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[Sergarr]

One of the better illustrations of how this hurts modders and the community is SKSE: at least half of the major, important mods for Skyrim are dependent on it, and that team isn't going to see shit despite people profiting on the framework they build.

I also find it rather suspicious that they went for a 75% sale on Skyrim the same weekend that this broke.

It's not suspicious at all, it's a patently obvious attempt at combining multiple approaches to achieve maximum money.

[SealyStar]

Really Valve? Really?

Didn't even notice that. Scummy.

[Leyic]

Funny thing is, I've yet to see a single modder speaking out in favor of this except as a way to stop their work being stolen or because they didn't know what it would entail.

I'd think every modder putting a legit non-joke paid mod on Workshop is in favor of this, unless they're masochists.

I'm looking at the workshop right now. The mods fall into five categories: Wet & Cold, mods whose authors make it explicitly clear that they're still distributing for free (i.e. ones trying to avoid theft), mods which are blatant ripoffs of free mods, mods which are obvious jokes or protests, and "mods" akin to that "shadowscale set" that's a shitty hackjob (see Skyrim thread for relevant links) that some incompetent ass made in an afternoon.

I'm guessing you're counting all of the cash grab shitty weapon and armor mods. Those are mods in the same sense that dropping an extra weapon statblock into DF raws is modding, i.e. minimal effort and no appreciable change to anything. Things like that go ignored on the Nexus for good reason. I'd download to give better documentation of how shit they are, but I'm not shelling out dozens of dollars for the mod equivalent of shovelware.

Arthmoor and Shezrie both have paid mods up and they're both long participating and well respected members of the community. A number of quality mods on Nexus are now appearing on Workshop, either being pulled from Nexus completely, or with the Nexus version being a lesser or outdated version of the mod on Workshop (SkyUI being the most prominent example). Art takes time to make, with 3d modellers regularly being paid on a contractual or commission basis for their work; just because some of the work is shoddy doesn't mean all of it is shoddy. If these people see no benefit to this scheme, why are they setting up shop on Workshop?

One of the better illustrations of how this hurts modders and the community is SKSE: at least half of the major, important mods for Skyrim are dependent on it, and that team isn't going to see shit despite people profiting on the framework they build.

I also find it rather suspicious that they went for a 75% sale on Skyrim the same weekend that this broke.

SKSE was released under the MIT license, which allows others to profit from their work, no questions asked. That's their own doing. If they released under GPL or something similar, then they'd have a case. Regardless, they've already said that the techniques they use are dubious and they don't want money because they don't want the attention of Beth's lawyers.

Steam does sales all the time when there's news about a product in order to drum up interest.

Few reasons. For Cave Story: The guy who made it didn't forfeit his possession of the game, remake, or idea behind it by making Cave Story+. He was taking and remastering his original work, which was free, and selling that. You have reasonable expectation that you're buying a full, working, functional game when you buy it. There's a full product there, there's a value there in the gameplay, in the storytelling, in the art. It's a full experience through and through. Mods don't have that depth, and they don't have commercial support. <snip>

Nehirim, Wyrmstooth, Falskaar, Tamriel Rebuilt, etc. don't have (the potential for) depth? Arissa was an example of a mod that had a basic free version and a paid premium version (which cost the dev sound booth time), so how is that any different from Cave Story? Why are you assuming that all modders will want to monetize their work when running your hobby as a business is a lot more frustrating and work-oriented than running it as a for-fun-only hobby?

Edit: Paid modders on Workshop maintain creative control of their works. If the Cave Story dev decided to give everyone who ever bought the game a refund, he'd get the same response from Valve that Chesko got.

[Frumple]

Edit: Paid modders on Workshop maintain creative control of their works. If the Cave Story dev decided to give everyone who ever bought the game a refund, he'd get the same response from Valve that Chesko got.

... these two sentences contradict each other. Did you miss a "don't" in that first one?

[Leyic]

Edit: Paid modders on Workshop maintain creative control of their works. If the Cave Story dev decided to give everyone who ever bought the game a refund, he'd get the same response from Valve that Chesko got.

... these two sentences contradict each other. Did you miss a "don't" in that first one?

Financial control is not the same as creative control. No contradiction.

