yeah bro, must be hard realizing that the effort and time of other people shouldn't result in free shit being catered right to your lap.

When you work a manufacturing job, you'll realize that producing anything is really fucking stressful, and you shouldn't be guilt tripped into giving it to people for free. Think about your position

"Man, I'm so upset that Steam isn't forcing people to give me free content that they made at their own expense"

But Cook listen to reason!
it was free before. And now it is potentially not free.
that can only be a bad thing.

I am absolutely disgusted by the PC community sometimes. We're so fucking narcissistic to the absolute worst degree.

Any time we're forced to pay for anything we lose our fucking minds.

Like, if I started a thread called "Should music piracy be legal?" I'll find dozens of motherfuckers on this forum who have honestly convinced themselves that stealing other people's work for free actually benefits the person they're stealing it from. You'll have dudes honestly tell you that "The artist should give me their music for free, and I'll donate if I want to, but he should give me months of hard work for absolutely nothing. Trust me, it'll work better that way."

You'll find dudes justify pirating movies and games, because they've honestly convinced themselves that what's better for them is what's better for everyone else, and that the world would work better if it just did what they said.

It's almost insanity. Like, with this steam thing. I find it hilarious how Scarecrow posts links to 4chin chin, because 4chan is the absolute cesspool of the internet, filled with the biggest faggots the internet has to offer. Of fucking course they'd complain about anything that requires them to make intelligent choices about what what they have to spend money on. 4chan is full of man-children who fucking internet attack people for stupid ass reasons.

Literally, your argument boils down to this:
"I'm mad that Valve isn't forcing people to make content free to me."

Like, holy fuck, you fucking children. Do you buy anything other than video games ever?

When I owned an xbox 360, I spent $40 on games, and $12 on Xbox Live. This meant that whenever I wanted to buy a game, I had to research the fuck out of it. Do you know how fucking badly I wanted Enemy Territory: Quake Wars? That game looked so fucking badass and I really wanted it, but knowing how expensive it was, I decided to research instead, because there was no other way to play it other than purchasing it.

I ended up buying the first Mass Effect instead.

When the Pirate Bay got taken down recently, I wanted to torrent a movie, and was kind of upset that I couldn't get it for free, while telling myself that it honestly benefitted the movie maker in the long run.

However, I realized why I was upset. No, it wasn't the "Free Speech" everybody else was complaining about, or the "Companies taking over" schpiel, I was upset because I couldn't get whatever I wanted for free

Getting content on the internet for fucking free is a blessing that we've grown so used to that we get mad when somebody reminds us that they need reimbursement on the investment they've put INTO OUR OWN ENTERTAINMENT.

YOU'RE LITERALLY REFUSING TO PAY SOMEBODY ELSE FOR YOUR FUN BECAUSE YOU DON'T THINK IT'LL BENEFIT THEM.

What I'm saying is that the PC community has gotten so fat and bloated from having access to everything for free, we get upset the minute change is introduced.

"The fun in skyrim is using like, 50 mods together and seeing what happens!!"
Oh fuck you. Because mashing mods together for fun should have more priority than the people who made some of those mods making money?

Yeah, I'm sorry PC gaming is changing. I'm sorry that the things you use to like are now being changed, but there's a reason for it. As PC gaming grows, we need to establish more legitimate infrastructure to support online communities.

With 24-hour refunding that pretty much eliminates click-bait and shitty mods.

And yeah, I'd be worried about future patches destroying your old mods, but I'd imagine that when Valve updates skyrim, they'd also open a 24-hour refunding period where you can refund mods that don't work at the expense of Valve.

You do realize that a massive amount of the pushback for this decision is coming directly from mod developers, right? None of your response addresses their concerns in any way whatsoever.

Quote from Captain Cook

"I'm mad that Valve isn't forcing people to make content free to me."

The content already exists, mods for games have always been freely available since the late 90's. They're now trying to monetize the concept using infrastructure that raises a lot of legitimate concerns. Not all of it is just mindless complaints about having to pay for something that they want for free and it's pretty rude to assume Scarecrow is dumb enough to make that argument without putting any more thought into it.

Quote from Captain Cook

I assumed that by "microtransactions" you were referring to something in-game that was sponsored and run by the developer. Also, the hats are purely cosmetic, and add zero value to the game.

I was, both of those games have microtransactions that are sponsored and run by Valve. I'm not really arguing for or against microtransactions by pointing it out, I don't really think it matters what value the DLC brings to the game the fact that they have them means that Valve definitely buys in to the microtransaction model, which may be arguably a better model since it's designed specifically to combat piracy which I think is a good attitude as opposed to DRM.

