There's a difference between CS:GO and Dota items and this.
CS:GO and Dota items were always cosmetic skins that had no effect on the game. From the very beginning, you paid to unlock a crate and you typically got a shitty skin out of it. Valve got all the money. This is a completely optional transaction.
When Valve introduced the ability for people to add their own skins, they'd pay the creators a small cut. This is okay.
On the other hand, mods were always free from the very start, and the whole point of modding stuff anyway is to provide an enhanced experience to a game you love. Now Valve is taking something that changes gameplay and used to be totally free, and taking 75% of the money from that.
To make things worse, plenty of mods use bits of code and scripts from other mods, and the whole thing is probably going to turn into a takedown request clusterfuck sooner or later. Unlike skins, which are pretty easy to prove ownership of/plagarism (ahem that one CS:GO M4).
The only time I'd consider paying for a mod is if it wasn't a mod and basically a brand new game. Garry's Mod, by itself, is basically a standalone game. As is the original CS, and so on.
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"On the other hand, mods were always free from the very start" That is false my friend D:
MOD is not the same has free D: The basic is that all the mods are freeware to add more content to a game, but it doesnt mean that the modders cant charge for his work D:
Valve is not taking 75%, they only charge the normal cut for normal microtransaction, Bethesda is the one who profit from this taking that nice 75%.
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Problems w/ it:
- it should work like nexus: free mods (w/ a donation button)
- valve should not be taking 75% of the cut. That donation should go mostly to the modder and a small percentage to Bethesda and even smaller % to steam
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Valve are not taking 75%.
To my knowledge, they are taking 30%, which is the same they take from any game sales.
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You miss the point like most fanboys do. Modders only take 25%. It doesn't matter how much Valve is getting. Why is the modder only getting 25% for the work they did when Valve and the publisher did jack squat? Every single person who agrees with you uses the same logic you are using. It's ridiculous.
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Jack squat? They made the game and are now advertising your mod (and hosting) on Steam where millions of people are going to see it, for which you have paid $0 in advertising fees. But you want to make most or all of the profit off of it? How do you think the makers of the programs some of these modders pirate to make their mods feel? They're getting 0%, lol. Every single person who agrees with you uses the same logic you are using. It's ridiculous. ;)
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"They made the game" - To which they already made their money via making the game and selling it. You shouldn't get to double dip and get most of the profit when you didn't create (modify or update) the thing that is being sold.
"you have paid $0 in advertising fees." - I don't remember modders asking Valve to advertise for them. Nor do you have anything to back up your assertions. Nor have I ever heard of an advertising company getting paid more than the person who created the product.
"How do you think the makers of the programs some of these modders pirate to make their mods feel? They're getting 0%" - I don't know what you are saying.
Yea, that logic.
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Valve reached out to a group of modders and they jumped on board, did they not? LOL. You really think any of these modders have paid for programs such as Photoshop?
Probably shouldn't go on about a lack of logic with posts like that...
Last I checked, modders did not create the product, they edited it.
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"Valve reached out to a group of modders and they jumped on board, did they not?"
Yes, people like money. If people can be given money for something, they will take it.
"Last I checked, modders did not create the product, they edited it."
You are telling me that modders aren't creating anything? Do I need to post links to mods that add new NPCs, new levels, new missions, etc?
Sure that is a form of "editing" a game, but to act like they aren't designing and creating something seems unfair to me. Unless by product, you mean the actual game "Skyrim." Then, yes I agree with you. But we aren't talking about selling Skyrim. We are talking about selling mods, which are now going to be like DLC.
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Valve (and Bethesda) offer a service. You get largely free reign in an existing IP and platform/engine, and you get distribution and even a bit of marketing from being on Steam. That's very significant, and to completely dismiss the service is to betray complete ignorance when it comes to making and selling games.
Do I think that 25% is fair? Hell no. Do I think this system is completely broken? Absolutely. But Bethesda and Valve hold the cards here. Any sort of sanctioned modding is going to be precluded on the deal being favorable to the publisher and distributor.
