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As modders, shall we talk about Valve's monetisation of mods and what it means to us?


Max_Caine

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For those of you who are unaware, Valve recently introduced the monetisation of mods. With the agreement of the dev/publisher whose game you are modding the modder and the company share the revenue generated from the mod (with Valve creaming off a 30% cut). It was Hindenburgesque the way the launch crashed and burned. Valve has cancelled paid mods for its launch product (Skyrim) and they're going away to rethink about how to approach paid mods.

That's covered a lot of ground in a single paragraph. If you want to know more Reddit is probably going to be your best source of information. There's a a lot of debate to sift through - Totalbiscuit tweeted some links to the more factual (and useful) Reddit posts. I dont't have those links right now - I'll put them up later on today. However, what does that mean to us as modders for Goldhawk's games? (Note that I say Goldhawk, rather than Chris. At the moment, Chris is Goldhawk - but what happens if Goldhawk is bought up and comes under new management? Or if a Goldhawk IP you've modded for is sold or transferred? How things are now are not necessarily what they'll be in the future and we have to consider that.)

I think we're going to have to be a lot more careful. With money comes greed and with greed comes people out to make a quick buck at someone else's expense. One of the more distressing aspects of this launch was the hijacking of modders work on Nexus by pirates who posted up the work on Steam under the pirates name behind a paywall. If Goldhawk goes the paid mod route you can bet that will happen to your work and you can either retroactively try and prove the work was yours or proactively put the work up in the first place and stake your claim to your work. Once paid mods come back, you will have to put your mod up on Steam if you can, even if you don't intend to charge for it.

Edited by Max_Caine
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I am following this too. I read many comments and twitts about it. Everybody tells their own ideas about modding, modders and this new system. But i didnt hear that they cancelled it because they didnt use their brain at first place.

As modding, i think its essential for games. They are mostly great because modders are ppl who love that game and just want to improve it without expecting anything other then a simple "thanks". But this doesnt change that, the time a modder gave for its mod. It should have a value. Sometimes more then a DLC, even more then a expansion. Sometimes, a mod can resurrect a game itself.

But this is not the right system. You are selling it and gave the most of it to the trading and game company. %25 to the modder? Even i wanted to be paid for my mod, i would give it free even i pirate it myself to stop this thiefs. Some ppl say that modders are only edit which already done so they dont earn anything, and i think this ppl are retards..

Modders should able to get donates. Donating is the best way for this. But you need to be sure that you donate to right ppl who realy made that mod.

I started for a patreon for example for my mod. I dont expect anything and i want that money to use again for this mod.

I am against to mod for living. It looks nice but its against the modding soul. Modding should be free but modders should get donates for their time and efford. There is no right to gain extra money for any company. A modder makes your game better, shiny or gives another perspective and players who like that will buy the game. So the companies already get what they earned anyway...

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