Quote from Captain Cook

I was under the impression we were more debating the concept, not the actual execution. Now that you mention it that does sound more convincing, but in theory I still think it's a good idea.

I don't really think anyone involved in this issue is making it clear what exactly is wrong, that's kind of the issue I have lol. I don't see Valve or Bethesda changing anything if the most prominent argument is that mods should be free. I definitely disagree with that idea, I'm with you in that it's a good idea in theory.

Quote from Captain Cook

That's kind of exactly what they're doing. If a mod sucks and I monetize it, I get zero dollars. If a mod is great and I charge $2 for it, then I'll make money. I'm incentivised to make good modes.

I don't really think they're doing enough. The $100-minimum payout definitely helps because you'd have to sell a lot of shitty mods before reaching that point and most people would realize it's a shitty mod before then, but what I'm referring to is the same problem that plagues their Steam Greenlight system in that Valve claims to be hands off because they don't like telling developers what to do and letting people vote with their wallet but there's a difference between telling developers what to do with their game and stopping them from being shady as fuck and fucking over their customers using a system Valve designed.

Not to mention the awkward grey area where a mod is legitimately good but depends on other mods to function. What if one of the mods a good mod depends on is buggy? Or what if it updates and breaks the first mod, and the author of the first mod is gone and can't update it? The situation is usually a lot more complex than just people voting with their wallet, and often needs a person within Valve to resolve it. That only happens when the outrage is large enough to attract attention from the only people who can do things about it, which is a bullshit way to handle customer service, something Valve has never been good at. I think all they need to do is hire and train people to handle that kind of stuff. There needs to be accountability from Valve for it and they just don't offer that. Their defense doesn't exactly help the customers that are getting fucked over by their inaction when it's pretty clearly an issue Valve is responsible for.

Quote from Captain Cook

Doesn't Skyrim already have full-access modding tools? What more do

Sort of. They have a lot more available to modders than most games, but the way game development works means that most games cannot legally make everything available to modders UNLESS they developed every aspect of their game in-house which is incredibly rare. Most games use licensed content from third-part companies to handle things they don't want to spend the time to develop themselves. For example Skyrim uses the Havok physics engine to handle physics objects in the game, but that technology is licensed to them and their license does not allow them to share that technology with modders, so there are no native tools for working with Havok objects in Skyrim. Literally all of that ground work has been reverse engineered by modders. Entering into a deal with the modder I believe changes the situation so that the modder is technically a contractor or something like that, so under the license they are allowed more access to things.

Quote from Captain Cook

This makes perfect sense. Why the fuck would you receive majority revenue for something you made with Bethseda's engine, with Bethseda assets to play on a Bethseda game, to be played by other Bethseda players, the money going into Bethseda fueling future engine updates to make the shit you're doing easier.

I don't really disagree with you on this, and I think the mod author sort of realized that himself later when he was talking about how all he has to do is use existing tools to make stuff and get paid for it. I don't know if 25% is necessarily fair because Bethesda/Valve aren't transparent about the cost breakdown and how they worked out that split. All anyone can do is speculate about it and since none of us are insiders I can't really get off the fence on the issue, both sides have merit depending on information we aren't privy to.

Quote from Captain Cook

This is so fucking retarded. The logical fallacy here is that he's implying that:
A) People need to spend money
B) All mods are worth the same amount of money

A shit, mass-produced mod would have to be almost free, or else nobody would buy it. Good mods that take time to build would be higher priced, since the value of labor actually plays into account. To the player, this paid content adds a different level to the game. You can either pay $0.50 for some cool ass horse skin, or $5 for several hours worth of DLC. It'd be dumb to price the horse $5, and the DLC $0.50

Wait really? I didn't get the impression that he thought mods were worth the same amount of money, I got the impression that he thought by offering a minor cut modders who would otherwise see it as a lucrative opportunity to produce some high quality content will be turned off because most of the profit from their hard work doesn't go to them, and modders who see it as an easy way to make money selling no-effort content will be attracted to it since there is no personal risk to them (time is money) and they still make money either way since 25% is better than nothing. In which case all you would have available are shitty mods.

I don't really see that as a stretch to be honest since if the idea is to allow modders to make it their job, having 75% of the money your work generates go to someone else regardless of the circumstance would be shitty. It would be like your boss taking 75% of your paycheck because you use office equipment they paid for to do your work and they want to recoup those costs. Most people wouldn't even accept that job unless they were the kind of person who didn't care about their job and just wanted to make money, then you have a shitty lazy employee who doesn't do what they should because they aren't making enough money to justify putting in that much effort. It may be fair for Bethesda or Valve to offer that split, but I doubt any serious developer would accept that deal. I could see how someone can be worried about that split only being really meaningful to people who just want to make money.