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I'm solely talking about the unfairness of the 25%, but thanks for your input.
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Note: a DMCA takedown notice has been filed on this item.
clicky
am i the only one getting that message at the top of the page? :V
edit:. bought this mod before this warning and asked for a refund but i still have it on my inventory, i also asked for a refund on other 2 mods but they instantly disappeared from my inventory, maybe a bug? :V
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Can you enter any of the discussions?
When I click any it says "Sorry!
An error was encountered while processing your request:
You do not have permission to access this page."
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i can't access the discussions either, it's probably gonna be removed soon, it would be funny if i got my refund and kept the mod on my inventory tough xD
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I am modder too. Not skyrim but i made dozens of quallity mods to racing games and i will never gonna want someone to pay for my mods even if i could. Making mods is my hobby and i am happy to deliver something to someone who is not able to do it by his own. And i see some problems here. If you make mods for free so nobody is interested if your tools are legal or pirated. But if you start to make profit on something where was used pirated tools or ripped mesh/model you are commiting crime and if valve helps you make profit on it so Valve is involved too because is distributing the mod and makes profit on fee. So how you should prove your tools are legal and mesh/model is not ripped/stolen?
BTW: If you want to fight against so request of deleting each payed mod you will find. :D
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Not a fanboy, just a intelligent and logical person, at least he is not a butthurt or rager like most of the one who are talking about this. Everyone blame Valve, but he just open a window to sell mods, they only get their standard prices for microtransaction, the one who you should blame are Bethesda, they choose the amount they want to give to modders and the one they will take for themselves, you blame the mediator when the mastermind is just laughing from your lack of insight to understand the true D:
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How is anything you said logical without any proof? Did Valve not agree to terms that left only 25% to its customers? Did Bethesda put a gun to Valve's head and make them screw over modders? You sound like someone with firsthand knowledge as to what went on behind closed doors.
Don't even get me started on the ramifications of people stealing mods and hosting them as their own.
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zyzzyzus Just answer the thing i was gonna to reply you D: I welcome you to read his post D:
The mod stealing is not a new thing, i see that in nexus always, the fun thing is too see how Valve will try to fight against that D:
And i dont have firsthand knowledge, i just recollect articles, read them, analyze them and give a thought all this day to this situation before i started to give my opinion D:
I dont think you will believe me, but Bethesda since a long long long time is looking for means to take a profit from the mods of TES, the funny thing is this a very old rumour since Morrorwind D:
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Yeah because Bethesda owns Valve and is pulling all the strings here. It's not Valve who created this whole new system, who, according to modders contacted them to be part of said system and who advised said modders, as you can already read in articles on various gaming websites, that it's ok to profit off other people's work if those people are giving away their stuff for free. And it's not like Valve already said Skyrim is just the first and they want to do this with all games that have Workshop integration.
Poor Valve, always bullied and blamed for no reason at all. Leave Valve alone!! QQ
P.S And no, i had nothing against Valve before this, except for the 1$=1euro BS but that's old news. Idgs about regional locks and trading locks so don't bother pullingl your "you're just pissed cuz you can't exploit x" bullshit with me.
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+1, thanks for the backup D:
Ppl have it easy only hating Valve, dont know why so much hate D:
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Yes and BOTH Valve and Bethesda are getting hate for it. But it's not Bethesda's plan as some Valve fanboys seem to be trying to spin it now that shit has hit the fan this badly. Again, look at the announcement, it states that Skyrim is just the first game, Valve is just using it to test this bullshit, they want to spread it to everything that uses the workshop. It's Valve's platform and Valve's workshop, Bethesda could not and did not force them to do anything.
