Personally I find outrageous that steam now has PAID MODS.
Yes, now some mods require payment for use. Taken down from Nexus too.
I'm not sure why would anyone in their sanemind would want to pay for a mod

hey, you forgot something

and this

you're not the only one who thinks this is a bad move on bethesda's part. wth are they thinking?

i guess it must've slipped my mind for a moment that when it comes to video games, EVERYTHING must be monetized. right, EA and mobile game devs?

greed, greed, greed, makes the world go round. the more of it i see, the more true it seems.

Because, as with other types of art, by supporting them monetarily you help pay for their normal cost of living and allow them to work less and dedicate more of their time and energy into producing quality mods for you to use.

Makes sense to me. Not necessarily a good idea, but it may be an effective way to get a higher quality of mod.
Paid mods also already exist, they are otherwise known as official expansion packs/DLC. So there is no reason to presume that mod necessarily == mediocre quality.

Of course, as someone who exclusively uses open source software and generally avoids games, no game or mod maker would get any of my money anyway.

The mod author only gets a 25% cut of the total. Rest goes to Valve and Bethesda. And the minimum payment is $100 USD, so the authors mods need to sell for combined total of $400 USD for the author to get the first payment.

How many mods will actually sell that well, once the market is flooded with them? Will cosmetic items actually manage to sell thousand copies, when there's hundreds of free alternatives? I somehow doubt that. Most free mods don't even hit hundred subscriptions on Steam.

huh, just saw this if anyone here watches his videos on youtube, AlphaOmegaSin posted a video about this topic yesterday (see link).

parasprite said:
Because, as with other types of art, by supporting them monetarily you help pay for their normal cost of living and allow them to work less and dedicate more of their time and energy into producing quality mods for you to use.

That might be true for other types of art, but unlike most of commission artists around, these dudes have to split the share with both bethesda AND valve. Not just a fee from paypal and such.

On a pretty ironic side, since Steam Workshop doesn't allow sexual related content. Pornographic mods probably will be free (Unless porn modders get greedy too)

EDIT: The money is most likely to end in STEAM WALLET. The only thing you can buy with it is games on steam.

Creating mods, even simple ones, requires quite a bit of technical skill and is incredibly time-consuming.

If OP is saying he wouldn't pay for mods, that just means he is not getting enough utility from them to pay. But that doesn't mean other people won't.

Honestly, people are lucky they got free mods for as long as they did. Yes, money pretty much is everything.

Ozelot said:
Creating mods, even simple ones, requires quite a bit of technical skill and is incredibly time-consuming.

If OP is saying he wouldn't pay for mods, that just means he is not getting enough utility from them to pay. But that doesn't mean other people won't.

Honestly, people are lucky they got free mods for as long as they did. Yes, money pretty much is everything.

They were free on older games because they are derivative works and were forced to be free by Bethesda. And I'm still pretty certain the TOS of the creation kit specifies this. The really interesting question however is: What if people sell mods where Bethesda doesn't get a share? Do they allow that? Will they send lawyers?

This will likely get hilarious soon.

Besides that, download the mod, copy the mod files, ask for a refund, profit.
Skyrim needs the original file to work and the exe doesn't support anything fancy in terms of copyright management, and steam doesn't recognize mods when the game is started through the skse.
I give it a week until there is a dedicated mod piracy site for this.

pay 100$ for horse butthole

Mutisija said:
pay 100$ for horse butthole

Or download it for free through Nexus.
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/9279/

I don't really care, but it sounds pretty dumb.
If a mod really is so good that is deserves a paywall, then some will buy it - But most wont. The popularity of the TES mods that have turned to using the paywall will probably drop to almost zero.

And again, it's a pointless effort since sharing of said mods between users is ridiculously easy.

Mutisija said:
pay 100$ for horse butthole

Almost as bad as the "nude jiggly titties huge boobs" mods.
One of the reasons why the TES community sucks so much.
Funnily enough the "huge jiggly jugs" and "horse doughnut" mods would sell better than any other mod if they were on Steam.

edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDyXIXyAZq0

paintedfox said:
Or download it for free through Nexus.
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/9279/

i'm almost certain that would end up being used with other mods for porn. pretty sure his oblivion mods played a role in most, if not all oblivion porn too though i may be mistaken. that said, the guy does make some nice mods (used some on oblivion myself >.>).

Ozelot said:
Creating mods, even simple ones, requires quite a bit of technical skill and is incredibly time-consuming.

If OP is saying he wouldn't pay for mods, that just means he is not getting enough utility from them to pay. But that doesn't mean other people won't.

Honestly, people are lucky they got free mods for as long as they did. Yes, money pretty much is everything.

My opinion is not based on monetary reasons, but in the very concept of the sharing of information.

