Valve Pulls the Plug On Paid Mods For Skyrim

westlake writes: Valve has abandoned its attempt to introduce paid mods to Skyrim on Steamworks, following furious and unrelenting complaints by the gaming community that did not spare Gabe Newell. Valve said, "[O]ur 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." Bethesda had similar goals, saying, "There are certainly other ways of supporting modders, through donations and other options. We are in favor of all of them. One doesn't replace another, and we want the choice to be the community’s. Yet, in just one day, a popular mod developer made more on the Skyrim paid workshop than he made in all the years he asked for donations."

Comments

Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[drinkypoo]

Skyrim players are used to clicking and getting the mod for free. They could have offered this feature with a new game, but Skyrim players must have reasonably been worried that content they'd been getting for free would cost them money.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[drinkypoo]

The problem is that Skyrim is still hugely popular and active. It still has a healthy modding community, so people are actually still buying the game. You need a healthy mod community to make it worth it, but that also precludes doing it...

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[MrBigInThePants]

Attempting this in the way they did AT ALL was a mistake. It was so obviously doomed from the start someone should be sacked over this.

>>[O]ur main goals were to allow mod makers the opportunity to work on their mods full time if they wanted to,

BULLSHIT.

If that was the case you would not have given them 25% and taken 75% for you and the game makers. That is just blatant and exploitative greed on both your parts. You should be ASHAMED that you and your inept marketing department, board or management ever thought this would result in a positive sentiment. I mean how out of touch with your customers do you need to be?!

But then again greed blinds...

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[bhcompy]

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.

Most important quote. They want to monetize the mods, like they did when they bought DoD, CS, etc. They just made the mistake of trying to monetize the mods of an established game of a different publisher/developer.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[Bovius]

So far, Valve has become the biggest game distributor in the world by being greedy in ways that end up benefiting individual, common consumers. Their track record is far from perfect, but by and large that's why they have been so successful. It's disconcerting to see them poking their foot in the other greed pools, but if nothing else, they will keep doing The Right Thing (eventually) to try to preserve that image, not because they are glowing pillars of virtue.

It's been fun to watch them teeter about at the peak of their influence, making gradually larger political blunders. I'll be interested to see what monstrous misstep they make that finally wrecks their business. Anyone making bets on how many years out that is?

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[The Raven]

Way to not pay attention. Valve took 30%. Bethesda decided they deserved 45%, and left 25% for the mod maker. 30% is Valve's cut on nearly everything, so this is not unusual or odd. If Bethesda had taken 20% that would have left mod makers with 50%, and the outcry would have not been there. If Bethesda had decided to forgo a cut in order to sell more copies of the game, everyone would have been cheering the 70% cut that mod makers received.

Should Valve have anticipated that 25% to makers would look bad? Yes. Perhaps they should have refused to roll it out with that initial revenue split. They certainly should have put better moderation tools in place to control graft and mod theft.

But the idea of charging for mods is completely fine; we've been doing it for years already with games like Dota and TF2. What's a community created hat? It's a mod that you pay money for.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[Pi1grim]

>> If that was the case you would not have given them 25% and taken 75% for you and the game makers.

Well, let's see where does the 75% go? Steam takes 30% from all transactions as a fee for keeping servers running, providing unified interface, update rollout, you know, the infrastructure, for all the games, be it an indie for 3$ or a AAA title for 60$. 45% goes to Bethesda. You know, the guys that made the Skyrim. And you know who decides how much goes to original game maker? Original game maker decides. You know why they get to decide? Because the control derivative works from their games, they created the engine, a ton of assets, models, textures, sprites, effects, the whole game. If you don't like it - vote to change the copyright laws (long overdue by the way).

But let's all whine at Gabe, because that bastard let Mod Creators CHOOSE to charge for their mods. How dare he give them the freedom to ask for money?

The whole reaction is a kid's tantrum to "how dare those slaves ask for money for their work" ? What's most bizarre (quite usual actually) is that noone has any clue as to how the pricing is made (noone cares that Bethesda takes 45% and whines at Steam for taking too much money) but still throw a fit over "but mod devs get so little".

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[snowgirl]

If that was the case you would not have given them 25% and taken 75% for you and the game makers.

You know, I always hate how my grunt work for companies makes them 4 times the money they pay you. It's just greedy theft. We should start a movement where the means of production are owned by the workers rather than investors and management!

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, those were actually their goals.

The 25% cut was already tested with Valve's own games. You can create and sell content for DOTA 2, Counterstrike: GO and Team Fortress 2 right now and you get the same 25% (however, there is no Bethesda in that equation: Valve gets the entire 75% remaining). Instead of people organizing riots, this has been extremely popular and well received so far. A coworker is making 20-30K a year making content for Valve games in his spare time, and the top dogs are easily getting 100-200K. No complaints to be had. Keep in mind like all digital markets, there is no middle ground. Top quality content makes thousands, and the rest makes close to zero. A better cut won't do a thing for any of them. Or, think about it in another way: nobody buys food with a percentage, but with money, and that 25% means a few thousands dollars opportunity at least. Good enough.

Sure, you worked you ass to model your armor or level, it is all your content, and you only get 25% of the sale price. However, what is the real value of your product? If you are really good modelling swords, were is the market where you can model a sword and get thousands of people interested in paying $1 or $2 for it? I'd argue a lot of the value you're providing comes not from your mod, but from the framework that allows it to exist in the first place. And you don't own that.

Here is another argument: Valve is still working and developing things in their games, founding that with third-party content revenue, while Bethesda has mostly forgotten about Skyrim, so it would be unfair for them to get a great cut from others' work. But it is naive to think that this test case would be universal or stay that way for long. If this experiment had succeeded, we would have got not only much better mod tools for their next game, but also continuous support for modders. Skyrim looks extremely mod-friendly to the casual observer, but the creation kit is mostly an unmantained mess released as a gesture of good will. Many, many mods require a DLL injection hack (SKSE) to provide basic functionality, for example.

The Internet wants to think that Skyrim is a broken game that would have failed, until modder heroes came, saved it, and brought it to great success. Even the most reasonable people argue that the game's long shelf life was only possible thanks to mods. But this is not the case. While I'd say mods provide added value, the primary SKUs are still unmodable consoles, and there is no sales spike to be seen when an amazing mod is released. Nobody buys Skyrim just to play a mod, although their existence may be a factor in the purchase.

A lot of people inside Valve are modders. In fact, they have some of the best modders ever, people who made mods which went beyond the original game and actually manage to sell game copies, until eventually becoming great games of their own: DOTA, Counterstrike, Team Fortress. Skyrim has no mod of this level, and Valve actually wants to create a climate were another uber-mod can be born. Skyrim had the community and the tools available, though.

Was the mod market a way to bring that? Could the uber-mod have been born from this opportunity? We will never know. It has been killed by the angry mob. Bad products and bad ideas are best tested in the market. If nobody buys it, it is worthless. If many people buy it, it has value. The mob disagrees. They think that some thinks (things they happen to like, for now) should exist, and others (things they happen to dislike, for now) must die. The angry mob is emotional, and any arguments used by them are pure rationalization. Today the hate was on the mod market, but tomorrow the hate may be on smartphone games, on console games, on jews, or on yourself.

I despise the Internet.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[vadim_t]

Steam taking a cut is fair enough.

Bethesda already got paid for those textures and so on when I bought Skyrim. I see no reason why they should get 45% of something they didn't have any hand in developing, they don't host, and they don't provide any support for.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to not pay attention. Valve took 30%. Bethesda decided they deserved 45%, and left 25% for the mod maker. 30% is Valve's cut on nearly everything, so this is not unusual or odd. If Bethesda had taken 20% that would have left mod makers with 50%, and the outcry would have not been there.

Bethesda (and other major publishers) take about the same amount from games made by their developers. In fact, 25% may even be generous compared to actual employed game developers, as I have seen figures of between 10-15% for retail game sales, and about half of the revenue - the same as for paid mods - going to the publisher. And sometimes the developers may only get a one time payment of a pre-agreed amount, and possible bonuses on top of that if certain conditions, such as a minimum Metacritic score, are met.

If modders do not like getting only 25% of the revenue, they are free to still give their creations away for free, just like before, or mod another game where the publisher takes a smaller share, or develop an indie game and keep all the 70% that is left by Valve, or set up their own content distribution service and avoid the Valve tax as well. Now of course that would dramatically increase the amount of investment required, and at the same time reduce exposure, as the developer no longer benefits from the popularity of a game that sold ~30 million copies on all platforms, and will have to compete with the thousands of other indie 2D games that are in Greenlight or early access. That is why Bethesda and Valve can take a 75% cut, which is ultimately determined by the market, rather than some random people on internet forums who think they have the authority to decide the "deserved" split of revenue.

In any case, the argument that mod developers getting 25% is "exploitation", and they should be "protected" from the greed of Bethesda and Valve by keeping it mandatory to give their work away for free is just pure hypocrisy. The idea of donations as a source of any decent income is also a joke, if the mod is not very popular, then 0.1% of users donating (this percentage is from my experience developing open source software, but figures posted by various modders are similar or even lower) may generate income that is only worth the price of a meal.

What was ultimately driving this whole mass hysteria is not people having concerns about modders being ripped off (it is just one of the arguments thrown around to rationalize the outrage), but rather they felt their hobby of playing the game for thousands of hours with hundreds of free mods is threatened, and that a large number of previously free mods will be paywalled. Such fear can be a very powerful motivator, especially for people who are addicted to the game, and when it is fueled by slippery slope arguments and FUD like paid mods being made mandatory in the future, and essential bug fixes being turned into paid mods.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[N1AK]

How does that work? Steam already got paid when you bought the game for Steam. The marketplace isn't providing anything other than facilitating payment for something that was already happening, so why should they get 30% of the value when the people who made the game which the mod relies on get nothing?

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[vadim_t]

Steam has to handle payments, deal with the mod authors, do some kind of policing and support (minimal as it might be), host the mods on their servers, and somebody had to develop the functionality to support this.

30% might be excessive, but as far as Steam taking a cut at all it does make sense.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[Luckyo]

Steam does no meaningful policing of any kind. One of the major problems with steam today is complete and utter lack of policing. That's one of the main complaints of indies especially, since they want to be visible on steam at least on the day when they release, and instead they get pushed off the "new releases" page's top in a matter of hours because some trash publisher fills the list with their "steam re-releases".

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[silanea]

[...] 45% goes to Bethesda. You know, the guys that made the Skyrim. [...] they created the engine, a ton of assets, models, textures, sprites, effects, the whole game [...]

...and already got paid for it all by everyone who bought a copy of Skyrim. That includes the mod makers and the mod users. Bethesda was not taking their fair share, they were simply being greedy fucks, cashing in on someone else's work that directly translates into more sales for a still hugely popular game that was released in bloody 2011.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[allcoolnameswheretak]

I mostly agree. But the problem with Skyrim mods compared to DOTA2, CounterStrike, TF, etc, is that Skyrim is a much more complex game and mods are much more intricate and risky as result. With a TF mod you pretty much know what you're getting whereas with a Skyrim mod it's almost impossible to know beforehand if it will work as advertised, or if it will break your game, be incompatible with other mods, corrupt your save file... it's simply a much more experimental and risky way of modding than TF. This is partly also due to the tools not being as good as they could be.
I think a payment system for mods is generally a good idea, but the tools provided by the develper then need to be up to the task to provide a baseline of quality and security. At the moment, the "quality control" is being handled by the modding community with tools like SkyEdit, Wrye Bash, Mod Manager etc, so from this perspective I understand those who feel a little cheated by Bethesda cashing in, as it is the modding community itself that is providing the tools that make it even possible to run multiple mods with a minimum of safety and compatibility.
I think if the payed mods announcement would have been accompanied by an updated CreationKit that handles these issues, it would have been much better received.

Also:

Skyrim has no mod of this level

Not yet.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[aaaaaaargh!]

Alright then, I'll put a graphics program on Steam and sell it for 50 USD. Somewhere in the EULA I'll hide the clause that I'll maintain the rights on any derivative work, and if people want to sell anything created with my program, they'll have to give me 45% share and Steam 30%. They can only get 25%.