Edit for clarity: Chesko was not allowed to pull his mods from customers' libraries as that would violate Valve's covenant with their customers that all purchased products would always be available as long as Steam exists. Chesko was allowed to pull his mods from the storefront, rejecting all future sales. If Valve retained all power over his mods, not even that would've been allowed.

[Putnam]

Valve explicitly said that they didn't have to take down paid mods just because the creator wants to; is that really "creative control"?

Of course, I disapprove of taking down mods in general (cathedral etc.), but money's involved here, so as usual when that happens it becomes a total shitshow. See: Minecraft's modding community.

[Bauglir]

What if he "updated" it with an empty set of files?

[Leyic]

What if he "updated" it with an empty set of files?

You're actually suggesting that Chesko should issue malware in place of paid product?

[Frumple]

... that's not malware. Malware requires the code to do something, well, malicious. "Nothing" is not malicious. That's actually just plain ol' creative control. If the modder wants to replace their code with empty files, they're perfectly able to, if they actually do maintain control over the code. Hell, if they want to replace their code with something that explicitly crashes the game or dummies out content, they can do that, too -- the former of those two might be considered malware, but the latter certainly wouldn't (one of the more oft-used morrowind mods is one specifically preventing one of the game's creatures from spawning). Valve's made it pretty clear the modder has no obligation to provide functioning content, nor to continue to provide functioning content later on, nor to ensure their content doesn't conflict with other content.

[Leyic]

Stealing is malicious. Are y'all actually considering the consequences of what you're suggesting? That someone can buy a mod only to have that content pulled out from under them at the author's whim? That would actually be apocalyptic. No one could trust any modder to not pull an ass move like that. It also establishes precedent that Valve's covenant is not to be trusted. What if an indie dev wants to pull their work? What if Bethesda creates their own storefront and replaces Skyrim on Steam with an empty file? This is the sort of thing that could completely destroy the entire distribution model as every reseller from GOG all the way down to Hanako Games can no longer trust their clients to not pull content.

No, this one thing is pretty clear. By hiring Valve to manage the storefront, you're signing away your rights to control over that storefront. If Valve says refunds have to be initiated by the purchaser, then that's how it is. Period. If a modder wants to retain financial control over their product, they can establish their own storefront and negotiate directly with Bethesda.

[Putnam]

What if the mod actually uses content that the mod creator was not allowed to use, as it is in the exact situation that actually happened?

How is being forced to keep your mod up retaining creative control?

[Bauglir]

I mean, I'm not suggesting it would be good if he did so. I'm suggesting that it undermines the idea of "creative control" being used to defend this thing if he can't do that. It is a decision about the content of a created product. Financial control is part of creative control. Sorry.

[Leyic]

What if the mod actually uses content that the mod creator was not allowed to use, as it is in the exact situation that actually happened?

How is being forced to keep your mod up retaining creative control?

His mods aren't up anymore. He wasn't forced to keep them up. He took them down with no hassle from Valve whatsoever. What he wasn't allowed to do was pull the product from his customers' libraries without their consent. Valve certainly has a bunch of legalese to deal with cases like stolen content, and there's a DMCA take down notice on Wet and Cold that will test what Valve does, but not pulling content from its customers' libraries is one thing Valve has been adamant about for years now.

Chesko can do whatever he wants with his mods, therefore he retains creative control. Chesko does not retain the control to initiate refunds on his own, nor does he control Steam users' libraries, as he signed away financial control to Valve.

Edited for grammar.

[Frumple]

... and so the mod is continuing to be distributed, despite the fellow's explicit wishes. To less people, perhaps, but it's still there and still happening. That's not "whatever he wants", not by a long shot. What he wanted was for the workshop downloads to stop. And they haven't. The mods are still up, for people who initially purchased them. He is being forced to keep them up. They're not taken down. Following chesko's wishes wouldn't have involved pulling content from the customer's libraries, it would have involved preventing new downloads if the customer cleared it themselves and wanted it again, later. Closing the workshop page entirely. And that has been refused.

[Rolan7]

He decided to license use of his mod to people for money, and did (that's what "selling" software actually means).  Being unable to unilaterally back out of those contracts does not mean he "lacks creative control".

Or, put another way:  Why the hell would he have that right?  This is ludicrous.