Steam tries to monetise the modscene, hilarity expected

[stumpy]

money earned should probably be paid into the steam wallet, else am sure people are going to run foul of their country's tax system if they are at the age where you have to pay tax on earnings.

[Cookie]

This is really sad news, but in the end, I don´t think this will change anything expect maybe splitting the mod community and giving it an overall worse reputation.

 

There will still be passionate people creating good stuff for free and others that find success in monetizing their stuff. Its just another way for "developers" to get money after kickstarter and early access ( were over 90 % of the products are garbage and/or will never be finished).

 

The most important questions you might have to ask are, why is this even working? Why are people willing to pay money for things that are also available in higher quality for less/free elsewhere? Why would you give away money without receiving anything of quality? People are complaining about taxes and high prices in their daily lives on a regular basis, but mindlessly throw their money out of the window for such things?

 

I guess I´m getting too old...

Edited April 25, 2015 by Cookie

[motorsep]

I'd pay for a good mod, if the price was reasonable and if I really wanted to play it. Hell, don't we pay for good DLCs ? So how is it any different with mods?

 

I wish RAGE and Crysis 3 got some mods [worth paying for].

Edited April 25, 2015 by motorsep

[Petike the Taffer]

I swear, if someone steals TDM, puts it on Steam and Steam will then pretend we have no right to compain, I'll go ballistic. The Greenlight scandals were awful enough. Steam just seems to be taking the piss by this point. I hope this whole mod monetisation scheme fails, crashes, burns and explodes. It's an outrageous spit in the face of all hobbyists who have been tirelessly working for years to create cool independent gaming projects and share their talent with other people worldwide.

Edited April 25, 2015 by Petike the Taffer

[motorsep]

I swear, if someone steals TDM, puts it on Steam and Steam will then pretend we have no right to compain, I'll go ballistic. The Greenlight scandals were awful enough. Steam just seems to be taking the piss by this point. I hope this whole mod monetisation scheme fails, crashes, burns and explodes. It's an outrageous spit in the face of all hobbyists who have been tirelessly working for years to create cool independent gaming projects and share their talent with other people worldwide.

 

You can go as ballistic as you want, but since TDM is under GPL, anyone can do whatever they want with it, as long as they credit TDM team. People can even repackage and sell it. You can turn blue and purple, but you can't do anything about it.

 

P.S. I wonder why would assets be under GPL :/

Edited April 25, 2015 by motorsep

[Petike the Taffer]

I'm only worried about us not being credited, that's all.

 

Well, and I obviously want TDM to stay a freeware project and not get abused by anyone who would want to con money off of more gullible players.

[VanishedOne]

P.S. I wonder why would assets be under GPL :/

According to the LICENSE.txt in my TDM installation, they're under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0.

[motorsep]

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/33uplp/mods_and_steam/

 

AFAIK it's still live - ask [the] Gabe Newell what you want.

[motorsep]

According to the LICENSE.txt in my TDM installation, they're under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0.

 

Can make new content and sell as mod anyway (making sure CC licensed content isn't in the package and is automatically downloaded upon install).

[Springheel]

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0

 

[motorsep]

 

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0

 

 

 

That's for content, not for whatever was already under GPL

[Springheel]

You can go as ballistic as you want, but since TDM is under GPL, anyone can do whatever they want with it,

 

 

Since all the maps, textures, models, def files, audio assets, and all other non-software components aren't under GPL, then this statement isn't exactly true, is it? Without any of the aforementioned assets, you don't really have "The Dark Mod". You have a bunch of code that won't work.

 

So no, someone could not legally sell TDM.

 

 

 

 

 

[motorsep]

 

Since all the maps, textures, models, def files, audio assets, and all other non-software components aren't under GPL, then this statement isn't exactly true, is it? Without any of the aforementioned assets, you don't really have "The Dark Mod". You have a bunch of code that won't work.

 

So no, someone could not legally sell TDM.

 

 

In that case, correct. But, they could make a mod that contains new assets only and sell it, and the mod's downloader would download TDM.

[Bikerdude]

I'm just waiting for this to preferably blow up in Valves & Newell's face, that company are as avaricious as he is clinically obese.

