I just don't think gamers understand, if you pay for high quality mods, your gonna get more high quality mods.
It's a bit like the crazy excuses people make for pirating games.
It's a bit like the crazy excuses people make for pirating games.
I think the biggest problem most people had was that they forecasted Steam's mod marketplace as being swamped with garbage mods that offered no real value and were nothing more than a quick cash grab. This would result in the modding community becoming a race to the bottom as modding became less of a hobby of passion, and more of a trash market. Looking at what's been greenlit on Steam lately, seeing the garbage that's been flooding the mobile phone market these past few years, and witnessing the bullshit DLC is these days, I don't think those predictions would be too far off.
The low barrier to entry also opened up the opportunity for people to rip existing free mods and sell them on Steam, hoping to cash out before they got pulled.
I don't think the complaints were at all hollow and plenty of high quality mods exist without paying 45% to the publisher + tip to Valve.
I don't mind the idea of mod creators earning money from modding. But the thought that Bethesda would be profiting off of releasing broken games rubs me the wrong way real bad.
But the frustration in this instance is mainly about the specific implementation. Paid modding was being forced onto a game and a mod community never designed to tolerate it. There were simply way too many complications for it be simply a case of: pay money, eventually get better mods. Skyrim modding is too haphazard and a legal and ethical mess. Plus it is a community that had survived for years and produced many quality mods without any formal financial system to aide it at all.
As an avid gamer it is quite frustrating to see people dismiss this outrage as "gamers not knowing what's good for them" or "entitled gamers not wanting to pay for something they expect to be free" when it is a lot more nuanced than that.
With this system, if a guy wanted to drop his full time job, and do modding full time he could if it was popular enough. Now, that would be more difficult. Resulting in less content.
For example, suppose I ask for a friend's help moving to a new apartment. The friend says yes, and the move is finished after a full day of moving boxes. At the end of the day, I tell him thank you, and give him $5. The friend is insulted. Do I value him that little? What he would happily do for free, he refuses to do for $5.
The same is true for mods. A modder may pour his/her soul into making a mod, all the while thinking of how people will enjoy the mod. The modder has a few friends, and they enjoy discussing it. Now, the modder is offered a pittance. Suddenly, it is an insult, because the amount is so low.
Unless you are offering sufficient monetary compensation to outweigh the loss of the social incentive, you lose. No, it isn't "rational", but it is how people work.
If you had a decent way compensating them, the more popular mods could have full-time people.
Adding financial incentives to a community built on a share-and-share-alike mentality skews things a lot. I can see this whole paid mod thing working, but it's going to take a much gentler approach than what they did here.
In fact I can't think of a single real high end open source project which it's development isn't fully supported by an army of paid developers.
If you have financial incentive, more modders will come on to the scene and do it full time.
25% is awfully low, honestly.
IMO, Bethesda should not get any money (see my post)
That leaves 70% for the modder. Seems acceptable to me.
15% to Valve for merchant fees(this is already crazy high compared to the credit card processors and other payment processor's fees). They shouldn't get the full 30% they charge for game publishing since they already offer Steam Workshop for free and mods don't have the same visibility as games in the store.
15% to the game creator for on-going royalty fees for re-purposing of assets/technology. They would also receive final say in what mods are or are not allowed in Workshop, paid or free. They retain ownership of their original creation and any use or derivation of it.
70% to mod creator.
Now its' 0.