Valve cancels paid mods / Bethesda lost millions b/c mods

For Skyrim.

We're going to remove the payment feature from the Skyrim workshop. For anyone who spent money on a mod, we'll be refunding you the complete amount. We talked to the team at Bethesda and they agree.

We've done this because it's clear we didn't understand exactly what we were doing. We've been shipping many features over the years aimed at allowing community creators to receive a share of the rewards, and in the past, they've been received well. It's obvious now that this case is different.

To help you understand why we thought this was a good idea, our 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. We wanted more great mods becoming great products, like Dota, Counter-strike, DayZ, and Killing Floor, and we wanted that to happen organically for any mod maker who wanted to take a shot at it.

But we underestimated the differences between our previously successful revenue sharing models, and the addition of paid mods to Skyrim's workshop. 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.

Now that you've backed a dump truck of feedback onto our inboxes, we'll be chewing through that, but if you have any further thoughts let us know.

Link.

They didn't confirm it means paid mods scheme is completely removed though.

Update: Bethesda responds too:

We have a long history with modding, dating back to 2002 with The Elder Scrolls Construction Set," it wrote in a new Bethesda Blog post. "It’s our belief that our games become something much more with the promise of making it your own.

But this part is particularly, well...

The availability of mods is one of the reasons Oblivion was re-rated from T to M, "costing us millions of dollars," it continued. Even so, "while others in the industry went away from it, we pushed more toward it.

Good, this was bullshit. Mods were made by the community because they wanted to make the game they love better or just simply because they wanted a feature.

Yeah they probably add it in some new games

do you work at valve? because i would rather believe what they are saying.

That took a lot of balls to come out and claim you didn't think it through all the way. I applaud Valve for that. I could see the potential for what they were trying to do, but like Microsoft, their execution and messaging were poor. Unlike Microsoft, I believe their original cause was noble and wouldn't have minded if they had gone with it.

"our main goals were to allow mod makers the opportunity to work on their mods full time if they wanted to,"

And Valve taking 75% and having a $100 payout limit was going to let that happen?

This entire idea is actually really awesome, but Valve fucked it up so hard. I doubt the community will ever accept another attempt after this mess.

Valve never said it's completely gone. They just said it's gone from Skyrim.

So I guess they might slowly and subtly implement the concept through smaller games and new titles until people start embracing it.

pretty sure the percentage is set by the publisher

i dont mind people getting money for their work but the payout the mod creators would receive was ridiculous

Kudos to Valve for listening. Modders should be able to receive compensation, but it shouldn't be mandatory that users foot that bill to experience the created content. A donate button next to every download link that isn't compulsory and entirely (or at least almost entirely) goes directly to the author of a mod is the best way to go about this.

Not exactly setting a good example at the start.

Great news!

"We've done this because it's clear we didn't understand exactly what we were doing"

NO SHIT! LOL

Gaben has brought balance, just as the prophecy somethinged.

Update: Bethesda responds. Check the op.

Given that nothing is wrong with the idea on paper, I would hope that they eventually would.

The biggest problem this go-round was the royally fucked up execution. Shit like taking 75% royalties, no donation or pay what you want models, having no solid quality assurance, laughable PR, and the abysmal legal mess of it all.

I like to think they'll learn from this and do much better next time.

whew. valve almost ruined one of the greatest games of all time

Faith in Gaben: Restored.

valve didn't take 75% they received 75% that was then divided again and some was given to the publisher or developer.
Someone quoted to me that it was 25% for the mod maker, 30% for Valve, and 45% for the dev/publisher.

Paid mods are stupid.

Premium mods I wouldn't mind if they were selected carefully by the company, such as expansions.

I don't think there was anything wrong with the idea of paid mods...I just feel that they picked the wrong game to try it out.

If modders want to benefit from their work, they should be allowed to charge for it (with the involvement of the publisher and storefront, of course). Many will still release their content for free, or for a very low amount, and the mods that offer terrible value won't sell well. It won't rock the boat too much, and it may even lead to more dedicated modders in the future.

Still, you can't apply that framework to an existing set of mods. There are too many creators involved, too much shared content, etc.

Instead, they should have tested this system with an all-new game. Have modders develop their content with the intention of either giving it away for free or charging for it, and suddenly a lot of issues disappear.

