Remember the funny Dota 2 mods? Such as Saber Jug, well too bad they are gone, now Valve is stepping up the game even more!
Now I'm going to explain this whole situation using Skyrim only but this applies to almost every other game. What Valve recently did was decided to monetize the entire modding scene. It gives the option for authors to put up a pay wall and charges people for money to download mods. You can read it up here: http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/aboutpaidcontent
Honestly very very few people in the modding community, including me, think this is a good thing. I'll just share some of my thoughts.
Mods break all the time If you ever modded Oblivion, or Skyrim you would know this. Mods glitch out and bug out all the time and worst of all they literally break your game and force you to do clean re-installs all the time. Now paying for that seems weird to me.
Bugs bugs bugs bugs bugs Ok you may know that a lot of games are glitchy as hell; and it's actually up to the users to fix it (looking at you Bethesda). What a lot of mods do is actually fix game breaking/crashing bugs and make the game playable. So pretty much for any Bethesda game, you are expected to pay $50-60 for the full game then slap on 10-20 mods to make the game actually playable. So when people charge money for those mods, might as well pay for overpriced DLCs.
Asset sharing Ok if you look at this mod: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=429374670&searchtext= You will notice it uses assets from a lot of other mods. For example the biggest thing it use is SKSE, or Skyrim Script Extender. Infact I would say over 50% of all mods uses this little, but very useful, extension. Pretty much what people are doing is using other people's assets for themselves to make some quick money. If you take a look at the Skyrim Nexus, tons of mods uses assets from other mods to function. One example is the what I call "waifu mods"; Skin textures relies on the custom meshes, breast/butt jiggle physics rely on the custom skeleton. So ya people are using other people's work to make money, even with permission this just seems weird and wrong.
Updates So if you take a stroll on the workshop, you will find mods that aren't actively being updated anymore. This is a big issue because when patches come out or new mods come out, a lot of older mods need to be updated or they won't work. Now a lot of mod authors put up a mod and just runs away, when it breaks there's no way to track the person down and fix it.
So ya, where did your brains go valve? Modding is ALWAYS about the community and being able to do whatever the hell you want with your game while building up an experience that everyone can enjoy and NEVER about making money. Now it's just a way to rake in cheap money. With Fallout 4 coming, the modding scene will be dead. Pretty much Bethesda signed their own execution on the PC market. If more games follow this sort of path, sex mods will be the last bastion of free modding because Valve don't take in 18+ mods.
Now there are definitely modders that do deserve something special. Falskaar was a mod that rivals what Bethesda calls full size DLCs. It adds in a completely new area with fully voiced NPCs and quests. If you want to know how good that mod is, the mod team got hired by Bungie. A good alternative is just add in a donate button instead of putting up a pay wall.
Now to explore the flaws of Steam's modding system. A lot of it is very very backwards and just doesn't make sense for any user that is experienced with modding. Thank you /tesg/ for helping me write this incoherent blob of text.
Can we fix it! Yes we CAN'T The first thing that comes to mind when thinking on how this could wrong should be obvious to anyone who has ever modded a Bethesda game. Mods are not an immutable, one-piece cluster fuck of data. Modders often change their mods as they see fit, and can modify anything they want. This in itself isn't a bad thing; it allows modders to be flexible, and should the mods be uploaded on websites such as the Nexus, people can choose to install updates or keep older versions; modders themselves often give people the option to use older version or the latest one. Of course this has tons of benefits because of mod compatibility.
However, this is where the first problem arises from the Steam Workshop syste. You cannot CHOOSE whether to update or not a mod should you dowload it on the Steam Workshop. You subscribe to it, and whenever an update pops up, you're forced to update the mod. This is more an issue with the Steam Workshop itself rather than with this update (and that in itself already has other problems which I won't be mentioning here); however, now you won't be able to control what you pay for. You, as a customer, can purchase a mod and have it update say, a month later removing/adding things you never paid for, or wanted in your game. What can you do about it? As of right now, absolutely nothing. There is 24h limit to ask for refunds, and that's about it. After that, if it happens to you (which WILL happen), tough shit.