Valve is not at anyone's mercy, they've got us hooked in so hard that it's literally commercial suicide at this point for anyone other than EA or Ubisoft to pull their stuff off Steam. And even in their cases it's not really worked out well, Ubishit still puts out games on Steam as well as it's own platform and there's plenty of people around that refuse to buy EA games that don't come out on Steam. We don't live in 2004 anymore, Valve is not some small time company trying to make it in digital distribution. They're a big corporation and they almost have a monopoly on digital distribution at this point.
People need to stop with this bullshit mentality that Valve and Gaben are somehow our best buddies and they're doing everything for gamers. Valve does not give a shit about us, if they did they'd improve their ABYSMAL customer support. They'd stop fucking us over with the way the handle Early Access, currency conversions and with this new Third Party DLC bullshit. They only care about profit, like any other large corporation and people that keep spreading this bullshit are only giving them a free pass to pull these bullshit stuns on us.
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"Valve agreed to it sure, but Bethesda would have found another way to do it if Valve said no."
Why are you making things up?
"That could include not selling their games on Steam any more and thus causing Valve to lose money."
And then Bethesda would lose money. Yea, a company would do that over some spilled milk.
You people are ridiculous. I'm not even going to bother reading any more of this stuff.
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Well, most of the haters are that, pissed because they cant exploit D:
Bethesda doesnt doesn own Valve, but own TES series, he must have be the first to be asked permision to sell mods from that game, the fun thing is that is a first for Valve for trying to sell mods, and i would believe more if this was a Bethesa petition to Valve to make it happen, because that would be more logical, because Valve is just a merchant, he will just give the means and will take a little profit so nobody get mad D:
Im pretty sure you mean the article from PCGamer about the bad legal advice from a Valve support to the modder of the Art of Fishing mod, since the first day of the mod selling thing that was the first thought i pass through my mind, the stealing and use of little bit of codes from others mods, and that is just a trivial thing, wait when mod start to crash and corrupt save data, that will be the downfall of this mod marketplace and Behtesda stupid plans to make profit from mods D:
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Well it's good that you can at least see how stupidly thought out this whole new market is. It's not just stealing other people's work, think about it, mods are by nature in an eternal alpha/beta state, what happens when they push this to other games and mods break on every patch, what happens when the modder can't fix it, or when he simply does not care enough to fix it. Or if a modder simply gets tired of the project and moves on without finishing it. There's 0 customer protection, Valve takes the money without assuming any of the risk or caring about the customers, it's Early Access all over again.
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Yep, but this time it could be worse. The mod creators will receive a lot of backlash, hate and flame, they can even get in legal trouble, there are soo many troubles for modders and users. But at the same time, Valve is just doing a little experiment, and Bethesda doesnt care as long they get his 75% and ppl are stupid enough to buy mods D:
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And where are you getting this mediator stuff from? Last I checked mediator's didn't take 30%.
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30%. In most of the articles i read they only take the standard microtransaction for using their services (10-15%), most of the profit go to Bethesda, and the rest to the modders D:
I say mediator (or should i say other word?) because they only give the means to sell the mods, Bethesda is the one taking the profit and the modders publish their stuff to sell, Valve only charge 10-15% when a user purchase the mods.
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Why should Valve take 30% while the creator takes 25%? Apparently, you think that is okay for some really weird reason. I bet you like paying high taxes as well.
And why do you keep talking about Bethesda as if Valve didn't agree to the terms? Why do you keep talking as if you know who came up with this agreement?
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I dont know if you dont want to understand... or you dont like the truth... But simply putting, Valve only take 10-15%, not 30&,, that the same amount it take when you sell card/items in the market, so i dont know why you keep raging about that. Why dont you instead ask yourself why Bethesda decided to choose 75% of the profit and only give 25% to modders? (They are the ones who decided the split) D: As others ppl answered, Valve just give the means/tools and only take the normal cut D:
I dont like paying high taxes, but i like to be logical and rage-free when i discuss this type of topics D: Why dont you ask the modders why they accept to sell their mods for only 25% of profit? ask them too if they like to pay high taxes as well D:
Stop raging for a moment and analyze the problem. There is not only one to blame, there are many implications D:
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"But simply putting, Valve only take 10-15%, not 30&,, that the same amount it take when you sell card/items in the market, so i dont know why you keep raging about that."
