Bethesda: Why We’re Trying Paid Skyrim Mods On Steam

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It looks as though Bethesda has finally chimed in on the whole paid mods on Steam brouhaha.

We believe most mods should be free. But we also believe our community wants to reward the very best creators, and that they deserve to be rewarded. We believe the best should be paid for their work and treated like the game developers they are. But again, we don’t think it’s right for us to decide who those creators are or what they create.
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Been looking forward to this. Elder Scrolls has taken the D & D route, but give us plenty of details for people like myself who go to work, come back home and want to do something ridiculous in their free time. I have killed dragons with the assistance of horses. Judge me nerds. I look foward to this new idea of modding. Look at youtubers for a real world example of how this may work out.
 
Update: After discussion with Valve, and listening to our community, paid mods are being removed from Steam Workshop. Even though we had the best intentions, the feedback has been clear – this is not a feature you want. Your support means everything to us, and we hear you.
 
Everyone starts complaining about not paying mod developers because it will result in less mods -> popular spin off games in 3.. 2... 1...
 
Since this whole ordeal has been about making sure modders are fairly compensated, and not about gamers getting free stuff, I can't wait to see the community jump on Bethesda for removing the opportunity from the modders ;) :D :eek:

Seriously though, it's pretty shitty that Bethesda shut it down. I don't think it's wrong for a developer to want to get paid for their work...
 
never seen a community so willing to cut off its nose to spite its face. nicely played gamers, now everyone gets less options and those modders people love to bitch about caring so much for, they get nothing again
 
They believe they should have been paid for their work, which is why they took a lower cut than Steam and Bethesda....
 
I don't really have a dog in this race as I don't play skyrim any longer outside years of involvement with modding communities. However I never in my life have seen more retarded arguments against something people don't understand. It was just a bunch of circle jerking herp derp arguments that were mind blowingly stupid. This belief that allowing modders to make money off their creation is somehow going to run all the free ones off or turn all of them into money grubbing assholes is just asinine. It is one of the rare cases that the community as a whole screwed themselves over due to their own stupidity.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
I don't really have a dog in this race as I don't play skyrim any longer outside years of involvement with modding communities. However I never in my life have seen more retarded arguments against something people don't understand. It was just a bunch of circle jerking herp derp arguments that were mind blowingly stupid. This belief that allowing modders to make money off their creation is somehow going to run all the free ones off or turn all of them into money grubbing assholes is just asinine. It is one of the rare cases that the community as a whole screwed themselves over due to their own stupidity.
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I think that the real argument was against the combined 75% cut that Valve and Bethesda took. I find it curious that Bethesda said that some modders would receive a higher compensation than some of their own staff artists as if that is something that shouldn't be allowed. Valve used that as a selling point for those interested in creating items for TF2. Two different ways at looking and treating your mod community.
 
Initial impression is that Bethesda tried to follow Valve's Workshop pricing without following what made Valve's efforts work and justified their share, namely their strict QA and QCing of modder efforts.

Doing it on a very mature game like Skyrim instead of starting fresh with FO4/TES6 was a easy to spot bad call too I think.
 
pc master race has spoken and won the war against paid mods.

Update: After discussion with Valve, and listening to our community, paid mods are being removed from Steam Workshop. Even though we had the best intentions, the feedback has been clear – this is not a feature you want. Your support means everything to us, and we hear you.
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Well they caved, no more paid mods, but these quotes from them were hilarious:

The remaining is split 25% to the modder and 45% to us. We ultimately decide this percentage, not Valve.

Is this the right split? There are valid arguments for it being more, less, or the same. It is the current industry standard, having been successful in both paid and free games. After much consultation and research with Valve, we decided it’s the best place to start.

This is not some money grabbing scheme by us. Even this weekend, when Skyrim was free for all, mod sales represented less than 1% of our Steam revenue.
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Translation: It was a money grab ATTEMPT, but we weren't making money hand over first the way Valve does with TF2 hats out the gate, so that discouraged us, especially since this is all a legal clusterfuck as it is.

The percentage conversation is about assigning value in a business relationship. How do we value an open IP license? The active player base and built in audience? The extra years making the game open and developing tools? The original game that gets modded? Even now, at 25% and early sales data, we’re looking at some modders making more money than the studio members whose content is being edited.
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Translation: We pay lots of our employees shit also, so it's a morale killer for them seeing a third party earn more, even if it's a small minority.
 
bloodhawke83 said:
pc master race has spoken and won the war against paid mods.
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I tend to agree with Laureolus that they will try this again with a title that has no existing mod content ... the model might work for a title at launch ... the only risk to paid mods at launch is that they are harder to maintain (since the program is being actively patched) and if they are not managed carefully they could threaten DLC or IAP content ... however, it could provide a nice alternative for developers who have no interest in DLC and are willing to let the modders monetize their work
 
If that's all they wanted, they done royally goofed with the implementation.
 
