Paying for mods

[BvBPL]

Sounds like mountains from molehills.

 

[Arwon]

I'd have paid for Fall from Heaven or Rhye's.

 

[The_J]

Well, if you bought BTS, then you did.

 

[thecrazyscot]

Sounds like mountains from molehills.

You just described every "gamer" controversy ever.

 

[Leoreth]

There's an additional hurdle that unlike professional QA people who (assumedly) have to give more detailed and useful feedback, a lot of mod feedback is just useless noise. Sometimes it's kinda dickish statements "UR MOD MADE MY PC EXPLODE U IDIOT I HATE U", but oftentimes it's just vague and unhelpful things like "A few days after I installed this my game CTD's, please help". I don't necessarily blame users, however, for the latter, because oftentimes these people honestly don't know what is going on because they don't have any experience with this sort of stuff. There are of course always a group of helpful players (and often these are players who are also modders themselves, and/or at least know a bit about modding, so they know what sort of things to look out for and how to express them), but they tend to be in the minority.

Yeah, most people genuinely want to supply you with information and are patient with bug fixes and the like (balance changes on the other hand ). Sure, sometimes you have to guide people to report in a way that is helpful (saves, error logs, game version/revision), but in my experience the majority of reports is very constructive.

Then again, my mod obviously has the best community ever behind it

 

[cybrxkhan]

Crosspost from the other thread:

Here's an article that interviewed several prominent modders and their reactions to the whole mess. Though these are only a small sample of the modding "leaders" in the Skyrim community, I think it's a nice insight into what they were thinking, given how some people have been saying paid mods is good for modders, or that going against paid mods was like going against modders in general, without asking modders what they thought.

Overall, their opinions seemed to be generally negative towards the idea of paid mods, or at least a lot of caution and reservation, and that they were for the most part not particularly interested in charging for mods even if they had a good opportunity to. One even gave me the impression that they felt it was an affront to their honor. A lot of their points were the one that Chesko - one of the star modders roped by Valve into being the guinea pigs for the paid mod system - brought up when he decided to ditch the system. Some did say that the community overreacted in certain aspects, and I'm inclined to agree - I suppose it's just the nature of the internet, but it seems like it was difficult to communicate the legitimate concerns to people who were supporting the paid mods (including the media).

And some random but relevant quotes, in my opinion:

“Releasing a mod today up behing a paywall is just too much of a hassle.

• You have to have permission if you are using work from other mods
• You probably have to work alone
• You need commercial licenses for any paid 3rd party software used to make your mod
• You must conform to the strict file structure of Steam Workshop(this limits mods like ENB’s for example)
• You need to take into consideration that, as of right now, you cannot take down your mod if you put it up for sale.

”

“The key thing to understand is that this is a highly specific and unique scenario. Modding Skyrim was forced to be unpaid for three tears. This is a see change while we are just getting good at it. Had this started on a new game, it would have been ‘fine’. I probably never would have started modding, but it would have been ‘fine’.”

"...the treatment of some of the modders by the community as horrifying and disgusting. Several well respected figures have been driven away entirely, and many more will be sure to follow. It seems they have been exploited more than anyone else, and it is not the place of the community to judge them for wanting money for their work."

Yeah, most people genuinely want to supply you with information and are patient with bug fixes and the like (balance changes on the other hand ). Sure, sometimes you have to guide people to report in a way that is helpful (saves, error logs, game version/revision), but in my experience the majority of reports is very constructive.

Then again, my mod obviously has the best community ever behind it

Overall other than the few douchebags here and there even if people's input is useless at least they're still very friendly and patient. I've had to ignore plenty of bug "reports" (ie the "my game CTD'd plz help" sort of vagueness) but few have been dicks to me about that. A lot of times guiding them has not been particularly fruitful for me, but hoenstly I don't mind too much as long as they're not being jerkwads about it (and for the most part they aren't) - but even if it doesn't work out and I can't figure out how to help them, no hard feelings between us for the most part, the mod's free anyways so no big deal everyone just moves on.

