Paid mods for skyrim

[Toranth]

*shrugs*. I figure the market will dictate whether this succeeds or not, not a random internet petition.

I'm not sure about the market - this seems too likely to end up decided in the courtroom.
We're what, a week?  Two?  Into this, and we've already got people trying to break their contracts, with others claiming copyright infringement.  This bodes ill for any long-term happiness about paid mods.

Edit:  It looks like Gabe is trying to speak out on reddit - but is getting downvoted too much 

[Wingflier]

http://www.pcgamer.com/petition-against-paid-mods-on-steam-draws-34000-signatures-in-a-day/

I wouldn't be too sure about "the market" purely dictating the future of the paid mods decision. The petition is now gaining the attention of popular gaming sites and the signatures have more than doubled the actual Skyrim player base.

Furthermore, recall Blizzard's real money auction house for Diablo 3. From what I read, they were making a killing off of that because it essentially put portions of the game behind a paywall that many players had no problem using.

However, the PR shitstorm was so intense that not only were they forced to redesign the game, but completely remove micro transactions from the model entirely. Never underestimate the power of angry people in large numbers.

[Cyborg]

That reddit was a waste of time. They had a real opportunity to ask Gabe questions about the new pay to play mechanism, and instead it became an incomprehensible ragefest. I see bad things on the horizon, and there are some legitimate questions to be asked.


Let's not emulate that in this thread. I find that most people here are decent people, so let's not confuse the enemy.

[eRe4s3r]

That reddit was a waste of time. They had a real opportunity to ask Gabe questions about the new pay to play mechanism, and instead it became an incomprehensible ragefest. I see bad things on the horizon, and there are some legitimate questions to be asked.

That's one way of seeing it, the other from a lurker perspective is Gabe doing what he always does, ignoring the important issues and questions

If that were any different we'd have official reply to this
http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33uplp/mods_and_steam/cqojmoa

And that doesn't even list the most pertinent questions (24 hour refund time limit is illegal in the EU) for example

[kasnavada]

It's fairly obvious that the modding community would take actions to be "against" this though. I mean, only people very dedicated to modding and very dedicated to work for free would ever mod a game. Currently most proeminent modders are of this mindset because there is litterally no money to be done, apart from a few exceptions behind paywalls. What I think is that it's very much a niche community that works up to months for no money at all. Most people would want their work to be rewarded.

But, the fact that modding was mostly supposed to be free made it so they attracted people of this particular mindset, federated them and so on. If mods can now be paid, new people of a different mindset will arrive, create networks and so on. But you're not going to hear from them for a while. They need to organize first. So currently the Internet's modding community is evolving. There is going to be backlash, then it'll die down, then new communities will be formed according the what the "new" rules are becoming.

And last, like in Diablo 3, once everything is settled down, decisions will be taken to check whether this was a good idea or now and then things will change (ok, in D3, the "choice" of making pay-to-win the default to access armageddon difficulty was pretty stupid - here it's not so clear which side is right).


About the way it's been implemented, "theft" from one mod to the other is hardly anything new. There is drama about this daily on most modding forums around. It tends to not get out of hands since there is no money to be done. But, there is about no easy way to prevent this. I think that removal of mods for "copyright" will probably become daily "minor" actions, much like it's already done with books, music, video and so on. I therefore don't even get why it's making news.

About the petition, steam has up to 9 million daily people connected to their system. Bethesda sold more than 20 millions copies of their game. Think they care about a petition which (currently) on hundred of thousands of signatures ? The modder's community that actively wants to work for free is going to realize how niche and small they really are.

[kasnavada]

Just saw this:

http://www.pcgamer.com/paid-mods-wont-kill-modding-and-might-make-it-better/

Again, kind of agree with him.

[Wingflier]

About the way it's been implemented, "theft" from one mod to the other is hardly anything new. There is drama about this daily on most modding forums around. It tends to not get out of hands since there is no money to be done. But, there is about no easy way to prevent this...I therefore don't get why it's making news.

If you don't understand why this is important, I feel that you either have a lack of imagination, or simply aren't trying.

Imagine that as a passionate modder, you've spent thousands of hours creating something for the community to enjoy, for free, and suddenly someone decides to steal it so that they can make a profit? After thousands of hours of hard work, they've spent only a few hours co-opting your content and earning a profit from it.

Now how is Valve going to stop this? You already admitted it happens regularly, but one major difference here is that nobody is monetarily profiting from it when it does happen. Furthermore, this isn't some dreadful Justin Bieber song knock off, but I can guarantee that if such a thing existed, legal action would be taken against the perpetrator, and the situation would be resolved.