Quote from Captain Cook

Like wtf how much more do you want. All YOU'RE doing is making cool mods, which is the funnest part. You're not having to bother with the thousands of other issues involved with game distribution. You make a mod, upload to workshop, and make money.

Sure, the system isn't perfect, but other than the fucking horrible Megaupload system, Steam is a really good distribution platform, and they want a cut.

I feel like this is trivializing the amount of work that goes in to a "good" mod. It's pretty easy to boil down anyone's job to make it sound easy and enjoyable but just because all of the other work they would otherwise have to deal with is done for them doesn't mean the work they do isn't as valuable. This ties in to the argument above which has to do with time vs. return.

Quote from Captain Cook

I'd rather the discussion focused on that, rather than the knee-jerk "it's my money and you can't take it!!!!"

Me too.

Quote from Captain Cook

That is a good point, since a lot of mods will clash with each other and whatnot, and I would hope that Bethesda would do a better job to identify which mods would work with your current game and to what extent.

Exactly, this is why I don't think Skyrim is the right game to introduce this concept with. I've been active in Skyrim's modding scene specifically since it came out and it's pretty clear that not only are the modding tools prone to producing buggy mods but the engine/game itself is just riddled with problems. I can very easily back this up with technical evidence but unless asked I'm not going to go into details as to why Gamebryo or whatever they're calling the engine now is full of problems. It's hard to see it in a positive light when Bethesda aren't even willing to produce a solid game engine yet some how still have the ball meat to monetize the modding of it. I shutter to think what it would be like if the creators of the Unofficial Skyrim Patches decided to monetize those. "Pay money for fixes to this broken game you already paid money for!" No thanks.

Just don't download mods on Steam, download them on GameBanana!
It is free and will always be. Yes it is a tiny bit more complicated then clicking a button but if paying bothers you that much, then you'll be able to get free mods!
Gamebanana: http://gamebanana.com/

It is easy to search trough and has a lot of games.
there is skins, GUIs, sprites, sounds, maps etc...

Quote from Exilement

You do realize that a massive amount of the pushback for this decision is coming directly from some mod developers, right? None of your response addresses their concerns in any way whatsoever.



The content already exists, mods for games have always been freely available since the late 90's. They're now trying to monetize the concept using infrastructure that raises a lot of legitimate concerns. Not all of it is just mindless complaints about having to pay for something that they want for free and it's pretty rude to assume Scarecrow is dumb enough to make that argument without putting any more thought into it.

Yeah, I might've gone hard on the hominem but I guess.

I'm more arguing the concept of monetizing mods. If the infrastructure is broken then sure, of course I'm against something buggy. But the concept of monetizing content is fine with me.

Quote from Jeff

I was, both of those games have microtransactions that are sponsored and run by Valve. I'm not really arguing for or against microtransactions by pointing it out, I don't really think it matters what value the DLC brings to the game the fact that they have them means that Valve definitely buys in to the microtransaction model, which may be arguably a better model since it's designed specifically to combat piracy which I think is a good attitude as opposed to DRM.

I actually don't really know how microtransactions fight piracy. I've only microtransac'd once, and it was fun a gun on Planetside 2 because it was on sale for $2. I don't see how that fights piracy but that's an entirely different topic that I can research on my own, so don't sweat it.

Quote from Jeff

I don't really think anyone involved in this issue is making it clear what exactly is wrong

You hit the nail for me right on the head there. Everybody is complaining about it, but they're raisings dozens of different arguments without actually fueling and pushing one good argument. The only convincing one I've heard was the incompatible mods and hardware, but there is a 24-hour refund period.

Quote from Jeff

I don't really think they're doing enough. The $100-minimum payout definitely helps because you'd have to sell a lot of shitty mods before reaching that point and most people would realize it's a shitty mod before then, but what I'm referring to is the same problem that plagues their Steam Greenlight system in that Valve claims to be hands off because they don't like telling developers what to do and letting people vote with their wallet but there's a difference between telling developers what to do with their game and stopping them from being shady as fuck and fucking over their customers using a system Valve designed.

I mean, there's also a comment/rating system. If you buy anything without research it's kind of on you. Also, 24-hour refund, lol.

Quote from Jeff

Not to mention the awkward grey area where a mod is legitimately good but depends on other mods to function.

