Valve has decided to stop payed mods implementation

[Reinaerd]

Good news for pc gamers in my honest opinion.

Valve / Steam has decided to pull the plug on their money grab attempt, thinly disguised as being in the best interest of mod developers.
If it was truly with the mod designers in mind, it would have been a "donation" option.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32493895


so... yay.

[Independent voter]

I thought they back tracked only for Skyrim mods and they purposefully omitted saying anything about future games?

[Deleted]

they said it was a bad idea to introduce this feature into years old established modding scene.

It will be introduced again in the future with some minor changes.

[Eanirae]

It is because the people who chose to sell mods stole content from the free mods and said it was their own work. And then there's the amount of money people are willing to pay for the game and the DLC(s?). So paying for mods, which shouldn't be paid for in the first place, is bloody ridiculous.

[Deleted]

Yeah, no offense to mod makers, I love mod makers, but I'm not paying money for them, especially not when I intend to use a lot of mods and the bill piles up.

Imagine Skyrim. That game has a shit ton of mods, up to double or triple the size of the vanilla game, if you pay money for each and every mod, you may end up with something that is more expensive than the game itself, which is just stupid.

Also most mods are never truly finished. Even in their "final" version they still have bugs and things that don't fit, and I'm not paying money for half baked products that the developer may just decide he's too bored to keep fixing and updating.

Also sometimes, the game developer may implement a feature in a game update that unintentionally breaks the functionality of some mods, yet you paid money for that mod. Or the developer of a certain mod quit the game and won't be updating his mod anymore and the mod doesn't work anymore, and there goes your cash.

Mods are just too clunky to use a business.

[Reinaerd]

Not sure why this was some kind of plague on gaming as people have portrayed it to be. If people wanted to make mods free they still could, but it also offered an option for people that wanted to be compensated. I could see the argument against it from a copyright theft issue, but most of the arguments i saw were about people being mad that paying for mods was even an option.

What is basicly a monopolist, steam platform / valve deciding they want in on the action.
That is what got people upset. Atleast thats what annoyed me about the entire situation.

The fact they sugarcoated it, and used a fake defense whilst still grabbing a whopping 75% to divvy up between their company and the game developer is what leaves a sour taste.

It could have had far reaching impact, why bother catching every bug if there is a mod scene out there that can patch it up faster then the actual dev's.

Now imagine deleted or half implemented content in the game ( looking at you old fallout and fallout 2 ) some mod creators have given me the chance to play the game as it was meant to be. But if i had to pay extra on top of the original price i payed for the actual game back in those days. I would have felt cheated.

[Drithien]

Not sure why this was some kind of plague on gaming as people have portrayed it to be. If people wanted to make mods free they still could, but it also offered an option for people that wanted to be compensated. I could see the argument against it from a copyright theft issue, but most of the arguments i saw were about people being mad that paying for mods was even an option.

You can still pay for a mod, by donating to its creator. Most have ways that you can do that.

This seemed to me to be a bit of an avalanche thing, where a lot of people didn't really understand what they were protesting against, but did nonetheless because "everyone else is".

It's a bit of a grey area; demanding pay for something that you created, but with other people's tools. And this is not the 90's where moding was almost exclusively a fan's activity to extend their favourite game. It has become far more serious, and professional; and there was danger it would spiral out of control, where anything fan-created would get monetized because "why leave money on the table, especially when everybody else does it too". It's how DLC-on-the-disc/already developed but held to be released later on is about: it works, it brings additional money, so why not do it. And it actually it managed to do so, with some ridiculous pricing and so many attempts to scam people by offering misappropriated mods.

Valve wasn't ready, and the current climate in gaming is one of utter greed, resulting in the destruction of even the most noble of efforts at times, just look at Kickstarters gone wrong.

I personally prefer the donation option. If someone wants to create a mod it's up to him, I shouldn't be required to support his fan art just because it took time to create. But I want to be able to support it if I so choose; and as things are, I can.

[Felicia]

Honestly... I'd be rather ticked off if I had to pay for all the mods I have for Skyrim, KOTOR I and II, Dragon Age Origins and 2... I'd be broke. And those are just at the top of the list.

If I like a mod, then I donate to the cause. And it should stay that way.

[breadisfunny]

Yeah, no offense to mod makers, I love mod makers, but I'm not paying money for them, especially not when I intend to use a lot of mods and the bill piles up.

Imagine Skyrim. That game has a shit ton of mods, up to double or triple the size of the vanilla game, if you pay money for each and every mod, you may end up with something that is more expensive than the game itself, which is just stupid.

Also most mods are never truly finished. Even in their "final" version they still have bugs and things that don't fit, and I'm not paying money for half baked products that the developer may just decide he's too bored to keep fixing and updating.

Also sometimes, the game developer may implement a feature in a game update that unintentionally breaks the functionality of some mods, yet you paid money for that mod. Or the developer of a certain mod quit the game and won't be updating his mod anymore and the mod doesn't work anymore, and there goes your cash.

Mods are just too clunky to use a business.

and then there are people like me who have 50+ mods in their game. if mods went pay to use i would have never purchased skyrim in the first place.