How about doing the same for word processors, music recording programs, etc.?

Also, how about creating a platform, something like an app store, and wait until nearly everybody is using it and there is no viable competition left. Then change the EULA unilaterally to give me a higher cut, as much as I want, for things that used to be free. Why not? It's a free market!

Why stop there? How about selling something unique to you, say, a tool that no other company produces, but hide in the contract a clause that prohibits you from making money with it. Then, after you have used the tool for years to create things and you start to think about making money with it, I'll drop the bomb and tell you that you will have to give me 45% and the tool shop where you've bought it 30%. Sounds fair? Why not, it's a free market!

Here's some news pal: None of this is fair in any ordinary sense of the word. Legal, perhaps, in some countries, but certainly not fair.

And that's also why Valve stepped back from it, because they don't want to be (rightly) perceived as unfair assholes.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[hairyfeet]

Besides everyone is ignoring the obvious in that we already have this in the form of DLC...and look at how well THAT particular clusterfuck has gone over, with games like Evolve announcing the fucking DLC before we even saw a single screenshot!

We have ALREADY seen the plague that is DLC, so bad that "horse armor" has become a punchline....do we REALLY want the DLC now made by a bunch of amateurs with ZERO oversight or control (because we have all seen how bad Valve has gotten with their "hands off" policy on Greenlight and early access, to the point that reviewers like Jim Sterling can make a living just making videos of all the shitty content crapflooding those channels) which the publisher just slaps another promo for and takes their cut?

BTW for those that say "poo poo, its for the devs poo poo" I would point out that the actual ones that made the mod get a lousy 25%, with Valve and the publisher splitting the other 75%...in what fucking universe is not even getting a lousy third of the money being made for what you worked so hard on considered a good deal? Nope, sorry, this fucks the gamers by giving every incentive with ZERO risk for the devs to just crapflood like greenlight, this fucks the good mod devs TWICE by making them compete with a crapflood AND by only giving them a pittance of the money, and if that wasn't enough it fucks the community because anything worth actually looking at would quickly be ignored as the gamers saw an assload of "horse armor" level bullshit and would learn not to even look at mods, just as many like myself now don't give greenlight games a second glance.

The only ones this would have been good for long run is the publishers, who would get money for basically nothing, and of course Valve who would make money on the initial sales AND make money when people stopped using mods and bought more games instead of continuing to get value from games they already owned with mods...but I'm glad to see that throwing a shitfit actually worked for once, I figured they pull a MSFT with Windows Mist&ke and just flip users the bird until the whole thing was a mess and then try to fix the damage once everything went downhill...think if we have another shitfit we can get Steam to clean up Greenlight and Early Access?

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the problem with your argument. I work for a company, and I get a small fraction of what I make for them. But they also see to it that I'm paid regularly and they also absorb a lot of risk if I fail. In this case, Bethesda isn't doing any of that. Typically a company gets the big profit because they absorb the risk, but in the case of these mods, they aren't absorbing any risk. The absorbed risk when the original development of the game, but not for the mods. If they wanted to take that sort of profit, in normal buisness practices, they'd be expected to front the mod developers money to do what they're doing.

From a buisness ethics standpoint, what they're doing is down right despicable. They fully deserve the backlash they're getting as hopefully it reminds other companies that ethics are actually something they occasionally need to abide by.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[jythie]

I suspect a lot of people were worried about the idea of Bethesda taking anything. Paying mod authors people can get behind, and people are generally ok with distribution services taking a cut, but the idea of mod revenue going back to the publisher would represent an uncomfortable shift.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[Wootery]

I don't find your word-processor comparison compelling. The difference is whether it's a derivate work, no?

There's a difference between me using your word-processor to create a book, and me using your word-processor as a basis for my own enhanced word-processor.

If the word-processor's EULA were 'viral' even to documents produced with it, then I'd agree, that's not fair, but that's not what's going on here: a Skyrim mod necessarily directly uses Skyrim, where a .pdf generated by a word-processor doesn't directly use the word-processor.

Analogy: GCC is available under the GPL. There's an explicit mention that code generated by GCC is not 'virally' treated as a derivative work, i.e. compiling proprietary code with GCC is acceptable. But if you modify GCC, the resulting compiler may only be distributed under the terms of the GPL (i.e. the source is available and the licence is GPL) .

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[jythie]

Wait, so the IP owner is being exploitative by trying to monetize derivative works, but the mod authors are not being exploitative by trying to monetize the IP owners work?

I really doubt they 'stepped back' because of other parts of the world. This is pretty standard stuff and I can not think of any major market where one can sell derived works without the consent of the author.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[jythie]

Something to keep in mind though is that in a way, people are 'voting' on how to change copyright laws here. A great deal of how 'fair use' copyright is determined is pulling from contemporary standards, what is reasonable or typical usage that an IP owner and 3rd party author can expect?

Experiments like this can help set precedent, if they become large enough they help define what is normal and what is not, which affects expectations in other cases. So by embracing or rejecting this model, the community actually gets more of a voice in setting law then they ever would by voting.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[jythie]

Well, keep in mind that said 'greedy fucks' are developers who continue to work on new games. Also keep in mind that the success or failure of programs like this will factor in to how much development time (and thus expense) goes into mod friendliness in the future.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[jythie]

Ahm, because you can't do those things?

Well, the tool example you can, but people actually do this and it is a pretty healthy market. Lots of software is marketed that way (free for non-commercial use, paid license for commercial derivative works), and movies work that way too (the license for home viewing and commercial display are not the same).

One you move away from consumer goods into industrial (believe it or not, there are customers out there other than end consumers.) these types of contracts are actually pretty common, with it not being unusual for a company to get a cut of the revenue from downstream users of their product. Crow, there were probably libraries IN Skyrim that worked that way. 3rd party tools and libraries used in professional development often have per-seat or per-unit-sold licensing on them.

In all these cases though, you are forgetting that this was not an EULA change, but experimenting with a new system that ran in parallel with the classic 'donation' stuff authors have been doing for quite some time.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[jythie]

*nod* anyone who has tried to go the consulting or freelance route can appreciate this tradeoff. When one works for themselves they tend to make more per job, it can be good money. On the other hand, one takes all the risk and there is no shared buffer to absorb shortfalls and there is no collective bargaining or scaled position when going to suppliers of resources or benefits.

Though it should be noted that it is not quite true that the company took no risk. Besides the risk (and up front investment) of the game itself, but they put developer time (and later, support) into their modding support. That creation kit did not spring into life with zero effort, it was a risk they took in the hopes of making back enough money to justify the additional time of developers, testers, support, etc.

Backlash can be a funny thing, and the message companies take from it can be very different from what the community thinks they should. For instance I have heard rumblings of companies not wanting to follow in Mojang's footsteps with their permissive modding license due to some of the headaches and flack it has caused them. The 3rd party server owners believe their backlash was to keep Mojang fair/ethical, but others see it as having created an entitled beast that hurts their image and revenue.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[Totenglocke]

There's one major flaw to having paid mods though, even if you solve the issues of theft / revenue distribution / quality / ongoing support / refunds. Mods very frequently are built off of other mods and have built-in dependencies. Mod X will not work without Mod Y installed. The problem that is that, regardless of if Mod X is free or paid, users who want to use it are forced to buy Mod Y. Short of the person designing Mod X just copying the code from Mod Y and giving it away for free (which defeats the whole paid model), I can't think of any way to solve that problem. Can you?

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[Totenglocke]

Yes, and they'll be paid for those new games when they're released and users buy them. Derp.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[jythie]

Ahm, what you are describing is a derived work. We may not want it to be, but it can be considered one and they do have some rights over the combined work.

I think one of the problems in discussions like this is people have difficulty differentiating between what they want and what is, then go a step further and define what is as what they want it to be.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[jythie]

New development is paid for by revenue of previous projects. These are not hobbyists sitting in their basement with day jobs and aspirations of future income, they are professionals who need to be paid for their work as they do it.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[Totenglocke]

And they were paid for their previous projects - when they sold the goddamn games. If no one made or sold a mod, they'd still have their hundreds of millions of dollars to make Fallout 4. Why is this so hard for you to grasp? They're not hard up for money at all, they just got greedy.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[coolguyclay]

Bethesda has released their Creation Kit (that makes all these mods) for free. Depending how this plays out, I wonder if this type of thing would have a different cost to it in the future. It's great that mod makers can get paid for using their time and free tools, and this "licensing" is typical of software that is free to use for non-commercial purposes. Once a mod becomes commercial, it's a whole different thing, and those free tool makers (Bethesda) want/deserve their share.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[jythie]

It is the 'they just got greedy' that I am disagreeing with.

They are under NO legal obligation to permit modding, much less support it. They decided to experiment with something that would encourage both modding and development/maintenance of modding support. They scaled it wrong and got hit with outrage, but the actual experiment could have produced an interesting new marketplace for sanctioned commercial production of 3rd party mods.

There is a reason mod developers tend to either take donations or work through adfly like setups, staying non-commercial keeps them in a grey area. If this had been handled differntly people would be describing it as 'forward thinking' rather than 'greedy'. Greedy is just a way of saying you believe the other party is undeserving, it says nothing about the actual actions.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[StikyPad]

Sure, you worked you ass to model your armor or level, it is all your content, and you only get 25% of the sale price. However, what is the real value of your product? If you are really good modelling swords, were is the market where you can model a sword and get thousands of people interested in paying $1 or $2 for it? I'd argue a lot of the value you're providing comes not from your mod, but from the framework that allows it to exist in the first place. And you don't own that.

By that logic, the government should be taxing businesses at 75% because, hey, without their infrastructure, property rights, and policing, where would that business be? And it would be a real shame if anything happened to those property rights...

*I* would argue that modders are enhancing the value of the game at least as much as the game is enhancing the value of the mods. It's a symbiotic relationship, or it could be, if not for the parasitic fees of the publisher.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[Anonymous Coward]

Unhappy with it? Make your own Steam and charge less.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

As much as a lot of /.ers like to whinge and complain about IP rights, Skyrim IS Bethesda's IP. So marketing a mod for sale on the Steam store does put Bethesda in the right to take a cut.

Maybe not *45* percent. HOly shit who's idea was that?

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[CronoCloud]

By that logic, the government should be taxing businesses at 75% because, hey, without their infrastructure, property rights, and policing, where would that business be?

Top marginal tax rate was over 90 percent at one time. So actually, they did. Business tax rates were higher too. Was one of the greatest growth periods of American history, because the government spent that money on infrastructure. a LOT of infrastructure.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[IndustrialComplex]

They are under NO legal obligation to permit modding, much less support it.

You are correct. On the other hand, they have no legal authority to demand payment provided that the person who wrote the mod does not redistribute Bethesda IP.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[tnk1]

I agree with the paywall fear, to some extent. It's annoying for previously free software that you got used to using, now suddenly is on a pay model. You can still use the previous version, there may even be a freeware version of the new paywalled mod, but now you're on-hook for money if you want to keep up with the latest with that software. That's really irritating because it feels like a bait and switch, if not handled properly.

Personally, I think it is a good thing that modders get paid for their mods, if they put enough effort into it. The market would then decide if the mod was worth the money. It is hard to go from free to paid, though, and I think personally, you either start charging from the beginning or you have to alter the mod so significantly that it is clear why it is now a paid mod. Going from free to play with to paying for the same functionality is always going to hit a wall psychologically.

As for who gets what cut, it really depends on the terms of the mod tools. Valve will get its cut, because it remains a distributor of game software no matter what is being offered. What does Bethesda get, however? While Bethesda built Skyrim and the mod tools, unless there were terms in the mod tools license for intellectual property for this scenario, I'd think their involvement would stop at the sale of Skyrim and tools.

Realistically, I think Bethesda may have certain rights, and they certainly should add specific rights in the future to their license agreements. Then modders can determine whether their time is well-spent on modding a Bethesda game, much like app writers can decide whether their efforts are best used to extend iOS or Android, or both.