 

[thecrazyscot]

A case for paid mods by Derek Paxton (FFH)

Even without the breakout success that would allow a modder to quit his or her job, a modest income still rewards people for their work and contribution. Modding communities are littered with promising but abandoned mods, great ideas never finished because real life got in the way. Being able to sell your mod is a powerful incentive to finish the mod and to make sure it remains working and bug-free as the base game is updated.

...

With paid mods this problem goes away. Game developers have a clear business case for not only supporting mods, but making sure that their game is the most open and mod-friendly game available. They want to attract top tier modders.

As a side effect, the addition of better modding capabilities in the base game will improve the quality of the free mods and our own ability to tweak our games.

...

Imagine the mods we will get in a world where game developers have a strong business incentive to support mods, and the best modders are able to pursue mods full-time and contract with artists, voice actors and musicians to make their mods better.

We will still have free mods. Modders will still be making things just to share them. The prices will need a little time to settle and there will be a big difference between the free mods (with the occasional big mod for free) and premium mods (with the occasion undeserving small mod someone is trying to charge for).

But if you want to play in Arkham City as Commissioner Gordon or as a bank robber trying to avoid the Dark Knight (and a city full of supervillians), give modders the tools, time, and incentive to make it happen. If you want a totally moddable version of Diablo IV from skills, weapons, monsters and maps on up, then you should support paid mods.
Where do we go from here?

I believe Valve made two mistakes with their recent paid mods announcement. Firstly, they shouldn’t have heavily promoted the ability to charge for mods. The goal isn’t the ability to charge for mods. The goal is to create a community of modders and a golden age for modding. Paid mods is just a step in that direction. Wait until the best mods come out, where millions are playing mods (free or paid), and then promote.

Secondly, tying the announcement to a game that already has a huge base of mod content is dangerous. The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim is an incredibly mod-friendly game with a huge community of mod players and creators; don’t risk upsetting that ecosystem with such a big change this late in the product's lifecycle. Paid mods are a new world. Let new titles, not established communities, test out the waters.

There are also two safe guards I think the system needs to work:

1. Require certification before being able to produce paid content

Stardock has allowed modders to create and sell content for WinCustomize for years. The best control we had to keeping IP-infringing and non-owned content from showing up was to require approval before an individual could begin selling content. This creates a nice incentive to produce free content to become known, and a powerful incentive to make sure the content of your mods is appropriate or risk losing your ability to create paid mods for that game.

Approval would come from the game developer. They are making a portion of the sales, so they should be invested in making sure they approve at least the content creator, if not the content itself. That way different developers can adopt whatever strategy they would like like for their game and player community. Some may only open up paid content to a few top tier modders. Others may allow the community to upvote free content and award the ability to sell content to those that pass certain thresholds.

2. Paid mods should have a trial period

We can trust established game companies (though sometimes we get burned) but it’s probably too much to ask us to trust a random internet modder. So let’s set a higher bar for modders. All mods can be played for three days without charge; at the end of that period the player has to decide if he wants to buy it or not. This encourages modders to make sure their mods are the best, and allows players to go experiment with mods.

With these changes we can look forward to great mod teams that produce mods for various games. We will have shared characters and stories that cross worlds. We will find new IP, we will find that professional modder is as real of a job as a professional game player, and games will become toy boxes of abilities we can tweak and play with. I can’t wait to see it happen.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Crosspost I guess:

Tthe article kind of glosses over in my opinion, that there's the issue that TES mods by their very nature can be complex and interdependent of each other. That's something that's not necessarily easy to put into a paid modding system. You can do that for texture reskins in Dota, and even maybe new Civs in Civ, but in games like TES, CKII, Total War, and Mount and Blade, where the potential number of modders you have to ideally credit can reach astronomical numbers even for small mods... well, you'd definitely need strong curating first of all, and even then the system might still not be able to capably support these kind of modding communities the way they've been run for years now.