We have to come to the conclusion that Valve has no way to prevent this, and furthermore has no incentive to prevent this provided they are the ones making most the profit. In a classical case of plagiarism such as I mentioned earlier, it is not the record companies or book publishers which govern themselves, it's the legal system which has to intervene. We have nothing like that in this case.

To say that this won't kill the free modding community or at the very least, heavily disincentivize it is to be disconnected from reality in my view.

[kasnavada]

If you don't understand why this is important, I feel that you either have a lack of imagination, or simply aren't trying.

This is unnecessary. I make a distinction between newsworthy and important - which of course did not pass in a forum post. There are nicer way to ask for clarifications than... that.

We have to come to the conclusion that Valve has no way to prevent this, and furthermore has no incentive to prevent this provided they are the ones making most the profit. In a classical case of plagiarism such as I mentioned earlier, it is not the record companies or book publishers which govern themselves, it's the legal system which has to intervene. We have nothing like that in this case.

I don't share this conclusion at all.


I have little to no knowledge of legal property laws, or licensing, and those tends to be dependant on where you live anyway. But, why would mods be excluded from being "intellectual property" and therefore copyrightable ? I assumed it was the case from the start actually and did not check.

(After I've done a little research and as far as I can tell, it applies, at least in the "western" world).


My comment about the "no way to prevent theft" actually refers to this:
- Despite this, such theft already happens despite legal issues in other domains (art, music, video) and no, the legal contraints are not enough to protect smaller producers and artists. And not many care. This, however, has NOT killed the free comunity there. Yes, you can get free books, comics, music & videos around. Rarely at AAA quailty level or above, of course. Currently mods are rarely at that level anyway.
- Nothing prevents people from making money from free mods others create... whether the steam system exists or not.
- The opposite also exists, nothing prevents anyone from distributing paid content for free. Mostly only larger studios can afford to start legal action even if threat & existence of a possible legal action removes most offenders from the scene.


So... while it's an important issue, important enough for a legal action to be done on the theorical side, it's hardly something new and whatever steam proposes does not change what's already existing, just making it a bit (a lot) more visible. That's why I said I don't get why it's making news. And that also means that Steam has an interest of checking those mods, much like they have to check images, games, apps and videos shared on their servers.

Actually, even without legal issues, it's in their interest to remove what is obviously theft from the work of other, else no one will bother placing products on their platform and they won't have profit in the first place. Probably (and sadly) they will go for cheap and wait until reports of bad software's done like currently done for games.

To say that this won't kill the free modding community or at the very least, heavily disincentivize it is to be disconnected from reality in my view.

Since you're quoting me... did I say that ? I don't think it will kill it, but yes, I think I did repeat a lot of time that the modding community is going to change for sure.

[Draco18s]

Just saw this:
http://www.pcgamer.com/paid-mods-wont-kill-modding-and-might-make-it-better/

That article had this comment on it:

To be more clear it's 25% to the mod author, 40% to Bethesda, and 35% to Valve. With the option of the content creator selecting a service provide to receive 5% of valve's cut (making it 30% Valve.)

I have trouble understanding why Bethesda gets a whopping 40%

[Wingflier]

This is unnecessary. I make a distinction between newsworthy and important - which of course did not pass in a forum post. There are nicer way to ask for clarifications than... that.

Oh sorry, I didn't mean to imply that I was personally attacking you. I'm a naturally confrontational person, sometimes my posts come off as aggressive, but I promise that this is the kind of friendly banter that I use with my friends as well.

[eRe4s3r]

I have trouble understanding why Bethesda gets a whopping 40%

You can be thankful it's only 40%, in the CS for Skyrim the Eula says that all content created with it, is property of Bethesda. As in 100% owned by Bethesda.

And this is also where a funny trick valve pulled comes into play. They say if you notice a mod is stolen with your content, you should file a DMCA... uh yeah, good luck signing a DMCA for something you don't own the copyright for! Valve tricked modders with that legal trick into a disenfranchised slave status. You put it on Workshop It becomes property of Bethesda, you can earn money with it, but if you use stolen content the one you stole it from can't do shit to you because unless THAT person buys the mod in question he or she will never even know about it. Let's remember the 1 mod pulled so far was pulled by the one who put it on the Workshop. He could have taken the fight and we'd have seen how broken "Steam Customer Service" really is.

There could be a time when Steam Workshop is a mod DRM hellhole and it takes a massive fight to prevent that. If the ones modding Skyrim let that go by they will face a Fallout 4 with modding restricted PURELY to the Workshop, With mods using DRM to lock them to Steam for eternity, and where outside mods will be flagged as illegal modifications and get deleted.

This is the future most fear when this is talked about. And don't tell me that is a good thing, that is the absolute worst thing that could happen to gaming... 2nd only to always online DRM which is the 1 way to entirely defeat modding.

