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***UPDATE 2015-04-28***

There´s no better smell than the smell of victory. And the Gamer (Steam) community has won the battle over the paid Skyrim mods (or any paid mods for that matter) on Steam. That´s right, Valve and Bethesda has backed down on the paid mods on Steam. And it´s ALL thanks to you. We have won a great victory today, and we did it with over 133,000 signatures on Remove the paid content of the Steam Workshop page.

You see what we can do when we unite for a common cause? You know what this made me think about? Half-Life 3, let´s start a “We want Half-Life 3 to happen!” petition. I was just joking, but that could be done i guess. Anyhow, in all seriousness.

Congratulation people, we have won a great victory! The modding community has been saved!

The victory is ours! Now, let´s make Half-Life 3 happen 😉

“Victory Apr 27, 2015 — It has been an honor to have hosted this petition for all of you. Without your support, we would never have achieved victory. We have united and have won. We got Valve and Bethesda to roll back the paywall that they have created and saved our modding community. I hope this shows that all of you that if you unite against something and truly to reach for the goal, you will achieve what you have set for.”

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There´s greed, then there´s the kind of greed that goes beyond the limits of being greedy. Valve and Bethesda has now passed that line. Because i never EVER thought that i would see a Skyrim mod with a price tag on Steam´s workshop (which Valve get´s a percentage of per sale). But that is now a reality, and people even steal parts from other people’s mods and sell them on Steam (or even WHOLE mods).

That´s how crazy things are at this very moment. And this had Gamers all over the world up in arms. So no wonder that the internet is full of comments such as this:

“They’re not going to recover from this. They were trusted, and once that is broken they’re never seen the same way again. People won’t forget Nintendo’s scummy move against Let’s Players. They’ll forgive them if they change but they’ll never forget. Same thing here. A huge number of PC gamers aren’t just on PC because of better graphics, but because we’re sick of being fed bullshit by Microsoft and Sony and no longer trust them. You don’t bullshit a community of skeptics.” – atfsix, a reddit user

“This has the potential of ruining the mod community, it has to be stopped.” – João Pinto, Remove the paid content of the Steam Workshop page

“Make a “donation” or “support” button for mods, but don’t make players HAVE to pay, Valve !” – Chaotic Pesme, Remove the paid content of the Steam Workshop page

“Valve’s monetization of Steam Workshop mods – in its current state – is very detrimental to the PC modding ecosystem as a whole. Additionally, in its current state, many developers responsible for very, VERY influential mods (such as SKSE in the case of Skyrim) will not be seeing a single cent of revenue despite the fact that many, many mods relying on content from SKSE will be sold.

Valve has demonstrated a complete inability to curate content (see: Greenlight and Early Access), and it isn’t going to be any better with paid mods. Nobody is going to be there to stop scammers from selling mods that are free elsewhere, and in the end the only people who stand to win is Valve, who gets to take a slice of the pie while doing nothing in return.” – Joe D’Amore, Remove the paid content of the Steam Workshop page

“You are poisoning the well of our community for peanuts. I know you don’t care about modder’s chances to make money, hence the 75% provision to Steam/Bethesda. Besides, modders have always had the ability to ask for donations in Nexus Mods. This ill-advised choice will only lead to opportunists spamming the Workshop with a plethora of poor-quality / ripped off mods.

The Workshop will soon resemble Google’s Play Store, where millions upon millions of cash-grab apps cause the few good ones to be hidden beneath the pile. Nothing good will come out of this, unless Bethesda considers a few thousand dollars of profit worth the lost appraisal and respect of it’s most loyal customers. So please reconsider this choice. Do the right thing. Best Regards, A formerly loyal customer and a much disappointed fan” – M. Holmström, via Bethesda´s blog

And at this moment, over 78,000 people have signed the “Remove the paid content of the Steam Workshop page” petition (the goal is to reach 150K supporters). But Valve ain´t the only company that´s under the pressure at the moment. Because on April 23th Bethesda posted a blog post called “Skyrim Workshop Now Supports Paid Mods“.

This will be the death of the mod community as we know it…

And this is a part of Bethesda´s actual blog post statement:

“Many of our fans have been modding our games since Morrowind, for over 10 years. They now have the opportunity to earn money doing what they love – and all fans have a new way to support their favorite mod authors. We’ve also updated Skyrim and the Creation Kit with new features to help support paid mods including the ability to upload master files, adding more categories and removing file size limit restrictions,” – Bethesda´s blog

remove the paid content of the steam workshop

So Valve has become just as greedy as EA, Nintendo and Acitivion now? Nice…

And the comment section on that blog post speaks for itself really. So both Valve and Bethesda has put themselves in a really uncomfortable situation. And to make things even worse. People download free mods and then re-uploaded them on Steam´s workshop with a price tag. So i´m 100% behind the “Remove the paid content of the Steam Workshop” petition.

And i think the Mass Effect modder “FilthyCasual” and put the “Remove the paid content of the Steam” group, put the final nail in the coffin on this subject:

“I now see mods going up that are little tiny swords and whatnot going up for sale. Bundles already that cost more than the game itself. In other words, I am concerned about a complete influx of mods that are completely useless and tiny and unsupported and updated, just because of money-grabbers who want a piece of the pie,” – Modder FilthyCasual

“The workshop is a place for people to share content with each other they made so all can enjoy it for free. Since recently this is not the case for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Workshop. Valve has now erected a paywall for the mods. Mods should be a free creation. Creations made by people who wish to add to the game so others can also enjoy said creation with the game. We need to unite and reject this act by Valve. Unite have Valve remove the paid content of the Workshop.” – Remove the paid content of the Steam Workshop

Oh well, at least Valve has removed one of the “pay to use” Skyrim mods from Steam. So what do you guys/girls think about Steam’s “pay to use”Skyrim mods?

Recourses:
Change.org