You haven't proven or even shown that this will have any effect on free modding.
It's a lot of hand wringing about empty possibilities while some dude has already made almost $1000 for his hard work in like two days. (Purity mod.)
So, concrete evidence (PS brushes, ms flight dim paid mods, tf2 and dota2, Skyrim) vs ...? Feels?
We live in a society where you can get data pretty easily. Skyrim still second most selling game currently. User numbers have stayed the same or gone up.
Doom and gloom.
So his mod has generated roughly four thousand dollars? Why out of that does he only deserve a thousand? Seems to unfairly devalue his work.
It's better than nothing for the same effort?
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? 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.
You haven't proven or even shown that this will have any effect on free modding.
It's a lot of hand wringing about empty possibilities while some dude has already made almost $1000 for his hard work in like two days. (Purity mod.)
So, concrete evidence (PS brushes, ms flight dim paid mods, tf2 and dota2, Skyrim) vs ...? Feels?
We live in a society where you can get data pretty easily. Skyrim still second most selling game currently. User numbers have stayed the same or gone up.
Doom and gloom.
So his mod has generated roughly four thousand dollars? Why out of that does he only deserve a thousand? Seems to unfairly devalue his work.
He chose to take Bethesda/Valve's deal and put his mod up for sale. Your opinion about what fair value would be doesn't really matter much, and I don't think anyone could claim with a straight face that he would have made even $1,000 in donations over the same (maybe any) period. Everyone in the chain is engaged in voluntary conduct from the IP-holder who allows modding to the modder who sets a price for his work to the consumer who chooses to pay it. I have a hard time thinking of any of these people as being exploited.
You haven't proven or even shown that this will have any effect on free modding.
It's a lot of hand wringing about empty possibilities while some dude has already made almost $1000 for his hard work in like two days. (Purity mod.)
So, concrete evidence (PS brushes, ms flight dim paid mods, tf2 and dota2, Skyrim) vs ...? Feels?
We live in a society where you can get data pretty easily. Skyrim still second most selling game currently. User numbers have stayed the same or gone up.
Doom and gloom.
So his mod has generated roughly four thousand dollars? Why out of that does he only deserve a thousand? Seems to unfairly devalue his work.
He chose to take Bethesda/Valve's deal and put his mod up for sale. Your opinion about what fair value would be doesn't really matter much, and I don't think anyone could claim with a straight face that he would have made even $1,000 in donations over the same (maybe any) period. Everyone in the chain is engaged in voluntary conduct from the IP-holder who allows modding to the modder who sets a price for his work to the consumer who chooses to pay it. I have a hard time thinking of any of these people as being exploited.
I agree. Similarly, I have a hard time as thinking of modders who do the same thing but instead opt to give their product away for free. Yet choco and Paladin would claim otherwise.
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
You haven't proven or even shown that this will have any effect on free modding.
It's a lot of hand wringing about empty possibilities while some dude has already made almost $1000 for his hard work in like two days. (Purity mod.)
So, concrete evidence (PS brushes, ms flight dim paid mods, tf2 and dota2, Skyrim) vs ...? Feels?
We live in a society where you can get data pretty easily. Skyrim still second most selling game currently. User numbers have stayed the same or gone up.
Doom and gloom.
So his mod has generated roughly four thousand dollars? Why out of that does he only deserve a thousand? Seems to unfairly devalue his work.
He chose to take Bethesda/Valve's deal and put his mod up for sale. Your opinion about what fair value would be doesn't really matter much, and I don't think anyone could claim with a straight face that he would have made even $1,000 in donations over the same (maybe any) period. Everyone in the chain is engaged in voluntary conduct from the IP-holder who allows modding to the modder who sets a price for his work to the consumer who chooses to pay it. I have a hard time thinking of any of these people as being exploited.
I would argue that Bethesda is exploiting the modding community since they include a license to use the Creation Kit when you purchase a license to use Skyrim. There was no indication that Bethesda would be claiming a portion of sales of mods in the future.
It's absolutely optional to charge for a mod, but Bethesda's history of simply ignoring game breaking bugs (The bug that makes Dawnguard destabilize the game that I get every playthrough was never even acknowledged by Bethesda, even though it's hugely documented online) and letting the modding community fix those bugs is already unethical, and then now their attempt to profit of such shoddy work further by claiming a cut of mods that fix the bugs that they themselves refuse to invest the money to fix is even moreso.
Free labor carries a higher risk of exploitation than paid, even - especially - if everything is off the books and there are no legal commitments. It may sound ridiculous when applied to video games, but having seen it apply to other disciplines the analogy is clear to me.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? 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.
We see humble bundle having to make set tiers because out of the millions of bundles they try to let people donate to charity and developers through, people would pay .01, then $1 when they were forced, now whatever tier they want.
That was less "people will not donate more than a cent for games" and more "scammers will use us as a cheap way to get Steam accounts that look legitimate/have access to competitions", if I remember correctly.
I also think it's worth questioning whether the current Steam Workshop set-up is going to generate much more money for modders than donations would have. Even when being featured on the front page of Steam, the Shadow Scales armour set has made about $650 for the modder. Exactly how much income is going to be generated when you ignore that period of time where Steam had a giant banner saying "Look at our new feature and then spend money on it"? What about when there's a larger selection of paid mods?
Donations might not make much money for modders, granted... but the Workshop's paywall might not either.
then it'll fail, and it should. But that will provide a clear signal that modding will never be a profitable activity
I actually think modding could be a profitable activity, given a certain level of quality and trust for the mod's developers. Like, this is basically the history of Valve - Team Fortress was a mod, Counter-Strike was a mod, Day of Defeat was a mod, DOTA was a mod. "Mods becoming things that you pay for" is practically Valve's MO and I'm guessing that's why they seem to have been completely blind-sided by the negative response to this move. It's not something that really works for the Elder Scrolls games unless groups start throwing out expansion-sized mods.
If this announcement of paid mods had been bundled with the release of Source 2, I'd wager that the community response to it would have been considerably more pleasant.
You haven't proven or even shown that this will have any effect on free modding.
It's a lot of hand wringing about empty possibilities while some dude has already made almost $1000 for his hard work in like two days. (Purity mod.)
So, concrete evidence (PS brushes, ms flight dim paid mods, tf2 and dota2, Skyrim) vs ...? Feels?
We live in a society where you can get data pretty easily. Skyrim still second most selling game currently. User numbers have stayed the same or gone up.
Doom and gloom.
So his mod has generated roughly four thousand dollars? Why out of that does he only deserve a thousand? Seems to unfairly devalue his work.
He chose to take Bethesda/Valve's deal and put his mod up for sale. Your opinion about what fair value would be doesn't really matter much, and I don't think anyone could claim with a straight face that he would have made even $1,000 in donations over the same (maybe any) period. Everyone in the chain is engaged in voluntary conduct from the IP-holder who allows modding to the modder who sets a price for his work to the consumer who chooses to pay it. I have a hard time thinking of any of these people as being exploited.
I agree. Similarly, I have a hard time as thinking of modders who do the same thing but instead opt to give their product away for free. Yet choco and Paladin would claim otherwise.
Woah there cowboy. I've said time and again people can do whatever they want. Free mods are up to the mod maker. No one is taking them away.
My stance is there get to choose what they do. Simple as that. Valve gave them an avenue to monetize and that's super. If they don't want it, they don't have to sign up.
People here seem to be declaring that modders should operate in some arbitrary fashion just so they can keep getting stuff for free.
If modders got paid per unique install by the publisher no one would give a fuck because they wouldn't be paying. This is pretty much 100% people caring about their own wallet.
We see humble bundle having to make set tiers because out of the millions of bundles they try to let people donate to charity and developers through, people would pay .01, then $1 when they were forced, now whatever tier they want.
That was less "people will not donate more than a cent for games" and more "scammers will use us as a cheap way to get Steam accounts that look legitimate/have access to competitions", if I remember correctly.
I also think it's worth questioning whether the current Steam Workshop set-up is going to generate much more money for modders than donations would have. Even when being featured on the front page of Steam, the Shadow Scales armour set has made about $650 for the modder. Exactly how much income is going to be generated when you ignore that period of time where Steam had a giant banner saying "Look at our new feature and then spend money on it"? What about when there's a larger selection of paid mods?
Donations might not make much money for modders, granted... but the Workshop's paywall might not either.
then it'll fail, and it should. But that will provide a clear signal that modding will never be a profitable activity
I actually think modding could be a profitable activity, given a certain level of quality and trust for the mod's developers. Like, this is basically the history of Valve - Team Fortress was a mod, Counter-Strike was a mod, Day of Defeat was a mod, DOTA was a mod. "Mods becoming things that you pay for" is practically Valve's MO and I'm guessing that's why they seem to have been completely blind-sided by the negative response to this move. It's not something that really works for the Elder Scrolls games unless groups start throwing out expansion-sized mods.
If this announcement of paid mods had been bundled with the release of Source 2, I'd wager that the community response to it would have been considerably more pleasant.
yeah that would have been awesome, but also sad that valve would yet again be the only company doing this
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? 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.
Bethesda getting a cut is like owning property. They can demand whatever they want because you're working on their game. Valve can demand whatever they want because they own the service it's hosted on.
Well, this is a grey area. I mean, you could also say that Microsoft can claim a portion of profit of anything developed in Microsoft Word because it's part of the Word application. It has a proprietary file format that (used to) require Word and only Word to read. So it could be said that a Word document was part of the Word application.
Or Microsoft can claim a cut of any program that uses the Windows API to run, which would include anything that uses actual windows in Windows.
This is going to be interesting because I don't know that Bethesda's claim over anything made using the Creation Kit will withstand court challenges, especially as most mods are 100% original content that is then placed on top of the existing game.
