Steam jumps the shark

[Ranger33]

I've been a fan of Steam/Valve for a long time, but this is too much. They are now allowing people to charge for mods on the Steam Workshop. Steam takes a 75% (!) cut of all sales. There is apparently nothing stopping people from posting someone else's work, nor offering refunds (beyond a 24 hour window) if a mod becomes broken by a game update, or doesn't even work in the first place.

The first batch on offer for Skyrim, up to $5 for a mod!

[aaatoysandmore]

nah surely you aren't abandoning STEAM the greatest thing since sliced bacon? [:D] If something can make money someone will figure out how to abuse it. Guess you're finally seeing steam for what it is. And EA distribution site with a new name.

[Fallschirmjager]

I am a Steam defender and I will still use it and purchase games from it. But the last 18 months have been trying for me.

The early access program and steam greenlight mix good with bad. It allows smaller software firms to get their wares on steam and offer paid betas which I don't mind. But it also allows a lot of shovel ware and pure shit games to make their way onto Steam.

Steam used to have a pretty high bar for entry, if your game made it on Steam then it carried a certain expectation of quality.
Now Steams approval system is about as lax as the Android market, they allow a lot of crap, copyright issues and broken abandoned games.

I struggle with the idea. Letting more developers have access to Steam is good because in means some smaller developers who make truly good software get exposure. Steam has let me discover some games I otherwise never would have due to it being on Steam.

But with those more open policies now comes in a flood of garbage ware.
You just have to be a more careful consumer.


Now this new pay for mods ideas is one I really dislike. And not because of cost. Cost for me is largely irrelevant, I spent over $2000 on video games last year and don't feel at all bad about it because video games are my main hobby.
What I do worry about is as Ranger alluded too, it is quite easy to steal another creators work, slightly alter it or don't alter it at all and then sell it.
It is also quite easy to combine a lot of mods under one larger 'super mod' and then sell that.

I also could see this as possibly endangering future modding tools in games.
If I am a games studio and I sink $50 million into game and release it, people can then spent 0.0001% of that and earn money off my companies work.
You have done 99.9% of the work by getting the game to market and I would have serious hesitation by allowing every Russian and Chinese person with an adobe software suite and a little bit of skill to churn out mods for my game and make a living off it.


I really really dislike this new idea and I hope the community backlash is so strong that they decide to end it in beta and remove it.

[Fallschirmjager]

If you look at the paid mods for Skyrim a full 2/3 of them are joke protest mods. The community backlash against this is already strong.

Valve could just ignore it and forge ahead anyways. But perhaps there is some decency left and they will realize this is a collosal mistake and quitely abandon the program.


I really would not mind a system whereby you could donate to mod makers. Some mods really do take a lot of hours and resources to pull off. In the past I have ever donated to mod makers for their efforts.
If Steam were to set up a system whereby you could gift them games or put money in their steam wallet, I would not mind at all.
Steam still takes their cut off game sales and money spent using the Steam wallet so they would still profit.

[aaatoysandmore]

It's all about the money now. It stopped being about the love for the game genre and the fans a long time ago.

[gradenko2k]

What have you got against the Free Market? The consumers will decide whether this is an acceptable venture or not based on their patronage or otherwise.

[Ranger33]

ORIGINAL: gradenko_2000

What have you got against the Free Market? The consumers will decide whether this is an acceptable venture or not based on their patronage or otherwise.

What have you against Free Speech? (if we are going to ask silly questions)

I have nothing against finding a way for modders to profit from their work, but this system is set up without regard for anything but cash flow. As noted above, there is no protection for the consumer or content creators in this system. Steam stopped filtering out shovel ware games a while back so I have zero faith that they will make any sort of effort to remove plagiarized, broken, or fake mods.

[gradenko2k]

You mean like how they didn't clean up Greenlight from having pornographic games, non-games, and games that were actually already published?

Oh wait, they did do that.

And the shovelware comment is asinine - it's a digital storefront. It's a service that sells games. It's not reasonable to expect Steam to stop themselves from selling things that are legitimately games, regardless of their quality. That you see lots of games you personally do not like and are not interested in isn't a problem with what Steam chooses to sell, it's a problem of their interface being insufficiently curated, and even that relies as much on interaction from you as anything else.

[Agathosdaimon]

Steam has been good for a while, but it seems that once anything becomes so big as it is that it starts to then just seek out ways to get bigger and bigger still and its not really about any small number of consumers anymore, it just has its own ideas or lack thereof and that can consist in just opening the floodgates to cast a as many nets everywhere as possible.
Gog.com is kind of a different bigger beast now too - even long since dropping the relation of its acronym name to its original meaning.

i think what always happens is that something else gets created as the existing form runs its course, floods it own batteries and realises it too late.
for me now, i have more than 440 games i have bougght on steam, and well i dont have much interest in buying much more there

i guess its not really a surprise as the process is common - some thing is recognised as cool, the place to be etc, so every one wants to go there and use it and then that thing is changed thereby to try and accommodate all the consumers, the points of view, the entrepreneurs who flood it, the rule to be inclusive and so it is then that the thing itself sinks beneath this and is no longer the reason people go there, but it is dictated by others forces now seeking their manifestation.

