Steam discussion

[sanctuary 19]

This was priceless :D

Couldn't stop laughing :D

[.kju 3239]

While I agree that 25% is probably too low, most people lack the perspective on the reality of the situation in terms of power.

Investor > Distribution platform > Publisher > Developer (company) > Developers (people) > Modders

Before digital distribution the story was way more one sided than those 25%.

Even now 25% is probably far better than most developer to publisher relation (not even talking those higher levels into account).

Valve takes 30% - the publisher determines how much the modder gets from the remaining 70%.

Valve, the first few companies with restricted paid mods went with 25% to the modders, and I guess Zenimax (publisher of Bethesda)

just followed along keeping 45% for them.

Valve - 30% (5% to service providers if selected)

Publisher - 70%-0%; Skyrim: 45%

Developer - ???

Modder - 0-70%; Skyrim: 25%

Now with donations you can also loose a lot of the value actually paid by the player (up to 40% by paypal with 1€/$ donations).

See: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?187573-Do-donations-work-for-arma-modders

Unlike other curated games on Steam that allow users to sell their creations, this will be the first game with an open market. It will not be curated by us or Valve.

https://steamcommunity.com/games/Skyrim/announcements/detail/139952470913885583

Without question this is outrageous and a recipe for disaster.

Sources:

> As for Valve's slice of the pice, Lombardi said it will take "the same share of sales as we do with any other microtransaction sale."

http://www.pcgamer.com/valve-expects-steam-community-to-help-police-paid-mods/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/04/24/valves-paid-skyrim-mods-are-a-legal-ethical-and-creative-disaster/

Rockets insights and thoughts:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2015/04/24/dayz-creator-weighs-in-on-paid-skyrim-mods-your-turn-rockstar/

Garry's mod author insights and thoughts:

http://garry.tv/2015/04/24/paying-for-mods/

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/33p3j7/garrys_mod_creator_comes_out_supporting_paid_mods/

However just in terms of the (current) 25% most just have a very naive view vs the actual power situation.

Edited April 26, 2015 by .kju [PvPscene]

[Tonci87 163]

It´s still bullshit though, Mods raise the value of a game and usually help to sell it long past it´s original lifecycle. If anyone the people benefiting from the games sales should be paying the modders.

Seriously, the games industry has been getting away with consumer unfriendly and quite insane bullshit for far too long, simply because very few people are ready to go to court to enforce regulations.

[SaOk 112]

Definitely, they dont see the games also sell better when having good mods. Just as expample ArmA2 probably sold over 1 million(?) more after dayz hype started. I think arma3 success have been 80-95% from mods too (maybe people buy it to play without mods but only since they see the great reviews that are there because of mods). Zeus and End Game are great, but would have been there too late. The game content in default arma3 when it was released was very slim and I dont think the campaign raised much interest even it was good. Who would buy the DLC's if there wouldnt have been mods. Not much to do with the new weapons and choppers if there would be only the few very dull showcases (something that could be made in less that hour, minus the voice-acting).

[Sniperwolf572 758]

People talk about "derivative content" being the reason for such insane cuts. I'd agree if the mods being released are standalone games that do not require the base product (For example, IF44).

If all those people in the chain before the mod can't agree to not tax the people, who increase the sales and lifetime of their base product, in a way comparable to a bad medieval movie, then it's not worth even pretending to be doing it for the benefit of anyone other but themselves.

On the other hand, people who agree and have agreed to sell mods with the current system, in my opinion, completely forfeit any right to complain about anything related to it. They knew what they were getting themselves into.

I'll actually defend Valve in the decision that you can only stop selling the mod and remove it from the public view, but not remove it from the people who bought it.

---------- Post added at 23:00 ---------- Previous post was at 22:24 ----------

For the next few hours, GabeN is discussing this on Reddit.

Edited April 25, 2015 by Sniperwolf572

[.kju 3239]

> Update: 30% to Valve, 45% to Bethesda

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/04/24/valves-paid-skyrim-mods-are-a-legal-ethical-and-creative-disaster/

[Varanon 892]

The 25:75 split is absolutely ridiculous. It's an insult to the mod author

[Tonci87 163]

This is pretty sick, from Eurogamer

Fishing mod Art of the Catch creator Chesko is furious at Valve for not removing their mod from the Steam Workshop entirely after they requested it be taken down and offered refunds to everyone who purchased it.