Like, K&N sells air filters that are for Mustangs. They only work on Mustangs. They require you own a Mustang in order to use the air filter. They change the performance of the car. But Ford doesn't get a cut of every K&N air filter sold.
And then there's Saleen, which straight up sells modified Mustangs.
You haven't proven or even shown that this will have any effect on free modding.
It's a lot of hand wringing about empty possibilities while some dude has already made almost $1000 for his hard work in like two days. (Purity mod.)
So, concrete evidence (PS brushes, ms flight dim paid mods, tf2 and dota2, Skyrim) vs ...? Feels?
We live in a society where you can get data pretty easily. Skyrim still second most selling game currently. User numbers have stayed the same or gone up.
Doom and gloom.
So his mod has generated roughly four thousand dollars? Why out of that does he only deserve a thousand? Seems to unfairly devalue his work.
He chose to take Bethesda/Valve's deal and put his mod up for sale. Your opinion about what fair value would be doesn't really matter much, and I don't think anyone could claim with a straight face that he would have made even $1,000 in donations over the same (maybe any) period. Everyone in the chain is engaged in voluntary conduct from the IP-holder who allows modding to the modder who sets a price for his work to the consumer who chooses to pay it. I have a hard time thinking of any of these people as being exploited.
I would argue that Bethesda is exploiting the modding community since they include a license to use the Creation Kit when you purchase a license to use Skyrim. There was no indication that Bethesda would be claiming a portion of sales of mods in the future.
It's absolutely optional to charge for a mod, but Bethesda's history of simply ignoring game breaking bugs (The bug that makes Dawnguard destabilize the game that I get every playthrough was never even acknowledged by Bethesda, even though it's hugely documented online) and letting the modding community fix those bugs is already unethical, and then now their attempt to profit of such shoddy work further by claiming a cut of mods that fix the bugs that they themselves refuse to invest the money to fix is even moreso.
I am pretty sure Bethesda's licensing specifically says they own all work you create, or something to that nature. So unlike Microsoft Office, Bethesda has a pretty strong legal standing to say "you can't sell your mods," or "you can't sell your mods without paying us our cut." Likewise, the 30% from Steamworks is probably in Steam's licensing agreement for basically anything sold on their platform. I am pretty certain licenses similar to Bethesda's have successfully argued you can't sell paid mods at all, so I have no doubt that allowing people to sell mods while taking a cut, even a huge one, would hold up in court. Obviously, despite "owning" the work done by modders, they don't just steal mods to sell them because that would be a huge backlash for limited financial reward. I assume their goal is to change the paradigm from "you can't sell mods" to "you can sell mods, as long as we get our cut," and both of those rely on the fact Bethesda 100% owns all mods created for Skyrim.
I ate an engineer
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
Bethesda getting a cut is like owning property. They can demand whatever they want because you're working on their game. Valve can demand whatever they want because they own the service it's hosted on.
Well, this is a grey area. I mean, you could also say that Microsoft can claim a portion of profit of anything developed in Microsoft Word because it's part of the Word application. It has a proprietary file format that (used to) require Word and only Word to read. So it could be said that a Word document was part of the Word application.
Or Microsoft can claim a cut of any program that uses the Windows API to run, which would include anything that uses actual windows in Windows.
This is going to be interesting because I don't know that Bethesda's claim over anything made using the Creation Kit will withstand court challenges, especially as most mods are 100% original content that is then placed on top of the existing game.
Like, K&N sells air filters that are for Mustangs. They only work on Mustangs. They require you own a Mustang in order to use the air filter. They change the performance of the car. But Ford doesn't get a cut of every K&N air filter sold.
And then there's Saleen, which straight up sells modified Mustangs.
You haven't proven or even shown that this will have any effect on free modding.
It's a lot of hand wringing about empty possibilities while some dude has already made almost $1000 for his hard work in like two days. (Purity mod.)
So, concrete evidence (PS brushes, ms flight dim paid mods, tf2 and dota2, Skyrim) vs ...? Feels?
We live in a society where you can get data pretty easily. Skyrim still second most selling game currently. User numbers have stayed the same or gone up.
Doom and gloom.
So his mod has generated roughly four thousand dollars? Why out of that does he only deserve a thousand? Seems to unfairly devalue his work.
He chose to take Bethesda/Valve's deal and put his mod up for sale. Your opinion about what fair value would be doesn't really matter much, and I don't think anyone could claim with a straight face that he would have made even $1,000 in donations over the same (maybe any) period. Everyone in the chain is engaged in voluntary conduct from the IP-holder who allows modding to the modder who sets a price for his work to the consumer who chooses to pay it. I have a hard time thinking of any of these people as being exploited.
I would argue that Bethesda is exploiting the modding community since they include a license to use the Creation Kit when you purchase a license to use Skyrim. There was no indication that Bethesda would be claiming a portion of sales of mods in the future.
It's absolutely optional to charge for a mod, but Bethesda's history of simply ignoring game breaking bugs (The bug that makes Dawnguard destabilize the game that I get every playthrough was never even acknowledged by Bethesda, even though it's hugely documented online) and letting the modding community fix those bugs is already unethical, and then now their attempt to profit of such shoddy work further by claiming a cut of mods that fix the bugs that they themselves refuse to invest the money to fix is even moreso.
I am pretty sure Bethesda's licensing specifically says they own all work you create, or something to that nature. So unlike Microsoft Office, Bethesda has a pretty strong legal standing to say "you can't sell your mods," or "you can't sell your mods without paying us our cut." Likewise, the 30% from Steamworks is probably in Steam's licensing agreement for basically anything sold on their platform. I am pretty certain licenses similar to Bethesda's have successfully argued you can't sell paid mods at all, so I have no doubt that allowing people to sell mods while taking a cut, even a huge one, would hold up in court. Obviously, despite "owning" the work done by modders, they don't just steal mods to sell them because that would be a huge backlash for limited financial reward. I assume their goal is to change the paradigm from "you can't sell mods" to "you can sell mods, as long as we get our cut," and both of those rely on the fact Bethesda 100% owns all mods created for Skyrim.
I agree, but if this business actually continues, I'm interested to see what happens when modders take Bethesda to court. I'm curious to see if the "We own everything you do if our stuff was used in its creation" would actually withstand a court challenge.
Bethesda getting a cut is like owning property. They can demand whatever they want because you're working on their game. Valve can demand whatever they want because they own the service it's hosted on.
Well, this is a grey area. I mean, you could also say that Microsoft can claim a portion of profit of anything developed in Microsoft Word because it's part of the Word application. It has a proprietary file format that (used to) require Word and only Word to read. So it could be said that a Word document was part of the Word application.
Or Microsoft can claim a cut of any program that uses the Windows API to run, which would include anything that uses actual windows in Windows.
This is going to be interesting because I don't know that Bethesda's claim over anything made using the Creation Kit will withstand court challenges, especially as most mods are 100% original content that is then placed on top of the existing game.
Like, K&N sells air filters that are for Mustangs. They only work on Mustangs. They require you own a Mustang in order to use the air filter. They change the performance of the car. But Ford doesn't get a cut of every K&N air filter sold.
And then there's Saleen, which straight up sells modified Mustangs.
You haven't proven or even shown that this will have any effect on free modding.
It's a lot of hand wringing about empty possibilities while some dude has already made almost $1000 for his hard work in like two days. (Purity mod.)
So, concrete evidence (PS brushes, ms flight dim paid mods, tf2 and dota2, Skyrim) vs ...? Feels?
We live in a society where you can get data pretty easily. Skyrim still second most selling game currently. User numbers have stayed the same or gone up.
Doom and gloom.
So his mod has generated roughly four thousand dollars? Why out of that does he only deserve a thousand? Seems to unfairly devalue his work.
He chose to take Bethesda/Valve's deal and put his mod up for sale. Your opinion about what fair value would be doesn't really matter much, and I don't think anyone could claim with a straight face that he would have made even $1,000 in donations over the same (maybe any) period. Everyone in the chain is engaged in voluntary conduct from the IP-holder who allows modding to the modder who sets a price for his work to the consumer who chooses to pay it. I have a hard time thinking of any of these people as being exploited.
I would argue that Bethesda is exploiting the modding community since they include a license to use the Creation Kit when you purchase a license to use Skyrim. There was no indication that Bethesda would be claiming a portion of sales of mods in the future.
It's absolutely optional to charge for a mod, but Bethesda's history of simply ignoring game breaking bugs (The bug that makes Dawnguard destabilize the game that I get every playthrough was never even acknowledged by Bethesda, even though it's hugely documented online) and letting the modding community fix those bugs is already unethical, and then now their attempt to profit of such shoddy work further by claiming a cut of mods that fix the bugs that they themselves refuse to invest the money to fix is even moreso.
I am pretty sure Bethesda's licensing specifically says they own all work you create, or something to that nature. So unlike Microsoft Office, Bethesda has a pretty strong legal standing to say "you can't sell your mods," or "you can't sell your mods without paying us our cut." Likewise, the 30% from Steamworks is probably in Steam's licensing agreement for basically anything sold on their platform. I am pretty certain licenses similar to Bethesda's have successfully argued you can't sell paid mods at all, so I have no doubt that allowing people to sell mods while taking a cut, even a huge one, would hold up in court. Obviously, despite "owning" the work done by modders, they don't just steal mods to sell them because that would be a huge backlash for limited financial reward. I assume their goal is to change the paradigm from "you can't sell mods" to "you can sell mods, as long as we get our cut," and both of those rely on the fact Bethesda 100% owns all mods created for Skyrim.
I agree, but if this business actually continues, I'm interested to see what happens when modders take Bethesda to court. I'm curious to see if the "We own everything you do if our stuff was used in its creation" would actually withstand a court challenge.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? 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.