[GaryChildress]

Allowing modders to charge for their mods is a pretty daring (and obviously controversial) move. I can see where that could lead to a lot of additional headaches for everyone involved, gamers, content creators and Steam staff alike. I'm sort of vexed on the issue. On the one hand, as someone who has created alternative game art for other games, I certainly won't knock the opportunity to make a few extra cents here and there. On the other hand, as someone who also likes to play with the mods created by others, I can see my gaming habits adding up to a lot more $$$ than ever.
 
I suspect the biggest problem will be with quality. Are there sufficient checks in place to ensure that all this user created content will actually work as advertised? I can see the Steam complaint department hiring a lot more reps now.

[Agathosdaimon]

yeah its not a terrible idea, as modding can take work nonetheless, but would it attract alot of bad mods out for a quick dollar too i imagine as you say - i guess if steam is big enough to be able to have the checks in place that would be fine but they seem to not have had much Quality control with games of late -

[Gilmer]

I thought modding was supposed to be a work of love and the reward was enjoyment others get from it. I am doubtful I will pay for a mod like this. It has to be one magical freaking mod for me to do that! (2 cents to Quentin Tarantino).

[warspite1]

Personally I don't see any problem in a modder getting paid. I am sure some do it for the love and satisfaction they get, while others may do the same, but frankly could do with the cash as recompense for all the time and effort they have put in.

As customers we can then choose to buy or not as is always the case - and that will depend on the quality of the work and how much we value/feel we need it - same as any purchase.

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: H Gilmer

I thought modding was supposed to be a work of love and the reward was enjoyment others get from it. I am doubtful I will pay for a mod like this. It has to be one magical freaking mod for me to do that! (2 cents to Quentin Tarantino).

Obviously we all like things better when we don't have to pay for them. I sometimes create 3d content for the 3d rendering program Poser and post them as freebies on Renderosity.com. I could maybe charge a dollar or two for the items I give away but I don't. Others who are better at it than I am often charge for their creations in the marketplace on that website. It's pretty much up to the creator what they want to do with their creations. Artists need to make a living too. Maybe if grocery stores start giving food away for free out of "love" and the "reward" of seeing the "enjoyment others get from eating", then artists wouldn't feel any desire to charge for creating?

[Orm]

I've seen companies that make what they love to do and earn money while doing so. Then they do even better and get bought up by people who wants to gain piles of money in a short time and do not care about the product. In a couple of years the company with the well made products have ceased to exist. And it gets sold again and now the new buyer just want their brands and patents and so on.

I am not sure why I think of this when I read about mods and steam.

[wings7]

ORIGINAL: Ranger33

I've been a fan of Steam/Valve for a long time, but this is too much. They are now allowing people to charge for mods on the Steam Workshop. Steam takes a 75% (!) cut of all sales. There is apparently nothing stopping people from posting someone else's work, nor offering refunds (beyond a 24 hour window) if a mod becomes broken by a game update, or doesn't even work in the first place.

The first batch on offer for Skyrim, up to $5 for a mod!

If you don't like it don't buy them or participate in this new Workshop offering! [8|] There are plenty quality mods free of charge to choose from! Steam will continue to grow despite the group that are envious of their success...you know who you are.

[Orm]

Steam will continue to grow despite the group that are envious of their success...you know who you are.

I am sure that steam will continue to grow despite what I think. And I am not envious and I do not mind that they grow and make more money.

I just prefer to avoid them when possible.

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: Orm

I've seen companies that make what they love to do and earn money while doing so. Then they do even better and get bought up by people who wants to gain piles of money in a short time and do not care about the product. In a couple of years the company with the well made products have ceased to exist. And it gets sold again and now the new buyer just want their brands and patents and so on.

I am not sure why I think of this when I read about mods and steam.

At this point in my life, I'm not too much interested in begrudging investors and the "get rich quick" group. But I have seen also what you are talking about where a company does something good and basically gets bought out by other investors because it is making money. The investors are there because they want to make money and exert more pressure on the employees to make more and more money and pretty soon, no one is happy. Casino economy at work I guess.

Sorry, I suppose this is straying a bit into the dreaded territory of politics and economics.

[Twotribes]

All I know is steam is buggy I lost access to my account and when I got it back all my games were gone.

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: Twotribes

All I know is steam is buggy I lost access to my account and when I got it back all my games were gone.

Interesting. What happened with that? Did Steam try to resolve the problem or did they just say, "tough luck"?