Elder Scrolls 5:Skyrim
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Regardless of whether it totes cool to sell mods or not, I will remind all users that as per the forum rules, all discussion of piracy, warez and methods of propagating/disseminating illegally gained materials are strictly against said rules. Anybody who wishes to continue advocating piracy or discussing methods of "****ing torrenting them all so they can get ****ed" will join Wulfburk in his week-long mute and further infractions will result in an immediate and quite permanent ban.
I think the C&Ds were usually handed out when the modder was getting close to creating something that the developer might make themselves and sell as DLC or as a future game. They really get protective about that stuff.Amontadillo said:
I suppose I'll have to wait and see what kind of effect this has. I already see one of my mods behind the paywall, Wet and Cold(lol $5 **** off). It would be my fear that this effects any major endeavor.
Then you've got minor details like that Sange sword, apparently from DOTA. Or Gifts of Akatosh which largely appears to be a retexture of ebony. Castle Volkihar Rebuilt wants $3.50 for making the castle like it was before the final battle? Wet and Cold requires auxiliary mods like SKSE. Many of the projects have numerous contributes. Not to mention the potential abuses.
Just seems really sketchy and rubs me the wrong way.
Then you've got minor details like that Sange sword, apparently from DOTA. Or Gifts of Akatosh which largely appears to be a retexture of ebony. Castle Volkihar Rebuilt wants $3.50 for making the castle like it was before the final battle? Wet and Cold requires auxiliary mods like SKSE. Many of the projects have numerous contributes. Not to mention the potential abuses.
Just seems really sketchy and rubs me the wrong way.
TheFlyingFishy said:
It ultimately depends on whether you feel your independent goals are worth money or not. Modders put labour in to make a mod that is then consumed for free by anyone who owns the game. The consumer does nothing except download your work, and if there is an optional donation then like most such forms of charity I can almost guarantee you that, save for, at best, a handful of cases of high-profile modders making a career solely off of donations, the amount gained comes nowhere close to equalling the number of man-hours put into the mod.
Certainly, there are some modders who do what they do as a hobby, because they enjoy enhancing whatever their particular favourite game is. Those modders can continue to do what they do. There are other modders who will inevitably, however, feel as if they deserve some monetary compensation for their work, especially when their work is enjoyed by thousands upon thousands of people, like some of the more popular Skyrim mods. Up until now, attempting to monetize your work on a mod, besides being illegal, would isolate you from the rest of the modding community, and probably render your mod commercially unviable. Valve has merely provided a platform for the people who feel as if their mod deserves monetization to be able to do just that, and since it's Valve spearheading this, with the modding community having slowly been integrating with the Steam Workshop over the past few years, it means that those modders will no longer be isolated solely for their decision to monetize.
The way I see it, this would have happened eventually in some way. Mods have been getting extremely complex in the past decade, requiring, in some cases, large teams of volunteers simply to maintain it for consumers, for little or no reward. Mods have always been free, yes, but the mods of the early era of modding have nothing in the way of the sheer amount of content that some mod projects have or seek to have. That it has been Valve who has stepped up and changed the market just means that we can be assured that the change is largely going to be uniformly applied and stable, unlike as it would possibly have been if it were instead a cabal of modders working with publishers to establish some sort of alternative Workshop/Nexus-type paid service.
Not every mod is going to be this way anyways. The niches you speak of aren't simply going to disappear overnight because the creators of some mods that filled them saw dollar signs and "sold out". While I don't doubt that some modders will end up doing that, as I said before, the market will decide what lives and what dies, and the niche will always remain for someone else to fill it, as it always has been in the modding community. In the end all this is doing is adding more choice, both for consumers in encouraging a higher variety of mods to be made and further developed and polished, and for modders in enabling them viable access to a revenue stream for their work. Choice is always good.
I'm really curious what's going to come out of this. On the one hand I think it's undeniable that a lot of future mods that would have been free if this hadn't come along will now not be free. On the other hand, I think it's equally undeniable that a lot of mods that wouldn't have been made will be made now that the authors can get paid for their work. Could be an overall good thing or an overall bad thing. Hard to say.
