Valve offering paid mods

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AH but again I can not sign them away, if they make their tools available in the EU they have to comply to EU law not vice versa.

It's working quite well for them in the EU to do that when it comes to refunds on Steam. So yes you actually can apparently sign them away. You have problems with that? Tough, what are you gonna do? Sue Valve? Go ahead and come back to us years down the line with a court decision.

I've actually spent a lot of time thinking about this as a YT-er who earns his living on Let's Plays.

LAW trumps Eula, try it sometime it's liberating.

As I've said repeatedly over and over again, and you seem content to ignore the argument, this does not matter unless you bring it before a court of law and win. Between a private individual a multinational company with a very solid and big legal team that company would very likely win.
 
(Costin's already ninja'd me on this, while I was looking for the reddit link, but posting anyway)

@Sana_mia - I agree that you're correct as far as the law is concerned (at least in the EU). The agreement would almost certainly be considered void if taken to court. But the key phrase there is "...if taken to court". That costs money, a LOT of money, and winning the court case wouldn't give you any guarantee of getting that money back.

The fact that the agreement says Bethesda owns your content (if it does still say that) is probably enough to mean that Valve can toss aside a DMCA notice unless it's something really blatant (theft on an entire mod, with proof).

After reading Chesko's reddit post, Valve have already given enough evidence that they're taking the "what can we get away with legally" approach rather than the "what's ethically correct" approach to this. I don't think that anyone whose mod was just incorporated into another without permission to monetize stands a cat in hell's chance of fair treatment.

Chesko. I feel sorry for the guy.
http://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/33qcaj/the_experiment_has_failed_my_exit_from_the/
 
A nugget of wisdom from the reddit post:

I was just contacted by Valve's lawyer. He stated that they will not remove the content unless "legally compelled to do so", and that they will make the file visible only to currently paid users. I am beside myself with anger right now

As I said. Either bring it before a court and win or you've got nothing.
 
Well fuck you Bethesda and fuck you Valve. Goddamn, I just can't believe the absolute greed that they display here!!!

Bethesda you release games that are fucking broken, dated and shit. Every single fucking time!!!! and it's always up to the modding community to fix your own cocksukking incompetence and laziness, AND YOU HAVE THE FUCKING AUDACITY TO CHARGE FOR WORK THAT'S NOT EVEN YOUR OWN!!!! YOU FUCKING CHARGE FOR SOMEONE ELSE'S HARD WORK TO FIX YOUR OWN GODDAMN GAME AND TAKE MOST OF THE PROFIT!! FUCK YOU BETHESDA, BURN IN HELL!!!!

You know what I wish, I wish CDPR take this opportunity with GOG and just become a little more aggressive, Steam has such a market dominance so they can afford to do this shit. We definitely need some competition for steam ASAP. And with Witcher 3 coming out if they can get the modding tools out fast after launch they could definitely attract loads of people from the modding scene.

I just know I would never buy another game from Bethesda again .
 
[video=youtube;oGKOiQGeO-k]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGKOiQGeO-k[/video]

He ignores the fact that modders already can be payed for their mods via donations. And the fact that if they can't afford to mod because they're struggling to pay rent, charging for mods on Steam isn't going to make much of a difference unless your mod is really, really popular. He also ignores Bathesdas role in all this. According to the numbers @Garrison72 posted Bathesda takes 50% more revenue than Valve. I wouldn't be they're the ones who agreed to the 75% number.

After watching TB's video I understand the issue a bit better. I don't hink paying modders for their work is inherently bad but the way Valve introduced it is pretty bad. It should have been donation-based and there should have been a voting system to determine which mods deserve money. Valve has simply taken the wrong approach for it and they should have known better.

It really depends what you're looking at. I don't think a mod that adds a single sword is worth money but a high quality total conversion like Black Mesa, The Dark Mod, Nehrim, Enderal and Skywind? Hell yea I would pay for those.

Think about it, if high quality total conversions could receive money to aid their development the team could hire professionals to help them finish it. I always get very sad when a very ambitious mod is canceled because of lack of manpower.
 
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Before you make claims that mods are not owned by the companies that make the games, you should educate yourselves on the concept of derivative works and who has the right to make them and who has copyright in them.

You are allowed to make a derivative work only if it is fair use to do so, or if the copyright holder allows it.

Zenimax would have the right to wreck Valve and every modder who tries to monetize mods based on their games, and they are big enough to do it.

Mods exist ONLY because game developers tolerate NON-COMMERCIAL fan-made works derivative of their games. The instant it goes commercial, modders have no claim to developer good will and no claim that their work is fair use.

Money has to not enter this field. Valve is dead wrong and will rightfully get roasted in court. I hope not too many modders are badly hurt before a stop is put to this.
 
