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Author Topic: Paid Mods -- Round 4: McGregor vs mAAAyweather  (Read 100548 times)

Urist McScoopbeard

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Re: Steam Workshop - Axing support for paid mods
« Reply #855 on: February 15, 2017, 12:59:15 am »

Because of some hypothetical, made up situation where a mod maker wants to quit their day job, and then make a living making mods.

Because nothing takes the love out of something like doing it for money. Clearly.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not, but, uh... quitting your day job to attempt to make a living making modifications for video games is... well, dumb as fuck.

EDIT: AND, it would be dumb as fuck, even if paid mods WERE a thing. That's not a career by any stretch.
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wierd

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Re: Steam Workshop - Axing support for paid mods
« Reply #856 on: February 15, 2017, 01:07:57 am »

Dripping with heated, festering, malignly inspired sarcasm.

Because that really is the "reason" for wanting paid mods.
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Urist McScoopbeard

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Re: Steam Workshop - Axing support for paid mods
« Reply #857 on: February 15, 2017, 01:25:19 am »

Dripping with heated, festering, malignly inspired sarcasm.

Because that really is the "reason" for wanting paid mods.

Dude. There's 0% chance of modders turning a profit on which they can support themselves with paid mods. I mean... Impossible. Between gamedevs taking a massive chunk of your profits + low "sales" (in comparison to the kind of download rates we have now) + taxes = living under the poverty line for sure.
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itisnotlogical

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Re: Steam Workshop - Axing support for paid mods
« Reply #858 on: February 15, 2017, 01:40:34 am »

That is where he is going. wierd's sarcasm physically hurts to look at, not sure how you missed it ???

The argument is that modders need to be paid for their work, both from gaben's own mouth and supporters of the idea around. But in reality modders will be paid a pittance while Valve and Bethesda reap even further profits from their insanely profitable IPs, which are almost better known for mods (and full games spun from mods) than for the vanilla game.
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Urist McScoopbeard

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Re: Steam Workshop - Axing support for paid mods
« Reply #859 on: February 15, 2017, 02:03:48 am »

Well modders straight up shouldn't be paid regardless. Whether by customers or developers. The whole point of modding is like, "Yo, we made this game, and here are the tools in case you guys get bored and wanna make something fun for each other cause you all paid for it. Peace."

I will continue to maintain that because you choose to spend more time on it than what it is, you still don't deserve to be paid for your efforts. I mean heck, would I pay for Skywind? Yea, I would, but it's just not even modding at that point, they're remastering a whole 'nother game in Skryim's engine. I really have to draw a distinction between "total overhauls" and less involved modifications. I mean, if your "modifying" the game so much that it's literally a different game... it's not really a "mod". It's a new game. Treat it as such. I'll pay for it. Otherwise... the harsh reality of it--to me--is that not enough work has gone in to justify payment.
« Last Edit: February 15, 2017, 02:06:08 am by Urist McScoopbeard »
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Putnam

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Re: Steam Workshop - Axing support for paid mods
« Reply #860 on: February 15, 2017, 03:39:26 am »

Have you ever made a mod, or are you talking out your ass?

I've been trying to be civil, but man is it hard when you're acting as if you're moralizing by saying that all the work I've done in my life is inherently worthless.

Besides that, there's some obvious holes in it. For example: Tetris is much, much less effort and coding than Fortbent is. Fortbent is a mod. Is Tetris not worth paying for?

Oh, and one other thing.

"Yo, we made this game, and here are the tools in case you guys get bored and wanna make something fun for each other cause you all paid for it. Peace."

Yes, your completely arbitrary definition is the entire basis of a wide variety of peoples' reasons for wanting to get into modding and anyone who doesn't agree with you is not a true modder.
« Last Edit: February 15, 2017, 03:43:57 am by Putnam »
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wierd

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Re: Steam Workshop - Axing support for paid mods
« Reply #861 on: February 15, 2017, 03:45:47 am »

Arguably--- There are clones of tetris on playstore for 0$.

For the record, I dont say that mod work is worthless. I just say that you get more return on your work by offering it for free, because you get the function and creative insight from other mod makers who do the same, and it is far more robust and healthy (all at once from a 'fun to do', 'friendly people who are willing to help for free', and 'people appreciate and like your work' set of perspectives) than a paid-mod based ecosystem would be, where other authors would tell you to get bent when you ask for help, or worse- steal your idea then demand you pay them for it.
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Sergarr

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Re: Steam Workshop - Axing support for paid mods
« Reply #862 on: February 15, 2017, 02:03:59 pm »

Look, I just get really upset/triggered at the hoarding of things that are beneficial to society when they are shared freely.