Where are you getting this from? Every source I have read has said 30%. For instance, http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/04/24/valves-paid-skyrim-mods-are-a-legal-ethical-and-creative-disaster/.
"Why dont you instead ask yourself why Bethesda decided to choose 75% of the profit and only give 25% to modders?"
Why do you act like Valve is some little kid being told what to do by its parents? Whose website are the mods on? Who drafted the agreement?
Why are modders accepting 25%? Because its money. I shouldn't even have to explain that.
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Finally someone says something right, i thought i was the only one who didnt get all this Valve hating and comparing to EA. Haters gonna hate, but this is ridiculous, Valve only get his normal cut for standard microtransaction, the one who get everything else is Bethesda, and im pretty sure they were the ones behind the MOD price tag D:
Most of the ragers are the same ppl that were abusing/exploiting of regional market prices and they are still butthurt from that D:
Im pretty sure this mod marketplace will fall, there are too much problems and complication with paying mods, any player that lose a save because a paid mod will have the right to sue the creator for the "loss of time invested data" D:
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Valve is not blameless in this. "Hate" and "rage" are utterly useless in this discussion, and one mistake does not an EA make, but there are legitimate questions to be raised regarding Valve's approach.
For one, this makes me acutely nervous of the amount of power Valve has accumulated in the PC gaming space. Or rather, have been allowed to accumulate. Seriously, you'd think Ubisoft or EA would be able to make the investment to go toe-to-toe with Valve, but here we have Valve capitalizing on mods while EA is screwing around with DRM and Ubisoft is trying to figure out things like "QA testing" and "servers."
But yeah, having a single platform controlling mod distribution and the resulting revenue streams? How much bigger does Steam need to get before we start to see consumer-friendly practices crumble in the face of a captive market?
Second, Valve was anticipating a backlash, yet when the brave pioneers of this system came under attack, Valve did what it always does: remain completely silent. Having a champion of your system delete all of his social media accounts and attempt to take his stuff off the platform is not a good way to start.
Third, this is Valve's system, not Bethesda's. Sure, Bethesda has the option of taking a smaller cut, but Valve is the one who gave them the option. Also, Valve and Bethesda claim ownership rights of the mods once they go on the store. Finally, Valve has few safeguards against broken mods, misappropriated work, and dishonest claims. In other words, everything is designed to favor Valve first, the publisher second, the modders ninth, and customers dead last.
If Valve weren't the only serious players in PC digital distribution, they would be the worst outfit to get this system going. Their complete lack of external communication and customers service is a massive liability when it comes to a system that, by its very nature, completely alters the trust and relationships that modders have with each other and their audiences.
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I think there should be an ability to "preview" mods for maybe 15 minutes to an hour to see if they're any good since it's harder to verify the stability compared to first party products from the IP. This would allow the consumers to choose only mods which show high enough quality as well as get a better grip on if the pricing is insane for what the mod is actually offering.
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15 min to 1 hours ?? do you know what you can do in 15 min to 1 hour in skyrim, when a mod don't work ??
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- Steam makes Workshop for easier mod installation and everybody is happy .
- Steam and Bethesda decides to give option to modders to sell their mods .
- Some modders decide to take the opportunity and try to sell their mods even when they are getting only 25% of the money.
So,who are you gonna blame? Steam for providing the tools/service, Bethesda for monetizing the mods or the modders who are trying to earn money?
On the other hand the reaction of community is just disgusting in my opinion . Grabbing the pitchforks and poking modders/steam and bethesda because they can.
Now I'm not a modder or a mod user but I heard that some modders accept donations so I want to ask you - if you use a mod by modder who accept donations and maybe trying to make a living will you prefer to send him a buck and tell him to not make it paid or will bash him when he make it paid?
