I sure hope you like paying for your mods

Bethesda Game Studios has a history of providing strong support for user modifications in their games. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has continued that tradition, adding a comprehensive editor and integration with the Steam Workshop back in 2012. There are now well over 24,000 free mods available for Skyrim via the Steam Workshop, adding everything from new soundscapes to epic multi-hour quests, to tweaks that perfect the reflections on water.

With the launch of paid mods in Skyrim, you can now support mod authors that are creating top quality items and amazing new experiences for your game.

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http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=429226887

"if the devs don't do it the community will mod it for free!!!" not any bloody more they won't, any good mod will go behind a paywall.
Looks like i'll have to take up drinking as my full time hobby.

Sounds okay to me. I'm not sure what this will lead to, good or bad.

I don't yet know how I feel about this, but imho team should really put a optional donate button on every mod with a certain amount of subscribers. That way you can easily support modders if you like their works.

GoodSarmatian said:

I don't yet know how I feel about this, but imho team should really put a optional donate button on every mod with a certain amount of subscribers. That way you can easily support modders if you like their works.

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Nexus already had an optional donate button

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=430324898

Art of the Catch is early in development, however the fishing mechanic is fully functional. Because of this, it is currently being offered at an Early Bird Introductory Price. The suggested and minimum price will increase as additional features are added

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Early access fishing mod available guys, get while it's cheap. Maybe we can pre-order mods too?

There's nothing wrong with people being able to charge for their work. In theory it should increase the quality of mods because it has to be a high quality mod for people to be willing to pay for it.

I can't believe people are trying to spin this as neutral or even positive. I guess it really bugged Valve that they weren't getting money directly out of the workshop. A donate button would have been better in every single way.

civvver said:

There's nothing wrong with people being able to charge for their work. In theory it should increase the quality of mods because it has to be a high quality mod for people to be willing to pay for it.

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That is a very naive view, people will make quick cash-ins they're charging for sword skins already. They won't update mods on the nexus anymore they'll lock the new features behind a paywall and that's the best case.

Hell, there's already early access paid mods.

By supporting this mod, you help ensure its continued development, now and into the future.

Art of the Catch is early in development, however the fishing mechanic is fully functional. Because of this, it is currently being offered at an Early Bird Introductory Price. The suggested and minimum price will increase as additional features are added, including:

More fish!
More animations!
Fishing Journal!
Mountable fish trophies!
Fishing quests!

And more, as development continues. Please give us your feedback; we'd love to know what you'd like to see! Who knows, your suggestion might just make it into the mod.

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Don't buy them?

Zack said:

Hell, there's already early access paid mods.

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I said that already . How many of those paid mods are using other peoples assets apparently the Arissa mod is. It's fine when it's just a mod you can get by on good will, but charging for it is a different matter.

Sounds like the prelude to a copyright nightmare, if you consider every mod, which uses contributions from at least 1 unaffiliated person.

EDIT: Which will at the end lead to lower quality, because people will be more protective and concerned with whom they share their creations.

Loppan Torkel said:

Don't buy them?

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Exactly. Again what's the issue? That you have to weed through a bunch of dumb butts posting crappy mods as a quick cash in? They'll get down voted and bad reviews. Maybe you have to weed through more stuff. I can see this being annoying, but how does it reduce the number of quality mods?

Edit: Found this on the page right away.

"Try any mod, Risk Free
It's still important to spend a little time learning about any product you are about to purchase. But, if after purchase you find that a mod is broken or doesn’t work as promised, you can easily get a refund of that mod within 24 hours of your purchase. View the full refund policy"

So if a mod sucks you aren't stuck buying it.

Is it possible to download a mod somewhere else and still have steam game recognize it?

If people are willing to pay for a mod, and a modder is willing to sell, then what is the problem? Users have the option of not paying for the mod by not buying it.

There is no issue. Most of the rage on SPUF and elsewhere stems from a sense of entitlement of modifications having to be free and people should spend their time making things for free. If you're good at something, never do it for free if you can avoid it.

The recent change is a good change all things considered. I would say that the 24 hour window should be extended to maybe 36 hours, but that's getting into the weeds.