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
Actually, that raises another question:
If one for sale mod relies on a second for sale mod, and that second for sale mod is withdrawn from the market, does the first modder, or Bethesda, have the right to compell sale of that mod? If so, and the second mod is intentionally broken, who is responsible for fixing it? The modder, who doesn't have any legal right to it? Or Bethesda, who claims total ownership?
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
Bethesda getting a cut is like owning property. They can demand whatever they want because you're working on their game. Valve can demand whatever they want because they own the service it's hosted on.
Well, this is a grey area. I mean, you could also say that Microsoft can claim a portion of profit of anything developed in Microsoft Word because it's part of the Word application. It has a proprietary file format that (used to) require Word and only Word to read. So it could be said that a Word document was part of the Word application.
Or Microsoft can claim a cut of any program that uses the Windows API to run, which would include anything that uses actual windows in Windows.
This is going to be interesting because I don't know that Bethesda's claim over anything made using the Creation Kit will withstand court challenges, especially as most mods are 100% original content that is then placed on top of the existing game.
Like, K&N sells air filters that are for Mustangs. They only work on Mustangs. They require you own a Mustang in order to use the air filter. They change the performance of the car. But Ford doesn't get a cut of every K&N air filter sold.
And then there's Saleen, which straight up sells modified Mustangs.
You haven't proven or even shown that this will have any effect on free modding.
It's a lot of hand wringing about empty possibilities while some dude has already made almost $1000 for his hard work in like two days. (Purity mod.)
So, concrete evidence (PS brushes, ms flight dim paid mods, tf2 and dota2, Skyrim) vs ...? Feels?
We live in a society where you can get data pretty easily. Skyrim still second most selling game currently. User numbers have stayed the same or gone up.
Doom and gloom.
So his mod has generated roughly four thousand dollars? Why out of that does he only deserve a thousand? Seems to unfairly devalue his work.
He chose to take Bethesda/Valve's deal and put his mod up for sale. Your opinion about what fair value would be doesn't really matter much, and I don't think anyone could claim with a straight face that he would have made even $1,000 in donations over the same (maybe any) period. Everyone in the chain is engaged in voluntary conduct from the IP-holder who allows modding to the modder who sets a price for his work to the consumer who chooses to pay it. I have a hard time thinking of any of these people as being exploited.
I would argue that Bethesda is exploiting the modding community since they include a license to use the Creation Kit when you purchase a license to use Skyrim. There was no indication that Bethesda would be claiming a portion of sales of mods in the future.
It's absolutely optional to charge for a mod, but Bethesda's history of simply ignoring game breaking bugs (The bug that makes Dawnguard destabilize the game that I get every playthrough was never even acknowledged by Bethesda, even though it's hugely documented online) and letting the modding community fix those bugs is already unethical, and then now their attempt to profit of such shoddy work further by claiming a cut of mods that fix the bugs that they themselves refuse to invest the money to fix is even moreso.
I am pretty sure Bethesda's licensing specifically says they own all work you create, or something to that nature. So unlike Microsoft Office, Bethesda has a pretty strong legal standing to say "you can't sell your mods," or "you can't sell your mods without paying us our cut." Likewise, the 30% from Steamworks is probably in Steam's licensing agreement for basically anything sold on their platform. I am pretty certain licenses similar to Bethesda's have successfully argued you can't sell paid mods at all, so I have no doubt that allowing people to sell mods while taking a cut, even a huge one, would hold up in court. Obviously, despite "owning" the work done by modders, they don't just steal mods to sell them because that would be a huge backlash for limited financial reward. I assume their goal is to change the paradigm from "you can't sell mods" to "you can sell mods, as long as we get our cut," and both of those rely on the fact Bethesda 100% owns all mods created for Skyrim.
I agree, but if this business actually continues, I'm interested to see what happens when modders take Bethesda to court. I'm curious to see if the "We own everything you do if our stuff was used in its creation" would actually withstand a court challenge.
Yes? Like, that isn't even a question.
So if Adobe changed their EULA for use of their PDF format, they could claim a portion of every book sold in PDF format?
Bethesda getting a cut is like owning property. They can demand whatever they want because you're working on their game. Valve can demand whatever they want because they own the service it's hosted on.
Well, this is a grey area. I mean, you could also say that Microsoft can claim a portion of profit of anything developed in Microsoft Word because it's part of the Word application. It has a proprietary file format that (used to) require Word and only Word to read. So it could be said that a Word document was part of the Word application.
Or Microsoft can claim a cut of any program that uses the Windows API to run, which would include anything that uses actual windows in Windows.
This is going to be interesting because I don't know that Bethesda's claim over anything made using the Creation Kit will withstand court challenges, especially as most mods are 100% original content that is then placed on top of the existing game.
Like, K&N sells air filters that are for Mustangs. They only work on Mustangs. They require you own a Mustang in order to use the air filter. They change the performance of the car. But Ford doesn't get a cut of every K&N air filter sold.
And then there's Saleen, which straight up sells modified Mustangs.
You haven't proven or even shown that this will have any effect on free modding.
It's a lot of hand wringing about empty possibilities while some dude has already made almost $1000 for his hard work in like two days. (Purity mod.)
So, concrete evidence (PS brushes, ms flight dim paid mods, tf2 and dota2, Skyrim) vs ...? Feels?
We live in a society where you can get data pretty easily. Skyrim still second most selling game currently. User numbers have stayed the same or gone up.
Doom and gloom.
So his mod has generated roughly four thousand dollars? Why out of that does he only deserve a thousand? Seems to unfairly devalue his work.
He chose to take Bethesda/Valve's deal and put his mod up for sale. Your opinion about what fair value would be doesn't really matter much, and I don't think anyone could claim with a straight face that he would have made even $1,000 in donations over the same (maybe any) period. Everyone in the chain is engaged in voluntary conduct from the IP-holder who allows modding to the modder who sets a price for his work to the consumer who chooses to pay it. I have a hard time thinking of any of these people as being exploited.
I would argue that Bethesda is exploiting the modding community since they include a license to use the Creation Kit when you purchase a license to use Skyrim. There was no indication that Bethesda would be claiming a portion of sales of mods in the future.
It's absolutely optional to charge for a mod, but Bethesda's history of simply ignoring game breaking bugs (The bug that makes Dawnguard destabilize the game that I get every playthrough was never even acknowledged by Bethesda, even though it's hugely documented online) and letting the modding community fix those bugs is already unethical, and then now their attempt to profit of such shoddy work further by claiming a cut of mods that fix the bugs that they themselves refuse to invest the money to fix is even moreso.
I am pretty sure Bethesda's licensing specifically says they own all work you create, or something to that nature. So unlike Microsoft Office, Bethesda has a pretty strong legal standing to say "you can't sell your mods," or "you can't sell your mods without paying us our cut." Likewise, the 30% from Steamworks is probably in Steam's licensing agreement for basically anything sold on their platform. I am pretty certain licenses similar to Bethesda's have successfully argued you can't sell paid mods at all, so I have no doubt that allowing people to sell mods while taking a cut, even a huge one, would hold up in court. Obviously, despite "owning" the work done by modders, they don't just steal mods to sell them because that would be a huge backlash for limited financial reward. I assume their goal is to change the paradigm from "you can't sell mods" to "you can sell mods, as long as we get our cut," and both of those rely on the fact Bethesda 100% owns all mods created for Skyrim.
I agree, but if this business actually continues, I'm interested to see what happens when modders take Bethesda to court. I'm curious to see if the "We own everything you do if our stuff was used in its creation" would actually withstand a court challenge.
Yes? Like, that isn't even a question.
So if Adobe changed their EULA for use of their PDF format, they could claim a portion of every book sold in PDF format?
If their EULA claimed that they owned every work created in the PDF format, then yeah, they could do so. However, works created under the previous EULA would be exempt (since they didn't claim ownership then) and they might have trouble arguing that users were appropriately notified of such a huge change in EULA. Also it would be financial suicide and people would use another format.
But if all those hurdles were passed, then yeah, they could do so.
So if people download mods that people make for free, for fun, on their own time, and don't give the mod-maker money, that's exploitation? But if the mods go up for money and 75% of the money gets taken off the top before considerations for the mod-makers even begin, that's not exploitation?
That is a pretty terrible argument.
People have been telling Valve for ages to put a donation button with Workshop mods; instead, Valve came up with this insanity, where the actual content creators barely even get consideration for their work. It doesn't get much more exploitative than telling people you have more rights to any money made off their work than the actual people making the content.
Because it's not exploitation if corporations do it, silly.
People who really want to support the modders should be pushing for the community to encourage more donations. Modders get 100% of donations.
As for the argument that "What modders are getting is a similar cut to what other creative types get elsewhere" - that's an argument for lifting those other people up, not perpetuating the race to the bottom.
If one for sale mod relies on a second for sale mod, and that second for sale mod is withdrawn from the market, does the first modder, or Bethesda, have the right to compell sale of that mod? If so, and the second mod is intentionally broken, who is responsible for fixing it? The modder, who doesn't have any legal right to it? Or Bethesda, who claims total ownership?
Bethesda could force the mod to stay on sale, though I don't think they'd actually do it; I think that Valve even had some hangups with the Fishing Mod that was frontpaged on launch because Valve would not let him fully remove his mod from their display, or something. As for who is "responsible" for fixing it, nobody; one of the biggest flaws with the current system is basically that there's absolutely no oversight on mods and no good way to collaborate on mods or have mods that depend on each other, and a lot of oddities where paid mods may have dependencies on free mods or vice versa.
I don't think the real issue is that people may have to pay for mods. It's more that under the current system, the modmaker gets very little (if any) reward, it really fragments the modding community, and most of the profit goes to Valve and Bethesda.
They royally fucked it up.
