7 ms·

The core of the issue came down to the effects on the modder community. 1. Modders are hobbyists, not professionals. Many modders came right out and said they

by kedean 12y ago

The core of the issue came down to the effects on the modder community. 1. Modders are hobbyists, not professionals. Many modders came right out and said they would no longer make mods under this system, because the pressure to charge means it becomes a job. They no longer would have the option to just walk away from the mod. 2. Piracy. Modders have explicitly made their mods available for free. Once you have a system where they can be charged for, you have freeloaders putting someone elses mods on steam to make money. Steam provided no protection against this, the only resolution would be filing an individual complaint or invoking DMCA, and Steam was leaving that entirely up to the mod owners to figure out. 3. This was seen as a hostile move towards Nexus, the biggest provider of mods for the games in question. As soon as this was announced, mod makers began removing their products from Nexus out of concern that they would be dishonestly put on the Steam store. As Nexus is an ad-supported service, fewer mods means less income, and it would not be due to a capitalistic business reason. In the end, most modders don't WANT to be paid for their mods, because it's not a profession. I saw plenty of support for a donation system, however.

AndrewDucker 12y ago
But the reason it's not a profession is that it's currently not possible to be paid for it. Make that possible and you'd then have some professional modders and some amateur ones.
- bamie9l 12y ago
  In this case I believe that allocating a dollar value to work done for the love of it, significantly devalues that work in the eyes of its creator.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - mhomde 12y ago
    Yeah, this is like the chapter out of "Drive" where they tried paying people to give blood but ending up decreasing the number of blood givers... they'd rather feel charitable then earn money
emodendroket 12y ago
Why would making it possible to make money from them make it impossible not to charge for them?
- Vraxx 12y ago
  The system in place didn't do anything to protect the mod from being uploaded fraudulently. If I wanted a $0 price tag on my mod, I especially wouldn't want to spend time I could otherwise be working on my mod policing the store to make sure nobody is selling my mod. Fix that and you fix a lot of the issue.
  - emodendroket 12y ago
    That's a pretty nontrivial problem to solve technically.
    - Vraxx 12y ago
      Well, I guess the other issues listed here were nontrivial enough to make a solution unfeasible, or Valve probably wouldn't have backed out.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
mcphage 12y ago
> In the end, most modders don't WANT to be paid for their mods, because it's not a profession. I saw plenty of support for a donation system, however. So in the end, most modders don't WANT to be paid for their mods, except they do WANT to be paid and call it a donation?
- kedean 12y ago
  That comment is mostly by gamers, not modders. Also, the difference is that one assigns a worth, while the other is someone saying 'hey I appreciate what you do'.
  - mcphage 12y ago
    > That comment is mostly by gamers, not modders Ah, the ol' "look I want you to get paid for your work, I just don't want to have to be the one paying you. Don't worry, I'm sure tons of people will. Just not me."
- inerte 12y ago
  When you buy something you have some expectations. You'll want the mod to be stable, be updated along with the game, play along with other mods. If you are the seller, and you got paid, that means work. Give support or get shouted at by dozens of angry customers. Reply to emails for months to come when a competitor modder added your mod features to his mod and why the hell are you charging 4.99 if it's worth 1.99 and now you need to refund your costumer. Donations, on the other hand... explicit intent and different expectations from everyone involved. Also, it might be neither "most don't want to be paid" nor "most want donation", and both sets might have a very small intersection.
  - _lce0 12y ago
    plus that the seller requires to set a price, which may be too high/low .. but using donations happy customers can pay whatever they feel is ok for them
  - belorn 12y ago
ux-app 12y ago
In the end, most modders don't WANT to be paid for their mods, because it's not a profession. That's an interesting perspective. Sounds like there are some valid criticisms of the system Valve has put in place. To me it seems that gamers have cut off their nose to spite their own face in this regard. It seems to me that a paid modding ecosystem would be a big win in favor of gamers. If lone hobbyists can improve a game so much, can you imagine if a studio of 5-10 could make a viable living from modding?
- speeder 12y ago
  Many mods are interesting because the modder solved a personal problem of his. And some mods do end having a "studio" backing... For example the Network Addon Mod for SimCity 4, it started with several individual modders solving their own problems with the game, and now it has a official "NAM Team" that act as a professional team (they give release dates, have deadlines, make their own installer, etc...)
- Vraxx 12y ago
  I think another valid pov from most of the gamers is the dislike for the system that has been growing where once you purchase a game there are usually a series of other purchases associated the game to get all of the content that somebody else has been playing. It's extremely frustrating to many of the players to have to continually purchase little bits of the game, and this trend has been started by "day one DLC (downloadable content)" and persisted with "pay to win" freemium models. In the end it seems most people saw this as a cash grab by valve, pushed by Bethesda to milk even more money out of their players. They see the charitable donations currently being given and want to translate that to earnings that a game can make, and this doesn't sit well with the fans.
  - chc 12y ago
    That POV doesn't seem very valid in the general case. It's extremely similar to "I already bought a ticket to Avengers, so why are they charging me again for the rest of the story?" There are some cases where companies have been overly greedy and compromised the core game to sell mods, but the general hatred toward expansion content seems to come mainly from a desire to get things for free rather than a rational complaint about harm they've experienced from expansion content. You'll also see a lot of gamers suggest that charging $60 for a game is morally questionable (unless you're Nintendo). The freak out over paid mods seems to be that variety to me — it's really hard to say that the existence of community mods devalues the core game. People just don't want to pay money for things.
crazy1van 12y ago
> Many modders came right out and said they would no longer make mods under this system, because the pressure to charge means it becomes a job. Unless I'm missing something, nothing happened that would have forced mod makers to start charging, right?
- koube 12y ago
  You are correct: http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33uplp/mods_and_steam/cqoleee?context=3 http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33uplp/mods_and_stea...
  - Retric 12y ago
    Sort of other people could post and charge for your mod.
    - koube 12y ago
      If you also posted the mod for free, nobody would have a reason to pay for a re-posted paid mod. If you're both charging for it, then that goes into the realm of intellectual property. That's a change that could be painful in a world of previously free mods, but something not uncommon in other places. It's an app store. The question comes down to: would you rather have an ecosystem of only free (or donation-driven) mods, or would you rather have some mods be paid mods? I really don't think the move to paid mods is as apocalyptic as reddit was making it out to be.
      - Retric 12y ago
        You’re assuming perfect information. Amazon sells plenty of ebooks you can get for free on another site. Honestly, they could have pulled this off. If they made a new game with the option to sell mods and had some sort of review process doing due diligence that would have been something else. Or even some sort of auto check for conflicts. But, this seemed like a horrible money grab where they wanted to extract 75% of the income without doing anything.
- deleted 12y ago

