Skyrim Workshop Now Supports Paid Mods

[Deathbydestiny]

Lets not ignore the evidence just because this person "might" be a thief, it's still pretty bad considering.

[Elgar]

Long explanation posted by Bethesda : http://www.bethblog.com/2015/04/27/why-were-trying-paid-skyrim-mods-on-steam/

[garthand]

Bethesda says only 8% of Skyrim players use mods, and only 1% make them. The first number seems low, and it gets even stranger when you combine them; one in eight mod users is also a mod maker, that seems high to me. I wonder if they're factoring in console sales.

[Jon]

Long explanation posted by Bethesda : http://www.bethblog.com/2015/04/27/why-were-trying-paid-skyrim-mods-on-steam/

 

Umm... Were Beth and Valve not in communication or something?  Because Alden just posted this.

 

 

... Or am I missing the part in the Bethblog post where they say they are stopping?

 

 

Edit:  Oh, well, it seems the Bethblog post was just updated:

 

Update: After discussion with Valve, and listening to our community, paid mods are being removed from Steam Workshop. Even though we had the best intentions, the feedback has been clear – this is not a feature you want. Your support means everything to us, and we hear you.

[Deathbydestiny]

Holy crap, it actually happened!

[alt3rn1ty]

Paywall is empty http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/browse/?appid=72850&browsesort=trend&section=readytouseitems&days=7&requiredflags%5B%5D=paiditems

[Sheson]

Bethesda says only 8% of Skyrim players use mods, and only 1% make them. The first number seems low, and it gets even stranger when you combine them; one in eight mod users is also a mod maker, that seems high to me. I wonder if they're factoring in console sales.

 

 

Wild guess: Because on consoles you can't mod...

[Arthmoor]

Those figures sound low to me, yes. Only 8% of PC players use mods? That can't be right. Perhaps only 8% of PC players on Steam over the last 4 days use mods. Considering that's likely all the data they had, unless they track the entire Workshop.

 

Anyway, we got shanked. Do they seriously expect anyone to trust them when they want to try again? They've clearly demonstrated they're willing to sacrifice the very people who make mods in order to satisfy the trolls who likely don't.

[Deathbydestiny]

Is it really right to call people trolls when they simply disagree with something? Don't underestimate what happened

 

I'd actually be OK if they tried this again, if only they communicated with the player base first and used their brains to make it fair, reasonable and actually monitor it instead of leaving it in chaos like they did. Really that's the only reason it failed.

 

Now to pick up the pieces...

[Arthmoor]

No, but it's right to call the vast majority of them who were doing nothing but spewing hatred trolls. I'm at least glad to see that never happened on our forum here. So kudos to everyone in this thread who kept things civil.

 

I don't think I'd trust them with another attempt at this point. They have to realize this isn't going to sit well with those of us they invited to join, encouraged to participate, and then encouraged to stick it out and ignore the trolls. Why should we trust them at all after that? Demonstrating that you can't keep your word is a serious problem.

[Deathbydestiny]

Well we can at least agree on that, I read a lot of the horrible stuff people said and that really was just immature and childish. My hope is that the community can pull itself back together after this, it certainly wont be the same that's for sure.

[Arthmoor]

There is at least one nugget of good to come of this: The CK had the file size and master file restrictions removed after our group told them it would be necessary for the project to work at all. Unless they're total jackasses, they won't be taking that away from us.

[Leonardo]

My hope is that the community can pull itself back together after this, it certainly wont be the same that's for sure.

Darkelfguy want to think that, so I guess that's why he made this video about what modding is all about.

 

[Arthmoor]

Also just found out from someone who bought my mod that the payments have all been forced to go through the Steam wallet. We were NOT told about this aspect ahead of time. So now all of the refunds Valve thinks they're being gracious with are going to be stuck in their Steam wallets going nowhere. In essence, they're keeping every dime of their cut from this.

 

It's made substantially worse because there's a $5 minimum on buying wallet dollars.

[Deathbydestiny]

I'd say Valve's and Bethesda's interests weren't really in favor of modders, just themselves. But I believe we can do better ourselves, I think we can really use this to push donations. At least that is my hope. No one wants to see this happen again after all right? Use that as incentive, I know I will try

[lmstearn]

Off the menu then.

Well here's a couple of pointers for the next attempt:

• Run a community consult first- gage what folks want- and don't want
• Devise and propose a pro-forma model
• Poll and discuss what features should be included or no.
• When most are in agreement implement the revised model, otherwise scrap it

This is kind of basic stuff that applies to any commudy based projects really. If introducing paid mods three years after a released game turns a few noses, why not at the next ES release?

IMOP paid mods should be presented to the public as games are- viz IGN etc. Reviews by professionals & appropriate pricing all go under the umbrella of the hoster, Valve.