[demagogue]

According to Steam's terms for selling a mod, the creators have to submit a list of every contributor, and Steam contacts each one individually and gets their consent before it can be done. Inside TDM is the authors list, which collectively owns the copyright to our own contribution to the engine and game, not to mention a copyright notice & author list in every piece of TDM code AFAIK. Even if someone takes the code, that list still counts towards who has to give consent before it can be sold; and it's easy for us to make a counterclaim with that list if anyone tries. (Needless to say, the likelihood of getting everyone on that list to sign off on it is next to nil, even aside from the other barriers.) This is the limit in Steam's own terms, totally aside from GPL.

[Anderson]

I'm just waiting for this to preferably blow up in Valves & Newell's face, that company are a avaricious as he is clinically obese.

The dark side is strong with this one.

That's a LOT of hatred. I mean I'm sad they didn't make Half Life 3 too although most of us won't get it anyway until we're sure it's not Duke Nukem Forever but that's a little exaggerated I think.

[Bikerdude]

I never much cared for valve/steam because of the way they/it killed the s/h pc games market, I used to be happy to buy a game at launch and sell it on after I had finished playing it. Which is why now I never pay more than £15 or at most £20 for a game, steam is now just an unavoidable evil.

 

Trying to monetise the mod scene is just capitalist hubris at its most profane, Newell deserves a swift kick to the nuts for this. And there was I at one point warming upto getting TDM on Greenlight, well fucking bollox to any notion of that now.

[Airship Ballet]

There was I at one point warming upto getting TDM on Greenlight, well fucking bollox to any notion of that now.

How is that related to... I... what are you...

Edited April 27, 2015 by Airship Ballet

[motorsep]

I never much cared for valve/steam because of the way they/it killed the s/h pc games market, I used to be happy to buy a game at launch and sell it on after I had finished playing it. Which is why now I never pay more than £15 or at most £20 for a game, steam is now just an unavoidable evil.

 

Trying to monetise the mod scene is just capitalist hubris at its most profane, Newell deserves a swift kick to the nuts for this. And there was I at one point warming upto getting TDM on Greenlight, well fucking bollox to any notion of that now.

 

I hope you realize that Steam is PC market nowadays. There is not whole a lot evil about it. As a developer, I totally don't like for people to be reselling my game and me not making a cut from it. With Steam however, it's not the case and that makes me happy enough to tolerate other downsides of Steam.

[ShadeDrifter]

There are a bunch of games being sold that are mods, and a lot of game devs were already selling small community mods. Valve with their hats in tf2, dota, and cs:go. Tripwire had community dlc in killing floor. Second life had an entire economy based on user made content. The thing is these are multiplayer games though, and instead of adding support for something like what second life has (i.e. users could make stuff, sell it, and it'd show up in other peoples games like hats), they took the lazy way out and just added a price tags to stuff that was already free.

Edited April 27, 2015 by ShadeDrifter

[OrbWeaver]

This looks like one of the more hilarious storms-in-teacups that I have witnessed recently.

 

Valve are making available the ability for individual mod developers to sell their work if they choose. They are not forcing anyone to start charging for work if they don't want to. They are not trying to seize control over existing free content. They are simply providing a mechanism that people are free to use or ignore as they see fit.

 

I don't see any way this could be construed as immoral unless you are part of the hardcore Richard Stallman "anything except Free is a crime against humanity" movement (in which case why the hell are you using Steam in the first place?).

[Melan]

 

I hope you realize that Steam is PC market nowadays. There is not whole a lot evil about it. As a developer, I totally don't like for people to be reselling my game and me not making a cut from it. With Steam however, it's not the case and that makes me happy enough to tolerate other downsides of Steam.

Would you also oppose the resale of books?

[brethren]

Steam may have killed the secondhand market, but it more than makes up for it with it's frequent sales. I have over 300 games in my library, and I've paid full price for very few of those, maybe 10%.

[Baal]

Would you also oppose the resale of books?

You have to take into account that writing a book is not nearly as expensive as making a videogame, so used books are not as big of a problem. A least that's my barely educated guess.

[motorsep]

Would you also oppose the resale of books?

 

If I was an author, and I didn't get anything out of second hand sales - yes, I would be opposed.

 

It's not cheap to make games and write books. It's not the same as a pair of jeans that you can resell and the manufacturer wouldn't even notice any loss.