So far I only see hate and hate all around which may lead to some modders to stop bother with modding if thats the true face of the mod user's community.
Also everybody sounds like that Steam/Bethesda are gonna slap a price tag on every existing mod till the end of the week. I mean,come on,you read the announcment and saw that modder can decide would he make the mod free or paid.
Times change, World is business and you have the power, Vote with your wallet and let the numbers talk.
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The problem with this is that yes steam will buy mods for CS:GO and Dota and the like, BUT it was that developers choice and they got all the money not only that but people who play those games and want more skins are already willing to buy skins plus (to my understanding) the modskins weren't usable everywhere only in private games or such. This is adding a pricetag to mods for single player games, I might be willing to say buy an Asimov skin but i don't want to pay for a mod like Useful Dragons, it's fun sure but it's not really worth money. Not to mention that i have heard all about how a certain piece of script is needed for almost all skyrim mods to work and that the guys who made this won't get to see a dime.
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It should've been like greenlight, let the people decide what mods they want to pay for. If that would be the case, u wouldn't see this 1 weapon for β¬3 crap & maybe people that stole stuff from nexus would be exposed before they could profit off of it. This move gives companies the right to release broken games in the future, because that's what many mods are about right fixing/updating the vanilla game. I remember a time where that was supposed to be free,,,
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It's not just the size of the cut.
1) Modders have zero leverage in this deal. Hell, once they put something on the store, they really have no way of controlling it. They might try to sue, but good luck proving something like abusive clauses when you're A) using someone else's IP and software to make your stuff, and B) you're faced with the combined legal resources of Bethesda and Valve.
2) Valve has no incentive for quality control. Even if people take advantage of the laughable 24 hour refund policy, that money goes right back into the wallet, so valve gets paid one way or another.
3) Bethesda has no incentive for quality control. After all, who could resist the opportunity of a self-operating DLC farm without any of the pesky responsibilities like customer service and quality assurance?
4) Valve and Bethesda have no incentive for preventing theft of anything that isn't covered by copyright. Since the legal claim of ownership that modders might have to their mods is tenuous at best, there's going to be a lot of blatant ripoffs of things that aren't covered by copyright. As long as its legal and it sells on the store, why should Valve or Bethesda give a shit?
5) By introducing premium mods, they create discord in the modding community. Where once people would freely share assets, tools, and expertise, now that money is involved, basic questions of fairness, if not outright greed, will complicate these interactions tremendously. They might preclude such interactions outright.
And that's the grim future that's lurking at the edges of this: the complete replacement of amateur mods by officially sanctioned marketplaces, where modders make content at a fraction of the price of an actual developer, and Valve and the publisher split the lion's share of the profits.
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So the part you don't get, does it involve Valve merely hosting a few megs of data while cashing in the majority? Now content creation isn't just a hobby, community service or whatever you may call it, it's badly-paid work in exchange for free publicity for the games.
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People is afraid mods will get to be paid-only in no time, that's the reason for the fuss.
In the future, since Valve shall notice the only ones people don't actually use are the bad ones (aka free ones), they'll exclude them to "make it less complicated" for the users to access that part of Steam, and then, they'll decide to present the good quality ones (aka paid ones) only.
Monetizing and exclusion walk side by side...
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lot of big posts in this thread that i cant really be arsed reading, as far as the pay for mods thing goes, fuck that, wont ever pay for a mod regardless of how good it might be. looks like vanilla will be the way to go for me from now on.
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I am just really wondering how this is ever going to work in practice. Skyrim mods work when used one by one, but as soon as you start adding more than a single mod they become incredibly unstable. Is Steam and/or Bethesda going to be responsible if you pay them for a mod that simply does not work? It seems to me that Bethesda would need to rework the mod system to be foolproof before they start selling mods.
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So is there any chance of indie gala, humble bundle, and or groupee's doing mod bundles for a low price where at least some of the $ goes to charity, developers etc... ?