It would be too bad to discourage high quality mods by charging too high a price for IP, but if companies like Bethesda come up with a sane payment schedule for such things, and if they offer services to go with those charges, then they can ask for their cut. I just wonder if that language exists in their mod tools license at this moment.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[Cederic]

a Skyrim mod necessarily directly uses Skyrim

You're making a big assumption there.

Even where elements of an API are used, the bulk of the mod may well be original work, or adapted from a previous creation used with a different game.

E.g. I modded one game by adding a picture for use as a decal on a car. That picture was produced by a friend using pencils and paper. It's a derivative work of absolutely fuck all. You're saying that if I added that graphic to Skyrim it's a derivative of Skyrim?

No.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[Anonymous Coward]

Skyrim looks extremely mod-friendly to the casual observer, but the creation kit is mostly an unmantained mess released as a gesture of good will.

You're using a lot of words but you obviously have no idea what you are talking about. The CK is an excellent modder's tool, it is not a mess at all. You're just rehashing something you've read on a forum for clueless gamers who think "I can mod too" and give up when they fail to find the "allow multiple masters" toggle.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[Darinbob]

Ya I agree here. There was no need to do this for a game that's a few years old. Everything's well established. Even if Skyrim was new, the modding community for Bethesda games was well established. The Nexus, the primary source of free mods has been around 14 years.

Skyrim itself still sells. At the same time as the roll-out of the paid mods for Skyrim, it was also a weekend here you could try Skyrim for free. It's not uncommon to see lots of new comers in the forums wondering how to do things or where to get mods (which usually points players away from the Steam Workshop).

I'm of two minds about it all. It does make sense to reward the best modders, as they do put in a lot of time and do spend a lot of their own money sometimes. That small "donate" button gets overlooked a lot. However if you looked at the first paid mods up, only one or two seemed mediocre or better, most of them were basic reskinning of weapons something no one would ever want to pay for if they had to expend the effort of pulling out a credit card (but if they've already filled up their Steam wallet then it's a one click impulse buy). I think it had the chance of ending up like the smartphone market, full of utter crap, so much crap that you can't even find something of value, and all the crap is overrated with astroturfed reviews.

I do think modders should get some cash, and they often get enough from donations to keep going. But the idea of "you must pay $0.50 for my piece of crap I spent the afternoon building" is just wrong. I like NPR and PBS, they have the pledge breaks on occasion, and they're not all pissy and indignant if only 1% of their viewers and listers give money. It's a model that works. So how does that get translated to games?

I may have said some immature things the first day. But it was late on Friday, I hadn't heard the news until just then, and didn't have all the facts. But I did not mention anyone's names or insult anyone. So I was amazed at how much trash talk there really was, people being called traitors or shills. Wow, the intersection of internet plus gamers is a very dark place. The whole process should have been thought out better, and should have been discussed with the players. But it was all a secret and then sprung on most people by surprise.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[Darinbob]

Game developers don't always have control over the tools. Modding communities have grown up around some games which never provided tools to their customers. Bethesda was somewhat unusual in that they took a proactive step of making some of their internal tools available and they did this before modding was really common. Meanwhile some other companies which had modding in the past have decided to disallow modding altogether so that they can sell their own mods or monetize from curated mods.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[Darinbob]

Much of the problem is how this was all handled. It was secretive and then seemed to be sprung on everyone by surprise on a Friday. There was no explanation of the pros and cons, which did come out on Monday a few days too late to mollify the customers. So Friday night was just rife with speculation about worst case scenarios, Saturday was full of calling out individuals by name for extra harrassment, Sunday some more official information started appearing, etc.

I think they should have announced some plans early and had a discussion with players. But I see often with game companies that they often make the decisions internally and then respond to customer complaints relatively late in the cycle. Ie, the Thief reboot game was heavily criticized for things like quick time events, and they quickly revised a lot of the game but didn't really have enough time then to polish things completely before the mother ship shut them down. There was the XBox One plans that had a huge negative feedback from the public. A few cases of restrictive DRM plans that have had pushback forcing changes. The thing is most game companies still have not quite learned to get early customer feedback instead of waiting until the last minute or release.

(though exceptions to be sure, Obsidian was very good at being open and interactive during design and development of their kickstarter game, but they're a relatively small development company)

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[Darinbob]

GOG.com! DRM free games, most of which are also on Steam but with more restrictions. There are a few not-so-big benefits to Steam over GOG but the advantage of being DRM free is huge. So you don't get those ridiculous acheivements, you don't get the patches as early but they aren't mandatory patches, etc.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[mattventura]

The way I see it is that the game plus mod combined would comprise a derivative work. However, the mod alone is not. Unless someone is distributing the game (or at least some component of the game) along with the mod, the mod alone would not violate anyone's copyright nor be a derivative work.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[mattventura]

Well, Nexus manages to survive off completely optional paid subscriptions/donations/whatever you want to call it yet still manages to provide better mod distribution. Both Valve and Bethesda both got paid for their game when the game was bought in the first place. And unless a modder is distributing the game or at least a part of it with their mod, then it's not a derivative work.

Re:Attempting with existing title was a mistake

[RyoShin]

The complaints I saw were never about the share to modders, but that the mods cost anything. At least one guy was saying he would never pay for something that was previously free (talking about mods in general, not just specific mods), even if it meant that the modder got incentive to build a higher-quality mod or make more mods.

While Bethesda was rather greedy in their cut, I don't think that a system allowing for modders to sell their mods is an overall bad idea. However, Valve was rather hamfisted in their implementation, and there are a number of pitfalls they didn't take into account properly if at all (avoiding someone take a free mod and just sticking it in the store, mod dependencies on mods made by someone else, etc.)

After all, Valve already has systems in place for giving creators a cut of sales when their item is officially sold through Valve's stores, like cosmetics for Team Fortress 2 characters. Those cosmetics are nothing more than tiny mods for the game with implementation by the game developers.

Customer Revolts

[Kunedog]

Customer revolts are wonderful things.

We should have now learned our lesson

[Arkan]

Support our modders, give a little something each time we download or even just go by the mod webpage - be it a dollar/euro or two - so that modders can keep taking part of their time to further update and develop their mods, and most importantly editors/distributors don't have a leg to stand on when requesting 75% of the money on the premise that they sold the engine, so they should get 3/4 of all newly created content.

Re:We should have now learned our lesson

[alvinrod]

and most importantly editors/distributors don't have a leg to stand on when requesting 75% of the money on the premise that they sold the engine

The claim that without the game itself there would be nothing to mod seems like a rather large leg. Never mind that Valve is allowing the use of their store and payment system which makes it a lot easier to collect money.

That said, there are far too many problems with the current implementation for Valve to allow for paid mods. They already have enough issues with quality control on Greenlight. Mods are an even bigger problem as there's no guarantee of quality, indication that there won't be conflicts with other paid mods, and the invariable jerks that submit existing free mods that aren't theirs in order to make a quick buck.

If Valve wants to do this they should develop a system that makes it easier to address some of those issues before they try to offer paid mods.

Re:We should have now learned our lesson

[DarkOx]

The claim that without the game itself there would be nothing to mod seems like a rather large leg.

Yes and no, on the hand the statement is true. On the other hand Bethesda already got paid. If they had said at the outset we are going to use the Gillette model charge a minimal fee to recover our costs developing the game, and let the community produce a sell additional content for which we will take a cut, things might be different.

That isn't what they did though, the charged as much for the game as any other AAA title, and now seek to profit handsomely for efforts they have little to know hand in. There are probably some variable costs associated with 'supporting' the mods. More tech support calls for the core product etc.

Still 45% is a pretty big take and is hard to justify; especially when someone else is operating the market place doing all the risky work of handling the money etc and already taking %30 to do it. If they were asking 15% or something that would feel more like a kind of royalty (which isn't unfair), and I think people would find that much less objectionable.

Re:We should have now learned our lesson

[SillyHamster]

Yes and no, on the hand the statement is true. On the other hand Bethesda already got paid. If they had said at the outset we are going to use the Gillette model charge a minimal fee to recover our costs developing the game, and let the community produce a sell additional content for which we will take a cut, things might be different.

Beth got paid for the modder to play the game and enjoy the art. That would reasonably cover even the use of the game engine and art assets for the modder's personal projects.

Beth did not get paid for the modder to resell modified art assets to other gamers.

Some companies may decide that they would rather not take a cut to encourage a mod scene ... but it is within their rights to charge paid mods whatever cut they want. Some desired percentages may be counter-productive, profit-wise, but no one has the right to force someone else to maximize for profit.

Re:We should have now learned our lesson

[Darinbob]

Not every time. Most of the mods I download and try I delete very quickly afterwords. Most are junk to be fair, but that's ok because they're free and I don't have to pull out a credit card when I download them and I don't have to maintain a Steam wallet or (ugh) paypal account. I have donated to things in the past, but I do so rarely and for high quality stuff, not for everything. Players should not be told "pay up or get out" for someone's weekend project, that's too much like the horrid shareware community that PCs had when other computer communities were busy sharing everything for free or the cost of distribution.

Today most of the best mods are made by teams of volunteers. Just like Linux is being made by teams of volunteers. So now if they mods are paid and you want to volunteer, would you get rejected because the existing team doesn't want to dilute their income? Do the team members now get rated on how much contribution they made and the quality of it, like it's a job?

Re:nickel and dime

[drinkypoo]

This is hopefully a big step against DLC in general.

Not really. There's three official DLCs for Skyrim (not counting the high-res texpack, which is free) and game mods may require any number of them. Many of the most interesting mods require at least the two larger (and more expensive) expansions.

Uninformative article

[ArylAkamov]

Most of the outrage was caused for four reasons:

1: Valve and Bethesda gave themselves 75% of the profit, modders got 25%

2. Almost every significant mod requires the use of the skyrim script extender (free), which introduces legal and moral implications since you would be making money off of the hard work of whomever made the script extender.

3. People were mass uploading/stealing others content to sell on the steam workshop

4. Most of what was being sold had little to no quality control (Game breaking bugs/didn't work/didn't do anything). There was one being sold for a few dollars that didn't actually do ANYTHING other than tell you how to open the console and use cheats manually.

TL;DR: It was a piss poor system for generating more money for Valve and Bethesda with little to no oversight or quality control.

Re:Uninformative article

[ArylAkamov]

To add to this, almost everyone knows the TES series always has a massive amount of bugs at launch. Modders usually fix this and offer a free download, the official patch comes months later if at all.

What happens when an independent modder starts to sell these patches?

Does it send a message to game devs telling them that it's okay to release broken games, since a community member will fix it for much less than the cost to pay whomever's job it was to fix it?

Heck, they'd even be getting paid for releasing broken games with this system. Modder makes a patch, they get paid most of the money. Modder does the job of a game dev for pennies.

Re:Uninformative article

[Luckyo]

The biggest problem was that this opens a huge can of worms. It introduces a perverse incentive to companies to hunt down and take offline any free mods because they would be competing with "their" paid mods (their since between steam and publisher they get 75% of all revenue).

Re:Uninformative article

[Darinbob]

On Steam Workshop, most of those mods didn't require the script extender because you couldn't get it there. For a long time there was a hard size limit for mods on Steam Workshop as well.

I think the biggest failure here though was that Valve/Bethesda kept this all secret and then tossed it out as a surprise with very little explanation of the reasons, with zero customer interaction. Some people did predict something like this, but those who had actual hard info were asked to keep quiet, and others had an NDA. So what happened is that the majority of customers were caught by surprise.

Thins weren't well thought out, especially legally. I mean you don't tell your modders "please check with your own lawyer for legal advice" because modders typically don't have lawyers on retainer, but that's essentially what one modder under NDA was told.

Re:Uninformative article

[Darinbob]

There will always be people who will fix the bugs for free though. The free unofficial patch will always be more popular than the paid unofficial patch. Remember those patches contain fixes from a hundred different people, and most of those fixes are very tiny and based on public information. You'd have to get permission from every one of those people to sell the mod, or share the revenue in some arbitrated way, and then deal with all the non-modders who uncovered the bugs and figured out the fixes. It would not be feasible.