Most of the issue is definitely about paying for mods. Paying for mods hurts the consumer in most situations except maybe the long-term, and all of the Reddit outrage is centered entirely on "I have to pay for things now, those corporations are so greedy." People loved when Gaben said they were going to update the "pay what you want" option to have a minimum payment of $0.00, which is exactly the same as the donation button they begged for except that the split is still developer set rather than being sent directly to the modder. The general mass of people complaining about this is certainly doing so because they now might have to pay for some mods, and many of the arguments are simply extensions of that.
That's what you want the argument to be, because it's easy for you to take apart. See "Strawman."
That's not the problem with this system. Reread the previous pages with an unbiased viewpoint and perhaps you'll see it.
?
Looking back a few pages, we see this, a post you yourself agreed with:
This sort of thing is a cat-out-of-the-bag situation: now that the possibility of paid mods exists the world has permanently changed and it will never recover.
From the consumer's view you lose out in every single way possible:
Some mods are no longer free, including ones people already used.
Some mod makers have removed their mods completely out of protest and some have removed them completely because they want you to buy their paid version instead.
Some mod makers have added ads to their mods to get you to buy their paid version.
A good portion of new mod makers will gravitate towards paid mods rather than free ones.
Some old mod makers will likely not make any more mods and possibly stop any work on their existing ones out of protest.
Free mod makers will not want their mod used as the base for a paid mod, some out of principle and some because they don't get a cut.
Copyright control of paid mods is nonexistant.
Quality control of paid mods is nonexistant.
Refunds are effectively nonexistant.
Blizzard saw similar writing on the wall when multiple mods for World of Warcraft started trying to charge and were using lua obfuscation programs to make their code completely unreadable as the means for that to be possible. They cut the cancer out before it took root and ruined the game's modding community. Here Valve did the exact opposite and not only transplanted a cancer into the body, they did it secretly and then revealed to them months later with a flourish "look at what I've done, you should be thanking me for this!"
The most agreed post from the past two pages (not including a "don't buy Bethesda" post) is specifically pointing out that paying for mods at all is an issue. I responded to a post that specifically said that paying for mods "isn't the real issue." Yes, the current argument here has gravitated away from "paying for mods is bad" in the last page, but it's certainly public sentiment, and besides calling it Reddit outrage I didn't even argue against the idea. Paying for mods is bad for the consumer, at least in all situations but some very long term cases.
I think you need to look at things from a less combative viewpoint. I'm not trying to pick apart arguments, I'm just responding to a post that contained (what I believe to be) an error.
People are looking at the existing mods and going "I wouldn't pay for any of these" partly because yes, some are entitled and only want mods to be free, but that's a vocal minority equivalent to people crying about a torrent website being taken down. The majority are balking because next to none of the mods are at a quality level people feel comfortable with paying for, especially at the prices being asked for some of them (which is facilitated by how huge of a cut Bethesda is asking for). Part of that is because the game they're working on as a base is barely professional quality itself, making the efforts needed for modmakers to make their mods professional absolutely herculean. Another part is that no one was doing it as a job so they focused on the main path and ignored edge cases, including interopability with other mods. Either way, out of the existing mod crop only a tiny minority would be considered professional quality and out of those only a small percent have decided to go paid.
Aside from that, I take exception to the idea that modders are people who want to make games but can't for whatever reason. There's a ton of game engines out there that would allow a modder to make their own game with just as much or less effort as it is to make content for Skyrim. They make mods for Skyrim because they love the game and want to make it better, not because they secretly want to make their own game. Some mod makers have jumped at the concept of being paid for their mods, but I'd argue they did so feet first and without thinking it through completely.
I also take exception to trying to point at TF2's marketplace as a positive example of this sort of thing working. The TF2 marketplace only allows you to buy things that work within the TF2 sandbox, specifically models and maps. Not only that, the cut is Valve's 30% alone, leaving 70% for the creator. The mod marketplace loses the sandbox so the possibility of incompatibilities and bugs increases infinitely because it's going up from 0% to some positive percent. The expectation of quality due to the lack of sandbox rises just as much since people will not tolerate their $5 mod erasing or corrupting their save when they would have if it were a free mod. The cut for creators goes down from 70% to 25% since Bethesda wants their cut as well. This means they're asked for more effort than a TF2 marketplace item for one third the profit. This illustrates just how much of a raw deal the mod makers are getting here.
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
If one for sale mod relies on a second for sale mod, and that second for sale mod is withdrawn from the market, does the first modder, or Bethesda, have the right to compell sale of that mod? If so, and the second mod is intentionally broken, who is responsible for fixing it? The modder, who doesn't have any legal right to it? Or Bethesda, who claims total ownership?
Bethesda could force the mod to stay on sale, though I don't think they'd actually do it; I think that Valve even had some hangups with the Fishing Mod that was frontpaged on launch because Valve would not let him fully remove his mod from their display, or something. As for who is "responsible" for fixing it, nobody; one of the biggest flaws with the current system is basically that there's absolutely no oversight on mods and no good way to collaborate on mods or have mods that depend on each other, and a lot of oddities where paid mods may have dependencies on free mods or vice versa.
Well, now that there's money involved, let's suppose this is a very successful system. And then a mod that another mod is dependent upon breaks. So people who bought the depending mod complain that it doesn't work. At this point, let's say that your right and everyone throws up their hands. Product no longer works. Users file a class action suit against.....Steam? Valve? Bethesda? The modder who created the mod they bought? Or the modder who created the mod it is dependent on?
EDIT: To complicate matters, lets say that the mod that is being depended on is free and has been abandoned.
I don't think the real issue is that people may have to pay for mods. It's more that under the current system, the modmaker gets very little (if any) reward, it really fragments the modding community, and most of the profit goes to Valve and Bethesda.
They royally fucked it up.
Most of the issue is definitely about paying for mods. Paying for mods hurts the consumer in most situations except maybe the long-term, and all of the Reddit outrage is centered entirely on "I have to pay for things now, those corporations are so greedy." People loved when Gaben said they were going to update the "pay what you want" option to have a minimum payment of $0.00, which is exactly the same as the donation button they begged for except that the split is still developer set rather than being sent directly to the modder. The general mass of people complaining about this is certainly doing so because they now might have to pay for some mods, and many of the arguments are simply extensions of that.
That's what you want the argument to be, because it's easy for you to take apart. See "Strawman."
That's not the problem with this system. Reread the previous pages with an unbiased viewpoint and perhaps you'll see it.
?
Looking back a few pages, we see this, a post you yourself agreed with:
This sort of thing is a cat-out-of-the-bag situation: now that the possibility of paid mods exists the world has permanently changed and it will never recover.
From the consumer's view you lose out in every single way possible:
Some mods are no longer free, including ones people already used.
Some mod makers have removed their mods completely out of protest and some have removed them completely because they want you to buy their paid version instead.
Some mod makers have added ads to their mods to get you to buy their paid version.
A good portion of new mod makers will gravitate towards paid mods rather than free ones.
Some old mod makers will likely not make any more mods and possibly stop any work on their existing ones out of protest.
Free mod makers will not want their mod used as the base for a paid mod, some out of principle and some because they don't get a cut.
Copyright control of paid mods is nonexistant.
Quality control of paid mods is nonexistant.
Refunds are effectively nonexistant.
Blizzard saw similar writing on the wall when multiple mods for World of Warcraft started trying to charge and were using lua obfuscation programs to make their code completely unreadable as the means for that to be possible. They cut the cancer out before it took root and ruined the game's modding community. Here Valve did the exact opposite and not only transplanted a cancer into the body, they did it secretly and then revealed to them months later with a flourish "look at what I've done, you should be thanking me for this!"
The most agreed post from the past two pages (not including a "don't buy Bethesda" post) is specifically pointing out that paying for mods at all is an issue. I responded to a post that specifically said that paying for mods "isn't the real issue." Yes, the current argument here has gravitated away from "paying for mods is bad" in the last page, but it's certainly public sentiment, and besides calling it Reddit outrage I didn't even argue against the idea. Paying for mods is bad for the consumer, at least in all situations but some very long term cases.
I think you need to look at things from a less combative viewpoint. I'm not trying to pick apart arguments, I'm just responding to a post that contained (what I believe to be) an error.
People are looking at the existing mods and going "I wouldn't pay for any of these" partly because yes, some are entitled and only want mods to be free, but that's a vocal minority equivalent to people crying about a torrent website being taken down. The majority are balking because next to none of the mods are at a quality level people feel comfortable with paying for, especially at the prices being asked for some of them (which is facilitated by how huge of a cut Bethesda is asking for). Part of that is because the game they're working on as a base is barely professional quality itself, making the efforts needed for modmakers to make their mods professional absolutely herculean. Another part is that no one was doing it as a job so they focused on the main path and ignored edge cases, including interopability with other mods. Either way, out of the existing mod crop only a tiny minority would be considered professional quality and out of those only a small percent have decided to go paid.
Aside from that, I take exception to the idea that modders are people who want to make games but can't for whatever reason. There's a ton of game engines out there that would allow a modder to make their own game with just as much or less effort as it is to make content for Skyrim. They make mods for Skyrim because they love the game and want to make it better, not because they secretly want to make their own game. Some mod makers have jumped at the concept of being paid for their mods, but I'd argue they did so feet first and without thinking it through completely.
I also take exception to trying to point at TF2's marketplace as a positive example of this sort of thing working. The TF2 marketplace only allows you to buy things that work within the TF2 sandbox, specifically models and maps. Not only that, the cut is Valve's 30% alone, leaving 70% for the creator. The mod marketplace loses the sandbox so the possibility of incompatibilities and bugs increases infinitely because it's going up from 0% to some positive percent. The expectation of quality due to the lack of sandbox rises just as much since people will not tolerate their $5 mod erasing or corrupting their save when they would have if it were a free mod. The cut for creators goes down from 70% to 25% since Bethesda wants their cut as well. This means they're asked for more effort than a TF2 marketplace item for one third the profit. This illustrates just how much of a raw deal the mod makers are getting here.
