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Of Videogame Modding and Money
Posts
It's a given that Early Access is going to a crapshoot. It's also pretty much a given that day 1 releases are a crapshoot, even though it shouldn't be.
Skyrim and its surrounding community has been alive and stable for years and years. I don't know why it's absurd to hold Valve and Bethesda to a higher standard in terms of how they manage it.
The early access mod has been removed and the mod author run out of town.
Every paid mod is every bit as much of a blind, unregulated crapshoot as that one was. Every paid modder can overhype lousy content whenever they want, hike the price whenever they want, and cut and run whenever they want. The others just don't admit it out loud.
The fishing guy could have easily left out the phrase "early access" and replaced it with "more great content is planned in the coming months!", kept exactly the same sketchy plan, and it wouldn't have provoked the vitriol we saw.
I could be mistaken; I have been before. Still, I'll be cold and dead before I bank on informed consumers curbing bad behavior. More often than not, it is rewarded.
Now playing: Teardown and Baldur's Gate 3 (co-op)
Sunday Spotlight: Horror Tales: The Wine
I'm wondering if this might actually be preparation for Source 2 to have a heavier focus on modding. The expansions for Half-Life (Opposing Force and Blue Shift) were, essentially, third party paid mods, as was Counter-Strike.
If Valve keeps its percentage take at 25% for its own games, then it'll be a lot more attractive for developers to produce expansions for Portal, Half-Life and Left 4 Dead, and the Steam store already has a category for "mods".
For those that do go the extra mile and rush to the rescue whenever someone has a problem, they should be rewarded. And maybe the cut is crap, but it might be better than sporadic donation. TF2 (I think) and Youtube have similar reimbursement models and they work. If it's not good enough, then at least they now have a bottom line by which to judge their own capital venture.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Steam user XxSmokEvryDay420xX who released some hobby mod has no such reputation. If the mod pisses people off then oh well; he probably wasn't planning on getting his livelihood from modding future games. If he DID burn all his bridges but still wanted to get paid for modding again, he could even just create a new Steam account and release his next mod under a new name. Nobody would know except Valve, and they don't care if people release crappy, unsupported mods.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Last I checked Valve doesn't let you make multiple accounts with the same tax info. Specifically to not dodge things like market issues and such.
So unless you like, had a kid and used their SS# that wouldn't actually be something you could do.
Also, Bethesda, Obsidian, etc, are known for releasing horrible broken, often crappy, unsupported games! That is like, the entire existence of Skyrim broken into 3 easily digestable words. The only 'patches' that really fixed anything but the most glaring of issues were done as part of the DLC they released.
Hot damn if Bethesda still doesn't make money hand over fist.
Hell, I expect some of the first paid mods to be named "Actual Bugfixes".
There not just using the engine, they are using the ingame resources and they are using the IP which is worth a lot more. If they want to make a game from scratch using an engine, then they can pay 5%.
If steam legit wanted to do this right, they'd put effort into making it easier for modders to work with established games to create dlc through an alternate system.
So like... letting people make content that they then get paid for?
You don't say.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
No, through setting up a process with a couple approval chains, some quality guarantees and a fair payment system. Not by enforcing a lolpayus scheme on am existing system.
Except it isn't enforced. There are still free mods! You are still free to post your mods freely!
There is no enforcing or requirement anywhere that anyone has to ask for anything. So the premise of your statement is totally false from inception.
What you're asking for is an awkard vetting process that would invariably cost the publisher money, which means they'd have no real interest and would cut the modders money down even lower. Unlike the current system wherein the amount can probably shift depending on how things work out. I'm sure the current numbers aren't set in stone.
Regardless, publishers can't even guarantee their own games. People just have no willpower and buy whatever is new. Expecting something more out of modders is kind of questionable.
In the end, the free mods will remain free if the people who actually do the work want them to be. No one is putting a gun to their head.
On the other hand, people like the guy who made the Purity mod, who has made about $600 or so in the last 24h? Probably going to keep on charging because thats $600 for something they were doing anyway.
Bad things won't sell. Good things will sell. If people can't take responsibility for their own purchases, thats on them.
Word. This is basic capitalism at work; market forces will drive all of this.
a. Install mods; and
b. Pay for them
is angling for a very small slice of the game-buying pie.
Looks like GabeN himself is doing Q&A
I just clicked that and was disappointed that he didn't really say much, then realized that this thread just got started. Will be interesting to see how much he actually addresses.
