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Even though Valve appears to have made the correct decision when it comes to pleasing its fan base by removing the paid-for mod feature on Steam – for now at least – it's a classic tale of not being able to please everyone, as there are certainly a number that already miss it.
The general consensus among the new batch of complainers seems to be roughly the same. While they often admit that the implementation of Steam's new feature wasn't perfect and if anything, a bit ham handed, they're annoyed that a potentially interesting feature has been killed before it even got started. Some wanted to see paid mods because they say it would have meant people could spend more time working on them.
A lot of them simply believe gamers that railed against Valve's new system are just being cheap and don't respect the time and effort that goes into a lot of mods.
How much would you guys have paid for this?
As Kotaku's round up of posts points out though, it's not like a donation button will necessarily fix anything. According to one modder, Edhelsereg, who's creations have been downloaded over 200,000 times, less than 0.001 per cent of people have given him anything for his efforts. Most people don't even take the time to rate a mod, let alone hand over cash for it, so how, he said, would making the button more prominent help?
“Most modders don’t mod forever, they usually stop at some point. Even the best. Have you ever wondered why? MODDING IS A LOT OF WORK. At a certain point, passion is no longer enough to keep you going,” he said.
However there are of course many people happy to bit back at these ideas. Many gamers suggest that if modders don't have time or resources, they should get a job in the industry instead, or simply stop developing altogether. Nobody wants to see people going hungry because they developed a mod.
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KitGuru Says: It's a difficult situation, but one difficulty with paid mods that I foresee is that it discourages cooperation. If your mod might make more money if you don't share the cool feature you found or figured out, it means that you're much more likely to keep it to yourself.
Clearly a donation button doesn't work though. How do you guys think this should be handled moving forward?
Image source: Really Useful Dragons
It’s been free for years. Over a decade. Hell, maybe two. Why is it all of a sudden a major deal that it’s free? Why are we been spun this tale of the starving modder pouring their heart and soul into their work and going hungry?
It’s always been a free thing. It’s always been a hobby. Donation buttons are the only way forward, because it’s something people should do for the love of it, not for the monetary rewards.
It’s like Android ROMs. They’re free. The second someone asks you to pay for an Android ROM, it’s the second that ROM fails. But there’s no harm in donations. I make ROMs. I get donations. I’ve had about the same % in donations as these modders, considering the downloads I’ve had. Many don’t rate. A minority complain and moan, but I do it because I enjoy it. Any money I get is just a bonus and goes towards Steam sales.
If peoples want to pay that badly for mods, why don’t they just donate? I’ve donated in the past for some big mods that kept me entertained for hours, hell even days. Send the modder a message and donate him/her or the group… dense lazy mofos.
Humble Bundle style them, pay what you like with a low set minimum and a slider deciding who your money goes to. The problem wasn’t paying for mods. It was Valve attempting to steal an existing modding scene and monetize it going forwards so they could extract their 30%.
the problem was always ease of donating. if there was a button that i can use that was a 1-click solution and just deducted from my steam wallet i would happily donate to mods, most of the time though i spend more time typing in card details and verifying than i do installing the mod
Because once you open Pandoras box, there is no closing it.
Valve got greedy and opened the box, forever damaging the PC modding scene. Maybe this is the wake up call needed for us to see that giving this much power to a single company is extremely dangerous.
Also, Kotaku and Polygon are trying their damnest to spin this as “Entitled consumers” in order to cause an outrage, but that I’m suspecting is just for clickbait.
As an enthusiast modder myself I was against paid mods. I mod for the joy of it, as a passion project. I’m not trying to impress future game companies so that they’ll hire me. Maybe if I feel like doing something else I can show off my portfolio but for now, I do it because it’s something I enjoy. It’s been free for years and I’ve never once had a problem with not being paid. I’m not greedy or entitled.
I think there is a way to close it. I think we need to have donation buttons everywhere, and kill the idea of distributing mods without a donation button. We need to have a discussion as a community and try to create an environment of donation. Valve tried to put in a payment option – that can’t be taken back – but we can redirect the trend into this focus on donation.