That said, like Derek, I don't think a lot of people are against paid modding in general. A lot of us have said something like "I WOULD TOTALLY PAY YOU A GAZILLION DOLLARS FOR THIS MOD." It's just the implementation, and whether the system accounts for the potential problems such as the ones I mentioned above.

 

[Mise]

@cybrxkhan: Well, explicit licensing would help. If modders explicitly said "you can use this in your mod for free if you are not selling it, but if you sell it I will take x% of your revenues", then this would help a lot IMO.

And yeah I agree, the problem is the specific implementation. There are plenty of ways of monetising your work.

 

[Leoreth]

Mise, I don't think that's ever going to work. Or at least, not under any model that allows a level of shared modding resources we currently enjoy and at the same time fairly recompenses both the creator of a specific mod and the creators of the submods or assets it uses.

There are several complete mods I have included into my own. Most of them rely on the work of other modders in return. How to resolve these transitive dependencies? From other mods, I have taken snippets of codes for specific features or game elements. Is that equivalent to incorporating the whole mod?

This basically makes any interaction between the "paid mods" and "free mods" world impossible. We'd end up in a two class society with "quality mods" disappearing behind paywalls.

 

[Flying Pig]

Mise, I don't think that's ever going to work. Or at least, not under any model that allows a level of shared modding resources we currently enjoy and at the same time fairly recompenses both the creator of a specific mod and the creators of the submods or assets it uses.

There are several complete mods I have included into my own. Most of them rely on the work of other modders in return. How to resolve these transitive dependencies? From other mods, I have taken snippets of codes for specific features or game elements. Is that equivalent to incorporating the whole mod?

This basically makes any interaction between the "paid mods" and "free mods" world impossible. We'd end up in a two class society with "quality mods" disappearing behind paywalls.

Yes - I imagine it would be entirely possible for somebody to go to John and ask 'can I use some of your code in my for-sale mod?', have that request granted, then snip out a bit that John had copied from Jack under the condition that he wouldn't sell it - without, unless John commented it very rigorously, ever knowing.

That said, wouldn't the interaction between 'paid mods' and 'free mods' essentially be that between 'paid games' and 'free games' - ie, mods?

 

[cybrxkhan]

@cybrxkhan: Well, explicit licensing would help. If modders explicitly said "you can use this in your mod for free if you are not selling it, but if you sell it I will take x% of your revenues", then this would help a lot IMO.

And yeah I agree, the problem is the specific implementation. There are plenty of ways of monetising your work.

In theory this could work, but like Leoreth said Skyrim mods can be ridiculously complicated in terms of permission. Non-modders don't realize just how complex permission can be - it's not just a simple matter of "yo dawg can I use this?" "sure bro." Already, even without the paid mod system, there is lots of drama (in not just the Skyrim modding community but modding communities in general) with modders arguing about questions of interpretation of permission, whether permission was granted, whether permission was granted to use part x of mod y in z manner, whether permission to do a allows the modder to use b in c manner, and so on. As these are often ad hoc, gentlemen's agreements, they don't have legal weight behind them, and can be subject to interpretation or misinterpretation.

And, of course, that's not to mention sometimes there's just too many damn modders to credit to. I used the example of my VIET mod for CKII either early on this thread or in the other thread (CKII is not Skyrim, I know, but it also has complex permissions close enough to the latter for argument's sake) - if I were to have VIET available as a paid mod, I would have had to share the revenue with at least 35+ other parties. I say parties instead of individuals, because sometimes I take stuff from mod teams, not just individual modders. Then there's the fact that some of those modders borrowed stuff from other modders, meaning the number of people I credit could be well over 50, 60, 70... who knows? If a few or even just one of those people refuse to let me monetize my mod, even if I want to, and assuming I took something relatively important from them... well, if I were an honorable man, I wouldn't go through with it. But not everyone can be assumed to be honorable.