Catalan said:
If that's all they wanted, they done royally goofed with the implementation.
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They can say what they want, but what they wanted was clear, to find a way to monetize the free mod community and turn it into DLC-like revenue without any investment, risk, or work on their part.

It was literally free money for the taking, but they underestimated how bad the backlash and general clusterfuck would be, with widescale thievery of work by opportunists taking money for other people's work again with no policing done by Valve/Bethseda (despite taking 75 cents on the dollar) and forcing modders to get on board with Steam to revenue share a pittance to afford any protection, or as some big names had done pull their work entirely and broadcast to anyone who would listen about the back-stabbing money grab rustle that Valve/Bethseda created especially with so many mods being collaborative work which brings into question of who gets the check causing jealousy and division and tearing at the fabric of the open mod community... which I mean is common sense, if you say you're OK with working for others because everyone is doing it altruistically for the fun of it and love of the game and hobby, but then suddenly one guy out of the 15 that worked on a collaborative effort comes out and decides he's going to take all the money for that... say what? Then you start with the, "well, I should get a 20% cut cuz I did 20%" and "no, your texture pack part was simple, it was my models and concepts that were the hard part, I should get 60% of the pittance 25 cents on the dollar.

And besides, the idea that modders could make a living full time creating mods at 25 cents on the dollar? The only way that would have been feasible is if we saw a price-creep on this "mod" DLC to where the gaming community would have again been nickeled and dimed into oblivion. Otherwise if its say a $1 mod, what the creators that did all the work split up 25 cents between each other somehow or you break the complex collaborative mod in a bunch of $1 pieces to where quickly mods triple the price players were paying for the actual game? Who wins from this nonsense? Well, Valve/Bethseda don't care about any of the fighting, as all they have to do is stand back, kick their feet up, and enjoy their 75% literally effortless cut for doing absolutely nothing.

The backlash down the road too when people would have been looking squarely at Valve/Bethseda for taking a 75% cut, but then not policing the fact that there is absolutely no quality control or any mechanism whatsoever to what is essentially DLC without any support whatsoever, that very likely could have broken with every game update (as is often the case), without an incentive system or requirement for continued support or refund option for people who say spend $15 on mod "DLC" only to have it not work and break their game a week later on an update that Steam forces on the game and can't be avoided. That would have been disaster stage 2.0, had the initial whiplash not been enough to get Gabe's head spinning.

The monetization/commercialization of mods, turning it into DLC, was something that would have drastically changed the mod community landscape... and really even the threat alone through this fiasco likely has. I can see modders now becoming more cautious and jealous of their work after this, and not so freely putting it out there with the typical "distribute freely for non-commercial purposes as long as credit is given".

A question that remains to be seen though is if they can recover from all this bad PR, or if the beloved Steam system (which I was evangelical about) has now reared its ugly head of "well, when you have all your eggs in one basket, what happens if Gabe decides to be a dick... then what?", and leave a black eye for a while. I know I'm not hesitant if I should be insisting to wait for a Steam release before buying, so I can keep all my games in ecosystem, as I've lost some of that blind faith and trust.

Because speaking of trust, look at how carefully Gabe worded that... not saying the commercial exploitation of the mod community was bad, but that it was wrong to do it to an ESTABLISHED modding community. That makes it sound like he still wants to proceed, but will have to be more sneaky and soft about implementing it, perhaps only in new games from the get-go and perhaps ramp up their cut AFTER they have sold people on the concept to where its just normal. Its like the boiling a frog analogy, they dropped the frog into boiling water and had backlash, so next time they will raise the temperature gradually with the end goal being the same.

frog.jpg
 
mope54 said:
never seen a community so willing to cut off its nose to spite its face. nicely played gamers, now everyone gets less options and those modders people love to bitch about caring so much for, they get nothing again
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The loudest most obnoxious twitter gen'ers on Reddit - you know, the ones with empty afternoons to abuse and send death threats to the mod authors that dared try to see if they could sell their mods for a few bucks - these aren't exactly big picture thinkers. They see the now and the now only - their little world only.