Again, this is where digital copyrights and legitimate agreements and contracts come into play. If anything, it makes the mod scene actually more serious now, since legitimate legal contracts now have to be made. There was always plenty of content theft, and it wasn't a big deal because "Hey it's free or whatever" but now that money is involved, you'll see a lot less theft, and the people that actually put the time into making mods core to many other mods will receive the payout they deserve.

Quote from Jeff

What if one of the mods a good mod depends on is buggy? Or what if it updates and breaks the first mod, and the author of the first mod is gone and can't update it?

Err, refunds. Also, if a mod gets broken by another mod and the original creator is AFK, that's not really a problem specific to paid mods, you know? You're kind of just describing the problem with mods altogether. Like, yeah, there's money involved, but there's also the, ahem, refund period. Again, with paid mods it should be made a requirement where content creators have to post personal contact emails.

Quote from Jeff

The situation is usually a lot more complex than just people voting with their wallet, and often needs a person within Valve to resolve it. That only happens when the outrage is large enough to attract attention from the only people who can do things about it, which is a bullshit way to handle customer service, something Valve has never been good at. I think all they need to do is hire and train people to handle that kind of stuff. There needs to be accountability from Valve for it and they just don't offer that. Their defense doesn't exactly help the customers that are getting fucked over by their inaction when it's pretty clearly an issue Valve is responsible for.

If the system starts making them a lot of money, I'm sure Valve will hire more Customer Support to address those issues, so they can make even more money.

Quote from Jeff

Sort of. They have a lot more available to modders than most games, but the way game development works means that most games cannot legally make everything available to modders UNLESS they developed every aspect of their game in-house which is incredibly rare. Most games use licensed content from third-part companies to handle things they don't want to spend the time to develop themselves. For example Skyrim uses the Havok physics engine to handle physics objects in the game, but that technology is licensed to them and their license does not allow them to share that technology with modders, so there are no native tools for working with Havok objects in Skyrim. Literally all of that ground work has been reverse engineered by modders. Entering into a deal with the modder I believe changes the situation so that the modder is technically a contractor or something like that, so under the license they are allowed more access to things.

Sure, I guess. This is speculation at this point but I see the point you're trying to make with the Havok engine thing. I never really thought of that.

Quote from Jeff

I don't really disagree with you on this, and I think the mod author sort of realized that himself later when he was talking about how all he has to do is use existing tools to make stuff and get paid for it.

Yeah, it really isn't that difficult at all. Like, it isn't easy either, but a lot of work has already been done for you. The fact that you don't even have to make the game around the content you're creating is a giant step for the developer. It's the difference between wanting to change your tires, and instead of buying an entirely new car, you can just pop in a new set.

Quote from Jeff

I don't know if 25% is necessarily fair because Bethesda/Valve aren't transparent about the cost breakdown

The modders only take home 25% of the money made from the sale of their mods. The rest is split in some undisclosed way between Valve and Bethesda (Update: 30% to Valve, 45% to Bethesda). As Erik Kain pointed out yesterday, this is well below something like the Apple AAPL +1.82% store, which gives creators at least 70% of the cash and just 25% seems abysmally low (although in an interview, Erik found that DayZ creator Dean Hall believes 25% to be perfectly reasonable). (Forbes, 2015)

I mean, yeah, it isn't perfect, but Valve isn't raping your wallet either. The majority of the money is going to Bethesda, which it kind of should. After all, they made 99% of the content. No matter how good your mod is, it still isn't even in the realm with the amount of work the original developers did. Sure, you may have put more work into your NPC dialogue mod than the original devs did, but the original devs also had to make thousands of other things.

Quote from Jeff

Wait really? I didn't get the impression that he thought mods were worth the same amount of money,

I got that vibe because he kept comparing shit mods to good ones.

Quote from Jeff

I got the impression that he thought by offering a minor cut modders who would otherwise see it as a lucrative opportunity to produce some high quality content will be turned off because most of the profit from their hard work doesn't go to them,

I mean, 25% of $1 is better than 0% of nothing, lol

Quote from Jeff

and modders who see it as an easy way to make money selling no-effort content will be attracted to it since there is no personal risk to them

Because there isn't such a thing as your, you know, professional reputation? It's this thing called word of mouth, which has a tendency to get around. If you produce enough garbage, people will eventually catch on.

Quote from Jeff

In which case all you would have available are shitty mods.

Which nobody would buy, because consumers aren't retards. That market dies out.

Quote from Jeff

It would be like your boss taking 75% of your paycheck because you use office equipment they paid for to do your work and they want to recoup those costs.

