"Opening up Arma 3 to paid user-made content" - How?

[IndeedPete 1038]

I have been saying the same.

Anyway, modders (even those who defend the idea) will figure it after implementation.

Which will hopefully take some time. Even if BI sticks to implementing this idea it's a long way to go. It would require payment systems to be integrated into the workshop (well, the steam platform already knows PayPal etc.), the possibility to encrypt user-content (good bye, reverse engineering) and all the legal questions, quality ensurance, prosecution of copyright violations / unauthorised use etc. And legal regulations we modders must follow according to our countries: In the beraucratic paradise of Germany, will I need to register a trade with the authorities? What about health insurance, tax return, youth protection laws and whatnot? I just want to mod, god dammit! :D (And yes, I know monetising content will be most likely optional and I'm exaggerating here.)

[Fadi 22]

So as of today the Steam Workshop supports paid addons, although it's limited to Skyrim at the moment: http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/aboutpaidcontent

[Jackal326 1181]

So as of today the Steam Workshop supports paid addons, although it's limited to Skyrim at the moment: http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/aboutpaidcontent

I was just about to post this exact link. I'm currently reading through it all now. Its safe to assume similar stipulations will be in place for ArmA3, as its is discussed in generalities, whilst only using Skyrim as the debut supported product.

Of particular interest was the following:

Q. Can I sell a mod that contains artwork or content from another game or movie?

A. You must have the necessary rights to post any content that you post to the Steam Workshop, whether it is for sale or not. If you upload copyrighted content that you or your contributors do not have the rights to distribute, then you may forfeit all earned revenue from the item, may be liable for damages and compensation, and may be banned from future participation in this Workshop or the Steam Community in general.

[jelskipro 32]

i think it will ruin the mod community

[vegeta897 13]

Monetizing mods is a terrible idea, in this community especially.

If you feel like you deserve to get paid, go get a job in the industry.

So it's a terrible idea because you don't want to pay for mods? Because you think no modders deserve payment?

Lucky for you, you won't have to buy anything if you don't want. Unlucky for you, you cannot decide for other people whether they think they deserve money for their work or not. It's insulting that you even think you can make this call for anyone but yourself.

[gossamersolid 155]

So it's a terrible idea because you don't want to pay for mods? Because you think no modders deserve payment?

Lucky for you, you won't have to buy anything if you don't want. Unlucky for you, you cannot decide for other people whether they think they deserve money for their work or not. It's insulting that you even think you can make this call for anyone but yourself.

Correct, modders don't deserve payment for a product delivered. They want to accept donations, that's fine, but I've yet to see a mod here that deserves to be a paid product.

This community is full of cry baby modders who flip out when somebody says one thing semi-negative. Wait till somebody pays them for a product...

Don't worry, I won't buy any of them if they do come.

[vegeta897 13]

Correct, modders don't deserve payment for a product delivered. They want to accept donations, that's fine, but I've yet to see a mod here that deserves to be a paid product.

I have seen mods that deserve to be paid products. Opinions, isn't it funny how they work? You get to choose what you deem worthy of your money! Wow!

This community is full of cry babies

Sure is...

[Tonci87 163]

So as of today the Steam Workshop supports paid addons, although it's limited to Skyrim at the moment: http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/aboutpaidcontent

As of today Steam found itself a new Source of revenue. Greedy bastards. Although I appreciate that moders can choose a pay what you want option.

I think this is quite telling:

Q. What happens if a mod I bought breaks?

A. Sometimes one mod may modify the same files as another mod, or a particular combination of mods may cause unexpected outcomes. If you find that mod has broken or is behaving unexpectedly, it is best to post politely on the Workshop item's page and let the mod author know the details of what you are seeing.

In other words, hope that the Mod author bothers to fix it, otherwise you are out of luck. Steam doesn´t seem to be able/willing to enforce support

However, at least for the german workshop part, there is quite a lot of legal mumbo jumbo to follow before you can monetize your mod. I was unable to find any information on how large Valves (and in this case Bethesdas) cut will be, e.g. how much of the money goes to the modder.

