In the past week or so Steam has announced that Skyrim modders can now sale their own mods on Steam’s Workshop. It sounds amazing, right? Well, it’s definitely not, because Valve is racking in 75% of the profits. And that’s not even the end of it.
Bethesda Softwork decided to pair with Valve and offer modders the chance of selling their original work. Sounds like a great idea at first, but then, you realize that you’ve worked a month for that high-res textures pack for Skyrim, and you’re going to sell it for about $9,99 with more than half of the profits going to Valve. It’s definitely not fair. Their plan of encouraging gamers to publicly release mods has failed – mobs have gathered around the internet, and absurdly, they are fighting each-other.
Sides have been taken. Some applaud the initiative, while others see this as blatantly stealing their hard work.
Comparing what Valve is doing right now with other giants of the tech industry, kinda’ puts them in a bad bad place. Google, and Apple pay their developers 70% of the revenue, and keep only 30%. Even EA, the devil, isn’t taking this kind of horrendous tactic. Valve was supposed to be the chosen one.
The modding scene is huge. Every gamer wants to be a part of the scene, and create something. It doesn’t have to be great, sometimes the wackiest, and funniest things go viral.
Team Fortress 2 is well known for its hat addiction, and Civilization 5 for its huge fan created content – DiscWorld maps, World of Warcraft zones, even Planet Earth has been made by fans all around the world. I bought TF2 not only for it’s addictive gameplay, but because it also offered the possibility of interacting with other players through mods, and creating my very own gear. I bough Civilization 5 not only because I loved how in power I felt while destroying empire after empire, but because I could create maps, and other civilizations to play with.
I for one, don’t expect money for what I created, what I expect is a little bit of respect coming from Valve. I don’t want modding to turn into a dirty word. I only hope that we aren’t too late.
With the huge downpour of stolen content from various modding websites, Skyrim’s Steam WorkShop is filled with gamers just wanting to make a quick buck. I’m not saying that all of them are scrupulous, I’m just saying that there is a trend that seems to making its way. People are stealing content and selling it in the Workshop. How does Valve react to this? Of course, removing the mod from the store, but the whole process is incredibly tedious, and it can last a long time before your hard worked mod can be rightfully yours, once again.
This new trend can definitely lead to what I like to call microtransaction hell. If you aren’t accustomed to the term, let me succinctly explain it for you. It’s a method that casual games adopt, and a few AAA titles too, that lets the player buy additional stuff for the game. I’m not talking about hats, or a new dress for your League of Legends champion. I’m talking about game-changing items. If you buy item X your champion can level up faster, and if you pair item X with item Y, that is also available for purchase, then you can advance to the next level quicker. Smartphone games are plagued by such tactic, and unfortunately, it seems like it’s advancing each year, more and more.
But wait a minute, you may say, isn’t this a great way to get premium content and pay back modders? Yes, and no.
It’s a thin line that only time could tell if it’s going to really work out in the end, or shatter the line completely; but one can make some logical assumptions based on human nature. Anyone can be a modder, and you don’t require any certification in order to put your product on sale. As a modder, I am not required to update my mod for every game update. I’m not even require to make it compatible with other mods on Steam’s Workshop. Of course, I could do that, I could take care of the people that bought my work, but wouldn’t it be more profitable to release the same mode, but this time to be compatible with the latest patch?
How about refunds? Am I obligated to refund money? Yes, but within a 30 day window. In those 30 days it’s incredibly hard to find compatibility problems with other mods, and new game updates don’t come out every month. After the 30 day period I can keep the money even if the mod doesn’t work any more.
The whole system needs to be re-hauled, and we hope that this isn’t Steam’s Workshop last form – you need to sell over $100 worth of mods for Valve to pay you. A complete shame.
It’s a whole fiasco at this moment. Various modding websites have closed their doors, and taken down mods because the free content offered by those sites was found in the Workshop for sale.
Youtub’er Cephei has uploaded the perfect parody to the whole situation.
UPDATE 29.04.2015 – It seems like Gabe Newell, Valve’s founder and owner, has realized what an incredible horrible thing they’ve done, and they terminated the whole project. Bethesda also is acknowledges the fiasco they put themselves in. Nice damage control, but gamers won’t forget this. It’s really great that they listened to the community, but we, the gamers, need to be aware and not let this happen next time.
You can read the official statement on Valve’s Steam Workshop page.
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Roxanne Briean
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