Since people are still interested in talking about this.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1516999-from-steam-removing-payment-feature-from-skyrim-workshop/


Updated Bethblog post

http://www.bethblog.com/2015/04/27/why-were-trying-paid-skyrim-mods-on-steam/


Valve's statement

https://steamcommunity.com/games/SteamWorkshop/announcements/detail/208632365253244218https://steamcommuni...632365253244218

Not everyone who plays an Elder Scrolls game, and not even everyone who plays or makes a mod for one, is automatically part of some community, and with how this community has treated its own respected members when they cross some arbitrary line, it's not hard to see why some people might not want to be part of it. The community should not, and cannot, dictate to everyone how and why they're allowed to engage in the game -- people can mod for whatever reason they want, choose whether or not to share their work and knowledge, how much, and under what terms. Just because modding is about sharing to you doesn't mean it has to be that way for everyone, and it's wrong to try to force it on them. Any model is fine, as long as the participants are willing, not coerced. While Valve's implementation had legitimate problems, the very idea of paid mods didn't threaten the community's right to continue on as they always had -- it only threatened their dominance and control. People would be free to engage differently, and for some people, that couldn't be allowed.

People are no more free after this reversion. And no, people will not forget. They won't forget how quickly their community was willing to turn on anyone who exercised their own freedom, made choices that contradicted what the community wanted from them.

It actually did threaten it as asset thievery was a very possible thing and given how opened the TES community is with sharing their assets if they were used by someone to make a profit it would threaten that trust among modder resource makers and modders.

"Also just found out from someone who bought my mod that the payments have all been forced to go through the Steam wallet. We were NOT told about this aspect ahead of time. So now all of the refunds Valve thinks they're being gracious with are going to be stuck in their Steam wallets going nowhere. In essence, they're keeping every dime of their cut from this.

It's made substantially worse because there's a $5 minimum on buying wallet dollars."

Wow just wow!!So instead of giving money back for the bad paid service they wanted to offer but couldn't, they give coupons tickets for their stuff lol. So that's the friendliest and most pro gamer company!! Glorious!!!

Btway, i expect, every person, who badmouths or sais he wont forgive modders that put mods for pay on Steam, that he/she will have the courtesy and courage to follow through and permanently uninstall and delete those moder's mods from their Skyrim load lists and Hard Disc. No double standards now.

All right. The post victory mea culpa's must stop. It is just as unfair to tarnish the whole community because of the bad actions of a vocal minority. This is just as bad as the attacks on the modders who chose to utilize the pay system. Geesh.

@JDS,

Maybe you're right, but how do communities work? In real life, we have laws and rules, and we also have cultural ideas which are enforced through peer-pressure and social-reactions. I.e., If you were to go out and start dancing along park benches and singing aloud, it wouldn't necessarily be illegal (depending where you live, some places have public disorder laws), but it would get you mocked and/or reprimanded by a community.

Obviously the two are not identical, but the point I am making is that this is not 'some arbitrary line;; what people stood-up for in opposing paid-modding is what they believe to be the underlying principles and ideologies of our community; yes, some people went about it the wrong way in attacking the modders, but overall the wider community stood-up for its beliefs. Evidently a large enough majority of the community opposed this action to get it reversed, and since most societies are based on majority rule, then the will of the community is expressed.

If a large enough number of people are angry anough about something, they can make those in power change theit minds

Now that we made Bethesda and Valve change their minds, let's continue with achieving world peace and the end of poverty!

I think part of why people fought so hard, was because they felt they had a chance of success. I know that's part of why I did.

And we have laws and rules because communities can get very ugly. The will of the majority can be tyrannous, and it is only carefully crafted rules founded in principle and logic that can prevent horrifying outcomes. No matter how people felt, no matter what their beliefs or modding philosophy, none of that gives them the right to threaten the lives of others. When you throw principle to the wind, in pursuit of a certain outcome, you've lost all legitimacy and right to that outcome. The harder you try, the less you deserve to succeed.

Mainly, however, my point is that in this case, the will of a small community in being forced on a larger group that isn't part of that community, that had no say in the outcome. What right did the community have to force their way on all of Bethesda's customers, when they were free to continue operating as they always had, despite the presence of the option to buy and sell mods? An option was given to others, but the community only saw it as a loss of power over others. Why trust a community that will turn on you, the moment you publicly disagree with it?

To me this is beautiful and unexpected. I'm glad they listened to us in the end.

If they didn't make their opinion heard, it is their fault that they don't have a say on the outcome.

This incident impacts everyone, including the "small community" you mentioned. The "small community" tried to defend itself, pure and simple. What about the rest? Well where were the rest when the small community expressed its outrage?

exactly!! Bethesda, I want to thank you for this,as you said feedback was clear and this is the better way

@JDS,

Then what right did those modders whom Beth/Valve contacted to support paid-mods? By your logic, their decision of going along with the idea and trying it out forced it on the rest of the community, and they were a much smaller group than those who opposed paid-modding. If we're talking about how an act affects a larger group, then you cannot deny that if none of those Modders had agreed (and subsequently had NO modder agreed) to be part of the experiment-group, none of this would have happened.

Good, my respect for Valve has been restored slightly, they even admitted they had no idea what they were doing.

Still, shame on them and Bethesda for even thinking it was a good idea.

I'm really glad they acknowledged they made a mistake in that they had no clue what the hell they were doing, numerous people have been saying that it was just Valve and Bethesda's incompetence the whole time and I'm glad even Valve acknowledges that.