I'm learning to do mods, and even done some of them, and I gladly shared the one I managed to complete on my free time, like many other people, not all of course, but at least some I've talked to, the knowledge that someone enjoy what you did is a good enough reward.

And now greedy enterprises and people want to turn mods into DLC.

Qmannn said:
Bethesda isn't the only company that is having mods of its game sold.

Valve, too.

I'm glad you made this topic, because I completely forgot about Aperture Tag. Now this is something I might be willing to spend $5 on.

Well, it was an idea of both Bethesda and Valve. I'm not agaisnt paying for stuff that re-defines gameplay, adds something new. But...

Mutisija said:
pay 100$ for horse butthole

It's just made for fools or the lulz

On a fun note: Since workshop doesn't allows sexual content, porn mods will be free, until they decide to patch skyrim so it only allows workshop stuff.

NoctemWerewolf said:
My opinion is not based on monetary reasons, but in the very concept of the sharing of information.

I'm learning to do mods, and even done some of them, and I gladly shared the one I managed to complete on my free time, like many other people, not all of course, but at least some I've talked to, the knowledge that someone enjoy what you did is a good enough reward.

And now greedy enterprises and people want to turn mods into DLC.

That's the basic Proprietary vs Open Source conflict. People need money to live, people want things to be developed freely and effectively. Only way to satisfy both of those is to be paid to develop open source software. Which does happen -- eg Krita , or commissioned OSS mods/software, but is rare.
Patreon also opens up the possibility of a similar 'best of both worlds' approach, where people get paid AND you can get to see how it works internally.
But those things are in their infancy. In the meantime, people mainly develop stuff for cash professionally, and maybe also develop different stuff (for free or not) in their spare time.

Certainly, although source code is a wonderful resource, and sharing it can build a community understanding greater than any individual has, you are not -entitled- to it.

NoctemWerewolf said:
My opinion is not based on monetary reasons, but in the very concept of the sharing of information.

I'm learning to do mods, and even done some of them, and I gladly shared the one I managed to complete on my free time, like many other people, not all of course, but at least some I've talked to, the knowledge that someone enjoy what you did is a good enough reward.

And now greedy enterprises and people want to turn mods into DLC.

Greed is good though. Unless you're telling me you'd like to go to your current employer and tell them you'd like to offer your services and time completely free of charge.

Ozelot said:
Greed is good though. Unless you're telling me you'd like to go to your current employer and tell them you'd like to offer your services and time completely free of charge.

you just reminded me of something i saw on the news one day...i forgot when but there was some ceo or something who cut his own salary by like $1 mill and raised his employees by uh...i don't remember. :( point i was trying to make though is while the vast majority is, not all corporate businessmen are driven mainly by greed...i think. oh, here it is that's what i was trying to remember.

guess it's kinda obvious that i don't usually pay much attention to news in general, huh? probably wouldn't have known about this modding commotion either if it weren't for NoctemWerewolf's thread here or alphaomegasin's youtube video since i only have skyrim on the xbox360.

savageorange said:
That's the basic Proprietary vs Open Source conflict. People need money to live, people want things to be developed freely and effectively. Only way to satisfy both of those is to be paid to develop open source software. Which does happen -- eg Krita , or commissioned OSS mods/software, but is rare.
Patreon also opens up the possibility of a similar 'best of both worlds' approach, where people get paid AND you can get to see how it works internally.
But those things are in their infancy. In the meantime, people mainly develop stuff for cash professionally, and maybe also develop different stuff (for free or not) in their spare time.

Certainly, although source code is a wonderful resource, and sharing it can build a community understanding greater than any individual has, you are not -entitled- to it.

In most ideal cases that would be perfect, however, when a company chooses to release an SDK, there are some limitations to what one can do. I.E, the play store for android. The last time I checked, anyone was free to download the SDK, however, if you want to release stuff in it, you must buy a license and agree to share the profits of it, a 70% going for the user and 30% for google and friends.

That's a Win-Win, isn't it?

Now let's see the Valve-Bethesda model: 75% to them, the guys alredy selling the games, 25% for the creator. Basically you work for them, give them profits and they give you a symbolic profit. And don't forget that the money stays on your steam wallet, which it's only useful to get stuff distributed by it.

Indeed in the end the original software belongs to the original creator, that's undeniable. However long before that business model was set, like in most of software that allow user created content and sharing it for free, modding was done because someone wanted to put/fix/tweak/rework something and most of people shared it because they wanted to, most of the time not expecting revenue of any kind.

