Well Sup Forums? Do modders have to be paid for their work?

Well Sup Forums? Do modders have to be paid for their work?

yes so it will encourage devs to fix their own games

If they want to charge, they should be able to, yes. But very little of it -- if any at all -- should go to the developer. And modders should always have autonomy in setting price.

Yes, but not from customers' pockets
Gabe's point is that some devs / publishers profit from mods that people make for free and that's not fair to the modders.

No, they don't. What they need is better recognition for their work and for companies to scout them for content creation. Look at Pavonis/ Long War Studios. Take Two commissioned them to make content for Xcom 2. They got paid, by a company, to mod. Consumers don't need to pay for mods, it leads to no quality control.

when did valve forget that without their community and its modders they would be nothing today

In Valve's model, the devs get paid for percentage of price of the mod, so no, it wouldn't encourage devs to fix their shit.

>yes so it will encourage devs to fix their own games
Hahaha, oh come on, you don't really believe that do you?

>Yes, but not from customers' pockets
Pretty much this. The Ark devs themselves are currently paying selected modders to work on their mods. I have one of the mods that is being paid on my Ark server and once he started to get paid, the guy actually started to update his mod again.

no, it's a hobby.

Sure, but only for the real good mods.

If they fix a dev's shitty game then yes they should be paid.

Modders deserve to be brought into the industry if they meet its standards.

Reminder that as usual industry leaders are more interested in squeezing a few extra dollars out of your pocket than they are actually fucking doing anything.

No. Modding works at all because it's not paid.

>absolutely
No. But they can accept donations or even charge, only if they want to.

Next well be paying for patches

Absolutely not.
Patreon wasn't enough to show people that money ruins everything when it comes to indepedent creators ?

If he wants modders to get paid, then the unlicensed mods. or mods which infringe copyright are going to get fucked.

He just wants another source of revenue, he doesn't care about the end customer experience here. Real asshole.

Devs should get NOTHING other than the possible increases in sales from people wanting to buy the game and play with the mods

Is that the guy who just sold a coin for $45 to his playerbase ?

how can someone that has been depending on modders to make good games for them be so out of touch with the modding community?

modding shitstorms and drama would be millions of times more entertaining if there was a lot of money involved, so yes, i would like to see paid mods

Sure, but if I have to pay for something I have expectations and consumer rights. I don't think valve or the modders want to put up with the hassle of actually supporting their work.

If a mod is free and I have issues with it, the creator can by all means tell me to go fuck myself, but if I've paid even a cent that won't fly.

You mean
>Should Valve and the game devs be paid for other peoples free DLC

They don't have to be paid, they mod a game because they want to, not for the money.

They should accept donations though.

people tell him the best way for them to make more money would be to introduce paid mods. Its the obvious step

WAKE ME UP

I mean by the fucking devs.

No, because then people will stop making content because they like to do it, instead they will get greedy and either make an update every two years or hdie their content behind a paywall.
Patreon already showed us that its a bad idea.
The problem with these things is that literally anyone can make promises of a new content they are making and get away with the money.

>modded start getting paid
>suddenly have to pay $1 for a character skin

No. Modders getting paid just means more DLC.

>buy two mods
>they dont work together
>buy a mod
>game updates mod is broken and the modder fucked off
thanks steam

>Valve: modders 'absolutely' need to be paid.
to
>Valve: We 'absolutely' need to be paid.

>buy a mod
>turns out a needs another mod to work
>gotta pay for that too

i too think Kinsie should be paid after all his hard work on MetaDoom

so what is the thought process at valve to get to this conclusion? Do they just look at old mod's download numbers and imagine how much cash they can rake in?

>manage to double EW's content without a hint of support and a extremely mod-unfriendly game
>make it work so well the actual devs hire you to create new mods and drown you in compliments
>get full dev and mod support, time and money so you can make another similar mod
>so shit not even Beagle managed to finsih it

I will never understand this

As proven by the fact the modding community existed for ages without it, no, they do not.

That being said, an optional donation system is fine, if , again, it's OPTIONAL.

And of course, 0% to the devs, publishers and distributors.
Only optional and only to the modders.

first guy to make a modding framework for a game is gonna be sittin' pretty

Fixed your image.

The guy who makes the script extender could completely kill paid mods in one fell swoop by charging some outrageous price like $1000 for his mod.

we need to invert the current paradigm where the 'real value' is perceived to be in the game engine, and the game content is secondary to that. this goes far beyond the issue of compensation for just traditional modders and emerging 'UGC creators'. basically game engines should all move to be being Free and Open software. there's a lot of well-meaning opposition from people who like having integrated production processes, and a lot of self-interested opposition from people who just want to keep their current power/wealth.

The only way modders should be paid is if they and the community set up the system themselves, with the money flow being entirely directed by the modders and the modding community. It should be entirely removed from the game publisher/developer's control, with the only revenue they receive being from extra game sales and maybe modding tools. Of course the fat fuck doesn't actually believe what he's saying, he's just looking for another way to cut down on Valve's staff and rake in more money for himself.