It's like any other open source: it doens't get erased just because someone wants to make a commercial fork, and you can't change the license after the fact without getting approval from all contributors. Linux survives and many of those devs have spent far more time and expertise than modders do, and those devs don't tell everyone "pay up or GTFO".

(ironic possibly that one rationale for paid mods was to attract better modders, and yet linux does well and attracts the best developers)

Re:Uninformative article

[Darinbob]

Bethesda's games are sandbox games, and so testing all possible things that can go wrong is an immense task. That's one reason why most modern games are very tight on an rails, there's less to go wrong when the player can't do much.

On the other hand, I think there are very few breaking bugs in Bethesda's games. They are playable without mods, though there may be some rare game breaking things, it seems less than many other games. Most of the early mods that people really want are the convenience mods (better UI that isn't console-ized).

Gamers are dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's stuff like that, this attempt at making mods "paid content," and mobile games that make me think gamers are dead. It was a suicide.

You've got bullshit like Amiibos, where Nintendo expects you to buy a little statuette to get content for games. Do gamers boycott this crap? Nope. They sell out and go for big bucks on eBay.

You've got mobile games, where the most popular games are "free to play" bullshit where there's no skill involved, just time, money, and luck. These games are no fun. They're just RNG bullshit designed to force you to keep spending money until the dice roll in your favor. It's not fun, but they routinely get top ratings as some of the best mobile games. What the hell, gamers?

Then there's DLC in general. Remember when the entire game came on the disk, and an expansion pack was extra content added to the end of the game? Now we're getting "day one DLC." What the fuck? Why would anyone put up with this? But gamers do! They buy the DLC! If they didn't, the companies wouldn't try it.

Not to mention pre-order bonuses. Why the hell would anyone per-order a digital game, where there's no chance it'll sell out and they won't be able to get a copy? Dumb-ass pre-order bonuses, I guess! People buy them! What the hell, gamers?

And, of course, streaming and "let's plays." Why are people sitting around watching OTHER PEOPLE play games that they themselves could be playing? But they do!

Thankfully, in this one case, gamers were able to stand together and get a publisher to back down from even more nickel-and-diming. Wonder if they'll keep it up when Valve reintroduces it in some future game, or if they'll rush out to get the digital pre-order bonus of a special virtual hat and then be forced to cough up a dollar to get another virtual hat their friend made?

Re:Gamers are dead.

[c.r.o.c.o]

And, of course, streaming and "let's plays." Why are people sitting around watching OTHER PEOPLE play games that they themselves could be playing? But they do!

I agree with all your other points by and large. However I am guilty of watching the entire "let's play" of The Last of Us WITHOUT commentary. Why? I heard the amazing reviews of the story line, but I have never and will never own either a PS3, PS4 or any other console for that matter. Since that game will never be released on PC, I figured that was the only way to experience it. I was NOT disappointed.

I also watched the beginnings a few more "let's plays." It convinced me to buy Dying Light, Bioshock Infinite and Metro Last Light. I never finished Dying Light because the gameplay was too complex for the time I can allot to gaming, but I may pick it up again in the future.

One thing I do not understand with most "let's plays" is how can people watch them WITH commentary. That annoyed the fuck out of me, I switched to the silent version instantly. Unless you're Morgan Freeman reading a script written by the Daily Show team, please shut up while playing a game for YT.

Re:Gamers are dead.

[Jesus_666]

Not to mention pre-order bonuses. Why the hell would anyone per-order a digital game, where there's no chance it'll sell out and they won't be able to get a copy? Dumb-ass pre-order bonuses, I guess! People buy them! What the hell, gamers?

I did that for Borderlands 2 because I liked the first part so much I was willing to gamble on the second one being good. I was not disappointed. Of course I'm aware it's a gamble, which is why I tend not to do it, but sometimes it just might be worth it. Oh, and because the first game's German release was censored I imported from the UK so pre-ordering cut down on the waiting time.

And, of course, streaming and "let's plays." Why are people sitting around watching OTHER PEOPLE play games that they themselves could be playing? But they do!

As has been pointed out, not owning the console is one thing. I'm not going to buy a 3DS for a single game. Or perhaps you no longer have the game and want to take a look at it for nostalgia's sake. Some games may also be interesting from a story perspective but uninteresting gameplay-wise - I might end up watching an LP for Mass Effect 2 and 3 but I'm certainly not going to install the second part again, much less buy the third one. Some Let's Plays are value-added like IlliterateChild's Glitchy Walkthroughs where bugs in the game are exploited for comedic effect.

Sure, playing the game is usually better. But there are games you can't or won't play but are still interested in experiencing to some degree or someone did something with their playthrough that you can't easily replicate. That's where the value in Let's Plays lies.

Re:Gamers are dead.

[bentcd]

And, of course, streaming and "let's plays." Why are people sitting around watching OTHER PEOPLE play games that they themselves could be playing? But they do!

I'm too busy playing games to play games. Instead I have twitch.tv on in the background while I play games.

Does this make me less of a gamer, or more of a gamer, than were I just playing games on my own?

Re: Gamers are dead.

[james_gnz]

Your little rant is funny, and also pointless. "Gamers" are, have always been and always will be nothing more than consumers, and obsessive ones at that. They're like fashion victims, with the difference that fashion victims are actually cool to have around. Gamers are obsessive-compulsive pathetic excuses for human beings, loud-mouthed, filthy and socially deficient. Unpleasant to have around and a constant cause for embarassment. Just like all nerds.

I'm not sure if you're serious, but assuming so, there's a difference between some (or even most) and all, and when people are involved, it's an important difference.

Re:Gamers are dead.

[VGPowerlord]

And, of course, streaming and "let's plays." Why are people sitting around watching OTHER PEOPLE play games that they themselves could be playing? But they do!

I didn't understand this around 7-8 years ago when I posted a video of the opening of a game just for the music content.

A person asked me if I'd post videos of me playing the game. I declined thinking no one would ever want to watch that sort of thing. Keep in mind, this is from back before "Lets Play" was even a term.

I look back at popular "Lets Play"ers now and think "that could have been me!"

Re:Gamers are dead.

[Darinbob]

Remember that most gamers in the market are pretty young and want the latest and greatest fads. These aren't necessarily discerning customers carefully deciding where to spend their money. Many of them do impulse buys. They key for that market is to have new stuff all the time; new games, new DLC, new features. That market will eat it up. However some game companies do care about that other segment of the market. Bethesda's games primarily are for those who want to play games a long time, they have open sandbox games rather than a quick game on rails with a tightly controlled script, and the provide modding tools for free and encourage modding rather than lock it down like some other companies.

I watch some of the "let's play" videos, because no one has any demos anymore, and the marketing is full of lies. The only possible way these days to see what a game is like before you buy is to watch it being played.

Inflation, slow Internet, skill, slow PC

[tepples]

Now we're getting "day one DLC." What the fuck?

In the Super NES era, games used to cost $60, which is about $90-something in today's money after inflation. Now in the Xbox 360 and Xbox One era, games still cost $60. Day one expansions make the extra $30 of content optional to buy.

Why the hell would anyone per-order a digital game, where there's no chance it'll sell out and they won't be able to get a copy?

Because they can't afford an Internet connection that'll transfer 30 GB in one hour. So instead, they let Steam download the game over the preorder period and then install it on release day.

Why are people sitting around watching OTHER PEOPLE play games that they themselves could be playing?

Lack of skill, lack of strong enough PC, lack of the correct console, game being out of print, etc. Why do people watch football instead of playing football?

Re:Inflation, slow Internet, skill, slow PC

[tepples]

A much better analogy would be watching other people play board games.

In certain circles, chess and poker have become spectator sports.

Also, we're talking "let's plays" here. There's no "skilled play" involved. It's an idiot with a camera playing a game poorly while making dumb jokes. It's dumb, it's pointless, and it's copyright infringement. Just ask Nintendo.

This is why e-sports won't take off, as the publisher has power to shut down any league competing with the publisher's approved league.

Re:Inflation, slow Internet, skill, slow PC

[Anonymous Coward]

Counterpoint: spectator poker is still incredibly popular -- a game, as you say, that is meant to be played. The fact that you may or may not have any interest in watching people play any of these games does not invalidate the activity.

Re:Inflation, slow Internet, skill, slow PC

[Anonymous Coward]

"In the Super NES era, games used to cost $60, which is about $90-something in today's money after inflation. Now in the Xbox 360 and Xbox One era, games still cost $60. Day one expansions make the extra $30 of content optional to buy."

You're comparison fails to grasp the effect of inflation in an attempt to make it look like selling parts of a game for full price seem sane.

If you'll kindly convert the average salaries of the standard gamer back then into today's cash you'll find that they were much better off than we are on all levels. As such, that 60 dollar game, which was feature complete, was much easier for them to buy than the 60 dollar broken bug-infested chopped up game of today. And then they're expecting more. Some games to the tune of expecting you to fork over literally HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS for the "complete experience".

They're too lazy/cheap to try to increase the market of gamers by trying to interest people in the hobby and to make it more acceptable to sit down and play a game or two. Instead they're trying to squeeze every nickel they can out of the market they have - which is decreasing as more people get turned off by the microtransaction hell devs put their fans through.

Re:Inflation, slow Internet, skill, slow PC

[The Rizz]

It isn't copyright infringement. There is no copy of the fixed work being made.

Unfortunately, it isn't so cut and dried. Everything inside the game - models, characters, music, dialogue, art, etc. is © and often the game company. While most people believe that doing a "let's play" or streaming the game is fair use, it falls into a legal gray area - typically only reviews, parodies, and maybe satire allow you free reign to re-use someone's IP without permission, and it's not clear that these uses would be considered such by a court.

Is it right? As I said, it's a rather gray area. Personally, I think this sort of thing falls into that same general category and should be protected, even if it doesn't fit any of them exactly. Most game companies agree; I've rarely heard of legal threats against players for this sort of thing in the past, and the companies often even encouraged it - after all, it was basically an ad for their game that consumers actually sought out on their own, that got made for them for free, and they had plausible deniability about any sketchy content.

This sort of thing reminds me of the early days of modding: Mods were totally unauthorized, and companies were known to try pull the plug on mods, and even put out patches to purposely break mods. Legal threats were rare, but not unheard of. Once it was noticed that the games with mods started outselling the games without - and often garnered new sales of years old games - the industry as a whole suddenly embraced modding, and even started making things easier to mod, and put out official instructions and editors to facilitate it. Technically, modding still falls into the same kind of gray area on any product that doesn't officially support it, but the idea of threatening legal action over it is unthinkable nowadays - the same is likely to happen with streaming/let's plays/whatever as time goes on.

Re:Inflation, slow Internet, skill, slow PC

[N1AK]

You're comparison fails to grasp the effect of inflation in an attempt to make it look like selling parts of a game for full price seem sane.

His point was both clearly, and correctly, explaining that game prices haven't increased in line with inflation.

Unless you can make a supported case for why games development costs have fallen considerably in real terms then the default assumption should be that they have in fact increased roughly in line with prices in general. Even if wages were considerably lower in real terms, that is more than cancelled out by the huge increase in development team sizes. A major title today could well have more people working on sound/music than the entire dev team for a major release on the SNES/Megadrive.

Look at what you get out of the box in a game like Skyrim with no paid for content added. It's incredible, and it's incredibly cheap, especially compared to games of yore. If the core game wasn't worth paying the price for then don't buy it. If the DLC adds something to the game that is worth the cost, then don't complain that you've already bought the game (as you know you got good value for that).

Re:Inflation, slow Internet, skill, slow PC

[james_gnz]

What? Most certainly is not a copyright infringement. I don't care for "let's play" or whatever, but don't start with that crap. Games aren't for show, and when someone is playing the game, it's interactive. Games aren't movies, so any game company saying they can't be shown is a fucking dildo.

Essentially, you seem to be saying that copyright law doesn't forbid "let's play", because there would be no sense in it doing so. Much as I might agree with your premise, however, your conclusion simply doesn't follow.

Re:Inflation, slow Internet, skill, slow PC

[msobkow]

In the SuperNES era, a game also used to provide several days worth of play-through, not 10-12 hours of content.