I'm also curious about the prices. It's not a bunch of suits in a board room kinda situation, the prices of mods are being set by their actual authors. And you know what? Yeah, it's basically horse armor DLC, but horse armor was $2.50. Guns in shooters tend to be $5 or $10 apiece. That sword, though? $0.25? **** it, I can live with that if that means I get a high-quality item that actually fits into the game and doesn't clash with its art style like most free mod weapons and armors do.
I'm also curious about the prices. It's not a bunch of suits in a board room kinda situation, the prices of mods are being set by their actual authors. And you know what? Yeah, it's basically horse armor DLC, but horse armor was $2.50. Guns in shooters tend to be $5 or $10 apiece. That sword, though? $0.25? **** it, I can live with that if that means I get a high-quality item that actually fits into the game and doesn't clash with its art style like most free mod weapons and armors do.
Disagree. When you have no option of selling your work, doing it just for the satisfaction and enjoyment of it is enough. But I guarantee you that once the option to get paid is there, doing it for free will no longer seem anywhere near as fulfilling as it used to.Vermillion_Hawk said:
I wish the cut for the modders was more than just 25%.
Also, I just realized this. Do the modders get actual money or Steam dollars? Cause **** this whole idea if it is the latter. If all they can actually buy with that money is just more games, that is not worth ****.
Also, I just realized this. Do the modders get actual money or Steam dollars? Cause **** this whole idea if it is the latter. If all they can actually buy with that money is just more games, that is not worth ****.
I can't imagine they'd get Steam dollars.
@Hawk
They won't disappear over night, but they almost certainly will over time. Once people get used to it, why shouldn't people charge for a mod? And if you're going to charge for it, you're going to make it appeal to as many people as possible. And it isn't like Valve cares about their modders in the slightest conceivable way. They're taking some of the 75% and giving only 25% to the modders. And hardly any mod that goes over a dollar will get a second look. So they're getting 25 cents for their mods, in most cases, less if it was a multiple-person project. And I don't mean to sound like a ****, having never made a mod, but I feel like if making money directly from the mod, and not trying to get hired on by the company whose game you're modding is anywhere in your priority list, you should get a job in the industry and stop modding. Modding isn't and shouldn't be a career one expects money from. Having a donations page is just fine with me, though.
They won't disappear over night, but they almost certainly will over time. Once people get used to it, why shouldn't people charge for a mod? And if you're going to charge for it, you're going to make it appeal to as many people as possible. And it isn't like Valve cares about their modders in the slightest conceivable way. They're taking some of the 75% and giving only 25% to the modders. And hardly any mod that goes over a dollar will get a second look. So they're getting 25 cents for their mods, in most cases, less if it was a multiple-person project. And I don't mean to sound like a ****, having never made a mod, but I feel like if making money directly from the mod, and not trying to get hired on by the company whose game you're modding is anywhere in your priority list, you should get a job in the industry and stop modding. Modding isn't and shouldn't be a career one expects money from. Having a donations page is just fine with me, though.
Yeah they'll be cut check as it were. With steam and the developer sharing in the other 75%. I wonder if in the future developers will be able to set what they'd like the modders and themselves to receive. Steam's percentage obviously staying the same.Vermillion_Hawk said:
Goker said:
By the looks of it it's the exact same deal Dota 2 workshoppers get.
If that's true, it's via Valve paycheck, no Steam dollars.
I'm not talking about people going "that's it, I'm quitting my job and making mods for a living", more a case of "hm, what shall I do this weekend, play Skyrim or make mods for it?". That choice has always existed, but if modding previously gained you nothing and now it gets you paid, it stands to reason more people will start choosing that option.Dryvus said:
Ringwraith #5 said:
I disagree with that since I have, in the past, modded (only Dominions 3, which isn't much of an accomplishment considering that it's ridiculously easy to mod), but solely for my own benefit. I didn't even publish them because the only reason I even made the mods was for my own enjoyment and to enhance my game. There's people who do that, with the exception that they publish their mods. Granted these aren't feature-spanning mega-mods that we're talking about here, but when it's something that maybe suits only your specific needs from the game, fulfillment is not something you'll be caring about when you're at the publishing stage, since you've presumably already accomplished that through the mod's creation.