And what is even more interesting, Valve doesn´t pay the modder until his share of the sales has reached 100$. Until then a mod author doesn´t see a single cent of his earned money.

F. Gibt es einen Mindestbetrag, den ich eingenommen haben muss, bevor ich eine Auszahlung erhalten kann?

A. Ja. Mit jeder einzelnen Auszahlung entstehen Kosten, genauso wie potenzielle Gebühren der Bank, wenn Sie Zahlungen erhalten. Dies macht es leider nicht möglich, kleinere Beträge auszuzahlen. Deswegen ruht Ihre Auszahlung, bis Sie einen Auszahlungsbetrag von $100 erreichen.

This whole thing will be a clusterfuck just as much as Greenlight is, but Steam will earn a shitton of money without doing anything for it.

Well, now we know where BIS got that idea from, Valve must have reached out to developers with very modable games and told them how to make money for free.

[katipo66 94]

Arma 3 is the first in the series that I can happily play unmodded, I'll buy DLC from Bohemia all day but won't spend one cent on any mod, although I would donate to a few.

The thing is, I buy mod, BI update the game a month later and breaks mod, mod author is gone.. No guarantee on quality or work.. Thats probably has been said before but my main point was the fact that the game works great for me unmodded.

[kremator 1065]

User made content to be paid for .... nope. Whole can of worms. Completely the wrong direction BIS.

[Defunkt 431]

The world turns, games become more complex, mods become more time-consuming to develop and the contribution of user-made content becomes better recognised. If there's no effective way of stopping server operators monetizing that content we should at least ensure the original authors can also.

Now we might hope that a project like Nova Zona will return to the game;

[IndeedPete 1038]

The world turns, games become more complex, mods become more time-consuming to develop and the contribution of user-made content becomes better recognised. If there's no effective way of stopping server operators monetizing that content we should at least ensure the original authors can also.

And what about the other way round? By trying to take away some of the complexity and time consumption with optimised tools and faster workflows? Or maybe completely going away from propriety and towards an open-source Arma platform?

[kireta21 13]

we should at least ensure the original authors can also.

Authors get scraps as 75% goes to Bethesda (publishers can take up to 90%) and Valve's cut is not known. If I was to guess I would say 40% of what's left.

Also EULA states author recieves 0% untill he gathers at least $100 of his share, which means he won't see even these scraps untill he makes ~$1000 for Valve and publisher.

Take bucket of popcorn and enjoy carnage, as internet is damn near sure to throw their collective shit over that.

In meantime Valve will just keep making money. Capitalism, ho!

[PuFu 4600]

but it is up the individual to accept or deny this sort of contract with valve/bis. Just like it is up to you the user to pay or not for the content provided by such individual.

[SaOk 112]

Its a big robbery that they give only 25% for modder who does all the work. They basically are abusing young modders that dont see it. Should be 80-90% at least for modder. But not sure what to think, definitely the pay what your want would be better way (with e.g. 1$ minimum, if player dont want to support that much for the hard work, he dont have right to complain. Modders are not slaves, at the end they can do what they want with their work. Players can vote with their purses).

But stealing other's work and sell it will be definitely issue. If it cant be prevented, then it will get very dirty.

Edited April 23, 2015 by SaOk

[IndeedPete 1038]

but it is up the individual to accept or deny this sort of contract with valve/bis. Just like it is up to you the user to pay or not for the content provided by such individual.

I'm afraid it could actually split the community. Posts in this thread alone show that it's obviously a very controversial topic. (And did you guys see the comments below the selected monetised mods? Not the nicest sort of comments.) I also think it stands contrary to BI's DLC policy. They've claimed they don't want to split the community by making content (and servers using that content) inaccessible for non-DLC-buyers. But this will most likely happen if popular community content (not only units and weapon packs but game modes etc.) is being monetised (read: locked for non-payers).

Oh, and the conditions shown here are obviously a rip-off. Don't forget that there are probably taxes or additional "service fees" on top, depending on the country.

[Concrete 10]

Three thought on this :

1. The selfish part of me is worrying about having to pay for ACE, the only mod I can think of I would even consider paying for.

