Valve planning to monetize mods (again)

[Thirite]

If any of you were around for the nearly week-long comedy show that was Valve's attempt to monetize the modding communities of games on its platform back in 2015, you'll probably remember the utter fiasco that it turned out to be. Well, they want to try again. See the article here.

I am just going to start off by saying I am strongly opposed to the very idea of "paid mods", and anyone who cares about the modding community should too. I have always made mods for the simple satisfaction of the community to enjoy them and getting positive feedback for making quality content. When I make something fun and others have fun with it, that's my reward. It's a simple system that is the backbone of every modding community. But modders deserve a little compensation for their efforts, right?

Well, things change when the drive for creating content shifts from "satisfaction and positive feedback" to "how much money can I make". If anyone else here witnessed the results of this, you'll remember the swathes of low effort crap priced at only $2!, the free mods stolen from the Nexus and being sold by illegitimate users, and pretty much every big mod that was previously available for free on the Nexus suddenly locked behind a DRM paywall. Personally I was pretty disgusted that modders who had previously done it for the sake of the community/fun sold out at the first scent of a dollar. But this is simply the result of trying to turn mod communities into a business. Instead of being a public platform to freely share content with each other, it becomes a run of the mill competitive business platform where it's all about turning a profit, not making a quality product. Just look at the state of modern mobile games: 99.9% "freemium" utter crap that only exists to suck as many microtransactions out of you as it can. The same thing has been happening with the content appearing on the Steam store- what used to be a store of exclusive quality content has turned into a store peddling whatever will sell, regardless if it's even in a playable state. And that's certainly not the end of the problem with monetizing mods.

Quite frankly, I'd rather not see any modding community fall prey to this ill-fated scheme- but in particular I wanted to alert and inform every modder here about this in the event "paid mods" come to RimWorld.

[AngleWyrm]

Thanks for the heads-up.

Remember when TheSims did a big event to gather the modder community to share their favorite subjects? They then turned those favored parts into un-moddable exclusive add-on content to be manufactured and sold by their one little team. Lost a segment of the gaming community in what can be described as bad marketing.

League of Legends made a similar decision last year to disable modding skins and art even for personal use. Pair that with banning accounts for leaving mis-matched 4v5 PvP games and there goes the people who were skin collectors.

[Thirite]

> skin collectors

That certainly has a different meaning in terms of RimWorld's context. Hyuk hyuk

[yawningrover]

 so does that mean the only way to get free mods is through drm free version

[Thirite]

If Valve does push paid mods onto RimWorld then any mods that are 'monetized' will not be available for the DRM free/sendowl version.

[O Negative]

I can see it now. Cosmetic mods everywhere. One new hairstyle for just $0.99! Or, buy the whole set of 12 for just $9.99! WOW. Same goes for weapon mods. They're both relatively "cheap" to make, but there's a decent demand for them.

Thanks for posting this.

[Fluffy (l2032)]

I love how it's all about "content creators should be paid". What was the distribution again? Valve gets its usual 30%, the game creator gets ~45%, and modder ~25%? Sure. That feels like it's about paying the content creators.

[Lubricus]

I personaly could pay something for the awesome mods I use, but I won't install steam and get a steamkey for rimworld and then going through the hassle with mods that auto-update and destroy's the saves.

[Thyme]

Is it even legal to charge money for mods? That would require the creators permission, no?

Thank you for posting it Thirite, although I'm a happy DRM-free user

PS: Need dusters? I got some skin for sale!

[RawCode]

nobody force you to pay for trashy mods, just like trashy DLCs (especially fun for EA games).

[Duncan]

Most rimworld mods are already creative commons licensed and available on github, at least the best ones. You can't really undo that license. Patreon is better way to pay modders.

[scuba156]

Thanks for the heads-up.

Remember when TheSims did a big event to gather the modder community to share their favorite subjects? They then turned those favored parts into un-moddable exclusive add-on content to be manufactured and sold by their one little team. Lost a segment of the gaming community in what can be described as bad marketing.

League of Legends made a similar decision last year to disable modding skins and art even for personal use. Pair that with banning accounts for leaving mis-matched 4v5 PvP games and there goes the people who were skin collectors.

Source on the League decision? AFAIK they don't ban on visual modifications, but some apps that change the skin can also do other modifications which makes the app unauthorised.

Regarding Steam, its just hyperbole at this point. It cannot even be said what payment method they will take. It could be donations, it could be money generated by trading cards for mods, who really knows what Valve may have up their sleeve. Discuss it, but don't complain about forced payments like it's already happening.

[blackhalo]

Oh boy... if this sort of thing didn't make the moding community pretty toxic I wouldn't be so pissed about it.

Way too much ripping off mods... then people will become protective and selfish of their stuff.  Forget having a nice sharing community... this is some small percent of a mod fee we're talking about... collaborating with other moders or combining mods or making mods for modders just doesn't seem like it will work well in an environment where people are concerned with money or stealing content for money...

[Fishbrains]

Hopefully they just add a donation option because if it's skyrim again then it's a shame. Plus how does that work for people who make stuff like huglibs does that person have to make his source cost money so others can make mods of it?

[RawCode]

ability to set price for mod won't magically turn everyone into greedy kid, and nobody force you to pay 30 buks for mod that just recolor hud into gold color.