He doesn't have to take 75% because they're already underpaying you, haha

It's more like working at a Hallmark card company, and using company paper, materials, pens, markers, time to write christmas cards for people. The material is already available for free, all you're doing is applying your creativity. The boss should take a majority of the cut because without any of his content, you wouldn't of had been able to produce anything.

Honestly, if all you're doing is writing greetings on material provided to you, using materials provided to you, and you're complaining about not getting enough, that's really shitty.

Quote from Jeff

Most people wouldn't even accept that job unless they were the kind of person who didn't care about their job and just wanted to make money, then you have a shitty lazy employee who doesn't do what they should because they aren't making enough money to justify putting in that much effort.

That only applies in jobs people are forced to work. You'll see a lot of shitty Starbucks baristas because they're forced to do their job, and no matter how they do it there's no difference, because they get paid the same per hour, whether it's productive or not.

How many professional soccer players do you see that play really lazily on purpose? None, because they lose their fucking job.

Modding is not per-hour pay, it's merit-based pay, and you can't get away with being lazy in merit-based jobs, because you get out what you put in.

Quote from Jeff

It may be fair for Bethesda or Valve to offer that split, but I doubt any serious developer would accept that deal. I could see how someone can be worried about that split only being really meaningful to people who just want to make money.

That doesn't make any sense.

So you're telling me that serious mod developers don't want to make money, and wouldn't accept deals with game developers to make a lot of money? I'd imagine a lot of developers are really anticipating the opportunity to make a lot of content, and get paid to do so without having to panhandle their audience. Sure, I can see that there could be a disconnect down the line with how modders eventually just become game developers that stop listening to their audience but i guess.

Quote from Jeff

I feel like this is trivializing the amount of work that goes in to a "good" mod. It's pretty easy to boil down anyone's job to make it sound easy and enjoyable but just because all of the other work they would otherwise have to deal with is done for them doesn't mean the work they do isn't as valuable.

It is, but think about the kind of work modders are doing. They're not delivering sandwiches all day, they're making content they really want to see in a game they really love, whilst playing that game all the time. It sounds like really fun, enjoyable labor. It's literally "doing what you dream"

Quote from Jeff

Me too.

Me three, baby

Quote from Jeff

Exactly, this is why I don't think Skyrim is the right game to introduce this concept with. I've been active in Skyrim's modding scene specifically since it came out and it's pretty clear that not only are the modding tools prone to producing buggy mods but the engine/game itself is just riddled with problems.

The more content a game has, the more problems it contains. Yeah, it sucks, but you should be aware of that by now. A giant battleship will definitely have more mechanical faults than a small yacht, because there's just more moving pieces in the battleship.

Quote from Jeff

I can very easily back this up with technical evidence but unless asked I'm not going to go into details as to why Gamebryo or whatever they're calling the engine now is full of problems. It's hard to see it in a positive light when Bethesda aren't even willing to produce a solid game engine yet some how still have the ball meat to monetize the modding of it. I shutter to think what it would be like if the creators of the Unofficial Skyrim Patches decided to monetize those. "Pay money for fixes to this broken game you already paid money for!" No thanks.

Honestly, I could see Bethesda just hiring UI modders for their games.

Honestly, I think paid mods are really cool, because they let you make the game whatever you want it to be.

Now that modders get paid, they make fucking incredible versions of their mods.

So I get the base game, and I play it and tell myself, "man, I'd like a better combat system. this one is alright, but I want a really cool one" I go on the workshop, and see three different combat mods. I research them, and see "Ooh, this one is really magic-focused. But this one is very sword-technique focused. I'll take the sword one, because I play with swords." And you buy that one.

If you're complaining that "THAT SHOULDVE BEEN IN THE GAME TO BEGIN WITH!!!" You're kind of implying that Bethesda should only release absolutely perfect games, which isn't really possible. I think it's really funny you and scarecrow complained about the UI not being perfect, because I'm willing to bet money that you guys use different UI mods, haha

In fact, I'll go ahead and bet money. I'll bet as much as that UI mod is worth, haha.


PS: I think it's really funny how people are toting "modders are against the idea!!!". You know why not every modder has spoken about the issue? Because they're actually in favor of the system, but are being smart and staying out of sight because they don't want to get crucified by the roving bands of mad internet people.

PPS: If Valve is going to turn mods into a legit business, they should follow legit business laws. Increase the mod refund time to 30 days.

PPSH: I'm really sorry for the massive page. I really tried to make my comments small and digestible, but there were a lot of them.