Where are you getting the 30% quote?
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? 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.
If one for sale mod relies on a second for sale mod, and that second for sale mod is withdrawn from the market, does the first modder, or Bethesda, have the right to compell sale of that mod? If so, and the second mod is intentionally broken, who is responsible for fixing it? The modder, who doesn't have any legal right to it? Or Bethesda, who claims total ownership?
Bethesda could force the mod to stay on sale, though I don't think they'd actually do it; I think that Valve even had some hangups with the Fishing Mod that was frontpaged on launch because Valve would not let him fully remove his mod from their display, or something. As for who is "responsible" for fixing it, nobody; one of the biggest flaws with the current system is basically that there's absolutely no oversight on mods and no good way to collaborate on mods or have mods that depend on each other, and a lot of oddities where paid mods may have dependencies on free mods or vice versa.
Well, now that there's money involved, let's suppose this is a very successful system. And then a mod that another mod is dependent upon breaks. So people who bought the depending mod complain that it doesn't work. At this point, let's say that your right and everyone throws up their hands. Product no longer works. Users file a class action suit against.....Steam? Valve? Bethesda? The modder who created the mod they bought? Or the modder who created the mod it is dependent on?
EDIT: To complicate matters, lets say that the mod that is being depended on is free and has been abandoned.
The answer is "tough shit." As I said, the current system has no quality control and no systems in place for this, but all the risk is on the buyer. The buyer would most likely have no legal recourse because there was no promise of functioning content and there are "Buyer Beware" type signs everywhere. Is it a good system? No. Do I think there would actually be any sort of feasible legal action against Valve or Bethesda if mods stopped working? Also no; the EULA for Bethesda and (probably) for Steam makes it clear that they aren't responsible for you using mods to fuck up your game. Even introducing money doesn't really make the modder beware less applicable, given I haven't heard of any remotely successful lawsuits against Greenlight, Kickstarter, Patreon, Indiegogo, or anything else where buyers frequently spend money to get a nonfunctioning product.
I don't think the real issue is that people may have to pay for mods. It's more that under the current system, the modmaker gets very little (if any) reward, it really fragments the modding community, and most of the profit goes to Valve and Bethesda.
They royally fucked it up.
Most of the issue is definitely about paying for mods. Paying for mods hurts the consumer in most situations except maybe the long-term, and all of the Reddit outrage is centered entirely on "I have to pay for things now, those corporations are so greedy." People loved when Gaben said they were going to update the "pay what you want" option to have a minimum payment of $0.00, which is exactly the same as the donation button they begged for except that the split is still developer set rather than being sent directly to the modder. The general mass of people complaining about this is certainly doing so because they now might have to pay for some mods, and many of the arguments are simply extensions of that.
That's what you want the argument to be, because it's easy for you to take apart. See "Strawman."
That's not the problem with this system. Reread the previous pages with an unbiased viewpoint and perhaps you'll see it.
?
Looking back a few pages, we see this, a post you yourself agreed with:
This sort of thing is a cat-out-of-the-bag situation: now that the possibility of paid mods exists the world has permanently changed and it will never recover.
From the consumer's view you lose out in every single way possible:
Some mods are no longer free, including ones people already used.
Some mod makers have removed their mods completely out of protest and some have removed them completely because they want you to buy their paid version instead.
Some mod makers have added ads to their mods to get you to buy their paid version.
A good portion of new mod makers will gravitate towards paid mods rather than free ones.
Some old mod makers will likely not make any more mods and possibly stop any work on their existing ones out of protest.
Free mod makers will not want their mod used as the base for a paid mod, some out of principle and some because they don't get a cut.
Copyright control of paid mods is nonexistant.
Quality control of paid mods is nonexistant.
Refunds are effectively nonexistant.
Blizzard saw similar writing on the wall when multiple mods for World of Warcraft started trying to charge and were using lua obfuscation programs to make their code completely unreadable as the means for that to be possible. They cut the cancer out before it took root and ruined the game's modding community. Here Valve did the exact opposite and not only transplanted a cancer into the body, they did it secretly and then revealed to them months later with a flourish "look at what I've done, you should be thanking me for this!"
The most agreed post from the past two pages (not including a "don't buy Bethesda" post) is specifically pointing out that paying for mods at all is an issue. I responded to a post that specifically said that paying for mods "isn't the real issue." Yes, the current argument here has gravitated away from "paying for mods is bad" in the last page, but it's certainly public sentiment, and besides calling it Reddit outrage I didn't even argue against the idea. Paying for mods is bad for the consumer, at least in all situations but some very long term cases.
I think you need to look at things from a less combative viewpoint. I'm not trying to pick apart arguments, I'm just responding to a post that contained (what I believe to be) an error.
People are looking at the existing mods and going "I wouldn't pay for any of these" partly because yes, some are entitled and only want mods to be free, but that's a vocal minority equivalent to people crying about a torrent website being taken down. The majority are balking because next to none of the mods are at a quality level people feel comfortable with paying for, especially at the prices being asked for some of them (which is facilitated by how huge of a cut Bethesda is asking for). Part of that is because the game they're working on as a base is barely professional quality itself, making the efforts needed for modmakers to make their mods professional absolutely herculean. Another part is that no one was doing it as a job so they focused on the main path and ignored edge cases, including interopability with other mods. Either way, out of the existing mod crop only a tiny minority would be considered professional quality and out of those only a small percent have decided to go paid.
Aside from that, I take exception to the idea that modders are people who want to make games but can't for whatever reason. There's a ton of game engines out there that would allow a modder to make their own game with just as much or less effort as it is to make content for Skyrim. They make mods for Skyrim because they love the game and want to make it better, not because they secretly want to make their own game. Some mod makers have jumped at the concept of being paid for their mods, but I'd argue they did so feet first and without thinking it through completely.
I also take exception to trying to point at TF2's marketplace as a positive example of this sort of thing working. The TF2 marketplace only allows you to buy things that work within the TF2 sandbox, specifically models and maps. Not only that, the cut is Valve's 30% alone, leaving 70% for the creator. The mod marketplace loses the sandbox so the possibility of incompatibilities and bugs increases infinitely because it's going up from 0% to some positive percent. The expectation of quality due to the lack of sandbox rises just as much since people will not tolerate their $5 mod erasing or corrupting their save when they would have if it were a free mod. The cut for creators goes down from 70% to 25% since Bethesda wants their cut as well. This means they're asked for more effort than a TF2 marketplace item for one third the profit. This illustrates just how much of a raw deal the mod makers are getting here.
Where are you getting the 30% quote?
Valve has stated that they take 30% in all cases and the game developer decides the rest of the modder/30% split. 30% is also pretty standard; Itunes take 30%, I believe, as do app stores.
To Opty: I was not responding to your post specifically, and it's hard to tell how much of your post is directed at me or directed at people in general. I only brought up your post in that case because somebody was saying, basically, "nobody takes issue with mods costing money, just where it goes."
If one for sale mod relies on a second for sale mod, and that second for sale mod is withdrawn from the market, does the first modder, or Bethesda, have the right to compell sale of that mod? If so, and the second mod is intentionally broken, who is responsible for fixing it? The modder, who doesn't have any legal right to it? Or Bethesda, who claims total ownership?
Bethesda could force the mod to stay on sale, though I don't think they'd actually do it; I think that Valve even had some hangups with the Fishing Mod that was frontpaged on launch because Valve would not let him fully remove his mod from their display, or something. As for who is "responsible" for fixing it, nobody; one of the biggest flaws with the current system is basically that there's absolutely no oversight on mods and no good way to collaborate on mods or have mods that depend on each other, and a lot of oddities where paid mods may have dependencies on free mods or vice versa.
Well, now that there's money involved, let's suppose this is a very successful system. And then a mod that another mod is dependent upon breaks. So people who bought the depending mod complain that it doesn't work. At this point, let's say that your right and everyone throws up their hands. Product no longer works. Users file a class action suit against.....Steam? Valve? Bethesda? The modder who created the mod they bought? Or the modder who created the mod it is dependent on?
EDIT: To complicate matters, lets say that the mod that is being depended on is free and has been abandoned.
The answer is "tough shit." As I said, the current system has no quality control and no systems in place for this, but all the risk is on the buyer. The buyer would most likely have no legal recourse because there was no promise of functioning content and there are "Buyer Beware" type signs everywhere. Is it a good system? No. Do I think there would actually be any sort of feasible legal action against Valve or Bethesda if mods stopped working? Also no; the EULA for Bethesda and (probably) for Steam makes it clear that they aren't responsible for you using mods to fuck up your game. Even introducing money doesn't really make the modder beware less applicable, given I haven't heard of any remotely successful lawsuits against Greenlight, Kickstarter, Patreon, Indiegogo, or anything else where buyers frequently spend money to get a nonfunctioning product.
I don't think the real issue is that people may have to pay for mods. It's more that under the current system, the modmaker gets very little (if any) reward, it really fragments the modding community, and most of the profit goes to Valve and Bethesda.
They royally fucked it up.
Most of the issue is definitely about paying for mods. Paying for mods hurts the consumer in most situations except maybe the long-term, and all of the Reddit outrage is centered entirely on "I have to pay for things now, those corporations are so greedy." People loved when Gaben said they were going to update the "pay what you want" option to have a minimum payment of $0.00, which is exactly the same as the donation button they begged for except that the split is still developer set rather than being sent directly to the modder. The general mass of people complaining about this is certainly doing so because they now might have to pay for some mods, and many of the arguments are simply extensions of that.
That's what you want the argument to be, because it's easy for you to take apart. See "Strawman."
That's not the problem with this system. Reread the previous pages with an unbiased viewpoint and perhaps you'll see it.
?
Looking back a few pages, we see this, a post you yourself agreed with:
This sort of thing is a cat-out-of-the-bag situation: now that the possibility of paid mods exists the world has permanently changed and it will never recover.