I know I wasn't very clear about it at the start, but this is about selling something that was for free for years, and now that it's money driven, you only get to see 25% of what you do. Also, people seems to look over that eventually you'll be paying for something that either crashes your game or fries your computer because it wasn't optimized for all Pc's

In my opinion, this will deter the modders to do stuff. Either because it didn't gave them the profits they wanted, or because eventually, you'll have to buy the SDK, the license and require authorization to post mods, and by logic, the ability to install your own stuff.
In addition, that means no porn mods, no crossover/copyrighted content mods, and so on, basically killing the creativity by saying "You can't install/develop that"

Ozelot said:
Greed is good though. Unless you're telling me you'd like to go to your current employer and tell them you'd like to offer your services and time completely free of charge.

Almost the same in this particular scenario. You are just giving them revenue for something they are alredy getting revenue, and get a breadcrumb from the cake for what matters.

As far as I know you get better revenue by creating cosmetic stuff for Team Fortress 2 or Dota 2, talking of which, Free to Play games (with TF2 a special case, since it used to be a paid game) that began as mods... freely distributed.

I don't do mods but I think it is a bad idea to make people paid for things that should be free like DLC I hate those some of them should have come with the game but they didn't with the mods they should not make people paid rather see if there is away they could ask for donate or something like that

NoctemWerewolf said:
Now let's see the Valve-Bethesda model: 75% to them, the guys alredy selling the games, 25% for the creator. Basically you work for them, give them profits and they give you a symbolic profit. And don't forget that the money stays on your steam wallet, which it's only useful to get stuff distributed by it.

The money is not paid to the steam wallet, it can only be wired to a bank account.
The dude who said it only goes to the steam wallet didn't read the legal stuff steam offers on how to set it up, you can't even offer paid mods if you don't have a bank account set.

I wonder if the 25% share for the author is because the mods don't have to work, steam says if a mod isn't working the buyer should respectfully ask for a fix. Steam basically greenlit scam artists by not giving any expectations to the modders that their shit needs to Work, and the 24h refund window is seldom enough time to find out if a mod is going to break a savegame.

NotMeNotYou said:
The money is not paid to the steam wallet, it can only be wired to a bank account.
The dude who said it only goes to the steam wallet didn't read the legal stuff steam offers on how to set it up, you can't even offer paid mods if you don't have a bank account set.

I wonder if the 25% share for the author is because the mods don't have to work, steam says if a mod isn't working the buyer should respectfully ask for a fix. Steam basically greenlit scam artists by not giving any expectations to the modders that their shit needs to Work, and the 24h refund window is seldom enough time to find out if a mod is going to break a savegame.

Thanks for the update, although getting the money to a bank account is far more useful, I still think that the 25% win share is a too small, indeed I belive steam fucked up things without adding a quality standard to it.

Actually what you say is what bugs me most, because, as always, someone is going to take advantage of the situation, trying to scam and get away with all the posible money

And now it's been cancelled:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/04/27/valve-axes-paid-skyrim-mods
http://www.vg247.com/2015/04/28/paid-mods-steam-workshop-canned-cancelled-pulled-bethesda-valve/

I'm not surprised, since the feedback was overwhelmingly negative.

figured that would happen since it was so clear that most people didn't want them to try monetizing mods.

Genjar said:
And now it's been cancelled:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/04/27/valve-axes-paid-skyrim-mods
http://www.vg247.com/2015/04/28/paid-mods-steam-workshop-canned-cancelled-pulled-bethesda-valve/

I'm not surprised, since the feedback was overwhelmingly negative.

treos said:
figured that would happen since it was so clear that most people didn't want them to try monetizing mods.

Also don't forget the legal implications that could come out from people taking mods or stuff from them and claiming they did on their own. Much like the infamous fishing mod.

At least the mods won't have the same issue of both steam greenlight and early access, not that those are bad, but there is no quality control but users.

Genjar said:
And now it's been cancelled:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/04/27/valve-axes-paid-skyrim-mods
http://www.vg247.com/2015/04/28/paid-mods-steam-workshop-canned-cancelled-pulled-bethesda-valve/

I'm not surprised, since the feedback was overwhelmingly negative.

My Favorite part of Bethesda's blog entry about that was the part where they said that only the 8% of Skyrim players use mods.

That'll teach those idiot modders for wanting to be paid for their time.

Ozelot said:
That'll teach those idiot modders for wanting to be paid for their time.

Didn't they require people to accept payment for the service?
And also opted to give the creators 25% of the total sales cost?

andtheykindaforgottocurateormoderatethesystemidunno

I'm not sure how to feel about this whole situation.

I truly could go on and on about this topic, as game art one of my biggest passions, but the forums aren't my personal blog so I won't start. Suffice it to say, I think I'm happy that mods will stay like they are, a work for passion instead of profit. However, I'm also bummed that the modders who do so much work will almost never see an equivalent return.