The Business Side of Video (Space) Games EXCLUSIVELY ON IDLE THUMBS

[Henroid]

Annnnnnnd relevant:

 

[itsamoose]

Let me play devil's advocate a bit on the part of valve. First valve needs to host the content on their servers and provide all the necessary back end support for these things, and if regular game sales are any indication they probably take about 30% of the sale. Next the developers of each game need to integrate and support the tech in their games. This might not sound like a big deal, but supporting a live product is often much hairier than it seems as first. It's not just about creating a workflow or pipeline, you need to do some pretty technical stuff to make sure people can't create a mod that installs malware on someone's machine, causes crashes or leaks, etc. It make sense that devs would get the lion's share of this cost because they are likely doing the most work and are ultimately responsible for what happens in their game. A company like Bethesda probably has a dedicated team or person working on this who is certainly not making an entry level salary. Also, what happens if an update to the game breaks a mod? That's probably Bethesda's responsibility to fix, especially if the mod developer is no longer actively supporting it. It's not an issue of the exact percent so much as what Bethesda would need to make in order for the enterprise to be worth the time to them.

It's certainly possible the rev share amount will increase for modders, but that would likely require them to take on more responsibility with respect to their work. I think because most people see how much money games like Skyrim make as a nominal value, they tend to not understand what that number actually means when you factor in all the people who get a piece of it.

Edit: also forgot to mention the legal/export regulations that may apply, which could be eating up some of the cost

[Ben X]

Annnnnnnd relevant:

 

 

Oh man, that just keeps getting better.

[Merus]

I'm sort of excited to see if Valve has finally gone too far with Steam's creepiness.

 

I mean, the backlash probably should have started a while ago but I'll take it

[Gaizokubanou]

Also, what happens if an update to the game breaks a mod? That's probably Bethesda's responsibility to fix, especially if the mod developer is no longer actively supporting it. It's not an issue of the exact percent so much as what Bethesda would need to make in order for the enterprise to be worth the time to them.

 

Given how shoddy Valve's support is, I doubt they have anything in plan for broken paid mods beyond the 24 hour refund period I heard about.  I think broken and copied mods are going to flood the market and turn it bad :/

 

The broad idea of it could be great, but man too many problems in the detail :/

[SuperBiasedMan]

It's a shame as well because TF2 has a community system where anyone can make something to submit to the workshop, and if the game devs like it they'll put it in the game and give the creator a cut. I'm sure that's tough to get plenty of developers on board with but this system is a logistical mess.

[Valorian Endymion]

Well, this isn´t so much on Valve, but one Bethesa too, to be fair it was their idea first, they kind use the concept which Valved had applied to TF2. Maybe they even had heart (or part of it at least) in right direction, they just missed a couple of stuff on the way. I wonder what happen next, not that I expect the end of the world (and mods), because it won´t happen. So far only 18 mods made it (a couple are on waiting list, they remain there for week, and none are, if we can say this, "vital" mods, there isn´t such thing as drama of mass migration would suggest, no nexus won´t die and have two place with mods isn´t the end of the world, didn´t people remember when mods where spread around in gazillions sites?).

 

I made a huge mistake and read some comments around, I don´t think my eyes could roll up more. Anyway, I had enough of this for now (not that I mad just with valve/bethesa, is way more seeing hate stuff around).

 

I still think it could work, but there is a few things that I haven´t thought about:

 

- Most Skyrim mods, with exception of weapon/armor/clothes are very rarely truly independent, major mods really on other mods (like skse which a lot of mods use), even in case of clothes there still the mesh/texture question. This kind make everything more confusing, as a mod might be using something from other. This was kind of problem before, I had my shares of seeing dramas about meshes backin Oblivion. I guess, that if the system continues, majority of paid mods will be either visual (easier to make it independent)

 

- But even with better shares or better conditions, the greatest problem is part of the community behavior and its sense of entitlement toward mods and modder works (and god forbid modders from ever lose interess/have personal issues/other stuff have to leave, they are expect to work 24 hours from now to forever and for free, you might think I make overblow this a bit, but I too once was part of mod team, not for skyrim, and I see this kind of behavior. Even if they say now they want defend mods, I just wonder if some of this people leaving toxic/hate comments ever thanked someone? donated? endorsed? or maybe this are the same people that flood mods with toxic comments because they didn´t like one mod or another and maybe even drive some people away. Do this people even planned to ever use on of this mods? Yes I have see stuff like this happen)

 

- On the other hand there is the question about mods begin stolen, which is another problem, they have this seven day period, where files could be only seen but not downloaded or sold, during this time (and after) they could be takedown, but how well this will work, it´s not sure.

 

- I wonder how much this will or already turned in PR nightmare, which make me curious on what happen next.

[Justin Leego]

At this point I'm most interested in seeing if and how GOG (and, to a lesser but related sense, The Witcher 3 team) might respond to this.

[SecretAsianMan]

Gabe Newell had a reddit AMA about the mod situation.  Some interesting bits:

 

• The cut that modders get is set by the game's developers.  So in the case of Skyrim, the 25% wasn't Valve's call, it was Bethesda's
• There will be a "pay what you want" option.  The mod creator can set whatever starting amount they wish, including $0
• If this doesn't help make modding better for authors and gamers, then it will get dumped.
• Paid mods are an extension of content contributors being paid by the community

[Merus]

Valve's business model is basically built on monetising their community. The amount of value they add to the mod process is zero, but that's not their cut. It's even the same for TF2, where they've managed to convince their community to do all their updates for them. It's digital sharecropping.