TheFlyingFishy said:
Niches don't disappear though. One guy, or even all the modders who cover a certain aspect or characteristic of a game "selling out" doesn't mean that people suddenly lose their desire for a product that fills that certain space. And no, charging for it does not necessarily mean appealing to as many people as possible. The modding environment is still the same - there's a plethora of diverse mods that cover any and all aspects of the game, and their very existence is predicated on this. To betray that means you'll directly lose revenue, and someone else will take your former place.
And as for the comment at the beginning, it's an entirely valid question, why shouldn't people charge for a mod? The only person who could possibly get hurt in some way by that is the consumer, in a small way, by having to pay for something which they were previously provided for free at the expense and generosity of the creator. Trying to hold people who have put labour in to something to standards of "artistic integrity" that largely only benefit the consumer is not going to do you any favours. I'll also reiterate that it's not Valve directly who takes the 75%, the majority of that likely goes to the publisher, whose licensed software is being used in the first place. Even 25% at a cut-rate price, I'd wager, is a lot more money for the average modder than they'd ever see in their modding careers otherwise, because relying on the potential generosity of strangers to maintain their projects just doesn't work in most cases for the average modder.
And as for the latter half of the post, this is just naïveté as to how the industry works. Making a mod for the express purpose of being hired by a company is by no means whatsoever a guarantee of ever getting a job there, let alone one that will fulfill whatever career aspirations you have there. Now I don't have firsthand experience there, but my understanding of the industry from various friends and information is that it's not a rosy business where you'll get hired into a position solely on your merit as a modder. My understanding is that getting a stable industry job from modding projects is like winning the lottery for modders. Not to mention that putting in ridiculous amounts of work and effort into merely getting an opportunity to actually make money doing that labour which one loves is an insane proposition itself, as I hope would be pretty self-evident. The people who make skinpacks and minor changes aren't going to get a job automatically if they suddenly feel that they need to make money off of something that they put their valuable time into. This, however, provides them for that opportunity. I'd amend your second-last statement to purely "modding hasn't been a career one expects money from". That doesn't mean that one can't, or shouldn't, or that for many it has grown to encompass a career in all but salary.
Moreover forcing modders to rely on a donations page to sustain projects which can require gigantic amounts of time and effort is entirely unsustainable. The internet is already littered with the corpses of abandoned mods, and there's a not-insignificant number of those which are either cancelled outright or indefinitely put on-hold because of the modders' monetary concerns. This makes it so that these projects at least have a chance of some success. People won't donate nearly enough to feasibly allow modders to work uninterrupted on their projects. It's like having a lawnmowing service where you get someone to mow your lawn and then have the opportunity to pay them afterwards depending on the work, with no legal repercussions if you don't. Obviously if they do a terrible job on your lawn you're not going to pay them, but if it's high-quality work, does that mean they have a guarantee of your money? Inevitably some people will reward them for their work, but will that be even 50% of the patrons served? I highly doubt that.
Personally, if the modder took the time to create original content and didn't just rip something from other games like the witcher 2 etc, then is fine to aim for some reward for their efforts.
But if they created their own armour and weapons no copying involved then im fine with them charging a small fee, as long as they don't get stupid with it.
But if they created their own armour and weapons no copying involved then im fine with them charging a small fee, as long as they don't get stupid with it.
So, let me get something straight.
I dont know how Workshop modding works, but if it's anything like MnB modding, what's stopping you from
1) Buying and installing the mod
2) Copying the mod files
3) Getting a refund
4) Reinstalling the mod with your files
5) ???
6) Profit?
I dont know how Workshop modding works, but if it's anything like MnB modding, what's stopping you from
1) Buying and installing the mod
2) Copying the mod files
3) Getting a refund
4) Reinstalling the mod with your files
5) ???
6) Profit?
The thing that worries me is something that was brought up on Reddit.
Just imagine that, if a mod that only exists to make a game playable on PC was a paid for mod. Now imagine person B is out there and makes similar fixes to the game, but does it for free... DMCA abuse can arise.
And additionally this quote from reddit also expresses my distaste:
This can only be a bad move in the long run.
Just imagine that, if a mod that only exists to make a game playable on PC was a paid for mod. Now imagine person B is out there and makes similar fixes to the game, but does it for free... DMCA abuse can arise.
And additionally this quote from reddit also expresses my distaste:
This can only be a bad move in the long run.
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