OS Steam and Computer Gaming Thread

[choadler]

Re: OS Steam and Computer Gaming Thread

This a horrid idea by steam and will not partake in it.

[trobinson97]

Re: OS Steam and Computer Gaming Thread

Well, one author of some fairly popular mods has seemingly had a change of heart(same guy who's open letter I linked earlier). After some copyright disputes and a generally negative reception*, he has decided to pull his mods down from Steam Workshop and withdraw from the paid mods system. He's learned however, that Steam is not taking his creations down. For some reason he thought they still belonged to him to do with what he willed. I almost kind of feel sorry for him.

Link

Things internally stayed rather positive and exciting until some of us discovered that "25% Revenue Share" meant 25% to the modder, not to Valve / Bethesda. This sparked a long internal discussion. My key argument to Bethesda (putting my own head on the chopping block at the time) was that this model incentivizes small, cheap to produce items (time-wise) than it does the large, full-scale mods that this system has the opportunity of championing. It does not reward the best and the biggest. But at the heart of it, the argument came down to this: How much would you pay for front-page Steam coverage? How much would you pay to use someone else's successful IP (with nearly no restrictions) for a commercial purpose? I know indie developers that would sell their houses for such an opportunity. And 25%, when someone else is doing the marketing, PR, brand building, sales, and so on, and all I have to do is "make stuff", is actually pretty attractive. Is it fair? No. But it was an experiment I was willing to at least try.

Of course, the modding community is a complex, tangled web of interdependencies and contributions. There were a lot of questions surrounding the use of tools and contributed assets, like FNIS, SKSE, SkyUI, and so on. The answer we were given is:

[Valve] Officer Mar 25 @ 4:47pm
Usual caveat: I am not a lawyer, so this does not constitute legal advice. If you are unsure, you should contact a lawyer. That said, I spoke with our lawyer and having mod A depend on mod B is fine--it doesn't matter if mod A is for sale and mod B is free, or if mod A is free or mod B is for sale.

Art of the Catch required the download of a separate animation package, which was available for free, and contained an FNIS behavior file. Art of the Catch will function without this download, but any layman can of course see that a major component of it's enjoyment required FNIS. After a discussion with Fore, I made the decision to pull Art of the Catch down myself. (It was not removed by a staff member) Fore and I have talked since and we are OK.

I have also requested that the pages for Art of the Catch and Arissa be completely taken down. Valve's stance is that they "cannot" completely remove an item from the Workshop if it is for sale, only allow it to be marked as unpurchaseable. I feel like I have been left to twist in the wind by Valve and Bethesda.

In light of all of the above, and with the complete lack of moderation control over the hundreds of spam and attack messages I have received on Steam and off, I am making the decision to leave the curated Workshop behind. I will be refunding all PayPal donations that have occurred today and yesterday.

I am also considering removing my content from the Nexus. Why? The problem is that Robin et al, for perfectly good political reasons, have positioned themselves as essentially the champions of free mods and that they would never implement a for-pay system. However, The Nexus is a listed Service Provider on the curated Workshop, and they are profiting from Workshop sales. They are saying one thing, while simultaneously taking their cut. I'm not sure I'm comfortable supporting that any longer. I may just host my mods on my own site for anyone who is interested.

What I need to happen, right now, is for modding to return to its place in my life where it's a fun side hobby, instead of taking over my life. That starts now. Or just give it up entirely; I have other things I could spend my energy on.

Real-time update - I was just contacted by Valve's lawyer. He stated that they will not remove the content unless "legally compelled to do so", and that they will make the file visible only to currently paid users. I am beside myself with anger right now as they try to tell me what I can do with my own content. The copyright situation with Art of the Catch is shades of grey, but in Arissa 2.0's case, it's black and white; that's 100% mine and Griefmyst's work, and I should be able to dictate its distribution if I so choose. Unbelievable.

*In the general internet response sense.

[Sandman42]

Re: OS Steam and Computer Gaming Thread

I don't necessarily have an issue with being able to charge for mods, but I'm not OK with 75% of revenue going to Valve and the publishers and only 25% to the creators. If it was the other way around I'd be more forgiving.

[Candyman5]

Re: OS Steam and Computer Gaming Thread

Dont most Moddes have a apaypal link that you can donate to them. I have donated before for a great mod but requiring you to buy mods period is stupid and I can see Pirating sites seeing much more action for mods just like Games.

[Gotmadskillzson]

Re: OS Steam and Computer Gaming Thread

25% of the revenue ? That is a worse split then doing Youtube or Twitch.

[Phobia]

Re: OS Steam and Computer Gaming Thread

Video game company CEOs/Suits across the entire gaming landscape need a HARD kick in the nuts!!! EA the original creator of "lets nickle and dime them to death" spawned this crap and now every company is following suit. No penny left behind.....

[Cyros]

Re: OS Steam and Computer Gaming Thread

That bun looking a little to rich. Sesame seed? Better dial that back, playa.

[23]

Re: OS Steam and Computer Gaming Thread

Video game company CEOs/Suits across the entire gaming landscape need a HARD kick in the nuts!!! EA the original creator of "lets nickle and dime them to death" spawned this crap and now every company is following suit. No penny left behind.....

More like sooner or later its going to hit them hard.