by kedean 12y ago

AndrewDucker 12y ago

But the reason it's not a profession is that it's currently not possible to be paid for it. Make that possible and you'd then have some professional modders and some amateur ones.

bamie9l 12y ago
In this case I believe that allocating a dollar value to work done for the love of it, significantly devalues that work in the eyes of its creator.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- mhomde 12y ago
  Yeah, this is like the chapter out of "Drive" where they tried paying people to give blood but ending up decreasing the number of blood givers... they'd rather feel charitable then earn money

emodendroket 12y ago

Why would making it possible to make money from them make it impossible not to charge for them?

Vraxx 12y ago
The system in place didn't do anything to protect the mod from being uploaded fraudulently. If I wanted a $0 price tag on my mod, I especially wouldn't want to spend time I could otherwise be working on my mod policing the store to make sure nobody is selling my mod. Fix that and you fix a lot of the issue.
- emodendroket 12y ago
  That's a pretty nontrivial problem to solve technically.
  - Vraxx 12y ago
    Well, I guess the other issues listed here were nontrivial enough to make a solution unfeasible, or Valve probably wouldn't have backed out.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

mcphage 12y ago

> In the end, most modders don't WANT to be paid for their mods, because it's not a profession. I saw plenty of support for a donation system, however. So in the end, most modders don't WANT to be paid for their mods, except they do WANT to be paid and call it a donation?