I believe a feature-complete, content-rich total conversion mod like Point of Existence 2 or Forgotten Hope 2 for BF2 are worth $5, but people thought they could charge this much for simple items….uh.
It’s not worth cutting off most of the mod userbase in an effort to monetise the remaining handful that stick around to be charged for the content that at the end of the day a lot of modders have no real right to use when you look at it frankly.
I wouldn’t pay for mods. About 90% of them make a nice go at it but are clearly made by hobbyists. The scales of the levels aren’t right, the voice acting is sloppy, the length of it is short. This is all ok with me, as they are just free mods that people made for fun.
Sometimes there are some really professional mods made but in this case it should be like the old days and handled as expansion packs. The game developers got third party studios to create whole new sets of levels and it was done as a project with the game developer. If they tried to do it as vetted, co-produced, worthwhile packs as “non-canon DLC” then it would have sat better with people but the way they set it up just sounded like any random person can make anything and slap a price on it and you would just have to throw your money at it and keep your fingers crossed.
Also the prices would have to be mega low because I have hundreds of unplayed games that I have amassed and I paid a couple of quid a pop, sometimes even less. These are fully, professionally made games with completely fresh assets, not some variation being resold.
As for the cut they wanted, that’s probably fair play. As much as it stings, if you do a search for average profit margins for small business it seems to me that 25% is actually a pretty good deal. It might be 100% of your work but you are relying very heavily on the work of others to put it in a context and the network of steam to put it in front of people.
Also I just realised I was only thinking of single player mods. Trying to get a multiplayer mod off the ground and build a community would be even more hassle.
For being the “PC Master Race”, they sure do love living in the Stone Age. While a minority of modders do it for a hobby, many don’t. A little money their way would motivate them to create better mods and give them access to better equipment. Instead, it seems PC Gamers are stingy like scrooge mcduck…
I said this on some other post too, but i think the people who develop mods deserve to get something from it.
The problem is there are a thousand greedy SOB’s that will try and make money of something someone else has made. This is why paid mods will not work on an open platform like steam, where anyone can upload a mod and claim it to be there own, and make money from it.
I personally would not buy a mod, the whole thing about the PC gaming world is free mods, modding support is what has always separated PC from Console, this support also has a downside, allowing for hacker to exploit the games, like yesterday, a modder joined a GTAV PC server i was in and started exploding everything with magic fire fists and guns that shot tank rounds, then dumped a load of money bags on himself then went teleporting around the map to people destroying their stuff. So there are pros and cons.
Do you honestly think it is only about pc gamers being stingy? C’mon, we all know there is a lot more to it than that. I’m not denying that is part of the overall argument, but it certainly isn’t the only factor causing protest against the idea of paid mods.
I know its not just about the money, there are legality issues too, but the loudest comments I’ve seen are about the money. Whether its the charging alone or the way its split up between different groups, most comments entail money in some way. Id was looking forward to the system being fleshed out and well designed, but instead of valuable input by the community on improvements, they just said no. It could have been something good for the modding community…
i wouldnt mind paying if it was a mod guarenteed to work and keep working after updates of the game and if it didnt interfere with other mods and didnt charge silly money i see a sword mod on the workshop that cost more than i paid for the game. and because none of this can be guarenteed i think a donation button is the only way
excellent point. Yes unfortunately you are right the “loudest” are regarding money too. It only makes it easier to dismiss those who opposed it for different reasons as part of the “just a load of angry stingy people” collective.
Well bloody said.
For me its not the money is the not knowing which ones are worth the money. I could go get 50 mods for Half Life 2 and maybe 3 are worth money. And then how much money? I picked HL2 up for about £2.75 so am I going to pay £5 for a mod which recycles all of their models and textures? (Spoiler: I am not).
If they make a total conversion then fair enough, but why bother with messing with the mod scene for this? All the major engines give you their license for a modest cut of the final game and free to develop with.
Look at the mod scene and think which ones you think would be worth money. Think which ones you would have tried and then been unhappy if you’d shelled out for them. Gut feeling, whats the split here? It’s a scene of unprofessional mods made for fun.
And that’s just us discussing the money side of it, look at the article on ModDB for an interesting consideration of the other effects of bringing money into it.