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Thead might get locked, it's a pretty heated topic at the moment, but ultimately Klei will have the final say whether or not DS mods are allowed to do this or not, I assume they'll take their time and talk this one over a good while before deciding, they've been pretty good to the mod community and making a decision either way too early could hurt a lot of people. In the meantime let's focus on less controversial topics.

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It may be a hot topic on Steam, but I'm not sure it'll devolve into insults here. I'd like to imagine this forum is more mature.  :wilson_laugh:

At least, not unless Klei decides to implement the system, THEN you'll see them flocking over.

 

 

 

I'll just put in my two cents and ask they not. The lashback in the Skyrim community is nothing but pure fierce hatred. People are giving up the game and on Workshop as a whole because of this stunt.

I don't want to see that happen to our favorite game. DST helped me bond with my then-friend, now-girlfriend. :p

 

And that is all I have to say on the issue.

 

Love you guys, Klei. If you're seeing this.

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I doubt you'll get a warning for mentioning that. Though it'd have helped to summarize what it is, and clarified that you're uncertain about whether DS and DST will have it too.

 

For those interested, it is a system for skyrim mods, so the mod creator(s) can charge money for their mods. Note that I said can.

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It may be a hot topic on Steam, but I'm not sure it'll devolve into insults here. I'd like to imagine this forum is more mature.  :wilson_laugh:

At least, not unless Klei decides to implement the system, THEN you'll see them flocking over.

 

 

 

I'll just put in my two cents and ask they not. The lashback in the Skyrim community is nothing but pure fierce hatred. People are giving up the game and on Workshop as a whole because of this stunt.

I don't want to see that happen to our favorite game. DST helped me bond with my then-friend, now-girlfriend. :razz:

 

And that is all I have to say on the issue.

 

Love you guys, Klei. If you're seeing this.

 

also, this is nothing new, this is just the first time it's became a market. If I recall, the promotional mod, The Screecher, is what landed SethR a job here at Klei. Not to mention the Viking Conquest and Neopolic Wars expansions for Mount and Blade: Warband were originally mods.

 

Also I haven't seen an official EULA for Don't Starve.

 

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What is wrong about the Workshop paid content?

 

From what I understand, some games already had user-created paid content, and Valve now provides an infrastructure for about any game. Content creators can choose to sell their mods for a fixed amount, PWYW or for free. The refund policy seems to protect both players and modders from abuse.

 

I'm not trying to antagonise, I really don't see what is wrong with having an infrastructure that allows modders to charge for their work if they feel they deserve it.

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What is wrong about the Workshop paid content?

 

From what I understand, some games already had user-created paid content, and Valve now provides an infrastructure for about any game. Content creators can choose to sell their mods for a fixed amount, PWYW or for free. The refund policy seems to protect both players and modders from abuse.

 

I'm not trying to antagonise, I really don't see what is wrong with having an infrastructure that allows modders to charge for their work if they feel they deserve it.

 

The general concern regarding this is "Big company want all our $$$"

 

I personally am far more worried about broken mods and alike being sold. There's not really any way to tell whether the mod is in your interest or even works on your machine, without paying for it.

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The refund policy allows you to return any purchase within 24 hours, so there's no need to fear broken mods.

Regarding companies trying to make money... Is that the reason why this is so bad? Players and modders think it's better for "all" mods to be free rather than having the modders decide if they want to charge for them and sharing the revenue with Valve and the devs/publishers?

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The amount of ignorance and lack of facts here is getting a bit too high for me. I know I said I won't argue but I guess I'll bite a troll bait.

 

"Some games" were Valve games. Modders are getting 25% of their work, the rest goes to Valve or Valve/Beth in Skyrim's case. Which on its own is insult to anyone that has tiny bit of self respect. Except for kids trying to make quick buck on other's work before they're caught, I suppose. It certainly is not going to bring 'professionals'.