I'm pretty sure that they gave up at this stage due to the difficulty to implement quality control for the mods, the loss of money due to complains and the logistic nightmare of the millions of refunds they would have. We won this fight but they didn't give up.

I did like that they retreated in like 2 working days, but that's proof the retreat was calculated. Why retreat in just 4 days, and not 2 weeks, they could freeze the whole project indefinitely for as long they liked or needed to get more data. It's fishy.

I reiterate my experience with something I written in another thread: when UT came out (1999) I began to be a very active modder in the community releasing maps, textures, models and skins... After a while I noticed my works were all over the place being reused without any mention of the source. A particular clan even took a set of skins I made, added their logo, and re-released it claiming it was THEIRS .

After that incident I almost stopped releasing my homemade stuff, the sole exception being tweaks or improvements of other people MODs and ALWAYS asking the original author for permission (and giving the due credits).

I'm not against other people using my works or people wishing to earn an extra, but there are people out there that don't respect the others' work. That's why many users and modders have risen in arms against Valve decision.

Ha! So much for the end of free mods for Skyrim, huh? As I said many many many times in the old threads, there wasn't any good in automatically assuming the worst case scenario. This lasted less than a week.

Anyway, I hope we can move past the drama for now.

Their attempt at quality control wasn't to actually police it but have the community police it like they do with Greenlight. Greenlight being complete crap as well so I had very little faith the community could police itself when money entered in.

Re-posting from the other thread that got locked ~

People for free mods may have won the battle but I doubt if they have won the war. Bethesda and Valve want to reward modders and I don't see anything really wrong in that. The dividing up could have been a little more favorable though.
People, in the spirit of community *cough* have shown their true colors and it was not pretty. I can't say much because I don't make mods but I do use them. The creation kit belongs to Bethesda ... they have given it to people to use and they can take it away.

I am really not sure that the community was not divided before all of this. A while back, I saw a mod advertised on YouTube and politely asked the mod maker if it was available on the workshop. Not wanting to name names here is their exact quote:
"No I took it down, Steam workshop is cancer. You can find this mod in Nexus.?" This was in August of 2014.

There would be no mods AT ALL if Bethesda hadn't given the Creation kit (s) for people to use free of charge all of these years. Is it so wrong that they want to profit from it? I don't think so. I get why that people want to keep modding free but is it so wrong that some would like to have the opportunity to make a little profit? I don't think so. I didn't buy any mods this weekend but that was because I didn't see any that I wanted AND because protesters cluttered the workshop with wonderful content like "Gaben's [censored]". Geez, people, really?

It's called a donation button.

I would happily donate to some of my favorite modders if i could.

Don't forget that a lot of trust was destroyed with this action (between mod users, mod developers and game company). It will take a while until it is restored again.

Because of the strict rule no commercial mods rule that Bethesda had in the past, the community adjusted to it and made their own set of rules and principles. These where endangered. Sure it is easy to say that it is only the greed (mod delvelopers wo want to make money, mod user who don't want to spend money) but thats actually not the main reason for the backlash (at least in the view of mod developers who are against it, I am one).

These principles are a very good thing and has lead to astongishly great results when a mod developer asks for permission to use the assets of another one. Both share ideas and techniques and both learn from each other that way. It worked so well that the mod user nearly got commercial quality (even above). Asking for permission is a simple pm.

But as soon as it is businesss.... then you have to negotiate and look that you get the best money out of it... modmaking is horrible time intensive if you are serious about it actually you can't pay these countless hours in a fair and balanced way sadly imo.

Thats why it isn't easy to establish something that at least gives a tiny bit of compensation. So if Bethesda want a way to increase the use of mods and increase the quality they should start supporting the mod community a bit more directly. It started well with Skyrim it got a lot of more support as the Fallout series (updates of CK, original developers answering question and are available,...). From a commercial aspect before Beth really can think anout monetization it has to be easier and less time intensive to make high quality mods but thats a tough nut to crack (without to simplify the game itself).

Not even close. Once again some good ones have been chased away by this "community". Wasn't the first time, won't be the last time.

Thanks for saying this. I feel like anyone who took a stance against the system were all labeled childish freeloaders, regardless of whether or not the protester was a user or a mod dev.

Seriously? Please tell me this is satire.

I feel like I've been muted or something. Asset thievery was always a thing. It will continue to be a thing. People stole mods well before there was any money to be made.

How is that proof it was calculated? To me, that suggests the opposite if anything. Calculated would be to freeze the thing, give themselves time to come up with a new plan, and implement that instead of just chucking the whole idea out the window.

But you're right, they didn't give up on making money. I wouldn't have expected otherwise considering they're a business.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_mechanisms#Vaillant.27s_categorization_of_defence_mechanisms

"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection: A primitive form of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia. Projection reduces anxiety by allowing the expression of the undesirable impulses or desires without becoming consciously aware of them; attributing one's own unacknowledged unacceptable or unwanted thoughts and emotions to another; includes severe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prejudice and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Envy, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervigilance to external danger, and "injustice collecting", all with the aim of shifting one's unacceptable thoughts, feelings and impulses onto someone else, such that those same thoughts, feelings, beliefs and motivations are perceived as being possessed by the other."

It's an old capitalist trick. Greedy people (who are usually also well-off) want more money. To avoid being called or feeling bad for being greedy, they indulge in doublethinking and call poor people greedy, for not wanting to pay. The situation is turned on its head and this confuses people.

Edit: added "or feeling bad for being", added (...usually also...)