You can now sell content through Steam Workshop

[Radix]

I'm for a donation system exclusively. TF2 stamps was a good exemple and some people just bought hundred of stamps because they were happy about new maps.

 

Yeah, something like this would be a good start.

A simple "donate" button on the workshop site would not work. You always have to give the "donators" something (additional) in return.

 

Some time ago I published a couple of Portal2 maps on the workshop.

Because these turned out to be pretty popular (all 6 maps together ~500k subscribers until now, which is pretty huge for me), I added a donate button to the workshop site of the items (because some popular mappers like CaretCaret also did, and I wanted to find out what would happen).

Maybe my maps weren't as great as his stuff, but until now only two kind guys actually donated after ~2 years on the workshop...

So maybe giving people some Steam reputation badges or achievements or hats or whatever for donating would make it better...

 

The funny thing is, that the youtubers who just played my maps in their videos got WAY more money for these videos than I got for making the maps.

Edited April 28, 2015 by Raidix

[FRAG]

I'd like to see how the system can be expanded on when it next appears, it's an interesting avenue that valve are approaching here and my hat off to them attempting it.

I spend a great deal of time working on a mod, and no, money has never came into it but, it would be satisfying to know that your time is being appreciated by being paid in some capacity and in some way.

But it's an afterthought for myself, my passion is creating quality levels in a game world that I love, just people playing them (eventually) is a reward for my time spent, I have a day job to pay the bills and freelance work to scrap by.

I'm probably rambling now and I apologise but, I'd love to see this system back, not in the capacity it was running but in a revised form that has designed from a larger pool of modders (more game titles, not just skyrim)

[dux]

Modding is a hobby and should remain a hobby. Half of the games we know today wouldn't of been as popular or as successful if we had to have paid for them as their original mod form. Donations are where it is it. If you like the mod and the author(s) donate. Which I and I'm sure others have done.

 

Valve wouldn't exist as it does today for a start with paid mods.

[Pampers]

Why not both? I'd gladly chip in a few bucks to the dudes behind BMS, or a quality cs map you know someone put hundreds of hours in. Next gen horse genitalia, not so much

[DrywallDreams]

Modding is a hobby and should remain a hobby. Half of the games we know today wouldn't of been as popular or as successful if we had to have paid for them as their original mod form. Donations are where it is it. If you like the mod and the author(s) donate. Which I and I'm sure others have done.

 

Valve wouldn't exist as it does today for a start with paid mods.

But if you aren't making a total conversion or something, you aren't going to get shit, even though you're doing some high quality work.  People doing stuff like Portal maps, that don't necessarily want to make a whole mod out of it, should be able to get something out of it.  They deserve more than the two or so people every year that A: find your donation link and B: actually care enough to donate.

[Steppenwolf]

I'm glad that they stopped it for now. I wasn't happy with that implementation both as a content creator and as a gamer/consumer. At the same time i feel ambivalent, almost a bit sad that a potential source of income was run into the ground so quickly but i blame this more on Valve/Bethesda then the internet mob. I think the strong reaction has highlighted a much bigger issue and that is gamers being close to a breaking point with regards to feeling ripped off. Ther's just so much shit going on with smartphone apps, DLC's, microtransactions, failed kickstarters etc.

 

This initiative was perhaps rightly so, seen as just another scheme to part people from ever more of their money for small slices of additional content and fun. It ended with this frustration being channelled into this loud outcry.

I think the industry at large needs to get real about how its treats its customers. Big AAA producers in their DLC frenzy as much as the small guys that flood the market with useless crap. I sometimes wonder if a bubble is about to burst soon. And the scary thing about it is that we as the small artists and designers in this big machinery are the first who will suffer for it.

[Castle]

oh boy this has spread everywhere hasn't it lol

[JAL]

I guess most of the issues about selling mods on Steam Workshop have already been discussed here.

As a concept I think it's a good idea to create a marketplace for mods. I don't see big problems with revenue sharing percentages, it's the original publishers choice so

modders can protest it, just deal with it or release free mods. Although I don't agree with the 25% that Bethesda chose.

Increasing modders revenue percentage would atleast in theory attract more mod developers.

 

The only two pitfalls that need to be solved imo are the following:

 

- Selling stolen and other peoples content as your own.

- Quality control. I consider quality control for mods as unnecessary censorship but seeing Steam Workshop full of Skyrim horse nutsacks for $99 is not what I'm looking forward to. Maybe have the original publisher approve paid content(?)

 

Anyways, I'd rather play free mods but if I see something worth a buy I'd probably spend money on a mod.

