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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

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 12y 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 12y 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 12y ago
    LOL, exactly. Hell, why don't musical instrument makers get a share of royalties for music made with their instruments?
    - mcphage 12y 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.
  - mcphage 12y ago
    > Yet those folks don't stick their hands into our revenue stream. Game engines do. And they used to tack on $100,000 up front, to boot.
    - talmand 12y ago
      Not all game engines, some are free to use.
      - mcphage 12y ago
        Some are, true. But the ones with lots of features, that everyone really wants to use—the ones that you can make games for multiple platforms, and that big development houses use—those... are not free.
        llama052 12y ago
        [0] Actually if you look at some of the big engines, they are becoming free, or require a small royalty to use, and it sure as hell isn't a 75% cut. [0]https://www.unrealengine.com/what-is-unreal-engine-4 https://www.unrealengine.com/what-is-unreal-engine-4
        mcphage 12y ago
        It's much less than 75%—but then, you only get the engine, you don't also get the multimillion dollar award winning game to build on top of. If you make a mod for Skyrim—say, a new dungeon—you're adding that to the existing game and assets and dungeons and all that. You don't have to build everything from scratch, and you don't need your new content to be enough by itself to get people to buy it. A game with 1 dungeon, who would buy? But a mod that adds 1 dungeon to Skyrim, sure. So yes, 75% is high, but the conversation should be, what cut should everyone receive, not, why does Bethesda deserve a cut at all, which most of the conversation actually is.
        talmand 12y ago
- lsaferite 12y ago
  Yes. I paid full price for the game and all of the DLC. Part of the reason I did this was due to the ability of the game to be easily modded. I knew with modding the lifetime of the game was much greater. Why should they get 40% of mod sales for doing nothing? They already got paid for making the game. Now, if they are still providing good customer support with timely bug fixes around the mod system, then perhaps I can see a small portion going to them. Otherwise, why do you think they are entitled to a share of the mod revenue?
  - mcphage 12y ago
    > I paid full price for the game and all of the DLC. > Part of the reason I did this was due to the ability of the game to be easily modded. I knew with modding the lifetime of the game was much greater. So you paid full price for the game because you knew people would spend their time and effort making things for you for free... and now that there was an option for them to get paid for their work, you get pissy?
    - lsaferite 12y ago
      I knew the mod community around the game would provide value long past the original game. Did I say I never donated to mod authors? Did you ask? I'm not pissy, but it sounds like perhaps you are.
      - mcphage 12y ago
        > Did I say I never donated to mod authors? Did you ask? What difference does it make? Even if you were a good citizen and donated, there aren't enough people donating for it to be a dependable income stream. > it sounds like perhaps you are 133,000 people who claim to represent gamers signed a petition saying that modders should work for free, how dare they think they should get paid. I'm not a mod author. I'm not even a mod user. But I'm someone who believes in paying people who make the things I like, so that they can keep making more. This was an opportunity for a new marketplace, a new way for people to start making content for games—and for some, support themselves by making that content. An opportunity for anyone to use the IP of another company—which I don't think exists in any other industry. Can you imagine what it would take for Disney to allow anybody to legally make and sell their own Mickey Mouse cartoons? But no, it had to get shat on by entitled assholes who want people to make and make and make and give nothing back. You say it sounds like I'm pissy? Damn straight I'm pissy.
- XorNot 12y ago
  The part where they also got to sell the game engine to customers, the developers, and then take a cut of the developers profits too? You don't buy the mod, and get the game to run it. You have to buy the game, then buy the mod. If they want more money for the game, they can increase the price.
  - mcphage 12y ago
    > If they want more money for the game, they can increase the price. That still doesn't get the mod developers any money.
- paulmd 12y ago
  Microsoft doesn't get a cut of Jetbrains' IDE "mod" revenue, though, despite the fact that Reshaper and similar products "piggyback" (what a loaded term) onto Visual Studio and other Microsoft products. Microsoft already got their cut up front. Same thing for Bethesda - it's not their value-add and they don't have a moral right to take a cut. On the other hand Steam is providing a value-add here - a market and financial transaction services.
- paulmd 12y ago
  Also, I wasn't aware that Bethesda had released their game engine for free. Care to give a link as to where they've done so? As far as I'm aware you still need to pay for a copy of it.
  - mcphage 12y ago
    Their game isn't free; nor did I claim that it was. What is free, however, is they don't charge you any licensing fee to create a mod for it.
yebyen 12y ago
> I personally found Bethesda getting any split quite distasteful. So, you agree that Valve should get some part of the sales, because they are the ones (Steam) actually taking the payment and assuming some of the upfront risks of processing payments (fraud) and, because of the network effect and the customers they bring (read ... marketing) But Bethesda who developed the actual game that brought the modders and gave them a platform to derive their work on, not to mention creating the actual game and game engine and putting it in the hands of the actual customers; they should just get nothing out of this whole deal? I agree that the whole thing is a big hairy mess, and as a developer and an underdog myself I agree that the split should be approximately reversed, but I'm not sure there's much else we agree on.
- lsaferite 12y ago
  Bethesda did get something. They got my purchase of the original game plus all of the DLCs. All at initial sale prices to boot. Do they deserve more than that?
  - yebyen 12y ago
    I don't know about deserve, but if you want to talk about incentives for behavior, you really can't go wrong with something that provides both "increased sales volume and lifetime" and "an ongoing share of the grosses". If you want game developers to promote a helpful environment for mod developers, grab some money and pay them something out of it. Definitely!
- talmand 12y ago
  Well, if Bethesda gave the game away for free and wanted a source of revenue from mod makers, sure. But it's quite established that a strong mod community results in continuing sales for the game beyond a normal product lifespan. In some cases, the price of product remains higher than normal because of the strong sales due to the mod community. Bethesda has already made money on the backs of mod makers. A proper response to this is to give all the remaining money after Valve's cut to the mod maker as a thank you to the community. But this doesn't even address the other problems that people have been pointing out.

