You can now sell content through Steam Workshop

I have to say I strongly disagree with the statement that this is the end of modding. If you think that this was somehow 'the first step' you haven't been following what's happened the last five (or more) years. This development have been pretty much foreseeable for a long time since the availabilty of game development and content for games via editors increasing drastically due to developers reaching out a helping hand for all users. Take a step back and look what's happend the latest year.

Ever heard of these titles? Dota, League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth, Defense Grid: The Awakening, Chivalry: Medieval Warfare, Counter-strike, Natural Selection and more. You know what they all have in common? They have all been mods, going way back in time.

I could totally see this growing into a world where mods could be 'greenlit' to be extracted as games of their own, with the developer's consent as well as the modders. If you think of it, extracting a game like that would not be very different at all from developing a game in any middle-ware today - you could probably see it as a mid-middle-ware of some sort. Now of course you could go all Blizzard over the EULA and say 'Hey, we own all your shit you do in our game.' But hopefully it could be more like a partnership.

The games industry may seem very big today in terms of sales and how much media attention that's going on but really, I still think we're far from the peak-oil of game development. Maybe games will server as 'incubators' for mods to grow up and become a real game.

As an industry as a whole, I think this is a very good thing.

This was quick

https://www.change.org/p/valve-remove…-steam-workshop

This will be the end of modding as we know it. Everyone will try to sell their turds for moniez. But on the bright side this could well bring some high quality content from professionals who didn't bother with modding before.

I do not know what to think about this.

Modding isn't about money, and when you involve money into a hobby like this, it changes things more often than not, for the worse...

At the same time, I don't want to be conservative about anything, just because something is the way it is for years, it doesn't mean it shouldn't be changed, but part of the magic of modding is that it's just a bunch of people having fun fiddling with their favourit games, many times being very creative because they have neither nothing to loose nor nothing to win.

If you start to involve money into this culture, it will undoubtedly change it, people's mindsets will change and they'll be thinking about profit first, which is not a good thing.

Quote from Sjonsson

Now of course you could go all Blizzard over the EULA and say 'Hey, we own all your shit you do in our game.' But hopefully it could be more like a partnership.

Have you read Valve's ToS?

Anything created in the SDK is theirs. They are simply providing royalties now. It's definitely the base building for what Source 2 will be. With them announcing it is free and all. Small indies may use this as a platform and modders can use it as a learning ground. But really modding isnt the same as it once was. It's now "indie" with this workshop announcement.

Oh man, it's going to be wild in terms of copyright infringements and stuff. I mean, how many mods out there steal from one another, from royalty content online, etc. I wonder how Valve can maintain ways for people to not be able to rip off one another and sell illegal stuff all over the place. Or maybe it's not their problem, but still.

Will be interesting to see how the modding scene will evolve for those games, the only thing we can be pretty sure about is that Valve is going to make money

I think that due to the nature of mods, and the success of Humble Bundle and the likes, they should have just put the option of pay what you like.

Quote from Sjonsson

I have to say I strongly disagree with the statement that this is the end of modding. If you think that this was somehow 'the first step' you haven't been following what's happened the last five (or more) years. This development have been pretty much foreseeable for a long time since the availabilty of game development and content for games via editors increasing drastically due to developers reaching out a helping hand for all users.

[...]

Now of course you could go all Blizzard over the EULA

Well really Gabe said this was the direction openly in some interviews time ago. So no surprises about this really. Not sure what you mean with your statement, but I wouldn't call the operation "helping": Valve knows better than anyone that custom content can create a steady revenue stream simply with people buying the original game to play the mod. That is helping themselves first and foremost.

In terms of copyrights, you have to read the fine print, like Cashed already reported.

Quote from TheGuma

Either way, just checked out, the Skyrim blades and stuff they're advertising are around 0,20$ to 1$ range. It's not THAT expensive considering that people spend THOUSANDS of dollars for skins in CS:GO. Let's say a map costed 1$, I would pay for it if it looks good. If it looks meh, I wouldn't. It's still about choice. I'm sure modders who oppose this new feature will continue on with their lives, and talented artists will get some funds.

Of course they aren't expensive, but there's no comparison in the amount of work between a sword and a map! And if you were to price a map correctly, you would never get anything from it. And if your map comes at a price, it won't spread as much -which is the first reason you make a map anyway.Mappers here are at great disadvantage, players perceive that sort of content as something that must be provided, because it's the game's foundation. People are much more inclined in buying accessories, just look at the F2P market, is based on that almost; listen to a few presentations on Youtube and you'll hear more about psychology than game design.

~

PS: we also haven't even mentioned the fact that there's a refund option, how many bastards are gonna play an SP add-on in an afternoon and then claim the money back?

I know that on the long run, on the big numbers, quality will always trump on this cheap ploys, but it's still unfair nonetheless.

Maybe a donate button on each community item on steam would been better

rip the great frontier of game development

the adventure into the unknown is dead. the money is moving in. time to measure your worth by the dollar value.

was fun.

in some far off land, the fires of thousands of .bsp's still burn bright on the dead servers of fileplanet. I'm glad to have added to the great flame myself.

rip

Terrible and utterly shameful.

I can't see a problem with people getting paid for their work. I might be wrong but I think that only high quality stuff will sell and probably for ultra cheap too. You still have the option to release your stuff for free anyway.

We are getting closer and closer to that utopia where people don't have to go to college or "get a regular job" to make a living. With stuff like this they can just stay at home making crazy mods or stupid youtube videos and still have a comfortable life

If it's optional it doesn't matter, I'm all for people trying to make a living out of their work, there will always be pros making mods who can't charge for it because it breaches the terms of their full time contracts anyway

At first people will try to sell everything, soon after nobody will be buying the shit stuff and it will be like before, yes I've donated to some modders ... people do that you know ...

The first reaction from gamers are in most cases always a knee jerk. I think TotalBiscuit have some good points

Cue the HL-Nightwatch rebirth mod

What??? They're taking 75%?! I haven't read that last night (nor remember reading about the Valve games that offer monetization) it's absurd unless they keep like 20 and the most goes to original game dev.

But still I find this very quite unfair to mod devs, they're using proprietary tech and tools, assets, but still the work is theirs… and so many mods are total conversions! How is that fair, they're only using the tech like adopting any engine now freely available.

They do because they can

I am too much of a pessimist to see the potentially good things this could bring. RIP passion-driven modding.

Quote from Minos

I can't see a problem with people getting paid for their work. I might be wrong but I think that only high quality stuff will sell and probably for ultra cheap too. You still have the option to release your stuff for free anyway.

The amount of shit on Greenlight is so huge you can't even browse it to find gems, it's filled with shit and abusers trying to make moneyz with stealing and clones. Seing how Greenlight and Steam Support are managed, this modding paradigm will end like the rest : filled and flooded with trash items.

To me, it jsut look like modder racket and consumer racket.

Maybe this will bring good things on the table, but experience shows Valve isn't good at regulating and supporting things.