 

The first thing about 'what's wrong' has shown on very first day when their 'hand picked' modder had his stuff taken down due to using others work without permission. It also explains the personality of people excited about the 'feature'.

 

The second thing is, we have huge amount of community resources we are building upon. Charging for connecting the pieces is a theft against the community itself, and everyone contributed to it. All the information, resources, brainstorming, everything was done under the impression it was done for making the game better or support the community. If you see nothing wrong with someone charging for work based on it, then you haven't been part of said community at all.

 

Let's not get into the fact that it's slapping DRM on mods, locking everything to Steam exclusive and all.
 

You're bringing money into the system that was built upon the ideas of support and collaboration. Instead of the community supporting each other, you will get people getting at each other's throats over everything, closing source and blocking access any way they can. I see a lot wrong with that. That's not what modding was about, or what it should be about.

 

Instead of working together towards solutions, we will end up suing each other over variable names. Mixed with the 'gray area' that licensing mods is, and the fact that workshop itself is replacing any mod license with subscriber license, and that neither Valve nor Klei will hire lawyers to fight disputes... yeah, welcome to hell. That's not what I want to be a part of. There's a reason why I was here, instead of another side job (which would pay way better than the charity Valve offered).

 

It will kill modding communities. Would a bunch of people that it may lure in with promise of $ do anywhere near as much to product's extended longevity as proper community and free mods would? Or would the $ those bring in matter that much in the long run? The answers will take time, I will guess not.

 

And think, if the system was initially started as paid and community resources never existed, would mods, paid or not, end up being 'better' because people are getting 'paid'? Without all the resources and support we did for free, and professionals that consider 25% fair cut, we would end up in 'improving quality of mods'?

 

So, no, the "why do I have to pay" part is such a tiny, irrelevant thing in the long run.

 

EDIT: Oh, and return policy. You buy a mod, it works for 24 hours, company makes an update that breaks it after. Modder is not obliged to update, it worked when you bought it. Company holds no responsibility for mod content. Valve return policy expired. Grats on throwing your money away.

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I am not trying to bait anyone, and I will refrain from posting if I upset people or it gets too heated. I'm not a modder and I am genuinely interested in knowing why there's so much hate about it.

 

I understand some mods can implicitly include many other people's work which would go uncredited. That could get very messy, yeah.

 

About the percentages, what I understand is: Valve want to make money through mods. They take their standard 30% cut and offer devs/publishers a rather generous 45% to incentivise adoption of the system, leaving 25% for the modder. There are already people making a living of uploading content for Valve games. I might be (terribly) wrong, but I believe some publishing deals give the developing studio a smaller cut, though this is not as bad anymore thanks to digital distribution, and it's arguably not the discussion.

 

Again, it is voluntary. Nobody is forced to set a paywall to their content. What I expect is mainly 3 common scenarios: people trying to make a quick buck with stolen or poor content, which will be taken down quickly or generate little income; another group of modders making a decent job who will now receive something in return for their effort; and lastly, great and popular mods which will help modders devout more time or resources into their work if they wish to do so. All of this also gives the developers some extra income (like Steam trading cards) which hopefully will be allocated to the game itself. And other modders will choose to not charge for their mods, so that doesn't change anything.

 

DRM? I haven't read anything about Valve forcing mods to be exclusive to the workshop. You could even upload the content twice, one time free and a second time for people who want to support the modder and the system.

 

What I see is Valve providing an infrastructure for modders, offering an option for extra income. I see this as a good thing, in that if it works properly, it will benefit players, modders and developers. Of course it could all go wrong, uploaders publishing content of others, trolls trying to take down or take credit for successful mods, and Steam being Steam and not caring about anything. This is a possible outcome, of course, but I don't think it will necessarily end that way.