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The blame goes to everyone all around. Valve/Bethesda for doing this in the first place, modders for going with it and users for overall an unattractive way of approaching their outbursts.
Of course, I am absolutely guilty of the outburst-like comments I have made in the last few days but this whole ordeal is truly disgusting.
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Got to agree with you there Valve has done a lot things right and doesn't deserve all this hate.
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Wonder when we'll see the announcement for the split of the profits for future Bethsoft titles? 45% towards the companies who own the IP rights to software, operating systems and programming languages used for the creation of the game. 30% going towards the manufacturers of the hardware used in the for the distribution and storage; ie pc and consoles. But ofc the lions share goes to the developers, 25% because we want to foster their amazing contribution and hard work. /s
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There are a number of big issues that aren't really that apparent on the surface.
A lot of them rely on the fact that mod authors are no industry professionals - they lack the experience and knowhow.
A lot of other problems are inherent to the way modding within Skyrim works.
Given the information available now, it seems clear that the model that Valve has provided may be inherently flawed as to how its applied to Skyrim.
I've seen the following revenue split: 25% goes to the mod author, 40% goes to Bethesda, 35% goes to Valve*
There is an option by the mod author to specify certain "Service Providers" - these are people, tools or groups that have proven valuable to the modding community.
A few examples of these are NexusMods, TESVEdit, Wrye Bash, LOOT and SKSE.
A mod author can mark one (or more?) of these "Service Providers" as they enter their mod onto the Workshop.
These will then get 5% of the revenue of that mod out of Valve's cut.
On the surface this deal seems to be pretty good. As you point out, its largely the same as to the one that is on the table for CS:GO, TF2 and DOTA.
However that is also where things become difficult. Skyrim is not the same as these games.
A skin for DOTA will always work. A TF2 hat will not stop working. A CS:GO knife is not dependant on other tools or mods.
Skyrim mods often are build using tools or assets that are not owned by the mod author.
A clear example became apparent in the Chesko situation where his mod "Art of the Catch" utilized Fore's animation resources.
Permissions that were previously granted to all other mod authors to use these resources as they pleased do not include using them in conjunction with monetization.
It was never explicitly stated, as previously monetization was a no-go topic within modding (at the punishment of incurring a Cease and Desist from Bethesda).
This seems to be a pretty big oversight by Valve, assuming that one mod is equal to any other. And overlooking this whole copyright issue.
And that is only the tip of the iceberg.
In comes the second issue. As mods develop, further issues occur. It isn't unheard of for a mod to become entirely non-functional later down the line due to changes made either within the mod or outside of the mod.
Simply put, while Valve can guarantee you a working mod as you purchase it, or offer you a refund if it does not.
Neither Valve nor the mod author have any way of dealing with the fact that mods do infact break down the line.
On top of that there is a third issue, which is that unlike with CS:GO, TF2 and DOTA - most mod users do not use "one" mod.
They use dozens or more. And conflicts are plentiful.
In a non-monetized scenario, if a mod does not work - then so be it. But if you have paid for a mod. Whether it is $0,99 or $4,99 (or more than that...), the moment money changes hands you will expect that a mod works. And keeps working.
This as pointed out above, is not something that anyone can guarantee indefinitely.
And that would result in one of two options:
1 - Monetization will severely restrict the freedom of mod users, making modding far less enjoyable than it previously was.
2 - Monetization will effectively exclude certain mods from the modding scene as they will become effectively incompatible with most other mods (unless specifically stated otherwise).
The hate towards Valve isn't entirely unjustified. I myself have been the victim of Valve's unwillingness to take an active role in controlling their very own distribution platform. Having Early Access developers outright commit fraud by delivering products that are far from the product they set out to create (Long story short, selling a PC game, delivering a freemium mobile game in my case.) Valve's stance is literally that as long as there is no legal action taken, they will not interfere. And as very few people will go to court over $20 - nor is it likely that catherding will successful in rounding up a large enough group to achieve this. Combined with the vague definitions surrounding the model. Nothing has changed over the course of almost 3 years.
