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[Rolan7]

Which sounds ludicrous but uh...  Basically, yeah.  25%.  Though partially because Bethesda was demanding 45%...  But then Valve got 30%, so yeah.
Bethesda seemed to be claiming that a 25% cut for developers was normal:  http://www.polygon.com/2015/4/27/8505513/bethesda-skyrim-paid-mods-valve-steam
I don't know if that's true, but they and Valve were definitely taking too much by far.

[Flying Dice]

In complete and total honesty, if you wanted to implement a paid mod system, it would be possible to do so in a way which would be constructive rather than destructive. Here's how I'd set it up:

You pay for downloading permission on the platform. Something pretty cheap. Say, $5-10 and you can download as many mods as you want for 30 days. When an author publishes a mod, they are able to associate other members of the platform with the mod as contributors. If a player downloads a mod, the author and all listed contributors are added as recipients to their payment. If the player uninstalls the mod before the end of the time period, they're removed. At the end of the download window, the fee is split evenly between every contributor and author (individuals who contribute to multiple mods receive payment for each). The platform provider, dev, and publisher each receive payment equal to one contributor share. Obviously you need very strong oversight and material motivation to not be a dickhead. Not really a good method for the latter that I can think of, it's the core problem with free markets, greedy shitheads are always waiting in the wings to game the system.

This particularly incentivizes the creation of large, "essential" mods, because they will be downloaded by virtually all mod users, giving them much larger shares of income overall than people who make small bit-work mods.

Now that's still complete shit compared to free modding, but it interferes much less with cooperative development (even encouraging it, someone who contributes to a lot of projects will make a lot). It removes the risk for users by disassociating costs from individual mods, and the lengthy trial period makes it difficult for cloned and shit mods to generate income-taken together they also eliminate the need for a refund system.

But something like that will never be implemented because at least two of the three corporate elements (platform host i.e. Steam and publisher) are always going to be greedy fuckers trying to make a dime on other peoples' work and give them shavings from a penny in return. Not to mention that both publishers and devs will likely be more interested in it as a way to exercise greater creative control and steal good ideas to pass off as their own without credit (not that that doesn't already happen, it's damn rare to have a case like nuCOM where the devs acknowledge the modding talent).

tl;dr it's possible to have semi-healthy semi-reasonable paid mods, but it will never happen because there are too many parties who want to exploit the system for their own gain rather than build something which is equitable and viable in the long term. Welcome to the glorious capitalist paradise.

[Putnam]

What, like Youtube Red?

That actually sounds nice. Youtube Red gets content creators way more money than ads per viewer, at least from the statistics I've seen (i.e. mine).

[nenjin]

I just want them to create a system which protects content creators. When Bethesda makes a $60 game, they have the legal power to stop someone from copying it and trying to sell it as their own. A 14 year old kid? They have no where near the same capability to protect their creations. I don't want to approve a system where creatives are just part of a content creation farm where anyone can steal or repurpose their work and the onus is on the creator to protect it, and it's just a giant free for all for scumbags to exploit it. It's Valve's ecosystem, they need to be actively involved in policing it instead of just quietly taking their cut and letting things play out as they may. That's what pissed me off about the last attempt. And it's characteristic of Valve. Same shit with Greenlight, they thought they could just put this thing out there and it would manage itself, not appreciating how big of an ecosystem they operate and how that brings parasites trying to exploit holes in the system like maggots to a rotting corpse. There are still developers cranking out shovelware and asset flips and infringing material trying to slip through Greenlight.

If they can remedy that problem (that they own this huge sprawling ecosystem and aren't good about policing it) than I have less issue with paying modders, although I don't like what it will do to the pool of mods becoming a multi-tiered system. Especially when there's a lot of lazy, broken crap in mods you won't discover until you've paid for it. Something, again, if Valve were actually verifying anything they ask customers to pay for, wouldn't happen as often. Valve is bad at oversight, and until they're not bad at, things like this are always going to make me nervous. It always seems like Valve is quick to do something they can make a revenue stream out of, and bad about anything that increases their overhead. Like, you know, diligence.

[Neonivek]

Well Train Simulator did it the same way that RPGMaker does it.

Which is someone creates a paid mod... and the creators of the game take it and sell it as official DLC.