Too many people wanting to charge 400$ for an epi-pen, not enough Jonas Salks. (and doubly so, when it costs 0$ to mass replicate the pen, like is the case with software, and art.)
Beneficial for society, not so much for content creators.

Mods are supposed to be made in people's spare time. For fun. Why would I pay for that?
"Supposed" by whom, exactly? That's just a tradition. Traditions can be changed.

Because of some hypothetical, made up situation where a mod maker wants to quit their day job, and then make a living making mods.

Because nothing takes the love out of something like doing it for money. Clearly.
Since when can't you do things both for love and for money at the same time? Haven't you noticed on what site we are?

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not, but, uh... quitting your day job to attempt to make a living making modifications for video games is... well, dumb as fuck.

EDIT: AND, it would be dumb as fuck, even if paid mods WERE a thing. That's not a career by any stretch.
A mod is just a less work-intensive DLC/expansion pack. There's certainly a big market for those. Modding is where a good portion of video game developers started out, too.

And it's only "dumb as fuck" because you're not used to it. Believe me, I too thought "dumb as fuck" when I've heard about people making a living off making YouTube videos, but that doesn't mean that those people don't actually exist.

Dude. There's 0% chance of modders turning a profit on which they can support themselves with paid mods. I mean... Impossible. Between gamedevs taking a massive chunk of your profits + low "sales" (in comparison to the kind of download rates we have now) + taxes = living under the poverty line for sure.
Again, people somehow can make a living off making YouTube videos. Do you think that big, popular, high-quality mods can't bring their creators anything more than a pittance? Especially if people can dedicate their time to them. You know, to produce them in a timely manner, and not the usual modding "eh, it'll be ready eventually, maybe three years if no one gets distracted by something else" manner?

That is where he is going. wierd's sarcasm physically hurts to look at, not sure how you missed it ???

The argument is that modders need to be paid for their work, both from gaben's own mouth and supporters of the idea around. But in reality modders will be paid a pittance while Valve and Bethesda reap even further profits from their insanely profitable IPs, which are almost better known for mods (and full games spun from mods) than for the vanilla game.
That's a problem not with paid modding itself, it's a problem with the apparently unbreakable monopoly that Steam holds over the PC video game market, and their ability, as a result of said monopoly, to set up bad rules for paid modding.

Have you ever made a mod, or are you talking out your ass?

I've been trying to be civil, but man is it hard when you're acting as if you're moralizing by saying that all the work I've done in my life is inherently worthless.

Besides that, there's some obvious holes in it. For example: Tetris is much, much less effort and coding than Fortbent is. Fortbent is a mod. Is Tetris not worth paying for?

Oh, and one other thing.

"Yo, we made this game, and here are the tools in case you guys get bored and wanna make something fun for each other cause you all paid for it. Peace."

Yes, your completely arbitrary definition is the entire basis of a wide variety of peoples' reasons for wanting to get into modding and anyone who doesn't agree with you is not a true modder.
I understand it as a fairly typical case of what's usually called "freeloaders". Namely, people who drastically under-appreciate other people's work and its value, because they haven't ever done so themselves.

Arguably--- There are clones of tetris on playstore for 0$.

For the record, I dont say that mod work is worthless. I just say that you get more return on your work by offering it for free, because you get the function and creative insight from other mod makers who do the same, and it is far more robust and healthy (all at once from a 'fun to do', 'friendly people who are willing to help for free', and 'people appreciate and like your work' set of perspectives) than a paid-mod based ecosystem would be, where other authors would tell you to get bent when you ask for help, or worse- steal your idea then demand you pay them for it.
And I say that this "community"'s robustness and healthiness is vastly overestimated, if going paid could make it instantly go to shit like that. People show their true colors when life-important stuff gets involved, you know. And you ignore the main point I've made - that paid mods allow for the possibility of carrying out modding full-time, increasing productivity of the highest-performing modders by several times more and giving them a straight-up career into game development.

That's something I need to point out - higher quality mods will naturally be bought more, which means that their creators can dedicate more time and effort to them, as well as buying other people's high-quality assets, resulting in an even higher quality mods. It's a positive feedback cycle, and the consumer profits from it by having a product of vastly higher quality than what could be realistically achieved without paid mods.