I would love to be able to make money off my work. My stomach flutters if I consider the possibility of having made even a penny-per-download - leaving aside the obvious argument that at a not-free price, I wouldn't have millions of downloads in the first place.
The "Donate" button at Nexus has gotten me a few bucks here and a few bucks there but less than $100 total since I started modding in 2003 (in fairness, the donate button didn't even exist for most of that time and straight up suggesting/hinting for donations in your file description would get your mod pulled).
That said, this whole thing makes me sad in its implementation and sad for what it probably means for the future of modding. And as a devoted Bethesda fangirl since Daggerfall, it also makes me feel a bit rotten. I'm not against (or for) a pay system. I just don't think this was done right or well or fairly and I don't trust either Bethesda or Valve to make it right, and I am suspicious of the implications for tools/etc for Fallout 4, TES6, etc.
(edit; words are hard)
Got a link to any of your mods? I might have been using them at some point.
(you don't have to reply to this if you don't want to, just curious)
I have linked you by PM. I didn't want my post to be about my mods specifically and don't want to derail the thread in any way either.
Carry on, guys.
I really have no idea how anybody at all thought this was a good idea. Mods are not fucking DLC, they're mods. They don't have quality control, they aren't made by companies. And the percentages on payouts are absurd. If this sort of thing is around for the next Bethesda game, I doubt I'll even bother getting it. No way am I gonna buy a game, then have to spend money on dozens of "mods" to make the game what it could have been.
I've got nothing against mod developers asking for donations for their work, but if money is supposed to be changing hands for mod content, then the game developers should just hire the mod developers instead of this fucking nonsense.
This is pretty much the perfect way to crush all the life out of strong modding communities, between forcing mod developers out because their shit is getting stolen and pricetags killing any interest in people picking up mods.
30% is an industry standard for an electronic storefront whether it's Apple, MS, Google or GoG.
Unreal charges 5% to license an engine. Modders are not licensing an engine, they are creating a derivative work using existing assets.
There is a large difference between making a game using the Unreal engine and negotiating with Epic to make a work using Gears of War assets and that difference is 40% or more.
The split is fine.
Also, I want the SKSE person (people?) to start charging.
Seriously. Because if SKSE jacked their rates up from free to $99.99 (or higher), I think it'd put some serious pressure on Bethesda and Valve.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Which is pretty generous of him/her, he's one of the people that would have the most to gain since SKSE is involved with a lot of the better mods.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Like, you don't get 75% of the money for doing nothing. That is bonkers.
I'd say generous is understating it. If he charged or enforced copyright on these (in whatever way this new system allows), he could outright cripple a decent chunk of the mods out there. I guess they're lucky he's super-nice.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
See, this is why I feel the Day Z and Garry's Mod guys are kinda full of shit. There was already a path for truly talented modders to make some money. I'm interested in the industry opening up more on that front, but this bullshit where they "allow" people to keep doing a thing they've been doing for decades and "only" take a 75 % cut (industry standard!) shouldn't be flying for anyone.
I feel like a lot of these guys with success stories from other games aren't really familiar with how ridiculously temperamental and fragile Bethesda's engines are. I mean, I love these games but they're a mess which is no surprise considering the sheer scope of them all.
Its absolute hell for the people who have to sort it all out from the player perspective and their load order and can't figure out why or what is causing the game to CTD, I can't imagine how it is for the actual modders who spend a shitload of time trying to bugfix their mod and still finding it crumbling to pieces on release. The whole thing is like a jenga tower.
I'm not sure how exactly to interpret that other than as a sign of community hysteria.
The paid mod store should have a limited selection of high quality mods that are directly approved by someone at Valve or Bethesda
and even then their cut is still way, way too large. It's "$100 for a cup of lemonade then I only need to sell one cup!" levels of absurd
edit: Really this is about free dlc for Valve and Bethesda and has nothing to do with supporting modders, something that I am all for as a former modder myself
Part of the appeal of 95% of Bethesda mods is that they supplement the game instead of replacing it and keep the numerous assets of the nice map, the character progression, the enemies, the weapons, the spells, the voice acting, the animations, and/or the story. The problem was, if you intend your mods to supplement rather than replace an entire game, you've got to work around code that wasn't designed to accommodate this. Bethesda games aren't designed to be modded - they just have very lax control over what you can and can't access.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.