I'm Disappointed That Steam's Paid Mods Are Off the Table (for Now), and Here's Why

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

Steam's nascent paid mod system has been scrapped (at least for the time being) in a shockingly quick reversal after its launch late last week. Naturally the Skyrim community, the test group for the system's initial roll-out, has been celebrating enthusiastically and oh wait, I'm lying. People are still very upset, myself included. 

I'm actually more disappointed than I am upset, for two very specific reasons.

One of the things frequently mentioned in opposition to paid mods is the existing donation methods available to support mod-makers if you so choose. The Nexus (a popular game modding hub) has facilitated donations for a while now, and plenty of people spent their weekend arguing about how this donation based system is superior to a mandatory payment. Except for the fact that basically no one donates, meaning that it's far from a viable alternative. In his round-up of the latest furor, Kotaku's Nathan Grayson highlighted a post by modder Edhelsereg who broke it down like this:

I started publishing mods two years ago. Since my first mod was released on the Skyrim Workshop my mods have received over 200,000 individual downloads and two donations. That means 0.001% of users donated.

One of the reasons I was personally excited about paid mods was purely because they would essentially force me to donate. "Why do you need to be forced to donate," I hear you ask. "If you want to donate, just do it!" Well, it's all well and good to intend to donate, but when it comes down to it when I'm downloading mods I'm usually in a rush to get things installed and start playing. Any extra steps I could take but don't have to will probably be skipped, including rating, commenting, donating and so on. It's not out of malice, or a lack of empathy or willingness to support the work others do, it's just that in the moment I'm not really thinking about anything but playing. Based on the stats Edhelsereg also gives about how rarely players bother to rate mods, something that costs nothing and is strongly encouraged by mod-makers, it looks like I'm far from being an anomaly in this regard. Even if a pay-what-you-want slider was set in front of me, so long as it took as much time to set it to zero as it would to set it at $3, I would be vastly more likely to donate to creators. Are donations going to spike now that people are more aware of them? Probably a little. Will that be sustained over time? It's unlikely, especially considering how much of the discussion is currently dominated by the same "You should want to entertain me for free" line of thinking that content creators hear beyond just the modding sphere. (Seriously. Just ask anyone with a Patreon.)

So that's the first reason, what about the second? Well, paid mods aren't gone for good. Steam developer Valve is certainly not the origin of the idea itself. Even if they don't reintroduce a modified version of the system down the line, someone else will, and who knows if it will be better or worse. Skyrim was an ideal test case because, no matter what, the community is massive. There would never be a shortage of free mods for people who wanted them, nor would there be a shortage of creators willing to charge. It could afford to absorb some degree of failure and retuning while kinks were worked out of the system. Skyrim was big enough to fail and survive, but the next test case may not be. I suppose even if the program didn't last it was still a learning experience for those trying to implement it, but regardless it's disappointing to see it end before even more of those kinks could be ironed out... Or, just as importantly, before concrete evidence that free mods and mod collaboration wouldn't fade out of existence altogether could be observed.

It's hard to say what the future of paid mods will look like; the only certain thing is that they do have a future, whether we like it or not. If you have the time and the interest, I'd encourage you to dive deep into Grayson's Kotaku piece for more.

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Janine Hawkins (@bleatingheart on Twitter, Iris Ophelia in Second Life) has been writing about virtual worlds and video games for nearly a decade, and has had her work featured on Paste, Kotaku, Jezebel and The Mary Sue.

Comments

[Ciaran Laval]

The implementation was abysmal.

There's a good article about this over at Gamasutra :

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/242106/Where_is_your_mod_now_How_Valves_paid_mod_program_imploded_in_four_days.php

[Ezra]

Skyrim was always going to just be one game apart of Workshop. This is Bethesda pulling Skyrim, not Valve cancelling Workshop.

Were I to bet, I'd say Valve's already in works with other developers on existing and brand new games to add workshop support for free and paid mods. I'd bet also the new Source engine that Valve announced at GDC is in some way going to make it easier if not brain dead simple for developers using that engine to hook into Workshop.

In the end, this will probably result in a loss for the Skyrim community only. Sure, there's concerns that went beyond Skyrim like profit splits; but this is Valve we're talking about who's been amenable to such issues in the past, like with Greenlight's fees. Between Valve's cut and the cut publisher's set, that 25% was going to be the worst seen.

[Issa Heckroth]

I think people all over the web have already answered the question posed by Hivemind.

Would a "donate/support" button be so hard? Most people want to be able to support their fave modders. Thats not in question.

What pissed people off was the huge cut Valve and Beth were taking. Bethesda especially should be ASHAMED of themselves. They have done a lot of damage to their modding community with this.

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

Issa wrote: Would a "donate/support" button be so hard?

But there already WAS such a button on the Nexus site...and very few people used it! Didn't you read what Iris wrote?

Issa wrote: What pissed people off was the huge cut Valve and Beth were taking.

That was just a lame and fake excuse. It's THEIR sandbox they're letting modders play in, their rules. What really pissed people was that they want to be entertained without paying for it, as Iris said.

Issa wrote: Bethesda especially should be ASHAMED of themselves.

PC Gamers should be ashamed at their cheap, pirating, wants everything for free, ways.

[Issa Heckroth]

First Point - fair enough. However I still say a donation button in the Steam workshop couldnt hurt, right? More options to donate the better.

Second point - No. People already paid for the game, DLC and expansion packs. 75% to Valve & Beth is ridiculous no matter how you slice it. No doubt, everyone likes to be entertained for free, but for "production quality" mods I would pay if the price was reasonable.

Third Point - Head over to the SLU "Mesh Police" thread if you think I am in favor of pirates and against paying for things. Thats just slander. Grow up.

[zz bottom]

Im glad i was on betsheda when there was mods for Morrowind, Oblivion and Fallout 3 and when nobody would even think of selling their mods cause all they cared was to see them being used and enjoyed.
How did society changed along this last years to think only in profits and to disregard some who dares just to share their creations with others just for the pleasure of doing so.

[Lee]

Paids mods are back with Bethesda's Fallout 4. What do you think about it?