To expect much different with regards to Steam Workshop. With Valve already putting up the standard disclaimers and lines of:
1 - Referring anyone with problems or conflicts to the content creator.
2 - Taking no action untill forced through legal means.
3 - Providing little to no services or tools to improve the platform.
It simply is a massive mess.
Valve is treating hobbyist mod authors as if they are professional (and experienced) software developers.
While many of the mod authors accepting this deal are utterly unaware of the consequences of selling their mods.
And I do feel that Valve should have provided the resources to inform these people of some of those issues, rather than taking a hands-off approach, collecting cash at the door and then letting everyone burn.
Why do I believe Valve should have provided this service? Because it is their own platform that is now catching the negative repercussions.
They could have prevented much of the issues here if they had better prepared rather than simply pushing it out there and crossing their fingers.
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With all this hype between the new mod shop and the number of pitfalls there are, I have seen a lot of threads on the topic.
However I still don't get all this steam hate.
In the past, I have liked Valve as a company. Lately they have made some decisions, which I am not a fan of, but they still manage to do a lot of things right, compared to other companies. Especially things like cross game trading, game trading, marketplace, workshop, etc. There is no other game distribution service that offers anything like this even today.
TF2, CSGO, DOTA content creators get paid 25%. Most people didn't have any issues with that because the content for those games, is largely skinning, and basic stuff. Not very complicated as full mods tend to be. When I heard about this, I thought it was a step in the right place. Let budding artists display their work, and if its any good, they get some money out of it. Community makes the content, and community votes for what they want in game. Granted, this model is really only good in multiplier games, where you get to show off your gear to other people.
With the mods, its a bit different. I have no illusions, about this mod marketplace being a good thing. These are single player games, and these mods had been free upto this point, and most of them are not very polished either. Unlike the simple skins for valve games, these mods can result in some serious glitches and bugs. There is the whole legal mess to deal with as well. People will be trying to take credit for the work they might not have done on the mod. And it will add significantly to the price foe the end customer. In short, its a mess that should have been foreseen before the system was implemented. I personally think that this should have started with a new game that has no mods to speak of. With hopefully a more even distribution of the money.
Now, as I understand, from the sale of games, valve gets a cut of 30%. If the game is very popular, and is selling a lot, this amount comes down.
For mods, they are charging the same 30% cut. The rest of up to the developer to decide how much they want for themselves, since they do own the IP for the game. In the case of Skyrim, they chose a cut of 45%. Which unfortunately leaves only 25% for the developer of the mod.
A lot of people seem to be under the impression that steam is charging 75% for the mod sale. It is simply not true. They are charging exactly what they have always charged for marketing and selling a game via their platform. People pay a lot for marketing. I hear about games spending $100+ million on marketing only. In a lot of cases, the marketing budget actually exceeds the development budget. Steam makes games visible, which is very important if people are to buy the product, and it charges for that. It provides the DRM, servers and other framework to make this possible. Some might feel that 30% cut is too much to display their game in their store, but I feel most developers would gladly pay that to have their work displayed.
However in the whole ordeal people seem to find the most offensive part is that valve is taking a cut from the sale of these mods. But in reality, valve is not charging anything more than what they always have in the past. 30% for games, and now 30% for mods. Regardless of whether 30% is too high or not, fact remains they have NOT charged any differently to what they already were. So, why are there all these comments regarding the greediness of valve? I can understand that people think this whole thing is a bad idea, and that it was prompted by greed, but what I fail to understand is why all the hate at valve for taking their usual cut? I thought people would be more at arms at Bethesda for charging 45%. I feel a 30%(Valve) - 30%(Bethesda) and 40%(Mod Creator) split would have been a bit more fair, but in any event, I fail to see how Valve is being more like EA.
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