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Like I said, It's destroying the community as we know it. It's not voluntary. No company will pay for lawyers and maintain order. It will make modders against modders, modders against users. The damage is done already, and its irreversible. You can't underestimate the attitude change and it's destructive nature. Valve won't take down the content, even if mod creator requests it. Valve is fine with reusing/referencing/linking to free content, they will not even remotely try to prevent it. Noone will hire lawyers to keep that stuff in check. This is what it creates. Does it even matter who was right or wrong? The damage is done. Valve is the only winning side... at which cost.

 

All we'll get out of it is crapton of useless cheap content spawn all over the place, ad popups and limited functionality, to the point people will start dismissing mods entirely. Who wants to put up with that kind of crap in his game? Mixed with infighting/takedowns, it will destroy people's interest in trying mods OR modding. Tomorrow I will be ashamed to call myself a modder due to the bunch of idiots trying to rig the system.

 

It's giving devs income for what they did not do, stimulating them to support paid modding system (which turns money into their pockets) instead of fixing the game themselves. They still get paid, right. Paid patches incoming. Ultimately it will hurt them too, as mods have extended many games beyond their original target audience and their lifetimes, bringing said devs incentive to keep games up and more money out of people that would've dismissed the game otherwise. How many people will be happy about buying a game then figuring out they need to buy 10 mod DLCs to get it working? Or any DLCs for that matter.

 

And considering that it gives (or tries to) wrong impression to devs that free mods don't help the game but paid do, do you expect devs to support complaints on paid mods stealing free content anyway? They might as well DMCA my uploads elsewhere to promote people to use the paid spinoff, if I refuse to allow that. The opportunities are endless. If this spreads, even opting out of steam entirely won't help.

 

DRM, yes, because considering that Steam has something paid, you have to make sure that something does not run outside of Steam, right? For the greater good of modders, of course. And it's not like you can buy a paid steam mod without having game on Steam either. And since we already have 'pirated mods', it's only right. I may be sarcastic, but I will be proven right soon enough, if I'm not right now.

 

Is the ability to sell a few $5 flaming swords worth it? And where do I opt out of being caught in the aftermath? It's a cancer that's either cut away early or it will eat us all.

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Some part of me sees this not to encourage player to make mods, but a plan to encourage companies to make their games open source and moddable that's backfired horribly

 

Like I said, It's destroying the community as we know it. It's not voluntary. No company will pay for lawyers and maintain order. It will make modders against modders, modders against users. The damage is done already, and its irreversible. You can't underestimate the attitude change and it's destructive nature. Valve won't take down the content, even if mod creator requests it. Valve is fine with reusing/referencing/linking to free content, they will not even remotely try to prevent it. Noone will hire lawyers to keep that stuff in check. This is what it creates. Does it even matter who was right or wrong? The damage is done. Valve is the only winning side... at which cost.

 

In a sense Valve and Bethesda won't need to hire lawyers thanks to Section 1 of the Creation Kit's EULA http://store.steampowered.com/eula/eula_202480, they would have to if the mod in question has copyrighted content, and will hire lawyers if they find a rare gem like Falskaar (I know Valve had to fight a legal battle with Blizzard over DoTA 2 because the original was a mod of Warcraft 3)

 

 

 

All we'll get out of it is crapton of useless cheap content spawn all over the place, ad popups and limited functionality, to the point people will start dismissing mods entirely. Who wants to put up with that kind of crap in his game? Mixed with infighting/takedowns, it will destroy people's interest in trying mods OR modding. Tomorrow I will be ashamed to call myself a modder due to the bunch of idiots trying to rig the system.

 

I will admit having ad popups in a single player game is going too far.

 

It's giving devs income for what they did not do, stimulating them to support paid modding system (which turns money into their pockets) instead of fixing the game themselves. They still get paid, right. Paid patches incoming. Ultimately it will hurt them too, as mods have extended many games beyond their original target audience and their lifetimes, bringing said devs incentive to keep games up and more money out of people that would've dismissed the game otherwise. How many people will be happy about buying a game then figuring out they need to buy 10 mod DLCs to get it working? Or any DLCs for that matter.

