STEAMing Pile...

G

Grall

Invisible Member
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Ars Technica; Steam Workshop lets users sell mods, but only shares 25 percent of revenue

Also, you gotta earn a hundred bucks (at quarter rate, meaning Valve earns $300) before they'll pay you a single fucking dime.

Is Valve/Steam turning into just another asshole company, grown too large in marketshare and ego for its own good? There's been a whole rash of these customer-hostile decisions from Valve these past couple years, and they're not even driven by greedy market-profiteering stock owners; Valve is still privately held.

I basically haven't bought anything from Steam in like a year now. Ever since they started making the "popular new releases" tab the default in the store, like I give a shit what other people are buying? Decisions like the above just reinforces the feeling that maybe I just shouldn't buy anything more, ever, unless they implement meaningful change to the way they're doing business.
 
The developer sets the split (in your Skyrim case you should be blaming Bethesda for the 25% cut). It's not 75% Valve and 25% struggling artist but rather it's X% for Valve, Y% for Bethesda, and 25% for struggling artist.
 
Additionally unlike mods hosted on websites, Steam isn't getting advertising revenue for hosting those mods. Just like websites hosting mods aren't charities, neither is Valve.

It also provides a safe method of getting and installing those modes. Something websites either don't do, or when they do it, can't guarantee it's safe. For example, Curse.com is a great place to get addons, generally. They even have a tool you can use to grab addons and install them. That addon has also been used maliciously (not by the Curse people) to infect computers with malware in the past.

And uh, speaking of free mods. At least a mod author "can" get paid for a mod on Steam. Unlike distributing it for free so that website owners like Curse.com can profit from their free mod.

Regards,
SB
 
I'm sure there is a very, very small % of mods that are dollar worthy, but in my experience I would never ever pay money for a mod unless I had some sort of guarantee that it wouldn't melt my game install and rape my gamesaves. Seems like an extension of Early Access which has largely turned into the scammer's wet dream. Why bail out a Nigerian prince when you can pay for a game that hasn't been made yet?

The real crime is Valve's 30% take on any game sold on Steam. Damn that's high.
 
It seems Valve is doing a lot of the painful work organizing the banks, dealing with tax etc. yet not taking a substantial cut or anything.

Mods are completely safe for game install and game saves if they're only esps with no scripting. Things like new armor, weapons etc. are completely fine.
 
on the brighter side.
this can encourage PC developers to add proper mod support and tools

on even dark side.
this can encourage PC developers to ONLY support mod on Steam.

on annoying side.
if the dev did nothing, did not provide mod tools etc. they should not get a cut. Or if get a cut, make it very very low.
 
For the end user, what's the difference between a paid mod and a paid DLC?

The mod community has been supported by enthusiasts and people aiming to build a portfolio so they can apply to jobs in the industry. They're successful because they're free.
Now that mods can be paid for, most modders will naturally try to make a healthy living out of it (people want to thrive, it's just natural).

One of the most popular Skyrim mods, Wet&Cold, is a pioneer of this mod-to-DLC transition. The guy was actually approached by Valve and Bethesda to stop updating the mod for Nexus so he could make money out of it starting this week. The price of the mod is no less than $5. This mod already costs more than the whole game in a sale, we're not talking microtransactions here. Obviously, the price is ridiculously high because the percentage going to the modder is tiny.
Moreover, questions have already started to arise because the mod originally aggregates open source work from other modders. So this guy, Bethesda and Valve are already stealing money from assets that were originally open source, made by people (more than that -> made by fans of the game) who will never see a cent from it.
This will raise little fights of who-did-what within the modding community, flame wars will break friendly partnerships and cooperative work will cease to exist. The best mods were continuous works of this guy picking up the work of those other guys and improving on it. That will cease to exist.

And the "you don't get anything until we make $300 out of it" rule?
So if you make a $1 mod that gets purchased 399 times, Steam and Bethesda will earn $399 out of your mod and you get nothing. Let that sink in.

Valve and Bethesda (this actually stinks of Zenimax) may very well be killing the whole mod community with this money-mongering, and setting it back decades of communities being built within the modding community.


Grall said:
Is Valve/Steam turning into just another asshole company, grown too large in marketshare and ego for its own good? There's been a whole rash of these customer-hostile decisions from Valve these past couple years, and they're not even driven by greedy market-profiteering stock owners; Valve is still privately held.
Click to expand...
Well at least they put out some great games themselves every other year.
Oh.. wait.. no they don't.


EDIT: It seems the Wet&Cold guy changed the price to pay what you want eventually. Perhaps because he saw how many people were willing to pay $5 for it..
 
Last edited by a moderator:
In related news, Steam is taking down all free mods who present a "donate" link in their description.

Because heck no, we can't have people giving money directly to the modders, without 75% of it going to Valve.
 
Origin and GoG really need to step up and dethrone Steam. They have wonderful service (Origin Great Game Warranty refund!) and much quicker to load than STEAMing pile of shit known as STEAM. Draconian Corporation also should love Origin because their latest DRM is still uncrackable (or is it already cracked? but months late) and nice corps can be happy with GoG no drm :D

not really sure about uPlay, Games for Windows Live 8 10 Xbox (whatever it will be named)...

EDIT:
Show your vote with money. Stop buying stuff off steam. GoG have Witcher 3.
 
Malo said:
It seems Valve is doing a lot of the painful work organizing the banks, dealing with tax etc. yet not taking a substantial cut or anything.

Mods are completely safe for game install and game saves if they're only esps with no scripting. Things like new armor, weapons etc. are completely fine.
Click to expand...
I guess I always go completely nuts when i start adding mods to the point where the game world becomes something like that crazy ass movie with Heath Ledger where they went into some kind of dream world and shit gets weird. I think it was the last thing he was in before he died.

Ah yes, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

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I'm still not seeing anywhere about valve getting 75% of the cut, that a mod maker gets pittance out of $5, or anything about $300. I expect more from people in this forum rather than spreading FUD. Links please?
 
the article on ars on 1st post already explained that. Its up to the dev/pub to determind how much the split. Curently for Dishonored, its 25% for modder, x% for dev/pub, x% for valve.
 
Malo said:
I'm still not seeing anywhere about valve getting 75% of the cut, that a mod maker gets pittance out of $5, or anything about $300. I expect more from people in this forum rather than spreading FUD. Links please?
Click to expand...
75% is what Valve takes from any purchase in Steam Workshop AFAIK. The difference is that they only allowed pay-walled mods for their own games, where Valve as developer of the games are the ones guaranteeing that the mod works. In the case of Skyrim, things are a bit different:
http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/aboutpaidcontent/
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.
Click to expand...


As for the rest:
http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/workshoppaymentinfofaq/
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.
Click to expand...
For the modder to receive anything, Valve must receive $400 beforehand from the mod's revenue.



It seems that Valve/Bethesda also put the first-wave modders under NDA so they couldn't contact other modders to discuss content and revenue sharing. Plus, told them that they could sell mods that included work from other people, as long as they were freely available (which was.. all the mods so far). In fact, it seems they encouraged them to do so:

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It's a shitstorm.




Hugely important:
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