If so, its not the consumers who should be paying. As others have said, its the company that benefits the most from mods. It not only has their games bought more, but it also has them played for longer and more interest garnered from them.

Hell, the popularity of the Elder Scrolls series is almost entirely due to modding.

If consumers has to pay for that, it'd be the same as paying for DLC just with a high chance of the things you buy breaking and no longer being supported.

Now personally, I don't really think modding should be about money, simply cause it creates more problems than it'd ever solve, but if they did, it'd have to be supported from the devs and not the community.

Why should a company that puts in the time and money to create an engine make it free for the world to use?

People have been making and selling things in tf2, dota n' csgo for awhile now. They just want to apply it to all modding and rake in the money

yeah because they want to take a slice of the money since it will be provided through their (((Workshop)))

Yes, modders should be paid, but not through charging for mods.

Steam/publishers should just give modders a cut of the game's revenue, proportional to how many people are using the mod, or something like that.

If Valve offers to pay the modding community, and the modding community flocks to their paid mod service, then the modding community kind of sucks. But that's their right. They can charge for their work if they want to.

They obviously don't "need" to be paid, though, because the number of mods released by unpaid modders is greater than zero.

Gabe can pay whoever he wants he is rich as fuck.

Watever he wants to do with his money is hos business.

Whats the deal lads?

Can't wait to pay my early access mod

Not really true. Doom Modders in the early days were able to sell their mods to Id and a third party company that would publish them in a disc collection for them. The problem was distribution for the modders and now that's fixed.

The new problem is that modding is troubleshooting prone and when you are paying for something, you can't have it be breaking and Valve's 'hands off' approach isn't going to fly. If a company wants modders to be able to get paid, then quality control standards need to be brought in. The best way to do this is commision large teams of modders to make expansion level content packs for games.

15 dollars for something that gives you 500 new weapons and armor, places them in the game seemlessly, 30 new enemies with their own unique AI, an entire new land and story and also fully voice acted and the only thing you need to do is install one file? Would sell like hot cakes.

That was the major problem with trying to sell mods before, it would be a clusterfuck for the average person and most of the time the one to benefit would be those handful of modders that are friends with some youtuber let's player.

That's why I had a problem with Gopher trying to defend the system. He has hundreds of mods, if someone wanted to play his version of the game, they would have needed to pay a possible 200 dollars and then also deal with all the issues that come from trying to make all those mods compatible with no fucking support except for one wiki which isn't even that good. Gopher gets paid and all his modding buddies get paid, yet only a handful of people might get to enjoy the game, not to mention the crashes, saved game bloat and corrupted files.

Modding needs standards before it can even think of becoming a paid enterprise.

true, nothing about paid mods means that modders can't release mods for free

at least i don't think so

minecraft

If modders want money for their work, sure, but neither Valve nor the game developers should receive the majority of the money.

They fell into their own meme of "so fucking hard it's unfun". A lot of systems were introduced by idiot beta testers that wanted the game to be so balls deep hard that you have no chance of countering all the bullshit it throws at you.

What he means is
>Valve "absolutely" needs to be paid for modders' work

if devs want to hire/contract modders and pay them competitive rates, I'm all for it.

Oh, what's that? They want consumers to pay for it? The devs only want to give the modders a small cut, while double dipping on profits? Distributors want a cut as well? The devs aren't going to run any QC or support for the mods either? Sounds like DLC but worse in every way, and DLC is possibly the single biggest cancer in modern gaming.

Show me a pay-for-mod system without judaism and I'll show you a unicorn

Until then, lets keep the system that has worked since modding's inception, which is now better off than ever thanks to platforms like patreon. Modders make mods for games they like because they want to, and if they do a good job, they're liable to be rewarded as a bonus for doing something they wanted to do.

money truly is the root of all evil

Donations should be the standard.

>Show me a pay-for-mod system without judaism and I'll show you a unicorn
The current system we have in place right now, where modders can accept donations on mod sites.

but that's not paying for mods, that's getting mods for free and then making a donation.

But modders are the ones who fix the games if they're broke so if they're broken by the game devs then you have to buy the game AND the mods (part of which goes to the lazy ass devs in Valve's dumbass system) in order to play a decent game. It would make them lazier because if anything they would just go "don't fix anything so the modders make more mods to fix our shit and thus we sell more mods which give us more money". It would be the most anticonsumer shit in the industry since paid DLC if this works out in Valve's favor.

Yes. I would prefer it if only so they could make it a full time thing and pump out updates/new mods more often instead of having a day job and doing it in freetime which leads to long periods of nothing new or broken mods.

That said, paid mods shouldn't return unless Valve figures out how to stop people stealing others work, or Mod B requiring Mod A but the author of Mod A doesn't want his mod sold or even distributed on Steam.

Also need a refund policy on mods/workshop content, mainly to avoid issues like "WHOA LOOK AT THIS SICK ARMOR" and you have to input a fucking console command to get it. No unique quest, NPC to kill and steal it from. Just a command.