In a Reddit post about the issue Chesko clarified that it was his decision to remove the mod from sale, not Valve's. "After a discussion with Fore, I made the decision to pull Art of the Catch down myself. (It was not removed by a staff member.) Fore and I have talked since and we are okay."

Unfortunately, Valve won't let the modder remove their own work from the Workshop entirely, as those who purchased it already still have access to it. Chesko would prefer to refund everyone and reclaim their work to distribute as they please.

"I was just contacted by Valve's lawyer. He stated that they will not remove the content unless 'legally compelled to do so', and that they will make the file visible only to currently paid users," Chesko said. "I am beside myself with anger right now as they try to tell me what I can do with my own content. The copyright situation with Art of the Catch is shades of grey, but in Arissa 2.0's case, it's black and white; that's 100 per cent mine and Griefmyst's work, and I should be able to dictate its distribution if I so choose. Unbelievable."

Given this whole unfortunate ordeal, Chesko has chosen to leave the Steam Workshop completely. "With the complete lack of moderation control over the hundreds of spam and attack messages I have received on Steam and off, I am making the decision to leave the curated Workshop behind," he lamented. "I will be refunding all PayPal donations that have occurred today and yesterday."

"I may just host my mods on my own site for anyone who is interested," he stated. "What I need to happen, right now, is for modding to return to its place in my life where it's a fun side hobby, instead of taking over my life. That starts now. Or just give it up entirely; I have other things I could spend my energy on."

We have requested comment from Valve on why it won't allow modders to remove their own work entirely, even if they issue refunds. We'll let you know what the company says should it issue a response.

So here we have a modder who really regrets partnering with Valve.

[chrisb 196]

This is pretty sick, from Eurogamer

So here we have a modder who really regrets partnering with Valve.

I think its more down to the abuse he received from objectors to him entering the partnership in the first place. Many of those nutcases that probably use his mods. Tell them they may have to pay and knives come out really quickly.

That's a shame really, but it does show people up for who they really are. He didn't deserve any of the abuse he got. Now the players loose out, not because of steam but because of other players. Read more into what happened to him via steam, twitter and elsewhere, its not pleasant. This abuse was not put on him by steam, but other players, too narrow minded to see that he was just giving it a go, testing the water. Sad really, but that's what happens when your back is towards the people you were giving enjoyment to for free, just because he thought he might be able to earn a little from doing something he obviously loved doing. They stab you firmly in the back and abuse you, one minute they want your mod (for free of course) next minute they're writing terrible stuff about you, when they don't even know you.

Pretty typical, unfortunately.

[taro8 806]

You know what I realized? The modder pay mechanics may be even worse then it appears. From what I understand modder only gets the $100 every time mod earns $400. So he dosent get money for each download, but for hitting "milestones".

[Tonci87 163]

You know what I realized? The modder pay mechanics may be even worse then it appears. From what I understand modder only gets the $100 every time mod earns $400. So he dosent get money for each download, but for hitting "milestones".

Basically yes. And the definition of the milestone (how mayn downloads until you get 100$) totally depends on the Dev/publisher.

[.kju 3239]

Fishing mod Art of the Catch creator Chesko is furious at Valve for not removing their mod from the Steam Workshop entirely after they requested it be taken down and offered refunds to everyone who purchased it.

Maybe he should have actually read closely the contract he signed. If you want to go commercial, you cannot just pretend to continue as it was a hobby with no obligations.

modder only gets the $100 every time mod earns $400

That is just the case for Skyrim (Zenimax/Bethesda) so far.

The publisher/developer sets 1) the percentage (read above) and 2) the payout threshold.

[taro8 806]

Still if mod earns $399.99 modder dosent get the money while valve (and most likely beth still get theirs). Just one more way to buttfuck modders stupid enough to buy into this scam.

EDIT: You want to refund your mod, great heres your fake Steam Wallet money, oh and dont forget this 7 days ban for refunds and marketplace.

Edited April 26, 2015 by Taro8

[.kju 3239]

As you still dont get it, the publisher decides the withdrawal limit and the percentage between publisher and modder (aside from Valve's 30% cut) - NOT Valve.