From day one I had a feeling that the net effect of this whole ordeal once all the dust settled and the mouth foaming stopped would be that modders would discover just how little regard - if not outright disdain - the "community" truly have for them and their work.
 
DPI said:
The loudest most obnoxious twitter gen'ers on Reddit - you know, the ones with empty afternoons to abuse and send death threats to the mod authors that dared try to see if they could sell their mods for a few bucks - these aren't exactly big picture thinkers. They see the now and the now only - their little world only.

From day one I had a feeling that the net effect of this whole ordeal once all the dust settled and the mouth foaming stopped would be that modders would discover just how little regard - if not outright disdain - the "community" truly have for them and their work.
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The outliers are either outliers or they aren't.
 
Just goes to show what I have known all along, PC Master Race folks are cheap. :D Enjoy you continued paid DLC more now than ever.
 
Safety said:
I think that the real argument was against the combined 75% cut that Valve and Bethesda took. I find it curious that Bethesda said that some modders would receive a higher compensation than some of their own staff artists as if that is something that shouldn't be allowed. Valve used that as a selling point for those interested in creating items for TF2. Two different ways at looking and treating your mod community.
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That and the utter lack of quality control/curation. I mean when mods are free, sure it can just be a big dumping grounds like Nexus Mods and the community can work it out. After all if a mod sucks, just uninstall it. You only lost some time. However when money is involved, there is some expectation of quality and fitness for purpose. None of that was present with Steam, they wanted to take their typical "fuck it" attitude and just put any mod up there no matter how much shit it was, and if there was any copyright issues and so on.

That's crap for a 75% cut. For that much Valve and Bethesda should put in some work testing and verifying mods before they are allowed to be sold. If they are going to take a massive cut, they can damn sure do some testing/QA work.

Also the refund policy was bullshit: 24 hours only to make the determination and only 1 refund max per week. So get a mod and don't test it right away? No refund. Get two mods and they don't work? Only one gets a refund. Just an amazingly anti-consumer policy.


If it was done right, people might be more interested, but this just screamed "CASH GRAB!!!!!!"
 
Most of the paid Skyrim mods on Steam are either:

1. Rip-offs from Skyrim Nexus. The sellers are parasites illegally uploading free content in hope of a quick buck before someone notices.

2. Honest content creators actively preventing #1 from happening.

Mods in Skyrim are awesome because they've been collaborative effort built on top of each other without having to jealously guard one's money. Once money is introduced into this system, the content creator will no longer allow other people to work and distribute improved versions of their mods in fear of theft and lost profit.

As the cease and desist orders fly left and right, there will no longer be a modding community conducive to the free expression of artists, and all we will receive is a bunch of unregulated DLC's nickel and diming the user out the game.

In principle, I don't have a problem with someone charging for their work, it's a free market and we can all vote with our wallets... but in practice, all it has been doing is promoting a bunch of copyright thieves, and consequently, the content creators has to lock down their work in defense of such abuses... and is that worth destroying the modding community as we know it today?

No.
 
mope54 said:
never seen a community so willing to cut off its nose to spite its face. nicely played gamers, now everyone gets less options and those modders people love to bitch about caring so much for, they get nothing again
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if a modder really want money for their mod they can just set up a donation account at one of the various places that allow it, that people use for twitch stream donations.

they would get money from the people willing to give it. rather than being forced.
 
ManofGod said:
Just goes to show what I have known all along, PC Master Race folks are cheap. :D Enjoy you continued paid DLC more now than ever.
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PC Master race does not need fences like consumer sheep, they can make a ton of mods and share them with eachother just fine, leave the pet collar to console markets, don't ruin this one please.
 
Wierdo said:
PC Master race does not need fences like consumer sheep, they can make a ton of mods and share them with eachother just fine, leave the pet collar to console markets, don't ruin this one please.
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Hah, I like that analogy. ;)
 
ManofGod said:
Just goes to show what I have known all along, PC Master Race folks are cheap. :D Enjoy you continued paid DLC more now than ever.
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I'm pretty sure PC gamers always enjoyed actual expansion packs. Paid DLC is typically game publishers wanting to make quick bucks by slicing up the game.
 
tetris42 said:
I'm pretty sure PC gamers always enjoyed actual expansion packs. Paid DLC is typically game publishers wanting to make quick bucks by slicing up the game.
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I think it depends on the game ... Civ 5 seems to have handled DLC well ... you can play a perfectly complete game with none of the DLC purchased or installed ... however, if you want to keep expanding the game it gives a nice selection of supported options

Racing games where they allow you to download additional tracks and cars are not that bad, as long as they give you a sufficient launch selection

Although I am sure there are people on both sides of the debate I thought that Fallout 3 did a great job with their DLC and except for the horse armor I thought the Oblivion DLC was fun

But I agree that some of the combat oriented games have abused it ... and there have been a few games that were incomplete without the addition of DLC

Given that a full expansion would typically cost $20-40 I can see where DLC (if it is properly priced) would be attractive to users and possibly sell at a higher rate than expansions usually did
 
"We want modders to get money for their work So we'll team up with someone to take away 70 % of that money."

is what I'm hearing.
 
