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My stance on having to pay for mods


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#1 Dalton.T.R

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Posted 26 April 2015 - 12:11 AM

 This is something I just wanted to post my opinions on. Not bashing, not arguing, just stating my opinion.

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So...there's a lot of controversy in the gaming industry right now, particularly with moding certain games such as Skyrim. And I'd just like to put my opinions out there. I don't think I have very many - if any friends who play games on PC here, but whatever.

 

Just over the course of a couple days ago, the Steam Workshop has made a 'scheme' that makes people have to pay for mods. Now...I don't know where I really stand on this, but I think I'm really more for it than against it.

 

Now, I don't know about a lot of you, but I play video games daily. Mostly simulation games, but I play a lot of 'shoot 'em up games' as well. And as a PC gamer, I have installed a fair amount of mods on a number of my games. Both good and bad.

 

In todays world there's not really such a thing as an 'actual job'. There just isn't. The internet has made sure of that. People are able to make a living of recording themselves playing video games for crying out loud. Completely out of advertising certain items. Those YouTube adds you get, even just the pop up pictures, those are what make these people their money. Like it or not, it's a fact of today's life.

 

So what I'm trying to ask...is if people can make money just recording themselves just playing games, why can people not make money for making mods? Something PC gamers rely heavy on to be above the 'console peasants' as PC fanboys call them.

 

In my opinion, if someone has spent hundreds to thousands of hours making a product that is actually better than what the actual gaming company has produced...I think they have the right to ask for a buck or two. And heaven knows companies such as Bethesda Gaming Studios can use all the help they can get for fixing all the bugs they let slip by in their 'final products'.

 

Secondly, mods are an OPTION! You do not have to play with mods! They make the game a lot more fun to play, prettier to look at, and God knows what else, but they are an option to put on your PC. They are not a required item for your game.

 

Thirdly, as I said before, if someone has spent a long time making the item better than the actual game itself or a DLC, they have the right to ask for a small payment of maybe five to ten dollars.

If you don't like having to pay for mods, go and look up a new website. It's that simple. It's not like they're charging an arm and a leg. From the research I've done, a lot of mods are only asking for less than a quarter. If you can't afford that then how did you even get the game?

 



#2 Aizen-Sama

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Posted 26 April 2015 - 12:25 AM

PC games suck & I think they're all just a bunch of nerds.



#3 Nar123

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Posted 26 April 2015 - 12:56 AM

PC games suck & I think they're all just a bunch of nerds.

 

Really, that's generalising and not cool at all :/


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#4 Aizen-Sama

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Posted 26 April 2015 - 01:13 AM

 

Really, that's generalising and not cool at all :/

 

I apologize my friend.



#5 Dalton.T.R

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Posted 26 April 2015 - 01:52 AM

PC games suck & I think they're all just a bunch of nerds.

You're entitled to your opinion, but I have to disagree. I just like playing games. Don't care what platform they're on.



#6 Aizen-Sama

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Posted 26 April 2015 - 02:01 AM

You're entitled to your opinion, but I have to disagree. I just like playing games. Don't care what platform they're on.

 

Oh, well I respect you for knowing your stuff about PC games.  I don't even know what the hell "mod" means.  Just do what you think is best for business so you can get rich.  Just don't let money become your most important thing.



#7 Dalton.T.R

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Posted 26 April 2015 - 02:21 AM

 

Oh, well I respect you for knowing your stuff about PC games.  I don't even know what the hell "mod" means.  Just do what you think is best for business so you can get rich.  Just don't let money become your most important thing.

A mod is basically a 'game add on' that is created by the gaming community. Usually free, but I think that may be about to change.



#8 Broken Figurine

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Posted 26 April 2015 - 02:20 PM

It's good news for the people making them... bad news for the people who enjoy playing them. Of course there's been a stink; when something once free is now to be paid people get annoyed. If I had to pay all the mods I added for the Sims back in the day I would have broken my piggy bank... since I was (and still am ;-; ) unemployed. 

 

I think if we're going to start pricing mods, then it has to be on the level of quality they are because yes, if it's something like Skyrim's Requim mod then sure maybe 5 - 10 dollars, but if it's something like a particular character skin we're talking in the ballpark of cents rather than dollars; unless it's a bulk package. 

 

Content creators can always opt to provide their mods for free, or at least I hope that's what they can do. Also, is all the money going to the people that make mods, or is this Steam's way of pleasing the people who made the games by forcing mods to be priced so some of the money goes back to the original creators? Being someone who has very few games on Steam I'm out of the loop here, but remembering back when I used to download mods this topic is intriguing. 