So, I think, ultimately, in a perfect world with good curation and where there's some sort of clear legal guidelines on how to do all this, yes, it could work, but otherwise Valve has a lot to consider.

 

[Leoreth]

That said, wouldn't the interaction between 'paid mods' and 'free mods' essentially be that between 'paid games' and 'free games' - ie, mods?

Well, there are free games that are not mods. I don't like how most of them work, especially if they are not really free and another monetization method.

For the point if the interaction of free mods with paid mods would be the same as with paid games, there is a notable difference. Games usually come out in monolithic releases, and there is one (current) version of them and maybe a few expansions. It's easy to enforce a standard of "you need to have [game] to legally run this mod". If you've paid for the game, the developer is compensated. It's just not as easy to have such a standard if the mod has a web of independent dependencies all owned by different creators.

To be fair, DLC already poses a similar problem these days, and I'm also critical of that.

 

[Mise]

I agree that it's really complicated. It's the same in Open Source software. But those are the only tools we have to govern this stuff...

cybrxkhan, those agreements actually do have legal weight, but only if someone actually takes another person to court. But this obviously isn't a viable option. Instead, the burden of enforcement currently falls on "the community", who might decide they don't want to download this mod, or that they're going to harass its creator, because the guy has been a jerk to some other guy. Either way, this is inadequate.

For Valve, this is a missed opportunity IMO. Instead of trying to cash in by charging 75% of revenues, it could instead create fair and equitable rules for governing mods, and enforce them fair and equitably. We already have CC boilerplate for artworks, and plenty of software licensing boilerplate for software. Valve could have done something similar for mods, in return for a reasonable fee for enforcing it. Enforcement, of course, would come by way of lost revenue for people who break the rules and are hence chucked off of Valve's sales platform.

In any case, they could have been at the vanguard of all of this. If they had been the first to sort through all of this complicated stuff, and build a system that will fairly and equitably compensate mod authors, then they could have made a lot of money. They sorted through the "complicated stuff" behind selling downloadable games in the first place, by dealing with publishers and coming to a fair revenue sharing agreement. Spotify did the same thing with music and Apple with apps. Valve could have done a much better job with mods.

 

[wolfigor]

For Valve, this is a missed opportunity IMO. Instead of trying to cash in by charging 75% of revenues, it could instead create fair and equitable rules for governing mods, and enforce them fair and equitably. We already have CC boilerplate for artworks, and plenty of software licensing boilerplate for software. Valve could have done something similar for mods, in return for a reasonable fee for enforcing it. Enforcement, of course, would come by way of lost revenue for people who break the rules and are hence chucked off of Valve's sales platform.

I completely agree with you.
This would have been a good occasion for Valve to build a regulated marketplace for Mods so that Mods creators could be economically rewarded (when applicable).

Using somebody else resources would be then regulated like software and artworks in software are.
To the point that Valve could block any "misbehaving" mod and take care of all necessary payments... thus justifying the cut of the money they get.

One of the problem that was not really addressed was compatibility between applications and mods as well as between mods.
What happens if you buy a Mod and then a game update break it?
What are the support obligations on the mod developer?
What are the obligation on the game developer to test that updates don't break mods?
What if a paid mod breaks another paid mod?

Once money are involved those liabilities comes fully in play
Given that some of the money is gobbled by the game developers than they should justify it in terms of not breaking mods.

On a side note the split of money was completely wrong.
If I do remember correctly in the Valve proposal for Skyrim, the Mod developer was getting only a 20-25% of the full amount with the rest split between Valve and Game.

 

[Arakhor]

One of the problem that was not really addressed was compatibility between applications and mods as well as between mods.
What happens if you buy a Mod and then a game update break it?
What are the support obligations on the mod developer?
What are the obligation on the game developer to test that updates don't break mods?
What if a paid mod breaks another paid mod?