Slightly expanded version of my impression.

My initial impression is that Bethesda tried to follow Valve's Workshop pricing without following what made Valve's efforts work and somewhat justified their share, namely their strict QA and QCing of contributor efforts in the DOTA 2 workshop. Doing it on a very mature game like Skyrim instead of starting fresh with FO4/TES6 was a easy to spot bad call too I think.

Valve shouldn't be blame for this per above, irrational hate for them because Bethesda got greedy is silly especially for Gabe who likely didn't personally oversee this effort. I started out anti-paid mod but after debating this and reading the two blog posts I feel that if Bethesda has accepted a realistic share, like 5-10%, given they weren't doing the same amount of work as Valve is in the DOTA 2 Workshop this could have been a good thing. Free modding, and community hubs allowed too as the bedrock as always.

A 60/30/10 split between Modder/Valve/Bethesda. Modders would have to learn they are responsible for QC/QA/Support for taking the lion's share though. Valve or Bethesda would have to step up to do policing of the Workshop.

====================================================================

There are some rules to just straight donations too. Below is from the Nexus, which were made with contact between Darkone and Bethesda.

Not Permissible:​

Asking for donations in exchange for password protected files or additional content e.g. offering your own kind of DLC for mods in exchange for donations. All mods must remain completely open, and completely free.

You cannot offer additional content for donations.

Asking for donations in exchange for updates for your uploaded files e.g. saying "for every £10 I receive I will update my mod with new fixes and features".

Asking for donations in exchange for help or support e.g. saying you won't help someone to install or fix problems with their mods unless they donate to you.

Offering incentives for people who donate to you

Anything that isn't just a straightforward, voluntary donation, in exchange for nothing
 
Wildace said:
if a modder really want money for their mod they can just set up a donation account at one of the various places that allow it, that people use for twitch stream donations.

they would get money from the people willing to give it. rather than being forced.
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that simply forces content creators to give their mods away even if they want to be paid for their work

so far it looks like the content consumers wanted no pay wall and at least some content creators wanted a pay wall...so given an "opportunity" to pay a content creator for his or her work simply results in predictable patterns of content consumers taking whatever they want for free
 
Laureolus said:
Valve shouldn't be blame for this per above, irrational hate for them because Bethesda got greedy is silly especially for Gabe who likely didn't personally oversee this effort. I started out anti-paid mod but after debating this and reading the two blog posts I feel that if Bethesda has accepted a realistic share, like 5-10%, given they weren't doing the same amount of work as Valve is in the DOTA 2 Workshop this could have been a good thing. Free modding, and community hubs allowed too as the bedrock as always.
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There wasn't anything irrational about the hate, and whether deliberate or through mismanagement, Gabe has awarded himself approximately $1.5 billion (not million) which means if you're going to take a lions share of the company's success in your pocket, you have to own up to the cash-grab failures too... and remember, Gabe defended this straight up on Reddit in multiple posts before backpeddling when the pitchforks and tomatoes started flying at him.

It kind of reminded me of the scene in game of Thrones with the Mother of Dragons, lol! *hissssssssss*
Laureolus said:
A 60/30/10 split between Modder/Valve/Bethesda. Modders would have to learn they are responsible for QC/QA/Support for taking the lion's share though. Valve or Bethesda would have to step up to do policing of the Workshop.
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One thing my dad taught me early on, which I am absolutely positive is just common knowledge among most quasi-intelligent people is that the best way to get what you want if you are already in a position of advantage, is to ask for something even you think is unreasonable. Best case scenario, you actually get it and can laugh all the way to the bank. Worst case scenario, you get to appear reasonable by asking for what you would have originally wanted in the first place, and because people naturally like to compromise they agree... which is of course hilarious since if you started with that request, you wouldn't have gotten it.