And let's not forget that a certain other game (Cities Skylines) restricts mod support already to the workshop (Though there are ways to pirate both mods and circumvent steam workshop)

[Draco18s]

You can be thankful it's only 40%, in the CS for Skyrim the Eula says that all content created with it, is property of Bethesda. As in 100% owned by Bethesda.

That by itself would keep me from modding Bethesda games.

Mojang recognizes that mod content is owned by the mod author, although there are some things you can't do (per the EULA).  There's some gray areas around the "make money from" but it mostly revolves around not making money from Mojang's IP, and that a large portion of making mods involves, to some degree, Mojang's IP, and more or less comes down to "not hiding anything behind a paywall."  E.g. you can't charge for access.

[kasnavada]

And this is also where a funny trick valve pulled comes into play. They say if you notice a mod is stolen with your content, you should file a DMCA... uh yeah, good luck signing a DMCA for something you don't own the copyright for! Valve tricked modders with that legal trick into a disenfranchised slave status. You put it on Workshop It becomes property of Bethesda, you can earn money with it, but if you use stolen content the one you stole it from can't do shit to you because unless THAT person buys the mod in question he or she will never even know about it. Let's remember the 1 mod pulled so far was pulled by the one who put it on the Workshop. He could have taken the fight and we'd have seen how broken "Steam Customer Service" really is.

It's this agreement you're speaking about ?
http://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/

It'd have to consult a lawyer to get the exact meaning out of this. What I understand is ;
- that valve can modify & store your mod wherever it wants however it wants (without this, valve could not zip the file to store it, for example).
- valve has the right to take your mod, modify it and only then it becomes its own. But it restricts itself to make modifications to make it compatible with the workshop interface (again that's kind of logical). I don't understand the technicalities very much but what's in paragraph 6B should restrict what's in paragraph 6A. If not then it's kind of abusive.
- it grants the dev and valve the right to make the mod part of the game itself at will and change anything they want to do so (ok this part is abusive for paid or unpaid mods...).
The rest seems to be about distribution issues, like if you retire a mod, but someone subscribed it, he does not lose this access until he stops to subscribes.

It also says that paid subscriptions and paid mods may change from what's written here, and are defined in another agreement. I have not found the other one.


Lawyer second part, some of what's written may just be illegal in the first place. I believe that this, for example, is void from a legal point of view (at least where I live it is):

In some cases, Workshop Contributions may be considered for incorporation by Valve or a third-party developer into a game or into a Subscription Marketplace.

AFAIK, it does not define which cases so it's legally void.

[doctorfrog]

I think I'm more irritated that once again, Steam is going to eventually dominate yet another market of things. Already, if you want a game, about 2 out of 3 times, it's got to activate on Steam. Now, if you want to mod a game, you'll have to get it through Steam Workshop or whatever.

I'm sort of split in that I don't mind from a practical standpoint what Steam does, or what it's trying to do, as long as it does it well, and is practically and financially accessible to me as a consumer.

But I really resent monopolies and mandatory gateways to things. Sole corporate gatekeepers, I don't like 'em. I like choice.

Locking down and charging for community content? Man, that grates.

It's probably been pointed out already that doesn't really matter what howling video game enthusiasts put up right now. They vote with their dollars, overwhelmingly, in favor of the things they claim to hate.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

To say that this won't kill the free modding community or at the very least, heavily disincentivize it is to be disconnected from reality in my view.

*shrugs*. It's a possibility, but not a very realistic possibility. You'd have to get each and every developer of games to agree to a paid-mod system. And then you'd have to get all of those modders to agree to it. And that's if the experiment started here with Skyrim doesn't backfire. Really, I don't see why Valve didn't start this with a new game rather than an established title. That seems like the best way to kill this experiment more than anything else.

Valve tricked modders with that legal trick into a disenfranchised slave status.

Keep the hyperbolic statements down. Unless you can actually prove that Valve wants to do this, I don't want to read these kind of trashy eye-grabbing sentences on these forums.

This is the future most fear when this is talked about. And don't tell me that is a good thing, that is the absolute worst thing that could happen to gaming... 2nd only to always online DRM which is the 1 way to entirely defeat modding.

And let's not forget that a certain other game (Cities Skylines) restricts mod support already to the workshop (Though there are ways to pirate both mods and circumvent steam workshop)

As Cities Skylines is ONLY buyable on Steam, (check the website, there's no link to anything other than a Steam code) it already has DRM. Adding workshop "DRM" doesn't change anything. It doesn't force me to stay online or change my habits. This is not a second form of DRM for the title. It is, granted, an anti-piracy measure. And actually an ingenious anti-piracy measure because it keeps people like me from being ticked off about it. A measure that Paradox has been clear about since the launch of the title.