 

[Jetsetlemming]

I feel like the big problem, and it has been a big fucking problem for Steam for a long time before this modding stuff ever came up, is their refusal to take responsibility and judge shit. The best indie/mod work going on for Valve right now is with CS:GO, and is that a free-for-all? No. It's carefully selected fantastically made maps added and advertised ingame, with new ones introduced and promoted on a cycle. I've loved the content that program has introduced to my game, and I never would've experienced any of it if it was buried under a mountain of crap and priced piecemeal. Stores have to work to weed out what they are selling, because everything you are selling, regardless of if you want it to or not, reflects on you. People get mad at Steam when they buy a promising game that never gets updated or turns out to be misrepresented garbage, not just the developers. 

 

There's tons of people with stars in their eyes and the ability to browse the Unity asset store publishing on Steam without any business, programming, or customer support skills. This is Valve's fault. Most people suck, that's not something to shrug about if you're inviting those sucky people to be on your storefront and pushing their garbage to your customers. If Valve had even the slightest minimum standard of quality things had to demonstrate before being available to put money into, then I seriously doubt the "debate" about the mod situation would've gone as poorly. As it is, people just (probably rightly) saw it as a further extension of the plague on Steam Greenlight.

[dux]

[dux]

Very good listen

[Ginger Lord]

Why not both? I'd gladly chip in a few bucks to the dudes behind BMS, or a quality cs map you know someone put hundreds of hours in. Next gen horse genitalia, not so much

 

You've always been able to do this and tbh its better for content creators that way as they'd get 100% of your donation rather than whatever small percentage was on offer. Working on Ham and Jam for years cost myself and Jed a good couple thousand pounds in various fee's for hosting, svn repros, servers etc and we were very luckily to have a few followers donate a couple quid consistently every month to cover this for years without getting anything back for many years.

 

We'd never have charged for the mod anyway, its a mod and was a hobby and requesting payment for it puts you in a weird position where people expect a hell of a lot more and continued support.

Edited May 1, 2015 by Ginger Lord

[Sigma]

I posted this on another website, but I will post here as well:

 

"Respectfully, the publishers charging more and adapting their monetisation mechanisms is the balancing of the video game producer/consumer relationship. Keep in mind that a video game in 1994 cost $60 at MRSP, that is still true today while the consumer demands of production quality have skyrocketed to the point where multi-million dollar budgets at AAA quality studios are the norm. Just because the balancing of the equation does not benefit the consumer does not mean that it is still not the market being corrected for delayed adjustments.

 

As to your point regarding the adaptation of rules governing preexisting mod-able software [it was a  mistake to target a pre-existing game to try paid-modd content on], I do agree with that. However, intellectual property rights and copyrights will always outweigh the interests of modders, who do not have an original claim to the property, and companies retain the right to revoke access to and/or modification of their software (depending on the EULA). It is unlikely though that pre-existing modded software will be the target of action by publishers and studios due to the nature of intellectual property rights (if you do not defend your right to it, you lose it).

 

Finally, modders should be supportive of paid modds, if for no other reason than it gives them opportunity to garner monetary compensation for work that is otherwise freely given away. I understand that on face this appears contradictory to the "point" of modding, but that point has always been based on the assumption that you could not legally monetise the adaptation of the studio/publisher's work based on the contractual agreement. However, now studios are incorporating modds as not only a subservice to the community, but an additional revenue stream beneficial to both the studio and community. This alters the assumption in such a way that monetisation becomes a viable option for modd producers. It incentivizes higher quality modds, thereby increasing the reputations (and bank accounts) of all involved. This is a good thing."

[Sprony]

Well I'll be damned:

 

John Romero:

“I’ve always believed that mod makers should be able to make money from their creations. In 1995, while we were making Quake, we had the idea to start a company called id Net. This company would be the portal that players would connect to and play other mod maker’s creations. It was to be a curated site, levels and mods chosen by us at id, and if we put your content on our network we would pay you an amount equal to the traffic that your content drove to the site. The idea was that players would log in and be in a big level that felt like a castle with lots of doorway portals and signage that explained where you were going and what was there.”

 

[Skjalg]

I think its a ridicilous concepth that just because its a hobby you shouldn't get any money from it. I have loads of friends that have money earning hobbies. Carpenting, jewelry making, tattoing. Why are they allowed to benefit from their skills outside of their main job and not me?

 

This whole thing exploded because gamers were used to getting something for free and were now facing the prospect of needing to pay for their entertainment.

 

Please explain to me why we are suddenly drawing the line at mods? Why can people sell skins, maps, stamps, hats, weapons/armor, courier, tickets to their tournaments and fucking loading screens - and people just clamor for more. These are things that require concept drawings, models, animation, particle effects, level design, sounds etc, but when its suddenly about code then OH NO ITS SHOULD BE FREE.

 

Well, as a coder. fuck that. If I make something and want to charge money for it, then fucking let me.

 

Valve made a huge mistake when they tested this thing out on a bethesda game. They should have tested it out on dota 2.

Edited May 5, 2015 by Skjalg