 

They haven't taken from us our freedom of speech and you would need to simply tell everyone about it and I may start to sound like a broken record from this point on but this is nothing new. With our current technology, modders might just become the Mercenaries of video game industry. Seeing the Unofficial patches, Bethesda should of commissioned the creators of the unofficial Skyrim Patches to fix the bugs while their devs work on other projects. Sure Bethesda could take the unofficial patches from the creators and not pay them, but what's their to make sure of the authors of the mod to continue making it.

 

And considering that it gives (or tries to) wrong impression to devs that free mods don't help the game but paid do, do you expect devs to support complaints on paid mods stealing free content anyway? They might as well DMCA my uploads elsewhere to promote people to use the paid spinoff, if I refuse to allow that. The opportunities are endless. If this spreads, even opting out of steam entirely won't help.

 

DRM, yes, because considering that Steam has something paid, you have to make sure that something does not run outside of Steam, right? For the greater good of modders, of course. And it's not like you can buy a paid steam mod without having game on Steam either. And since we already have 'pirated mods', it's only right. I may be sarcastic, but I will be proven right soon enough, if I'm not right now.

 

Is the ability to sell a few $5 flaming swords worth it? And where do I opt out of being caught in the aftermath? It's a cancer that's either cut away early or it will eat us all.

 

Also, making paid content out of mods is nothing new. Look at Nights of the Nine, the Viking Conquest expansion for Mount and Blade: Warband, Counter Strike, ect. Who knows, Klei may even try to hire you and your team to make Hero in the Dark into an actual game or maybe hire the Team for Up and Away to make that into an official expansion. Valve and Bethesda went into this believing this was a good idea; they were wrong and they will try a different approach.

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Some part of me sees this not to encourage player to make mods, but a plan to encourage companies to make their games open source and moddable that's backfired horribly

 

I don't think so, there are enough reasons to keep modding open, from the side of game longevity/sales/etc. This is purely extra greed, and the % explain it way better than I ever could.

 

 

In a sense Valve and Bethesda won't need to hire lawyers thanks to Section 1 of the Creation Kit's EULA http://store.steampowered.com/eula/eula_202480, they would have to if the mod in question has copyrighted content, and will hire lawyers if they find a rare gem like Falskaar (I know Valve had to fight a legal battle with Blizzard over DoTA 2 because the original was a mod of Warcraft 3)

 

Well yeah the Beth specific licenses. I meant, IF they wanted to actually care about inter-mod thefts and such, they certainly don't have to, the subscriber license/TOS is already giving steam your IP pretty much.

 

 

They haven't taken from us our freedom of speech and you would need to simply tell everyone about it

 

Except the flying banhammers all over Steam.

 

 

I may start to sound like a broken record from this point on but this is nothing new. With our current technology, modders might just become the Mercenaries of video game industry. Seeing the Unofficial patches, Bethesda should of commissioned the creators of the unofficial Skyrim Patches to fix the bugs while their devs work on other projects. Sure Bethesda could take the unofficial patches from the creators and not pay them, but what's their to make sure of the authors of the mod to continue making it.

 

 

Also, making paid content out of mods is nothing new. Look at Nights of the Nine, the Viking Conquest expansion for Mount and Blade: Warband, Counter Strike, ect. Who knows, Klei may even try to hire you and your team to make Hero in the Dark into an actual game or maybe hire the Team for Up and Away to make that into an official expansion. Valve and Bethesda went into this believing this was a good idea; they were wrong and they will try a different approach.

 

 

Modders getting into M&B Viking Conquest is different matter, it's direct agreement between team and company. It's as if company hired any external team to make an expansion. But they did not sell the mod, as far as I understand the mod is still the same as it was, it's your choise to use it for free or use Conquest, no? From the outside there is no difference who are the people they hired, its in no way different than someone hiring you for professional work after looking through your other/open source projects, and game companies keep the right to use your mods anyway.