This is some garbage here....dont see why the community wpuld even remotely support this.

[trobinson97]

Re: OS Steam and Computer Gaming Thread

I don't necessarily have an issue with being able to charge for mods, but I'm not OK with 75% of revenue going to Valve and the publishers and only 25% to the creators. If it was the other way around I'd be more forgiving.

Even if they reversed the way revenue sharing worked, and gave mod authors 75%, this would still be a ****ty idea. Modding is great, but when it comes to paying for them, I'm not paying for unofficial additions to a game made mostly by amateurs.

Don't get me wrong though, there have been a few must have mods(IMO) that are polished and added so much to my games that I haven't had problems kicking a couple dollars the modder's way. I did this however, knowing that it was completely voluntary and that just because I donated it doesn't make me a customer nor does it require that modder to offer me support for whatever incompatibilities might arise from installing their mod. It's simply my way of saying I enjoyed it and appreciate the effort. Oh, and they get up to 100% of what I donate.

In modding my game I assume the risks of what happens to it when I do. If it doesn't work or breaks another mod I am using, it's ultimately up to me to make a decision on what to do going forward, whether to troubleshoot with other users or not use it at all. The most I can do is let them know the problem and hope they fix it but really, the modder owes me nothing. If I have to pay for it, I'm now a customer and all that responsibility for my problems is shifted to a person(Valve/Bethesda assume no role in support) who still is essentially doing this as a hobby yet hoping for a little change on the side. This person will more than likely not be equipped to handle every little problem that I and potentially thousands of other people run into with it in the time that we as customers would expect and demand. That said, if they decide they don't want to do to fix the problems or can't, what can I do about it if I'm past the 24 hour refund window? Outside of posting a bad review, nothing really. So great, the modder got his quarter but here I am stuck with broken content.

Then there are the content thieves, who simply upload other people's work with a new name for a quick cash grab. Some have the decency to make a few minor edits of files to say it's their work. Remember those guys who used to take named rosters from guys here on OS then post them on another site and charge for them? Well, this is basically that, only now with the much wider audience of Steam. There are already some authors pulling down and hiding their mods for fear of theft.

There's the idea that because no author sees a dime until and unless they make $400 dollars in sales that authors will inflate their prices to get a bigger cut. "Well, it's optional" you might say. Yeah, it is...now. What happens with the next Bethesda release where mods have DRM checks and you can't use mods that didn't originate on the workshop? What happens when/if Valve decides that the trial period is over and all mods posted to the Workshop must have a price attached? Yeah, still optional but look at this ****. Now you're paying for fixes(which is what a lot of mods do). Then there's the copyright issues, using resources from free mods in paid mods without permission and what not. Things that Valve showed they really don't give a **** about as far as their response to Chesko is concerned. This whole thing just introduces too many problems that only serve to break a long working system. The only people that benefit are Valve and the publishers.

I'm really glad that a lot of popular mod authors have completely rejected this idea.

[LambertandHam]

Re: OS Steam and Computer Gaming Thread

I actually never thought about that(support), but it makes a lot of sense. A big publisher like Bethesda has a support department and can issue patches and fixes. Sure some mods are really well done, but can Joe Modder do the same for every little bug or compatibility instance? What if it breaks the core game or other mods you have paid for? Too many "What ifs" for me when it comes to paying for mods. I'd be more happy with allowing a donate link where fans could give the creator money.

[Cod]

Re: OS Steam and Computer Gaming Thread

On a brighter note, wrestling is finally come back to the PC in the form of WWE 2k15: http://store.steampowered.com/app/240460/. I'm really anxious about this release because I think it will be a crappy port; however, I'm holding a little hope that it will be great.

[Sandman42]

Re: OS Steam and Computer Gaming Thread

Crypt of the Necrodancer is great. I bought it on early access a while back, and only played around an hour of it knowing I wanted to wait for the full release.

You can add custom music to any level of the game. Set some Hotline Miami songs as the tracks for a few levels. So good.

[mestevo]

Re: OS Steam and Computer Gaming Thread

On a brighter note, wrestling is finally come back to the PC in the form of WWE 2k15: http://store.steampowered.com/app/240460/. I'm really anxious about this release because I think it will be a crappy port; however, I'm holding a little hope that it will be great.

That was kind of the impression of the news on press row podcast... Good that it is happening but disappointing that it's just a port when the game could have been better.

[redsrule]

Re: OS Steam and Computer Gaming Thread

Dont most Moddes have a apaypal link that you can donate to them. I have donated before for a great mod but requiring you to buy mods period is stupid and I can see Pirating sites seeing much more action for mods just like Games.

Not any more. Apparently they took those down. It's give us 75% or get nothing at all.

Sent from my N9500 using Tapatalk

[AUChase]

Re: OS Steam and Computer Gaming Thread

Maybe you guys can help me with some reputable advice.

I've got the PC version of Mass Effect and it doesn't have controller support. I'm trying to use my PS4 controller that's all ready usable for some other games.

I know there are mods out there that I've searched and found, but the install of them didn't go so smooth. I also know there are programs that can take controller input and translate it as if I'm pressing buttons on my keyboard/mouse . Any advice on which way I should go or if it's a lost cause ?

Played the ME series with a controller on PS3 and I just can't do it with a keyboard.