Sure, there can be shitty implementations, and you can definitely argue against the ridiculous 75% cut that Steam imposes on people, abusing its inexplicable monopoly on digital distribution, but the idea itself is solid. It's the core reason why capitalism is the most successful economic system on Earth - because it naturally boosts best things to be even better.
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nenjin

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Re: Steam Workshop - Axing support for paid mods
« Reply #863 on: February 15, 2017, 02:54:07 pm »

If you make a mod that is downloaded literally millions of times, it is not unreasonable to say "hey, since I'm the go-to mod for [spells],[graphics],[survival],[total conversions],[whatever]" it is not unreasonable for a modder to want to get paid for that, since they're a resource used by a massive % of the playerbase that uses mods. Yeah, sure, for people that believe should always be a work of love and gotten for free, that seems fucked. But it seems equally fucked to deny someone who has done something successful the right to be compensated for it, either by donations or a more formalized system. There's no way in hell I'd ever agree to give the principals a cut since those motherfuckers are already double and triple dipping on their profits.....but to the same token, I'm not going to tell someone that is willing to do that "no you have no right to since I've been enjoying your mods for free forever."

And seriously.....we pirate games without batting an eye these days because we can't trust developers or publishers. Why would modding be any different?
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da_nang

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Re: Steam Workshop - Axing support for paid mods
« Reply #864 on: February 15, 2017, 03:59:30 pm »

That's something I need to point out - higher quality mods will naturally be bought more, which means that their creators can dedicate more time and effort to them, as well as buying other people's high-quality assets, resulting in an even higher quality mods. It's a positive feedback cycle, and the consumer profits from it by having a product of vastly higher quality than what could be realistically achieved without paid mods.

Sure, there can be shitty implementations, and you can definitely argue against the ridiculous 75% cut that Steam imposes on people, abusing its inexplicable monopoly on digital distribution, but the idea itself is solid. It's the core reason why capitalism is the most successful economic system on Earth - because it naturally boosts best things to be even better.

Well, as a programmer I think I can safely say that a lot of time and effort would have been saved if we didn't have to reinvent the wheel every time because of license barriers. Code, software, data--it's all infinitely replicable. But, because of the cursed green gold, we have to put up barriers.

Barriers that will only end up with creating a class divide.

And no, this isn't a prelude to "SEIZE THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION", because those means are the people themselves already.
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itisnotlogical

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Re: Steam Workshop - Axing support for paid mods
« Reply #865 on: February 15, 2017, 04:01:47 pm »

Yes. Imagine how many less mods would be made if SKSE had to be licensed?

At least SKSE is an open-source volunteer effort from what I understand, so it'd be kinda hard for any one person to bring it into the paid mod system.
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Teneb

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Re: Steam Workshop - Axing support for paid mods
« Reply #866 on: February 15, 2017, 04:54:23 pm »

And no, this isn't a prelude to "SEIZE THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION", because those means are the people themselves already.
Can we seize them anyway?

At any rate, time to throw my opinion here and then go back to observing tempers rise:

Paid mods as Valve wants to implement (based on what we've seen previously) is simply a recipe for disaster. Valve has a history of just throwing systems to the public and expect them to maintain it. For instance, the previous paid mod system and greenlight. They don't curate, they don't curate to see if the mods work or are stolen. And coupled with the ridiculously small cut modders got, it only hurts modding, since why would make a mod, pour in countless days of work and love just for it to get stolen or to get yourself a few cents.

The only way I ever see paid mods working is if a developer contacts an already established modding team and commissions what is basically a third-party DLC from them. Doing so grants a certain amount of legal protection, a quality assurance and so on. Sort of if instead of releasing Long War 2 for free, Firaxis and Pavonis had made a contract for the content to be developed and sold, with Pavonis getting a fairer cut than under Valve's system. It does, however, raise the question if at this point it is even modding (my opinion is that it isn't), and not just, y'know, hiring a third-party dev to make content for you, which already happens every now and then (see: DOOM multiplayer).
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Urist McScoopbeard

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Re: Steam Workshop - Axing support for paid mods
« Reply #867 on: February 15, 2017, 07:27:52 pm »

I just realized I started this thread. Huh. Time gets away from you, I guess.

EDIT: Also, I will kindly disregard the ad-hominen, @Sergarr. I have been nothing but civil (if blunt) in expressing my view points, and even if you don't agree with them I'll expect the same from you.
« Last Edit: February 15, 2017, 07:30:09 pm by Urist McScoopbeard »
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Sergarr

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Re: Steam Workshop - Axing support for paid mods
« Reply #868 on: February 15, 2017, 07:34:51 pm »

That it does. I've looked a few pages back, and apparently back in 2015, I was avidly defending the free modding. Curing communism did a great job to make my world-view better, it seems.
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Neonivek

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Re: Paid Mods -- People Want Them Now???
« Reply #869 on: February 15, 2017, 07:37:19 pm »

To answer the new title...

No... few people actually want paid mods...

Then again few people want to pay for multiplayer on consoles.
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