From the consumer's view you lose out in every single way possible:
Some mods are no longer free, including ones people already used.
Some mod makers have removed their mods completely out of protest and some have removed them completely because they want you to buy their paid version instead.
Some mod makers have added ads to their mods to get you to buy their paid version.
A good portion of new mod makers will gravitate towards paid mods rather than free ones.
Some old mod makers will likely not make any more mods and possibly stop any work on their existing ones out of protest.
Free mod makers will not want their mod used as the base for a paid mod, some out of principle and some because they don't get a cut.
Copyright control of paid mods is nonexistant.
Quality control of paid mods is nonexistant.
Refunds are effectively nonexistant.
Blizzard saw similar writing on the wall when multiple mods for World of Warcraft started trying to charge and were using lua obfuscation programs to make their code completely unreadable as the means for that to be possible. They cut the cancer out before it took root and ruined the game's modding community. Here Valve did the exact opposite and not only transplanted a cancer into the body, they did it secretly and then revealed to them months later with a flourish "look at what I've done, you should be thanking me for this!"
The most agreed post from the past two pages (not including a "don't buy Bethesda" post) is specifically pointing out that paying for mods at all is an issue. I responded to a post that specifically said that paying for mods "isn't the real issue." Yes, the current argument here has gravitated away from "paying for mods is bad" in the last page, but it's certainly public sentiment, and besides calling it Reddit outrage I didn't even argue against the idea. Paying for mods is bad for the consumer, at least in all situations but some very long term cases.
I think you need to look at things from a less combative viewpoint. I'm not trying to pick apart arguments, I'm just responding to a post that contained (what I believe to be) an error.
People are looking at the existing mods and going "I wouldn't pay for any of these" partly because yes, some are entitled and only want mods to be free, but that's a vocal minority equivalent to people crying about a torrent website being taken down. The majority are balking because next to none of the mods are at a quality level people feel comfortable with paying for, especially at the prices being asked for some of them (which is facilitated by how huge of a cut Bethesda is asking for). Part of that is because the game they're working on as a base is barely professional quality itself, making the efforts needed for modmakers to make their mods professional absolutely herculean. Another part is that no one was doing it as a job so they focused on the main path and ignored edge cases, including interopability with other mods. Either way, out of the existing mod crop only a tiny minority would be considered professional quality and out of those only a small percent have decided to go paid.
Aside from that, I take exception to the idea that modders are people who want to make games but can't for whatever reason. There's a ton of game engines out there that would allow a modder to make their own game with just as much or less effort as it is to make content for Skyrim. They make mods for Skyrim because they love the game and want to make it better, not because they secretly want to make their own game. Some mod makers have jumped at the concept of being paid for their mods, but I'd argue they did so feet first and without thinking it through completely.
I also take exception to trying to point at TF2's marketplace as a positive example of this sort of thing working. The TF2 marketplace only allows you to buy things that work within the TF2 sandbox, specifically models and maps. Not only that, the cut is Valve's 30% alone, leaving 70% for the creator. The mod marketplace loses the sandbox so the possibility of incompatibilities and bugs increases infinitely because it's going up from 0% to some positive percent. The expectation of quality due to the lack of sandbox rises just as much since people will not tolerate their $5 mod erasing or corrupting their save when they would have if it were a free mod. The cut for creators goes down from 70% to 25% since Bethesda wants their cut as well. This means they're asked for more effort than a TF2 marketplace item for one third the profit. This illustrates just how much of a raw deal the mod makers are getting here.
Where are you getting the 30% quote?
Valve has stated that they take 30% in all cases and the game developer decides the rest of the modder/30% split. 30% is also pretty standard; Itunes take 30%, I believe, as do app stores.
To Opty: I was not responding to your post specifically, and it's hard to tell how much of your post is directed at me or directed at people in general. I only brought up your post in that case because somebody was saying, basically, "nobody takes issue with mods costing money, just where it goes."
TF2 takes 75% the last I heard.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? 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.
So if people download mods that people make for free, for fun, on their own time, and don't give the mod-maker money, that's exploitation? But if the mods go up for money and 75% of the money gets taken off the top before considerations for the mod-makers even begin, that's not exploitation?
That is a pretty terrible argument.
People have been telling Valve for ages to put a donation button with Workshop mods; instead, Valve came up with this insanity, where the actual content creators barely even get consideration for their work. It doesn't get much more exploitative than telling people you have more rights to any money made off their work than the actual people making the content.
Because it's not exploitation if corporations do it, silly.
People who really want to support the modders should be pushing for the community to encourage more donations. Modders get 100% of donations.
As for the argument that "What modders are getting is a similar cut to what other creative types get elsewhere" - that's an argument for lifting those other people up, not perpetuating the race to the bottom.
Actually, it's because they agree to it. There is nothing compelling them to sell their mods. They don't somehow lose their access to the free workshop. They can go along in the exact same way they always have and none of this matters to them.
People seem to be glossing over this incredibly important fact.
The system is voluntary. Workshop still supports free mods. Nexus still exists. No one is putting a gun to anyone's head.
These actions, these choices, these agreements, are 100% in the ballpark of the content creator. They signed up. They agreed to the cut. They set the price.
It's my understanding that EULAs have about as much legal binding as a scrap of toilet paper, which is why corporations actively and quickly settle or dismiss any claims that may come to court and challenge their validity. Concrete case law against EULAs would be devastating. The idea of "Buyer Beware" also doesn't fly in many European countries (and doesn't really fly in the US, either, in modern times).
EULA's might not have a whole lot of binding power in a lot of respects, but I'm pretty sure in terms of IP and "license versus ownership" they're relatively strong (at least in the US). If nothing else, Bethesda could just throw up their hands and go back to "mods can't be sold at all" if there was actually a challenge to "mods can be sold with us taking a cut," because they certainly have successfully argued the former.
I ate an engineer
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
EULA's might not have a whole lot of binding power in a lot of respects, but I'm pretty sure in terms of IP and "license versus ownership" they're relatively strong (at least in the US). If nothing else, Bethesda could just throw up their hands and go back to "mods can't be sold at all" if there was actually a challenge to "mods can be sold with us taking a cut," because they certainly have successfully argued the former.
There are a ton of RPGMaker-based games on Big Fish that seem popular. Some of them are long-running series, and it's hard to believe that they'd be getting third and fourth entries if the early ones didn't sell.
I realize that Big Fish flies well under the radar for most traditional PC gamers, but it has comfortably carved out its own market segment and does very well by itself.
So if people download mods that people make for free, for fun, on their own time, and don't give the mod-maker money, that's exploitation? But if the mods go up for money and 75% of the money gets taken off the top before considerations for the mod-makers even begin, that's not exploitation?
That is a pretty terrible argument.
People have been telling Valve for ages to put a donation button with Workshop mods; instead, Valve came up with this insanity, where the actual content creators barely even get consideration for their work. It doesn't get much more exploitative than telling people you have more rights to any money made off their work than the actual people making the content.
Because it's not exploitation if corporations do it, silly.
People who really want to support the modders should be pushing for the community to encourage more donations. Modders get 100% of donations.
As for the argument that "What modders are getting is a similar cut to what other creative types get elsewhere" - that's an argument for lifting those other people up, not perpetuating the race to the bottom.
Actually, it's because they agree to it. There is nothing compelling them to sell their mods. They don't somehow lose their access to the free workshop. They can go along in the exact same way they always have and none of this matters to them.
People seem to be glossing over this incredibly important fact.
The system is voluntary. Workshop still supports free mods. Nexus still exists. No one is putting a gun to anyone's head.
These actions, these choices, these agreements, are 100% in the ballpark of the content creator. They signed up. They agreed to the cut. They set the price.
All on them.
The root of the problem is you're getting naive people who have no idea about economics or anything about selling product and enticing them into your program with "We're offering you this deal since you're such a big awesome mod maker! If you don't accept then you'll never get paid for your mods ever (because we'll sue you into oblivion if you try)! 25% is more than 0%, right? Eh? Right? Eh?!?" and elbowing them excessively until they accept. Then whenever they have questions during the secret project you handwave them away or answer just right so they'll stick around rather than abandon you. It is straight up exploitation and the fact people went with it voluntarily is more to do so with the tactics Valve used to convince them than any active want on their side.
So if people download mods that people make for free, for fun, on their own time, and don't give the mod-maker money, that's exploitation? But if the mods go up for money and 75% of the money gets taken off the top before considerations for the mod-makers even begin, that's not exploitation?
That is a pretty terrible argument.
People have been telling Valve for ages to put a donation button with Workshop mods; instead, Valve came up with this insanity, where the actual content creators barely even get consideration for their work. It doesn't get much more exploitative than telling people you have more rights to any money made off their work than the actual people making the content.
Because it's not exploitation if corporations do it, silly.
People who really want to support the modders should be pushing for the community to encourage more donations. Modders get 100% of donations.
As for the argument that "What modders are getting is a similar cut to what other creative types get elsewhere" - that's an argument for lifting those other people up, not perpetuating the race to the bottom.
Actually, it's because they agree to it. There is nothing compelling them to sell their mods. They don't somehow lose their access to the free workshop. They can go along in the exact same way they always have and none of this matters to them.
People seem to be glossing over this incredibly important fact.
The system is voluntary. Workshop still supports free mods. Nexus still exists. No one is putting a gun to anyone's head.
These actions, these choices, these agreements, are 100% in the ballpark of the content creator. They signed up. They agreed to the cut. They set the price.
All on them.