And yes its reasonable to have a certain minimum, as bank transaction costs, especially refund costs, are not to be neglected.

Whether a limit of 100€/$ is reasonable, or too high, is probably not as simple to judge as you believe it to be. At least Valve does have considerable experience

with the whole process and complications after years of doing that with their own games.

Refund to steam wallet is unacceptable of course. Sadly its fairly common practice too - a consumer protection organization has to drag Valve to court probably

to improve that (among other problems with Steam - like they do for years).

As long as many many gamers directly buy from Steam, especially the deals, no pressure towards Valve is built by the consumers itself..

The 7 days ban is probably reasonable to combat abuse. Shorter would be desirable, as would be a tiered approach (new user vs long time) - however abuse

with Steam is rampant, thus things like that are needed to some degree.

[x3kj 1247]

As you still dont get it, the publisher decides the withdrawal limit and the percentage between publisher and modder (aside from Valve's 30% cut) - NOT Valve.

Valve are claiming "oh but the developers decide the cut", when they already take 30% ... As the service hoster (with no quality control whatsoever) this is huge imo. They pointing the bad finger at Beteshda is just move to divert some attention from their greedy cut.

[.kju 3239]

Well Steam is essentially a monopoly - most people/gamers are just too naive to think that Valve are the "good guys".

They are mostly also very business focused and full capitalism believers.

Compared to pre Steam 30% is low AFAIK; other distribution platforms also take 30% - mostly also without quality control (not 100% on this aspect though).

Aside from that I am not in the position to judge if 30%, 40%, 20% or 10% would be appropriate.

As mentioned above the lack of quality control is a big issue IMO and it seems Valve started to implement a basic system at least.

However as GabeN said on reddit, they "need" systems that scale - mostly algorithm driven, rather than by support people.

I would tend to disagree with their technology approach, yet I have far too little insights into this to make any reasonable judgement.

Some more decent thoughts by Rocket (not that I agree with all of them - at least he argues on a reasonable level):

https://www.reddit.com/r/dayz/comments/33r190/dean_hall_talks_about_paid_skyrim_mods_in_a_most/

Edit: Valve's reasoning

Q. Is there a minimum revenue I must earn before I can receive a payment?

A. Yes. There are costs associated with issuing each individual payment as well as potential bank fees charged to you upon receiving money that make it prohibitive to pay out for small amounts of money. Therefore, we may hold your payment until a minimum of $100 payout is earned.

https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/about/?appid=72850#Earning

Selling your creations

When an item is sold via the Steam Workshop, revenue is shared between Valve (for transaction costs, fraud, bandwidth & hosting costs, building & supporting the Steam platform), the game developer (for creation of the game and the game's universe, the marketing to build an audience, the included assets, and any included modding or editing tools), and the item creator (including any specified contributors).

Supplemental Workshop Terms – Revenue Sharing

https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/workshoplegalagreement/?appid=72850

These Supplemental Workshop Terms supplement the terms set out in the Steam Subscriber Agreement. They address how revenue will be shared for any Contributions for which a fee is charged.

Edited April 26, 2015 by .kju [PvPscene]

[ceeeb 147]

It will be interesting to see how this issue plays out here in Australia, where we also have quite strict laws regarding fitness for purpose and rights to repair/refund for all commercially sold products and services. The Australian consumer protection body (ACCC) has already taken Valve to court regarding their refund policy. Mods sold without having been through any QA are more likely to fail to meet these standards.

Edited April 26, 2015 by ceeeb

[x3kj 1247]

I would tend to disagree with their technology approach, yet I have far too little insights into this to make any reasonable judgement.

The only quality control i can imagine them doing will be basically the same thing they did with full games - curator lists where only good stuff is in. It's not a quality controll, more like "display what is actually good more often on default". At least this is the impression i got from the hints they gave.

[Tonci87 163]

The only quality control i can imagine them doing will be basically the same thing they did with full games - curator lists where only good stuff is in. It's not a quality controll, more like "display what is actually good more often on default". At least this is the impression i got from the hints they gave.

If you want to see how well their QA works just take a look at steam early access and Greenlight. It´s a mess.... there basically isn´t any QA. And since Steam said that they will not currate the workshop at all (wich they kinda should do when they feel entiteld to a 30% cut) this means that everything goes....