I just want them to create a system which protects content creators.

Honestly? I think this change will kind of throw content creators under the bus as far as protection is concerned.

Then again as I said... Valve is fully aware of that. They only stopped paid mods the first time because it actually managed to cost them money.

[Flying Dice]

What, like Youtube Red?

That actually sounds nice. Youtube Red gets content creators way more money than ads per viewer, at least from the statistics I've seen (i.e. mine).

Yeah, something like.

That's the thing about adding a price tag to something which is free: you need to make the paid version worthwhile. There are two ways to do this. One is what we're talking about now, where the paid version has a bunch of extra features that don't detract from the free version and the cost is quite low and risk-free for users. The other is what Valve and Bethesda tried last time, where you attempt to disrupt and damage the free version to force people to pay into a predatory system and eventually develop a userbase that doesn't even know the free version exists.

If I were to indulge in a bit of suspicion, I'd posit that the stolen mods fiasco was deliberately allowed to continue in order to drive modders off of sites like the Nexus in the opening stages of a campaign to splinter the extant Skyrim modding community and discourage people from uploading anywhere but the Workshop. If the backlash hadn't been strong enough to kill the whole project it might have worked, too.

Certainly Valve and Bethesda could have built a system which genuinely would benefit modders as they claimed, but it ain't the one we got. They're not full of idiots, either, they knew damn well what they were doing. I will never trust an effort like that again on general principle, it's too similar to how the industry crept up on us with DRM.

[Retropunch]

In complete and total honesty, if you wanted to implement a paid mod system, it would be possible to do so in a way which would be constructive rather than destructive. Here's how I'd set it up:

You pay for downloading permission on the platform. Something pretty cheap. Say, $5-10 and you can download as many mods as you want for 30 days. When an author publishes a mod, they are able to associate other members of the platform with the mod as contributors. If a player downloads a mod, the author and all listed contributors are added as recipients to their payment. If the player uninstalls the mod before the end of the time period, they're removed. At the end of the download window, the fee is split evenly between every contributor and author (individuals who contribute to multiple mods receive payment for each). The platform provider, dev, and publisher each receive payment equal to one contributor share. Obviously you need very strong oversight and material motivation to not be a dickhead. Not really a good method for the latter that I can think of, it's the core problem with free markets, greedy shitheads are always waiting in the wings to game the system.

Whilst that seems like a fair way to get money to the content creator, it's absolutely awful (on a Day-1 DLC level) for the player and the community.

If it's a one off cost the player would just end up doing it once after a year or two (there's no reason you'd try it before there were a really decent amount of mods out) - so for about a year, no one is playing mods at all - no feedback for content creators and no real playerbase to test again. You'd get a one off extra sale for people that were realllly interested, but I doubt you could get that many people interested in creating mods with no one playing.

So instead they'd probably do a Monthly subscription and lock mods out with DRM if you didn't pay - you'd therefore end up having to pay a monthly subscription to play mods, meaning if you want to play with any mods you're having to pay constantly. If that's a TC mod or whatever, you're basically unable to play that save until you pay again.

NO NO NO NO.

[Frumple]

On the bright side, it'd give cracking et al groups something new to race over. That's gotta' be somethin' :V

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Goddamnit, again??? It's pretty bullshit to pay for mods. It's not official product. Someone created it because they wanted to. If there are any reasons other than that, it should be DLC. Even then, DLC models are outrageous--dropping close to triple or quadruple the price of the base game for the "complete experience" is already humiliating price-gouging. Having to pay literally hundreds of dollars to get the same level of fun out of a game that would have cost $50 or less a few years ago is completely unacceptable.

And now companies are going to make me pay for something they didn't even create? Preposterous. Frankly, I have no wish to support modders financially for something that should be done on spare time and because they feel like. If you want to devote yourself so completely to making a mod that it becomes your job that's your doing, I'm still not going to pay for it, go talk to the game company and see if they'll hire you.

In short, fuck off.

[Putnam]

nobody's going to hire someone to work on something by theirself

also, Undertale was created because Toby Fox wanted to make it; does that make it bullshit to pay for?