The root of the problem is you're getting naive people who have no idea about economics or anything about selling product and enticing them into your program with "We're offering you this deal since you're such a big awesome mod maker! If you don't accept then you'll never get paid for your mods ever (because we'll sue you into oblivion if you try)! 25% is more than 0%, right? Eh? Right? Eh?!?" and elbowing them excessively until they accept. Then whenever they have questions during the secret project you handwave them away or answer just right so they'll stick around rather than abandon you. It is straight up exploitation and the fact people went with it voluntarily is more to do so with the tactics Valve used to convince them than any active want on their side.
Let me know when someone gets sued for accepting donations.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? 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.
I like how the whole thing is a straw man with no actual facts or data that assumes the mod makers are literally too stupid to know what's good for them.
I'm sure that's exactly how it went down.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
So if people download mods that people make for free, for fun, on their own time, and don't give the mod-maker money, that's exploitation? But if the mods go up for money and 75% of the money gets taken off the top before considerations for the mod-makers even begin, that's not exploitation?
That is a pretty terrible argument.
People have been telling Valve for ages to put a donation button with Workshop mods; instead, Valve came up with this insanity, where the actual content creators barely even get consideration for their work. It doesn't get much more exploitative than telling people you have more rights to any money made off their work than the actual people making the content.
Because it's not exploitation if corporations do it, silly.
People who really want to support the modders should be pushing for the community to encourage more donations. Modders get 100% of donations.
As for the argument that "What modders are getting is a similar cut to what other creative types get elsewhere" - that's an argument for lifting those other people up, not perpetuating the race to the bottom.
Actually, it's because they agree to it. There is nothing compelling them to sell their mods. They don't somehow lose their access to the free workshop. They can go along in the exact same way they always have and none of this matters to them.
People seem to be glossing over this incredibly important fact.
The system is voluntary. Workshop still supports free mods. Nexus still exists. No one is putting a gun to anyone's head.
These actions, these choices, these agreements, are 100% in the ballpark of the content creator. They signed up. They agreed to the cut. They set the price.
All on them.
The root of the problem is you're getting naive people who have no idea about economics or anything about selling product and enticing them into your program with "We're offering you this deal since you're such a big awesome mod maker! If you don't accept then you'll never get paid for your mods ever (because we'll sue you into oblivion if you try)! 25% is more than 0%, right? Eh? Right? Eh?!?" and elbowing them excessively until they accept. Then whenever they have questions during the secret project you handwave them away or answer just right so they'll stick around rather than abandon you. It is straight up exploitation and the fact people went with it voluntarily is more to do so with the tactics Valve used to convince them than any active want on their side.
Let me know when someone gets sued for accepting donations.
Pretty sure he's talking about somebody getting sued for charging for a mod without publisher approval, not for somebody accepting donations for a mod. Because the former would certainly have legal grounds for a lawsuit as they're creating unlicensed content for a fee and violating IP law, and the latter is people deciding a mod is impressive enough to merit tossing some money towards the mod dev for the effort.
No one in their right mind would ever take a 25% deal like this, so yes I'm saying anyone who took it is literally too stupid to know what's good for them. Valve basically set up a prisoner's dilemma to convince the modders to participate.
No one in their right mind would ever take a 25% deal like this, so yes I'm saying anyone who took it is literally too stupid to know what's good for them. Valve basically set up a prisoner's dilemma to convince the modders to participate.
No one in their right mind would ever take a 25% deal like this, so yes I'm saying anyone who took it is literally too stupid to know what's good for them. Valve basically set up a prisoner's dilemma to convince the modders to participate.
Why not this 25% deal in particular
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? 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.
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MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
So now the argument as far as I can tell is that modders are too dumb to make their own decisions therefore all mods should be free.
I think I'm missing why it was stupid for the modders to accept the offer? When your options are "25% of an unknown number of sales" versus "100% of 0 sales" the decision seems pretty clear cut, if you're interested in making money.
Now, you could say that both of those options suck and they should have tried to arrange a better deal for themselves, but a random modder is not going to be in a good position to negotiate with two of the gaming world's largest companies
No one in their right mind would ever take a 25% deal like this, so yes I'm saying anyone who took it is literally too stupid to know what's good for them. Valve basically set up a prisoner's dilemma to convince the modders to participate.
Desperation makes people do weird things.
Is it even desperation? Their options are "don't sell their mod" or "sell their mod for a poor cut." I don't think any of them were living off of their mods before, so I don't think we can assume all of them are desperate for income from modding.
I'm also not sure how "nobody in their right mind" would take this deal. It doesn't benefit them hugely, but I can certainly see somebody caring more about getting a payout than having more "exposure" via people playing their mod, and caring about both of those way more than they care about arguing their importance to Bethesda.
EDIT: To be clear, yes, the deal is not particularly favorable to modders, and yes, the income most modders earn will be trivial and certainly wouldn't be a "good decision" if you consider pay per hour, but that doesn't make it irrational to upgrade from $0.00 per hour to $0.05 per hour. It means it'd be irrational to try to mod entirely for making money, though.
So now the argument as far as I can tell is that modders are too dumb to make their own decisions therefore all mods should be free.
The modders shouldn't have bought into this deal because it's absolutely terrible for them. That has nothing to do with the argument if mods should be paid or not and trying to connect the two is absolutely disingenuous.
I think I'm missing why it was stupid for the modders to accept the offer? When your options are "25% of an unknown number of sales" versus "100% of 0 sales" the decision seems pretty clear cut, if you're interested in making money.
Now, you could say that both of those options suck and they should have tried to arrange a better deal for themselves, but a random modder is not going to be in a good position to negotiate with two of the gaming world's largest companies
This is exactly my point! If they had rolled it out with the 25% cut up front to the public, no one in the modding community would have bit because it would be obvious how bad a deal it was. What Valve did though made sure the modders involved wouldn't have that chance. They contacted them in secret, assured them other modders were signing up for their deal, floated the idea that this would be great for the modding community as a whole, and forbade them from talking to anyone else about it. When you're a random modder who's not in a good position to negotiate (or the idea of negotiating never even crosses your mind) and you're given a deal that you're not allowed to contact others to tell if it's good or not, then you're going to take the deal.
25% would be fine if you had extensive support, if Bethesda was giving you anything for that 45% other than an assurance they won't sue. That's not the case though, they're just set up to let money roll in while you do all of the work without any help from them. You're the face of the project and expected to act as developer, tester, and public relations for it. All of that work for the smallest cut of the pie is absolutely bonkers.
You are making two arguments and pretending they are identical, but they're very different.
The argument in this post: A 25% cut is terrible for how much work modders have to do on their individual mod. Sure, that's an argument you can make; we can discuss the importance of quality assurance and support, or how much value Bethesda giving you cheap development software and a large install base has, the value of the Steam marketplace as a platform, or any number of things.
The argument in the previous post: Accepting a 25% cut is stupid and irrational and Valve has set it up so modders are forced to choose to take the stupid and irrational 25% cut. This is absolutely not true; there is nothing forcing any developer to take the cut rather than keep their mod up for free, and there's nothing irrational about taking the only monetization option available if you care about incidental income.
Also, I don't see how this relates to the prisoner's dilemma.
If Bethesda won't support the modders and it ends up being more trouble than it's worth, it'll die and it'll deserve to die. The modders can walk away, maybe even from the game entirely, and Bethesda will be exposed as a bunch of lazy developers who don't really deserve a profitable modding community. Or Bethesda can turn over a new leaf, get encouraged by the actual benefit across the board the modders give, and actually work with them to deserve the reputation they somehow currently have.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? 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.
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It's better than nothing for the same effort?
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.
He chose to take Bethesda/Valve's deal and put his mod up for sale. Your opinion about what fair value would be doesn't really matter much, and I don't think anyone could claim with a straight face that he would have made even $1,000 in donations over the same (maybe any) period. Everyone in the chain is engaged in voluntary conduct from the IP-holder who allows modding to the modder who sets a price for his work to the consumer who chooses to pay it. I have a hard time thinking of any of these people as being exploited.
I agree. Similarly, I have a hard time as thinking of modders who do the same thing but instead opt to give their product away for free. Yet choco and Paladin would claim otherwise.
I would argue that Bethesda is exploiting the modding community since they include a license to use the Creation Kit when you purchase a license to use Skyrim. There was no indication that Bethesda would be claiming a portion of sales of mods in the future.
It's absolutely optional to charge for a mod, but Bethesda's history of simply ignoring game breaking bugs (The bug that makes Dawnguard destabilize the game that I get every playthrough was never even acknowledged by Bethesda, even though it's hugely documented online) and letting the modding community fix those bugs is already unethical, and then now their attempt to profit of such shoddy work further by claiming a cut of mods that fix the bugs that they themselves refuse to invest the money to fix is even moreso.
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.
I actually think modding could be a profitable activity, given a certain level of quality and trust for the mod's developers. Like, this is basically the history of Valve - Team Fortress was a mod, Counter-Strike was a mod, Day of Defeat was a mod, DOTA was a mod. "Mods becoming things that you pay for" is practically Valve's MO and I'm guessing that's why they seem to have been completely blind-sided by the negative response to this move. It's not something that really works for the Elder Scrolls games unless groups start throwing out expansion-sized mods.
If this announcement of paid mods had been bundled with the release of Source 2, I'd wager that the community response to it would have been considerably more pleasant.
Woah there cowboy. I've said time and again people can do whatever they want. Free mods are up to the mod maker. No one is taking them away.
My stance is there get to choose what they do. Simple as that. Valve gave them an avenue to monetize and that's super. If they don't want it, they don't have to sign up.
People here seem to be declaring that modders should operate in some arbitrary fashion just so they can keep getting stuff for free.
If modders got paid per unique install by the publisher no one would give a fuck because they wouldn't be paying. This is pretty much 100% people caring about their own wallet.
yeah that would have been awesome, but also sad that valve would yet again be the only company doing this
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.