2. This could actually greatly improve the top tier mods. I've noticed a few modders have to give up on their projects because of real world problems like paying the rent.

3. Valve's share of the money is outrageous, I think that is something almost all of us can agree on. Does this mean they will be providing quality control and curating the paid mods (yeah right), or are they really going to take 75% of the cut just for hosting it.

[soulis6 24]

Technically all of Arma is DLC, along with patches and free updates...:cool:

Why do you think people would stop helping each other make mods? Do professional game developers stop helping each other once they start making money? Do artists?

As far as stealing people's work, same as anything else, there should be protections and action creators can take if someone steals their work.

Copying ideas won't be a problem, because as in the rest of game development, ideas are worthless. Everyone has a million ideas, none of them have any (monetary) value until all the hard hours have been put in, by the end of which the idea has been changed at least a bit, because no idea survives the creation process completely the same. It's not about the idea, it's about the execution. The actual trouble would be from someone stealing the code from another mod and putting it up on the store, but hopefully there will be actions that can be taken to get those off the store, as other system have this problem occasionally as well.

---------- Post added at 22:51 ---------- Previous post was at 22:46 ----------

Three thought on this :

1. The selfish part of me is worrying about having to pay for ACE, the only mod I can think of I would even consider paying for.

2. This could actually greatly improve the top tier mods. I've noticed a few modders have to give up on their projects because of real world problems like paying the rent.

3. Valve's share of the money is outrageous, I think that is something almost all of us can agree on. Does this mean they will be providing quality control and curating the paid mods (yeah right), or are they really going to take 75% of the cut just for hosting it.

I agree about top tier mods being improved, that's where i think this could be a good thing for mod developers. I think over time mods that aren't worth the money will go free or find an appropriate price, people will always be releasing quality free mods because they are already doing that now, and that the best of the best mods will only be improved by financial support.

Regarding #3, Valve has said it's actually up to the developers how much of a split the mod creators get; they take their normal split from the devs, and then the devs decide how much of that remaining they share with the mod creators. So in this case the 25% of the profits going to the mod creators is a number set by Bethesda.

[twisted 128]

As of today Steam found itself a new Source of revenue. Greedy bastards.

However, at least for the german workshop part, there is quite a lot of legal mumbo jumbo to follow before you can monetize your mod. I was unable to find any information on how large Valves (and in this case Bethesdas) cut will be, e.g. how much of the money goes to the modder.

And what is even more interesting, Valve doesn´t pay the modder until his share of the sales has reached 100$. Until then a mod author doesn´t see a single cent of his earned money.

This whole thing will be a clusterfuck just as much as Greenlight is, but Steam will earn a shitton of money without doing anything for it.

Well, now we know where BIS got that idea from, Valve must have reached out to developers with very modable games and told them how to make money for free.

as much as i find steam conveneient, it does seem they are going out of their way to montize others hard work for themselves. This is big coorpration greed pushing its agenda in finding new income sources without much concern to how it affects each games user bases.

Edited April 23, 2015 by twisted

[semiconductor 309]

Why do you think people would stop helping each other make mods

Well, there is a very limited amount of people who would actually buy modifications and they ain't going to buy all of them. So, your content has be better than all other modifications, both paid and unpaid (nobody is going to buy your mission even for $0.50 if there is a free version that provides roughly the same gameplay). The first and most obvious step in order to outperform someone is to stop helping him, stop sharing with him your precious resources, your knowledge and your time. Without taking that step all other steps to increase sales are basically useless because the one you helped will sell content similar to yours with half the price/more features/more content.

Do professional game developers stop helping each other once they start making money?

I believe they do. Any company will go for a great lengths to decrease competitors share of market and increase their own and I really doubt that artists from Rockstar are eager to help Ubisoft in making Watch Dogs 2 for free, just because they're great folks and all that.

[soulis6 24]

as much as i find steam conveneient, it does seem they are going out of their way to montize others hard work for themselves. This is big coproation greed pushing its agenda in finisnd new income sources without much concern to how it affects each games user bases.

You do realize that mod creators are not forced to put up their mod on steam, nor forced to charge for it right?