Not to mention every other indie game you can pay for ever made. Nobody makes those things for money.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

nobody's going to hire someone to work on something by theirself

Great! Like I said, you're modding a game. I don't even pay for 99% of DLC these days, I'm not going to pay for a one man project that adds a new map. Sorry, that's just how it is. The expectation is that this isn't your job. I think it's extremely unreasonable to expect people to pay you for something that is ostensibly a hobby.

EDIT: Toby Fox made his own game. If you make your own game, sure. If you just modify an existing one, no. Not unless it gets like DOTA 2 or Gmod levels of modification. Then I'll consider it.

[Putnam]

nobody's going to hire someone to work on something by theirself

I think it's extremely unreasonable to expect people to pay you for something that is ostensibly a hobby.

there are lots of hobbies that people get paid for... basically everything involving hand-crafting, for example, can be considered a hobby in some circles, and people will definitely pay you for that kind of thing.

[Rolan7]

nobody's going to hire someone to work on something by theirself

Great! Like I said, you're modding a game. I don't even pay for 99% of DLC these days, I'm not going to pay for a one man project that adds a new map. Sorry, that's just how it is. The expectation is that this isn't your job. I think it's extremely unreasonable to expect people to pay you for something that is ostensibly a hobby.

EDIT: Toby Fox made his own game. If you make your own game, sure. If you just modify an existing one, no. Not unless it gets like DOTA 2 or Gmod levels of modification. Then I'll consider it.

So would you pay for a total conversion?  How about a game that uses the Source engine?
Like, I'm not even defending this mod store anymore (those percentages...) but creators do *deserve* to be supported, one way or another, based on how good their work is.  There's no pass just because they don't recreate the entire wheel.

Indie games used to be freeware, that doesn't mean they "should" have been.  Digital distribution makes it practical for them to charge (low amounts), and as a result the indie game scene is flourishing.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Listen. That's all and well, and I gladly shell out for HQ, small-business made products, but you actually have to have a product. Modding. To modify. Modification. You're taking something that already exists and simply changing it. If you put a lot of work into that, I'm sorry if you feel that goes unrewarded, but why would I be under an obligation to pay you for it?

BUT, tell you what. If you want to handcraft a mod to the extent where the only thing that has in common with the base game is the engine. I'll pay for that. You make the textures, meshes, models, etc. etc. I'll pay through the nose for it. It's become its own game. And that's where I draw the line.

EDIt: @Rolan7, yes I would pay for total conversions. Mostly.

[Flying Dice]

In complete and total honesty, if you wanted to implement a paid mod system, it would be possible to do so in a way which would be constructive rather than destructive. Here's how I'd set it up:

You pay for downloading permission on the platform. Something pretty cheap. Say, $5-10 and you can download as many mods as you want for 30 days. When an author publishes a mod, they are able to associate other members of the platform with the mod as contributors. If a player downloads a mod, the author and all listed contributors are added as recipients to their payment. If the player uninstalls the mod before the end of the time period, they're removed. At the end of the download window, the fee is split evenly between every contributor and author (individuals who contribute to multiple mods receive payment for each). The platform provider, dev, and publisher each receive payment equal to one contributor share. Obviously you need very strong oversight and material motivation to not be a dickhead. Not really a good method for the latter that I can think of, it's the core problem with free markets, greedy shitheads are always waiting in the wings to game the system.

Whilst that seems like a fair way to get money to the content creator, it's absolutely awful (on a Day-1 DLC level) for the player and the community.

If it's a one off cost the player would just end up doing it once after a year or two (there's no reason you'd try it before there were a really decent amount of mods out) - so for about a year, no one is playing mods at all - no feedback for content creators and no real playerbase to test again. You'd get a one off extra sale for people that were realllly interested, but I doubt you could get that many people interested in creating mods with no one playing.

So instead they'd probably do a Monthly subscription and lock mods out with DRM if you didn't pay - you'd therefore end up having to pay a monthly subscription to play mods, meaning if you want to play with any mods you're having to pay constantly. If that's a TC mod or whatever, you're basically unable to play that save until you pay again.

NO NO NO NO.

Sorry, forgot to mention. Free updates to anything you still had installed when the time ran up, forever.

Like I said though, still shit and terrible compared to free modding, but worlds better than what they tried.