So these game mods, do they add anything to the gameplay? Do they invent new stories or something like that? Or are they just replacements for existing graphics assets?
STEAMing Pile...
- Thread starter Grall
- Start date
D
Deleted member 13524
Guest
Gabe Newell himself doing an AMA on reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33uplp/mods_and_steam/
The thread was opened 2 hours ago and it's reaching 6000 replies. It's completely impossible to keep track of what's happening since even the page is taking ages to load some comments.
I guess we'll need to wait until someone does the hard work of summarizing whatever comes out of this.
The mods can be anything you might imagine. They can be replacements and/or additions for graphics assets, sound assets, animations, UI changes, radical changes to the graphics pipeline in the form of implementing different shader effects, anything.
There are huge mods, like Falskaar, that bring entire new maps, towns, fully voiced characters, new quests, new storyline, new weapons, new everything. It's practically a huge DLC.
Everything you see in that trailer was developed from the ground up from modders for free.
http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33uplp/mods_and_steam/
The thread was opened 2 hours ago and it's reaching 6000 replies. It's completely impossible to keep track of what's happening since even the page is taking ages to load some comments.
I guess we'll need to wait until someone does the hard work of summarizing whatever comes out of this.
The mods can be anything you might imagine. They can be replacements and/or additions for graphics assets, sound assets, animations, UI changes, radical changes to the graphics pipeline in the form of implementing different shader effects, anything.
There are huge mods, like Falskaar, that bring entire new maps, towns, fully voiced characters, new quests, new storyline, new weapons, new everything. It's practically a huge DLC.
aaronspink
Veteran
Where does this quote come from? I doubt the first clause is legal (a derivative work may still contain other material to which the original creator holds the copyright), and given the unclear origin of the content contained in many mods I am rather surprised that they'd want to claim such ownership in the first place (since that also entails responsibility).
The reactions to the AMA are pretty brutal. Newell avoided all the difficult topics. Things are not good when an AMA gets compared to the Rampart AMA. 
Sure, that's pretty much the deal they give developers right? Maybe we will sell it, maybe we will make a porn game out of it, maybe we'll even give you some part of the money we're making on it ... no guarantees though.
aaronspink
Veteran
aaronspink
Veteran
The reactions to the AMA are pretty brutal. Newell avoided all the difficult topics. Things are not good when an AMA gets compared to the Rampart AMA.
considering the ridiculousness of 90% of what I saw when I took a look... Hell 99% of the people on that AMA don't even have the basic facts down. That AMA needed a massive dose of moderation and doesn't appear to have gotten any.
There is also the upcoming Enderal that is supposedly comparable to Skyrim size-wise http://www.pcgamer.com/the-making-of-the-biggest-skyrim-mod-ever/ . The creators already said that it will be completely free and won't sell it in the workshop http://sureai.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=136&t=7057
Billy Idol
Legend
In general, I like that Steam offers a controlled way for modders to make money.
With Steam support, a mod should get much more attention and hopefully generates money for the modder.
I think it is fair that Valve gets a cut and the original dev of the game as well.
It is imo up to the publisher to use this great opportunity in a smart way.
With Steam support, a mod should get much more attention and hopefully generates money for the modder.
I think it is fair that Valve gets a cut and the original dev of the game as well.
It is imo up to the publisher to use this great opportunity in a smart way.
Isn't the whole point of asking questions to clarify things? If only softball questions are answered, you're going to get the opposite effect of what you were trying to achieve in the first place.
Either way, it's pretty spectacular how badly a gamer's darling like Valve has anticipated the reactions of the public.
aaronspink
Veteran
there is a difference between clarifying and having to deal with thousands of trolls with no interest in the actual answers.
... and not answering at all
Anyway, I don't want to give the impression that I particularly care about mods. Just fascinated about a company being unable to understand its audience, whether they're trolls or not.
That's just the thing though, for someone to make money, someone else has to pay money. So we will end up paying more money for our games, and more specifically, paying for things that historically have been free. That doesn't sit entirely right with me at least. It's profiteering off of one of the last bastions of idealism. It's valve flying the flag of capitalist opportunism, where everything costs money, nothing is free, and if you don't have money you don't deserve shit.
Honestly, that's just baseless speculation.
In reality, I don't see why that would be the case. Why would a mod suddenly gather more attention just because you have to pay for it? If valve is going to say, give up store front page realestate, they could have done so anyway if they just wanted to. Good, popular mods would sell games in of themselves even if valve isn't directly earning anything out of it. But no, this is opportunism at work, where you don't do nothing unless there's something in it for yourself as well. Nothing but corporate sociopathy, really.
"Fair"? A bigger friggin share than the modders themselves, and for doing no work whatsoever? And what is the original devs doing to deserve a share, at least valve is hosting the mods, and providing storage space and bandwidth. If the devs are going to get paid again for work already done, then why not simply void the "end user agreement" each time you play through the game. Make you have to pay for it again to get another playthrough. The moral difference would be marginal at best...
steveOrino
Regular
They give absolutely zero shit about the reaction. Why else would they ask a few select modders in secret and slap the ones who agreed with a non disclosure agreement? So what if the community is throwing a fit. This is all for the future where modding as a hobby is a distant memory and the publisher has an army of content creators making nickel and dime content for them that in-house devs would be doing for a full wage. Its why Zenimax is getting such a huge cut.
Fixed that for ya.
_____________________
This is why its easy for the businessmen/layers in the background to dictate terms without pressure from the other party. All they had to say was "WE WANT YOU!", "BE THE FIRST!", "CHANCE TO MAKE MONEY!" and the ones who did, agreed without batting an eyelash. Like in many industries, these guys negotiate contracts all the time and getting modders to agree to these terms is literally 'fish in a barrel' tier easy.
I think you're make too much of a big deal about the NDA. It's standard practice in the tech world to sign NDA for pretty much anything.
Companies like to control a story for promotional and competitive reasons, and don't want to see things leaking before they're ready to release it to the public. I wouldn't see anything more sinister in t than that.
Though, in this particular case, some early leaks may have been useful to judge the reaction of their customers...
Companies like to control a story for promotional and competitive reasons, and don't want to see things leaking before they're ready to release it to the public. I wouldn't see anything more sinister in t than that.
Though, in this particular case, some early leaks may have been useful to judge the reaction of their customers...
D
Deleted member 13524
Guest
You can't propose for a single person to sell assets that are also the product of other people's work and at the same time prevent that person from contacting anyone about it.
Even worse when the assets become property of Valve the moment they go behind a paywall.
The NDA would've made sense if all mods were hats or 3d models for swords, stuff that most probably would've been done by a single person.
But for content that was generated through dozens of modders picking up and expanding on each others' work, these NDAs were the most underhanded shit I've seen in a long time.
And Gabe still believes that the community will self-mediate and self-police on issues regarding theft of content. They're ludicrous. They have no idea what they're doing.
Even worse when the assets become property of Valve the moment they go behind a paywall.
The NDA would've made sense if all mods were hats or 3d models for swords, stuff that most probably would've been done by a single person.
But for content that was generated through dozens of modders picking up and expanding on each others' work, these NDAs were the most underhanded shit I've seen in a long time.
And Gabe still believes that the community will self-mediate and self-police on issues regarding theft of content. They're ludicrous. They have no idea what they're doing.