mcphage 12y 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 12y 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 12y ago
  LOL, exactly. Hell, why don't musical instrument makers get a share of royalties for music made with their instruments?
  - mcphage 12y 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.
- mcphage 12y ago
  > Yet those folks don't stick their hands into our revenue stream. Game engines do. And they used to tack on $100,000 up front, to boot.
  - talmand 12y ago
    Not all game engines, some are free to use.
    - mcphage 12y ago
      Some are, true. But the ones with lots of features, that everyone really wants to use—the ones that you can make games for multiple platforms, and that big development houses use—those... are not free.
      - llama052 12y ago
        [0] Actually if you look at some of the big engines, they are becoming free, or require a small royalty to use, and it sure as hell isn't a 75% cut. [0]https://www.unrealengine.com/what-is-unreal-engine-4 https://www.unrealengine.com/what-is-unreal-engine-4
        mcphage 12y ago
        It's much less than 75%—but then, you only get the engine, you don't also get the multimillion dollar award winning game to build on top of. If you make a mod for Skyrim—say, a new dungeon—you're adding that to the existing game and assets and dungeons and all that. You don't have to build everything from scratch, and you don't need your new content to be enough by itself to get people to buy it. A game with 1 dungeon, who would buy? But a mod that adds 1 dungeon to Skyrim, sure. So yes, 75% is high, but the conversation should be, what cut should everyone receive, not, why does Bethesda deserve a cut at all, which most of the conversation actually is.
        talmand 12y ago
lsaferite 12y ago
Yes. I paid full price for the game and all of the DLC. Part of the reason I did this was due to the ability of the game to be easily modded. I knew with modding the lifetime of the game was much greater. Why should they get 40% of mod sales for doing nothing? They already got paid for making the game. Now, if they are still providing good customer support with timely bug fixes around the mod system, then perhaps I can see a small portion going to them. Otherwise, why do you think they are entitled to a share of the mod revenue?
- mcphage 12y ago
  > I paid full price for the game and all of the DLC. > Part of the reason I did this was due to the ability of the game to be easily modded. I knew with modding the lifetime of the game was much greater. So you paid full price for the game because you knew people would spend their time and effort making things for you for free... and now that there was an option for them to get paid for their work, you get pissy?
  - lsaferite 12y ago
    I knew the mod community around the game would provide value long past the original game. Did I say I never donated to mod authors? Did you ask? I'm not pissy, but it sounds like perhaps you are.
    - mcphage 12y ago
      > Did I say I never donated to mod authors? Did you ask? What difference does it make? Even if you were a good citizen and donated, there aren't enough people donating for it to be a dependable income stream. > it sounds like perhaps you are 133,000 people who claim to represent gamers signed a petition saying that modders should work for free, how dare they think they should get paid. I'm not a mod author. I'm not even a mod user. But I'm someone who believes in paying people who make the things I like, so that they can keep making more. This was an opportunity for a new marketplace, a new way for people to start making content for games—and for some, support themselves by making that content. An opportunity for anyone to use the IP of another company—which I don't think exists in any other industry. Can you imagine what it would take for Disney to allow anybody to legally make and sell their own Mickey Mouse cartoons? But no, it had to get shat on by entitled assholes who want people to make and make and make and give nothing back. You say it sounds like I'm pissy? Damn straight I'm pissy.
XorNot 12y ago
The part where they also got to sell the game engine to customers, the developers, and then take a cut of the developers profits too? You don't buy the mod, and get the game to run it. You have to buy the game, then buy the mod. If they want more money for the game, they can increase the price.
- mcphage 12y ago
  > If they want more money for the game, they can increase the price. That still doesn't get the mod developers any money.
paulmd 12y ago
Microsoft doesn't get a cut of Jetbrains' IDE "mod" revenue, though, despite the fact that Reshaper and similar products "piggyback" (what a loaded term) onto Visual Studio and other Microsoft products. Microsoft already got their cut up front. Same thing for Bethesda - it's not their value-add and they don't have a moral right to take a cut. On the other hand Steam is providing a value-add here - a market and financial transaction services.
paulmd 12y ago
Also, I wasn't aware that Bethesda had released their game engine for free. Care to give a link as to where they've done so? As far as I'm aware you still need to pay for a copy of it.
- mcphage 12y ago
  Their game isn't free; nor did I claim that it was. What is free, however, is they don't charge you any licensing fee to create a mod for it.