[Eric]

I think that it is unfair to say that Valve is adding zero value, they are providing a market place and hosting. Sure that already exists already on other sites but ZeniMax is the rights holder and by law is able to determine how individuals are allowed to profit from their intellectual property. Is this the best or even a good system to govern media? Probably not. It's an expression of a thorny mix of essential issues with capitalism, intellectual property rights, and crowd sourcing. These are edifices that are good to critique but are pretty significant parts of today's society.

 

http://www.thebaffler.com/salvos/crowdsourcing-scam Here's a good article on labour and crowd sourcing in 2015 capitalism. Particularly it speaks about how the distributed nature of technology has facilitated a devaluation of real skilled labour. Where those who have earned rights through collective bargaining are being replaced by the rights-less and anonymous cloud. I don't know if people lost their jobs at Valve as they transitioned to a more community sourced content model for TF2, probably they were just moved to other teams and project. That said I think that there are serious concerns to be had about economies that turn the general population into decidedly underglorified contractors fighting over a growing amount of dollars held by fewer and fewer hands.

 

Maybe in my Marxist fantasy where intellectual property rights don't enclose the media landscape into private spaces for capital accumulation there could be a system where people can make a mod and sell it for two bucks on their own website or whatever but it's pretty hard to convince a capitalist rights holder that that is a desirable thing.

[Henroid]

On literally-business news, Konami has delisted itself from the New York stock exchange.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/04/27/what-is-going-on-with-the-business-of-konami?abthid=553e7ecae0fab5215c00000f&utm_campaign=ign+main+twitter&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

 

The delisting news comes at a time when outward appearances make it seem as though Konami is shifting its focus away from game development. In its financial report for the third quarter of 2015, digital entertainment saw a contraction of just over 5%, while its slot machine division saw a moderate 4.2% gain year over year. The brightest growth area for the company was in fact its pachinko division. Pachinko, a type of Japanese gambling machine, saw nearly 100% growth from the same period the year earlier.

[JonCole]

They also officially cancelled Silent Hills and are pulling PT from the PS Store on Wednesday.

[Henroid]

It's not really that surprising to see of Konami. They've been having financial issues for as long as I've been using this alias on the internet.

[SuperBiasedMan]

It's not really that surprising to see of Konami. They've been having financial issues for as long as I've been using this alias on the internet.

Coincidence? I think not!

[Henroid]

Coincidence? I think not!

I am Hideo Kojima.

[N1njaSquirrel]

Aaand Valve cancels Paid mods. Well that was quick.

[Valorian Endymion]

It's not really that surprising to see of Konami. They've been having financial issues for as long as I've been using this alias on the internet.

 

And in the same day Konami delist itself from stock exchange - http://www.polygon.com/2015/4/27/8503893/konami-delists-itself-from-new-york-stock-exchange

 

This article about is quite interessing about the whole thing about Konami: http://www.twinfinite.net/2015/04/27/konamis-financial-silent-hills-cancelled/?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

[Bjorn]

Aaand Valve cancels Paid mods. Well that was quick.

 

"We've done this because it's clear we didn't understand exactly what we were doing."  Words you never think a company will say, ever. 

[SuperBiasedMan]

I'm not sure whether or not I should be surprised that Valve said it.

[Henroid]

Aaand Valve cancels Paid mods. Well that was quick.

... Wow. I mean... Okay it makes sense to close it down since it immediately became a clusterfuck. At least they reacted faster than Blizzard did with the Diablo 3 auction house.

[Sno]

It seems to me like trying to insert this business model into an existing community with an established culture and way of doing things is where Valve went the most wrong with all of this.

 

There was a whole lot wrong with their approach though. They said they wanted to encourage more large-scale mod projects, but there's a compelling argument that i saw made repeatedly that exactly the opposite would have happened. Those big mods exist because they're built up other whole other existing projects, not just the base game, and also because of the work of often unaccounted for volunteers who drift in and out of a project over exceptionally long periods of time. Attribution, in this context, becomes messy and rather loose and is already a point of contention in many mod communities. If you throw money into the mix and make it so everybody needs to get their proper share of it, the headache involved will probably actually cause such big mods to not exist in the first place, you might end up seeing more superficial solo projects instead. (The exact opposite of what Valve's stated goal was.)

 

Also, it doesn't seem to me that there's anything wrong with Bethesda taking a portion of the profits from mod sales when - after all is said and done - those mods are built up on their work. (You could also argue that it would have provided more incentive to Bethesda to not break mod compatibility.) Obviously though, the precise share of those profits was a conversation that needed to happen before this thing went live.

 

There were also, in an incredibly short span of time, just multitudes of ways the system was being exploited in gross ways. People selling projects they had nothing to do with, modders implementing pop-ups in free versions to advertise paid versions, and all kinds of appalling price gouging. Many of those people may have actually not been doing those things in earnest, but as a form of protest against the system, and it definitely highlighted many of the flaws present. That service was not as thoroughly considered as many of Valve's Steam experiments have been.

 

Kudos to Valve for being willing to back pedal and not just doubling down on it, though i imagine this experiment will resurface again at some other point in the future. Just look at what Valve does with their own games, they're clearly very interested in helping community members monetize their work.

 

Other news: What the fuck is going on with Konami? It really does seem like we're watching that company implode.

[Sno]

Holy shit, Swery's XBO-exclusive adventure game "D4" is coming to PC.

 

Confirmation.

 

That's... Huh... That's one less reason to get an XBO, at least for me personally.

[Dewar]

Not surprising. It sounded like it was dead on the vine at PAX East.

[Bjorn]

Yes. D4 will be release for PC. #ThanksObama

 

LOL

 

I'm super happy this is happening.