However, the biggest issue itself is with blatantly BROKEN mods. Ranging from mods that cause save bloat or harm your game/your save data. I'm certain that Valve won't test any mods themselves. Without some sort of quality control, what will happen when broken mods start being uploaded on the Workshop under a pay wall? "The same as when it had no pay wall whatsoever, duh! If you dislike the mod, you simply unsubscribe from it!", some of you might be saying/thinking. Well, yeah. Except that you have to PAY for these now, and since there is a limit on when you can get a refund... well, I shouldn't have to write anything else. Modders are also not responsible for what happens to your game. Did a mod break your game? Did more than 24 hours passed? Well, you're out of luck.
24 Hours I find this to be worth a whole point on its own. Several things come to mind when reading about refunding. You should probably read above before reading this because it's heavily tied in, not to mention the first post has valid points to regarding both of the points.
So, aside from the issues I've already mentioned above (which I will be repeating for emphasis) which are the fact that most mods are constantly updated, and also of the customer having no control whatsoever of the kind of content mods will add/remove from their game, there is something critical (yet very simple) that Valve and Bethesda seem to have missed. A lot of mods take A LOT MORE than 24 hours to fully explore. For instance, a lot of quest mods have minimum level requirements for you to start them. Say it requires you to be level 25 in order to start it, which is reasonable. Say you've just started and/or are rolling a new character. Unless you're rushing it and your sole purpose is to level up, it takes a while in order to get there. Not just quest mods; mods that add new landscapes come to mind as well. Unless you're planning on dedicating a whole day to exploring the mod, you'll most likely not fully develop an opinion about it within 24 hours. Not to mention what if a mod that modifies the game at later stage will break your game, and you will have no way of telling this in the first 24 hours. Please refer to Falskaar in the first post if you want an example of this sort of mod that requires days to finish.
"Quality control? Is that some sort of new snack?" - Gabe Newell As much as I love Steam and Valve as the next guy, just for the sheer amount of things that they have brought to us players and the gaming community in general, I find it that Steam really needs some quality control when it comes to games. With a 'recent' addition, indie game developers can add their game on Steam without resorting to the approval of the Valve crew, but rather with the approval of the community itself (with obvious exceptions such as games that break Steam's terms of service and uploading rules). This has lead to many precious gems to shine... and also to many garbage bags to stink. Most games have no demos nowadays, so unless you pirate it or read Steam (or even other websites') reviews, there is really no way to know what you're purchasing and if you're to get what you pay for. The free market at its finest, right?
Well, this short little rant has nothing to do with the Workshop or the Workshop update, so you must be wondering why I bothered writing it. It was to draw a comparison... because now one of these things IS like the other. There is absolutely nothing stopping people from uploading crappy, blatantly broken mods to the Workshop and charging from it. And I'm not talking about just random Joes; if you're experienced with modding, you'll know that lots of mods that are currently in the top-rated list of the Workshop are partially broken/bugged, hence why most mods (specially large ones) are constantly updated. There is almost no quality control from Valve when it comes to Greenlight, and I think the same will apply here.
Expect lots of dying dogs, grandmothers passing away, 'real life issues', and others should you ask modders to fix their mods WHICH NOW YOU PAY FOR.
Now this concludes my 2 post rant. Feel free to pm me about what mods to use on Skyrim, I can recommend plenty.
Edit: There have been reports of people stealing mods that others made and made for free and selling it on the market for money
Edit 2: The shitstorm is already getting real due to the fact that tons of modders are angry because a decent chunk of the mods that are being sold on the workshop uses assets from their mods without permission. Now you see how flawed this monetization system is.
On April 24 2015 06:53 Random() wrote: An opportunity for mod makers to make some money + game devs to cash in on mods (giving an incentive to make mod-friendly games) = modding dead?
Ok you just don't get it. As soon as you slap on a pay wall, you are going up against what everything modding stands for, therefore killing it. Quoted from a mod author on nexus:
Being a part of the Workshop monetization effort makes you directly complicit in decaying the paradigm of mods that are shared freely by the community to enhance the game experience. By putting your mod behind a pricetag, you affirm the idea that individuals demanding money for a medium that has always been free and based on principles of community and free exchange is acceptable. Whatever your views on the subject, I feel that this is a major first step in corroding the quality of the modding community by first segregating it into paying and non-paying users and, second, sending a message to corporate interests that the "micropayments and DLC" model of gaming should stretch as far as things like minor retextures or mesh alterations for which companies themselves may charge, which would essentially put us back in the territory of Oblivion's Horse Armor DLC again, and likely result in the restriction of modding resources in future iterations of titles like those of The Elder Scrolls.
