Skyrim - Bethesda Talks Skyrim's Paid Mods Controversy @ Gamespot

Bethesda's Pete Hines about talks about paid mods and future plans:

[…] "I think our stance on it is we're going to re-evaluate it going forward," Hines said. "I think that we feel like there is a case to be made that people who spend a lot of time working on mods ought to be able to have a way of monetizing what they're doing.

"Certainly some of the folks that we talked to were very interested in and supportive of the idea," he added. "We had creators who said, 'I've been asking for donations for years and never saw anything, and I made more in one day.' So why would I not support that?"

One of the issues that some brought up around the Skyrim paid mod system is that creators aren't paid enough. As part of the now-scrapped plan, the breakdown for mod revenue looked like this:

• Bethesda - 45 percent
• Valve - 30 percent
• Modders - 25 percent

"Is this the right split? There are valid arguments for it being more, less, or the same," Bethesda said back in April. "It is the current industry standard, having been successful in both paid and free games. After much consultation and research with Valve, we decided it's the best place to start."

Hines told us that, if the paid mod system does return, Bethesda would still expect to get a cut of the revenue— even if the percentage might change. […]

Click to expand...

More information.

Thank you for the info, Joxer!

Fuck paid mods but more than that fuck that mod makers only get 25% lol

No it should be something like
Bethesda…10%
Valve…10%( who would ensure some quality control and customer support)
The scale should also be flexible…Bethesda should not receive a single cent from unofficial patches or mods that rebalance and fix broken gameplay and similar. If anything Bethesda should be paying THEM.
The only higher percentage would work with quest or new land mods like Falskaar and such. But those mods should also be higher priced as well.

I'd rather have 25% of something than 100% of nothing. Donating doesn't work as nobody makes more than a pittance at that rate. Ask Vurt how much loot he's made off of his mod. It is one of the most downloaded mods in the Skyrim library. He may not even be asking for donations though....

All that said, you just can't do that on a game that already had thousands of mods out there. There needs to be a way to track ownership of the material. That was the biggest mistake. Anyone could have taken Vurt's mod, slapped a new name on it and released it for pay. Until Valve comes up with a solution for that, paid mods won't work. Best to start over with a new game. I imagine it will be Fallout 4. Will I personally buy paid mods? Probably not. Does this drastically lower the longevity of the product? That would be my guess. Skyrim is so popular; on the pc side at least, because it can be modded for free. Will Fallout 4 be as popular when it costs $1.99 for a few simple textures. I doubt it.

I would pay for something like Nehrim, Faalskar, Vilja, Wet and Cold, etc. However, I wouldn't know that I was willing until I tested the material. Mods will need something similar to a "Let's Play" type of system to show how they change the game. I imagine texture mods and such will have to be sold in huge packs to make money, but time will tell.

Not to mention how much free advertising Beth receives from youtubers showing off/reviewing mods and all the articles on major gaming sites. I doubt any PC player today even remembers what vanilla Skyrim even looks like.

My take on this whole subject is why not allow modders to sell their mods and just see how the market reacts. It's possible it could take off. It's possible it could fail. Why not just see what happens?

I'd certainly pay for certain mods starting with SkyUi... without that mod I'd never even have played Skyrim at all.

It would work much better if multiple vendors incentived modding. Modders could then pick and choose which game to mod. The market would then work out the right percentage cuts.

If I had assurances that a Mod would make the game look/play/perform better and be compatible with other Mods, I wouldn't necessarily have a problem paying for it.

I also think the Modder should receive the biggest slice of the pie. The publisher already got their cut not only through the initial game sale, but through subsequent sales because Mods made the game more functional or attractive.

Zephyr said:

If I had assurances that a Mod would make the game look/play/perform better and be compatible with other Mods, I wouldn't necessarily have a problem paying for it.

Click to expand...

This is what the market would work out on its own. If paid-for mods largely break the game one way or another, fail to be maintained (patched) as core game changes are made by the developers, and or fail to have the perceived value relative to price, then it will fail all on its own.

Bethesda - 45 percent
Valve - 30 percent
Modders - 25 percent

Wow, why the heck should Bethesda and Valve make all the money when they did none of the work. I agree with the other poster that this should be:
Bethesda - 10 percent
Valve - 10 percent
Modders - 80 percent

Will I buy mods, well that will depend on quality and the price of that mod. This will be a big game changer for playing modded games.

HiddenX said:

Bethesda's Pete Hines about talks about paid mods and future plans….[/URL]

Click to expand...

I wonder why something tells me I'm gonna take a looong break from Bethesda's productions ?!

I don't have a problem with Bethesda's take. It's their platform, their IP. Valve looks like a parasite. Should be 45/15/40.

TheMadGamer said:

My take on this whole subject is why not allow modders to sell their mods and just see how the market reacts. It's possible it could take off. It's possible it could fail. Why not just see what happens?

I'd certainly pay for certain mods starting with SkyUi… without that mod I'd never even have played Skyrim at all.

Click to expand...

SureAI has set up a way to pay for their mod's if you wish to and when Enderal - The Shards of Order is released I will pay be paying them full market price(70.00 Canadian) for their hard work.

SureAI has delivered incredible content on their own dime

Gloo said:

I wonder why something tells me I'm gonna take a looong break from Bethesda's productions ?!

Click to expand...

You can always just not use paid mods.

BillSeurer said:

You can always just not use paid mods.

Click to expand...

I am sure he is saying this because the fact that they wanted to charge for them in the first place.

deiland said:

Bethesda - 45 percent
Valve - 30 percent
Modders - 25 percent

Wow, why the heck should Bethesda and Valve make all the money when they did none of the work. I agree with the other poster that this should be:
Bethesda - 10 percent
Valve - 10 percent
Modders - 80 percent

Click to expand...

I think 30% is pretty much Valve's standard rate for most anything on Steam. Not that I agree, I also think the 10/10/80 split would encourage modders.

I would be much less inclined to pay for a graphics mod or similar, for instance I didn't buy Oblivion's Horse Armor, than I would content such as new quest packs.

One more thing - if this is to work in the future, refund period needs to be longer, like a week or two. There's no way you can test some of the bigger mods in a day.

deiland said:

Bethesda - 45 percent
Valve - 30 percent
Modders - 25 percent

Wow, why the heck should Bethesda and Valve make all the money when they did none of the work.

Click to expand...

Not jiving with you on that at all. If you own property, it's yours to dispose as you wish; nothing to do with "how hard you worked". There's a market price somewhere in there that balances the sense of fair play of shoppers, what buyers are actually willing to pay, and what mod makers actually want. If Valve and developers figure out how to deal with all the mess that occurs when you have multiple contributors creating new derivative works, I can be convinced. My position has always been that the idea itself isn't bad, but that Skyrim was the wrong game at the wrong time implemented poorly.