yebyen 12y ago

> I personally found Bethesda getting any split quite distasteful. So, you agree that Valve should get some part of the sales, because they are the ones (Steam) actually taking the payment and assuming some of the upfront risks of processing payments (fraud) and, because of the network effect and the customers they bring (read ... marketing) But Bethesda who developed the actual game that brought the modders and gave them a platform to derive their work on, not to mention creating the actual game and game engine and putting it in the hands of the actual customers; they should just get nothing out of this whole deal? I agree that the whole thing is a big hairy mess, and as a developer and an underdog myself I agree that the split should be approximately reversed, but I'm not sure there's much else we agree on.

lsaferite 12y ago
Bethesda did get something. They got my purchase of the original game plus all of the DLCs. All at initial sale prices to boot. Do they deserve more than that?
- yebyen 12y ago
  I don't know about deserve, but if you want to talk about incentives for behavior, you really can't go wrong with something that provides both "increased sales volume and lifetime" and "an ongoing share of the grosses". If you want game developers to promote a helpful environment for mod developers, grab some money and pay them something out of it. Definitely!
talmand 12y ago
Well, if Bethesda gave the game away for free and wanted a source of revenue from mod makers, sure. But it's quite established that a strong mod community results in continuing sales for the game beyond a normal product lifespan. In some cases, the price of product remains higher than normal because of the strong sales due to the mod community. Bethesda has already made money on the backs of mod makers. A proper response to this is to give all the remaining money after Valve's cut to the mod maker as a thank you to the community. But this doesn't even address the other problems that people have been pointing out.