So, especially with how he worded his retraction, its clear that the goal of sowing the seed to accept turning the independent mod community into commercialized taxed DLC has been planted, and soon we will hear of a new game where this is implemented. The foundation will still be corrupt, but people will want to compromise, give up their position, and accept it.

But hey, you don't become a billionaire capitalist without knowing how to profit on other people's work.
 
The problem isn't the content creator wanting money for their work. The problem is the incentives given to thieves who upload other people's content... who will QA and decide which of the swords and companions are original and infringement-free? Certainly not Valve nor Bestheda.

If the content is original, the creator will now have to actively watch for other authors infringing on his work. Now he has to play copyright wack-a-mole with the entire modding community.

"No, you cannot use my content to improve your mod."

Adding a paywall to mods creates a litigation pandemonium that Valve and Bestheda is not ready to deal with, and more importantly, kills the creative collaboration of the entire community.
 
Ducman69 said:
There wasn't anything irrational about the hate, and whether deliberate or through mismanagement, Gabe has awarded himself approximately $1.5 billion (not million) which means if you're going to take a lions share of the company's success in your pocket, you have to own up to the cash-grab failures too... and remember, Gabe defended this straight up on Reddit in multiple posts before backpeddling when the pitchforks and tomatoes started flying at him.

It kind of reminded me of the scene in game of Thrones with the Mother of Dragons, lol! *hissssssssss*

One thing my dad taught me early on, which I am absolutely positive is just common knowledge among most quasi-intelligent people is that the best way to get what you want if you are already in a position of advantage, is to ask for something even you think is unreasonable. Best case scenario, you actually get it and can laugh all the way to the bank. Worst case scenario, you get to appear reasonable by asking for what you would have originally wanted in the first place, and because people naturally like to compromise they agree... which is of course hilarious since if you started with that request, you wouldn't have gotten it.

So, especially with how he worded his retraction, its clear that the goal of sowing the seed to accept turning the independent mod community into commercialized taxed DLC has been planted, and soon we will hear of a new game where this is implemented. The foundation will still be corrupt, but people will want to compromise, give up their position, and accept it.

But hey, you don't become a billionaire capitalist without knowing how to profit on other people's work.
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I know you're just shitposting, but I'll try a serious reply anyway.

Gabe defended free modding in his AMA. He wasn't in any position to answers hard questions, being in a airport lobby coffee shop after just having eye surgery. That he did it shows how seriously he took the matter.

ZehXXNd.png


Gabe's response to how successful things like DOTA/CS/TF would have been if they had been paywalled, namely that they wouldn't have been, is telling. He understands that enforced paywalls will hurt mods and that isn't the way things should go for PC Modding.

Other responses of his in the AMA, like Valve shouldn't arbitrary enforce it's will on Developers to force community wants but will call them out on their stupidity gives me hope that Valve will try to talk a bit of sense into Devs if they go too far with enforced paid modding.

Valve is the 500lb Gorilla and easy to throw rocks at for fun. It is easy to just rage and say Gabe didn't say enough in the AMA, but he wasn't in a position at the time to have access to the information to speak authoritatively on the subject. Gabe likely wasn't personally heading this initiative.

This mess is on Bethesda, who tried to use Valve's DOTA 2 Workshop pricing structure when they would be doing 1% of the work Valve does in theirs. Worse, Bethesda is already compensated N+1 time for each paid mod buyer, as they have to buy Skyrim in the first place.

But that's OK, it's easy to go "The 1% is ebil!" and roll your face on the keyboard pretending to have a point.
 
pothb said:
"We want modders to get money for their work So we'll team up with someone to take away 70 % of that money."

is what I'm hearing.
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then your hearing is obviously pretty bad.

I mean its not like nexus is taking 100% of the money...
 
BusyBeaverHP said:
The problem isn't the content creator wanting money for their work. The problem is the incentives given to thieves who upload other people's content... who will QA and decide which of the swords and companions are original and infringement-free? Certainly not Valve nor Bestheda.
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Who does it now? Oh that's right, nobody.
 
Ducman69 said:
But hey, you don't become a billionaire capitalist without knowing how to profit on other people's work.
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If only I had a dollar for every brain surgeon that's bellied up to the keyboard to type "capitalism" in various comment sections over the past few days.
 
the small 25% cut was part of the argument against, but the main argument was that for 10+ years the modding community has thrived on goodwill.

This seeked to add capitalism to it which as one would expect split the modding community.

You also have a minefield of legal issues in selling mods, is it buggy? does it conflict with another mod? is the mod using code from someone else who hasnt given permission for it to be sold? does it contain copyright stuff?
 
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