If they want to be paid I guess it's ok. Obviously their mods won't be as popular as a free mod.
But Valve wants to receive money for free for some content that compliment, upgrades or fixes their games. That's beign greedy as fuck

Maybe Valve should pay them out of their pocket, then. At least the mods for their own games.

If modders "absolutely need" to be paid, then I "absolutely need" to receive the content I want.

That's the way a market works. When you are doing shit for free, you're free to make whatever the fuck you want. When you're working for a paycheck, you do what the customer desires. And to the quality they desire as well, without all the bugs and glitches caused by such mods.

Fuck no. Modding is a hobby and should stay so, donations at most, if a company really likes their talent they can just hire them or decide to make a standalone

I already know if Valve attempted paid mods again Sup Forums and the rest of the internet would defend it instead of stopping it like they did last time.
It's sad, really.

Yes, but not by me.

The rest of the internet probably wouldn't, except sites for consolefags that don't get mods anyway like NeoFAG

Most people on Sup Forums would defend it just to be contrarian.

>implying Gaben hasn't become a greedy twat like every other big publisher CEO

>implying Gaben cares about modders rather than the 25% share of the profits he is going to leech off of them

I feel like this could lead to a lot of harsh competition among mod devs. You throw cash into the mix and suddenly it goes from people working together to make something for their favorite game to a bunch of new coders/artists joining in hoping for a paycheck.

Oh look. Another way for Valve to monetize other people's work.

This new generation is retarded, idolizing this shit company.

>encourage devs to fix their own games
>Instead get a payment of 50% for somebody fixing your game
(You)

This

i'm willing to pay them as soon as they git gud

No this is beyond retarded. Modding is a hobby and trying to cash off of it is a copyright nightmare. Want to get paid, create original content you faggots.

Don't forget, this is the same website that defended pay2play online three times over with every console.

Modding is a meme anyway, can you even remember the last time you used a mod? I think it was STALKER around 7 years ago for me.

I still remember all the nickel and diming certain modders did when this first came out, which completed ousted them and made the rest of the modding community hate them forever.
>that one magic mod that had in-game advertisements for the full version

Would have Valve claimed that back then when free mods were responsible for the largest part of the success of their games? Have they forgotten that Counter Strike, Team Fortress and Left 4 Dead have started as free mods? Have they failed to notice that most mods improve games that could have been better, or fix games that are plain broken?

Or are they too busy looking a potential new market to realize why mods even exist?

Set up a QA team to make sure mods are compatible with every other mod and every update. Also to make sure the mods aren't low resolution, low texture, low quality, or shitty assets that clip with everything or just don't work. Set up a customer service department to make sure I can refund a mod if I don't like it or it's broken. Set up a legal team to protect modders from people stealing their content.

After all this is fulfilled, THEN I will pay for mods.

This is a bad place to ask.
80% of people here don't think developers deserve to be paid for the games they steal.
Why would they think people who add to that would?

i think that when you buy a mod it should guarantee that it will work with all future game updates. if a modmaker doesn't update their shit, then you're entitled to a refund, no questions asked.

Someone has the capture when gaben said that money is how the community steers work?

Its pretty sad people keep defending gabe after he said that.

this is the dumbest fucking think ive ever read. what fucking logic is that?

Don't forget that modders should get at least 85% of the cut since it's their work (more if the game engine wasn't created by the devs or is publicly accessible since the devs shouldn't get a cut then).

Unfortunately most of this is utopian shit that'll never happen because of corporate greed and no one caring about consumers or copyright owners unless they're big dogs.

Healthy market creates a healthy industry.

...

That makes no fucking sense.

TRANSLATION:

Valve "absolutely" needs to make profit from mods, a system which worked perfectly for decades with no paywall.

Modding is just diy, shoddy makeshift, that can break at any update, that can fuck up at random without consumer support to solve it, that can spend years without being updated. That's why even the highest quality mods are FREE.

If those modders are so good why don't they make games? Or at least something big enough and worthy to be considered an expansion pack? Oh wait, because 99% of them can't, and the rest are just generous, dedicated people that understand mods primarily fix a game that's flawed, which is the responsibility of the developer, not the modder, to fix.

Let's take the horrible UI of Skyrim as example.
Let's imagine that someone makes a mod that makes the UI better, now that fag puts pricetag on it in Steam Workshop. What happens is that the devs get a cut of the money the fag makes by someone selling his UI mod.
Now imagine if the game devs purposefully half-assed features and stuff in their games, people fix them and put the fixes behind the paywall. The devs get cut from the mods sold and then we can talk about paid patches as well.

Why did people complain about paid mods if nobody wants mods in the first place, like this image suggests?

this it?

I remember there was once a time when Sup Forums considered Gabe to be anything more than an honorary Jew.
When Valve were beloved developers rather than greedy merchants.

*Valve: Modders 'absolutely' need to be paid, as we can get a fat chunk of that flow u ungrateful faggots*

ftfy

Usually they're children and just want free shit because they have no money.

Why? They've been doing it all this time for fun. Why the fuck would they be paid for that? It's a hobby for them.

What the picture is saying "We absolutely need to be paid for modders work".

Valve can buy them out like they used to if they feel so strongly about it.