Skyrim

[grumbler]

I'm conflicted. Could someone please tell me how to feel about this? 

Conflicted is the right feeling.  It has been poorly handled and badly addressed by Valve and Bethesda, but there are modders who say they'll start modding again/be more motivated to mod if they can get some shekels from it.

The Nexus is emphasizing donations, which all go to the mod author bar whatever admin fees Paypal takes out.  We'll see if this scare increases donations and makes the Nexus a competitor to the Workshop for the authors who are interested in money.

[Norgy]

I'd gladly donate some money to the modders, but I'm unsure whether the way Bethsoft and Valve go is the right one.

If you plod 100 hours into modding Skyrim, you're obviously entitled to a bit of a kickback. But if the Steam Workshop becomes a pay as you go thing, I have a feeling it might die.

There are, obviously, mods I'd pay for. Civ 5's Anno Domini, for instance. Frostfall for Skyrim. But let's face it, most mods are just small tweaks.
I am still conflicted about this.

[Syt]

Well, the backlash has been completely overblown and extremely hostile from users.

Again, picking a 3+ year old game with a big and established (free) modding scene was a bad idea from a PR standpoint. It might have been better to look for promising large mod projects, offer them a little sponsorship to get them over the finish line and then use those as test subjects. Bethesda/Valve might even have gone for the "this mod wouldn't have made it, but with some extra money ..." angle.

Is modding for pay going to become profitable? I guess if it gets a foothold with high profile titles it might end up like YouTube/Twitch gaming - I mean, who, ten years ago, would have guessed that there'd be people earning a living by playing games and letting other people watch, or by reviewing old crappy movies?

In that scenario there'll be a few elite modders at the top who deliver high quality mods that require a lot of work and effort and that they can charge a pretty penny for. There'll be a couple more who can scrape by. Then there's another, larger group who earns some extra cash on the side with smaller mods. And finally a legion of people doing it for free, or trying to go pro and failing.

[Solmyr]

http://imgur.com/gallery/bqcla/new

[sbr]

And the experiment is over

http://steamcommunity.com/games/SteamWorkshop/announcements/detail/208632365253244218

Removing Payment Feature From Skyrim Workshop
APRIL 27   - ALDEN
We're going to remove the payment feature from the Skyrim workshop. For anyone who spent money on a mod, we'll be refunding you the complete amount. We talked to the team at Bethesda and they agree.

We've done this because it's clear we didn't understand exactly what we were doing. We've been shipping many features over the years aimed at allowing community creators to receive a share of the rewards, and in the past, they've been received well. It's obvious now that this case is different.

To help you understand why we thought this was a good idea, our main goals were to allow mod makers the opportunity to work on their mods full time if they wanted to, and to encourage developers to provide better support to their mod communities. We thought this would result in better mods for everyone, both free & paid. We wanted more great mods becoming great products, like Dota, Counter-strike, DayZ, and Killing Floor, and we wanted that to happen organically for any mod maker who wanted to take a shot at it.

But we underestimated the differences between our previously successful revenue sharing models, and the addition of paid mods to Skyrim's workshop. We understand our own game's communities pretty well, but stepping into an established, years old modding community in Skyrim was probably not the right place to start iterating. We think this made us miss the mark pretty badly, even though we believe there's a useful feature somewhere here.

Now that you've backed a dump truck of feedback onto our inboxes, we'll be chewing through that, but if you have any further thoughts let us know.

[Syt]

Ouch. I feel sorry for the modders, though, who thought they might earn a little money on the side.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

And the experiment is over

It'll be back.

[Tamas]

Ouch. I feel sorry for the modders, though, who thought they might earn a little money on the side.

I think the outrage was going overboard. Mods are not an entitlement, they are the result of very hard and dedicated work from volunteers. Sure, requiring payment for a mod is iffy since what if it ends up being a piece of crap, but still... Hopefully the feature will return as a donation button.

[Syt]

Ouch. I feel sorry for the modders, though, who thought they might earn a little money on the side.

I think the outrage was going overboard.

Oh, absolutely. Fortunately it's the exception, not the rule, that people on the internet blow things out of proportion and react way more hysterically than is warranted.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Ouch. I feel sorry for the modders, though, who thought they might earn a little money on the side.

apparently they were only earning money in the ValveWallet. If this is true they weren't getting money but company-scrips. A practice of dubious nature.
Donations are the way to go, and in real money. Not ValveMoney.

[Solmyr]

I believe the modders got the money paid directly to their bank account. The main problems with this system were that modders only got 25%, quantity was prevailing over quality, mod stealing was not regulated at all, and Workshop is a shitty way of modding Skyrim.

[grumbler]

I believe the modders got the money paid directly to their bank account. The main problems with this system were that modders only got 25%, quantity was prevailing over quality, mod stealing was not regulated at all, and Workshop is a shitty way of modding Skyrim.

Plus, money could only be transferred in amounts of $100 and anything less than that was kept by Valve.

[grumbler]

Ouch. I feel sorry for the modders, though, who thought they might earn a little money on the side.

The upside is that the Nexus is emphasizing donations, so there was some good to come out of this.

[Syt]

That's true.

[DontSayBanana]

I believe the modders got the money paid directly to their bank account. The main problems with this system were that modders only got 25%, quantity was prevailing over quality, mod stealing was not regulated at all, and Workshop is a shitty way of modding Skyrim.

You missed the one that Valve acknowledged: that suddenly switching on paywalls in a community used to free mods for 10 years was a poor choice.

Also, the modders were paid directly, at least if the fishing mod guy who ripped off Fore's animations is to be believed (so take it with a dump truck full of salt)- apparently, Valve asked for bank account info as part of the setup process to switch on payments.