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But aren't Bethesda/Zenimax in on this as well? They get a cut of the profits AFAIK.
 
But aren't Bethesda/Zenimax in on this as well? They get a cut of the profits AFAIK.

They would have to license their games for this use. The permission they have granted to create mods over the years does not contemplate anything of the kind. They have been clear that they retain copyright in any mods created from their games.
 
Before you make claims that mods are not owned by the companies that make the games, you should educate yourselves on the concept of derivative works and who has the right to make them and who has copyright in them.

Absolutely true.

Though Valve isn't doing this without Zenimax agreeing to this, they are taking a cut of the profits themselves and they were the ones to invite modders to the beta of this program.

You are allowed to make a derivative work only if it is fair use to do so, or if the copyright holder allows it.

To go a bit OT. I wonder where Youtube Let's Plays fall there actually. No one seems to be able to give a straight answer on this.
 
Let's Plays might fall into a category similar to performance of music. Music has developed a workable (even if corporation-dominated) system of automatic permissions and royalties for performance. Games and Let's Plays might eventually establish some similar structure, though right now it seems to be dominated by trolls looking to claim rights on behalf of copyright holders they do not represent.

The old "Zenimax holds copyright on Elder Scrolls mods" was at least in part to make sure modders' work did NOT get commercially exploited. It gave the company the ability to act against those who would try to sell mods made for free.
 
I just finished my bachelor's thesis on modding two months ago. I'm devastated by this commercializing of modding and I am certain it will turn out bad for mods in general. RIP Modding: May, 2015.
 
Bethesda greed makes Witcher 3 a day one purchase.

I pay $80 for Skyrim. A game that didn't even have proper PC key mapping. A game that didn't have proper PC interface. A game that didn't have proper PC menu and the worst control I have ever encounter. An unfinished game that require modding for it to be decent.

Turn out I was supporting one of the worst company in gaming. I don't understand the audacity of the laughable corruption that is Bethesda. They made a crappy game that require modding to do the job for them. Basically they release Skyrim as a beta tested game. Modders not only made their game beautiful, but help them makes so much profits of their game that they would not have gotten otherwise. And to top off the atrocity, now they want a profit of the mods that the modders make? I mean, I supported the Devil did I not?

I am proud of the fact that I bought both Witcher 1 and Witcher 2 on GOG instead of Steam. Steam no longer deserve any of my money. I have lost every respect I once had for Valve. Valve being one of the last American developers I thought were the "good guy" have become just another stEAm game.

I am not going to go into the whole modding controversy because there a huge separate thread for that.

I will say this, my hopes for the future of gaming lies in European countries. I will be a hypocrite if I did not buy the Witcher 3 as a day 1 purchase or pre-order.

I don't know where I'm going with this thread but it is my stand against what is happening with the whole paid mod and that is to support good developers. I hope more people support CDprojekt red if they are on the fence about buying The Witcher 3.
 
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This is hardly the right place for this, but... yes. As despicable as the whole situation is, this fiasco indeed makes people consider using GOG instead of Steam, somewhat helping CDPR. Yet then it might hurt modding scene as a whole, depending on what Valve do next.
 
you do know you can download mods from the nexus, right? or are they charging there now too?
 

Free version of a Skyrim mod has a 4% chance per spell cast to cause an in-game popup to appear, advertising the paid version of the mod
:mean:
This is it, people are literally putting pop in ads into mods. This is unacceptable.
 
@thehotsung8701 Isn't UBI$OFT an european studio? ;) Being a money grabbing company without any concern for gamers is not associated with a continent or country of it's origins. Also buying a game not for it's value but in spite of other publishing studio/developer is imho not very mature.

Since the beginning i've treated steam as alien pod that sooner or later wil spawn a greedy monster. All the childish "achievements" bullshit, always online, drm, fuck-up with greenlight, double moral standards.... Another pointless application running in the background wasting my old cpu's power and doing god knows what. Installing games into folders that i don't wan't to, patching constantly without my consent, troubles with modding... Uninstalled this crapware after couple of hours. I so much prefer physical games - just as i prefer hard money instead of virtual one - binary code on some server of some private or national bank. I truly don't know why anyone would use it in the first place....
 
i'm glad someone made a thread about this.
these are dark times for gaming and might destroy the future of modding. they're basically trying to trick modders into becoming their slaves for making mods and turn them into a new way to cash on micro transactions.
i hope GOG and CD projekt make a statement concerning this, and take a stand against this nasty practice.
 
Bugthesda's decision has done serious damage to one of their greatest assets which was their modding community. What is happening to it is sad and very ugly at the same time.
 
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