That still leaves the issue of their percentages...but people are already confused by that. It's true that the modders only got 25% under the dead model, but Valve wasn't receiving 75%. That money was apparently split by the publisher, Valve and....charities? In any case, it would make sense if the publisher received the biggest cut - that's the only way that they'd ever agree to paid mods to begin with (in many cases).

What a fucking bullshit thing to say, Bethesda. Your shitty Oblivion--something that should be rated X for how fucking bad it is--was rated M on console versions which cannot be modded. And you go ahead and made Skyrim into something that appeals to mature gamers, something you wouldn't do as a company if it didn't guarantee profit.

And still this doesn't excuse you from releasing unfinished version which are basically patched by users themselves.

Everybody changing Steam reviews to negative was great. I was on the fence with it, but the more you looked at it, the more you saw the ugly side.

The fact that the actually said that they didn't know what the were doing, is f*cking hilarious.

Can they actually change the rating of a game because of the mods? that seems a dumb thing to do.

Holy shit we actually did it...

Apparently so. It seems really odd, but the ESRB changed the rating. Link.

Okay, you can sugar coat this all you want, but the damage is already done. Valve Corp will still find a way to get this done without offending their blind follower's that worship their false prophet Gaben.

Thank you Gabe! Praise Valve!

"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."

In other words, not a good idea to implement the feature on a already established game. Paid mods might be released on upcoming games instead. Ones without an established modding community already built.

Now imagine if console gamers could unite as well. We could play our games online without dumb subscription fees.

Gamers win again

An option to donate to the author would be much more welcome than VALVe getting a cut of profit.

don't delude yourself kids. Paid mods will come sooner or later and there is no outrage that will stop it.

PC gamers wins again.

We did it !

This. Completely agree. Or pay what you want model should be implemented instead.

Cloud_imperium

Good news.

I'm all for having a paid model, but this was a vague and poorly implemented solution. The cut was ludicrous too, casting doubt on the claim that it was done to promote the craft, not fill the coffers. I'm not in the position where I would immediately benefit from the monetizing of mods, but when the day comes for the jump there needs to be heavy input from the apex modders, along with general guidance and testing from the community.

"Now that you've backed a dump truck of feedback onto our inboxes, we'll be chewing through that, but if you have any further thoughts let us know." LOL This may have not been a bad thing, but they just went about it all wrong.

Just baffles me that they thought this was even a good idea. Paying for content that may not even work + cause bugs and other issues is a joke.

Installing and configuring a large amount of mods for any bethesda game is an involved process and not every mod is guaranteed to work 100% exactly. It's obviously rewarding in the end though when it all works.

Good mod should stay free.

Donations are acceptable.

Thank you lord Gabben...

All i see are a bunch of cheapskates complaining. The only real issue would have been the lack of management/support.

Maybe steam should have done something like patreon

For real... There was a thread the other night with 90% of people on here praising paid for mods... now they are turning sides as their "master" did...

And the pc only gamers that worship Gabe, the guy does not have your best intrest at heart. No half-life 3, fleecing money out of you with microtransactions by only making Free to play games.. is not good for PC gaming. Its the mobile ecosystem coming to pc... and it sucks!!!!!

Gamers should be wanting the way it used to be with full large single player games, with multiplayer modes seperate to the main game, and full on expansions that add significant content... stop the dlc, microtransaction and only multiplayer focus....

They still betrayed me. I will never trust them again.

Found some funny GIF on PCMR Reddit, they already want Gaben removed from the banner and no longer worship him

@Midnightshade29: The microtransaction store is purely cosmetic.

They most likely will bring them back. They just need to implement it better. Honestly it would probably be good if they did have paid mods to an extent, because in theory you'd end up seeing some higher quality mods. The down side is nearly all mods will end up costing. If they could support the higher quality mods and allow those to cost money, then we may start seeing some really great mods coming out.

Good. I’m not against paid mods. I’m a flight simulator fan, I’ve been paying for mods for 15 years. But the way Valve handled it was plain terrible. Not just the revenue split, but also the completely idiotic idea that they could leave the policing completly to users. For a long time Valve has given the feeling they’re terribly cheap company, not willing to hire enough people to do the job. This is why they’re customer support is pretty much the worst on the market and why the mod initative was bound to end up bad.

It’s nice to get help from community, but if you’re making money on something you need to do a lot of the work yourself.

I did not understand why they would do this to an already awesome mod community. Make it even betterer? It was just silly. Good that it's removed.