#9 Fyuria'sLeo

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Posted 26 April 2015 - 03:45 PM

PC games suck & I think they're all just a bunch of nerds.

This. This made me fall to the floor and laugh

 

All the Internets to you.


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#10 Dalton.T.R

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Posted 26 April 2015 - 03:47 PM

Hmm...true. But from what I've seen, there's a choice on how much you want to pay. The lowest I've seen is $0.17 so that's less than two dimes for a mod if you're an American. Not sure about other countries, though.

 

The way I see this is people who make mods will stop making small boring ones and start going all out in practically making an entire game almost. Look at Wyrms tooth for Skyrim for example. An entire quest line and a huge map extension.

 

And to be honest, this was a long time coming I think. I mean, you want mods for a flight sim? You have to pay...a lot for new planes, textures, areas, etc.


Edited by Dalton.T.R, 26 April 2015 - 03:48 PM.


#11 harry4e

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Posted 26 April 2015 - 05:39 PM

PC games suck & I think they're all just a bunch of nerds.

 

*Facepalms* Gamers are gamers, if they decide to play on the most powerful platform or the easiest to use platform, it doesn't matter. I'm proud to be a gamer who owns a PC, PS4 and XBO.

 

Oh and current gen games consoles? Are low end PC's With a x86 CPU, GPU, HDD and RAM.

 

I don't care too much for mods charging for their work if it's actually their work and adds something worthwhile to the mix. Some modders spend allot of hours and their own money on these mods so if they can earn a little extra cash that make it so they can spend more time on the mods then why not. It's like with Youtube, when the creaters did it as just a hobby, they production qaulity was pretty poor, but now if you watch video's from Linustechtip or MKBHD, the production levels are really good and more enjoyable to watch, we could see the same types of improvements with Mods if the modders can do it as a full time job.

 

However the way Steam went about it is just wrong. The Mod creaters only get 25% of the revenue, with Steam getting 35% and the Game developer getting 40%.

 

This is going to fail dramatically, half the mods will be crap you wouldn't want if it was free, and the rest will likely include work from other modders and/or copyrighted work and ended up getting taken down anyway.


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#12 Dalton.T.R

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Posted 26 April 2015 - 11:02 PM

 

*Facepalms* Gamers are gamers, if they decide to play on the most powerful platform or the easiest to use platform, it doesn't matter. I'm proud to be a gamer who owns a PC, PS4 and XBO.

 

Oh and current gen games consoles? Are low end PC's With a x86 CPU, GPU, HDD and RAM.

 

I don't care too much for mods charging for their work if it's actually their work and adds something worthwhile to the mix. Some modders spend allot of hours and their own money on these mods so if they can earn a little extra cash that make it so they can spend more time on the mods then why not. It's like with Youtube, when the creaters did it as just a hobby, they production qaulity was pretty poor, but now if you watch video's from Linustechtip or MKBHD, the production levels are really good and more enjoyable to watch, we could see the same types of improvements with Mods if the modders can do it as a full time job.

 

However the way Steam went about it is just wrong. The Mod creaters only get 25% of the revenue, with Steam getting 35% and the Game developer getting 40%.

 

This is going to fail dramatically, half the mods will be crap you wouldn't want if it was free, and the rest will likely include work from other modders and/or copyrighted work and ended up getting taken down anyway.

I agree.



#13 Anthony

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Posted 27 April 2015 - 03:22 PM

Valve makes good, incredible games but lack a lot of qualities when it comes to distributing a certain plus towards the community. Steam, as of now, is a pile of crap. They put tons of restrictions, the marketplace's are the worst. It takes up to seven days for your account to be eligible to use the marketplace because you either installed your OS again or simply changed computers.

 

And it's mainly the community's fault. Tons of scams, the main targets being rich kids with access to daddy's paypal. A friend of mine got scammed off a skin in Counter Strike: Global Offensive. Someone offered him an offer just too good to be true and he almost instantly accepted it. (The guy that wanted to trade with my friend was "looking" for a stupid and almost non-existant profile background that his friend had put up for sale no doubt, effectively earning them a great profit.)

 

Back to the main point of this thread, this idea is really bad and somewhat good at the same time. The modders dedicate their time to create new content that'll be added to the game, obviously, for a small/large sum of money. Where's the catch in all of this? There are thousands of websites that host a multitude of mods, much, much better than the ones Steam currently has to offer.

 

Not to say that someone charged customers 30$ for an extra apple in the player's inventory. One.Extra.Apple. (Peter Molyneoux anyone; whatever his name is?)