[IndeedPete 1038]

@Das: Yeah, that's the exactly the comment I meant. :D But charging 20 cents to 93€ for a freaking sword is insanely weird. And I agree, while it probably won't destroy these forums some experienced people might refuse to answer questions or share samples for others. While beginners can't open mod PBOs to learn how things go because these have been encrypted. Really a development I won't like to see. At least how I experienced it this community was a bunch of nice people doing it for fun, modding as a hobby. A huge pool of creative and free content. Of course, many projects never left the concept stage but still, it's contribution. That's one of the reasons I've joined and keep publishing stuff at least a small audience of players seems to find enjoyable. I really hope a monetary system won't break this, but that largely depends on how it's executed I think and should be considered very carefully. I'm happy to keep on doing this as a hobby without making a (monetary) profit out of it. I have a real life with a real job and real duties. I don't want to have worries about money and duties in my hobby as well, but that's just me. Especially when the true profiteer is (as in most of the cases) the house and not the players.

@Soulis6: I'm of an opposite opinion. Ideas are interlectual property too. Think of patents or rights on creative content. Sure, I could produce a cover version of Pink Floyd's The Wall (execution) without sharing the profits with them. But they'll probably sue the flip out of me within no time. I can also try to grab Einstein's relativity theorey and sell it as my own research. That's still a violation of interlectual property. Ideas are the base of every project and there is a good reason why courts are spammed with cases of copyright infrigements and patent lawsuits on a daily basis. (Apart from the strategic motives some prosecuters might have.)

[biggerdave 56]

I have a lot of reservations with this idea.

Firstly, who's going to vet this, exactly? Everytime steam has opened itself up to community content (greenlight, workshop), a shameful amount of stuff has been stolen, or heavily based on other people's work without their permission. Now that we're adding money into the equation, that's going to get a hell of a lot worse.

Second, 75% cut is daylight robbery. I can get BIS taking a cut, but what exactly are valve providing here that justify them taking, let's face it, around half the money being thrown around? Hosting? You can get that anywhere, hell, people want to host your work free of charge, that's how folks like SiX make money. Steam workshop? No offence, but steam workshop is kinda, well... shit.

Thirdly, this is only going to encourage competition, rather than cooperation between modders. Say you figure out how to do something neat with a config or model, in a strictly non-commercial environment, there's no reason not to share this, you get bragging rights and love from all for figuring it out. In a commercial environment? The exact opposite is the case, sharing your knowledge hurts you: if you're the only one with the gimmick, you're the only one getting the money from it, if everyone has it, your product isn't special anymore.

[slatts 1978]

How do I fell about the whole thing? Well. Lemme show you the only way I know how..

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CDTf5wuWAAAY91G.png:large

[soulis6 24]

Well, there is a very limited amount of people who would actually buy modifications and they ain't going to buy all of them. So, your content has be better than all other modifications, both paid and unpaid (nobody is going to buy your mission even for $0.50 if there is a free version that provides roughly the same gameplay). The first and most obvious step in order to outperform someone is to stop helping him, stop sharing with him your precious resources, your knowledge and your time. Without taking that step all other steps to increase sales are basically useless because the one you helped will sell content similar to yours with half the price/more features/more content.I believe they do. Any company will go for a great lengths to decrease competitors share of market and increase their own and I really doubt that artists from Rockstar are eager to help Ubisoft in making Watch Dogs 2 for free, just because they are great folks and all that.

While I agree that huge companies like Rockstar and Ubisoft are probably not helping each other out directly, I can tell you that yes game developers help each other out all the time, for a multitude of reasons. There are sites out there all over the place that solely exist to share knowledge and help each other with problems.

It's not until big companies and managers get involved that people start being closemouthed about techniques or approaches, and even then there's still big conferences that are held every year that have tons of indepth talks in detail about problems and solutions.

The reason, as any creative professional, you help other people with problems or advice (aside from it just being a good thing to do that hopefully makes your soul feel nice and fuzzy), is because you never know when you are in turn going to be the one needing help or advice, and will be turning to that same community.

Edited April 23, 2015 by Soulis6