Re:Inflation, slow Internet, skill, slow PC

[Anonymous Coward]

"Look at what you get out of the box in a game like Skyrim with no paid for content added. It's incredible, and it's incredibly cheap, especially compared to games of yore. If the core game wasn't worth paying the price for then don't buy it. If the DLC adds something to the game that is worth the cost, then don't complain that you've already bought the game (as you know you got good value for that)."

I do look at what I get out of the box on games this generation. And I notice, when I compare those games with earlier installments on pre-DLC era releases that the games themselves are skeletons of their earlier versions. They look nicer? Well yes, that happens when you have more powerful systems. But when you look at the actual content in those games, you find things missing - but then readded with DLC.

And no, you generally don't know prior to buying the game if it's going to be a turd or not. We have all the people that bought the latest Assassin's Creed at launch for proof of that. Did they ever finish fixing the insane bugs in that? I've seen games that do DLC just fine. It even actually feels like it enhances the game a little bit. But that whets their (the devs/publishers) greed a bit and usually the next game they release whores the DLC out to the max.

This has happened so many times, with publishers I use to look forward to releasing new titles, that I've actually gone to the point of just boycotting their shit altogether.

Back on the previous point, when I watch publishers spending half their funds for a game title just on marketing the damned thing - yes I'll say that it's a lot cheaper to actually make a game these days than they want you to know. A bit more expensive than a long time ago? Yes, but then back then the companies were also raking in the dough - they're just pissed they can't continue to do that today. (Every publisher out there would LOVE to make the kind of profit Atari did back in the 2600 era, where they'd pay a single person 20k a year to make a new game every 6-8 weeks, and still sell the game for 40-50 dollars.)

If developers and publishers want to bitch about their development costs, they'll get an ounce of sympathy from me only after they take a damned course in budgeting.

Re:Inflation, slow Internet, skill, slow PC

[athe!st]

You can speed run Super Mario in 5 minutes, can you do that with Skyrim?

Re:Inflation, slow Internet, skill, slow PC

[hairyfeet]

I agree with (*almost) everything you posted but would add that you and GP are missing the most useful (imho) reason to watch other people play....to learn.

I have a couple of MMOs I play but there was areas where I would just get stomped, no matter what I did in these areas I just couldn't turn it around. Then I found some videos by guys that were actually good in the areas I was weak in so I watched them to see what they were doing right that I was doing wrong...and it worked, now areas I used to absolutely dread I actually find challenging and fun and I never would have figured out where I was going wrong without watching others try different strategies that actually work.

*-But as far as Pre-Orders? I thought Aliens: Colonial Marines and Watch Dogs would have killed that practice, after all now we can't even trust what we see with our own eyes as it might all be mocked up bullshit. If somebody wants to spend their cash sight (literally) unseen? I'm all for people making their own choices but until we see actual real penalties for mockups and "vertical slices" I know I'm not trusting any game dev or publisher, I want to see the game actually running on real users' PC and hear from them whether it "is what it says on the tin" as the Brits say or if its the next A:CM or F3AR big pile o' shit.

Re:Inflation, slow Internet, skill, slow PC

[tepples]

In the Super NES era, you likely had to share a monitor with other members of the family who wanted to watch broadcast or cable television. Because you got only about an hour per day with the TV, those same 10 to 12 hours stretched over several days. Besides, it was common to repeat those 10 to 12 hours for a better overall score. This is how speedrunners got good enough to complete all 101 goals in Donkey Kong Country in 50 minutes (source: YouTube).

Re:Inflation, slow Internet, skill, slow PC

[tepples]

In northeast Indiana, Super NES games typically went for $60 new, and PlayStation games were $50 because the disc was cheaper to replicate. Those who stuck with Nintendo saw a price cut between the Nintendo 64 ($60-$70) and the GameCube ($50) and then another price hike with the Wii U ($60). If you're looking for reliable sources to add to (say) a Wikipedia article, you can put something like super nes game msrp into a search engine and find things like "Why 1990s SNES Games Were so Damn Expensive" by Luke Plunkett.

Re:Inflation, slow Internet, skill, slow PC

[StikyPad]

In the Super NES era, games used to cost $60, which is about $90-something in today's money after inflation. Now in the Xbox 360 and Xbox One era, games still cost $60. Day one expansions make the extra $30 of content optional to buy.

You may be right. There's not really any evidence, but it's a plausible theory.

Here's the thing. The market is much larger now, and the distribution costs have only gone down.

The best selling game in Super NES history? Super Mario World. Copies? 20.5M.

Compare that to GTA5, which has shipped over 45M copies to retailers alone, not even counting direct sales/downloads.

So just the revenue that we have visibility into is 75% higher.

Here's the other thing. If the game needs to be $90 to be profitable, then set the price at $90. Don't set it at $60 and then nickel and dime everyone to death to make your $90, explaining how they made "optional" parts. "See, the book is only $5, but the ending is another $5, and if you want any of the 5 subplots, those are $1 each." At best, it's betraying the vision of the artist for finished product he wants to be seen. At worst (and the skeptic in me says in most cases), it's deliberately gouging your customers.

Re:Inflation, slow Internet, skill, slow PC

[CronoCloud]

In other words, cheat codes. How fast can you make it through the main quest WITHOUT using console commands? It's a hell of a lot longer than 10-12 hours.

Re:Inflation, slow Internet, skill, slow PC

[CronoCloud]

In the Super NES era, you likely had to share a monitor with other members of the family who wanted to watch broadcast or cable television.

Multiple TV households were fairly common by 1991, so sharing was less common than you think it was.

Because you got only about an hour per day with the TV, those same 10 to 12 hours stretched over several days.

Or work, dinner, household chores, etc etc.

Besides, it was common to repeat those 10 to 12 hours for a better overall score.

Indeed. Or better overall time, like with Metroid and Super Metroid. Heck, if you're reasonably good, you can beat Metroid in an hour and a half without any "glitching" or other tricks. It's possible to beat Super Metroid in under 3 hours though I think I only got down to 3 hours and a half.

Re:Inflation, slow Internet, skill, slow PC

[CronoCloud]

I can confirm Tepples statement. Late SNES games cost more than PSone games. 59 vs 49. Nintendo was less quick to discount games, it was common to see a "players choice" labeled title at full price, while Greatest HIts PSone titles were using 19.99.

I'm also old enough to remember full price atari 2600 titles at $40. So when whippersnappers complain about paying $59 for the MASSIVE amount of content in unmodded Skyrim, it gets my dander up. I'd shout the kids off my lawn but my lumbago and rheumatiz are actin up.

Re:Inflation, slow Internet, skill, slow PC

[CronoCloud]

*-But as far as Pre-Orders? I thought Aliens: Colonial Marines and Watch Dogs would have killed that practice, after all now we can't even trust what we see with our own eyes as it might all be mocked up bullshit.

Well I've pre-ordered a few things. most recently Diablo on the PS3 (and later on the PS4). But in that case I didn't pre-order until I had watched one of the PAX 2013 videos showing someone actually playing the game and showing menus and whatnot as he was playing: I was a big fan of Diablo on the PSone too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

With the PS4 version, I had the PS3 version as the "demo".

I'm tempted to pre-order TESO on the PS4. In that case I was able to watch live play of PS4 players playing the Beta.

Re:Inflation, slow Internet, skill, slow PC

[Cederic]

Oh, I don't know. Some "lets play" gaming is just raw solid entertainment, where the narrative derived from or commenting on the game is greater than the game alone.

e.g. emergent narrative:
http://lparchive.org/Dwarf-For...

Or the discussion about the game being infinitely more entertaining than the game can ever promise to be:
http://www.quartertothree.com/...

Ok, they're not the video "lets plays" that you mock, but I just ignore video ones anyway.

Re:Inflation, slow Internet, skill, slow PC

[EndlessNameless]

Chess, Go, poker are all games with spectator followings---just like football, soccer, and basketball.

Any game can be a spectator event if the experience of watching it is compelling. And once there is an established spectator community, it becomes a social event as well.

And let's not forget---an idiot with a camera is at least as entertaining as half of the sitcoms that populate (or plague) prime time television.

Re:Inflation, slow Internet, skill, slow PC

[hairyfeet]

Question, and I'm not trolling I'm legitimately curious...why did you go with PS4 over the PC?

Unless your PC is seriously weak sauce you could simply slap a GPU in it and play games just fine, hell I got customers with Phenom II X3s and X4s that have no trouble playing the latest games. Today you can buy GPUs in the $180 range that curbstomp both the XB1 and PS4 in the purty dept, and with both the XB1 and PS4 being AMD netbook APUs? They are really just DRMed PCs anyway. Finally from what I've seen the exclusives just aren't there, probably because games are getting so expensive to produce.

So I am curious, so far everyone I've asked that question to has been a raging Sony fanboy, that gets up to their Sony alarm clock, has a Sony stereo in their car, watches a Bravia TV and waves the flag at every opportunity...you don't seem like that so I am curious, what made you pick a PS4?

Re:Inflation, slow Internet, skill, slow PC

[CronoCloud]

Unless your PC is seriously weak sauce you could simply slap a GPU in it and play games just fine,

I run Linux on my PC, I would rather not run Windows. I also had a PS3, PS2 and PSone before it, though I don't own any any Sony TV/Stereo equipment. I also prefer analog movement to WASD. Playing games on that PS4 is "Easy Button Easy", no muss, no fuss. "It Just Works"

hell I got customers with Phenom II X3s and X4s that have no trouble playing the latest games. Today you can buy GPUs in the $180 range that curbstomp both the XB1 and PS4 in the purty dept,

I have a Phenom X4 in it, and a GT640, but to curbstomp that PS4 would require a GT970 or greater (which is more than $180). All I know is that War Thunder runs better on the PS4 than it does on the PC (I do have the Linux version installed), the controls are a non-issue since War Thunder PS4 supports the same control methods the PC version does.

  I don't want to have to pay $180 (or more)...just for a video card. I want to just buy a box and not worry about upgrades for years and know that most every game that says PS4 on the label will run fairly well (with a few notable exceptions from some exceptionally lazy developers).

I also think we shouldn't be throwing new hardware at games willy nilly. "Fixed" hardware encourages developers to at least try to do proper optimization rather than being lazy numbskulls.

I'm a console gamer at heart, I really don't think highly of PC gamers at all. When I'm being uncharitable I sometimes say things like "PC gamers are a bunch of overly entitled pirates who spend hundreds of dollars/euros on a new video card and then complain about high game prices so they go pirate everything or play a single map in a single game for 10 years. Perhaps if they spent less money on hardware they'd have more money for games"

I have a finite amount of fun money, every dollar I spend on hardware is one less I can spend on an actual game.

Re:Inflation, slow Internet, skill, slow PC

[tepples]

Playing games on that PS4 is "Easy Button Easy", no muss, no fuss. "It Just Works"

Then would you agree with most of my essay "Consoles are easy"? And is there anything you'd add?

Perhaps if they spent less money on hardware they'd have more money for games"

Then you buy a PlayStation 4 for most games, Wii U for Wii U exclusives, and Xbox One for Xbox One exclusives, and the total bill is on the order of $1100. How much does a gaming PC cost?

Re:Inflation, slow Internet, skill, slow PC

[CronoCloud]

Then would you agree with most of my essay "Consoles are easy"?

Mostly yes.

And is there anything you'd add?

Don't forget the configuration/maintenance/upgrade issues of maintaining a gaming ready Windows machine. It isn't just finite money, it's finite time as well.

Then you buy a PlayStation 4 for most games, Wii U for Wii U exclusives, and Xbox One for Xbox One exclusives, and the total bill is on the order of $1100.

That's "if" you have any interest in those other exclusives. I personally don't.

How much does a gaming PC cost?

A reasonably good mid-range gamer build that you won't have to upgrade right away? Oh about 1200 -1500 dollars. You can pay less, of course, say 700 -800 for a budget build, but you'll have to upgrade that one sooner, and it won't be quite as good as a PS4.

Re:Inflation, slow Internet, skill, slow PC

[tepples]

That's "if" you have any interest in those other exclusives. I personally don't.

Clarified; thanks. But likewise, others may care more about PC exclusives than about PS4 exclusives.