 

Due to the nature of things, it all stays 'within family', and even if the content ends up in paid expansion as M&B did, people could develop on top of it or based on it. I don't think that stuff breaks the system/community on fundamental level. You'd have quite a tight set of requirements (and full support) for an xpac, compared to a quick money grab.

 

Some things are better left open and free, instead of infecting it with ads, greed, spam, all over, sold as 'new opportunities'. This whole thing reminds me of the 'business opportunities' of internet fast lanes. I don't think digital distribution should even be allowed to mess with this sort of thing, for one. If a company wants to make a deal with someone, they have the power to do so already, indeed. But with the responsibility and consequences on their own hands.

 

Again, I hope they fail and give up, instead of trying to screw up modding in another way. I rather be part of open source community than yet another 'competitive business environment', there are enough of those outside. The core ideas are inviting the wrong type of crowd IMO.

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You can hate me:-), but i fully support this Gaben's step.

Let me explain few points.

First of all, i don't know h9w they will protect skyrim addons, they are can be easely copied, even dlc.

there 0 protection for them.

Now look at Play Market for android:

there few major categories of applications:

- free, but with ads

- paid

- free, but most content for $

- free, no ads, no paid content

- similar to previous, but have some useless paid application somewhere, just for owner support/donations

last two variants is pretty good, if you able to support author and make him charge for updates, you can pay to him, while main application remains as free for all

as for skyrim, i can say that making new things, i mean lands or scripted battles or new good models is pretty hard. Personally i work for like a 2 years on independant worldspace and its navmeshed only on half. Well i am not going to share it anyway, it for personal purposes, but you can see how hard its can be to make something really new.

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You can hate me:-), but i fully support this Gaben's step.

[EDIT: you can read the full text above]

last two variants is pretty good, if you able to support author and make him charge for updates, you can pay to him, while main application remains as free for all

as for skyrim, i can say that making new things, i mean lands or scripted battles or new good models is pretty hard. Personally i work for like a 2 years on independant worldspace and its navmeshed only on half. Well i am not going to share it anyway, it for personal purposes, but you can see how hard its can be to make something really new.

 

But then, wouldn't it be better to have a donation option (maybe the donors' Steam installation could tell the mod to do vanity rewards in return? e.g. unlocking an otherwise useless hat that says "I donated!" :razz:)

 

Oh, and my paragon lives :excitement:

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since skyrim addons and ds is open for changes its pretty useless and i dont see any difference between this and separate app for donation.

only one thing have difference here at all : in google play store you can use earned money evrywhere, while in steam you able to use them only for steam goods and its make steam less useful for modders.

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since skyrim addons and ds is open for changes its pretty useless and i dont see any difference between this and separate app for donation.

only one thing have difference here at all : in google play store you can use earned money evrywhere, while in steam you able to use them only for steam goods and its make steam less useful for modders.

There will be no "donation" button on steam, since valve would not be able to skim fees from a "donation" , the best you will see on steam is "pay what you want". 

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well its a good point

an5way i don't see anything bad here, i don't think that really useful and popular addons will go to pay only model. Or free alternative will came soon. Android market is good example here.

And tbh i don't know any alternativeless mod for skyrim. USKP only, but its collective product, don't think that its turns into paid.

While really unique authors like InsanitySorrow or Cabal120 is deserve some paymen5 back. And its will be really great if they make model with stqhdqlone uweless addon, just for donations.

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as for skyrim, i can say that making new things, i mean lands or scripted battles or new good models is pretty hard. Personally i work for like a 2 years on independant worldspace and its navmeshed only on half. Well i am not going to share it anyway, it for personal purposes, but you can see how hard its can be to make something really new.

 

Even if donation system  does get put in, it would still go 25%/75%. But it won't.