That was all briefly addressed with one line to do with "politely asking" the mod developer to fix the issue. Despite taking our money, Valve and Bethesda were not going to be obliged to do anything else.

 

[Leoreth]

On a side note the split of money was completely wrong.
If I do remember correctly in the Valve proposal for Skyrim, the Mod developer was getting only a 20-25% of the full amount with the rest split between Valve and Game.

Unless your payment includes maintenance obligations etc., I think that's a rather fair compensation. You're making use of an established IP as well as the game's modding infrastructure which came to you free of charge. You also make use of Steam's distribution network.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

I completely agree with you.
This would have been a good occasion for Valve to build a regulated marketplace for Mods so that Mods creators could be economically rewarded (when applicable).

Using somebody else resources would be then regulated like software and artworks in software are.
To the point that Valve could block any "misbehaving" mod and take care of all necessary payments... thus justifying the cut of the money they get.

One of the problem that was not really addressed was compatibility between applications and mods as well as between mods.
What happens if you buy a Mod and then a game update break it?
What are the support obligations on the mod developer?
What are the obligation on the game developer to test that updates don't break mods?
What if a paid mod breaks another paid mod?

Once money are involved those liabilities comes fully in play
Given that some of the money is gobbled by the game developers than they should justify it in terms of not breaking mods.

On a side note the split of money was completely wrong.
If I do remember correctly in the Valve proposal for Skyrim, the Mod developer was getting only a 20-25% of the full amount with the rest split between Valve and Game.

Yes, that was one of my biggest beefs with the system. As long as mods are free I'm perfectly fine with a chaotic "install at your own risk" system where things may or may not work depending on version of the game, other installed mods, etc. But as soon as I'm paying, I have an IMO perfectly reasonable expectation that what I have paid for is going to work. This system addressed that in a totally unacceptably bad way, with a 24 hour refund period. This was bad because not only is 24 hours not enough time to test many Skyrim mods, which often require you to start a new character and get that character to high levels before the mod comes into play, but the refund given even in those cases where you do ask for one is given as Steam credit, NOT refunded to the card you used to pay for it. This is completely unacceptable IMO. If something I paid for DOES NOT WORK, I expect to be refunded in American Dollars, not some nebulous Steam credit.

As to your side note, just to lay out the real facts of what happened here: Steam's cut was 30%, with an optional 5% of that being sent to one or more "community affiliates" of the mod creator's choice. For example, The Nexus was listed as one, so if I made a mod and put it up for sale, I could choose them as my sole affiliate and they would get 5%, leaving Valve with 25%. This means that 45% was going to Bethesda. Your concerns are well founded though, I personally think 25% is too low, and the other percentages are too high. I think near 50% is too high a cut for Bethesda to take just for providing mod tools. 30% seems more fair. And Valve taking 30% is absurd. If they were doing some kind of quality control or support, then I could see them getting that much. But all they were providing is the platform and bandwidth, not dissimilar to the Apple app marketplace (actually Apple probably does a lot more than Valve in terms of curating content), who only takes 10%. So let's be generous and give Valve 20% with the optional 5% going to affiliates. That leaves 20% Valve, 30% Bethesda, 50% creators. That seems more fair to me.

 

[thecrazyscot]

From some thoughts I wrote elsewhere:

The internet exploded in outrage when Valve and Bethesda announced that they would be implementing an option for creators to charge for their Skyrim mods. Just a few days later, the feature was just as quickly removed, with Valve providing some reasoning for introducing it:

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.