Quote from generalZ

Just don't download mods on Steam, download them on GameBanana!
It is free and will always be. Yes it is a tiny bit more complicated then clicking a button but if paying bothers you that much, then you'll be able to get free mods!
Gamebanana: http://gamebanana.com/

It is easy to search trough and has a lot of games.
there is skins, GUIs, sprites, sounds, maps etc...

Thanks for contributing absolutely fucking nothing to the debate. We all know those websites exist, fuccboi. What you posted has no relevance to the discussion, and it's obvious you haven't read anything.

Quote from Captain Cook

I actually don't really know how microtransactions fight piracy. I've only microtransac'd once, and it was fun a gun on Planetside 2 because it was on sale for $2. I don't see how that fights piracy but that's an entirely different topic that I can research on my own, so don't sweat it.

Yeah it's kind of interesting to look in to and I don't really understand it fully myself but the basic idea is that microstrasactions are meant to supplement the cost of the game itself, that's why Dota 2 and TF2 are free to play right now. They realized that people were going to get their games for free anyway and DRM was affecting legitimate customers more than it was stopping pirates so they came up with a model that lets them generate revenue while offering the base game for free. It's why people get upset when paid games also have microtransactions AND DRM but yeah that's a separate topic. I just find it interesting how these models are created and evolve.

Quote from Captain Cook

I mean, there's also a comment/rating system. If you buy anything without research it's kind of on you. Also, 24-hour refund, lol.

I don't put too much faith into comment/rating systems since they are very easily gamed. Steam has had a huge problem with it ever since it was implemented, especially with direct censorship from content creators using unrestricted tools they are given by Valve. This is also a whole separate topic I could go in to but it hinges on circumstantial evidence and pretty much boils down to my own opinion being based on seeing too much shit as a developer so I don't really want to get into it. The central point is that Steam as a platform is far from perfect already and instead of fixing those issues they are just underlining them by adding this new feature that suffers from the same obvious problems. It's more than just developers offering up shit content and gullible customers buying it, some companies go to ridiculous lengths to game the system in order to make more money.

If it's a subject that you'd like more info on I recommend reading about past incidents such as the War Z, Garry's Incident, or even the recent changes they already made to the workshop system to hide all the negative aspects about paid mods.

Quote from Captain Cook

Again, this is where digital copyrights and legitimate agreements and contracts come into play. If anything, it makes the mod scene actually more serious now, since legitimate legal contracts now have to be made. There was always plenty of content theft, and it wasn't a big deal because "Hey it's free or whatever" but now that money is involved, you'll see a lot less theft, and the people that actually put the time into making mods core to many other mods will receive the payout they deserve.

I wasn't talking about content theft, I mean mod dependencies. For example, the author I linked to a while back mentioned how his fishing mod uses animations that were made by another modder and only worked with that other modder's mod installed. It's a bit different in that case because he specifically wrote it so that you could still use the mod without the animations, but the principle is the same. Someone paying money for this mod probably doesn't want to have to deal with making sure he pays for other mods that this mod depends on. I realize that it comes down to the consumer's decision whether or not they want to find or buy all the dependencies, but it's more than that especially when it comes to inter-modder relationships and the like. There's no clear legal precedent and I don't think Valve OR Bethesda are interested in settling disputes between mod authors even though they're taking on that responsibility by building this platform. Either way the issue I'm still trying to highlight here is that there is no clear defined guideline for this because the system is poorly implemented. I'm not suggesting these things aren't problems that can't be solved, just that they haven't and probably should have been before this went live. It's part of the reason I don't think Valve or Bethesda understands the modding community.

Quote from Captain Cook

Err, refunds. Also, if a mod gets broken by another mod and the original creator is AFK, that's not really a problem specific to paid mods, you know? You're kind of just describing the problem with mods altogether. Like, yeah, there's money involved, but there's also the, ahem, refund period. Again, with paid mods it should be made a requirement where content creators have to post personal contact emails.

Right but you said yourself the refund window is 24 hrs, right? What happens if a week after you bought Mod A that depends on Mod B, Mod B was updated and Mod A no longer worked? Oops you're well past 24 hours and now you're out whatever it cost you to get that mod. Normally you would say "Well then contact customer service." But given Steam's shitty reputation for customer service I wouldn't hold my breath. In incidents like the ones I mentioned briefly above they've set the precedent that once they have your money they don't really give a shit about you, and it's too bad if the product you paid for through their service isn't working any more it's not their problem since they don't tell what developers to do. Also who eats that refund cost? Does the developer somehow lose money if they bailed on their own mod? Maybe they do have a system for this but they sure haven't made anyone aware of it. I don't really find these questions silly considering they're completely legitimate concerns that have no answers so far and they should have already thought about all of this. Again this is another reason why I don't think this is a good system, they need to have something better in place to deal with this stuff.