A reasonably good mid-range gamer build that you won't have to upgrade right away? Oh about 1200 -1500 dollars.

Just as PC games ran on PS3-comparable settings throughout the PS3 era, games are likely to run on PS4-comparable settings throughout the PS4 era.

You can pay less, of course, say 700 -800 for a budget build

A year ago, Hairyfeet proposed a build for under 499 US dollars, including GPU and OS. I acknowledge a $100 price difference compared to the PS4, but one might choose to justify it with the ability to use it as a hand-me-down PC for web and office tasks even after it no longer runs new games. For someone whose game preferences are not dominated by PS4 exclusives or PC exclusives, how does this build compare technically to the PS4?

Re:Inflation, slow Internet, skill, slow PC

[CronoCloud]

For someone whose game preferences are not dominated by PS4 exclusives or PC exclusives, how does this build compare technically to the PS4?

It doesn't. It's probably midway between a PS3 and PS4. Its like my computer, the base configuration was no match for the PS3, upgraded it's better but no match for the PS4.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfr...

I first added in a GT220, and eventually upgraded the thing to a quad core 2.8GHz Phenom II, 4GB of RAM (it's the max it can handle) and a GT640 rev2.

Basically, it can play Fallout 3 slightly better than the PS3 (main difference is resolution/detail/lighting, VATS is slightly smoother on the PS3 and sound is slightly better on the PS3), but can't play War Thunder as well as the PS4. Now if I was to put a GT970 in it, then it would be somewhat more competitive with the PS4....but that alone is over $300....and I have a PS4. All my PC needs to do is handle my generic computing tasks, and Second Life. (which is pretty much the ONLY reason I have a GT640 in it). If it wasn't for SL, I could make do with less, in fact I probably wouldn't have upgraded the CPU, power supply and GPU.

Almost as stupid as those idiots rioting right now

[PhrostyMcByte]

The amount of douchebaggery over this was incredible.

First, you had a number of people who've decided modders shouldn't get paid for their work. I know some modders/mappers and while you'd never hear them complain about their hobby, the amount of effort they put in to these things is astounding and it's always pained me to see the amount of entitlement people display towards it.

And finally you had Nexus Mods, who came out as the people's champion despite they themselves actually raking in tones of dough over the years without sharing more than a pittance with modders – all to maintain servers which are essentially on auto-pilot with downloads on off-site hosting they aren't paying for.

I can see why Bethesda would just say fuck it and pull the plug. What a horrible community.

The least vocal, and perhaps most sensible, were people who merely took issue with Zenimax/Valve taking a crazy high 75% cut of sales.

Good idea, bad implementation

[gman003]

Valve and Bethesda made numerous mistakes with this implementation, but I still consider it a good idea. I'm definitely planning to allow paid mods in my own games, if I ever get one ready for retail. But here's where they went wrong.

1) They set a minimum price far too high. Relatively few mods are worth a dollar, even the ones that are worth buying at all. Give supply and demand a free hand to set prices, and I think most average-sized mods would have been priced around $0.20. Some might have been able to sell at a much higher rate, but not many.

2) They didn't protect from fraud. As soon as the announcement hit, people started uploading mods they didn't make - there was already a massive corpus of free mods, after all, and basically no protection against this. The least they could have done is give a decent warning period, for mod authors to decide whether to start selling their mods or not, and to search for fake versions being uploaded without their consent. They didn't do that, and they definitely didn't do any sort of technical measures, like comparing uploaded mods' checksums against those already uploaded. All of that is easily foreseeable because I actually foresaw it - I've been planning how to do this in my own games, and all of that was on my list before they even announced their feature.

3) They didn't share the profit well. Valve was taking a 30% cut, which is already more than they do for full games, and then Zenimax was taking another 40%. I can see that, because the base game does a non-trivial amount of work for the mod, that they do deserve some compensation (although I'd say increased sales are the true payment to the publisher). But a cumulative 70% is just ridiculous. I'd argue that no less than 50% should go to the modder. For my own games with paid mods, I'm thinking more in the 75:25 or 90:10 range, or even 100% to the modder (because, after all, a vibrant modding community brings about more sales, so the marginal loss on hosting is more than recovered).

4) They launched it suddenly, with no notice. Nobody had any inkling it was coming, least of all the modders who would be most affected by it. Valve and Zenimax should have given at least the big-name modders some heads-up, so they could think and have time to rationally decide whether to start selling, and for how much, and to work out any licensing issues in multi-person teams. And perhaps if gamers had been able to see it coming, they could have realized it was a good thing, instead of letting the knee-jerk reaction control the debate.

They did, however, do one thing surprisingly right, which deserves recognition: they gave full, automatic refunds within 24 hours of purchase on any mod you didn't like. That's definitely something necessary, and something very surprising to see from Valve.

Hopefully they can sort out these issues with the next game they try this on, instead of giving up on what is an excellent idea.

Re:Good idea, bad implementation

[discord5]

1) They set a minimum price far too high. Relatively few mods are worth a dollar, even the ones that are worth buying at all.

I agree to a certain extent. For Skyrim certain mods have just become standard fare to install, like SkyUI which makes the UI at least usable. I'd be happy to pay a dollar for SkyUI (ignoring the whole SKSE thing for a second) if that would rid me of the default UI for Skyrim for the 200+ hours I've put into the game.

2) They didn't protect from fraud.

This was in my opinion the worst problem with the whole ordeal. Not just fraud, just the fact that they barely checked what was going on with the mods in question. Even their rules for mods that used other mods made it clear that they really didn't give it too much thought. A lot of mods are frameworks that make developing mods easier, or that make modding possible in ways the API of the creators of the game didn't allow (eg SKSE). With SKSE you start entering this legal murky area and I can't help but feel that Valve never gave it too much thought (and neither did Zenimax/Bethesda).

On top of that, modding communities are rarely good places to build a business in. Most of these people aren't professional developers, and while it's not unheard of that amateur developers can build a sane business model, let's not kid ourselves here. The minecraft modding community is the perfect example of amateurish behavior and so much drama. I don't want to generalize that entire community, since there are a lot of people doing a lot of neat things with that game, but there's been more than a few cases of a modder purposely breaking the game when another mod was installed simply because of some stupid fued between them.

Lastly, there's an implied expectation of a consumer that a modder will maintain his work when a game gets updated if he's paid to do so. Few publishers release preview builds for modders to work on, and even if they do with many of these amateurs even that wouldn't be a guarantee that they would update their mods in a timely fashion. Quite frankly, if I have to pay for SkyUI, I expect it to work without too much problems even years after I bought it.

3) They didn't share the profit well.

I'd like to agree on that point, except in the end Valve just agreed to the terms of the publisher and did the math on their own costs. But let's be honest here, Skyrim as a 4 year old game won't be getting anymore updates. Basically, from a community point of view, that's just Zenimax/Bethesda being greedy at this point. It's like a city council deciding that they're going to charge an admission to the sandbox if you're planning on building a castle, while the whole thing was built with community taxes. (Yes yes, not the most accurate of metaphors, but at least it's not a car) Sure, Bethesda could say something like "Yeah, we were planning on using that revenue to keep the game updated, provide a more complete API, interface with the community" etc etc, but let's face it. Bethesda is working on newer titles, and anything and everything Skyrim is just bookkeeping from now on.

What it is, is perfectly in line with the vision many of these companies have these days about what a community means to them. While I'm not a fan of the so called "Let's play" videos, if you look at the whole drama there about monetizing it's a perfectly good example of what's wrong with many publishers these days. Many publishers want a cut from the video revenues today, while in essence it's really free advertising they're getting. The arguments being made are that most people won't buy the game if they can just watch it being played online, but I don't think that argument really flies. To me, Let's Play videos are kind of like a gameplay video. Before I buy a game I go check it out on a Youtube channel that isn't clearly a marketing channel, and then decide on the gameplay I see if I buy it or not. If your game is so simple that a Let's Play ruins the expe

Re:Good idea, bad implementation

[Xharlie]

You've actually touched on something that underlies my deep dislike of modding. Skyrim, for me, is a one-shot game: you can play it now and then you might as well throw it away because mods are ephemeral and Skyrim simply does not work without them. Years from now, you might be able to install the game from Steam but will you be able to get SKSE, SkyUI, the borderless-windowed mod that makes it run decently? Will they all work? The modders will be long gone, the community will be dead (this will happen, overnight, as soon as the next TES game is released) and nobody will care about it. To be honest, Steam does not need to support paid mods. Instead, the developers should employ some talent scouts and actually *participate* in the communities that surround their games. Modders are not professionals but there's no reason why the developers couldn't get hold of them and, with their professional and business experience, make a deal with them to wrap up and publish hand-picked mods as paid DLC packages, in exchange for a profit share. I'd buy SkyUI as a DLC if some of that money went to the dude who made the mod and it was published as a proper one-click package!

Re:Good idea, bad implementation

[Schnapple]

Valve and Zenimax should have given at least the big-name modders some heads-up, so they could think and have time to rationally decide whether to start selling, and for how much, and to work out any licensing issues in multi-person teams.

I guess you missed it but they did exactly that.

Creator of removed paid Skyrim mod gives his side of the story

Basically Valve contacted him and several other high profile mod authors over a month and a half ago to participate in the rollout. In this particular case, the Art of the Catch mod (adds fishing to Skyrim, I think, I haven't tried it) needed some files from another mod to run, or it had a dependency, or both. Valve told him their legal team thought it would be OK but that the author should consult a lawyer on his own. He didn't, and many butts got hurt over the result.

But your assertion, that they did this with no notice to anyone, least of all the high profile modders, is wrong. They did exactly that.

Its too bad... it was a good idea

[Karmashock]

The idea is good the implementation was terrible.

Valve was taking too big of a cut, pressure needs to be put on the developers to take a reasonable cut... and of course, whether or not anyone actually charges for a mod must remain up to the modder.

I think if valve charges more than 10 percent of the gross they're being greedy.

And as to the devs... they should be able to decide precisely how much they charge as a percentage of the sale. People have to know that the reason why dev X charges Y is because dev X decided to charge Y. And Y can be anything from zero percent to one hundred percent. They charge too much and people direct their ire at the dev for being greedy and people don't make mods for that dev. They charge too little and mod makers can kind of make a living maybe?

Anyway. Very good idea very poorly executed.

Re:Its too bad... it was a good idea

[Karmashock]

They already do that with DLC.

So... tell me something that hasn't already happened? :D

Re:Its too bad... it was a good idea

[aaaaaaargh!]

The game developers should get no more than 0% share, because anything else would create an obvious conflict of interest.

When I buy a game, I want it to be halfway finished and playable, not a bug-ridden unfinished modding platform.

Re:Its too bad... it was a good idea

[Karmashock]

I'm happy to leave that up to the devs to decide. What is more there is an argument for giving the devs something just so they keep releasing patches for the game, assist the modders in making the game more moddable, and generally keep the community alive.

If the devs get nothing then they have no interest to spend any further time on the game and will abandon it.

And for that kind of money there should have been

[Sycraft-fu]

I mean if you are going to take a 75% cut, well then you can afford to spend the fucking time curating your shit. If they are going to charge that kind of cut, they can afford to have people review the content. Given that they are taking a much larger cut than the dev, it should stand to reason that goes to paying for some work on their part.

Have it where you submit a form to Valve with what your mod is, what it does, etc. They screen it to make sure it sounds like a reasonable idea, and then send you stuff to sign where you declare that this is your work, you aren't violating copyright, you've paid commercial licenses for software used on it, etc. Once they have that, mod gets submitted and then it goes off to Bethesda for QA. They test it to make sure that it does what it says, doesn't crash the game, and so on. Maybe even help fix bugs possibly. If that's all good Valve does a final check to make sure they don't see any copyright violation (maybe an automated system that flags and then a human checks i there are flags to see if it is legit) and it then gets posted.

If they were doing something like that, then ok maybe there's some justification of the price. Ya there's a big cut getting taken, which means higher prices, but you are getting something more along the lines of paid DLC. QA like that might be worth it.

However they were just letting anything and everything get posted. They were treating it with the same indifference as the rest of Steam, which is just not ok.

