Valve monetizing Game Mods

[Myk JL 1,731]

http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/aboutpaidcontent
 
I'm not fully against this. But I am against the lack of oversight this will have. And the fact that Valve is taking a 75% cut instead of a %40 or less cut of the money being made. I think anyone who wants to be supported for their Game Mods might as well stick to Patreon.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

I can understand why Valve would take a huge cut, since they're supplying the workshop tools, distribution, drm, etc.. but 75% is a bit too huge imo. Check out these 2 articles:

 

http://kotaku.com/paid-skyrim-mod-turns-into-a-clusterfuck-1699913114

 

http://steamed.kotaku.com/skyrim-modder-considers-quitting-after-steam-controvers-1700077114/+nathangrayson

 

I bet other people will rip off more mods, package them differently with some new animations or skins and then sell them for profit themselves. Steam's mod community might quickly turn into a giant mess of cheap generic mods/apps like the apple and android game market.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

*sigh* I always considered mods as free content unlike dlc. It's one of the last PC Master Race arguments left. I enjoy things like the Macho Man mods for L4D but it's not something I'd pay for. If this leads to a policy where an insanely small precentage of mods are free like dlc is now, the modding community will die pretty fast and publishers will take it over turning micro-transactions into a norm like season passes are now. I don't like what is happening here.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

Valve must have wanted another money stream and another reason to get game developers to release on their platform. I doubt EA will ever allow a mod marketplace on Origin. I doubt I will ever pay for any mods myself unless its something amazing. I remember reading some articles about how people new to the gaming industry will make free mods for games and list them on their resume. If there is a still a good chunk of people doing that, then we'll get plenty of free mods because no prospective employer will buy these mods as part of a resume review.

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

http://www.vg247.com/2015/04/24/skyrim-mod-steam-workshop-pc-paid/

 

First paid mod was already pulled. Looks like it's going over extremely well already.

 

Sadly this is a very bad step in an extremely wrong direction for Valve to be taking. Mods should always be free. You should never have to pay for something that's added to a game after it comes out and by people not affiliated with the company that made said game. It's just bad practice and is going to kill the already extremely fragile PC game market (which, no matter what anyone says, has been dying very slowly for years). Mods are supposed to fun things added to games for people to screw around with, add new quests, add silly side stories, etc. They should never be made to make a profit off of (that's what the terrible DLC market is for). Plus, like Sledge said, a lot of people trying to make it into the industry use mods as a way of building a resume and showing off their skills (in fact I know several people who made it into the industry off of mods they made, hell look at the guy who made the original DotA mod for Warcraft III. The guy is working for Valve on DotA 2).

 

The other bad thing here is Valve is taking to much of the money from the initial sale. I understand they're acting as the middle man but 75% of the money made off the mod is a little to much and greedy. All they did was supply the way to sell and distribute the mod, they did nothing to create it. Fucking game companies are starting to get really greedy as of late and all it's going to do is kill the industry that much faster then it already is.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

Valve loves the micro transaction revenue. Look at all those trading cards that can be bought and sold for pennies with valve taking a share of every transaction. With a 75% take on all "for sale" game mods, I bet only cheap crappy mods will be the new normal while larger mods remain free with a possible donation option outside of steam's reach.

[Myk JL 1,731]

http://steamcommunity.com//games/SteamWorkshop/announcements/detail/208632365253244218

 

And now its over. Though it should have never happened to begin with. Not because mods were always free. But because the same kind of fear that gamers had was a similar kind of fear Gabe had over Windows 8.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

To help you understand why we thought this was a good idea, our main goals were to allow mod makers the opportunity to work on their mods full time if they wanted to...

 

With only 25% of the revenue, I'm sure mod developers were going to focus full time jobs around this.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

It should have been the other way around with that philosophy. Valve getting a 25% listing fee is more than fair for not having to do any work. Not every mod is going to sell thousands of copies.

 

To play on a conspiracy theory. Valve would take 75% rather than 25%, keeping even the best modders from getting rich off their own work. The 75% was part of an evil scheme concocted by EA and Activision to make sure these modders couldn't start their own upstart independent game developer by racking up funds on successful mods. Out of the 75% of the mod proceeds, Valve really only got 25% of the profit and EA or Activision got the other 50% of it depending on who published the game getting modded.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

I could see that being true.