Quote from Captain Cook

If the system starts making them a lot of money, I'm sure Valve will hire more Customer Support to address those issues, so they can make even more money.

Yeah you'd say that but historically they've pretty much proven otherwise. They made ridiculous bank and their general customer service is a joke. You can literally do any cursory googling on the subject and find complaint after complaint about their system. They are one of the lowest rated companies on the Better Business Bureau partially for this reason, and it has to do with the fact that they aren't a publicly traded company and aren't accountable to shareholders.

Quote from Captain Cook

Yeah, it really isn't that difficult at all. Like, it isn't easy either, but a lot of work has already been done for you. The fact that you don't even have to make the game around the content you're creating is a giant step for the developer. It's the difference between wanting to change your tires, and instead of buying an entirely new car, you can just pop in a new set.

Right but I still think you're giving more weight than it really deserves. You can make the same argument for something like Unity or the Unreal Engine, wherein 95% of the work is done for you and all you have to do is create. Except in those circumstances you get a much larger chunk of the profit even if you're using someone else's work. If you're looking to seriously get in to game development in general (mods, indie, studio, whatever) and need to make money from it why would you choose the path that gives you the least amount of money? That's why some people think the low percentage share gives no incentive to serious or good mod authors.

Quote from Captain Cook

I mean, yeah, it isn't perfect, but Valve isn't raping your wallet either. The majority of the money is going to Bethesda, which it kind of should. After all, they made 99% of the content. No matter how good your mod is, it still isn't even in the realm with the amount of work the original developers did. Sure, you may have put more work into your NPC dialogue mod than the original devs did, but the original devs also had to make thousands of other things.

That's not really what I meant by cost breakdown, it doesn't cover the things I'd like to know such as how Bethesda ended up with a 45% figure as being reasonable. What went in to the calculation of that? Obviously these things aren't determined by gut instinct, they must have weighed the costs and done a lot of justification for everything before even considering this. It's not something I expect an answer to, but recognizing this is something I think everyone needs to do when complaining about the split. I'm not really saying it's good or bad personally but I can see points from both sides that make sense but they always hinge on Valve/Bethesda having a good/poor reason for the money they get, and there's just no way we can know unless they are more transparent about it.

Quote from Captain Cook

I mean, 25% of $1 is better than 0% of nothing, lol

Yeah but I think you're ignoring that the context of this point is the idea that this system is being argued at least partially as a way for better mods to be made by better developers since now they can make money for it. I'm looking at it as a fellow developer who also understands the value of his own time, and the only way I would be able to produce something of that quality would be either in my free time which I value higher now that I have a full time job (and it would take longer) or if I quit my job to focus on developing high quality mods. If I put in all the time to develop a mod that is worth $10 to the consumer, I'm only making $2.50 off of every sale which is so little that I'd have to pretty much have 100% guarantee that I was going to sell enough copies to make all of my time and labor translate into enough money to sustain me. I might love this game to bits and there are definitely a few games I would totally consider taking up that offer on, but in the end I've come to learn that even if you love something you cannot expect to take a lot less money to work on it without having a backup plan. There's no way that's sustainable. For me, developing games is fun on it's own and still rewarding. If I wanted to do something I loved AND get money for it, I would just use Unity or Unreal to make my own game which would return a LOT more and make the time/labor investment much more worth it.

Quote from Captain Cook

Because there isn't such a thing as your, you know, professional reputation? It's this thing called word of mouth, which has a tendency to get around. If you produce enough garbage, people will eventually catch on.

Which nobody would buy, because consumers aren't retards. That market dies out.

You don't think those people know that? They don't give a shit. Companies commit professional suicide all the time if it means making more money. Word of mouth will definitely come around but after what point? Isn't the point of all these complaints now to knock some sense into the system before it even gets bad? I also think you give consumers too much credit. I don't necessarily think they're retards but historically consumers are incredibly self-serving and will buy even "shitty" mods if they think they will get some use out of them. I mean, there are so many vocal opponents to major issues in gaming like microtransactions, DLC, season passes, pay to play, pay to win, etc. etc. but even if they raise incredibly good points people don't give a shit and will continue to buy in to whatever they want because they'd rather potentially get something cool than vote with their wallet. Not that I'm saying anything is wrong with it, just that what we might consider shitty mods wouldn't matter to a lot of people. If you're telling me a paid mod system is a good idea because it will encourage better mods, I expect to see things like Falskaar that add new story lines or even cool player home mods that add really cool locations, not shit like the shadow scale armor that's currently the poster boy for paid mods (that also has a shit ton of bugs).