[Arthmoor]

I don't think any of us who are regular TES modders are going to trust another attempt, even if it's in 2018. As they say, the internet has a long memory. Those of us Valve just screwed over won't forget this easily.

[maboleth]

Anyway, we got shanked. Do they seriously expect anyone to trust them when they want to try again? They've clearly demonstrated they're willing to sacrifice the very people who make mods in order to satisfy the trolls who likely don't.

Arthmoor, as much as I wanted to agree with you because of your dedication and everything you did for the Unofficial patches for both Oblivion and Skyrim, I think you aren't right here. The amount of vitriol and negative thoughts about paid mods was mind-blowingly huge. It weren't just the trolls. Everyone was complaining. From mod users to mod makers, I couldn't access a single Skyrim site or page without hearing the "bad news". I even temporarily stopped playing Skyrim, I couldn't immerse myself into game because of the overwhelming negativity within the fans. Yes, it did freak me out. What Bethesda & Valve have done now was a bold but good move. Even though I never considered the paid mods to be a bad idea by default, on the contrary, the way it was implemented and reaction of the public was just terrible. Let it pass.

The question about paid mods has been raised, so I'm sure donation feature will be implemented and used better.

[Arthmoor]

Doesn't mean I have to like being shanked because a bunch of trolls got their way.

[Zanderat]

Hey, Arthmoor.  I joined just to say the doubters are not all trolls!  I also wanted to publicly thank you for dedication to the community over the years.  In fact, I donated on the Nexus as this this whole issue brought attention to how to (not) compensate modders.  (I am also a KS supporter). 

 

Anyway, that is all.    See you around.

[Jumps-Down-Stairs]

Even though I'm disappointed in the outcome, I think there were legitimate problems with their implementation. They were neither ready nor interested in policing the curated workshop, and I find it strange that the term "curated" is even being used in relation to it, when Valve and Bethesda have both said that's exactly the approach they didn't want to take: they wanted to leave the choice of what mods and which modders were successful in the hands of the community, rather than Valve or Bethesda doing the picking. For once, they try to include the community, and the community appears to have wanted the complete opposite. I've seen several suggestions that Bethesda should have instead approached individual modders and either hired them or bought the rights to their work and reproduced it in-house, or otherwise elevated it to semi-official DLC.

 

Isn't fighting uncredited reuploads / derivatives / etc of your work already enough of a pain, without any financial incentive to spur it on? Would you have wanted to fight that fight in the context of paid mods without Bethesda's or Valve's help? I truly doubt they were going to offer much, so it would have boiled down to depending on the community to police it for you -- and look how trustworthy they have proven.

 

Maybe they should have delayed or restricted the launch of this feature so that it could be improved, once it became apparent that it wasn't going to work out as nicely as it has for Valve's own games. It's hard to say whether they pulled it too early, or too late. I don't think, as a company, they care much for formalities, or public relations -- they run a very flat internal organization, and develop in a very agile, flexible way. So I don't think they are really aware of just how much the modders they invited into this deal have risked and lost, and I think you should try to make that clear to them. They probably don't think they hurt anyone -- nothing gained, nothing lost, just a business proposal that fell through -- and to some degree, they didn't; the community is directly responsible for all the damage done. But they asked you guys to march at the front, and left you stranded when it didn't work out. I don't know what kind of agreement was made, but I don't think they'll understand how you've been hurt unless you tell them.

[Elgar]

As MannyGT pointed out in a post, only 5 to 10% of people who downloaded mods endorsed them, and that's for the most popular ones... Yet endorsement is only one click to thank you a modder, and Nexus reminds you to do this one click. But no, a lot of people are ungrateful.

 

I apologize to Arthmoor for my first post in this thread. My first reaction was to consider this new system as a bad one. I was wrong. It was far from perfect of course, but I think that over time it would have regulated itself. Free mods would have existed along paid ones. Really bad quality and/or scam mods would have been spotted and moderated. That's what I think now.

 

Several great and dedicated modders have already left the modding scene, because of this wave of insults. Really sad. Angry mobs are scary.

[Deathbydestiny]

I agree, I feel this whole episode has kind of changed my mind on it. I think it could work under the right conditions. Skyrim's community was not one of them I'd say.

[lmstearn]

Curated is a fine word- Valve might want to look at that.

The upside is that noses out of joint can be a good bargaining chip for the next round.

It's a terrible way of putting it, but I know Arthmoor will, maybe more of us, will, front up- step up to the plate- as it were.

[maboleth]

Okay, I understand some of the great modders that wanted to use paid mods feature have been busted and felt cheated by this reversal of terms. BUT, let's not forget that they reversed the condition very fast - less than 5 days after the announcement, so no huge amount of modding time was wasted AND we also have Skyrim updated with limitations removed.

So, people should really calm down. Everything is like it was, even better with updated Skyrim. I really hope all those modders that left the scene did that temporarily and will come back with the cool heads.