeys do it: http://www.livescience.com/2044-monkeys-fuss-inequality.html http://www.livescience.com/2044-monkeys-fuss-inequality.html
lsaferite 11y ago
I personally found Bethesda getting any split quite distasteful. They produced the game and made their money on game sales. If they continue to be responsive to bug reports and/or adding new features to the game then perhaps I can see a small amount going to them. Valve taking a cut I understand as they handle the sales and distribution platform. I'm not sure I think 30% is fair, but that's a different issue. As a revenue split I'd be much more on board with the modder getting 75% and the rest being to everyone else. Of course, then you need to consider how mod dependency is handled. And you have to look at how long term mod support is handled. What happens when the modder goes away or Bethesda releases an update that breaks existing mods. The whole thing is a big nasty ball of problems.
- mcphage 11y ago
  > I personally found Bethesda getting any split quite distasteful. They produced the game and made their money on game sales. They produced the game engine, and are letting people develop on it for free. And them getting a cut from people piggybacking on their work and making money from it was distasteful to you?
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    'Piggyback' is a loaded word. Its something we all do when we use a compiler or desktop machine. Yet those folks don't stick their hands into our revenue stream.
    - lsaferite 11y ago
      LOL, exactly. Hell, why don't musical instrument makers get a share of royalties for music made with their instruments?
      - mcphage 11y ago
        > Hell, why don't musical instrument makers get a share of royalties for music made with their instruments? Hell, why don't game engine developers get a share of royalties for games made with their engines? ...oh, right, they do.

mxfh 11y ago

Yes they wanted 45% so Valve slapped on another 30% while not providing any or minimal QA from Valve or Bethesda for that other 75%?. As with the Store or Greenlight before outsourcing tasks to the community (reviews/greenlight votes) doesn't mean Valve isn't responsible for the stuff they offer in their store. A 24h hour refund policy is simply laughable when non-waiveable EU consumer rights regulations require 14 days. The other thing is the quite astronomic payout cap at $100 which means any hobbyist has to sell $400 ore more, depending on taxes before he see any of his efforts compensated. This further shows that Valve was not interested in amateurs but this was all about professionalizing the modding scene to a few contributors.

grovulent 11y ago
And don't forget they were trying to minimise the potential competition and challenge to their revenue streams that modding represents.
Vespasian 11y ago
> non-waiveable EU consumer rights regulations require 14 days I don't think this is true in the case of purely digital products. As far as I am aware of the german implementation of this regulation it explicitly allows to waive the rights before the first download. Like many companies steam does this during checkout ("I agree..").
- mxfh 11y ago
  That Steam allows it doesn't make it legally binding or compliant with current regulations which override any TOS/EULA in a given legal region. http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/consumer_affairs/consumer_protection/consumer_rights/distance_selling.html http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/consumer_affairs/consum... «In the case of digital content, the cooling-off period expires when the downloading or streaming starts.» Says you can't waive it; for digital downloads the 14 day period get's annulled once you start downloading/streaming, not at checkout. Since many more things can go wrong with software(games) then compared to linear media (books/music/video) that implementation is still questionable. Untouched by this, at least in Germany every product sold (including Software) comes with two years of warranty ("Gewährleistung") which is established between the consumer an the reseller (at point of final sale, in this case Valve SARL) which first requires the reseller to provide a working product ("Nacherfüllung") if that's not possible the customer is entitled to a refund. Not that that this is found in many online shops in Germany, but those are the regulations that Valve has to follow by when selling software (games) to German customers.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

ekianjo 11y ago

Oh so you think Valve has no negotiation power over this kind of things?