Quote from Captain Cook

He doesn't have to take 75% because they're already underpaying you, haha

It's more like working at a Hallmark card company, and using company paper, materials, pens, markers, time to write christmas cards for people. The material is already available for free, all you're doing is applying your creativity. The boss should take a majority of the cut because without any of his content, you wouldn't of had been able to produce anything.

Honestly, if all you're doing is writing greetings on material provided to you, using materials provided to you, and you're complaining about not getting enough, that's really shitty.

I don't really agree with that analogy either because it assumes that you're creating no original assets aside from the content but I think this is getting aside from the point. My point was more that you probably wouldn't take a job offer where the majority of your potential revenue doesn't go to you. Again, this is in relation to the idea that you're approaching modding as a job opportunity and not just something you do in your spare time.

Quote from Captain Cook

That only applies in jobs people are forced to work. You'll see a lot of shitty Starbucks baristas because they're forced to do their job, and no matter how they do it there's no difference, because they get paid the same per hour, whether it's productive or not.

How many professional soccer players do you see that play really lazily on purpose? None, because they lose their fucking job.

Modding is not per-hour pay, it's merit-based pay, and you can't get away with being lazy in merit-based jobs, because you get out what you put in.

Uhh don't professional soccer players fake injuries all the time and somehow not get punished? That's kind of irrelevant though.

That's what I'm saying though is that people see this system as detrimental to merit based pay since it's not competitive enough. If there's no incentive (as I've proposed above from my own perspective as a developer) for developers to put time and effort into their product the only ones left (if any) will be people who put in the same amount of work that 25% is worth to them, which I think is shown by mods like the shadow scale armor that are incomplete and buggy. I doubt that author cares that there's no world model or female version of the armor. They did enough work that 25% is worth to them. Why would they sink more time into it? My point was more that this is the equivalent to an employee like a Starbucks barista. It's not the same, you're right, but in the paid modding world I believe they share the same idea.

Quote from Captain Cook

That doesn't make any sense.

So you're telling me that serious mod developers don't want to make money, and wouldn't accept deals with game developers to make a lot of money? I'd imagine a lot of developers are really anticipating the opportunity to make a lot of content, and get paid to do so without having to panhandle their audience. Sure, I can see that there could be a disconnect down the line with how modders eventually just become game developers that stop listening to their audience but i guess.

I'm telling you that someone who is seriously looking to make money by being a developer would not turn to this current system of paid mods in order to do so. I'm not saying they don't want to make money, and I'm not saying they wouldn't accept a deal if they WOULD get a lot of money out of it. I'd imagine there are a lot of amateur part-time modders excited about this system, yes, but the type of developer who would be able to deliver the top-quality paid content people like you seem to expect this system to introduce? Not so much.

Quote from Captain Cook

It is, but think about the kind of work modders are doing. They're not delivering sandwiches all day, they're making content they really want to see in a game they really love, whilst playing that game all the time. It sounds like really fun, enjoyable labor. It's literally "doing what you dream"

I think you're trivializing it even more some how. Look, I do what I love for a living. I'm n

The decision's been reversed, looks like there's no need to further rustle our jimmies. Good for them for acknowledging fault.

Shit, Ill have to go through all of this later, but I'll leave you with this.

Just because they have the incentive to monetize content, doesn't automatically mean everything becomes monetized

EDIT:
Fuck you exilement you faggot this was probably all your fault all along.

Well, I guess I lost, then.

I actually discovered they reversed their decision while writing that post and forgot to add:

http://steamcommunity.com/games/SteamWorkshop/announcements/detail/208632365253244218

This backs up pretty much everything I was saying and it looks like they realized their mistake too. Specifically:

it's clear we didn't understand exactly what we were doing

our main goals were to allow mod makers the opportunity to work on their mods full time

stepping into an established, years old modding community in Skyrim was probably not the right place to start iterating

We think this made us miss the mark pretty badly, even though we believe there's a useful feature somewhere here.

I'm pretty happy with this statement. It may be a bit of PR whitewashing but it definitely touches on the problems I had at least, so it shows they aren't just ignoring the issue like they do with the other problems Steam has.

I'm still right and you're still wrong though, Jeff.

We didn't really disagree all that much :P

well, this turned out better than expected. it sounds like they still intend to do something along these lines in future, so i'll be waiting until then to lose my shit again.

tl;dr comments (might read later)


Eh now that I've read like 4 of the latest comments, I'm good.