#14 Moon_Girl

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Posted 27 April 2015 - 10:16 PM

My stance is that it's silly. I mean, sure, it's nice that the modders are getting money for it since they work hard on their mods. But the game company and Valve are getting the money too. Which is wrong. We paid for the games they made. The mods are the work of the fans. Valve and whatever game company, didn't help in making them or have a hand in it at all. :/

 

On another note, mods are a fandom thing. It's like paying people to make fanart instead of them making fanart because they love it. (Nottalkingaboutcommissions)


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#15 Nostradamus

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Posted 27 April 2015 - 11:29 PM

Apparently this is on the steam workshop website:

"We're going to remove the payment feature from the Skyrim workshop. For anyone who spent money on a mod, we'll be refunding you the complete amount. We talked to the team at Bethesda and they agree.

We've done this because it's clear we didn't understand exactly what we were doing. We've been shipping many features over the years aimed at allowing community creators to receive a share of the rewards, and in the past, they've been received well. It's obvious now that this case is different.

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, and to encourage developers to provide better support to their mod communities. We thought this would result in better mods for everyone, both free & paid. We wanted more great mods becoming great products, like Dota, Counter-strike, DayZ, and Killing Floor, and we wanted that to happen organically for any mod maker who wanted to take a shot at it.

But we underestimated the differences between our previously successful revenue sharing models, and the addition of paid mods to Skyrim's workshop. We understand our own game's communities pretty well, but stepping into an established, years old modding community in Skyrim was probably not the right place to start iterating. We think this made us miss the mark pretty badly, even though we believe there's a useful feature somewhere here.

Now that you've backed a dump truck of feedback onto our inboxes, we'll be chewing through that, but if you have any further thoughts let us know."  - official website: http://steamcommunit...632365253244218

 

 

My favorite part is this: "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, and to encourage developers to provide better support to their mod communities."

 

Yeah allowing mod makers to work full time when they were taking almost all the profit. The modder only received 25% of the money. That means that if you made a mod and sold it for 10$ then you get 2.50$. The rest goes to Valve and the game developer for doing nothing. Ok you could say that paying Valve makes sense since the mods are store on their servers so ok there but 35% for that really?


Edited by Nostradamus, 27 April 2015 - 11:36 PM.

                         CZSn9hA.jpg
 
Which I've told you - time and time again - is dangerous! There will never be consensus, son, among those you have helped to ascend. They will all differ in their views of what it means to be free. The peace you so desperately seek does not exist.
 
These men are united now by a common cause. But when this battle is finished they will fall to fighting amongst themselves about how best to ensure control. In time it will lead to war. You will see.


#16 Anthony

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Posted 27 April 2015 - 11:32 PM

They played it pretty cool. Well thought as well, may I add.

 

I salute both teams and this joint decision of theirs as well.



#17 Dalton.T.R

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Posted 01 May 2015 - 04:11 PM

Apparently this is on the steam workshop website:

"We're going to remove the payment feature from the Skyrim workshop. For anyone who spent money on a mod, we'll be refunding you the complete amount. We talked to the team at Bethesda and they agree.

We've done this because it's clear we didn't understand exactly what we were doing. We've been shipping many features over the years aimed at allowing community creators to receive a share of the rewards, and in the past, they've been received well. It's obvious now that this case is different.

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, and to encourage developers to provide better support to their mod communities. We thought this would result in better mods for everyone, both free & paid. We wanted more great mods becoming great products, like Dota, Counter-strike, DayZ, and Killing Floor, and we wanted that to happen organically for any mod maker who wanted to take a shot at it.

But we underestimated the differences between our previously successful revenue sharing models, and the addition of paid mods to Skyrim's workshop. We understand our own game's communities pretty well, but stepping into an established, years old modding community in Skyrim was probably not the right place to start iterating. We think this made us miss the mark pretty badly, even though we believe there's a useful feature somewhere here.

Now that you've backed a dump truck of feedback onto our inboxes, we'll be chewing through that, but if you have any further thoughts let us know."  - official website: http://steamcommunit...632365253244218

 

 

My favorite part is this: "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, and to encourage developers to provide better support to their mod communities."

 

Yeah allowing mod makers to work full time when they were taking almost all the profit. The modder only received 25% of the money. That means that if you made a mod and sold it for 10$ then you get 2.50$. The rest goes to Valve and the game developer for doing nothing. Ok you could say that paying Valve makes sense since the mods are store on their servers so ok there but 35% for that really?

Yeah, that's one problem I had with it. Some mods were only going for around two dollars. What's 75% of two dollars? But it's pretty much the exact same with authors and publishing companies. Unless your book is making millions and millions of sells, you're not making very much. I only get 20% when my royalties come in and my books sell for around $20.00






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