It’s a shame, really. The mass hysteria this generated was unfounded. The modding community is incredibly creative, and has allowed many people to move into industry jobs or to even found their own studios…but only when it became financially profitable for them. Allowing modders to charge for their work would allow those that chose to do so to focus more time and energy on creating content. Those who complained seemed to focus on these main points:

Mods are labors of love, not profit

Mods are labors of love. Modders have always been people who love to create, and devote their free time to making new content for a game they love to play. Why does that mean, though, that mods have to be free? Why shouldn’t someone who loves to mod be able to make that their full-time job? As it is, modding is inherently a part-time hobby fit in around work and family obligations. Allowing modders to make money of off their creations will allow those who make truly quality and popular work to devote their full-time energies to it.

The revenue split is unfair

On Steam, modders were going to get 25% of the revenue. Steam was going to take 30%, and Bethesda 45%. Steam and Bethesda were criticized for being greedy and not fairly compensating modders for their hard work.

Except that this is actually a tremendously good split for modders! Even though modders are creating new content, they are creating new content for someone else’s intellectual property, using someone else’s engine, code base, assets, and tools.

In the real world, 25% of the revenue for creating a derivative work using someone else’s tools is a ridiculously good deal. In many industries, the original creator doesn’t see anything near that revenue percentage (just look at publishing, where low single-digit percentages is the norm).

We’re going to have to pay for all our mods

This is simply not true. There will always be people who create free mods because that is what they want to do. Modding is also a self-perpetuating activity. When someone releases an excellent mod, many others will integrate that mod into their own, leading to packages of content from dozens of creators. In order to sell your mod, you would need to get the permission from everyone who contributed content to your mod.

Most collaborative mod efforts will still be free because of these licensing and permissions issues. Indeed, creating a paid mod will be harder to do, because you cannot utilize work the community has already done.

People will steal others’ work

This is a legitimate concern, and one which didn’t seem fully thought through by Valve. Robust tools need to be in place to allow content creators to flag and remove stolen work, but there also needs to be a robust certification process. Mods shouldn’t be allowed to go on sale without developer vetting and approval. This will ensure that mods are of high quality and are original work. There should also be a reasonable refund period. Mods have a notorious tendency to conflict with each other and break the game, so consumers need to be able to have faith that they have adequate time to test the mod before they’re locked into their purchase.

Perhaps the only right way to implement this would be to design the modding tools from the beginning with this functionality in mind. Starting with a game with an enormous modding community was an error as a proper foundation should be in place to protect both modders and players. Valve has hinted that this is probably not the last we’ve seen of paid mods, and I hope it isn’t – but it needs to be done right.

 

[Leoreth]

Your concerns are well founded though, I personally think 25% is too low, and the other percentages are too high. I think near 50% is too high a cut for Bethesda to take just for providing mod tools. 30% seems more fair.

That's really simplistic. First of all, while editors and stuff are nice to expand your modder base, "providing mod tools" is mostly about disclosing the source. Which is their IP.

As a paid modder, you also profit from:
- an already existing player base that can number millions
- no need for marketing / spread of awareness
- lack of skill in one area can be "outsourced" by relying on the base game (what I mean by that is that you cannot make a quality standalone mod if you're bad at graphics design, but as a modder you have tons of assets already at your disposal)
- a well established fictional setting you can rely on, which is often its own IP

There's a lot of resources that go into producing a commercial game that go beyond coding it, and you're effectively benefiting from all of them.

Realistically, given the same amount of skill and work invested, I can see a paid mod making four time the money of a standalone game. Especially within the scale of most mods. Which makes this a fair percentage in my book.

Mods are labors of love, not profit

Mods are labors of love. Modders have always been people who love to create, and devote their free time to making new content for a game they love to play. Why does that mean, though, that mods have to be free? Why shouldn’t someone who loves to mod be able to make that their full-time job? As it is, modding is inherently a part-time hobby fit in around work and family obligations. Allowing modders to make money of off their creations will allow those who make truly quality and popular work to devote their full-time energies to it.

It's kind of naive to assume that all that would happen under such a system is that some hobby modders would start to be paid for their hobby. The field would be flooded with professional or semi-professional modders, with all the changes to the community that would entail.