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by orng
4066 days ago
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Although I think people should be rewarded for their work I don't really don't like where this is headed. As others have noted the statement from Valve reads as if paid mods are definitely coming in a not so distant future. Modders getting paid is all well and dandy until you consider the way mods often evolve and build on top of each other. I spent a lot of my time as a young teenager on the custom ladder in Warcraft 3, where people played home made maps which essentially amounted to mods. This was the birthplace of Dota and the place where many of us were introduced to tower defence. Every time someone uploaded an original or fun new map people would take their map and tweak it in some fashion or another and slowly the maps would evolve. The versions of Wintermaul that people were playing years after the original were definitely improvements upon the original. If new maps/mods on the custom ladder had cost money this would never had happened. I'm sure Duke Wintermaul wouldn't have been happy with all the remixes of his vastly popular mod if he had been selling it himself. And, although he might have updated his mod to improve balance and the such he most likely would not have come up with several of the features that were included in the late versions made by others. I see people saying that modding is for hobbyists and I have seen several modders claiming that they will never charge for a mod and that may very well be the case. For now. Once paid mods are released they will slowly seep into the community and the modders of the future will have been raised with paid mods instead of free ones. Once upon a time video game companies would sell their games in retail and then support it for free, now they charge for the support cost through subscription fees, dlc or microtransactions. If customers are OK with paying for it, why should they give away their work for free? The same thing goes for modders. |
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Second, I wanted to echo that there's a concerning parallel between paid vs free mods and free to play gaming. In both, I think the proposed solution _COULD_ be better. Some mods are ridiculous. (Skyrim on Morrowind? Some of the system shock 2 total overhauls?) I would _love_ easy, consistent, and safe channels to compensate the authors, and some sort of paid system seems fair in that sense. Similarly, if a game can be released free and keep passive costs going through balanced means (Path of Exile comes to mind) you CAN walk the line of "ethical microtransactions" or whatever the hell you call it nowadays.
But it's SO EASY now to point out failures in the f2p model, games that just gave up any attempt at legitimacy to pursue profit (which can be far more... subversive, in a f2p environment as opposed to selling traditional games, e.g. zynga). The worst part to this, to me, is that it's becoming the norm, as you say. People "are OK with it", and it eventually becomes accepted practice, and games that were once pillars of buy to play (guild wars 1 comes to mind) have sequels that essentially let you whip out a credit card for most of the end game gear, and fans who will _FIGHT_ you if you suggest this in any way moves towards "bad f2p".
I see a lot of potential for the cornucopia of modding creativity and availability we saw to fade in preference for monitization, and the true impact of this may not be seen for decades. (Is there really a difference in gamers who grow up being inspired by and playing with the hilariously accessible mods all over the place, and those who just play box products, or mods blackboxed so they behave as such? Selfishly, I can't but think so.)