[sudayev 27]

Hot news!

Valve in retreat, apologizes. Paid mods are NO MORE.

Removing Payment Feature From Skyrim Workshop

28 APRIL - ALDEN

We're going to remove the payment feature from the Skyrim workshop. For anyone who spent money on a mod, we'll be refunding you the complete amount. We talked to the team at Bethesda and they agree.

We've done this because it's clear we didn't understand exactly what we were doing. We've been shipping many features over the years aimed at allowing community creators to receive a share of the rewards, and in the past, they've been received well. It's obvious now that this case is different.

To help you understand why we thought this was a good idea, our main goals were to allow mod makers the opportunity to work on their mods full time if they wanted to, and to encourage developers to provide better support to their mod communities. We thought this would result in better mods for everyone, both free & paid. We wanted more great mods becoming great products, like Dota, Counter-strike, DayZ, and Killing Floor, and we wanted that to happen organically for any mod maker who wanted to take a shot at it.

But we underestimated the differences between our previously successful revenue sharing models, and the addition of paid mods to Skyrim's workshop. We understand our own game's communities pretty well, but stepping into an established, years old modding community in Skyrim was probably not the right place to start iterating. We think this made us miss the mark pretty badly, even though we believe there's a useful feature somewhere here.

Now that you've backed a dump truck of feedback onto our inboxes, we'll be chewing through that, but if you have any further thoughts let us know.

[opteryx 1562]

Wow, I guess speaking out works after all.

[maturin 12]

Wow, I guess speaking out works after all.

It helps when your community has one of the strongest identities in all of gaming, with an ethos built up over a literal generation.

Put another way, when the community defends its dogmatically-held beliefs with an ardor that surpasses religious fervor, tempered by a deep cultural tendency towards drama and prima donna behavior.

[chrisb 196]

I'll just repeat a post I put on another forum:

The minority rules again. But that's the world in general isn't it. It'll return, I have no doubt of that, just time, where and when i.e. which game they decide to do it on next. Give it a year or so.

They should consider banning those that down rated games for no reason though, that would at least be some justice, plus of course those haters that abused the mod guys that took part. Because lets face it, down rating a game for no reason, that had nothing to do with it, isn't an opinion, its victimisation. Same as hating on someone you don't even know, simply because they gave it a go.

But at least we know who those players that down voted and victimised the content makers were. Probably the ones that spend the most with Steam, that's how shallow these people tend to be.

Still, move on and mix in the right company

[Tonci87 163]

I'll just repeat a post I put on another forum:

The minority rules again. But that's the world in general isn't it. It'll return, I have no doubt of that, just time, where and when i.e. which game they decide to do it on next. Give it a year or so.

They should consider banning those that down rated games for no reason though, that would at least be some justice, plus of course those haters that abused the mod guys that took part. Because lets face it, down rating a game for no reason, that had nothing to do with it, isn't an opinion, its victimisation. Same as hating on someone you don't even know, simply because they gave it a go.

But at least we know who those players that down voted and victimised the content makers were. Probably the ones that spend the most with Steam, that's how shallow these people tend to be.

Still, move on and mix in the right company

The minority? Judging by the outrage over the whole internet it was the clear majority who was against the way Steam implemented this. Even people close to the industry like Totalbiscuit were against it. Now I really do hope that Valve brings back the pay what you want feature and leaves it at that, because that is the way to go.

I´m curious if this means that the modders who maid their mods payware will now see no money at all even if they went above the 100$ milestone?

[chrisb 196]

The minority? Judging by the outrage over the whole internet it was the clear majority who was against the way Steam implemented this. Even people close to the industry like Totalbiscuit were against it. Now I really do hope that Valve brings back the pay what you want feature and leaves it at that, because that is the way to go.

I´m curious if this means that the modders who maid their mods payware will now see no money at all even if they went above the 100$ milestone?

I know the last time I looked at the petition they had started on Steam against the idea, it had under 100,000 signature's of 75,000,000 Steam users. (75-80 million). The majority would be if around 40 million objected !

A simple vote would have been better, pop-up in front of all players before going into a game (just the once) 'Yes' or 'No' to paid player made content. More democratic I would have said.

Edited April 28, 2015 by ChrisB