As many Steam users have come to know since yesterday, you can now purchase Skyrim mods. Modders can choose to set a pay-wall on their mod and earn some cash. This has sparked huge amounts of controversy, the main argument being that mods have always been free and should always stay free. Mods were born as a labor of love, to fill in a void that fans of a franchise felt needed to be filled.
No one thus far has said that modders don't, nor do, deserve payment for their modding work. Up until now, it has been illegal to earn money from making mods for a game, as it is using someone else's work. What people are mad about, is that they have to now pay for some of their favorite mods, suddenly there are restrictions in place. The modder can either set a certain amount to be paid, or can opt for the "Pay what you want" scheme, which requires a minimum payment of £0.4.
As for splits, the modder earns a disgusting 25% of the asking price should someone buy the mod, Steam takes 75% which it then splits with Bethesda, the developer of Skyrim. On top of this, Steam will not pay out until a mod has sold more than $100 worth, that is owed to you. Say you have a mod, and you set a price of £1. To actually receive money for this, you would have to sell the mod 400 times. Steam will only pay out when Steam owes the modder at least $100, otherwise you get no payment. In other words, Steam has to have earned $400 from your mod, before it will actually give the modder the 25%, $100. It's vampiric, it's blatant money-grubbing.
Aside from how the money is handled, the workshop is already rampant with paid mods awaiting approval, many of the mods having actually been stolen from the real mod developers so that they can make a quick profit. Disgusting. This system is already being abused, and will only encourage further negative behaviour.
Copyright is also an issue, in the past modders have been able to create copyright content (such as Assassin's Creed armour for Skyrim) and get away with it because they were not charging for it. Now, if you tried to sell your Assassin's Creed armour mod, you'd most likely get some legal action. Modders will get penalized for making content they love, such as if they want to make a Lord of the Rings related mod, they would not be able to profit from it because of legal issues. This punishes creativity and diversity because of the legal issues surrounding this. Some of the paid mods have already been pointed out as potential copyright infringements, such as Firelink Implements. Users have noticed the staggering similarities between this paid mod and weaponry present in Dark Souls 2.
Benefits, there are some benefits. With the opportunity of earning a living, this is attracting professionals to the modding scene. Experts in texture work, 3D modelling work, and coding have appeared. The Shadow Scale armour set was one of the first paid mods to become available on the workshop, clearly made by experts in the field as well as other paid mods. Your getting some very high quality content as a result of the opportunity to make a profit. You can be on the fence about whether or not modders should have the ability to expect pay, but the undeniable evil is how much of a cut Steam and Bethesda are taking for doing nothing. Valve takes a 75% cut for modded content in DOTA and CS:GO, understandably as those are their games. However, there is no justification to take 75% from the content creator; Skyrim was not made by Valve. I could understand Bethesda taking a chunk, but not Valve. It's greedy.
Modding has always been a labour of love, but by no means should a modder expect to be paid for their work. They are not working at a professional company. More often than not, the content of the mod does not justify the price and on top of that if the modder were to set an acceptable price, they'd be earning pennies at best. For a mod such as Falskaar, I'd probably pay £5, however this is subjective and brings me to my next point. Encourage donations.
Instead of forcing a ridiculously priced pay-wall for the modder to earn something, heavily encourage donations instead. Steam could take a smaller cut of the asking price, and everyone would be happy because they have options.
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