EDIT: Which will at the end lead to lower quality, because people will be more protective and concerned with whom they share their creations.

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That's weird. The last two hundred years of economic development in the west actually points to the opposite direction, sorry. The mod makers will work it out on their end.

So if a mod sucks you aren't stuck buying it.

Is it possible to download a mod somewhere else and still have steam game recognize it?

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24hrs is nothing, 48hrs later another mod could be updated or patch could be released, bye bye compatibly because he is no longer working on it. It has no accountability, but I thought everyone would be against this that their would be no market for this, apparently I was wrong you're the market for this. People will be buying mods and others will be pirating mods!

It's clearly a shameless cash grab. The modders only get 25% of the revenue.

http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/about/?appid=72850

Like I said earlier, an option to donate would have been infinitely better.

Oruc said:

24hrs is nothing, 48hrs later another mod could be updated or patch could be released, bye bye compatibly because he is no longer working on it. It has no accountability, but I thought everyone would be against this that their would be no market for this, apparently I was wrong you're the market for this. People will be buying mods and others will be pirating mods!

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Doesn't sound like a problem. It is no different from paying a game and not being able to play it later because it is too old to really run.

Zack said:

It's clearly a shameless cash grab. The modders only get 25% of the revenue.

http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/about/?appid=72850

Like I said earlier, an option to donate would have been infinitely better.

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You do have an option to donate beyond the minimum price. 25% is better than 0%. If a modder feels that the 25% is worth it, they will charge. If not, they either A.) Won't make the mod or B.) Do it for free.

I think the biggest problem at hand is that for Bethesda's next game, mods will be more self-sufficient and we'll see overall less compatibility with each other. There's good and bad to this, but I think it could spell the end for a large combined suite of mods that Skyrim's Nexus currently supports. Thankfully, in Skyrim's case, the unofficial patches are not going to be paid content and I think there's enough of a community backlash that this is going to flop in a big way for those concerned.

Oruc said:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=429226887

"if the devs don't do it the community will mod it for free!!!" not any bloody more they won't, any good mod will go behind a paywall.
Looks like i'll have to take up drinking as my full time hobby.

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I'm sorry, is this supposed to be a bad thing? It's totally optional and some modders put A TON of work into their mods. The only difference is some mods will get turned into a goods-for-services exchange instead of a "hey if you like what I do why don't you chip a few bucks into my patreon account"

Plus if the mod is totally inoperable there's a 24-hr refund window.

It will be interesting to see what kind of cottage industry pops up around this. If it suddenly becomes viable to make money on mods you might see more largescale, organized efforts on mods. Then again it could also run into some serious copyright issues. Mods are fine when theoretically nobody is making money off of it, but here you're getting people piggybacking on the efforts of the game creators.

The only major issue I'm seeing is what happens when a mod developer uses assets from other mods. Other things, like using assets/copyrighted material from other franchises and games should already be a done deal (you can't do that). However, I think Bethesda signed off on this and I would be extremely surprised if they're not taking their cut of the action.

The Paid Mods also aren't all "paid only" The Better Combat AI mod is coming soon to the paid section, and the OP of that lists to the free version on Nexus and says that they're both the same versions, just pay if you want to donate. So, you will have a combination of donation and pay-only.

I don't know largescale this can be given how much a cut everybody is taking before reaching modders. If a thousand people pay the minimum for the butterfly sword, for example, that's $250, $63 of which goes to the modder. I don't know how long or how much effort it took to make that sword though, but $63 is more than what the modder could've gotten otherwise.

So, how high can mods really be priced? Will we see a major expansion mod a year or so down the line that costs $25 minimum? I don't know, but it'll be interesting to see how this works out, how deeply involved Bethesda will get in the process, and whether or not Bethesda will give certain mod teams or modders incentives such as higher percentage of sales. After all, they say that neither them nor Steam are curating.

Ridiculous, and if it stays around I won't be buying Bethesda's next game. The reason I like their games is because I can fix the inevitable multitude of balance issues that exist in every single game they release by downloading mods. Paying full price for the game and then extra for mods to fix the stuff that Bethesda screwed up is a racket that I will not be participating in.