Re:And for that kind of money there should have be

[ArylAkamov]

That would require some kind of effort on Valves part. Considering their lack of customer support and an F rating from the Better Business Bureau, it would take some kind of divine intervention before that happened.

(Source: http://www.bbb.org/alaskaorego... )

Rent seeking all the way down.

[Anonymous Coward]

Zenimax was taking another 40%. I can see that, because the base game does a non-trivial amount of work for the mod, that they do deserve some compensation

That is a dangerous assertion. Why shouldn't Microsoft take a 40% cut of Zenimax profits because Skyrim runs on Windows? Why shouldn't Intel take a 40% cut of Microsoft since Windows runs on their processors? Amusingly enough: Why shouldn't PC Gamers take a 40% cut of Intel profits since Intel processors run on the machines they build?

Re:Rent seeking all the way down.

[reve_etrange]

Why shouldn't Microsoft take a 40% cut of Zenimax profits because Skyrim runs on Windows? Why shouldn't Intel take a 40% cut of Microsoft since Windows runs on their processors?

The difference is that most mods use significant art assets. With Windows programming, the Microsoft assets used are typically minimal. You are also not considering that these costs are passed on through the wholesale agreements these firms reach with one another.

Re:Rent seeking all the way down.

[vadim_t]

The Microsoft assets used are minimal? Look at Wine and how much work it took to get to a point where it can be halfway useful. You know why that is? Because the things that Windows provides to the application are far from minimal.

A game might not care much about the Windows UI, but many years of work went into making the Windows kernel and DirectX into what they are today. Those are not simple bits of code.

Re:Rent seeking all the way down.

[kuzb]

Anything using the .net runtime is using significant amounts of windows assets. Just because you can't outright see it doesn't mean you're not using someone else's work. While we're at it, you're also using a compiler and an IDE you probably had nothing to do with the creation of.

Re:Rent seeking all the way down.

[james_gnz]

Anything using the .net runtime is using significant amounts of windows assets. Just because you can't outright see it doesn't mean you're not using someone else's work. While we're at it, you're also using a compiler and an IDE you probably had nothing to do with the creation of.

I'm not sure how this fits into the larger argument, but .NET stuff can be developed and run on Mono.

Re:Rent seeking all the way down.

[Kjella]

That is a dangerous assertion. Why shouldn't Microsoft take a 40% cut of Zenimax profits because Skyrim runs on Windows?

If Microsoft wants to charge 40% to use DirectX, let them. Like certain GPL proponents like to point out, if you don't like the terms don't use it. Imagine this was something bigger and more formal than a mod, like a partnership. They make and sell the base game, you build DLC content for it. They're not going to give away their content and engine for free so you can make money off it, you won't write the DLC for free so they can make money off it. You'll agree to some commercial terms, a 40% cut is one possibility. I really fail to see the problem here.

Re:Rent seeking all the way down.

[wisnoskij]

Many game making engines charge money for you to make a commercial game in them. Skyrim is a highly focuses game engine that make making a "game" very very easy, with all its art assets, gameplay, physics, and story offered up for use. Windows has notepad I guess, which you could write code in; And I am assuming it has some sort of built in compiler for some language but I could not hazard a guess on which one. I guess you could at least write html games and play them on IE.

Re:Rent seeking all the way down.

[SillyHamster]

That is a dangerous assertion. Why shouldn't Microsoft take a 40% cut of Zenimax profits because Skyrim runs on Windows? Why shouldn't Intel take a 40% cut of Microsoft since Windows runs on their processors?

It's not dangerous at all. Microsoft has the right to make that a condition of using/buying their OS, but they chose not to.

You'll note that they're a successful company worth billions with the alternative strategy they chose. An OS is nothing without its apps - and they made it attractive to develop on their OS.

Amusingly enough: Why shouldn't PC Gamers take a 40% cut of Intel profits since Intel processors run on the machines they build?

That doesn't even make sense. PC Gamers don't produce standards, or designs that make the use of an Intel CPU possible, whereas Intel creates reference designs for their products.

Intel doesn't need gamers to have a functional product.

Re:Rent seeking all the way down.

[reve_etrange]

Anything using the .net runtime is using significant amounts of windows assets.

In the first point, I was referring mainly to art assets - a typical Windows desktop application or game uses very few or zero MS art assets.

While we're at it, you're also using a compiler and an IDE you probably had nothing to do with the creation of.

That was the second point - subject to license agreements and modulo the vendor business model, you have to pay for those things. In other words, the vendors are already taking some of your profits (or placing various restrictions on your potential for profit).

Many commentators here have written that they were upset mainly because of the specific terms - 30% for Valve, 45% for Bethsesda, 25% for developer - and not with the idea that Valve and Bethesda would take some cut.

Valve could have charged it's normal rate, and Bethsesda settled for favorable licensing, the implicit increased game longevity and publicity (both of which they already had), and maybe a modest financial cut. Leaving aside other aspects, such as the surprise introduction, it's likely that using the same model with different terms could have avoided the outcry.

Re:Rent seeking all the way down.

[reve_etrange]

I'm not sure how this fits into the larger argument, but .NET stuff can be developed and run on Mono.

Well, I didn't write Mono either...

Regardless of which compiler/runtime you use, you are in some kind of licensing agreement with the vendor. You are already paying them somehow - the only differences after that point are the specific terms.

Re:Rent seeking all the way down.

[reve_etrange]

The Microsoft assets used are minimal?

Sorry, I thought the first sentence was enough as is. The art assets used are minimal (if any).

A game might not care much about the Windows UI, but many years of work went into making the Windows kernel and DirectX into what they are today. Those are not simple bits of code.

Sure - but to use them, you enter into license agreements with Microsoft. Those agreements place restrictions on your activities and you also have to pay them to get a full version of Visual Studio, etc. They are already taking some kind of a cut from you - the differences are in the specific business model implicit in those agreements.

Re:Almost as stupid as those idiots rioting right

[Anonymous Coward]

Altough there where doucebags, the MAJORITY of people agreed that modders deserved payment...

The biggest outcry was about the 25%/75% split, and the fact that it was an paywall. Most people would have agreed with an donation button, so they have the choice IF they want to daonate and how much. Most people would have agreed with an better split for the modders (say 50% modders and 50% to steam/publisher).

Do not forget an lot of gamers are running tired and sick about the increase of "first day" DLC's and microtransactions in games that are already bought for an decent amount of money. That kind of mechanic is simply there to milk the consumer. If this goes on the consumer has to pay an triple value for an game just to make it playable. This certainly added to this outrage..

There where more culprits, like quality cotrol and outright stealing of free mods from nexus and sell them on the steam site, and thus making money from other ones work...

It was not the concept of modders being payed that made the outrage, but the way it was implemented and the in-the-face corporate greed that was behind the concept.

I think this outrage was justified for those reasons...

not enough money to developer

[FalseModesty]

I'd have been fine with it if Steam had kept just 15% of the money, and Bethesda none (they already get money selling the game).

It was a good idea that needed some work

[Ambassador Kosh]

Overall the idea was good and sure the first implementation had problems but pretty much all new systems have that. However, it seems that most would rather jump on a hate bandwagon and destroy something instead of actually giving constructive criticism to fix it.

Bethesda put money into making tools for modders. If this has worked then Bethesda would have had justifiable resources to put back into better modding tools, documentation, examples etc.

Modders don't do all the work by themselves. They build on top of many others work.

I don't know what a fair contribution would be for each party but the idea of being able to charge for mods is a good one. The donation system clearly does not work and so many that are in favor of it NEVER donate. It is just seen as free.

Maybe in a few years we would have ended up with modders as a full time job for some of our favorite games and they would keep putting out real content that we could all enjoy. However, humans people never waited to see for anything. It was different and therefore bad and that means it has to go.

People say they want new ideas but they really don't and this whole social media thing is getting way out of hand. We have these hate bandwagons that state and it is too easy for everyone to jump on board without thinking. The ideas just spread all over the internet as all people have to do is copy and image and say they are part of the hate.

It is going to take a long while before we figure out a way to deal with this but these hate bandwagons are just getting so tiring.

Re:It was a good idea that needed some work

[Whorhay]

My chief complaint with Bethesda getting a cut in this case is that their support of the game has been crap. They shoved out a few DLC's and basically phoned it in. For years there was a mod for which the sole purpose was fixing bugs in the game. Bethesda, rather than adopting those fixes and releasing a bug fix patch just left it all to rot. Meaning that if I wanted to quickly fix the hundreds of known bugs which the community had already figured out I had to install some 3rd party mod, instead of Bethesda patching their game. Bethesda already gets their cut whenever the game sells another copy. Piggy backing profits on the hard work of modders who evidentally care more about actually improving the game than the publisher does is just sickening. If modders were enabling people to use Bethesda IP without having to license the use of that IP from Bethesda then I could see an argument for them getting a cut. But as it is Bethesda isn't doing anything to earn that cut.

Re:It was a good idea that needed some work

[Ambassador Kosh]

As I said I think the pricing was massively off. Steam should have had the standard 30%, 10% for Bethesda for tool development, documentation etc and 60% for the mod author.

However the basic idea is a good one. Donation just means free. So many say this stuff should all just be donation but people don't donate EVER pretty much. No matter how good something is they don't donate.

It would have been nice to see what mod developers would have done if they where being paid enough to do full time mod development and gained several years of experience.

It just seems that ideas today must work on day 1 perfectly and must not upset a few people because otherwise they cry like babies on social media until whatever upset them is taken down. It is highly destructive behavior and it currently carries no consequences of any kind. You can help ruin someones life, cause large economic damage and there is zero responsibility and it is considered completely okay until it happens to you. Heck we have people that still consider SWATing a joke.

Re:It was a good idea that needed some work

[Whorhay]

I agree that a mod store is a good idea and could have huge benefits. If they resolved the financial split though they've still got issues that can only really be passably resolved by heavily curating that store. I'm not sure that Valve wants to pay a bunch of people to do that curating, even just for one game like Skyrim that would probably require several staff members.

Re:How much of the effort did those two put in?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck all, that's how much. Valve only pay for the bandwidth and storage, which they pay even for free stuff, so if that is what it was to cover (as opposed to being added to the cost of the game or just a cost of doing business, like real estate taxes for bricks and mortar shops), this would indicate that their end goal is to make ALL mods for-pay, to cover those costs. Valve therefore are trying to shift the window until everyone accepts that ONLY for-pay mods will be available.

You mean like there are only paid games on their service, and nothing is free to play ? Oh, wait. Paid mods being made mandatory is just FUD, and is also stupid because mods that would otherwise be free would simply not be released instead, or distributed outside Steam. Valve have no policy of setting a mandatory minimum price on all items sold on Steam, and there is no indication that this will change in the forseeable future.

Bethesda did NOTHING, no cost WHATSOEVER. NO EFFORT whatsoever.

That is great news, since then there is no need for their game or tools, and one can just make a game from scratch without relying on them. On the other hand, if you want to use Valve's and Bethesda's service and tools, then you need to accept their terms. Skyrim and the Creation Kit are Bethesda's intellectual property. That is why previously they were able to disallow any monetization of mods. If you do not like the terms, you have the choice of going elsewhere. That is how a free market works. Skyrim is not a monopoly, and nor is even Steam, because there are viable alternatives.

Every notice?

[Diac]

Its interesting but ever notice that Valve does not follow through with any of its features it comes up with?

I started to notice this when they did that steam broadcasting, its nothing like twitches service with the level of support and features and its shows in its use, despite having millions of people use steam barely any of them use the steam broadcasting.

What about there green light system? A broken mess that they made then again just ignored any development on. The steambox? Anyone have it? What about steam big picture?

All of these are good ideas that are under implemented and underused for the amount of people that have steam. Even there main page needed upgrading for years and they didn't follow though with that.

I believe Valves work structure causes this, we all seen there handbook. There are no lines of authority everyone just moves there desks literally to an area that is doing something that they are interested in then when its finished they move on, and this is important no one is left to offer support on that new feature.

I think in Valve everyone is looking for that new feature for the glory it brings but there is no glory in supporting that feature after it is released.