kedean 12y ago
That comment is mostly by gamers, not modders. Also, the difference is that one assigns a worth, while the other is someone saying 'hey I appreciate what you do'.
- mcphage 12y ago
  > That comment is mostly by gamers, not modders Ah, the ol' "look I want you to get paid for your work, I just don't want to have to be the one paying you. Don't worry, I'm sure tons of people will. Just not me."
inerte 12y ago
When you buy something you have some expectations. You'll want the mod to be stable, be updated along with the game, play along with other mods. If you are the seller, and you got paid, that means work. Give support or get shouted at by dozens of angry customers. Reply to emails for months to come when a competitor modder added your mod features to his mod and why the hell are you charging 4.99 if it's worth 1.99 and now you need to refund your costumer. Donations, on the other hand... explicit intent and different expectations from everyone involved. Also, it might be neither "most don't want to be paid" nor "most want donation", and both sets might have a very small intersection.
- _lce0 12y ago
  plus that the seller requires to set a price, which may be too high/low .. but using donations happy customers can pay whatever they feel is ok for them
- belorn 12y ago

ux-app 12y ago

In the end, most modders don't WANT to be paid for their mods, because it's not a profession. That's an interesting perspective. Sounds like there are some valid criticisms of the system Valve has put in place. To me it seems that gamers have cut off their nose to spite their own face in this regard. It seems to me that a paid modding ecosystem would be a big win in favor of gamers. If lone hobbyists can improve a game so much, can you imagine if a studio of 5-10 could make a viable living from modding?

speeder 12y ago
Many mods are interesting because the modder solved a personal problem of his. And some mods do end having a "studio" backing... For example the Network Addon Mod for SimCity 4, it started with several individual modders solving their own problems with the game, and now it has a official "NAM Team" that act as a professional team (they give release dates, have deadlines, make their own installer, etc...)
Vraxx 12y ago
I think another valid pov from most of the gamers is the dislike for the system that has been growing where once you purchase a game there are usually a series of other purchases associated the game to get all of the content that somebody else has been playing. It's extremely frustrating to many of the players to have to continually purchase little bits of the game, and this trend has been started by "day one DLC (downloadable content)" and persisted with "pay to win" freemium models. In the end it seems most people saw this as a cash grab by valve, pushed by Bethesda to milk even more money out of their players. They see the charitable donations currently being given and want to translate that to earnings that a game can make, and this doesn't sit well with the fans.
- chc 12y ago
  That POV doesn't seem very valid in the general case. It's extremely similar to "I already bought a ticket to Avengers, so why are they charging me again for the rest of the story?" There are some cases where companies have been overly greedy and compromised the core game to sell mods, but the general hatred toward expansion content seems to come mainly from a desire to get things for free rather than a rational complaint about harm they've experienced from expansion content. You'll also see a lot of gamers suggest that charging $60 for a game is morally questionable (unless you're Nintendo). The freak out over paid mods seems to be that variety to me — it's really hard to say that the existence of community mods devalues the core game. People just don't want to pay money for things.

crazy1van 12y ago

> Many modders came right out and said they would no longer make mods under this system, because the pressure to charge means it becomes a job. Unless I'm missing something, nothing happened that would have forced mod makers to start charging, right?

koube 12y ago
You are correct: http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33uplp/mods_and_steam/cqoleee?context=3 http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33uplp/mods_and_stea...
- Retric 12y ago
  Sort of other people could post and charge for your mod.
  - koube 12y ago
    If you also posted the mod for free, nobody would have a reason to pay for a re-posted paid mod. If you're both charging for it, then that goes into the realm of intellectual property. That's a change that could be painful in a world of previously free mods, but something not uncommon in other places. It's an app store. The question comes down to: would you rather have an ecosystem of only free (or donation-driven) mods, or would you rather have some mods be paid mods? I really don't think the move to paid mods is as apocalyptic as reddit was making it out to be.
    - Retric 12y ago
      You’re assuming perfect information. Amazon sells plenty of ebooks you can get for free on another site. Honestly, they could have pulled this off. If they made a new game with the option to sell mods and had some sort of review process doing due diligence that would have been something else. Or even some sort of auto check for conflicts. But, this seemed like a horrible money grab where they wanted to extract 75% of the income without doing anything.
deleted 12y ago