I am pretty sure Bethesda's licensing specifically says they own all work you create, or something to that nature. So unlike Microsoft Office, Bethesda has a pretty strong legal standing to say "you can't sell your mods," or "you can't sell your mods without paying us our cut." Likewise, the 30% from Steamworks is probably in Steam's licensing agreement for basically anything sold on their platform. I am pretty certain licenses similar to Bethesda's have successfully argued you can't sell paid mods at all, so I have no doubt that allowing people to sell mods while taking a cut, even a huge one, would hold up in court. Obviously, despite "owning" the work done by modders, they don't just steal mods to sell them because that would be a huge backlash for limited financial reward. I assume their goal is to change the paradigm from "you can't sell mods" to "you can sell mods, as long as we get our cut," and both of those rely on the fact Bethesda 100% owns all mods created for Skyrim.
I agree, but if this business actually continues, I'm interested to see what happens when modders take Bethesda to court. I'm curious to see if the "We own everything you do if our stuff was used in its creation" would actually withstand a court challenge.
Yes? Like, that isn't even a question.
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.
If one for sale mod relies on a second for sale mod, and that second for sale mod is withdrawn from the market, does the first modder, or Bethesda, have the right to compell sale of that mod? If so, and the second mod is intentionally broken, who is responsible for fixing it? The modder, who doesn't have any legal right to it? Or Bethesda, who claims total ownership?
So if Adobe changed their EULA for use of their PDF format, they could claim a portion of every book sold in PDF format?
If their EULA claimed that they owned every work created in the PDF format, then yeah, they could do so. However, works created under the previous EULA would be exempt (since they didn't claim ownership then) and they might have trouble arguing that users were appropriately notified of such a huge change in EULA. Also it would be financial suicide and people would use another format.
But if all those hurdles were passed, then yeah, they could do so.
Because it's not exploitation if corporations do it, silly.
People who really want to support the modders should be pushing for the community to encourage more donations. Modders get 100% of donations.
As for the argument that "What modders are getting is a similar cut to what other creative types get elsewhere" - that's an argument for lifting those other people up, not perpetuating the race to the bottom.
Bethesda could force the mod to stay on sale, though I don't think they'd actually do it; I think that Valve even had some hangups with the Fishing Mod that was frontpaged on launch because Valve would not let him fully remove his mod from their display, or something. As for who is "responsible" for fixing it, nobody; one of the biggest flaws with the current system is basically that there's absolutely no oversight on mods and no good way to collaborate on mods or have mods that depend on each other, and a lot of oddities where paid mods may have dependencies on free mods or vice versa.
People are looking at the existing mods and going "I wouldn't pay for any of these" partly because yes, some are entitled and only want mods to be free, but that's a vocal minority equivalent to people crying about a torrent website being taken down. The majority are balking because next to none of the mods are at a quality level people feel comfortable with paying for, especially at the prices being asked for some of them (which is facilitated by how huge of a cut Bethesda is asking for). Part of that is because the game they're working on as a base is barely professional quality itself, making the efforts needed for modmakers to make their mods professional absolutely herculean. Another part is that no one was doing it as a job so they focused on the main path and ignored edge cases, including interopability with other mods. Either way, out of the existing mod crop only a tiny minority would be considered professional quality and out of those only a small percent have decided to go paid.
Aside from that, I take exception to the idea that modders are people who want to make games but can't for whatever reason. There's a ton of game engines out there that would allow a modder to make their own game with just as much or less effort as it is to make content for Skyrim. They make mods for Skyrim because they love the game and want to make it better, not because they secretly want to make their own game. Some mod makers have jumped at the concept of being paid for their mods, but I'd argue they did so feet first and without thinking it through completely.
I also take exception to trying to point at TF2's marketplace as a positive example of this sort of thing working. The TF2 marketplace only allows you to buy things that work within the TF2 sandbox, specifically models and maps. Not only that, the cut is Valve's 30% alone, leaving 70% for the creator. The mod marketplace loses the sandbox so the possibility of incompatibilities and bugs increases infinitely because it's going up from 0% to some positive percent. The expectation of quality due to the lack of sandbox rises just as much since people will not tolerate their $5 mod erasing or corrupting their save when they would have if it were a free mod. The cut for creators goes down from 70% to 25% since Bethesda wants their cut as well. This means they're asked for more effort than a TF2 marketplace item for one third the profit. This illustrates just how much of a raw deal the mod makers are getting here.
Well, now that there's money involved, let's suppose this is a very successful system. And then a mod that another mod is dependent upon breaks. So people who bought the depending mod complain that it doesn't work. At this point, let's say that your right and everyone throws up their hands. Product no longer works. Users file a class action suit against.....Steam? Valve? Bethesda? The modder who created the mod they bought? Or the modder who created the mod it is dependent on?
EDIT: To complicate matters, lets say that the mod that is being depended on is free and has been abandoned.
Where are you getting the 30% quote?
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.
The answer is "tough shit." As I said, the current system has no quality control and no systems in place for this, but all the risk is on the buyer. The buyer would most likely have no legal recourse because there was no promise of functioning content and there are "Buyer Beware" type signs everywhere. Is it a good system? No. Do I think there would actually be any sort of feasible legal action against Valve or Bethesda if mods stopped working? Also no; the EULA for Bethesda and (probably) for Steam makes it clear that they aren't responsible for you using mods to fuck up your game. Even introducing money doesn't really make the modder beware less applicable, given I haven't heard of any remotely successful lawsuits against Greenlight, Kickstarter, Patreon, Indiegogo, or anything else where buyers frequently spend money to get a nonfunctioning product.
Valve has stated that they take 30% in all cases and the game developer decides the rest of the modder/30% split. 30% is also pretty standard; Itunes take 30%, I believe, as do app stores.
To Opty: I was not responding to your post specifically, and it's hard to tell how much of your post is directed at me or directed at people in general. I only brought up your post in that case because somebody was saying, basically, "nobody takes issue with mods costing money, just where it goes."
TF2 takes 75% the last I heard.
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.
Actually, it's because they agree to it. There is nothing compelling them to sell their mods. They don't somehow lose their access to the free workshop. They can go along in the exact same way they always have and none of this matters to them.
People seem to be glossing over this incredibly important fact.
The system is voluntary. Workshop still supports free mods. Nexus still exists. No one is putting a gun to anyone's head.
These actions, these choices, these agreements, are 100% in the ballpark of the content creator. They signed up. They agreed to the cut. They set the price.
All on them.
It depends on who brings the suit, and why.
There are a ton of RPGMaker-based games on Big Fish that seem popular. Some of them are long-running series, and it's hard to believe that they'd be getting third and fourth entries if the early ones didn't sell.
I realize that Big Fish flies well under the radar for most traditional PC gamers, but it has comfortably carved out its own market segment and does very well by itself.
The root of the problem is you're getting naive people who have no idea about economics or anything about selling product and enticing them into your program with "We're offering you this deal since you're such a big awesome mod maker! If you don't accept then you'll never get paid for your mods ever (because we'll sue you into oblivion if you try)! 25% is more than 0%, right? Eh? Right? Eh?!?" and elbowing them excessively until they accept. Then whenever they have questions during the secret project you handwave them away or answer just right so they'll stick around rather than abandon you. It is straight up exploitation and the fact people went with it voluntarily is more to do so with the tactics Valve used to convince them than any active want on their side.
Let me know when someone gets sued for accepting donations.
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.
I'm sure that's exactly how it went down.
Pretty sure he's talking about somebody getting sued for charging for a mod without publisher approval, not for somebody accepting donations for a mod. Because the former would certainly have legal grounds for a lawsuit as they're creating unlicensed content for a fee and violating IP law, and the latter is people deciding a mod is impressive enough to merit tossing some money towards the mod dev for the effort.
Why not this 25% deal in particular
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.
Now, you could say that both of those options suck and they should have tried to arrange a better deal for themselves, but a random modder is not going to be in a good position to negotiate with two of the gaming world's largest companies
Is it even desperation? Their options are "don't sell their mod" or "sell their mod for a poor cut." I don't think any of them were living off of their mods before, so I don't think we can assume all of them are desperate for income from modding.
I'm also not sure how "nobody in their right mind" would take this deal. It doesn't benefit them hugely, but I can certainly see somebody caring more about getting a payout than having more "exposure" via people playing their mod, and caring about both of those way more than they care about arguing their importance to Bethesda.
EDIT: To be clear, yes, the deal is not particularly favorable to modders, and yes, the income most modders earn will be trivial and certainly wouldn't be a "good decision" if you consider pay per hour, but that doesn't make it irrational to upgrade from $0.00 per hour to $0.05 per hour. It means it'd be irrational to try to mod entirely for making money, though.
This is exactly my point! If they had rolled it out with the 25% cut up front to the public, no one in the modding community would have bit because it would be obvious how bad a deal it was. What Valve did though made sure the modders involved wouldn't have that chance. They contacted them in secret, assured them other modders were signing up for their deal, floated the idea that this would be great for the modding community as a whole, and forbade them from talking to anyone else about it. When you're a random modder who's not in a good position to negotiate (or the idea of negotiating never even crosses your mind) and you're given a deal that you're not allowed to contact others to tell if it's good or not, then you're going to take the deal.
You are making two arguments and pretending they are identical, but they're very different.
The argument in this post: A 25% cut is terrible for how much work modders have to do on their individual mod. Sure, that's an argument you can make; we can discuss the importance of quality assurance and support, or how much value Bethesda giving you cheap development software and a large install base has, the value of the Steam marketplace as a platform, or any number of things.
The argument in the previous post: Accepting a 25% cut is stupid and irrational and Valve has set it up so modders are forced to choose to take the stupid and irrational 25% cut. This is absolutely not true; there is nothing forcing any developer to take the cut rather than keep their mod up for free, and there's nothing irrational about taking the only monetization option available if you care about incidental income.
Also, I don't see how this relates to the prisoner's dilemma.
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.