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on Valve and Bethesda charging for mods
Apr. 27th, 2015 02:55 pm(originally posted on tumblr, in a shorter form.)
Valve started a program that allows modders to charge for their work. I believe Skyrim is the only game where this has been implemented so far, but I assume if it ends up being successful it will be a 'feature' added to other games. Even if it isn't particularly successful at first, I assume Valve will implement it on at least one of their own games just to get more data on how people respond to it.
I’m not opposed to paying for mods on principle. Depending on the game and the mod in question, it’s pretty amazing that there are people out there willing to put in so much work essentially fixing bugs for fee, without even hinting about donations out of respect (well, okay, and legal concerns) for the original developers and publishers.
what bothers me is the 75/25 Valve + publisher/modder split. I mean…that’s just a slap in the face when you consider mods like SkyUI literally fixed bugs that shouldn’t have been in a finished product to begin with. It was kinda slimy that Bethesda left a lot of quality control in the hands of the modding community to begin with, but then to act like they’re doing modders a favor by selling them while still raking in the vast majority of the profits from those sales…that’s basically profiting over having a game so buggy it requires mods to be playable. Even if the revenue split were less lopsided, the idea as implemented is still skeevy and exploitative. That Skyrim is the pilot game for the program--a game that is rather infamous for being buggy and practically requiring mods to be playable really highlights how stingy the payout is, even as Valve and Bethesda position it as a way to support free content creators. Ugh. :(
There’s also the fact that a lot of mods that are just model/asset replacements from other games. Modding has always been a gray area legally, but the tradition of free distribution meant that no one really cared. Now that people may potentially be able to charge for ripping models from one game property and dumping them into another, uh…you know, fuck it, I can’t think of an amusingly hyperbolic metaphor to describe the mess of legal issues that loom on the horizon here. The point is…fuck this update. 凸(｀0´)凸
SPECIAL DW ADDITION: In some of the on-going conversations on gaming site, someone pointed out that the money Valve/Bethesda takes is, as far as anyone knows, pure profit--there's no suggestion that it will go to improvements to the workshop or something of that nature. Obviously it's the right of the storefront to profit from their service, but the usual storefront revenue split is 60/40, or a flat rate for each item listed. I'd feel slightly better about the 75/25 split if there was some explanation for it, but afaik there isn't one.
Valve started a program that allows modders to charge for their work. I believe Skyrim is the only game where this has been implemented so far, but I assume if it ends up being successful it will be a 'feature' added to other games. Even if it isn't particularly successful at first, I assume Valve will implement it on at least one of their own games just to get more data on how people respond to it.
I’m not opposed to paying for mods on principle. Depending on the game and the mod in question, it’s pretty amazing that there are people out there willing to put in so much work essentially fixing bugs for fee, without even hinting about donations out of respect (well, okay, and legal concerns) for the original developers and publishers.
what bothers me is the 75/25 Valve + publisher/modder split. I mean…that’s just a slap in the face when you consider mods like SkyUI literally fixed bugs that shouldn’t have been in a finished product to begin with. It was kinda slimy that Bethesda left a lot of quality control in the hands of the modding community to begin with, but then to act like they’re doing modders a favor by selling them while still raking in the vast majority of the profits from those sales…that’s basically profiting over having a game so buggy it requires mods to be playable. Even if the revenue split were less lopsided, the idea as implemented is still skeevy and exploitative. That Skyrim is the pilot game for the program--a game that is rather infamous for being buggy and practically requiring mods to be playable really highlights how stingy the payout is, even as Valve and Bethesda position it as a way to support free content creators. Ugh. :(
There’s also the fact that a lot of mods that are just model/asset replacements from other games. Modding has always been a gray area legally, but the tradition of free distribution meant that no one really cared. Now that people may potentially be able to charge for ripping models from one game property and dumping them into another, uh…you know, fuck it, I can’t think of an amusingly hyperbolic metaphor to describe the mess of legal issues that loom on the horizon here. The point is…fuck this update. 凸(｀0´)凸
SPECIAL DW ADDITION: In some of the on-going conversations on gaming site, someone pointed out that the money Valve/Bethesda takes is, as far as anyone knows, pure profit--there's no suggestion that it will go to improvements to the workshop or something of that nature. Obviously it's the right of the storefront to profit from their service, but the usual storefront revenue split is 60/40, or a flat rate for each item listed. I'd feel slightly better about the 75/25 split if there was some explanation for it, but afaik there isn't one.