Look at this new paid modding feature in the article it was designed with as little support or oversight needed, not because they wanted it that way but because they just have no people to support it.

Unless Valve sets up an independent company to support there features they will never make anything that people will want to use in any length of time.

Paid mods are a bad idea

[TheCarp]

I really think paid mods are dumb, they will do little good other than encourage new modders, but, it will do it by giving them false hopes and setting them up for an antagonistic atmosphere. Look at Kerbal modders now for an example. They work together. There are few "competing" mods, most work with eachother, and when you see two modders working on similar or related mods meet in the forums it is always a "Oh you are the guy who does X? Awesome how did you do Y?" and they have a great conversation and work together a bit.

Enter paid mods, and they would have incentive to...not do that. You would have modders who just copy others and release trying to make a buck, you would have people trying to obscure code, and hide their "secret sauce".... all.... for a pittance that will never sustain them.

I run 30 kerbal mods now (and a similar number of skyrim ones). If mods started going paid, theres maybe 2 or 3 on each I would even consider continuing to use if they were even a $1 or 2....in fact, it would massively increase my resistance to even wanting to try a mod.

So the main thing it will do is mean a lot less mods get used.

Re:Paid mods are a bad idea

[mattventura]

It's not just that. Having paid X often times drastically reduces the quality of X, because then you get people just trying to make a quick buck instead of people who were actually passionate about it.

Entirely disingenuous

[Headw1nd]

I'm sorry, but the mental gymnastics to find a rationale of why this is bad are just a smokescreen to cover up the truth: People don't want to pay for things that they could once get for free. Nobody cares about mod developers, or the mod community, they just want free stuff. If I was a modder I'd remember this as the day that the rightsholders said "hey you deserve to make money off your work", and my alleged fans said "No."

Re:Entirely disingenuous

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, but the mental gymnastics to find a rationale of why this is bad are just a smokescreen to cover up the truth: People don't want to pay for things that they could once get for free. Nobody cares about mod developers, or the mod community, they just want free stuff. If I was a modder I'd remember this as the day that the rightsholders said "hey you deserve to make money off your work", and my alleged fans said "No."

Within 24 hours they had dozens of mods that people (NOT the creators) had scooped up from websites and submitted as their own, and Valve was going to do nothing to rectify that. There was also a mod for new spells that had a "trial version" which had a chance to spawn an in-game "Please upgrade" popup whenever you cast, and it wasn't one of those protest mods. Without even talking about the fairness of the cuts taken by the publisher (which was more like "hey WE deserve to make money off your work") , that is about as "mentally gymnastic" as sitting on the couch eating donuts. I didn't have anything against the idea fundamentally, but after just these few days I can't see a scenario where this implementation would have worked out.

Also, a significant portion of those fans saying "No" was the modding community itself.

Re:Entirely disingenuous

[Red_Chaos1]

The only mental gymnastics here are the ones you use to avoid the real issue at heart and piss and moan about "those bastard commie pirates that want it all free!!!!11!" and Bethesda trying to legitimize the whole thing because "hey, one dev made more money during that than they ever made on donations!!!" as if a single outlier justifies the whole thing. It smacks of greed.

Here's the reality: The mods developers deserve the majority of the cash. The game developers deserve none of it. They get their cut when people buy the game. They release the tools to make mods as a means to increase the popularity of their game, which in turn drives more sales. They don't deserve a single cent of the mod devs money. I understand Steam/Valve getting a cut, they have their infrastructure to maintain. But in no way was the current system even remotely fair. If you can't get it through your apparently plate steel skull, then I can't help you.

I'm sure there *are* some who simply revolted because "OMG I WANT MAH FREES!!!1" but I doubt they are the majority.

Re:Entirely disingenuous

[Lendrick]

I take it you're fully in support of modders getting a measly 25% cut?

Re:How much of the effort did those two put in?

[jythie]

Ahm, isn't Bethesda responsible for the game itself? That kinda strikes me as requiring effort, creativity, and a great deal of cost.

Re:And for that kind of money there should have be

[Daniel Hoffmann]

Valve corporate culture simply makes this impossible, they don't hire the gruntwork required for this kind of task, it is the reason that Steam support is so terrible. However I do agree with your ideas, if they did all that then 75% cut is fair.

Ease of use

[Totenglocke]

Yet, in just one day, a popular mod developer made more on the Skyrim paid workshop than he made in all the years he asked for donations.

Because it's EASY to pay through Steam, you already have an account and your credit card info stored. Most people don't want to deal with the hassles of creating yet another goddamn account and dealing with another login. Steam could implement a "donation" system that people would be much more likely to use it since there's no extra effort or time involved.

Re:How much of the effort did those two put in?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bethesda created the game. However, they have nothing to do with the mod. Think of it like a car: Ford makes the original car, and you buy it. If you want to purchase aftermarket parts for your car, does Ford get a cut? No.

It only makes sense to give Bethesda money if you use their code IN your mod. They aren't providing publishing assistance (aka advertising or promotion or distribution). They provide no value to the modder other than a canvas.

Re:How much of the effort did those two put in?

[Totenglocke]

Which they were paid for when you bought the damn game. They did 0% of the work in making the mod and as such, even a 10% cut for the sake of "IP licensing" (used loosely) is being generous. The person doing all of the work should not be getting the smallest portion of the revenue.

Curation

[wisnoskij]

I think it could of worked, if handled better.
The mods would need to be fully vetted by an authority to make sure that they are relatively bug free and honest on their description. And to make sure the they are compatible with the existing paid mods and to give potential buyers a list of mods it will interfere with.
Another important part is that not all mods are equal. If we ever allow a skin mod to be sold (def. adds solely cosmetic and/or stat changes [so you can have different looking swords or swords with different dps/weight/ect]) it should be handled different than a mod that rewrites the entire campaign. There are mods out there where Skyrim is nothing more than an engine to run the 100% new content created by the mod developers. So if Skyrim's developers get a cut it has to take into consideration how much of the original game the mod developers used.
I am of the opinion that it would of been a good idea if they added a few huge mods/mod packs. Don't allow skinning mods to be sold, but vet a few of those large overhaul mods and a few of the really cool add some neat location/thing mods

The Lord of the Rings; A Song of Ice and Fire

[tepples]

See, the book is only $5, but the ending is another $5

I can think of a couple fantasy authors with R. R. in their name who have followed that model.

Re:Good mods will be bought.

[CronoCloud]

Or the scenery/terrain discs for FS II back in '83!

Re:How much of the effort did those two put in?

[SillyHamster]

Which they were paid for when you bought the damn game. They did 0% of the work in making the mod and as such, even a 10% cut for the sake of "IP licensing" (used loosely) is being generous. The person doing all of the work should not be getting the smallest portion of the revenue.

0% of the work? So let the mod maker sell his mod without the base game, then.

You're putting 0 value on the framework, when frameworks are in fact valuable things.

People create software that runs on Linux or Windows precisely because they don't have the time/resources to roll their own OS.

Re:How much of the effort did those two put in?

[Darinbob]

Most mods I think may come from Nexus, not the not-quite-ready Steam Workshop. For the longest time the Steam Workshop had size limits on mods until recently. So the storage/bandwidth for mods is somewhat irrelevant. Remember that Nexus also supports quote a few other games that aren't Steam related, as well as Skyrim, and it survives on donations and some voluntary subscriptions. The whole idea of the paid mod market was Valve's idea and did not originally come from Bethesda.

Bethesda however did a ton of work. Not last week of course, but it is their IP, the modders are usually reusing assets created by someone else, and Bethesda created the various creation kits and made them public. Bethesda even created their own game engine for their games, it's not some third party product like most modern game companies use. Granted, 45% of the cut is too much, but you can't reasonably say that they've done nothing.

Bethesda has said now and in the past that they are committed to keeping the availability of free mods with their games, rather than the fear some have had of DRMed mods (which some other games have someting like that).

Re:How much of the effort did those two put in?

[im_thatoneguy]

They did 0% of the work in making the mod and as such, even a 10% cut for the sake of "IP licensing" (used loosely) is being generous.

Except for developing the mod tools and supporting the mod community.

Re:nickel and dime

[Darinbob]

Which is why some games that have had modding capability have disabled it in later releases. But Bethesda has said now and in the past that they're going to keep supporting fan created free mods. Practically speaking though, Bethesda knows that if they disabled free modding that their games would not sell so well. Other game makers are under intense pressure to produce new games or DLCs at a high rate, because their games only make money when they're brand new. Whereas Bethesda can create one new game and keep getting decent revenue off of it for years.

Re:Entitled much?

[Darinbob]

For most modders, making them IS free! $50 for a game and then another $50 for basic mods is dumb. Most of the paid mods being provided in the store were silly things. A quick reskinning of a sword, lore-inappropriate armor, etc.

Skyrim and the older TES games, and FO3, all run just fine without any mods, you just lose some convenience mostly. So if people had to pay for mods then they would mostly choose to not get them at all. Instead of a huge number of mods of every sort there would be very few I think.

What if PBS had this same attitude? Instead of pledge breaks asking for voluntary donations, they'd start calling all their viewers and cheapskate freeloaders and whiners. Would they be successful and well respected?

Re:How much of the effort did those two put in?

[Totenglocke]

Except Bethesda had to create the framework to sell the base game. They didn't make those tools to "generously give away", they had to make them so that they themselves could create regions / characters / items / etc. I'm remembering why I rarely go on Slashdot anymore, it's filled with incompetent people who lack even the most basic thinking / reasoning skills.

Re:How much of the effort did those two put in?

[Totenglocke]

How did they do anything to "support the mod community"? As for the tools? They had to make them so that they could make the game - that was a sunk cost and it cost them nothing to bundle it with the game when they sold it to customers (or if they did place a value on it, they were already paid when people bought the game).

Re:nickel and dime

[drinkypoo]

There's nothing wrong with expansion pack type DLC. I just wish there was more of it and less of the crap DLC. I miss expansion packs.

In principle, I agree with you. In practice, it's often used to insert content that should have come with the game. This doesn't seem to be the case so much with Skyrim, but it's still a thing that happens. I've only just got the expansions as they were on sale.

Why consoles

[tepples]

why did you go with PS4 over the PC?

I can think of several reasons to use consoles:

1. A game isn't ported well to OS X.
2. A game isn't ported well to X11/Linux.
3. Weak sauce PCs.
4. People who prefer to game on a a big screen and own only one PC in another room.
5. People who prefer to game on a a big screen and have a small form factor home theater PC in the living room, mostly for noninteractive things like music and video.
6. People who prefer to avoid cheaters in online competitive multiplayer games. Consoles have historically had less of a problem with cheating.
7. People who aren't interested in amateur games or mods.
8. A franchise is first-party.

Re:How much of the effort did those two put in?

[SillyHamster]

And we pay how much money to Microsoft to run software on their framework?

So you accept that frameworks are valuable and worth money. Then how the framework owner is paid is up for negotiation.

You'll note that Valve and Apple get a cut of each game/app sold on their Steam/IOS store frameworks. Those aren't illegal, or even wrong. They're just different business models.

I think what Bethesda did is probably illegal. Violation of First Sale doctrine maybe?

Mods are derivative works of Bethesda's IP. When distributed for free, there are certain protections, and no harm is done. When sold for money, Bethesda's permission is needed, as that is what copyright does.

Re:How much of the effort did those two put in?

[SillyHamster]

Except Bethesda had to create the framework to sell the base game. They didn't make those tools to "generously give away", they had to make them so that they themselves could create regions / characters / items / etc.

So because Bethesda needed to create the framework for themselves ... My claim that the framework has non-zero value is wrong?

If the framework is needed for the game to even exist, you've affirmed my point by saying the framework has a lot of value! (Skyrim has sold 20+ million copies, which is worth hundreds of millions of dollars)

Now, if the framework has value, then access to the framework has value ... and so getting compensated for providing access is in fact reasonable.

I'm remembering why I rarely go on Slashdot anymore, it's filled with incompetent people who lack even the most basic thinking / reasoning skills.

It's not too late for you to start paying attention and reducing that number.