 

And I'm sorry, whenever someone comes up with 'I work this or that much, it's hard'... if it's money you were working for then I got news for you: there are way better ways to make money than that. It was 'hard' so you 'deserve to be paid'. How much of your work would be way 'harder' if there wasn't for community resources? Is everything you did just your own hard work, personally? If not, then you are a petty thief taking from everyone for personal gain.

 

And as far as I read, it's not even possible to do team splits, it's single owner's account only. How well can that work, who do you trust, etc... The team leader could just cash in on everyone being silly enough to help him under old rules. And hell, which one of us cared to take credit for helping everyone, one way or the other?

 

The same community that can't even defend against kids whose eyes flicker on $, as we don't even have the chance of keeping IP and copylefting of our work. It's not ours due to single license system, Valve can do what they see fit, so can game devs. And they've shown their interpretations of rights already.

 

Let's talk legal for a second. Can you guarantee that everyone has legal versions of all software used for creation of the mod? How much of the software typically used is licensed for non commercial use? Who's going to check that, and how. And who would get charged for frauds?

 

I for one don't hope for android's market at all. Crapton of junk, adware, viruses. There was a post somewhere on CNN that 10 most popular apps for flashlight are virus-infected, officially. Is that what you want? Nagware with popups all over. Sure, the phone market is a perfect example of junk store. Mix that with single-license system and no amount of new hires will wade through the junk.

 

Any proper/useful mod will get drowned in junk to the point when it will be pointless to bother, unless you have direct links or existing fanbase somewhere. Just like everything in business.

 

It should never be done in the existing community like that. Start from the fresh games, so that people know what to avoid/boycott.

 

You're being extremely short sighted, and ignored all the points made before you, so I expect you to ignore this one too, such is the nature of being blinded by greed. But why should anyone really consider the community impact, when your Lord and Master claims this? Geez, we never existed, we just weren't aware of it. His master made an empire out of stolen code, he intends to increase his on other people's content, how would he ever know. EDIT: /r context, unless/until it gets censored.

 

We'll all make our picks and face the consequences. If gamers themselves vote with their wallets this will be made irrelevant quickly.

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Let's not swear and suggestively insult each other. I think it's clear that Valve's idea as presented in the OP is a bad one, especially for games like Don't Starve. There's no need to discuss the precise details in this forum (as of now and hopefully in all future), the off-topic section or an entirely different website are options too.

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Let's not swear and suggestively insult each other. I think it's clear that Valve's idea as presented in the OP is a bad one, especially for games like Don't Starve. There's no need to discuss the precise details in this forum (as of now and hopefully in all future), the off-topic section or an entirely different website are options too.

 

Where exactly did I swear? The reddit image I posted was between Gaben and another user, making a point at Gaben, the post was not mine anyway. Neither did I swear nor avoid chat filter, I don't know what you're implying.

 

As to what is considered an insult, we live in the age where everyone is outraged and feeling victimized by something or someone, if I cared about that, I would never have opened my mouth, let alone posted anything online. I was discussing ethics of certain what-if behavior, not the actual actions of someone in particular - the actions would've been unknown to me. If someone finds themselves in my words, I owe them no apologizes for the way my moral judgement treats them,

 

And why would we want to debate modding changes in offtopic section instead of modding section? This place is perfectly proper for the job, if there is something to discuss. Wether there is a need to discuss details at all or not is another question, and I agree it is highly unlikely Klei will go that path, so it may be pointless to discuss it here at all.

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sure there alot of better ways to get $.

and about paid mods, i didn't talk about myself, lol, in every mod i made in workshop i always allow to copy it and do whatever they want. Outside games, i am BSD fan.

But i remember some guy from China,which makes some specific skyrim mods and for him even 10$ is a good payment and allows him to focus on updates. Sadly he is gone like fot 2 years from now.

But again, steam is closed system which doesn't allow to use your virtual money somewhere else.So its kinda pointless for proffecionals which want easy $.

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