You, as a mod author, have a responsibility to the community to help shape the future of game modding constructively, and this decision to monetize a previously free work does not seem to do so. I hope that you make the right decision and both pull your mod from the Workshop paylist and encourage Bethesda/Valve and any other involved parties to discontinue this system.
If you still don't get it after reading that, I don't know what to say.
No, I don't get it at all. Valve's implementation may be flawed, but I fail too see how the concept of rewarding people for their time and effort is a bad thing.
On April 24 2015 07:46 Random() wrote: No, I don't get it at all. Valve's implementation may be flawed, but I fail too see how the concept of rewarding people for their time and effort is a bad thing.
Most mods, especially for games like Oblivion or Skyrim, is not a single person's time and effort, but an unofficial collaboration of multiple people building off one another.
Frameworks like OBSE or SKSE are required for most major mod packages, have multiple other mods that are required before they can be used, have long credits to other people's work for resources that you've used...not even counting the extensive amount of user testing and feedback before a mod works 100%.
Slap a price tag on any part of that machine, and suddenly you have a mess where people are paying to test a broken product, are paying for a mod that only lets you run other mods to pay for, where people are making profit on something that's 20% there's and 80% other people's...
It's a genuine mess, and I can't see it working without breaking the entire system apart.
Whatever goodwill Valve had left with me is now gone. This is inexcusable. Hopefully the major mod sites will have a large backlash against this and mostly reject it.
The opposite of this scenario is blizzard in SC2 saying that they own everything you make and reserve the right to monetize.
Not exactly related to DOTA but we've seen how that has negatively impacted the scene in that game (limited tournament maps and complete control over balance to the detriment of the game most would say).
I agree with your points though. Without quality control paying for things is insanity.
I don't think this is a huge deal. If anything only mods that are of ridiculous quality and popularity would set up a paywall, and I bet you it will be a lot cheaper then any dlc that gets released. Obviously nobody will buy a mod that is expensive, or of low quality. It's a free market, only the best mods will make money.
On April 24 2015 12:47 Whiplash wrote: I don't think this is a huge deal. If anything only mods that are of ridiculous quality and popularity would set up a paywall, and I bet you it will be a lot cheaper then any dlc that gets released. Obviously nobody will buy a mod that is expensive, or of low quality. It's a free market, only the best mods will make money.
Believe it or not, low quality joke mods actually have a place in the modding community. Just watch this:
The point is still just suddenly charging money for stuff that has been done for free for over 20 years is just absurd. Not to mention the issue of ASSET SHARING THAT I MENTIONED DID YOU EVEN READ THE THREAD. Notice I said the issue of asset sharing is already popping up with mod authors on day 1 of this system being released.
Nothing wrong with people being rewarded for their work, the problem is 'good' mods are rarely made by a single person, rather a collaboration of individuals who put in varying amounts of time and effort into it. It creates lots of opportunities for needless drama and bullshit while bringing very little to the table - you're not going to see a sudden influx of super talent creating mods for games just because now they can sell them for peanuts on steam (come on, 75% 'tax'?), but it has a very good chance to disrupt many already successful communities.
Nevermind that VALVE taking a cut off those sales is straight up unethical - sure, they run the steam workshop platform but they already get their revenue from ads and store sales.
I'm pretty against this too to be honest. Not really for the reasons listed but more that it seems against the spirit of the whole thing. Wish it was a donate button.
Modding is getting picked up by the corporations. The work of modding was too good to never have someone try to monetize it. Either you embrace the millions of new consumers or you become the classic old school elitist. The choice is all yours.
I think the market for people who actually want to spend money on mods is going to be very small. If everything is behind a paywall how will someone know which mods are good or not? Are people just going to randomly spend money until they find a group of mods that can work together without breaking the game?
edit: Can you still just download mods from 3rd party sites and use them on your steam games or will they be blocked?
even if it would make sense, which it does not, 75% for valve is just a bad joke.....i mean they destroyed already the hat system and all the special events in dota just for the sake of more and more money and now this. does a healthy company like valve really have to be that way? fuck them, seriously......they make me more and more pissed and it keeps getting worse from year to year .....
EPT
